Forbidden Arts
Forbidden they call them. But in reality they are a resource like any other. People naturally fear risks, and the unknown. It's true, that Forbidden Arts can certainly kill the unwary user. But so too can swinging a sword incorrectly, or mispronouncing the incantation of spell. Nothing is without risk. If used accurately, with moderation and forethought, Forbidden Arts can be powerful additions to ones arsenal.
Blood Arts
Blood Arts are a form of Forbidden Magic that is nearly as old as Xardia itself. The basic concept of the art is using flesh and blood as a catalyst in order to hold power from one's very soul. Thus transforming it into pure energy that can then be used for powerful spells and effects. This art was created by the Firstborn as a theorized method to burn the life-force of their slaves, to empower their own magic.
It was abandoned after it was discovered True Magic was a more effective usage of draining pure energy from the slaves without killing them to fuel their spells for longer. This art was kept as a form of powerful magic used by the Giant-kin of the world however due to their powerful life-force resisting the draws of the art, lessening the effects on their own life expectancies.
Blood Arts
Cursed Arts
Cursed Art
Cursed Arts, also known as Dark Arts, Contracts or Oaths are a unique natural law that is directly affiliated with the laws of reality itself. There are a wide variety of these effects, but all are based on the idea of contracting one thing to another.
The more strict the contract, the more powerful the vow, action, or technique will become. Examples of this are restricting a single spell so that it can only ever affect a single person, or single species of creatures and does absolutely nothing to anyone else.
Or making an oath that if the technique is used on anyone but the single target specified, the user will instantly die. The higher the risk of the contract the greater the benefits in this way, and each contract is viewed in a unique case-by-case situation.
This is not to say there are none that are commonly used, however. The activation of a contract is simple and requires one to simply think and truly mean the oath. If they cannot do this then the oath will not activate. All parties involved in an oath will instinctually know without a single doubt that the oath has taken effect. These are only a few examples, as due to the nature of Cursed Arts there is no feasible limit to what they are capable of.
- Death Oath: A simple oath that can be performed by any individual, and is often used to ensure that one is speaking the truth. Generally, it's something simple such as "For the next ten minutes neither party is able to speak a single lie, or they will die". But it can be used for any other variety, such as an oath to come forward and help a king during a time of war or any other possibility.
- Self-Limitation: An oath that is occasionally used for training, but can be used in other ways. Such as a promise to only ever use 70% of their raw energy for various effects such as speed, strength, magic, etc and in return are only ever allowed to use their full power in fights for their life. The oath in turn granting them a bit of a boost to their power when fighting for their live and could theoretically enhance them to 110% while fighting for their life due to limiting themselves to such a degree every part of their daily life. This is merely one example of many possibilities.
- Give and Take: An oath to reveal the weaknesses of a technique to the opponent, or perhaps ones own weaknesses and fears and in return reality rewarding this oath to empower the technique or the user's base mana, etc.
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I particularly like the historic element of Blood Magic becoming outdated by the development of something more effective. Brings to mind the accidents in the history of fossil fuels, with Solar Energy being left behind and replaced by oil when World War I flourished. Leaves me imagining if there are context and purposes of exception, where Blood Magic becomes better than True Magic (like Solar Energy can be preferable to oil, in some cases). I have tough about include Blood Magic in my list of "Magic Ways" on Sharitarn since the beginning, but have not yet done that. The essential element of it would have something to do to vampires, my vampires are created by Necromancy but perhaps they would be in the process of developing Blood Magic as an independent Way. In the case of Sharitarn it would not be any more "evil" than healing magic, or any other (actually Mind Magic Ways have some social stigma, Necromancy does not). This notion that Blood Magic should be forbidden seems odd to me, as a reader. Also the notion that vampires are evil because they need to drink human blood to survive. When Bram Stocker wrote his "Dracula" there was no blood banks in hospitals, the notion of people needing blood transfusions for survive was new and morbid. By this point I suspect most civilized people would accept easily the notion that a person who has a disease that demands a blood transfusion every week, or every day, is not a monster who should be put down. Not necessarily, at least. Ergo: nothing evil in need fresh human blood for survival. But e still keep the stigma on Blood Magic (and vampires) unchecked by some mysterious reason.
There's not really any concept of "evil" or "good" in my world. Of course, the individuals within the world may view things as evil, but that concept is purposely mocked in my world in most instances. It's a world of greys. The reason they're considered "Forbidden Magic", isn't because they're viewed as "evil". They're simply a possible serious threat to the user, and if an amateur attempted them, especially unsupervised, they could easily kill themselves or others without any intention of such. Ironically, Blood Arts and Cursed Arts both are theoretically stronger than True Magic. As True Magic is inheritly limited by how much energy is around you. Cursed Arts make a pact with reality itself, meaning that theoretically, depending on the contract, one could tap into infinite power. Blood Arts taps into the power of a soul, which is in a way, also infinite as it's the purest form of energy in my world capable of infinitely replicating itself through the eons. But the amount of mastery it would take to reach such a tier of Blood Arts is nearly impossible to comprehend. Since Blood Arts, effectively, kill you as you utilize them. So as you master them, you begin to die. You'd need to be long-lived, master blood arts by slowly killing yourself, and then find a way to restore your lost life-span to properly use the now mastered blood arts to reach a level beyond what True Magic is capable of. Glad you liked the article!
Yes, I do liked the article. Magic is an topic that catches my attention. Perhaps a bit like sex: in both cases is barely impossible to say anything original about it by this point in time. But new combinations of elements and themes keeping emerging, and allowing for unexpected and rich situations. Sometimes a small change in tone and context creates an entire new universe of possibilities. The advantage of True Magic is in a minor technical matter them? It could in principle be solved. If someone finds a way to take the blood of others, slaves perhaps, instead of his own. That would solve the thing. Or perhaps a government or private business could get itself a "unsullied" blood-mages. Slave war-mages trained following the same logic the Slave Masters of Slavers Bay follow in Song of Ice and Fire. The notion of a castrated slave army is something that would not fit in Sharitarn, for many reasons. One of them being the strong association I made up there (fully on purpose) between carry weapons and freedom. Slave gladiators is a thing, but an army demands higher numbers and a more practical mindset. Things would end bad too fast for the Masters who tried to make an army of slave-soldiers. But that is Sharitarn. The unsullied work beautifully in their own setting. So would an army of slave blood-mages work well in your world here? Or perhaps a terrorist organization of some sort, with or without religious undertones?
Assuming you cannot use other people's blood to feed your blood magic (because that would be far too easy) and slaves would not live long enough to make the investment in slave-mages profitable, I imagine rests still one possibility. But only for women. A pregnant woman would likely be able to drain the blood of her fetus, instead of her own. Depending on how this process works the mage could perhaps get pregnant two times a year and that way develop her magic skills without age in the process. If blood magic can be used to stop aging she would stay young for as long as she has viable ovule, and by the time that ends she would have sharpened her skills beyond the possibilities of any blood mage who did not used this method. Perhaps them she could even take embryos from other women and implant them in herself, to keep "recharging" the fuel of her magic. And extending her youth.
Grandmasters of Blood arts are capable of drawing the blood from another, as that's what the reference to the slaves and Firstborn is. The Firstborn used slaves as walking batteries, ripping out their life force to power their magic at will. But reaching that level requires you to burn through your own life force and mastery to get there. True Magic is stronger than both Cursed, and Blood arts 99% of the time. The amount of time, effort, and restrictions required for both of them to beat out a True Magic user in raw power would be immense. It's simply theoretically possible for beings that have nearly ascended, such as Seiken Akemu, mentioned in my "War Power" article whom used blood arts to create a moon. But he was the exception to the standard rule. Slaves are a huge part of Ceridia's war force, because contract magic branding them when they don't know any better as children is easy. As are standard uses of underhanded tactics to force the hands of people.But an army of slaves using "Blood Arts" is highly unlikely, the arts are far too rare and unknown by most of the world, and viewed as "evil" by most religions. The only races that use them actively, Giant-kin, are nearly extinct and their entire culture goes against slavery. On the note of the woman using her fetus idea, I'll just say that Baba Yaga exists in my world, and does some pretty messed up stuff.