The Dungeon is pretty great, but...

Think about tier 2+ Richter as a blood Mage weilding a sentient, chaotic, bloodstone that is on his side and doesn't waste energy by sending its power away to some old god...

1. Instant one man army (just ask the goblins)

2. Enemy armies are now just food for him to unlock max level enchantments (lvl 7 sonic damage here we come!).

2.5. Same for the beasts in his lands

3. Alma would have access to this basically unlimited mana as well.

4. Possibly access to further blood spells that the stone knew? He could still probably win these as prizes in the dungeon so maybe not an exclusive of keeping the stone.

 

Great idea! We do so badly need some new blood in here.
Bloodstone works great vs living enemies like goblins, trolls, bugbears, humans, beasts.. Kinda invaluable. Would most def use if Mental capabilities are strong enough. maybe have some fail safes just in case.
Can you imagine taking a blood stone to the labyrinth.. And snorting some of Richters blood Crystal cocaine lol?

Now Undead. Now sure if its gonna work. Maybe vs gouls ans vamps... Living dead. Skellies dont think so.
Also Sprites will leave us most likely. so this has to be a secret.

Combining blood crystal and bloodstone should be pretty effective.
Fells like this is a tool for a powerful blood mage, to get unlimited mana and simply "farm" the hells/abyssal domains for exp.

 

Yup, plus, could a sentient chaotic blood stone be a chaos vassal?!

 

So basically use the bloodstone as the three sanguimancers that threathened old Yves and got their asses whipped did.

I like the idea. There are several drawbacks.


The blood stone shattered Richter's mind, he is not immune to the effects of blood magic while wielding it. Which leads to the great limitation with blood magic, it drives you into a feeding rage where you kill and kill to get more blood which then drives you more frenzied.

The chaotic bloodstone shielded Richter against the mental effects, but there is no telling how long it would be able to do so or whether it - being a sapient being - could itself be taken over.


Dread harvest is the big ticket name when it comes to blood magic.Its the army killer. Unfortunately for Richter its not that easy to find a situation where it can kill armies, hence the reason Yves beat the shit out of the three sanguimancers and their bloodstones in the end.

After possessing Richter the bloodstone first needed to suck the blood from a thousand dead bodies across the valley before it had sufficient blood (not mana, blood magic uses actual fresh blood) to raise the spell to a high enough spell rank that it could suck the blood straight from the living. This gives HM plenty of time to cast her protection spell.

If Richter casts Dread Harvest against a fresh goblin army without already having access to an army's worth of dead corpses filled with blood it wouldn't hurt them at all, worse it would likely kill him as blood magic drains the casters health when other blood isn't available. We see that in book 8 when Richter casts vitality puppet, and it opens large rents in his flesh where 200 points worth of health flows out, along with 129 mana.

Dread harvest does not seem to discern between enemy and ally either (few aoe spells do, with the exception of settlement spells designed with such discernment in mind), so you'd need to be extremely careful when using it at the higher spell rank. Killing your own army alongside the enemy is a possibility.


Tldr

Dread harvest is an army killer BUT it requires many hundred bodies worth of blood available to affect the living at all. Probably doesn't discern between friend and enemy. Its the perfect spell for a selfish blood stone or a mage under the effects of blood magic who doesn't care about his army sucking up loses, but hard to use otherwise.

 

I can just see Richter like some high elf mage with two orbs over each shoulder. Chaotic blood stone on the left and Futon on the right. Energy blazing from his eyes.

 

3rd orb would be a glowing pixie queen

 

Very solid points. We will learn more about the spell in another few books im sure.

One of the big assumptions here is that the blood stone could amd would help protect his mind. It was able to help him cast spells above his level before and protected his mind from the original blood stone so its plausible.

I completely forgot that dread harvest was a scaling spell. Good catch there! But if it is able to target enemies and spare allies, then it gives Richter a huge advantage in war. He may not be able to one man instakill another army, but he doesnt have to. He has an army of his own to shed the initial necessary blood and a full compliment of healers who can keep his people alive as the enemies perish. They only have to fight until the spell gets enough momentum. Mix in his war leader skill amd some badges to boost blood magic and you have the makings of a ridiculous power level any time an army is foolish enough to take his forces head on.

 

Were talking a massive amount of war points, war leader skill, lead from the front subskill, slayer bonuses, experience (which can be boosted with the trainer badge and used to power level other villagers with the power level badge), and obviously blood magic skill levels.

 

If you use the Chaotic blood stone as a blood mage, one does not need to bleed an army of blood to activate the hier (higher + tier = hier?) level of the spell.

A village worth of blood donation should suffice. Put the orb next to the mana storage device. Blood from the left arm, magic from the right. Keep the blood stone topped off, and it should be able to activate the higher tier needed to pop alive beings of their blood.

 

A fun fact
We have textev where Richter uses blood magic from "old" blood, that indicate blood gradually becomes less potent after it is spilled. So no storing it for the long term, unless a means of keeping the blood magically active can be found.


As for the spell
The blood stone sucked every drop of blood from a thousand bodies to reach a sufficient rank on the dread harvest spell to affect the living. Might not have used all the blood, but it used a lot of it.


The average human starts suffering significant ill effects when they donate more than 8% of their blood every 12 weeks. So that scales to needing

1000 / 0.08 = 12,500

blood donations to match the blood available on the battlefield. If he needs just half, that's more than 6 times what every single villager (if they were all humans) can safely spare and he'd be taking it right before the soldiers would be going into battle.

 

The main use I see is as a finisher. Once the enemy breaks and your forces disengage you could throw it against them and keep it from slaughtering your troops.

Its effectively a nuke though, blasting everyone and everything in the vicinity. I really don't think its going to be selective unless it reaches an even higher spell rank, and on a battlefield with thousands fighting its going to be difficult for the caster to do the selection themselves.


Now as for the blood rage, I still think the blood stone could be overwhelmed just like anyone else. Its still a sapient mind and the effects of the blood rage are mental.

 

I wonder if there is a spell or something that can cleanse a regular blood stone of its imprint, so that there isn't a danger to the user beyond the regular use of blood magic.

 

That sounds like a ritual or spell the blood mage would have to create themselves from the bottom up. The desire to send blood power to its master is something imbued by a god so almost impossible for a tier 1-2 mage to remove, but the personality - such as it is - that could probably be wiped away. That should reduce the malevolent tendencies, but you'd still be dealing with the effects of blood magic.

Might be easier to destroy it.

 

That is the exact point of the blood stone.

 

Just ask the blood coven when they find Richter. If those experts do not know...

 

Blood loses potency over time, even for the bloodstone. There are numerous references to using fresh blood and so on.

Do we have a reason to believe the bloodstone can currently circumvent this rule?

As I understand it, the bloodstone is a piece of crystallized blood with an unbreakable connection to the specific god that donated the blood, which is also the god receiving the blood mana it sends. Because its connected to said god, its powers are limited to what it can exert through others.

Like a demon or evil genie it can bestow knowledge upon a bloodmage, access to spells that would otherwise be impossibly difficult to gain in the river peninsula where blood magic is all but unknown. It can also guide a mage into breaking past the normal limitations, casting spells far beyond what their skill level would allow.

Similar a to the gifts a demon or evil genie bestows, these things come at a cost. Part of that cost is that in some cases the blood stone can take over and use the blood mage as a puppet. There may also be heavy consequences to being pushed into breaking past the skill limits that the blood stone doesn't care about, especially if its done over and over.

 

Yves was attacked by 3 sanguimancers in the past with blood stones. I've been wondering whether there might be a connection to what is seemingly the only big blood mage organisation in the area?

If so they will probably want the blood stone back. I doubt they'd have more than the 3 fielded against Yves.

 

When it is talking about the blood from the recently killed losing power, it makes sense as there is power/magic in blood. This is not the case when the blood/power is already taken. This is evident by the fact of the blood soaking by the goblins once a day. If it did not keep its potency then there would be no point in pouring heart blood on it once a day. The potency of the blood would be lost by the hour and any new blood once a day would not be able to keep up with the loss, let alone add additional power to it.

 

That's a spell with an ongoing effect though, its not storage of blood energy for use days or weeks later. I'll admit its a good example of them using blood magic for longer durations though, something I wasn't sure was possible.

Im not saying its impossible that a blood energy storage can be crafted. It would free blood mages from the need of a fresh source of blood every time they need to cast, I just don't think it makes sense for the blood crystal to be that storage as it would inevitably try to send the energy to its master (its part of the basic functionality of bloodstones. Directive one, send power to the true master).

We also don't know whether the bloodstone has or needs storage, its ability to do things depends entirely on its current master and I wouldn't be surprised to learn he/ she/ hir acts as its blood energy storage as well.

 

Hrrm which spell are we talking about?

The mana storage building research could lead blood type mana storage device.