Theories on Blood

[TheCaptain 639]

OOC Preface:

Spoiler

This is an academic journal done for the fun of it. All of this is derived from RP done over the course of a few years to gleam insights and make fun assumptions, without directly indicating lore from the forums, this is not lore accurate and makes a few assumptions for the fun of RP, at some points, it is so inaccurate, that it can be considered false but this is half the fun, so read and Vibe.

 

 

Index

 

Introduction

Understanding the blood

    Addendum A

Blood Caskets (Marrows)

     Addendum B

Soul Shedding Theory

     Addendum C

     Addendum D

     Addendum E

     Addendum F

Conclusion

 

 

Blood, my reader, is the font of life. It is the life of mortals, for they cannot live without it, and here, within, is our work. In an attempt to expand the art beyond frail word of mouth, I have compiled my learnings into this, a journey for understanding the art in its fullest, so that you, reader, may only look upon my work and expand on it.

 

To properly understand blood, we need to take a step into the medical field, though books on such were rare and oftentimes were biased, not willing to go to the required lengths to ensure accurate documentation. We instead resorted to experimentation, and like any good experiment, to ensure we do not go off track I have set up a series of Hypotheses to test against, these are derived from Verbal explanations and the current understanding of our people:

 

Blood is generated from the heart.

Blood has power, which allows it to fuel the body.

This power, can in turn, fuel rituals.

 

 

 

Like most experiments and dissections go, we did require a cadaver. Procured from the body of one who decided to disobey us, a headless corpse was used. In this first dissection, we seek to satisfy the first Hypothesis : “Blood is generated from the heart”, and if such is untrue, we will have to work and see from where it originates. As an initial attempt, we tried to revive the heart's function, first by mimicking its beat inside the chest cavity. When we do this, by simply pressing down on the heart, we could observe it does allow the blood to move through the Veins, though it should be noted prior to this engagement we did drain the corpse considerably to ensure we do not accidently go feral. While we did do this for quite a while, it would seem only that the blood was pumped in and around the body. This was indeed a strange notion, as observed in a different encounter, when the heart is forcefully removed, the Victim died. We know full and well a mortal cannot live without a heart and if the heart is just to move the blood around, it raises a few more questions. This did stump us for a bit until we contemplated the Very nature of blood, it moves through the body, it is the life of mortals for without it, they perish. Take old blood as an example, old blood dries up, it loses its potential and it loses its taste, this happens both when blood is removed from the host and when the host dies, so this can only mean that moving blood is useful, stagnant blood is useless, hence I do proclaim a conclusion of the purpose of the heart:

 

“The heart ensures the blood does not rot”

 

 

When we continued to dissect the body, we did note that despite the cadaver being emptied of blood, its muscles, its skin and its organs still held blood, a curious notion, as if though the blood seeped into it. This allowed us to gather more insight, when I asked an alchemist the composition of blood, he said air was one of the most prime regents. A Very strange notion, for blood flows like water through the canals of the body, pumped by the heart, it is like water, not air. However, upon closer examination I believe this statement is partly true, when we inspected the cadaver further, we could note a few things. For one, as we peeled away the muscles, the skin and tendons, revealing more of the organs all in an attempt to View more of the Veins surrounding the chest and stomach, we did notice a few things.

 

1.     Veins lead into and from organs.

2.     Everything held blood

 

The Veins came to and from the Various organs, like a web from a spider did it move across the entire body, and at certain points, I could see entry points while with others, such as the muscles, I could not see specific entry points however when the muscles were cut, they did bleed. I made sure to cut around the Veins though a nip here and there was unavoidable, the structure of the cattle is Very clearly inefficient if their Veins leak so easily. None the less we carried on. The first notable connection point was the lungs, which looked akin to a beehive, Various holes were in its form as the Veins were connected to it, it was also connected Very clearly to the heart which means that the lungs, which from what we read in human medical journals, are meant to allow air to move in and out of the body, which is connected with the blood, this does make sense why human attribute air with blood. However the lungs could not generate blood. When we blowed into it, we could see the lungs expand tremendously. It was interesting to witness, amusing even, but the lungs do not generate blood. Next came the liver, which we discovered as part of a closed system of arteries, moving to and from the heart, as it seemed it did feed into the heart directly from the lungs as it seemed to also have a tube going into the stomach. This could only realistically mean that blood carried the essence of air, food and water. It stands then to reason that blood, when produced, requires these essences to properly function.

 

Perhaps it is with movement, and proper feeding of these essences, that blood remains empowered. However this does not make sense, for there is no inherent power found within food, water and air. Otherwise a magi need only use bread to cast a thunder storm, a preposterous notion at best. No, it would seem these pieces of essence must then be worked somewhere else to ensure it can empower the body. Let us take an example of bloodloss, it is well known for the Vampiric kind that when we feed, the cattle will first start to exhibit symptoms of blood loss after we have drained a significant amount from their feeble bodies. These include weakness and pale skin. This means that blood is fed into the muscles and into the skin, which it then empowers, which allows it to move muscles and give skin that healthy glow, to signify cattle are ready for harvest. Now, the head also contains these Veins so it only makes sense that the mind allows for actions to be given unto the blood where such travels about, allowing the Veins to empower the muscles to move. This means blood may hold memories, dreams, emotions, mana, and there may be ways to unlock this if we manage to find what creates blood, for it seems that it picks up Various essences from outside the body to empower it. However this does not solve our riddle yet, what generates the blood? After we investigated more on the corpse, and following the Various Veins, we did arrive at something strange. While the Veins go into the muscles and the skin, it also goes into the bones, more so than most. As we cracked open the bone we found that these Veins move into the inner marrows.

 

 

It would seem that a wide Variety of Veins go into the bone, and then back out. Assuming that each organ in the body does one unique action, a heart pumps, a lung breathes, a liver nourishes, muscles move and skin protects, bones seem to remain stagnant in their action. However the marrows inside seem deeply connected to this ideal. I hereby then propose that the marrows generate blood, when we cut into the bone, following one of the Veins we could see that the interior is squishy, much akin to stagnant blood, as if though it lays here dormant. Furthermore, unlike the other organs which merely flows through the organ itself, here it is full of blood. It is decadent, a treat even, however such is hidden by the thick layer of bones which guard the marrows, hence it can only be that the purpose of bones is to safeguard the marrows, to hold it like a Vial as it generates the purest form of blood before distributing them to the rest of the body. This is only furthered when you think about the Vampiric and their own connection to cattle, take what organs we share, a heart, the marrows, the bone, yet no liver, lungs, stomach or intestines reside here. This leads me to conclude that the Vampiric steal blood, only for their superior bodies to harness and use it correctly by pumping it through our marrows, hence why I proclaim the following:

 

“The marrows hold the power, it simply shares it with the rest of the body to power it”

 

 

 

Now to summarize what we have learnt so far, each organ holds a specific purpose, and is all connected with Veins, Veins which carry power in them. This power is called mana, lifeforce, genus, it holds Various names over the years but I believe the result to be far more easy to understand, the blood contains mana, genus if you would. However this same mana is absorbed by the body and may be pushed out at will by the magi should they be proficient, and hold light to wood. Take for example your common house magi, they have an accelerated way to produce and use the mana in their Veins, thus it means that a house mage may produce mana from their body which is made by the marrows. When this is considered it is evident that there is a cycle here at play, a method that uses the Various pieces of the world to produce mana. This however requires much more insight, thus my statement is incorrect, as I propose the following:

 

“Mana can in turn fuel life”

 

 

Now as a foundation, we have the following ruleset to work with and theorize with:

 

1.     “The heart ensures the blood does not rot”

2.     “The marrows hold the power, it simply shares it with the rest of the body to power it”

3.     “Mana can in turn fuel life”

 

It is here where I wish to propose a theory, should the soul then be kept somewhere on the body, it would act as a construct for which the blood is made. This gives us our personalities, which is present to the Vampiric mind (due to a much more keen understanding of our bodies) in the form of a signet. A signet is a collection of runes which I presume is then pushed into our bodies through genus, which originate inside our marrows. From here, the extraction of genus to mana results in a different concoction being formed due to the inherent loss of pure power. Genus is raw, which is in its essence uncontrolled. That being said, the idea is as following:

 

As the soul is twisted into the body, it seeps in where the material is most stable, that being the bones, from here when such is bound it will slowly become Genus, this genus is by effect the most raw and powerful form of the soul, which in turn empowers the blood to give it life unto the body, and as any mage knows, this raw power may be extracted as mana.

 

The Soul

 

Mana

Blood

 

 

Here are the base alchemical forms of the soul (mine own), mana, and blood. These are written in alchemical forms to ensure we can represent the forms in their correct notation and understand the process Via an understandable and readable format, instead of just gibberish. With such in mind, here is the alchemical notion of what we coined the soul shedding theory.

 

The entire process, as the soul and blood is combined to form genus, it can be drained to form mana. Now assuming this process is correct, it stands to reason that the user may in turn be able to use the mana then to cast their spells, from the common house magi to the Voidal mage, however a sanguine artist may in turn use only blood which is the most potent and uncontrolled form of mana or the soul. Now, the theory goes that as a mage casts, they use this mana and use the soul separation theory as they cast, which explains why they only have a limited mana reserves. However as it stands, we may potentially interject at either the binding process, or the draining process, going from genus to mana. Should we interject right here and make our own ritual, we should be able to bend the original intent of our blood and in turn, modify the internal powers and activate the runes by our Very nature and have such be an internal process. It should be noted that in the above alchemical notation, we are essentially stating (Blood + Soul) - X = Mana. X is most likely an internal process as mentioned here represented as merely the rune of draining.

 

 

When we look at this, it becomes easy to explain the world. Mages produce genus which may fuel their spells, from fireballs to water whips, nothing is out of the question, as the mana produced by the marrows is enough to power these spells which we can confirm with the soul separation theory, which also makes sense why they are so weak, they actively use their own blood, their own bodily forces to produce power, this also confirms why a mage has such limited prowess. In addition to this, consider our own bodies, assuming we are merely a Vessel, we then allow blood to power us, it seeps into everything. From our muscles to our skin and organs, it gives a knight their swing, their movements and it in turn holds memories. Think back to the first time you hold a blade after years of training and subsequently leaving it alone, your mind does not say what it should do, no, your body does, and so, your blood remembers these events. And while the blood does not rot, it allows this to stay active, however how does this tie into undead and the like?

 

We all have bones, we all have blood, some are just harder to see. Take an undead’s body, it is bones, yet no heart but it will have marrows, the marrows inside the bones remain active for everything in this world needs a power source, from the mechanical machinations of automatons to the work of golems, they require cores, oil, fuel. Similar to the bodies of mortals. Now assuming this, it would mean that our marrows are who we are, it contains our soul and in turn, produces a unique substance that changes who and what we are. In theory, we should be able to enchant and modify this process, take the curse of Vampirism. It is contained inside our blood, and when exposed to air, it decays in mere moments, this is to say whenever it is away from their host, it perishes. This ties in with the heart and means that Vampiric blood cannot exist outside their host and always requires a functioning heart. Now I want to detail an idea, what would happen if we were to modify the marrows?

 

My mind is brought to the effects of material ensorcellments, when they are considered, we have a series of runes laced onto an object without it appearing, it simply modifies the object itself and is made active when blood touches its surface. In other words, we do not place an enchantment on the item, we modify it in its entirety, affecting its marrows, if it did contain them, and I believe we should be able to do the exact same with our own. Perhaps the rune of water when placed on the marrows will allow it to move between two states? However who is to say this is agreeable with mortal bodies, for will this shift be sufficient and could they keep each other alive? I am Very much unsure and studies must be done. However this does produce a theory, how do we place the runes specifically unto the marrows, for it is hidden deep within the bones. Well ingestion is plausible, for it is similar to the Vampiric curse, modify the blood and ingest such to modify the marrows of the mortal. Similarly if we were to inject modified marrow directly into the bone, by placing a syringe into the bone Veins, we could inject such deep within the marrows and modify it so. While the first and second seem plausible, the largest issue is how exactly do you modify the marrows without it incorrectly breaking the body? If you were to perform the first one, what is the exact procedure for modifying the Vampiric curse? While that is unknown, material ensorcellments can be placed on solid objects, but what about the marrows, assuming the marrows of an animal is used, when wet with blood it should in theory activate and in turn, if such is injected into the bone, would it mix or would it activate and cause devastation on the body? For such, I propose a next avenue this research may take:

 

“The modification of marrows”:

1.     “Can material ensorcelled marrows be injected and result in any immediate effects?”

2.     “Can flesh ensorcellment be done on bone and correctly be kept alive?”

3.     “Can you modify the Vampiric curse?”

 

 

 

 

 - By Varkul Radomavic

 

 

 

 

 

[PrinceTheDM 275]

Elijah would come upon the journal at the foot of his door. Though there would be no indication of whom sent it to him, as he opened it to read, it would become apparent. 

 

A smile crept upon his face as he continued to read, his eyes staring at the pages as each sentence brought him more and more joy. "How utterly fascinating!" He exclaimed before finishing the journal.

 

He would have to remember to write a thank you letter.

[Two2the 365]

Bloodsuckers.....

[ArgentEra 459]

A grey-furred musin takes the journal from the donation box for their library, skimming the pages. "Must be from one o' the lads - well. Nae use in letting it go t' waste." With that he returned to his study to read.