The Blood Mage A warrior wipes the mess off of her blade, and extends her hand to one of the bodies at her feet—some of the victim's blood flows up into it and onto her arm, sealing her wounds. A finely-dressed swordsman draws his rapier across his palm, and swings the cut hand in an arc at his opponent: a bloom of flame extends from the wound and detonates violently. An old human crouches over her wounded compatriot and—after making sure no one is watching—carefully pulls threads of blood out of her own arm and seals his wounds shut. Magic of the Lifeblood There is an energy that suffuses all living things, but nowhere is that energy more concentrated than in a creature's lifeblood. Blood mages are warriors and magic users who—through practice, learning, or even vampiric ancestry—have learned to harness that energy within themselves, and to abuse that energy within others. Their mastery over the energy of life allows them to wield their magic with a freedom and ease rivaled only by sorcerers, although the blood mage has almost always spent more time training with the blade than any other traditional spellcaster. Vampiric Studies Many of the most well-known blood mages have been vampires, and it is said that the tradition was invented by them, but that is not to say it is a tradition impossible for any other peoples to learn. Some blood mages have inherited their powers from a vampiric bloodline, yes, but others have studied and practiced the tradition simply as an alternative to the more erudite and often stuffy path of the wizard. Among these, failed enchanters are the most common. Creating a Blood Mage How did your character become a blood mage? Were they born with their abilities, did they suffer some curse that forced their powers upon them, or did they seek them out intentionally? If they sought them out, why blood magic over any other form? Do you think your power as a gift, or a curse? Or something else entirely? Blood mages excel on the battlefield: their skill with a blade is elegantly and devastatingly complemented by their supportive magic, but their strange spellcasting style is offputting to many: making them often feel out of place once the battle is finished. Does that suit you, or do you feel like an outsider? Blood Mage Quick Build You can make a blood mage quickly by following these suggestions. First, make Charisma your highest stat, followed by Strength or Dexterity. (Blood mages more focused on spellcasting may want to emphasize Constitution over Strength or Dexterity) Second, choose the noble background.

Blood Mage Table Level Proficiency Bonus Features Spells Known: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 1st +2 Regenerate, Drain Life — — — — — 2nd +2 Fighting Style, Spellcasting, Blood Hunter 2 — — — 3rd +2 Bloodstained Blade, Sanguine Cell 2 — — — — 4th +2 Ability Score Improvement 3 — — — — 5th +3 Extra Attack 3 2 — — — 6th +3 Bloodcurse 4 2 — — — 7th +3 Sanguine Cell Feature 4 3 — — — 8th +3 Ability Score Improvement 5 3 — — — 9th +4 — 5 4 2 — — 10th +4 Immortal Anger 5 4 2 — — 11th +4 Improved Drain Life 5 4 3 — — 12th +4 Ability Score Improvement 5 4 3 — — 13th +5 ─ 5 4 4 1 — 14th +5 Sanguine Vitality 5 4 4 1 — 15th +5 Sanguine Cell Feature 5 4 4 2 — 16th +5 Ability Score Improvement 5 4 4 2 — 17th +6 — 5 4 4 3 1 18th +6 Draining Blade 5 4 4 3 2 19th +6 Ability Score Improvement 5 4 4 4 2 20th +6 Sanguine Cell Feature 5 4 4 4 3 Class Features As a blood mage, you gain the following class features Hit Points Hit Dice: 1d10 per blood mage level

1d10 per blood mage level Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier

10 + your Constitution modifier Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per blood mage level after 1st Proficiencies Armor: Light armor, Medium Armor

Light armor, Medium Armor Weapons: Simple and Martial melee weapons

Simple and Martial melee weapons Tools: None Saving Throws: Charisma, Constitution

Charisma, Constitution Skills: Choose two from Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Medicine, Performance, and Persuasion Equipment You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background: (a) a longsword or (b) a rapier or (c) two shortswords

(a) three daggers or (b) any simple melee weapon

(a) a scholar's pack or (b) a diplomat's pack

(a) leather armor or (b) chain shirt Regenerate Once per long rest you can spend 1 minute focusing on your own life force to recover from injuries. You expend up to one quarter of your hit dice (minimum of one, but rounded down) to heal yourself in this time. Drain Life Your affinity with life allows you to draw the blood from the nearby wounds of others, and use it to restore yourself. As an action, have one creature that is within 10 feet of you make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failure, a creature takes 1d4 magical piercing damage, and you are healed for the amount of damage dealt. This ability cannot target anything without life or blood, such as a plant, a construct, or an undead creature.

Fighting Style At 2nd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again. Dueling When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon. Two-Weapon Fighting When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack. The Drain Life action counts as an Attack action for the purpose of making an off-hand weapon attack. Spellcasting By 2nd level, you've learned to do more with your mastery over life essence than simple life draining. See the Player's Handbook 5e for the basic rules of spellcasting, and the blood mage spell list is on page 7. Blood mages do not use spell slots, as other classes do. Instead, when a blood mage casts a spell they must take 4 x the spell's level in damage. This damage cannot be reduced or avoided in any way. A spell can be cast at a higher level by increasing its health cost appropriately, although you cannot cast a spell at a level higher than your highest level known spell. When you cast a spell in this manner, you cannot be healed through any means—except a Red Weaver's Red String feature or the effects of a Wish spell—until the start of your next turn. You must prepare a list of spells you know, as detailed in the Blood Mage Table. For you, every spell you know is always prepared, and you may cast any spell you know as long as you have enough health to do so. Casting a spell may reduce you to 0 hit points, but if it would reduce you any lower you will be unable to cast it. When you level up, you may switch out one of your spells for another spell of the same level. Spellcasting Ability Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your blood mage spells, as their power depends on your ability to exert your will over your own life essence. You use Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a blood mage spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one. Spell save DC = 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Charisma Modifier Spell attack modifier = your Proficiency bonus + your Charisma Modifier Spellcasting Focus As a blood mage, you usually do not need a spellcasting focus or spell components—your own blood takes the place of both. However, you still need a free hand or bladed weapon to cast spells, and if a spell component has a listed price in gold you still need it to cast a spell that requires it. Blood Hunter Starting at 2nd level, if a creature has taken damage within the last hour you have advantage on perception and investigation checks to find it, as well as on survival checks to track it. Bloodstained Blade By 3rd level, you learn to guide your blade with your magic, more than your hand. You may use your Charisma modifier in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier when calculating melee weapon attack and damage rolls. Sanguine Cells When you reach 3rd level, you focus your abilities into one of blood magic's specializations, or Cells. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level, and again at 7th, 15th, and 20th level. Cell Spells Each Cell has a list of associated spells. You gain access to these spells at the levels specified in the Cell's description. Once you gain a Cell Spell, you know it: they do not count against the number of spells you know. If a Cell spell is not in the blood mage spell list, the spell is nonetheless a blood mage spell for you. Drain Life Modification Each cell has its own improvement upon the Drain Life feature, detailed in each Cell's description. Ability Score Improvement When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead. Extra Attack Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Bloodcurse Starting at 6th level, your magic allows you to lay a curse on creatures you damage with your melee weapon attacks. This curse lasts for 1 minute after being damaged by one of your melee weapon attacks, healing effects on a cursed creature only heal for half of the hit points they should, and you heal for twice the damage you deal with Drain Life to a cursed creature. You may affect a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1) simultaneously. If you strike a new target while you have already affected the maximum number of targets, the oldest curse fades and the new target is cursed normally. This effect can be dispelled by effects like Remove Curse.

Immortal Anger Beginning at 10th level, if you are reduced to 0 hit points but are not killed outright, you may use your reaction to Drain Life. If you are healed from this Drain Life, you do not lose consciousness, and if it was your turn when you were reduced to 0 hit points you continue taking your turn as normal. Additionally, any creatures damaged by Drain Life in this manner are afraid of you until the end of their next turn. If you are not healed, you expend your usage of this trait but fall unconscious anyway. You may use this feature once per long rest. Improved Drain Life Starting at 11th level, Drain Life deals 1d6 damage to creatures that fail the save, instead of 1d4. Additionally, if your target is within 5 feet of you its has disadvantage on its saving throw. Sanguine Vitality By 14th level, you no longer experience the adverse effects of aging—although you still visibly age, and your life span does not increase automatically. However, for every 10 health you recover using Drain Life, your natural life expectancy increases by 1 year. This stacks to a maximum of 100 years at a time, although as you age through it you may use this feature to restore spent years: continuous life draining can prevent aging altogether. You are immune to all poison and disease, and you are resistant to poison damage. If you were already resistant to poison damage, you are now immune to poison damage. Additionally, you may use your action to cure a creature of any poison or disease: magical or otherwise. Draining Blade Starting at 18th level, you have become so skilled at draining the life of your targets that you no longer need to dedicate your full attention to it. You now only require a bonus action to Drain Life. Additionally, you can choose to use your bonus action to empower your attacks this turn, causing your melee weapon attacks this turn to deal an additional 1d6 necrotic damage, and healing you for the total amount of necrotic damage dealt. This counts as using Drain Life for the purposes of applying other class features. Sanguine Cells Knight Cell The Knight Cell is made up of the blood mages who took up magic merely as a way of bolstering their prowess with the sword. Red Knights, as its members are called, are accomplished and well-trained warriors who use their magic to empower their own attacks, and defend themselves from the blades of their enemies. Cell Spells You gain Cell spells at the blood mage levels listed in the Knight Cell Spells table. See the Sanguine Cells class feature for how Cell spells work. Knight Cell Spells Blood Mage Level Spells 3rd Shield, Wrathful Smite 5th Branding Smite, Magic Weapon 9th Blinding Smite, Crusader's Mantle 13th Shadow of Moil, Staggering Smite 17th Banishing Smite, Steel Wind Strike Drain Life Upgrade: Red Shield You gain this feature at level 3 when you choose to join the Knight Cell. When you take the Drain Life action, you may choose to forgo healing. If you do so, your gain a bonus to your AC equal to +1 for every 2 hit points you would have healed through Drain Life, to a maximum of +2 + your Charisma modifier. Red Shield's AC bonus decays by 1 at the start of your turn. Once Red Shield no longer provides any AC bonus, it is no longer considered active. Red Shield does not fade if you are knocked unconscious or incapacitated. Combat Instincts Starting at 7th level, you are proficient in Dexterity saving throws. If you are already proficient, take proficiency in one saving throw of your choice. Red Spines Beginning at 15th level, your Red Shield can be used offensively as well as defensively. While Red Shield is active, you may add your Charisma modifier to your melee weapon damage rolls in addition to any existing modifiers. Regenerative Shield Starting at 20th level, while Red Shield is active you recover a number of hit points equal to your spell attack modifier at the start of your turn. This ability remains active as long as Red Shield is active, even if you are unconscious or incapactated. Elementalist Cell The Elementalist Cell is made up of the blood mages who expand their mastery over their own life force to such an extent that they can evoke elemental effects similar to the offensive spells of more traditional spellcasters. Red Witches, as members of this cell are called, are versatile spellcasters who flawlessly weave spell and blade together. Cell Spells You gain Cell spells at the blood mage levels listed in the Knight Cell Spells table. See the Sanguine Cells class feature for how Cell spells work.

Elementalist Cell Spells Blood Mage Level Spells 3rd Burning Hands, Thunderwave 5th Aganazzar's Scorcher, Dragon's Breath 9th Lightning Bolt, Melf's Minute Meteors 13th Control Water, Storm Sphere 17th Cone of Cold, Control Winds Drain Life Upgrade: Red Beam You gain this feature at level 3 when you choose to join the Elementalist Cell. When you take the Drain Life action, you may choose to take 4 damage to target a creature up to 30 feet from you. If you do so, make a ranged spell attack: on a hit the target takes 2d4 + your spell attack modifier in necrotic damage, healing you for the same amount. At 11th level, this ability's cost increases to 6 health and its damage increases to 2d6 + your spell attack modifier. Quickened Regenerate Starting at 7th level, the Regenerate feature only takes an action to use, rather than a minute. Improved Spellcasting Beginning at 15th level, you can cast spells you know at levels above your highest level known spell by taking the appropriate damage as detailed in the Spellcasting section. You may only take up to a maximum of twice your blood mage level in damage by this trait: if a spell would require you to take more damage, you cannot cast it. Blood Ritual By 20th level, you learn one 9th level spell from the Wizard spell list. When you cast it you must take the appropriate amount of damage as detailed in the Spellcasting section. This spell counts as a blood mage spell for you, and you have it prepared until you cast it. Once you have cast this spell, you cannot cast it again unless you expend 36 years of your natural life expectancy to restore your energy and re-prepare it. These years are consumed, and your natural life expectancy is reduced accordingly. If this reduces your expected life span to below zero, you may cast the spell immediately: however, you die immediately after you finish casting the spell, and cannot be ressurected by any means. Weaver Cell The Weaver Cell is made up of blood mages who have focused their studies entirely on understanding the mechanics of the life energy behind blood magic, granting them potent healing abilities, as well as deadly contagions and curses. Red Weavers, as this cell's members are called, are irreplaceable allies to have, and nightmarish enemies to make. Cell Spells You gain Cell spells at the blood mage levels listed in the Knight Cell Spells table. See the Sanguine Cells class feature for how Cell spells work. Weaver Cell Spells Blood Mage Level Spells 3rd Bane, Hex 5th Crown of Madness, Mind Spike 9th Bestow Curse, Revivify 13th Blight, Phantasmal Killer 17th Contagion, Raise Dead Drain Life Upgrade: Red Needle You gain this feature at 3rd level when you choose to join the Weaver Cell. When you take the Drain Life action, you may choose to heal a number of willing creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1), rather than dealing damage. If you do so, you may choose to restore a number of hit points equal to 1d4 + your spell attack modifier to each target; after doing so you must take an amount of damage equal to the total healing done. This damage cannot be reduced or avoided in any way. At 11th level the amount you can heal a target increases to 1d6 + your spell attack modifier. Transfusion Starting at 7th level, you can transfer vitality between two willing creatures. You may make a Transfusion instead of making a Drain Life action. When you do so, you may select two willing targets within 10 feet of you: one donor, and one acceptor. Deal up to 10 + your spell attack modifier damage to the donor, and heal the acceptor for the same amount. Lifeblood Facsimile Starting at 15th level, whenever a creature within 10ft of you is healed, you gain temporary hit points equal to half of the hit points they recover. Additionally, whenever you are healed, you may choose a number of creatures equal to your Charisma modifier. The chosen creatures gain temporary hit points equal to half of the hit points you regained. This feature may create a maximum of 8 + your spell attack modifier temporary hit points on each creature it affects. All temporary hit points granted by this feature disappear after taking a short or long rest.

Red String By 20th level, you have learned to link yourself directly to another creature, giving you access to its life essence as well as your own. As an action, you link yourself to one creature you can see withn 30 feet of you. If the creature is unwilling to enter this link, it may make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. On a success, you do not link to them. On a failure, you link to them but they may spend their action to repeat the saving throw. You may only be linked with one creature at a time. This link persists until you dismiss it as a bonus action, until you and your linked target move more than 30 feet from each other, or until your target breaks free. The link cannot be dispelled. The following benefits are granted to you while you are linked: When casting spells or taking damage from class features, you may choose to have your linked target take the damage for you.

As an action, you may transfer a number of hit points up to 10 x your spell attack modifier between yourself and your linked target, healing yourself for that amount and dealing the same amount of damage to the target and vice versa.

You may cast spells and use class features through your linked target as if you were doing so yourself.

You may have your linked target take damage from spells, attacks, and other damaging effects in your place and vice versa.

As a reaction, if you or your linked target is reduced below 0 hit points you may transfer a number of hit points equal to your spell attack modifier from the conscious link member to the unconscious one.

As a reaction, if you or your linked target is killed outright, you may take 36 hit points from the conscious link member to preserve the killed link member's life and return them to 1 hit point.