Your Arts demand blood… specifically, your own blood. And while many practices employ small amounts of ritual cutting or bloodletting, this degree of sacrifice demands an injurious amount of vital fluid each time you cast a spell.

With this Flaw (mislabeled as a Merit in the sourcebook Sorcerer, Revised Edition), you must suffer one unsoakable health level in bashing damage whenever you employ an Ef­

fect. Story-wise, you cut yourself, slash designs in your skin, or otherwise hurt yourself enough to shed the required amount of blood. This sort of thing can, of course, add up quickly if you’re throwing lots of magick around without giving yourself a chance to heal, as bashing damage soon leads to lethal damage (see Types of Injury in Mage 20, p. 406). Meanwhile, your bloodletting looks pretty gross and obvious (often vulgarly so), and tends to make a mess as well. Your companions might appreciate the results of your magick, but may well object to the methods you employ… especially since blood magick has a rather unsavory rep among all but the most primal of practices.