This idea popped into my head after using the Equilibrium spell.

The player can convert his vital essence (health) into magic, and that magic into spells. It's not a super useful spell though, as the drain rate is fixed, constant, and occupies a hand that could be casting magic or holding a weapon or shield. If somehow, the middleman of chain were to be cut out, it would be more effective.

I'm proposing a method of magic that uses both Health and Stamina as the reservoirs drained to cast spells: Blood Magic.


If you want to damage an enemy, you cast a Damage Health spell. To do 50 points of damage you need to spend say, 70 or so points of Health and Stamina combined. If there is no more Stamina, Health will be used in its place, but you cannot cast a spell if the cost will kill you.

The spell types would be varied, ranged, on touch, and stream effect, like current Destruction spells, along with other special effects, such as:

Tether: A stream of your blood ties an opponent close to you, unable to move a certain distance away at the risk of the player being unable to escape from said enemy.

Blood Rune: A rune placed on the ground or wall, once an opponent steps over or near it, it bursts outward doing damage, as well as temporarily bringing them to their knees from the effects.

Shield: A shield is conjured similar to a ward, but has the additional effect of being able to block attacks like a shield. You cannot cast or attack with this spell activated.

Blood Wraith: A wraith (red Ice Wraith) is summoned and attacks the opponent, draining their life and giving it to you along with biting attacks.


I think this would be a fun feature, and might allow warriors or a mage low on magic or high on health to make a risky but possibly worthwhile attack or defense. If you noticed, I tried to include effects along the lines of all the schools of magic, minus Enchanting for obvious reasons.


Tell me what you all think!

This actually would be cool. The whole thing sounds like it came out of Dead Man Wonderland, but whatever. The concept is awesome either way. I could see this being a plausible new kind of magic.

Yeeeaaah, not gonna lie, I have been watching that show. But I had the idea long before I ever saw it!

I don't normally like new ideas for magic types, but this one actually sounds pretty sweet. It'd also allow for a better RPing of evil mages.

Problem is that it looks a bit too much like Dragon Age.

Blood magic does not have to be evil its just a difficult pursuit of study. You could use your own life force to sustain and power your spells. I am for it there is some basic blood magic if you will with the vampires in Dawnguard but I would certainly like the options expanded upon. The magic system is lacking as is and we need more diversity to liven up the system a bit.

It doesn't have to be evil, but I believe evil mages would be all over it. Maybe there could be a high-level Blood magic spell to drain the life force of an enemy, while restoring your magic.

Very true I have a psychotic vampire that loves the idea but I have neutr Altmer that studies all of the arcane regardless of the classifications or prejudices that particular magic schools has.

That is a good spell for a mage that uses blood magic to sustain their magic force. Any buffs like that would be good for a mage really.

That does seem to be a master level spell... Maybe after a long difficult master spell quest, you gain access to a few master-caliber Blood Magic spells. They'd have to be reasonably balanced, whatever that means in the context of Skyrim's magic, lol.

It would be good for the Vampire, perhaps a clan could have these powers. However, I think they probably did the Vampire thing enough in Dawnstar (have not played it, don't know the plot, don't want to know the plot) so that future DLC will focus on other areas, perhaps the Thalmor for example.

As far as I experienced, it doesn't drain your Health or Stamina when used.

Huh? Lol Maybe im just crazy then!!!