Blood weaving is the quintessential human art, which uses the properties of blood to channel magic. It has evolved over the course of human history, being shaped by the many religious and cultural practices that humans of the world have come up with. The purpose of blood weaving is to be used as a weapon against incarnations, which arise from the blood of the dead, but it can serve any other purpose. Those who practice blood weaving are called weavers.

Laws of weaving

All the laws and basic knowledge of blood weaving is contained in the Grand Almanac, which is taught to students of the Continental Academy¹ among other texts.

Bloodright

Blood is of course the central element of blood weaving and it can be woven in the ways desired by its owner. In the realm of blood weaving, every human has a right to their own blood and everything it passes through, thus their own body as well. This principle is called Jus Sanguinis or more commonly bloodright. A weaver can only make use of what is under their bloodright. Bloodright is lost when blood has dried outside of the owner’s body.

Blood Contracts

Two or more parties can sanction a contract in blood, using the laws of bloodright to enforce their terms. The terms of agreement can be verbal or written and are accepted with a symbolic donation of blood from all parties.

Contracts have an internal inviolable Regulation that poses limits on what can be done with contracts. If this regulation is broken, a proportionate sanction will be enforced. Agreeing to a contract represents an automatic agreement to the terms of the Regulation.

A contract may happen between one or more parties.
The terms of a contract are encoded in the mean used to communicate them.
All parties must give consent for a contract to be initiated and must be communicated with the same mean as the terms.
If the terms or regulations of a contract are not met or the terms defy the Regulation the offending parties shall be sanctioned proportionally.
Sanctioning is a confiscation of any possessions of the offending party deemed proportional to their offense.
Consent implies an understanding of the terms, Regulation, and their implications.

Blood signs

There are five blood signs, which are modes of channeling blood. Each sign represents a function within a system, their purpose is to order elements into larger compounds and then those compounds into even larger ones, forming complex systems. Every person is born with an arrangement of the five signs that is determined by the nature of their being.

Fate

The element of Fate represents a thing that is beyond the material and concrete. It refers to time, the fourth dimension; the abstract and all works of the mind; but also a kind of power that operates on a level completely separate from others, with its own laws and limits. It is the potential of things in the future and in the mind.

Life

The element of Life refers to the cycle of birth and death, representing what lies in-between those two moments. It possesses a more symbolic meaning than literal life, it would better be expressed as Being as what separates the moments of beginning and end. It is the motor of existence that turns potential into reality.

Harmony

The element of Harmony represents the unity of the other four signs in a single system of inalienable parts. Every system is made with a purpose, and in order to function it requires all its parts to work towards said purpose, that is the essence of Harmony. It is a balance that grants maximum efficiency.

Power

The element of Power represents the execution of a system’s function. Every person has a will which they enact through the abilities granted to them by their own power or by the power of their tools.

Occult

The element of the Occult represents the principles and structure that hold up a system. Every system relies on an internal structure or frame that supports the other functions, this part is often invisible and serves to reproduce and protect the system.

Weaving techniques

Techniques are elaborate weaving systems that weavers use for all kinds of purposes.

Simple techniques

The five Simple Techniques are the pillars of blood weaving, as they enable weavers to practice the most basic form of blood manipulation on their bodies. Each technique belongs to one of the blood signs and the quality of their effects depends on the skill of the user. All of these techniques are activated with the respective hand signs and chants of the sign they belong to.

Cognition

The Cognition Simple Technique is based on the element of Fate and enhances the mental abilities of the user, allowing enhanced thinking to work on the abstract. It directs more blood towards the head, depriving the rest of the body of oxygen to empower the brain and the sensory organs. It can also provide supernatural levels of awareness, enhancing perception beyond what a human is normally capable of, though this takes a lot of skill.

Its hand sign is made by touching one hand’s fingertips with the corresponding ones on the opposite hand while keeping the rest of the hands apart.

Mending

The Mending Simple Technique is based on the element of Life and restores the bodily functions of the user after they’ve been harmed or fell ill. Regenerating large chunks of flesh is possible but will require knowledge of the Constructing Compound Technique and will consume considerable amounts of blood.

Its hand sign is made by joining both hand flat against one another.

Zenith

The Zenith Simple Technique is based on the element of Harmony and releases the effects of all other simple techniques at once on the user, furthering a state of enlightenment during which they unlock their full potential, even going beyond the limits of their body. Weavers with traditional techniques will unlock a new and incredibly powerful form. In order to activate this technique, the user must be in a deep state of focus or they must be in a life or death situation.

Its hand sign is made with both hands holding each other by the fingers, which will curl and form a double spiral pattern between the palms with the thumbs pressing in with their tips.

Amplification

The Amplifying Simple Technique is based on the element of Power and increases heartbeat and blood pressure to superhuman levels, giving the entire body more energy and strength. It also naturally empowers all other techniques, especially traditional techniques, which gain a boost to all their effects because of the blood being empowered.

Its hand sign is made with clasped hands.

Ward

The Warding Simple Technique is based on the element of the Occult and reinforces the user’s birthright through their blood, making it more resistant and preventing serious damage.

Its hand sign is made by pressing two fists together so that the knuckles and the back of the hand is facing away from the center, where the middle sections of the four fingers are touching.

Compound techniques

A Compound technique activates two simple techniques simultaneously to obtain a more complex effect. These are much more difficult to learn, as they require a deep understanding of weaving and an extensive experience with common techniques.

Construction

The Constructing Compound Technique combines the Fate and Life simple techniques to turn an abstract concept into material form. What it does, essentially, is transform blood into different materials to create objects.

This is a moderately complex technique, not because of its principles, but because it requires extremely advanced knowledge in the fields of chemistry and physics as well as the precise structure of the object one wishes to create.

The Mending Simple Technique and some traditional techniques such as Hemokinesis use this technique with minimal knowledge required. Mending simply uses already available information (from the weavers mind and genome) to reconstruct their body, it simply enhances an already existing physical property. Hemokinesis, on the other hand, allows for simpler constructions which still require knowing the structure of the object.

In any case, Construction is activated by snapping one’s fingers and will materialize the product instantly.

Nullification

The Nullifying Compound Technique is a secret technique developed by the Carini family² and passed down the most worthy and loyal weavers in the organization. It prevents everything under the user’s birthright from reacting to any external input while the technique is active. This also means that, as the body cannot react, any movement from the user will be met by infinite resistance from the environment, meaning they will be in a state of complete stasis until the technique is released. It combines the elements of Fate, Harmony, and the Occult.

This technique cannot be cast with a hand sign. This was a choice made deliberately for three reasons: the hands making the hand sign cannot move once the technique is activated, making it harder to release; not having a hand sign makes the technique unnoticeable to the untrained eye and makes it easy to hide; finally, a technique without a hand sign is also incredibly hard to learn and use, meaning that even if someone found out about it they would not be able to learn it.

Traditional techniques

A traditional technique is based on the genetic information passed down through the weaver’s lineage which contains several blueprints for different kinds of micro-systems (or micro-techniques), they are rare and are most common in the bloodlines of powerful families who practiced controlled reproduction in order to maintain them.

Many traditional techniques were created by weavers and passed down through generations within the major families such as the Medici and Ari. These techniques often have different forms, specific ways of channeling the weaving principles of the technique to produce a specific effect.

With enough skill and effort, any weaver can learn a traditional technique without inheriting genetically. The acquisition process, however, requires decades of constant effort so weavers with a traditional technique prefer working on improving their own while those without it learn simpler traditional techniques if any.

Embodiment

Incarnation

When a human being dies, their blood can be posthumously activated through the Constructing Compound Technique to bring forth constructs of the mind that had a powerful influence on the psyche of the person in the moments before their death. This process happens autonomously and is called Incarnation, as it turns concepts into beings or sometimes objects. The appearance, behavior, and abilities of an incarnation depend on the concept they incarnate. The Incarnation of Pain is extremely common and takes the form of a small insect that taunts people.

In order to prevent incarnations, corpses are mandatorily cremated while blood splatter is covered in salt to quickly make it dry.

Reincarnation

A human can, through a contract with a capable weaver, give their own life away and use it to forge a new one with a new body and new powers. The process is illegal and only practiced in secret by some powerful incarnations or weavers. Instead of incarnating a new being, reincarnation embodies the same person in new flesh. A prominent example are Vampires, who are known for giving people eternal life in exchange for their human one.

Nomenclature

Weaving systems

Conjuration: consumes blood to produce an effect. Only blood that is under the user’s bloodright can be used, the conjured product is automatically subjected to the user’s bloodright and can be reversed into blood at any time. The amount of blood required to conjure something depends on its mass and/or energy.
Kinesis: dominates the qualities and properties of its element including but not limited to shape, density, volume, and movement. The target element must meet the technique’s requirements and must be subjected to the user’s bloodright. It consumes a small quantity of blood for the length of time it is active.
Transmutation: consumes blood to transform a target into something else. The transmutation can be undone, returning the object to its original state but not the consumed blood.
Divination: consumes blood to obtain information. Information can be hidden from divination systems with the Warding Simple Technique, increasing the amount of blood required to access said information.

History

Blood weaving began around 20 000 years ago, where some humans developed the ability to control their blood through certain rituals. The practice evolved and was passed down through tradition across many societies and cultures. Even though the practice existed for so long, the first written records of blood weaving date only to 515 BC.

In the beginning, the abilities of blood weaving were very limited, only being capable of producing certain physical conditions. The five simple techniques were developed between 200 BC and 700 AD. While the first compound technique was only made in the 12th century AD. Traditional techniques were always present and progressively became more and more complex and powerful thanks to the weavers who worked on improving and passing them down.

Blood weavers often possessed high status in several human societies, they worked under powerful families who wanted to marry them to their successors and add weavers to their bloodline. Powerful dynasties quickly turned into families of weavers with powerful techniques being passed down through generations. Their traditional techniques, being passed down with their genome, were the most important form of wealth and power these families held. Genome became property so that they could monopolize their techniques and retain their status.

Starting in the 12th century, blood weaving was persecuted across Europe and later in the Americas by the Christian denominations, who considered it magic and thus blasphemous. This continued until the 18th century, and during this period many weavers were hunted down and killed.

Blood weaving regained its status in the 19th century, when the Weaver’s Association was created to eliminate incarnations. The Continental Academy was also created in this period, a few decades after the Association, to instruct weavers, research the practice, and conserve woven objects and impose legislation.

Continental Academy, (also called the Wandering School) an organization that educates and trains promising weavers, researches weaving and stores special objects, and passes global regulation on all blood weaving related things. ↩
The Carini Family, a criminal organization in Southern Italy that is known to possess a strong bloodline of combat-oriented blood weavers. The Nullifying Compound Technique is their most closely guarded secret, and they have murdered any weaver who has dared to learn about it without their permission. ↩