Good evening my fellow Kindred. Last month we promised you a sneak peek into one of the Disciplines - you, as a community could decide which one of them will be a topic of this month's update. It so happened that Blood Sorcery won. It appears that we have a lot of the Usurpers... or Judges present in our community curious about what our team will bring into the game.

Overview

Blood Sorcery is fundamentally a late-game tree: it has access to around triple the points any other tree does (with the exception of Oblivion, which follows the same design philosophy). Also, you don’t get your skills immediately. Upon unlocking a node, you’ll get a quest that you have to progress through to discover the associated Ritual and its different upgrades. A heavy Blood Sorcery user should expect to be doing a lot of sidequesting, and bide their time until late-game pulls around to unlock their true potential.

Core Abilities

A Taste for Blood (Passive): Usually, every Discipline Tree has access to 2 core skills, an active and a passive. In the case of Blood Sorcery, however, you only get 1 core skill to compensate for the immense power you can get toward the endgame. A Taste for Blood will grant you a permanent stacking buff against a certain enemy type whenever you deal the killing blow or feed from them, so the objective is to farm it as much as you can in preparation for the rougher fights later on. Enemy types so far are Mortal, Animal, Kindred, and Supernatural.

Rituals: At the start of a new Night, you have the ability to set up a Ritual (provided you have the ingredients). These gatherings grant you temporary bonuses for the entire Night, and you can repeat the same Ritual several times in a row, increasing its level. Through repeating this Ritual, you will make your base Blood Sorcery abilities more and more powerful each time, until you master said Ritual and unlock its bonuses permanently. But beware! Early ranks may require only a Black Candle and an Animal Fang, while later ranks will require more elusive ingredients… including Fresh Corpses.

Blood Sorcery Paths

Blood Sorcery is a Discipline that favors specialization. As such, there are 4 Paths you can delve into. You can choose all Paths simultaneously, but you can only grab 1 of the final nodes for each one of them. That means that you can decide, for example, to be a very good melee fighter with poisonous blood effects, or have the ability to paralyze enemies.

A short-range, melee fighter path focused on enhancing the toxic properties of your vitae. The Path of Destruction teaches you Miasmic Burst, a short-range AoE that erupts from you and damages nearby enemies. This ability can be further enhanced to Poison, Paralyze, or destroy Armor on enemies.

Every Kindred needs a little help now and then. Through this branch you will unlock the supportive and healing properties of your crimson grape juice, allowing you to help allies in different ways. You can boost your base healing ability, Revitalize, to also grant random combat buffs to your allies; you can get another ability, Theft of Vitae, to steal valuable Blood from enemies and use it later to cast more spells; or alternatively, spec into Colloidal Construct to summon an evil, bloody gummybear that will fight for you for a certain amount of time.

The long-range caster tree - tried and true. Unlocks Blood Bolt, a long-range missile that can be further modified to exhaust opponents through Extinguish Vitae, or splash onto other enemies and set them on fire through Cauldron of Blood. If combat is not your style, spec into Reclamation of Vitae to be able to completely extinguish the gifts given to your numerous Ghouls and Blood Dolls, restoring a large amount of Blood to your entire party in your Haven, in preparation for those rough nights.

Further, investigate the supernatural abilities of your Vitae to unlock a refillable Blood Fountain in your Haven that will help you in your overworld exploration. Some of it is almost entirely cosmetic: Shape of the Sanguine Sacrament allows you to create blood sculptures for decoration, with the option of unlocking a powerful portal that you can use to get back to your HQ in a pinch. Other benefits include boosting your Ghouls to be more effective during Supply Missions, or transforming your vitae into a fine mist around you that induces unnatural behavior in NPCs around you, unlocking Insanity options in conversation, and additional side quests.

The last branch has you study the fluidity of your… fluids, enhancing its crowd control and support properties. Its base ability, Blood Geyser, allows you to place traps that can then be triggered by friend and foe alike for additional effects. Watery Grave will banish any enemies that enter the trap for a short duration, while Protective Mist will summon an obscuring fog that can also trigger on allies entering it, protecting your squishies from attacks and giving them Armor for later. You can also summon a Liquid Barrier for valuable cover on the go.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see, the Blood Sorcery tree has the potential to be one of the most powerful trees in the game. This will, however, require the player to be very diligent with their Ritual casts and have a taste for sidequesting. We hope you enjoyed this preview, and as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

Which one boils your blood? Let us know in the comments or on our Discord server and see you next month!