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I'd say it would depend on how the blood was obtained. Does the mage use his/her own blood? Is it the blood of a priestess drawn in a ceremony for the mage? Or did it come from an orphan he/she keeps locked in a corner of the library her whimpers as he draws her life's fluids bringing a twisted smile to his face?
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Entirely dependent on how you got the blood, mostly revolving around the source of the blood giving informed consent.
I can totally see a sacred text being written with the blood of consenting saints and/or angels. Is it possibly icky? Sure. But so are a number of relics in the real world that are considered sacred by many.
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Writing out Buddhist sutras in their own blood was considered a devotional act by many Buddhist sects that you could hardly call evil.
As part of personal spellbooks in my game is a requirement to use the Wiz's own blood in the ink. This is part of what allows the spell to be 'obscured' and 'made clear' for other mages. The third or fourth step allows the Wizard to know when HER book is being read. The sixth allows her to summon the book.
It was routine to have components of obscure and dangerous sources for scrolls. Gorgon spittle or Medusa blood for various stone oriented scrolls, for example.
A game I am currently in has us baiting a Fire Drake (red dragon wannabe) in order to make fire proof capes, potions, etc., all to go after a real dragon, we hope breathes fire...
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If you go to "Ye Olde Supplye Shoppe" You should ask the proprieter what the blood source is. Because I don't think there is a Federal Material Component Association (FMCA) in Golarion :)
My fighter is going to open a new business.
Writing out Buddhist sutras in their own blood was considered a devotional act by many Buddhist sects that you could hardly call evil.
Saddam had a Qur'an written with his blood. Probably not an example of a good man showing his devotion though. :}
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/19/saddam-legacy-quran-iraqi-gover nment
My fighter is going to open a new business.
"Willing? Yeah, you could say they were willing donors. I gave them the chance to surrender and they attacked anyway."
"Willing? Yeah, you could say they were willing donors. I gave them the chance to surrender and they attacked anyway."
Indeed, reckon 'the blood of my fallen enemies' is legit too.
Waste not want not!
Or harvested from legitimately executed bodies ala Burke and Hare.
unless its your own blood I would say its evil.
its infinitely arguable of course, but in my view of the game which is separate from my views of reality.
there is a difference between good and evil. evil in the game is an actual and real thing not simply a moral or idealistic value.
thus there are some things that are evil simply because they are evil.
Consuming or sacrificing either in whole or in any part the life, body or other aspect of a living intelligent being is evil in my role playing world, as is anything with the 'evil' descriptor.
just makes things simple and provides the reasonable limits required by the game.
Consuming or sacrificing either in whole or in any part the life, body or other aspect of a living intelligent being is evil in my role playing world, as is anything with the 'evil' descriptor.
just makes things simple and provides the reasonable limits required by the game.
...so, is accepting a blood donation (the medicinal kind) evil in your book?
no.
that is not consumption or sacrifice any more than having sex is (even oral)
Today in many parts of the World( including the USA) those in need of cash sell their blood for a few dollars to medical companies.
So if you offer a peasant or a slum dweller 10gp for a small amount of blood would that be evil?
In my opinion a good person would use their own blood
a neutral person would buy blood from one of the poor
We wont talk about how an evil person gets their blood.
Just as a side note.
It is actually incredibly difficult to write legibly in blood. We tried it once after it came up in a novel (yes, I used my own I did not go hack up a neigbor).
I pool, runs, and difuses something fierce. Then it quickly starts to cooagulate and is impossible.
If walking into a goblin's home and fireball-ing him isn't evil; I don't see why doing your taxes in blood ought to be any worse.
If walking into a goblin's home and fireball-ing him isn't evil; I don't see why doing your taxes in blood ought to be any worse.
LMAO!!!
That is exactly what was in the novel. Some guy was 'upset' at the IRS and did his taxes in blood to make a statement.
it depends who "grants" the extra caster level.
If you're not 100% certain it isn't evil, then it's evil, you could just as well have taken candy from baby.
Necromancy makes this evil in my book.
it depends who "grants" the extra caster level.
If you're not 100% certain it isn't evil, then it's evil, you could just as well have taken candy from baby.
Necromancy makes this evil in my book.
Who "grants" the extra caster level? That is like asking who "grants" the damage die increase for using a longsword instead of your bare hands. Unless you are actively calling on an evil force (and only 1 in 4 necromancy spells in the core rulebook has the evil descriptor) something is not evil. There is tons of different fluff in different settings about the power of blood in spellcasting and most often it depends how you got it. Using your own blood, animal blood or the blood of a willing donor is usually regarded as non-evil, by most sane people. (Templars in Dragon Age do not qualify as sane, even there the church claims that it's bad because blood magic will ultimately lead the mage to sacrifice others which is similar to people claiming that D&D will lead you to worship Satan.)
To me, it depends on the motivation completely.
One can do horrible acts, but if they honestly believe the result is a net gain in "good" across the world, then I would consider them good.
If a baby is patient zero of a plague that will wipe out mankind, killing that baby is an act of good.
Similarly, draining some guy of blood for the purpose of writing spell scroll that is going to save like 50 orphans is a fundamentally good act.
Of course, this is why I threw alignment out of the window a while ago. You can argue almost any act as being good or evil if you frame it properly.
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Your own, or another's that was freely given, knowing what you would be doing with it: not evil.
Forcibly extracted from someone: evil.
The question is, freely extracted from someone else, but lying about the reason for it. I'd say that one is probably evil too, but I can see someone trying to argue it down to neutral.
There's nothing about ripping the lifeforce from someone or sending the blood to Hell in the rules or the fluff text so you could assume that it doesn't happen. If you argue with unknowns I hereby claim that the Holy Vindicator who sacrifices blood to improve his attacks proves that it related to whatever plane fits the casters alignment.:D
Now why would I consider using a willing sacrifice evil?Good is about the sanctity of life, and using a sacrifice, even a willing one, is not affirming the sanctity of life (even if done for a good cause). Beyond that, I see using a sacrifice, even a willing one, as something that should haunt good characters, and I'd have no problem at all with requiring a paladin to get an atonement for it.
Interesting thought, however, think of a different situation. A paladin makes a stand on a bridge against an attacking Gnoll army to give the people in a village the time to escape. He knows that there's no way in heaven or hell he will get through this alive, so what he's doing is suicide. Now if someone recovered his body and raised him, would he have to atone for that? Or if someone throws himself into a trap to disable it so the rest of the party can escape? Self-sacrifice is usually seen as noble. But assisting someone with sacrificing himself would automatically be evil?
I never said self-sacrifice would require an atonement, only sacrificing others. But yes, I would say that directly sacrificing others' lives is always evil. (As opposed to indirectly sacrificing others' lives, like say leading them into a battle they can't hope to win.)
I guess in that case a Paladin would never be allowed to take command on a Starfleet vessel since the final test for command ability forces you to sacrifice a crew member to save your ship (in a simulation but it's basically to prove that you are able to).
And that generally meshes with modern day, real world ethics (Dr. Kavorkian, for example, has been called evil many times).
Yeah, but by what kind of people? :D Women who had an abortion have been called evil, gay people have been called evil, Harry Potter books have been called evil and (even though that's not really modern day anymore) D&D has been called evil. Unlike in D&D/Pathfinder evil is very subjective in our world. If land mines would only get half the hate of those people...
If someone is really willing to sacrifice himself to make a spell work that could save thousands is it really important who is wielding the knife? If assisted suicide is evil is an interesting question, and I guess in the end there will be no final answer for Pathfinder since none of us is able to summon an Angel, Ghaele or Agathion to ask but looking at the real world won't bring us further either.