Blood Magic

Blood Magic, or hemomancy, is an ancient and forbidden art that manipulates the vital essence within blood. Its origins trace to the darkin, the fallen god-warriors whose sorceries of crafting flesh and transmuting blood granted them mastery over life itself. Under their tyranny, mortals were little more than cattle, but a young prince named Vladimir, traded to a darkin as a hostage, became the first of his kind permitted to study the terrifying magic. He learned quickly, and came to govern his own subjects with as little mercy as the darkin themselves. When the god-warriors fell, it was Vladimir who struck the killing blow against his own master, a secret known to him alone. Blinded and driven mad by the radiance of a darkin's undoing, he absorbed enough power to renew flesh that was never meant to outlast a mortal lifespan, and he has repeated that act countless times through rituals too vile to speak of, sustaining his immortality by draining the life from others. His hemomancy also lets him command another's blood, body, and mind as freely as his own. At the height of Mordekaiser's reign, Vladimir haunted the coastal cliffs of eastern Valoran until the pale sorceress LeBlanc sought him out. Their pact grew into the Black Rose, a hidden cabal of nobles and masters of magic that guided the throne of Noxus for more than a thousand years. Under Vladimir's tutelage, hemomancy took root in the Noxian military and among the old aristocracy, and a youthful cult, the Crimson Circle, formed around him. Blood magic is reviled even in Noxus, so its practitioners work in secret, yet the rise of Jericho Swain has forced Vladimir back into public life, drawing suspicion as Swain begins to grasp his true nature. The art has produced more than schemers. The Black Rose reanimated the long-dead hero Sion with forbidden magics, but the blood magic that sustained him demanded constant slaughter and engulfed his mind in rage when denied. The cabal's experiments also created Briar, a ravenous, vampire-like being meant to be a living weapon yet barely containable. Bound to the darkin legacy of corruption, blood magic tends to make its wielders ever more inhuman as they drift from all mortal empathy.