Editing Arcane Background (section)

===Blood Mage===
The darkest grey hat you can play in the Weird West, a Blood Mage is the Deadlands equivalent of a [[warlock]]. These hombres hail from families that have dabbled in dark magic for generations, steeping their lineage in sin through obscene rituals, incest, demonic interbreeding and worse until black magic wove itself into their very blood. A blood mage can draw magical power from their very essence, using it in very different ways to the more common hucksters running around the Weird West.

By default, the blood mages of the Weird West are tied to the Whateleys, one of the nastiest and most twisted families in the Deadlands world. But your Marshal can surely make-up their own corrupt and twisted families for more unique blood mage backgrounds. Just rename Whateley Blood to Unholy Lineage or some such, change the Language: Welsh requirement to whatever's appropriate, and you're good to go.

Becoming a Blood Mage requires the Whateley Blood Edge and the Aptitudes Academia: Occult, Blood Magic, and Language: Welsh. Of these, Blood Magic is the Aptitude you use to cast your spells.

Blood mages fuel their spells through Strain, much like the Enlightened. This represents the sapping of vitality sacrificed in exchange for raw magical power.  In fact, they don't need to directly cut themselves to cast spells, although the Faustian Deal spell lets them bleed themselves to replenish their Strain by sacrificing Wind. Also, they have to utter a few words of power in their ancestral tongue (Welsh, for Whateleys) - this may not be as obvious as the huckster's cards, but is a pretty obvious tell for paranoid folk.

Like hucksters or black mages, however, blood mages aren't risk-free when they cast their spells; sometimes, they let loose more power than they intended, leading to a nasty little surge of juice called Reflux. This happens when they go Bust on a blood mage spell, and can result in everything from the luckless sod instantly melting into a puddle of green goo to them instead managing to snatch success from the jaws of failure and cast the spell successfully. Eve if they survive, they pick up a point of Corruption, which is hard to shake off and will slowly convert them into a servant of the Reckoners - just like the vampire & werewolf PC options.

Blood mages show up in the sourcebook "The Black Circle: Unholy Alliance".

A Harrowed blood mage uses Wind to cast instead of Strain; successfully cast spells draw off +1 Wind, and failed spells cost 1 Wind anyway, representing how much they struggle to pull energy from their dead blood.