Bloodborn

The first time her blood woke, every lamp in the room went red. She had cut her palm on a cracked bowl and started laughing because the pain was bright, not sharp. Her uncle wrapped the hand and told the rest of us to look away. We did not. The blood on the cloth kept glowing after she stopped crying.

-- recovered fragment, family account, Ash Orchard

What a Bloodborn is

A Bloodborn is born with an innate channel. They do not learn the first gate into the miasma. They discover it already built into the body, waiting for fear, injury, adolescence, fever, grief, or deliberate practice to wake it -- a moment settlements call the lineage waking, and that no Bloodborn forgets.

The name is literal. Bloodborn lineages carry blood pigments that resonate with miasma colors. Blood color and miasma color are not the same system, but they correspond strongly enough that surface peoples built names around the blood. A Blueblood bleeds blue. A Blackblood's blood darkens with mineral carrier. A Violetblood may not know what their blood means until someone dangerous recognizes it.

Off-color channeling is possible but comes at a cost. A Blueblood can reach toward the red end of the spectrum; their blood does not amplify it. The lineage tunes one axis of the body toward one color. It does not foreclose the others. The natural, default channel is matched-color; anything else costs more and delivers less.

Bloodborn power feels personal because the conduit is personal. A Mage can lose a codex. A Changed can be cut off from a patron. A Sage can lose the clarity of recitation. A Bloodborn can be exiled, chained, or ignorant, and the channel is still there in the tissue.

Where the Sage builds a clean instrument from faction discipline and the Mage builds a precise one from studied pattern, the Bloodborn did not build anything. The channel was already there, encoded in the blood. CHA governs it -- not because the Bloodborn is persuasive, but because CHA is innate psionic channel-strength, and the blood pigment is the body. The body is the channel.

In combat and in crisis the Bloodborn draws on a personal resource called the channel-pool (the pigment reserve) -- an internal reserve of psionic pressure that builds with the lineage waking and depletes with use. The channel-pool enables the channel-shaping techniques that distinguish a practiced Bloodborn from one who merely reacts. Wind slots power protocols the way they power any channeling class. The channel-pool powers the shaping of them.

Chassis

Class features

The Bloodborn's class features are the chassis of every Bloodborn, regardless of which blood pigment they carry. They are the mechanics of innate psionic channeling: the channel opening at L1, the channel-pool growing with each level, the shaping techniques that separate deliberate practitioners from those who merely survive the waking. The subclass arrives at L1 because the lineage is already present at the door; what varies is the color it carries.

Feature ladder

Major class features

• Psionic Channeling (L1). The lineage waking has opened the channel. CHA governs every protocol you execute; the blood pigment in the tissue is the conduit, and CHA measures its strength. Channel save DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + CHA modifier. Channel attack modifier = proficiency bonus + CHA modifier. A resonance focus -- a vial of your own dried blood sealed in wax, a shard of miasm-hardened mineral matching your blood color, or a small object that has absorbed your blood over years -- can serve as the physical anchor. Tricks are channeled without expending Wind slots; you know four at L1 and gain additional tricks as shown. Protocols are channeled using Wind slots; you know two at L1. When you gain a Bloodborn level, you may replace one known protocol with another from the Bloodborn protocol list of a tier for which you have Wind slots.
• Subclass (L1). Unlike classes where the subclass arrives at L3, a Bloodborn's lineage is present from the first session. The blood pigment does not wait. Choose your blood-pigment lineage at L1: Redblood, Blueblood, Blackblood, Greenblood, or Violetblood. You gain subclass features immediately and at L6, L14, and L18.
• Channel-Pool (L2). At L2 you gain deliberate access to your pigment reserve -- the channel-pool. You have channel-pool points equal to your Bloodborn level. You regain all spent points on a long rest. The channel-pool enables two fundamental operations: creating Wind slots from points, and converting spent Wind slots back into points. Creating Wind slots: as a bonus action, spend channel-pool points to create a Wind slot (1st tier costs 2 points; 2nd tier costs 3; 3rd tier costs 5; 4th tier costs 6; 5th tier costs 7). A created slot cannot exceed 5th tier. Created slots vanish on a long rest. Converting slots to points: as a bonus action, expend a Wind slot to gain channel-pool points equal to the slot's tier. The channel-pool is the reason a Bloodborn's resource economy is more flexible than any other channeling class. The pigment reserve can be turned into Wind pressure and Wind pressure can be folded back into the reserve; the body is the bank.
• Channel-Shaping (L3, L10, L17). At L3 choose two channel-shaping techniques. These are practiced modifications of the channel's delivery, honed over sessions of deliberate internal calibration. Gain an additional technique at L10 and L17. You may apply only one technique to a given protocol unless a technique's description states otherwise. The techniques are:
  • Careful Channel. Spend 1 channel-pool point when you execute a protocol that forces saves. Up to CHA modifier creatures (minimum 1) of your choice automatically succeed on the save.
  • Distant Channel. Spend 1 point to double the range of a protocol with a range of 5 ft or greater; or to extend a touch-range protocol to 30 ft.
  • Empowered Channel. Spend 1 point when you roll damage for a protocol to reroll up to CHA modifier damage dice (minimum 1). Use the new rolls. Empowered Channel can be applied even if you have already used a different technique on this protocol.
  • Extended Channel. Spend 1 point to double the duration of a protocol with a duration of 1 minute or longer, up to 24 hours maximum.
  • Heightened Channel. Spend 3 points to give one target of a protocol that forces a save disadvantage on their first save against it.
  • Quickened Channel. Spend 2 points to change the casting time of a protocol with a 1-action casting time to 1 bonus action.
  • Subtle Channel. Spend 1 point to execute a protocol without somatic or vocal components.
  • Twinned Channel. Spend channel-pool points equal to the protocol's tier (1 point for a trick) to target a second creature in range with a protocol that targets only one creature and does not have a range of Self. The protocol must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at its current tier to be eligible.
• Ability Score Improvement (L4, L8, L12, L16, L19). Increase one ability score by 2, or two scores by 1 each. No score can exceed 20 this way. At L19 you may instead take an Epic Boon.
• Lineage Restoration (L20). When you finish a short rest, you regain 4 expended channel-pool points. The lineage has reached the depth where the pigment reserve replenishes itself between encounters. The body is its own source.

Subclasses

At L1 a Bloodborn's lineage announces itself. All five carry the same base structure -- a blood pigment, a matched miasma color, a channel-pool, and the shaping techniques of a practiced channeler. What differs is the pigment, the color it amplifies, and the specific biological changes the lineage produces over time. Redblood runs iron hemoglobin and channels Red miasm. Blueblood runs copper hemocyanin and channels Blue miasm. Blackblood carries a magnetite mineral carrier and channels Black miasm. Greenblood carries chlorocruorin and channels Green miasm. Violetblood carries hemerythrin and channels Violet miasm -- rare, contested, and rarely acknowledged until it is too late to ignore.

Redblood

He bled like anyone else until the raider put a hook through his brother's coat. Then the blood on his lip smoked red and the raider's hook-hand opened from the inside. Nobody in the village had known the line still carried.

-- recovered fragment, militia inquiry, Stone Orchard

Identity

Redblood is the common bloodline: iron hemoglobin, heat, force, body, surge. Surface humanity and many Rur lines produce Redbloods often enough that settlements know the signs, though knowing the signs does not make the first awakening safe.

Redbloods often become visible in crisis. Their channel answers impact, fear, anger, protection, and the body's demand to act. They are the Bloodborn most likely to be mistaken for Furyborn by frightened witnesses. The blood that runs red is not performing anything. It is simply what it is, and when the body is pushed far enough, it is more than it looks.

Subclass features

L1: Lineage Waking. Your hit point maximum increases by 1 per Bloodborn level -- both now at L1 and again each time you gain a level in this class. As the Red channel matures, the iron pigment deposits incrementally into the dermis and subcutaneous tissue; the body is being reinforced from the inside. In addition, your lineage grants you fluency in reading Red-miasm substrate-resonance signatures -- the encoded pulse the ancient Lattice used to mark Red-aligned infrastructure. This is not language in the ordinary sense; it is a reading of pattern, density, and charge that no training produces and that the Redblood's body recognizes before the mind does.

L1: Blood-Pigment Resilience. The iron pigment hardens in the skin when the body is unarmored. When you are not wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your DEX modifier. The deposits are thin and not visibly scalelike, but the flesh is denser at contact than an unarmored body has any right to be. Your hit point maximum increase from Lineage Waking applies at all levels.

L6: Pigment Resonance. When you execute a protocol that deals fire damage, you may add your CHA modifier to one damage roll of that protocol. Additionally, you may spend 1 channel-pool point to gain resistance to fire damage for 1 hour. The Red channel runs warmest in the Redblood's blood. The pigment does not create fire; it amplifies the resonance between the channel and the Red miasm that fire damage represents. The body runs hotter in the hour after the point is spent; witnesses may notice the slight elevation in surface temperature.

L14: Blood-Suspension. As a bonus action, you cause the Red pigment to concentrate in tissue structures along your back and shoulders, enabling a controlled buoyancy that persists as a physical flight state. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed. This state lasts up to 4 hours and can be dismissed as a bonus action and re-established as a bonus action, provided the total duration has not been spent. The effect ends after 4 hours cumulatively per long rest. You cannot maintain Blood-Suspension while wearing armor unless it is specifically constructed to accommodate the tissue changes; this is a structural requirement, not a weight one. The Bloodborn's body is doing the work. This is Substrate-powered: it shuts off in Antimagic.

L18: Pigment Radiance. As an action, spend 5 channel-pool points to open the channel wide enough that your presence radiates into the ambient miasma at 60 ft radius. For 1 minute (concentration), each hostile creature that starts its turn in the aura must succeed on a WIS save (DC = your channel save DC) or become Frightened until the aura ends, or Charmed until the aura ends -- your choice when you activate this feature. A creature that succeeds on the save is immune to your Pigment Radiance for 24 hours. The aura does not project thought or intent. It projects the raw pressure of the lineage, which the miasma carries outward as a fluctuation of the Red channel. Frightened creatures feel the pressure as threat; Charmed creatures feel it as command. The Bloodborn does not choose which instinct the target's body routes it through. That choice is made by the WIS save.

Blueblood

The Eloi girl cut her finger on the shell-knife and the blood that welled up was the color of deep water under glass. She looked embarrassed, as if she had shown us something indecent. The room became colder. Every lie in it became easier to hear.

-- recovered fragment, trade-house note, Pearl Stair

Identity

Bluebloods descend most often from Eloi conditions: long abundance, miasma-rich enclaves, refined bodies, fragile thresholds, and unusually clean signal. Their pigment is a copper carrier, hemocyanin, which runs blue where it meets air. Their channel often feels like distance, clarity, cold, perception, and signal.

Outside the environments that shaped them, Bluebloods can feel displaced in their own bodies. A Blueblood adventurer is often someone who left a place designed to keep them beautiful and alive, then discovered the wider world is neither. The Blue channel does not comfort this; it sharpens the perception of how far from home they are.

Subclass features

L1: Lineage Waking. Your hit point maximum increases by 1 per Bloodborn level -- both now at L1 and again each time you gain a level in this class. The copper pigment reinforces tissue over time with a different quality than iron; the Blueblood's body runs cooler and more efficient under pressure. In addition, your lineage grants you fluency in reading Blue-miasm substrate-resonance signatures -- the cold-spectrum pulse the ancient Lattice encoded for Blue-aligned infrastructure. The reading is instinctive and pre-verbal; it comes before analysis and cannot be taught to those without the pigment.

L1: Blood-Pigment Resilience. When you are not wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your DEX modifier. The copper pigment deposits in the dermis as the lineage matures, creating a density that is not visible from outside but is measurable at contact. Your hit point maximum increase from Lineage Waking applies at all levels.

L6: Pigment Resonance. When you execute a protocol that deals lightning damage, you may add your CHA modifier to one damage roll of that protocol. Additionally, you may spend 1 channel-pool point to gain resistance to lightning damage for 1 hour. The copper carrier in the blood conducts the Blue channel's electrical resonance with unusual efficiency. The hour of resistance is not comfortable; the body runs a constant low-frequency charge that most creatures can sense at close range as the slight hair-raising before a discharge.

L14: Blood-Suspension. As a bonus action, you cause the copper pigment to concentrate in the load-bearing tissue structures along your back, enabling a controlled buoyancy. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed, lasting up to 4 hours per long rest (dismissible and re-established as a bonus action, provided duration remains). You cannot maintain Blood-Suspension in armor unless it is built to accommodate the tissue changes. The effect is quieter than it sounds -- no wind, no visible emanation, only the slight blue tinge of the skin over the relevant tissue while active. This is Substrate-powered and shuts off in Antimagic.

L18: Pigment Radiance. As an action, spend 5 channel-pool points to open the Blue channel to its full ambient reach at 60 ft radius. For 1 minute (concentration), each hostile creature that starts its turn in the aura must succeed on a WIS save (DC = your channel save DC) or become Frightened until the aura ends, or Charmed until the aura ends -- your choice. A creature that succeeds on the save is immune to your Pigment Radiance for 24 hours. The Blue channel's radiance is experienced differently from Red; witnesses report the sensation as a cold clarification, a sudden awareness of their own smallness, rather than raw threat. The mechanical result is identical. The phenomenology is not.

Blackblood

His blood hit the stone and stayed where it fell, dark as ore. The tunnel lights failed one by one. In the dark he stood taller. That was when the surface guards understood the Morlock had been fighting politely.

-- recovered fragment, gatehouse confession, Underford

Identity

Blackbloods are tied to deep-strata adaptation: density, dark, a magnetite mineral carrier, pressure, endurance, and the rare black channels that surface cultures often fear. Many come from Morlock lineages or mixed families carrying deep inheritance.

A Blackblood is not a monster sign. It is a lineage with costs. Bright surface conditions, unfamiliar miasma profiles, and social suspicion may all wound in different ways. In the right dark, however, the channel comes home. The magnetite in the blood orients differently under open sky than underground; many Blackbloods feel the dissonance before they understand its source.

Subclass features

L1: Lineage Waking. Your hit point maximum increases by 1 per Bloodborn level -- both now at L1 and again each time you gain a level in this class. The magnetite carrier distributes through the tissue over time, providing a density and structural resilience that accumulates rather than peaks. In addition, your lineage grants you fluency in reading Black-miasm substrate-resonance signatures -- the deep-spectrum pulse encoding that the ancient Lattice used for Black-aligned infrastructure, most of which exists in the lowest strata of old structures where surface light does not reach. The reading is magnetic in character; proximity to the encoded pulse is physically felt before it is consciously recognized.

L1: Blood-Pigment Resilience. When you are not wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your DEX modifier. The magnetite deposits in the dermis create an unusual resistance to kinetic force and soft-tissue damage. The deposits are faintly visible as a mineral darkening of the skin over load-bearing areas in some Blackbloods; in others they remain entirely internal. Your hit point maximum increase from Lineage Waking applies at all levels.

L6: Pigment Resonance. When you execute a protocol that deals necrotic damage, you may add your CHA modifier to one damage roll of that protocol. Additionally, you may spend 1 channel-pool point to gain resistance to necrotic damage for 1 hour. The Black channel moves through the magnetite carrier with unusual directness; the body has spent geological time co-evolving with the deep miasm's density, and the resonance between pigment and Black-channel damage is tighter than any trained channeling class achieves. The hour of resistance is experienced as a heaviness, a weight in the blood that most witnesses cannot see and most Blackbloods have stopped noticing.

L14: Blood-Suspension. As a bonus action, you cause the magnetite in the load-bearing structures of your back to orient collectively, producing a controlled magnetic buoyancy against the ambient miasm field. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed, lasting up to 4 hours per long rest (dismissible and re-established as a bonus action). You cannot maintain Blood-Suspension in armor unless it is specifically built for this. The flight is low and close in character; Blackbloods rarely ascend to great height voluntarily. This is Substrate-powered and shuts off in Antimagic.

L18: Pigment Radiance. As an action, spend 5 channel-pool points to open the Black channel wide into the ambient miasm at 60 ft radius. For 1 minute (concentration), each hostile creature that starts its turn in the aura must succeed on a WIS save (DC = your channel save DC) or become Frightened until the aura ends, or Charmed until the aura ends -- your choice. A creature that succeeds on the save is immune to your Pigment Radiance for 24 hours. Surface peoples who have encountered this effect and survived tend to describe it as the sudden certainty that the world has grown very deep beneath them and that they are standing on a very thin surface.

Greenblood

The cut across her arm should have soured. Instead the blood turned green at the edges and the wound smelled of rain on kelp. By morning the infection in the whole camp had retreated from her sleeping mat.

-- recovered fragment, coastal fever account, Brackish Hold

Identity

Greenbloods arise among marine, annelid, cephalopod, and other Beastfolk-related or mixed lineages where unusual pigments remained useful. Their carrier is chlorocruorin, the green pigment of marine annelid stock. Their channel often reaches growth, adaptation, toxin, resilience, chemistry, and living reaction.

Many Greenbloods are treated as lucky until they are treated as dangerous. A body that can coax life can also overgrow it, sour it, poison it, or make it change too quickly. The Green channel does not distinguish between repair and corruption; both are chemistry, and the Bloodborn's lineage woke in the middle of a world that has been chemically strange since before anyone alive can remember.

Subclass features

L1: Lineage Waking. Your hit point maximum increases by 1 per Bloodborn level -- both now at L1 and again each time you gain a level in this class. The chlorocruorin carrier is the most metabolically active of the five pigments; the tissue reinforcement it provides is partly structural and partly ongoing nanite-mediated repair that the pigment accelerates. In addition, your lineage grants you fluency in reading Green-miasm substrate-resonance signatures -- the bioactive-spectrum encoding the ancient Lattice used for Green-aligned infrastructure, most commonly associated with old ecological management and biological experiment sites. The reading comes as a sensory impression, often olfactory, before it becomes recognizable information.

L1: Blood-Pigment Resilience. When you are not wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your DEX modifier. The chlorocruorin deposits are the most visible of the five; in some Greenbloods the underlying skin takes on a faint green cast over the densest areas, particularly in bright light. Your hit point maximum increase from Lineage Waking applies at all levels.

L6: Pigment Resonance. When you execute a protocol that deals poison damage, you may add your CHA modifier to one damage roll of that protocol. Additionally, you may spend 1 channel-pool point to gain resistance to poison damage for 1 hour. The chlorocruorin carrier is a chemical pigment, and the Green channel's poison affinity runs through it with the efficiency of a body that has co-evolved with toxin-heavy environments. The hour of resistance is marked by a faint green overtone to the blood visible at any wound site; the pigment is actively processing.

L14: Blood-Suspension. As a bonus action, you cause the chlorocruorin to concentrate in the structural tissue of your back, the pigment's chemical buoyancy interacting with the ambient miasm to produce a sustained lift. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed, lasting up to 4 hours per long rest (dismissible and re-establishable as a bonus action). You cannot maintain Blood-Suspension in armor unless specifically constructed for it. The effect has a faint green luminescence in dim light; the blood is visibly active. This is Substrate-powered and shuts off in Antimagic.

L18: Pigment Radiance. As an action, spend 5 channel-pool points to open the Green channel into the ambient miasm at 60 ft radius. For 1 minute (concentration), each hostile creature that starts its turn in the aura must succeed on a WIS save (DC = your channel save DC) or become Frightened until the aura ends, or Charmed until the aura ends -- your choice. A creature that succeeds is immune to your Pigment Radiance for 24 hours. The Green channel's radiance is experienced as a sudden biological wrongness, an awareness of the body's permeability and the chemical indifference of the thing radiating at them.

Violetblood

The child's blood was not purple. It was almost purple, and almost silver, and the old android in the corner turned its head before anyone spoke. It said one word in a language no one present knew. The child's mother took him from the room before it could say a second.

-- recovered fragment, sealed witness note, provenance uncertain

Identity

Violetbloods are rare enough that most surface peoples have only rumor. Their blood pigment resonates with frequencies the ordinary catalogues do not explain cleanly. The player-facing truth is simple: a Violetblood is unusual even among Bloodborn, and the world may recognize them before they recognize themselves.

World Masters should treat Violetblood identity with restraint. The lineage carries hidden significance, but the character begins with lived symptoms, social consequences, and strange sensitivity -- not a lore lecture. The android in the vignette recognized something. It did not explain what.

Subclass features

L1: Lineage Waking. Your hit point maximum increases by 1 per Bloodborn level -- both now at L1 and again each time you gain a level in this class. The hemerythrin carrier reinforces tissue through mechanisms that current surface biology cannot fully account for; the Violetblood's body resists damage in ways the other lineages do not exactly replicate. In addition, your lineage grants you fluency in reading Violet-miasm substrate-resonance signatures -- a deep-encoding the ancient Lattice used for its highest-priority infrastructure. Old systems react to this signature in ways that cannot be predicted from the surface appearance. The reading is the most difficult of the five to describe; Violetbloods report it as a sense of being recognized, rather than a sense of recognizing something.

L1: Blood-Pigment Resilience. When you are not wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your DEX modifier. The hemerythrin deposits are the rarest and the hardest to characterize; the structural reinforcement is real and measurable but its mechanism is not yet documented in any surface-world text. Your hit point maximum increase from Lineage Waking applies at all levels.

L6: Pigment Resonance. When you execute a protocol that deals psychic damage, you may add your CHA modifier to one damage roll of that protocol. Additionally, you may spend 1 channel-pool point to gain resistance to psychic damage for 1 hour. The Violet channel's psychic affinity is the most direct of the five; the hemerythrin carrier appears to interact with the ambient Miasm at a layer the other pigments do not reach. The hour of resistance is the most disorienting for the Bloodborn: the body becomes temporarily opaque to psionic reading, and the Violetblood may notice that other channeling-class members lose track of them in peripheral sense during this window.

L14: Blood-Suspension. As a bonus action, the hemerythrin concentrates in the load-bearing structures of your back and enables a buoyancy through the ambient miasm that does not appear to require any intermediate physical mechanism. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed, lasting up to 4 hours per long rest (dismissible and re-establishable as a bonus action). You cannot maintain Blood-Suspension in armor unless it is specifically constructed for it. Old systems -- active turrets, functioning Lattice nodes, androids -- may track you during Blood-Suspension in ways they would not otherwise. This is Substrate-powered and shuts off in Antimagic. The shutdown is immediate and total.

L18: Pigment Radiance. As an action, spend 5 channel-pool points to open the Violet channel into the ambient miasm at 60 ft radius. For 1 minute (concentration), each hostile creature that starts its turn in the aura must succeed on a WIS save (DC = your channel save DC) or become Frightened until the aura ends, or Charmed until the aura ends -- your choice. A creature that succeeds is immune to your Pigment Radiance for 24 hours. The Violet radiance is the most unusual of the five; some witnesses report no sensory component at all before the save resolves, only an outcome -- fear or compliance -- whose cause they cannot identify. Automated systems within 60 ft that pass the WIS save equivalent register an anomaly in their logs.