Craft & the Jewels

The Jewels
The Blood are a race of people who possess special abilities known as Craft. Each member of the blood goes through a ceremony at the age of 8 to determine how strong in the craft they will be, (paternity of a child is also granted or denied at this ceremony by the child’s family matriarch & mother). The way this is determined is by the gifting to them of different colored jewels. The darker the jewel the deeper the well of power they have to draw from.

Think of it as a glass of water. Every time the person uses craft they must draw some of the “water” from the glass. The darker colored the jewel the bigger the glass. The Blood have a very fast metabolism and so must eat more than say you or i would, this is as their bodies must supply energy to refuel their jewels, or to refill their 'glass'. The darker the jewels the more they need to eat to replenish their supplies or their jewels will start 'feeding' on their fat reserves and muscle masses.

Their is also a degree of different levels of strength within each jewel rank. Here on FN to demonstrate this we have the “jewel strength” category. Different ‘spells’ or acts of craft take different amounts of power to perform, if a person uses all the power up from their jewels, that power then is drawn from the persons own energy stores, and once that person has no more energy to give the jewel will shatter. So it is possible to use too much craft and bring yourself close to death, craft will first draw from a person’s fat reserves and then go on to draw from muscle and then from essential organs.It is dreadfully hard to break the jewels of a member of the blood, though for a woman all the power she could wield can be taken away from her on her virgin night if its not done correctly.

Depending upon the spell the effect of the draw of power may be gradual or come back in one great backlash. Such a backlash would have the same effect as a gradual draw of power though in a much quicker amount of time and will usually end in the death of the spell crafter should the amount of power used be enough to shatter the jewels.

Upon reaching their majority (usually at around 18-21) each member of the blood usually will complete a second ceremony called the ‘Offering to the Darkness’ at which they can descend a maximum of three ranks from their birthright jewel rank to give them finally the full strength they will wield in their lifetime. Though that being said it is also possible to make no descent at all, or descend only in jewel strength. In which case the person would receive a second jewel of the same color rank to act as a second well of power along with their birthright. Those who descend would also have two wells to draw from, their birthright jewel and their descent jewel. So for example a person who wears the White as a Birthright jewel could potentially descend to the level of Rose.

This ceremony is not necessary in every case, from time to time a member of the blood will make the descent in a defining moment of their lives, usually during periods of high stress due to physical endangerment.

The jewel ranks are as follows, in order of strength:
 * White
 * Yellow
 * Tiger Eye
 * Rose
 * Summer Sky
 * Purple Dusk
 * Opal (This jewel marks the line between "light" and "dark" Jewels
 * Green
 * Sapphire
 * Red
 * Gray
 * Ebon Gray
 * Black

In the history of the blood only one witch has ever been gifted with a Birthright darker than the red. She was Jaenelle Angelline, Witch, Dreams Made Flesh. You will not see this happening here on FN. Traditionally amongst the blood the lighter jewels (white through to opal) are more commonly occurring. We will do our best to maintain this norm.

Craft
Many things are possible to do with the use of craft, and there are different types of craft that people can do. They can be broken up into the following categories:
 * Basic Craft
 * Advanced Craft
 * Black Widows Craft
 * Healers Craft
 * Queens Craft

Every member of the blood can do some basic craft (after the appropriate training of course which is usually given to children) including those who don’t actually wear a jewel, though some things take more power than others as with all spells.


 * ‘Floating objects’
 * ‘Passing one object through another’
 * ‘Vanishing & calling in items’
 * ‘storing items in your ‘space’’ (more about this one later)
 * 'Psychic communication’ (more on this one later)
 * ‘Traveling via the winds’ (more about this one later)
 * ‘Creating witch fire’
 * ‘Warming/Cooling spells’
 * ‘very basic healing, cuts and bruises basically’

Advanced Craft includes, but is not limited to feats such as:
 * ‘Air walking’
 * ‘Hearth crafts’ (more details on this one later)
 * ‘Craft Shields’
 * ‘Offensive craft’

Black Widows Craft includes, but is not limited to feats such as:
 * ‘Weaving Webs to see the future/past’ (More about this later)
 * ‘Creating illusions & Illusions Webs, that can both/either alter a persons perception of a truth, eg. Jewel color, or visual illusions eg. flying flowers’
 * ‘mixing poisons’
 * ‘creating elaborate webs to be used to hold time delayed healing spells’

Healers Craft includes, but is not limited to feats such as:
 * ‘Mixing healing brews’
 * ‘Mending broken bones’
 * ‘Knitting broken skin/flesh/muscle’
 * ‘creating healing spells that can then be set to a healing web’

Queens Craft has only one main spell which is to ‘heal’ the land. Basically the queen can transfer her jewel power into the land itself which will increase its fertility and ability to grow. Traditionally a queen will do this before her moon time (Menstruation) so as to give the power a release before she can no longer use it for fear of physical pain. If the land has been neglected or is dry and infertile for whatever reason and a Queen tried to pour her strength into it, if uncontrolled the land can potentially pull all the power out of her she can give and as a result shatter her jewels.

Every member of the blood is generally taught acts of basic craft at a young age by their family, a tutor or in a community school. Feats of advanced craft however require specialist training. The black widows & healers crafts are taught only to those of the black widow or healer caste as a general rule though some of the more basic spells of healing can sometimes be taught to people not of the caste and one can choose to join the hourglass coven and be trained in the black widows arts, though they are selective on who they train and who they don’t. Most acts of craft require little or no actual spoken word, but instead are done through thought and power and the combination of the two.

Now i will explain a little more detail about some of the spells mentioned above.

Vanishing and calling in objects/Storing things in your ‘space’
Each member of the blood has what we commonly call a ‘space’ in which they can carry and store items or all sorts. This allows members of the blood to have objects on hand wherever they are, sort of like carrying a backpack, except that the backpack and everything in it is invisible. The amount of weight one can carry in this space depends on what jewel strength they have as it is a constant drain on their power to carry things around.

When a member of the blood ‘vanishes’ an item it in truth has gone from visible to invisible and is then carried around in their ‘space.’ The ‘space’ is not tangible in any way so you can’t touch it. ‘Calling in’ an object is how you retrieve items from your ‘space.’

Psychic Communication
Psychic Comminication is done over what is called a ‘Psychic Thread’ or a ‘Thread.’ These threads can be be broadcast generally, like shouting across a room so everyone can hear in a certain radius, Narrowed to a single jewel rank, caste, gender or to a single mind. When communicating gender specifically the threads are called ‘Distaff thread (female)’, or ‘Staff thread (Male)’ To denote psychic communication here on FN please use *’s instead of “ ’s eg. *Jimbob can you bring me a banana?*

Traveling via the ‘Winds’
The ‘Winds’ are psychic webs that criss-cross the realms in a spider web pattern, the center of them being at Ebon Askavi, the Black Mountain. From there extends radial lines in all directions and across those you will find tether lines that connect to the radial lines. There is a ‘wind’ for each rank of the jewels. The darker the jewel rank the more radial and tether lines and so the quicker the journey.

You must have a jewel to travel the ‘Winds’ and there are a few rules. You cannot travel on a jewel colour darker than what you wear unless you are shielded by someone of that jewel or darker. If you attempt it you will immediately have your mind and your jewels blown away by the power on the winds. You can however travel on ‘Winds’ lighter than the jewel you wear. You cannot ‘jump’ from the winds main lines to land in a black space in between the radial and tether lines, if you do this you risk landing somewhere you didn’t plan, or worse having your jewels and mind blown again by the winds powers. You must instead land at the nearest point from the wind you are on and walk the rest of the distance as normal.

Dotted across the webs you will find ‘Landing stations’ denoted by a clear jewel inset into the ground. These are common points of landing when you exit the winds. Usually found outside/near to main cities/towns. Just like with all spells traveling by the wind uses craft, so you can only travel via them for as long as your jewels can expend the power necessary.

Hearth Crafts
The hearth crafts are counted as an advance form of craft as they must be taught by someone who already knows them. They are a handy set of spells that do everything from air out a musty room to clean a households worth of dishes.

Weaving Webs
Much about the bloods craft you will see is originated from spiders, this is due to one of the first ever members of the Blood being a black widow spider. Black Widows, weather natural or trained have the ability to weave a web. They prepare ‘spider silk’ and then use it to weave the web across a frame usually. Through this web they can then see flashes of the future or past. Though it takes a step closer to madness for them to see such things in the web, only black widows can weave and read a tangled web and what it tells them is always in the form of riddles and images. Metaphor and madness.

It is much harder to interpret the webs than it is to see them and no web is ever exactly the same. No witch will ever see quite the same thing as another.