Blood Indies

[thejeff]

There are also several nations who have national spells that summon blood mages once you've got one blood mage empowered enough to use get them.

The Monkeys and MA Mictlan come to mind.

And for some nations, Blood Stones and other blood items are enough to justify spending some time with scouts.

[JimMorrison]

Forging.

Even if all you do with it is Lifelong Protections and Bloodstones, you will be better off than before.

But if you find a good site in the first year, that is more than plenty enough time to ramp up a good economy, but it still doesn't force you to go to Blood9 in order to get useful things done.

[Crust]

You can also recruit Conjurers and Circle Masters from The Lodge (blood) and Black Tower (death).

*edit* Thread had more than one page...

[Gregstrom]

I think if you can get bloodhenge druids or circle masters it's worth running a small blood economy - either unit is about as efficient as many of the national blood hunters. If you can only get garnet amazons or similar, then it might be best to just hunt for item construction.

[vfb]

And don't forget Marverni, they can blood sacrifice even though they have no natural blood paths on national mages. So it's worth it for them to get into some hunting too, even if it's just with scouts.

[Gregstrom]

Oh yes - now there's a nation begging to diversify. They may not be begging quite as hard as BL or MA Mict, but they're up there.

[Illuminated One]

Hmm, I'm playing Marverni right now so that's why I asked.
So you'd say getting blood for them is a good idea?
Appart from blood stones and maybe a reinvigorating communion it seems not to offer very much. Blood sacrifice isn't really needed I think, as you can build temples for 200 gold allready.

[Gregstrom]

Mass blood sacrifice is AFAIK quite a good way to suddenly get a dominion kill on somebody. And when your best researcher and main battle mage can do the sacrificing, it's a tool waiting to be used.

And of course the benefit of a host of blood stones can't be understated either.

[Endovior]

Occasionally, you can also recruit a Jaguar Priest with Blood1. Given the 10% chance of any random path on them, and the fact that there's five possible paths for them, it wouldn't be worth mentioning at all, except for the fact that the various Tribes seem much more common poptypes then the Amazons... I've had the Jaguar tribe somewhere in just about every game I've played, but Amazons of any sort only a couple times, much less a specific sort of them. Not to mention the rarity of finding the proper sites for powerful mage recruitment... or for that matter, finding much in the way of blood sites at all except by use of Achasic Record.

[Gregstrom]

I think the Jag priest was one of those implied in the OP. You have to be very lucky or work very hard to get into Blood if you don't start with it. Garnet Amazons do seem to be one of the rarer types to meet though, you're quite correct there.