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Correlation has been drawn by prior authors between the manifestations of soul deficiency and those of anemia. Indeed the frailty and pallor of soul deficiency are similar to that seen in anemia. This observation has led many to speculate that blood is the source of soul, or at the very least, a reservoir for it. I have endeavored to test this theory. The results of my experiments are ennumerated below.
Students at the institute were sampled. The two groups consisted firstly of those mages who within the last month had been placed on magical vacance for dangerous soul deficiency, and secondly mages who showed no outward signs of soul deficiency. Vials of blood were taken from each group and sent to Almawar Hospital for testing. In both groups the hematocrit and cell proportions did not significantly differ and were within the normal range for healthy people.
Clearly soul deficiency can occur independently of anemia.
Necromantic sacrifice of a common raven is sufficient for simple clairvoyance. The entire volume of blood from one raven was drained and used in performance of a simple clairvoyance ritual. A second raven was sacrificed in the performance of the identical ritual. In both cases, and upon repetition of the experiment, the soul proved sufficient for the prediction of a random number from a selection of 1000, with total accuracy.
Subsequently the entire blood volume of a raven was drained and divided into 10 equal parts. The ritual was performed again as above. The parts were sufficient to predict the number from a selection of 100 with total accuracy. However, there was no degree of accuracy for predictions of 500 or 1000 relative to random chance. Prediction of a number from a selection of 200 was accurate one in ten times, indicating a small, but non-useful, degree of efficacy.
Half of the blood of a raven was drained and used in performance of the same ritual. No accuracy above random chance was observed for numbers in ranges of 100, 200, 500, or 1000. Repeat testing also showed no efficacy for ranges of 10, 20, or 50.
The body of the ravens which had been drained of blood, were used in the same ritual. This was sufficient to predict a number in a range of 100 half of the time. No efficacy was observed for larger ranges.
From these experiments, I conclude that the source of soul is in the life of the raven, rather than the blood. This is proven by a lack of efficacy when the raven is left alive. However, once the life is sacrificed, the soul is most concentrated in the blood rather than the body. This is proven through a direct relationship with the amount of blood used and the efficacy of the ritual and the greater efficacy of blood relative to the bloodless body. Therefore, blood might prove an efficient vessel for the storage of soul. Furthermore, blood magic is best classified as a type of necromancy.
Although my initial experiments with ravens met with success, experiments with humans proved more difficult. Human sacrifices were sourced from local executions per Institute protocol. Rituals using the bodies or blood volumes of the convicts performed similarly to those of the ravens.
Due to limitations of expense, I initially obtained partial blood volumes from volunteers at the institute rather than convicts. If the raven experiments were to be believed, these partial volumes would have no efficacy. I repeated the simple clairvoyance ritual, believing it to be the most sensitive for any type of efficacy. These partial volumes, up to a pint per volunteer, were sufficient to predict a number from a range of 10,000 with total accuracy in all but one instance. In that case the volunteer was one of the group on vacance for soul deficiency, whereas the other volunteers were, from a soul-deficiency standpoint, healthy.
Confounded by the student results, I arranged that, over the course of weeks, several pints of blood would be taken from convicts prior to execution. I then collected the remaining blood at execution. Vials of this blood were sent to Almawar Hospital for testing. The blood collected before execution showed no efficacy at ranges of 10, 20, and 50. Higher rangers were not tested. The blood collected at execution was as efficacious as the blood of convicts who had not been bled prior to execution. The vials showed the expected decrease in hematocrit over the course of the successive blood-lettings with significant anemia at the time of execution.
During the course of my experiments a mage from the Institute was put to death. This blood performed identically to that of common criminals.
The results from testing the convicts confirms the results seen in the raven experiments. Furthermore, deficiency of blood, that is anemia, can occur independently of soul deficiency. The blood of an anemic is equally as efficacious for ritual use as that of a healthy person. It remains unclear why the blood from students at the institute is effective when collected in partial volumes while that of both convicts and ravens must be collected at death. Perhaps there is a quality unique to mages that makes their blood attuned to soul. However, the mage convict would seem to refute this theory as he was not visibly soul deficient when executed. Perhaps there was an underlying soul deficiency in him that was not noted at the time. Further experimentation is necessary.
It is my position that although these results speak to a resource of soul within our student population, their blood should not be routinely taken for use in rituals by the faculty.