Sorcerer Blood Rituals (WIP)

Through rigorous study of arcane rituals and magical creatures, you've gained the ability to absorb some of a slain creature's magical power to amplify your own magical abilities. 

After slaying a creature, you can harvest a part of its body with a Medicine Check (DC10) to use for your ritual [You have advantage on this check if you are proficient in Medicine]. You can only harvest one part of a creature for the ritual, but you can harvest from multiple of the same creature. The ritual with the harvested component must be done within 24 hours of harvesting it (preserving or embalming the harvested part does not grant more time), and multiple pieces of creatures cannot be ritualized at once. The ritual takes no components other than a bloodletting knife, takes one hour of uninterrupted work to complete per harvest and cannot be done as part of a short rest. 

Once the ritual is completed, you gain X number of "Blood Ritual" piety - where X is equal to the CR of the creature minus the character's level (at time of harvest), divided by 2: [EX: (Cr17 creature) - (PC level 10) / 2 = +3 piety] 

The absorbed power starts to wane if the sorcerer does not maintain rituals, after one week (or tenday) of no ritual, lose one piety (increase this number for each additional week spent without performing a ritual successfully). The max piety that can be obtained is 50, additional rituals after this do not increase the number, just delay the waning of magical power. If your piety dips below a certain number, you lose any associated trait that required that number.

The Blood Ritual Piety Traits:

• Hemalurgic disciple 
  + 1 Blood Ritual Trait
  As part of your first successful ritual, you gain the ability to cast Analyze Blood at 1st Level
  
  
• Hemalurgic Healing
  +3 Blood Ritual Trait
  Your experience with the rituals now lets you cast Blood Transfusion as an action 
  
  
• Hemalurgic Offense
  +6 Blood Ritual Trait
  Your mastery now extends in using blood as a weapon against your opponents. You now can cast the spells Blood Boil and Blood Bolt
  
  
• Ritualistic Meditation
  +12 Blood Ritual Trait
  While conducting the ritual, you gain sorcery points equal to the number of piety gained via the ritual.
  
  
• Arcane Experience
  +15 Blood Ritual Trait
  Gain proficiency in one of the following: Medicine or Arcana
  
  
• Fount of Power
  +20 Blood Ritual Trait
  Your accumulation of power now lets you expend piety to heal yourself as an Action - you can exchange 1 piety for healing equal to half of your hit die (you do not consume the hit die).
  
  
• Iron Will 
  +25 Blood Ritual Trait
  Once per long or short rest, you can add your charisma modifier to a saving throw. 
  
  
• Origin Trait
  +30 Blood Ritual Trait
  Your continued experience with arcane energies of various beings has allowed you to tap into more of the source of your powers. Gain the following trait depending on your  Sorcerous Origin
  
  - Draconic Bloodline: Gain a Draconic breath weapon according to the color dragon your bloodline comes from (found in the PHB Dragonborn Breath Weapon) you can use this breath attack as an action.
  
  - Clockwork Soul: Gain the Constructed Resilience trait.
         You were created to have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:
  • You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
  • You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
  • You are immune to disease.
  • You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
  - Divine Soul: Gain resistance to radiant and necrotic damage
  
  - Wild Magic: You can reroll the result of your Wild Magic Surge roll, once per short or long rest
  
  - Storm Sorcery: As a bonus action you can enable the storm to carry you. The air carries your footsteps and you hover a few inches above the ground. You can walk over water, gaps up to 5 feet wide, you are immune to traps built into the floor (arcane traps still detect you) and are unimpeded by difficult terrain. This can be dismissed as a free action.
  
  - Shadow: You get advantage to stealth checks, and as a bonus action can surround yourself in a black mist that obscures your form. At night, enemies have disadvantage in perceiving you. 
   
• Arcane efficiency 
  +35 Blood Ritual Trait
  You now gain piety from weaker creatures. You can now gain 1 piety from harvested creatures above CR10. 

• Arcane Stitching
  +40 Blood Ritual Trait
  A loss of a limb can be replaced by conducting the ritual with a valid harvested component. You can regrow lost limbs in exchange for gaining piety. 
  
  
• Bloody Tongue
  +45 Blood Ritual Trait
  Your exercise in the arcane arts has left you even better at speaking, knowing how all creatures work. You gain +2 charisma and increase your max by the same amount.
  
  
• Hemalurgic Soul
  +50 Blood Ritual Trait
  If you are slain (either outright by Massive Damage or via failed death saves) you can expunge half of your piety to come back to consciousness with one hit point. After using this trait, any wound inflicted on you which draws blood will cause you to take an additional 1d6 additional damage for 24 hours or until another ritual has been completed. 

Consequences of Blood Rituals

Blood rituals dip into taboo and unnatural arcane abilities. Depending on the Sorcerous Origins of your character, you'll begin to see and experience certain side effects. All characters begin to physically change form as they gain more piety. The rate and progression of the transformation is up to the discretion of the DM. Below are examples of how a character might change as they gain more piety. NPCs and other PCs might behave differently based on the effects described below.

Draconic Bloodline

A sorcerer with a draconic bloodline will start to resemble a dragonborn over the course of their rituals. at 50 piety, lose your current race to become a Dragonborn. 

Clockwork Soul:

Your skin develops a metallic sheen, at 50 piety lose your current race and become a Warforged. 

Divine Soul:

Your personality is altered, you slowly become more agitated at good deeds and start to seek to cause harm. at 50 piety lose your current race and become a Scourge Aasimar. Your affinity changes to Evil.

Wild Magic:

You slowly lose your ability to concentrate on things, getting caught up in the chaos of your mind. Gain disadvantage on history / arcana / investigation / performance checks. At 50 piety, you lose your ability to communicate effectively with others, speaking in ramblings. 

Storm Sorcery:

Your vestigial appendages slowly fade in place of air (like that of an air elemental). At 50 piety, you maintain your race but you are now invisible and are unable to wear armor, clothes or trinkets, you cannot wield weapons.

Shadow: 

Your skin takes on a black sickly tone. At 50 piety, you maintain your race but are considered 'undead'. Healing magic has no effect on you (outside of your own abilities) and you are effected by destroy undead and turn undead

Ending the Rituals

Any character that has achieved +50 piety is forever transformed into the above creature, even if they no longer maintain the rituals or have any piety. In order to transform back into their former selves, the Remove Curse spell must be cast upon them and they must have no piety

Creator Notes:
This is a feat that is not meant to be gained at a level, it is meant to be rewarded after deliberate player action to study in hopes of learning how to do this. The progression system is a modified version of the piety system from Theros, which DnDBeyond does not handle well in the UI. This is not a piety system, as no god is involved - just using the existing piety mechanics to convey the progression.  

The idea here is to have the sorcerer lose short rests as a resource (but have pseudo short rest mechanics), in exchange for power. This is meant to be a fun way for the sorcerer to gain power outside of magic items and leveling. The 'consequences' (especially at high-end) are meant to cause pause in the player if they truly want to continue with this form of magic, the fantasy is that the character *should not* be the same person they were when they started. Obviously nearly none of this has been play-tested effectively so YMMV. Adjust the scale in which you grant piety as needed.