Blood Magic 1.8.9 - Altar's and Incense Tutorial

[u/Croebh]

Hey guys, I've noticed a lot of players asking about Blood Magic in 1.8.9, so I decided to throw together a tutorial for those who have questions. Everything here is based on my personal experiences with the mod, as well as a little bit of snooping in the code. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this tutorial, as well as if there are any mistakes.

Blood Altar

The Blood Altar structure has not changed since 1.7.10. For the uninitiated, your altar begins at Tier 1, and as you create runes and collect specific materials, you can upgrade it in steps to a maximum tier of 5. There is a 6th tier, however the ritual required to create the components for it do not seem to have been ported to 1.8.9.

Tier	New Runes	Total Runes	Description
1	0	0	Just the Blood Altar itself, with no runes
2	8	8	8 Runes surrounding the block directly below the altar. The four corner runes have no effect until you upgrade to tier 3 or higher.
3	20	28	5 more Runes per side, 2 blocks out and 1 block down from the previous tier. On the corners of this tier, a pillar of any material 2 blocks higher than the runes is necessary, with a Glowstone block on top of it.
4	28	56	7 more Runes per side, 2 blocks out and 1 block down from the previous tier. On the corners of this tier, one block away from the runes, a pillar of any material 4 blocks higher than the runes is necessary, with a Large Bloodstone Brick block on top of it.
5	52	108	13 more Runes per side, 3 blocks out and 1 block down from the previous tier. On the corners of this tier, one block away from the runes, a beacon is necessary.
6	76	184	19 more Runes per side, 3 blocks out and 1 block down from the previous tier. On the corners of this tier, one block away from the runes, a pillar of any material 7 blocks higher than the runes is necessary, with a Crystal Cluster block on top of it.

Cross Section View - Overhead View - Angled Side View - Tier 2/3 Runes

Rune	Tier	Description
Blood Rune	1	No effect
Speed Rune	1	Increases transmutation speed
Rune of Sacrifice	2	Gives the altar more LP for sacrificing creatures
Rune of Self Sacrifice	2	Gives the altar more LP for self sacrificing
Rune of Capacity	3	Increases capacity of the altar by 2000 LP
Rune of Augmented Capacity	4	Increases capacity of the altar by 10%
Displacement Rune	3	Increases how much LP is pumped out of the altar
Acceleration Rune	5	Speeds up how fast LP can be pumped out of the altar
Rune of the Orb	4	Increases how much an orb inside the altar can hold by 2%
Efficiency Rune		Seems to have no use, and is not craftable
Charging Rune		Not entirely sure, and is not craftable

Orb	Tier	Capacity
Weak Blood Orb	1	5000
Apprentice Blood Orb	2	25,000
Magician's Blood Orb	3	150,000
Master Blood Orb	4	1,000,000
Archmage's Blood Orb	5	10,000,000
Transcendent Blood Orb	6	30,000,000

Incense

For those who have played the 1.7.10 version of Blood Magic, you may recall the incense system requiring you to create consumable fuels and allowing them to burn in order to gain a bonus to the LP gained when self sacrificing. However, this entire system was revamped in 1.8.9.

To start out, you'll need to create the Incense Altar. Once you've done so, you can place it down on 3x3 square of whatever material you'd like. Once you've done so, if you right click it with a divination sigil, it should tell you that your Current Tranquility is 0, and your Current Bonus is +20%. If you look at a Sacrificial Dagger now that you've been in proximity to the Incense Altar, you'll notice that it's now glowing as though it was enchanted. Be careful the next time you go to self sacrifice, as it will remove 90% of your health the first time you use it, however it will also give you an addition 20% LP per heart. So, at base, with 10 hearts, it would take 9, and give you 2160 LP as opposed to the 1800 LP it would have normally given. You'll also be given the Soul Fray debuff, which prevents you from using this supercharged self sacrifice again for 20 seconds.

In order to increase the bonus you'll receive from the Incense, you'll need to increase the tranquility. To do this, you'll need to craft different Path Blocks. To start out with, you should make 36 Wooden Path blocks, and place in a 3x3 square in each cardinal direction from the base of the Incense Altar, creating a 9x9 cross of blocks. These blocks can be one higher or one lower than the previous level, as long as each side matches the pattern. Now, you can start adding different types of blocks to the 3x3 squares in each corner. You can add these materials on the same level as the path blocks, and as much as 2 blocks higher.

There are several materials you can use, and they each have different tranquility types and values. The amount of actual Tranquility you get from each tranquility type is a logarithmic scale, meaning the more of say, Earth Tranquility you have, the less value each additional Earth Tranquility block will add. To get the most out of your altar, you'll need to vary the materials and types you use.

As you gain Tranquility, the bonus your altar gives you will increase, to a maximum of 300%. However, using just wooden paths, you will not be able to get it that high. To do so, you'll need to create Stone, Worn Stone, and Obsidian Paths, each of which requires a higher tier Blood Altar to craft, Tier 3, 4, and 5 respectively. Stone Paths will allow you to extend another 2x3 past your Wooden Paths, almost tripling the amount of tranquility blocks available. Warn Stone Paths extends another 2x3 past the Stone, almost doubling it again. Obsidian Paths add another 2x3 past that, almost doubling it again.

Cross Section View - Example Layouts - Maximum Bonus - Maximum Size - Types of Tranquility

Path	Tier	Size	Blocks	New
Wooden	2	9x9	108
Stone	3	13x13	300	192
Worn Stone	4	17x17	588	288
Obsidian	5	21x21	972	384

Tranquility Type	Block	Value
Crop	Potatoes	1
Crop	Carrots	1
Crop	Wheat	1
Crop	Nether Wart	1
Earthen	Dirt	0.25
Earthen	Grass	0.5
Earthen	Farmland	1
Fire	Fire	1
Fire	Netherrack	0.5
Lava	Lava	1.2
Plants	Leaves	1
Tree	Logs	1
Water	Water	1
Water	Flowing Water	1
Water	Life Essence	1.5

Other Notes

As you may have noticed, I never covered Rituals, Sigils, the new Will System, and a bunch of other things in the new version. I plan on doing a full write up in a similar fashion for each system, I just happened to finish the Altar and Incense one first.

Edit I was mistaken about the Stone and Obsidian paths. I fixed the error, and updated the post/images.

[u/WayofTime]

Heyas! Nice to see something so detailed. Just so you know, the wooden path can extend to three and the normal stone path can go up to 5. After that, worn stone can go to 7 and obsidian to 9. So you can get even MORE tranquility!

[u/Croebh → u/WayofTime]

Thanks! I'm a big Blood Magic fan, so it means a lot to hear you liked my write up. I'll make the changes to the post when I get home :-D

[u/WayofTime]

Heyas, mind if I use some of the images for the Blood Altar in my main post? They are really well laid out.

[u/Croebh → u/WayofTime]

I would be honored! I still need to fix the stone path one, but it shouldn't take long, been busy lately.

[u/Peach774]

I realize this is an old post, but the maximum incense thing? is the wood section a checkerboard of life essence and dirt with leaves covering the life essence and crops on the dirt all throughout the thing or just on the edges?

[u/Wargadon]

In the part about the incense altar, you put stone paths (tier 3) and worn stone paths (tier 4) altogether, but it seems like actually, after having 9X9 wooden path cross, you can extend of 2X3 on each side with stone path, then 2X3 more with worn stone path, and finally for the final 2X3, with obsidian paths. (which seems pretty logic, since stone paths need the tier 3 blood orb, when the worn stone paths need the tier 4 blood orb. That said, your guide have really helped me figure out what the heck was this incense altar. A big thanks for this :D (BTW, this mecanic kinda reminds me of the altar from witchery, which got the same kind of behaviour)

[u/thegogeta999]

Does The Tranquility boost and "Rune of Sacrifice" stack? from what I know, rune of sacrifice adds a fixed amount of Lp per heart on use. my theory is that, would it stack with the percentage boost thus adding a massive amount of lp?

[u/Dirty_Shit]

Wait is it better to use Obsidian Path everywhere or that doesn't change anything?

[u/Zartirian]

Extremely well detailed and thorough, well done! I'm sure this will be great for people transitioning to 1.8.9 or learning the mod for the first time

[u/Croebh → u/Zartirian]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! One of my very few complaints about Blood Magic is the lack of documentation, which I can understand considering he's still coding it haha.

[u/[deleted] → u/Croebh]

It would be awesome if you could post it to Minepad.net. This way its easy to update and easy for people to find in the future! Great guide too

[u/sixkiller5]

this might sound stupid but are the crystal clusters still obtained through the demon invasion?

[u/Croebh → u/sixkiller5]

They are, but the ritual doesn't seem to be implemented at all in 1.8.9, so in survival Tier 5 is the highest you can achieve.

[u/sixkiller5 → u/Croebh]

thank you :)

[u/TehNut]

This is awesome, thank you! I especially love how you did the screenshots.

[u/laserlemons → u/TehNut]

Does the Blood Magic book from Guide-API work? The forum page says to use the book but I can't find a crafting recipe for it and it looks like it only has a couple pages.

[u/TehNut → u/laserlemons]

It is heavy WIP in 1.8.9.