Weave blood magic to steal and restore vitality with the crimson sorcery sorcerer.
Crimson sorcery refers to the innate, magical ability to manipulate vitality through blood magic. These sorcerers may be born with such powers, but others can gain it through dark rituals and lost secrets. However it’s obtained, this sorcery allows it’s wielder to infuse and steal vitality.
Crimson sorcerers can act as partial healers, gaining the ability to heal within their magical repertoire. But their blood magic is also adept at stealing vitality too. They can also transform into a sneaky puddle of blood!
I picked up the 2024 version of Legends of Avantris’ Crooked Moon supplement for D&D 5e. In this article, I’m taking a deep dive into how good this 3rd party subclass is, and how you can optimise for it.
At a glance
- High damage spellcaster with enhanced spells
- Crimson sorcery means that these sorcerers can enhance their spells more than other subclasses
- Blood magic allows them to dabble in healing
3/5 – The features are alright, but the problem is they push you towards casting spells that often aren’t your best options, which can feel frustrating. The propensity for healing does at least fill a sorcerer gap, but your main features still end up limiting you too much. It’s not a bad subclass, I just don’t like how limiting it can feel.
Crimson sorcery features
Blood well (Lv 3) – 3/5
This is an extra 1d8 of healing or damage once per long rest which is pretty minor. However, this gets refueled when you deal 10 or more necrotic damage at one time. That’s not loads of damage and I could easily see this being replenished often if you can get the right necrotic spells. Something like inflict wounds on your spell list will average more than 10 damage each use, but chill touch won’t until level 11 (which is your only necrotic cantrip and even then, this is barely) and it requires touch which is a bad place for a sorcerer to be. Blood bolt is ranged, but is in a similar boat on the damage front.
There is blood sacrifice which will enhance the damage of these spells attacks and could push your necrotic damage over the threshold here. You also have the extra damage from your blood well which could make all this work.
This is technically alright if you build for it, but it does really limit what spells you’re casting and you have to be conscious of giving yourself damage boosts a lot. Personally, I think it needs more reward or more flexibility for something that is your core subclass mechanic.
Crimson spells (Lv3) – 3/5
Grabbing some healing spells in the mix here is nice and addresses a big gap for most sorcerers. Just be aware that aid doesn’t restore hit points so doesn’t mix with blood well.
You do get some necrotic spells to combine with your blood well too which is important. But there’s not necessarily anything here that makes me feel like I’d definitely want to focus in on necrotic damage over other better spells.
For example, crimson harvest is decent and similar to fireball in power levels, but requires being in the middle of allies and enemies which is much worse than fireball, especially for a vulnerable sorcerer. Field of reaping is decent against hordes, but less so against smaller groups and sacrificial siphon feels a bit weak unfortunately.
Pool of blood (Lv6) – 3/5
A very slow utility feature that allows you to sneak around. It’s wonderfully unsettling, but less good than some other similar features like the way a plasmoid can move through gaps or even a druid’s wild shape. You certainly become quite vulnerable if found out. It’s decent still, but maybe a tad slow.
Scarlet vigor (Lv6) – 3/5
Resistance to necrotic damage is decent and removing exhaustion levels easily is quite situational, but very useful when the need arises.
Vital siphoning (Lv14) – 4/5
Free uses of metamagic is quite nice and the cost equivalent of one hit die or dealing 10+ damage/healing is pretty low I think. Some metamagic options require more sorcery points than others, like quickened or heightened spell. These make the most sense as options to expend your blood well on as it’s one use of your blood well, no matter the number of sorcery points needed.
Sanguine feast (Lv18) – 4/5
The range on this is solid, as is the damage and the fact that it heals too and can easily be taken with disadvantage on saving throws means you’re more likely to deal full damage. You should be able to restore your blood well through this feature too so it’s best used when that’s been expended.
How good is the crimson sorcery subclass?
I quite like the sinister nature of blood magic subclasses, but don’t love how this is implemented with crimson sorcery if I’m honest. I think the almost forced nature of necrotic damage or healing kind of limits your spellcasting, but in a way that ultimately makes you less potent. Sorcerers aren’t natural necrotic casters and sadly, the spells you get that deal it, tend to be only OK.
Thing is, the features are alright outside of this criticism, and they get better at higher levels. I just wish there was better synergy with their blood well which feels too unimpactful to build around.
3/5
Building a crimson sorcery sorcerer
Largely, a crimson sorcerer can be optimised in the same ways as other sorcerers. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my sorcerer optimisation guide.
As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for this sorcerer subclass.
Species/race
Below are some of The Crooked Moon species that I think have the best synergy with the crimson sorcery subclass:
- Azureborn: Flight is really handy for staying safe from melee specialists. Guidance and augury are both good spells and augury can be cast again by a sorcerer. Enhanced initiative for the party is good on any class.
- Graveborn: The extra healing from feeding on corpses is useful for anyone, though maybe slightly less on the lower hit dice of a sorcerer. Cold resistance and darkvision is also handy. However, a crimson sorcerer is really interested in infused drakkonite. This lets you ignore resistances, which is really useful for a subclass pushed down the route of one damage type (necrotic) and you can add necrotic damage to a damage roll, potentially pushing your damage over the threshold for restoring your blood well.
- Harvestborn: The big things for a crimson sorcerer is culling which lets you add 1d12 necrotic damage when you damage a bloodied creature, potentially letting you restore your blood well too. Then there’s gift of the green which can be enhanced by your blood well for improved bonus action healing making some great synergy between features.
Backgrounds
Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for a crimson sorcerer:
| Name | Ability scores | Origin feat | Skill proficiencies | Tool proficiency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crossroads gambler | Any | Fate gambler | Deception, insight | One kind of gaming set |
| Cultist | Any | Cult initiate | Arcana and one other | Calligrapher’s supplies |
| Druskenvald dweller | Any | Any | Survival and one other | Choose one |
| Experiment | Any | Altered | Intimidation, medicine | Alchemist’s supplies |
| Reveler | Any | Revelling fool | Performance, stealth | One kind of musical instrument |
| Scholar of the forbidden | Any | Dread speech | Arcana, intimidation | Calligraoher’s supplies |
| Wicker weaver | Any | Charm twister | Insight, nature | Weaver’s tools |
Feats
I’d consider the following feats for a crimson sorcerer:
- Altered: Natural armor will always be good as it accomplishes what mage armor does without using a spell slot or needing to be prepared. Night vision might be a good choice if you don’t already have darkvision.
- Charm twister: Bless is a good buff and you can repeat cast it. Twisted hex can be situational to engineer, but if you can plant it in the right place, then that disadvantage can be a real pain.
- Cult initiate: A couple of warlock cantrips and a 1st level spell can be really handy, especially as sorcerers don’t have the most diverse repertoire of spell options.
- Dread speech: Bane is a pretty good debuff and frightened with a bonus action is a decent option too.
- Fate gambler: It’s probably saving throws you’ll be forcing most out of this list. The heroic inspiration will be handy, as will the temporary hit points.
- Reveling fool: As a charisma class, getting away with infractions against authority figures could be handy depending on the temperament of your character, but is definitely a situational option. Hideous laughter is a decent level 1 spell though and a good option to have.
More from The Crooked Moon
Interested in what else is available from The Crooked Moon? Why not check out some of our other guides?
