Balancing Bloodstones

Question

Okay, so here's the deal; every time dragon blood is shed, it hardens on contact with the air, forming crystals of 'bloodstone.' Bloodstones are infused with the magical essence of the dragon it originates from, and due to humanity's connection to the Earth element, they can absorb bloodstone and by extension, it's magical properties.

However, there is a caveat; only two kinds of people can absorb bloodstone. Those who have slain a dragon, and those who have been eaten by a dragon. When someone slays (or grievously injures) a dragon, magical energy is released, "marking" them and forming a (rather dark) connection. Similarly, since digestion forms a link (you are what you eat has some basis in fact in this world, for reasons I will not disclose unless necessary to avoid erecting a wall of text), those who have been inside a dragon and subjected to its "juices" have a connection to that dragon.

Only people who have slain (or grievously injured) a dragon, or been eaten by him or her, can absorb his/her bloodstone. After one ingests bloodstone, they are enchanted, gaining special abilities; bloodstone from a Sky Dragon allows one to fly and manipulate the wind, bloodstone from a Fire Dragon makes one fireproof and allows them to manipulate fire, and so on.

Bloodstone consumers are also enhanced; not only do they gain greater energy and stamina, but their senses, strength, speed, (as well as their survival and combat skills) are all enhanced. The level of these enhancements depends on the dragon's power, as well as its type; Fire Dragon Bloodstone grants greater strength than anything else, while Sky Dragon Bloodstone grants greater speed than anything else.

However, two problems have convinced me that I need to put checks on this. Number one, there's nothing stopping a Dragonslayer from slaying dragon after dragon, gaining more and more power each time, or a reckless (or rather smart but unconventional) princess from going out and getting eaten by dragons and eating their bloodstone after they've been slain.

Number two, bloodstone can only be absorbed by those connected to a dragon because of the species gap. However, after being infused with draconic energy through bloodstone ingestion, humans generate bloodstone naturally (AKA just like dragons do). This bloodstone can be absorbed by blood relatives (siblings, parents, children) or anyone who manages to grievously injure or kill that individual.

Considering the two above factors, my question is: How Can Bloodstones Be Better Balanced To Avoid Creating Overpowered Individuals Or Increased Murderousness In Society?

**Please Note:**If at possible, I would like a balance method that allows someone to absorb more than one bloodstone while preventing them from becoming godlike through sheer number of absorbed bloodstones. This is because some ancient dragons, lying dormant far away from civilization, are so powerful that if they awakened there needs to be dragonslayers capable of handling them. However, no one dragon in the current age holds enough power to create such a dragonslayer.

Thank you for your input and feedback, I truly do appreciate it. If you choose to VTC or downvote, please give me an explanation so I can improve this question and post better ones in the future.

Answer 1

Diminishing returns for balance.

I suggest diminishing returns across the board. The more dragon stones one consumes the less benefit they gain from each, or perhaps the diminishing returns only applies to a type of dragon stone, so after consuming a fire stone you get full benefit from consuming an earth stone, but consuming a second fire stone will give far less benefit, and consuming more then 2 gives negligible benefits.

In addition the power of a stone is based off of the power of the person who produces it. A Dragon is very powerful, the stone they produce is thus equally strong.

By comparison the power one gains from a first generation dragon-slayer is lower, but still useful. a second generation dragon slayer (say the son of a first gen who consumed their father's stone) creates a comparatively weak stone etc. Thus diminishing returns limits the upper bounds of power. This would also imply a dragon stone from one of your ancient dragons could make an uber dragon slayer.

If you go this route you would have to decide what happens if someone consumes a 'weak' stone only to later consume a 'strong' stone. You could either have the order of the stone taken mater, once someone consumes a weak stone they will gain less from a any subsequent stone, meaning a strong stone may still give minimal benefits due to diminishing returns, and thus meaning becoming a dragon slayer by taking a 2 gen stone means your have put an upper bound on your potential power you will ever achieve (which could be useful, if you want a group of elite-mook types, strong enough to be some degree of a threat to a 'real' dragon slayer, but weak enough that your hero can take on multiple at once.

Alternatively the amount of resistance gained is based off of the strength of a dragon stone consumed. Thus a user gains just about the same amount of power by consuming a weak stone followed by a strong one as they would by using a strong stone followed by a weak stone, since the weak resistance gained from the weak stone doesn't interfere too much with gaining of power from the strong stone.

If you do the later though that begs the question why 2 gen dragon slayers don't go around consuming lots of stones from other second gen dragon slayers, until they built up enough power to rival 2 gen slayers since their upper limits are roughly the same. You could say that once you eat a weak stone other weak stones don't gain much but weak stones aren't as good at interfering with strong stones potentially if you want to prevent that.

Hello, my name is Smaug, you killed my father, prepare to die!

I imagine dragons don't appreciate people torturing, or killing, their kin, and aren't too happy about humans gaining dragon slayer powers if humans are likely to use it to kill more dragons for more power. Thus dragons, if they are sapient, have a pretty strong incentive to preventing dragon slayers from existing.

This may mean that dragons go out of their way to kill dragon slayers, and act as a strong incentive to not become a slayer lightly. Maybe dragons can sense the magic of a dragon slayer, making it easy for them to sense when one is near and causing them to go out of their way to find and kill the slayer.

This idea particularly works well if you use diminishing returns, with 2 gen slayers being weaker then 1 gen. That way dragons likely will feel safe to kill 2 gen slayers, as their too weak to defend themselves from a dragon usually, but they may think twice about attacking a 1 gen slayer, as their already proven to be a threat to the dragon.

Similarly dragons may go out of their way to kill anyone they have 'eaten' (since apparently eating them doesn't kill them?) just to make sure that person will never become a dragon slayer and threaten to kill their kin for more power in the future.

Dragon based threats work as a good counter to individuals wanting to become dragon slayers in secret out of pure desire for power, though it would likely want to be combined with a more political reason that large governments don't train up entire militaries of dragon slayers. So basically the threat of dragons hunting you should be a partial answer for why there aren't more slayers, with some of the more political options suggested by other users also being part of the reason.

Answer 2

Pyrotechnics accidents. These bloodstones you describe offer vast magical power, associated with dragons, such as fire. The more of this power a person has, the easier it is for them to inadvertently release a bit too much and combust, explode, tear themselves apart flying in multiple directions, teleport into a wall or nearby person, etc.

Answer 3

The first problem is subject to an easier solution than the second.

Dragons Are Immune

A dragon who kills another dragon and eats its bloodstone doesn't gain its powers. Similarly, when someone slays a dragon and eats its bloodstone to gain its powers, they also gain its inability to gain other dragons' powers. A bloodstone recipient gets the first set of powers and no others.

As for the second problem:

The Law of the Land

Local royalty and most of their nobles are bloodstone-infused, from generations past, their power the reason they were able to achieve domination over the realm. As a result, any new bloodstone-infused individual who cannot present proof of the dragon they have slain are themselves put painfully to death, a law of self-interest preventing would be regicidal individuals.

Answer 4

How about a social solution?

Nuclear weapons grant the state that wield them immense power geopolitically, so it makes sense you’d want to have more of them, right? There’s nothing stopping nuclear superpowers from making an ever growing arsenal of nukes and so gaining more power. It’s just that these superpowered states would, in exercising that power, destroy the world as they know it and also be subject to immediate counterattacks from other nuclear superpowers.

So in reality the nuclear arsenals of the world have, by mutual agreement, been reduced from their peak. Nobody wants to be the one to start a war, and if they did they know that the best case scenario is pretty much the end of the world.

So too with Bloodstone users. They know that a war between two or more überpowered bloodstone individuals is just going to lead to vast swathes of land ruined and not actually achieve anything, so they have written up some accords limiting the amount of power any one individual can be allowed to acquire, along with some extra rules on how powers can be transferred legally. In the accords there is a line about all signatories immediately coming together and turning against any bloodstone user who breaks the accords or refuses to sign. This keeps all the bloodstone users balanced in power by common agreement, because the alternative is Uncivilised.

Of course, this is a fragile state of affairs, but that’s where you get juicy plot points from. You might have an emerging superpowered extremist threat that refuses to sign and must be stopped before they gain too much power, or an order of superpowered knights dedicated to upholding the accords, or a handful of pre-accord individuals who are in a constant Cold War style power struggle.

Final thought: You might say this will never last because one party will eventually break the rules, but the world hasn’t ended in nuclear fire yet!

Answer 5

The human body naturally places limitations on itself. Breaking those limitations causes things like Hysterical Strength.

After a Bloodstone is absorbed, the Slayer's body is not accustomed to the increased speed, strength, etc. This can easily lead to soreness as a lower bound and the muscles ripping themselves apart as an upper bound to the awfulness.

How do the Slayers overcome this? Simple. Living a normal life for a while. Reacquainting the brain with the power of the muscles will take quite a while but eventually they will be able to exercise without risking harming themselves. Additionally, this has to sink in far enough to affect the reflexes otherwise the first punch thrown at them will cause them to dodge subconsciously and rip some muscles.

So there is a natural limit to how many Bloodstones you can consume based on several factors. The strength of a Bloodstone determining how many you can consume before ripping yourself apart. The recovery time of consuming a Bloodstone determining how long until you can effectively fight again without self-injury (this is increased by the strength of the bloodstone as well).

Why don't they murder for Bloodstones? The Slayers can easily kill a normal person on accident until the power is under control. A Slayer who hunts another person's bloodstone is in the recovery time for a good while after making them vulnerable to a manhunt or retribution. Bloodstones are a valuable but risky business.

Answer 6

Pain and sadness aplenty. 7, when you die all your body fluids turn into bloodstone. 8, it starts to destroy your DNA on massive scale(think your entire hand having all it's cells DNA fragmented). 9, you get massive cell wall collapse and turn into a puddle of goo instantly.