Warforged Blood?

[Beelzebub1111]

Okay, warforged are not immunte to ability damage or drain. which means attacks such as blood drain from a vampire or weasle would work on them.

Do warforged have blood? if so, what does it look like?

[Prime32]

Well, they do have some kind of fluid running through all those fibrous bundles, which fulfills a similar function to blood.

I would probably describe it as oily.

[Innis Cabal]

Oil? Hydrolic fluid?

[Moriato]

As I understand it, they have a "bloodlike fluid". I imagine it looking something like transmission fluid.

[Zaq]

I always imagined it as sort of a condensed magical syrup, like liquified arcana, if you can imagine such a thing. (Psiforged have ectoplasm instead.) In my mind, it evaporates almost immediately upon contact with air unless precautions are taken.

That's purely fluff interpretation on my part. I don't think any official sources actually mention anything, though Races of Eberron might (it's been a long time since I've read the fluff sections of that book).

Gamewise, I'd say that effects which affect blood affect Warforged normally, simply for balance reasons. It's part of being a Living Construct. This means that spells like Burning Blood also affect them normally.

[Samb]

Blood's function is to carry oxygen throughout the body. It is doubtful that a warforged would even need a oxygen transport system. This is not to say that they don't need oxygen, a car needs oxygen but it doesn't have a blood equivalent.

Oil and grease in a machine is there as lubricant, which is like synovial fluid found in joints. Although, if there was a ubiquitous fluid found in warforged, it would be something similar to brake fluid, which is needed to transmit power from the engine/heart.

I never understood the thought that blood had some mystical properties. Maybe it's the already broken down proteins and clotting factors? I mean red blood cells doesn't even have and genetic material in them, so the saying "it's in the blood" is morphologically inaccurate on many levels.

[Beelzebub1111]

I never understood the thought that blood had some mystical properties.
It's because it's something that's very important to keep inside of you, and if you loose enough of it, you die.

[Ernir]

I never understood the thought that blood had some mystical properties. Maybe it's the already broken down proteins and clotting factors? I mean red blood cells doesn't even have and genetic material in them, so the saying "it's in the blood" is morphologically inaccurate on many levels.
I'd guess the thought is rather older than modern biology. :smalltongue:

[Haven]

I never understood the thought that blood had some mystical properties. Maybe it's the already broken down proteins and clotting factors? I mean red blood cells doesn't even have and genetic material in them, so the saying "it's in the blood" is morphologically inaccurate on many levels.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume these ideas are a little older than modern understanding of biology. That said, I expect it's because "shedding blood" is representative of serious injury in general. So, for instance, if you want to pay a price, losing some blood is probably the most immediate and meaningful way to represent a cost to yourself (or taken from someone else, of course). Of course, blood comes back eventually, but I'm not sure this was always a known fact--and even if it was, I suspect the toll was felt on a more spiritual level (but cutting out something as abstract as a piece of your soul may have been meaningless, or at least hard to see as sincere; a large part of shamanism is showmanship).

Ancient mysticism is really visceral. One of my favorite books on shamanism has huge passages about how would-be shamans in many different cultures have vision quests that involve their insides getting ripped out.

So Yeah.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Something sap-like, I reckon. Warforged are stone, wood, and metal. I always perceived of the wood being on the inside (since the metal and stone have to be outside), and so a blood analogue would deal with the wooden parts.

[nekomata2]

I believe the REAL question here is not what their blood-like substance is, but rather, does it taste good to a vampire. A little delicacy, or are vampires intentionally going to avoid Warforged because they don't like exotic food?

Edit: Hooray, I'm a halfling now....:smallcool: but that doesn't change the question.

[Zaq]

I never understood the thought that blood had some mystical properties. Maybe it's the already broken down proteins and clotting factors? I mean red blood cells doesn't even have and genetic material in them, so the saying "it's in the blood" is morphologically inaccurate on many levels.

From a fantasy or non-scientific perspective, I think it's pretty easy to see how blood could be considered magical. It's necessary for life (losing too much WILL kill you, after all), but you rarely actually see it unless something's being hurt or killed, thereby giving it a strong connection to both life and death. It's very much an internal thing, making it associated with "innate" qualities. Those three associations alone (life, death, and innateness) are enough to make it easy for superstition or mysticism to cluster around the concept of blood.

Oh, and there's the fact that although you clearly need it, once you've lost it, you can't really put it back. (Remember, fantasy or non-scientific perspective means no blood transfusions). You can't just gather up the blood flowing out of that wound and put it back in. This ties back to the "innate" aspect I mentioned, as well as making its loss a one-way street, which gives it interesting sacrificial properties. Sure, I think that on some level most people have realized that you eventually get more from SOMEWHERE (even if you don't know how bone marrow works, most people can intuitively see that if you've been wounded but you get better, you will eventually have plenty of blood again), but it still makes its loss seem relatively permanent, or at least irreparable. Also, seeing blood tends to be a relatively big deal. If there's blood around, something's HAPPENING. It might be as mundane as an animal being slaughtered, but there's still a real death happening. It might be as minor as a nicked finger, but that still hurts, and you've still undergone some kind of physical trauma. Blood just doesn't appear on its own. (I'm not going to get into the menstrual cycle, but again, it's obvious that something significant is going on there.)

There's also the association with ancestry. I'm genuinely not sure how much of this is an English language metaphor and how much of it is relatively universal, but at least in English, it's relatively common to hear about "my father's blood in my veins" or "blood of my people" or whatever. If you attach any significance to ancestry (be it otherworldly heritage, strong clan or tribal bonds, or simply a symbol of family pride/shame) and talk about heritage in terms of blood, it's easy to see where the association of blood with mystical properties comes from. (See also the "blood as innateness" discussed above.)

So, to sum up, we have associations with both life and death. We have a linguistic connection to heritage. We have a concept of blood as something internal and innate. We have the loss of it being a relatively big deal, with at least mild undertones of permanence. And you can't see, from a fantasy perspective, why it would have superstitious or mystical significance? Sure, from a modern scientific perspective we might just look at it as a system to transfer oxygen and nutrients to all the different parts of your body, but from a fantasy perspective, I can see it as very easy to attach some other kind of significance to blood.

[nekomata2]

Oh, and there's the fact that although you clearly need it, once you've lost it, you can't really put it back. (Remember, fantasy or non-scientific perspective means no blood transfusions). You can't just gather up the blood flowing out of that wound and put it back in. This ties back to the "innate" aspect I mentioned, as well as making its loss a one-way street, which gives it interesting sacrificial properties.

Well, there is like 1 wizard spell and several psionic powers that involve one person taking damage and one target healing damage, so...transfusions...or empathic transfusions, at least, are possible....make a magic item that you hook 2 people up to, one takes damage while the other heals it...could be interesting...