Human sacrifice in D&D

[petermcleod117]

Hello! I'm doing so worldbuilding for fun, and I just got to building the mesoamerican part of the world. any suggestions on what I should do regarding human sacrifice? I know there are rules for it in the Book of Vile Darkness, but I was wondering if there are other sources as well, official or not.

[mehs]

first thing is that human sacrifice isn't a specifically mesoamerican thing. Romans would sacrifice the vestal virgins if a battle wasn't going their way, egyptians did it somewhat through proxy with shabti, the chinese I think did something similar with recently deceased emperor's personal attendants, etc. The Aztec culture specifically did it a lot, but the Aztecs lasted two hundred or so years.

Spell wise, consumptive field and death knell. Consumptive field specifically to supercharge giant spells is ridiculous.

[Silent Alarm]

Spell wise, consumptive field and death knell. Consumptive field specifically to supercharge giant spells is ridiculous.

Essentially this. A wide magic society that has specially trained priest to make use of Consumptive Field powered spells that change the tide of battles with War Magic sounds like a rather powerful culture in a setting and a reasonable justification for mass sacrifices during and outside of war.

[mehs]

Consumptive field does have a max of + one-half caster level, but the strength bonus doesn't stop. It keeps increasing. So a cleric casting consumptive field on 40 or so sacrifices and then abusing the hell out of a strength score of 90+ is fun. Throwing gargantuan size boulders and such is the easiest possibility. Using giant swords to improvise cleave feats and such is another. A sword so massive that instead of hitting ac, it is a reflex save and such.