Stardew Valley has a blood magic mod now, and your health is the price
Image credit: CozyPsychologist via Nexus Mods.
Stardew Valley is supposed to be that one game that's just... cozy. The game that you can come back to in the middle of any random stressful work week and just unwind with. You know the drill. You farm a little bit, get in a little fishing, you hand somebody a melon or two, and the next thing you know, you're getting married.
I don't care who you are - nobody, and we mean NOBODY, ever had "sacrificial altars" on their bingo card of "Things I'd Love to do in Pelican Town."
And yet, that's exactly where CozyPsychologist went with Blood Magic: NPC Expansion. It starts the same way half of the strange things in this game typically start, with something very weird arriving in the mail. Once you hit Combat Level 4, the Dark Tome shows up, and from there the mod runs on a trade: a Sacrificial Altar and a Blood Essence Harvester turn your own health into ritual buffs.
Every ritual performed builds Blood Debt, and Blood Debt collects. We're talkin' disturbing dreams, cultist visions, miscasts, curses, the whole haunted house. And if things get a little bit much, you can always go and soften the consequences in the settings. Yes, including the jump scares. It's out now, it's downloadable, and it's about as far from a new crop as this game gets.
