That's an A+ fertilizer right there.
Blood signifies life. Some blood, however, is more than just a symbol. When it is spilled, life springs forth from the ground. This is usually plant life, but sometimes creatures are born from it, too.
Related to Fertile Feet, Mook Maker, and sometimes both. Commonly seen on Eldritch Abominations, demons, or those with a Green Thumb. Subtrope of Blood Magic and The Power of Blood. Fertility Gods (especially darker interpretations) may possess this trait as well.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Invoked, but subverted, in Fullmetal Alchemist. When trying to resurrect their mother, Ed and Al use drops of their blood in addition to the base materials of a human body. It doesn't go as planned.
Comic Books
- In The Books of Magic, the world of the fairies is slowly becoming a desert thanks to the destructive, life-consuming effects of a manticore, but the protagonist manages to kill it with the help from a unicorn, and he stumbles away, with life blooming where his blood falls.
- Hellboy: In "The Nature of the Beast", there's a legend that when the monk who first killed the St. Leonard Worm was injured fighting the dragon, lilies grew from where his blood fell. When Hellboy fights the Worm, lilies grow from where his blood fell as well. This is significant because Hellboy is a half demon and the prophesied Antichrist, but he is so good despite this fact that he becomes an Anti-Anti-Christ.
- A major element in Planet Hulk, as Hulk's blood creating life gives greater proof that the Hulk is indeed the prophecised Sakaarson, savior of the world of Sakaar. It's heavily implied this is because Sakaar is a radiation-heavy planet, and the plant life is radiovorous.
- Scream: Curse of Carnage: It's revealed that Big Mother, previously assumed to be the ogress Grendel's Mother from Beowulf, is actually a unique symbiote dragon spawned from Knull's blood.
Fan Works
- The Mountain and the Wolf: One of the Nurglite mercenaries has centipedes for blood, which spray out of his wounds to bite the wights attacking him.
- White Sheep (RWBY): Jaune and his sisters, being half-Grimm, can spawn Grimm from their blood. They have full control over this, so they aren't in danger of accidentally spawning a Beowolf every time they get a paper cut. The Grimm they create are younger, weaker, and stupider than any other Grimm seen (unless they really put in the effort to make them stronger), so they tend to die quickly when spawned in battle.
Film — Live-Action
- In Clash of the Titans (1981), Calibos sticks his trident into Medusa's head, which Perseus has hung on a branch while resting, giant scorpions are created from the blood as it drips on the ground, which proceed to attack Perseus and his men, killing many of them.
- In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, when the plant elemental is killed, its blood blankets the city and sprouts moss, grass, and flowers.
- The titular imps in Subspecies are tiny demon-looking homunculi spawned from the blood of the vampire Radu.
Literature
- Ascendance of a Bookworm: If one has enough mana, just a few drops of their blood hitting ground can cause feyplants that feed on mana to start growing. Myne finds this out the hard way when a Bodyguard Betrayal results in her getting a cut in her hand while both of them are in the forest.
- When War God Fener's blood rains down on the battlefield in the last book of Malazan Book of the Fallen, it resurrects the T'lan Imass and the undead Jaghut army for the final battle in The Crippled God. Which is rather inconvenient for either group, as now they're mortal again and can actually die.
- In Spellbent, strange moss and spiked vines grow from the ground where Smoky the familiar's blood falls.
- In Whom Gods Would Destroy, animals and plants (snakes, beetles, flowers, frogs, and worms) seem to semi-spontaeously generate from the spilled blood of nephilim, likely based on similar examples from Classic mythology, such as the moly plant.
Live-Action TV
- The Witcher (2019): Ciri's Elder Blood is discovered thanks to a specific flower that grows where Elder Blood is spilled, on the fields where she undergoes her Training from Hell.
Mythology
- Classical Mythology:
- The hyacinth flower grew from the blood of a divine hero named Hyacinth.
- Also, after Uranus was castrated by his son, Cronus, his blood gave birth to the Giants, the Erinyes and the Meliae.
- The Anemone flower is said to have sprung up from the blood of the slain Adonis.
- Similarly, the amaryllis lily is said to be named after the maiden who split her blood to create it, out of love for a shepherd who had vowed only to marry the girl who could bring him a flower he had never seen before.
- Some versions of the Narcissus myth use this. All agree that the flower grew on the spot where he died, but they disagree as to whether he drowned or stabbed himself.
- The winged horse, Pegasus, was born from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut her head off. Some versions state specifically that the birth was caused by the blood mixing with seawater.
- Hindu Mythology has the demon Raktabija,note whose blood spawned clone Raktabijas when it stained the ground. When Durga battled this demon, the only way she could take him out was by creating Kali, who licked up each drop of blood from Raktabija's body and devoured the demon's clones.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- In the Greek Mythology section of the 1st Edition supplement Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia, when Zeus takes damage and his blood spills on the ground, the blood changes into a powerful random monster that is under Zeus' control until it dies or 48 hours elapse, whichever comes first. This can occur each round of combat.
- Several versions of the default pantheon include the tale that elves and orcs first sprang forth from the blood of their respective patron deities, who'd fought a vicious duel that scattered it across many worlds.
- In 3rd Edition, Erythnul, the God of Slaughter, can go into a rage that shifts his form every round. This doesn't affect his stats, but if he takes any damage, his blood becomes a living creature of the current form he's in, which proceeds to join the battle. Similarly, Asmodeus is bleeding constantly from the massive injuries he suffered when thrown into the Nine Hells, and each drop of blood becomes an extremely powerful pit fiend. (Their blood becomes powerful demons of lesser rank, who do not have this ability in turn.)
- In Exalted, there's a Solar Circle Sorcery spell where the sorcerer can bless an area of land with fertility and fecundity by cutting their feet and walking around the area they wish to bless.
- Warhammer: Inverted with some Chaos mutations that replace the afflicted person's blood with other things like acid, excrement, or even living creatures such as mice or centipedes that spray out of a wound onto the attacker.
Video Games
- Diablo:
- In the backstory, a group of angels managed to confront Mephisto. During the fight, one of them managed to draw his blood which sunk through the crust of Hell. This gave birth to the Magma Demons, who drove back the angels.
- In-game, the Necromancer class, as one of his Improvised Golems, can spill some of their blood to bring forth a blood golem.
- In King of Dragon Pass, shrines to Maran Gor increase your crop yields when people are killed on your territory.
- Ōkami: Crimson Helm is a bull-like youkai that was born from the blood of the Big Bad Orochi, after the hero Nagi beheaded it.
- The intro for the first mission dealing with Pagans in Thief: Deadly Shadows shows a Pagan cutting his palm in order to "water" a plant, which then grows exponentially faster than normal.
- As powerful beings have powerful blood in World of Warcraft, the site where a demigod died has massive thorny vines spanning for miles where his blood was spilled.
Western Animation
- In Harley Quinn (2019), when Poison Ivy is killed, she creates a bed of flowers for her body to lie in as they grow from her blood.
