Vials of Blood

This is pretty rediculous when you start actually examining the rules:

If you have access to even a single drop of blood, regardless of its age, you may unerringly track its owner once per day. For the remainder of the day, you may perform Tracking (Re) Action Skill Rolls as if you possessed a number of skill ranks equal to 5 times your Bloodrank.

so throwing out numbers lets say that you have a t5 blood rank 10 val mehan, GRATS you now have a tracking of 50.

#1 there are no listings of tracking that use resolve as a skill, All listed uses of tracking use insight or logic, So for arguments sake I’m going to asssume the intention was to allow the use of resolve in place of insight (but not logic), that would allow for Track and read tracks.

#2 these rules are faily straightforward for “read tracks” there is a chart and everything, and you know what in context this makes sense

#3

The base Difficulty Rating for following tracks is identical to those defined for the Wilderness Lore: Survival skill use (see pg. Table 2-19)

well table 2-19 probably means 2-20, and that sets a base survival TN from 15-35, sure makes sense, depending on my mood and rediculous ness of whats going on I’d probably set the Base TN at 25 or 30, 30 being the Base TN for a City

#4

This Difficulty Rating should be modified based on the weather, time of day, surface conditions, and the number of creatures leaving the tracks that are being following.

OK I read that as : “You should adjust the TN based on extenuating circumstance” now specifically when using blood calls to blood, I would consider the distance , the age of the blood (in terms of weeks), the conditions the blood was collected in (likehood of contamination)

note blood calls to blood actually ignores the physical circumstances, ARPG 223

#5

If you have access to even a single drop of blood

Yep I read that as it has to be liquid and not contaminated with other substances

#6
using 4&5 I’d make the skill check in line for the difficulty of what the heroes are actually trying to do, with out overpowering them in difficulty or lowballing them with easy checks. Also You have to recheck each hour (per the tracking rules ARPG 164)

#7
the use of tracking assumes that you are on their trail, if your not on their trail its really up to the Judge to determine what happens

BUT the bottom line really comes down to denying players things that would “break mods”, and as a judge all of the things above are tools to do so, along with things that Ive probably missed. But at the same time this is a fantastic tool for the judge to use to get the party back on track or even to get them off track if they are too close to breaking the story.

Raises questions about the huge blood pool beneath Nishanpur. Can you track anyone who has aver contributed blood to the pool by just tasting the pool?

Here are two proposals for solutions to the issue of the collection of blood:

[1] PROPOSED RULE: The blood must be no more than a week old (one quarter of Aperio) when collected. For Sense Blood, it must be tasted within a week, but the memory lingers forever. For Blood Calls to Blood, the drop must have come from the subject within a week.

OR

[2] PROPOSED STORY: There was a major debacle involving collection of blood by Vals of Sarish millennia ago in the days of the Imperium of Men. (This occurred for reasons suggested in my previous post extrapolating on what val’Mehans might do.) The details of those events are still passed down in private as a warning amongst the val’Mehan, and outsiders have heard only rumors. At the conclusion of that debacle, the Imperator and the Imperial Assembly declared by law that the collection of blood without explicit permission of an indiviual is a crime treated equivalent to abduction or kidnapping and punishable by law. [Tasting discarded blood for Sense Blood is a misdemeanor since it’s only slightly more than recognizing a person’s face or voice.] The government was allowed to collect blood only with approval of magistrates with additional strict legal limitations in place. Moreover, the rulers gave stern warning to the Vals of Sarish that if they did not police their own, the law would be amended to include punishment of family members of the offender. In the early days of the Coryani Empire when the Emerald Society rediscovered partial copies of ancient First Imperial laws, this law was discovered. The val’Mehans voluntarily recommended that the law be instated in Coryan–with the exception of legally authorized collection by the government–because they feared another debacle that would stain their House’s honor. Moreover, these days the val’Mehans are one of the two primary val families in the Mother Church’s Inquisition, and cracking down on blood collection is a teriary function of which they remain aware under the auspices of ensuring that no infernal cult does malicious deeds with blood.
Because the Coryani Empire once controlled much vaster territory and Coryni Law is the basis of law throughout eastern Onara, these laws still hold in the Known Lands from the Western Lands up through the Hinterlands and Canceri (though in Canceri it is again permitted for the government to collect blood within legal limitations). Because the Khitani Empire descended directly from the Imperium, it still follows the original laws.
Since this is a story answer, it should probably not be used unless it has Henry’s approval.