Empowerment is a technique for bestowing magical ability on a commander, mage, or priest, using gems. It is a permanent process that stacks with all temporary boosts, such as those from items, spells, and rituals.

Empowerment is very expensive, however. Every path has the same price chart (in its own type of gem), but this table will use Nature:

New Path	Gem Cost
1	50
2	30
3	45
4	60
5	75
6	90
7	105
8	120
9	135
X	15*X

Note that the costs above are not cumulative, so empowering from not being a nature mage to having 2 costs 80.

Empowering into Blood is also doable; blood slaves are basically Blood gems, after all, just like how astral pearls are basically Astral gems.

There is a danger to empowering in Blood, though. The heinousness of the act may permanently stain the subject's hands with a horror mark, a sigil invisible to all but the gods above and the horrors further above them…