Dark Blood vs. Daemon Soul

If my Beastman Shaman casts Dark Blood, he will himself be injured. However, Daemon Soul gives him a 4+ save against the effects of spells or prayers. Does he then have a 4+ save against the effect of his own spell?

Technically RAW the answer is probably yes. However, I would argue that the injury to the Shaman is a 'side effect' of the spell rather than an 'effect' and therefore would not be covered by Daemon Soul. I would also say that it would be very cheesy for someone to try to argue for this save to apply. The 'side effect' of Dark Blood is designed to stop it being too powerful.

RationalLemming wrote:

Technically RAW the answer is probably yes. However, I would argue that the injury to the Shaman is a 'side effect' of the spell rather than an 'effect' and therefore would not be covered by Daemon Soul. I would also say that it would be very cheesy for someone to try to argue for this save to apply. The 'side effect' of Dark Blood is designed to stop it being too powerful.

Haha, cheesy indeed! Just stumbled upon it, as I am picking a skill for my Beastmen Shaman, and he has Dark Blood among other spells.
Noted something though, while reading it once again; this is in line with your 'side effect' interpretation. It actually says:

"After using this spell the Chaos Mage must roll on the Injury table for himself to see how dangerous the wound is, though treat the out of action result as stunned instead." (My emphasis)

I suppose this technically, RAW-wise, means that it is not a part of the spell, but something that happens after the spell has 'taken place'.

So I guess the answer was there all along

In my group we ruled that it was both RAW and valid to get the save. It has not led to a lack of fun.

After all, all it does is give you a 4+ save vs the effect - it doesn't make you immune to it. Also, its range is only 8" so almost invariably when you cast it, you are going to be in melee combat. Allowing the Daemon Soul to either bleed off some of the backlash energy or take over for a bit while the shaman is napping or whatever background you want to make happen is perfectly with the flavour and, as far as I have seen, not unbalanced.

This seems like it would be a rare enough occurence that I definitely don't think it would be game breaking or kill any fun to allow the daemon soul save to work, but I don't think it should. The injury isn't done by the magic, its a purely physical wound made by the caster himself when he slices his hand open. However, thats pretty RAI, not RAW, i suppose.