This is a build-out of an ideas-bouncing conversation with Robyn Proffer on a shared discord where they were looking for a "metal that gets mined that has terrible consequences and people wanna figure out how to use it" - where my immediate thought was 'steal and repaint warpstone' that staple of Warhammer techno-arcanic genius-geniuses the Skaven. Warpstone is mutagenic, magic-boosting and addictive, snort it to enhance your spells, forge it into armour-piercing bullets, grind it to make explosives, use it in flamethrowers, leave it in your beast pens to grow exciting new mutants - all for the low-low price of madness, mutation and death - either through affliction or explosive-mishap.
Another possible idea is 'earthblood' like liquid metal or crude-oil like substance that conveys similar magical properties. Robyn thought this could be blood of buried elder entities, which I think could have great potential. Their thought was that the primary hazard would be that in gathering lots of this stuff together you begin to experience the 'voice of god' effect - the reality-warping impingement of that divine.
I think that could be driven further - not to limit it to a single voice but to say there are multiple corpses from whatever godswar felled them originally, each with extractable "godsblood" and each with its own 'voice' effect. The Scarred Lands setting had something like this, the fallen blood of wounded and slain gods and titans warping the reality of the regions where they fell, begeting monsters and the like. This would dial that back a few notches into something older, less potent and more quiescent (while undisturbed).
As with the real world, the consumption and exhaustion of resources is a driving force for exploration and adventure and the potential model of finding new gods-corpses or accessible pieces thereof would be an endless source of quests. Some gods-blood might have more benign and relatively tolerable side-effects of the 'voice' - others might be harsh to deal with or have grim side effects, enough to be considered essentially unuseable. For any of them you could have the stuff remain liquid or have it crystalise into rock-form depending on your preference.
This would drive main-stream powers to fight over the more benign sources but also to make them available, probably on an expensive or 'with-permission' basis. There would potentially be a pool of balignant sources which would be nasty stuff but perfectly useable in small quantities. It would just be intrinsically hazardous to extract and transport, probably interdicted by people who do not want that stuff out and about in the world and targets for piracy/hijacking by other bad actors on the theory that the theft of something illegal will have fewer people rushing to the defence of the victims.
Mixing different batches of earthblood could achieve different effects and gives you your mechanical heft to the whole thing. Given many parties allergy to the detailed inventory management required for magical components, I think your best bet to get something mechanically appealing while avoiding irritating book-keeping is to make the stuff as a modifier-applier - the types of things covered in meta-magic feats or the like. One gods blood makes a damage type lightning, one makes it harder to make the save for a spell, that type of thing.
One particular effect that appeals would be to make a spell-casters effective level for the purpose of casting a spell higher with use of the stuff - great for the emergency need for various resurrection and other such magics. Perhaps it only works for a school or a subset of spells tied to the source-gods domain which would then drive the search for more of these things.
d8 Godsblood related quests
1. A king has demanded great things from his mage guild and they require more godsblood than their relatively benign local source god can provide. They need deniable adventurers to plum the depths of the local black markets and find the least objectionable alternatives available. Their plan is to drop the might of the kingdom on that source and seize it for themselves so total secrecy is required as they 'stalk' their prey.
2. A crisis within a polity has brought them to the brink of civil war with forces stripped from all outlying areas and maneuvering for advantage near the capital. This makes an opportunity and a mage coven wants to raid a known source, use dwarven techniques to crack it and drain the gains of centuries in a few days before fleeing. They anticipate significant exposure to the 'voice' during this and need extra hands in case of incapacitation.
3. A wagon bearing large tuns of malignant godsblood was stolen by hapless bandits and is now lost in a forest. Someone needs to find it and get it out before the forest goes beserk and all adjoining farms feel the impact.
4. A sage claiming to have produced a master-index of all the godsbloods on the continent recently fell from the surprisingly small highest window of his tower. The crown has sealed the tower and is said to be investigating but word on the street is that the index is lost.
5. The last known site of godsblood from a certain site was lost to landslip decades ago. With every last bottled or preserved drop used up, a desperate realm needs adventurers to someone find the site where it ended up on the seabed and somehow extract a little more
6. Rumours of a new benign, plentiful source found in mountains previous left as a monster-infested buffer zone between rivals has driven an armed gold-rush. Someone needs to find and claim this before clashes among searchers tip the region into a vicious multi-party war as has not been seen in decades. The monsters being driven out of their lairs and the "monsters" being driven from their villages are none too happy either.
7. An ancient source, known for its vile side effects has been shunned by all for centuries. Now after a series of horrific incidents the emporiums of trade are found this forbidden godsblood is being mixed into shipments reaching the usual marketplaces. Someone needs to back track and stop this.
8. A penny-ante dark wizard, a wretched no-account of common mockery, has stumbled upon a new source, deeply malignant but equally powerful. Heedless of its effects he is harnessing it to raise a new dark army, his first shocking conquests have drawn hordes to his banners and wrought panic across the continent. Noone has managed to get a sample, noone knows what it does exactly but the dark armies rejoice with it to hand. While forcesa are marshalled to blunt his thrusts, someone needs to sneak into his domains and extract samples, then find the source and somehow destroy access to it.
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