Question: In the Companion book the War boon Riastrad is listed as a distinctly Celtic power (even saying Lugh invented it) yet I noticed Sangria has it. My question is what is best way to explain a non-Celtic Scion having this boon?
Sangria does indeed have Riastrad. It's something her band has pretty constant nightmares about, in fact. It's a good thing she almost never uses it, because shit gets real very quickly.
Riastrad, in its distinctly Cu Chulainn's knees turning backwards kind of way, is very Celtic, there's no doubt about that. Pretty much everything about it, from the specific Virtues affected (Tuatha ones) to the specific description of it (the Epic Appearance jazz) is intended to copy good old Cu Chulainn's insane rampages across the countryside. But we do allow it for non-Irish Scions, and the reasons why are a mix of pan-cultural flavor and mechanics ease.
From a mechanics standpoint, having all-purpose boons you only allow for some pantheons is a headache. It's messy and weird, not to mention unfair, because where are the dedicated APP boons for other pantheons, right? Making an APP boon available only to Scions of one pantheon is just in essence giving them an extra PSP boon that everybody else doesn't get, and if you're not doing it for everybody (and we're not), it's pretty lame to tell other players that their PSP only gets ten unique boons only they can have, but the Irish get eleven. We also open up both of the Gaul-specific Magic spells from the Storyteller Screen to everyone (Safety of the Watery Night and Vestiges of a Distant Past) for the same reason.
However, this would still be a problem if we weren't okay with the boon itself feeling too Irish - but it doesn't, so that's all right. While the trappings of Riastrad (and the story of Cu Chulainn's use of it) are extremely Irish, its underlying core concept is not; the idea of insane, unreasoning berserker bloodlust is not confined to the Emerald Isle. Ninurta does it over in Babylon; the Vikings originated the word berserk, while the Gauls have the furar and Sekhmet's bloodlust-fueled rampage across Egypt is legendary. The Fury of War boon attempts to mitigate this some by providing an alternative kind of battle lust, but it wasn't an entirely satisfying solution for us; why claim that other cultures can only have the kind of battle trance that they can get out of with just property damage, while it's only the Irish who actually go batshit insane? That seemed like more of a player decision to make.
So we kept both of them, Fury of War for warriors who prefer to fight with a chance of reining themselves in in case of disaster and Riastrad for those who want to just unleash the animal within and aren't worried about the consequences. We encourage players to stunt their battle rage in a way that makes sense for their character and culture; Sangria's eyes may not fall out on her cheeks the way Cu Chulainn's do, but instead she performs more Aztec nastiness, including sprouting a lot of animal parts and gaining some visible bones and hideously deformed facial and jaw features. I'd suggest that those irritated by the very Irish name of Riastrad find a culture-specific equivalent appropriate to different characters and call it that instead.
We did leave in a few concessions to Irish Scions in that we didn't change the Virtues that Riastrad affects; if you don't have Courage, Intellect and Piety, you're potentially getting a little less out of it than a true Tuatha Scion would. It seemed like a nice place to compromise with allowing Irish Scions to be proud of their heritage as insane rampaging killers, but still letting other cultures have their moment in the berserk and crazy spotlight.
We actually haven't had to deal with Riastrad all that much. Oddly enough, after dealing with Sangria using it and clearing entire landscape swaths before anyone had a chance to calm her down, nobody else has ever taken it - with the exception of a brief flirtation from Woody, to a man they've all stampeded for Fury of War.
I think the creators meant for riastrad to be an all purpose purview boon, but also a closely held secret weapon of the Tuatha that the other pantheons would covet. The aquistion of a boon like riastrad to be used other pantheons could make a thousand stories and attempts in the past to aquire it have probably happened. Maybe one reason the Vikings invaded Ireland so many times, was so the aiser could obtain the powerful boon for themselves. Other scions could learn it, but they would have to go to legendary lengths to prove themselves to the tuatha or to steal it without being caught and destroyed by all of Lughs fury.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I could envision that working in a "fair" way would be if every pantheon has 1 or a handful of boons across all APPs that you had to get them to teach you to learn. I think thats really neat and interesting, but Im not sure if it works well in game play.
DeleteIt certainly cuases some questions about how come other moon gods, if they are equal power, cant also figure out the "smoking mirror". Why is this particular god SOO powerful that they are the only one able to harness this amazing power just because we chose to name the boon after them.
For instance instead of the riastrad, the boon could be named furar, and then suddenly the irish need the gauls to teach it to them. I mean hell, the name Ares pretty much means that. The boon could just be called "going the full ares".
Im a huge fan in general of having to go to other pantheons to get stuff. Im not sure boons work for the above reasons, but they could if you ignore those. And I think it could be a fun option.
OR, you could also tell young pcs that dont know better that they need to contact and learn from those gods, and then they can realize on their own later that they never needed to do that.
i just read the riastrad entry in the book and it indirectly proposed riastrad over the four dot battle map for tuatha. perhaps a way to balance it out is that Irish scions are incapable of learning the battle map boon. Riastrad may seem more powerful in it's own way than battle map, but you have to consider being an out of control super warrior or being able to see every aspect of a battle field where you and your allies can swarm, ambush, and destroy even a character with riastrad.
ReplyDeleteI think it just says that because either, ragnarok wasnt out yet when it was written(not published), or the author didnt know about ragnarok, or didnt want to assume that the player had ragnarok already. So its an alternative to battle map like all alternate boons are an alterior to the main boon in the purview. Remember that originally there was only one boon available at every level except for the magic purview.
DeleteBattle map can be considered that way, but it very rarely is. Players never look at it and think that, they look at it and think, "but these other two boons are AMAZING!". And we've even worked hard to make battle map better then the original(but theres only so much you can do).
Also riastrad and fury of war together are insane.
Yeah, useful as Battle Map is, I've never seen anyone pick it up as their first level 4 War boon. Fury and Riastrad are just too crazy and cool for most players to resist. I love Battle Map for general-style characters instead of lone warriors, but it takes a very specific kind of character to run with it, and most War-users don't fit the bill.
DeletePerhaps when the game began the creators thought that many war users would also have follower birth rights (sportoi, einjerhar etc) and that the war boons would also be used to help the band itself win battles. They seemed to be coming from the perspecitve of Egyptian Greek and samurai generals, Norse warrior kings, and Loa revolutionary leaders, rather than as lone warriors and bersekers.
DeleteO, war should definitely be more general oriented and less fighting oriented...but its hard to make boons that function like that. And the boons in the purview, in general, kinda wholesale fail at it.
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