Question: Now that she is a god, does Kettila take the form of actual child, and if so what age? I just want to know of there's a psycho godlike eight year old running around.
Seven, actually. Which is, not coincidentally, the traditional perfect age for sacrifices to Tlaloc. She invested her way up to Undeniable Resemblance and Unusual Alteration, and bam, no more adult body. She also removed most of her sex organs so she never has to worry about reproduction or pregnancy again.
I wish I had a recording of her player's voice when her bandmates asked the same question. You haven't heard creepy until you've heard her whisper, in her adorable little-girl voice, "I'm never gonna be eight."
Why would Ketilla have to buy knacks? a gods ichor form is there idealized self image, the justification for the free dot of epic appearance, but that should also spread to ketillas child form. I guess the knacks are for her to physically remove her sex organs. Did her player spend xp, or did she use the points from the god up grade? Does she manifest as child in avatar form, even low level ones? That would be scary, having this inhumanly cute eight year old that can fold you up like an acordian.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we just don't like that rule, so we don't use it. Why penalize the Appearance people by making their fancy knacks useless because everyone else can do that, too, for free? Looking amazing is the very definition of Appearance, so I don't see anything wrong with telling players they'll need to buy some if they want to look cool. If you're rolling around with just a single dot of Epic Appearance, odds are you might be only a little more impressive than a mortal - I'm not about to tell you you can also sprout eighteen arms or a flaming skull or whatever else just because you want to. PCs who invest in Appearance should be better at Appearance than those who invest in Strength instead, so in our games, if you want to look crazy, you have to buy the stat that is about looking crazy.
DeleteAs John noted below, Kettila actually turned herself into a child before she hit apotheosis, as soon as she realized she could, in fact. It was pretty hilariously discombobulating for the rest of the band.
If you can change your form however you want at god(yes the book says you can) then the knacks literally become useless. And we've tried to curb knacks becoming useless at god as much as possible. Also, she turned herself into a child about 3 months before she actually hit apotheosis.
ReplyDeleteIf you went by the books idea of gods just choosing idealized form, it gets very messy, and pretty much that entire tree of knacks becomes useless. Which is frustrating for people who have spent their demigod career focusing on that.
She was at max appearance pre-god so she didnt get any bonus appearance at god.
She hasnt used avatar yet, but I assume she will stay a child. She has, however, become other nonchild people to deal with certain situations(recently impersonated Jon Doe).
When she first arrived back from apotheosis she threw will around. He is almost 10 feet, she was like 3 feet. It was pretty cool.
i don't think they are exactly useless. The idea of the idealized form justifies the free epic appearance dot, however The idealized form may be just for astetic purposes without any effect on gameplay. I think it is more for the players in order to stylize there characters in there own minds or on paper if they are artistically inclined. I think that with only one dot of epic appearance it is assumed that the god can take any form within reason. A Aiser Scion could not turn into a four armed member of the Deva, and a Pesedjet could not take on the skeletal form of a Lao.
ReplyDeleteIf the 1 epic dot of appearance does that, then why does one epic dot of appearance not do it when you first get epic appearance at hero?
DeleteThose knacks already very specifically give you the ability to alter form with zero effect on game play. What is the difference between the two?
When it comes to gods, what does the phrase "within reason" mean? The tree of epic appearance knacks that do that explain what each level of knack allows and disallows.
In the example of kettilla, her child form wouldnt fit into the classical idealized aztec form. Where do you draw the line for that? Doesnt that add a certain amount of homogenization amongst a pantheon?
you have to differentiate between epic appearance and malleable ichor. The book states that ichor is unbelievably malleable, which allows the idealized form in the first place, and I think it means that once the body is composed completely of ichor it automatically adjusts to fit the view of the character without any input from epic appearance except for the automatic dot. That is why the first dot of epic appearance for mortal and semi mortal scions doesn't allow for the shifting that is inherrent in a body fully made of ichor. In fact, I don't know if a demigod can use detail variation and the other form altering knacks because the body is still partly material. It may be that a character should have to wait until there body is made fully of malleable ichor before those knacks become available. The line should be that the character should take a form that fits the "theme" of there pantheon, like long haired barbarian look for aiser, and four arms for a deva, and an animal headed body for a pesedjet if they want (without the need for an animal boon). That is what it means to have a form made completely of ichor. In my view you don't add in any effects for appearance other than what you have. If a person is a ferocious lion headed egyptian god with one dot of epic appearance, have people be intimidated, but only as afraid as if they saw an animal headed person roaring at them, without any heavy supernatural affects. That means that they still have the choice to run or pick up the nearest rifle.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand what they're trying to do with ichor, but it really does obviate Epic Appearance, which is why we don't use it. You wouldn't tell the guy with maximum Epic Strength that everybody else can now do aggravated damage at god; that would suck for him. You wouldn't tell the girl with maximum Epic Wits that everybody gets to go first in combat at god with her; that would suck for her. Investing so much in an Epic Attribute should mean something, and particularly when I can't see any real solid reason for giving everybody else free makeovers, I don't see why Epic Appearance should get the gyp over it.
DeleteOf course a Demigod can use Detail Variation and everything else in that tree; having a body that's still partly mortal has nothing to do with it. Appearance powers are magical powers that allow Scions to do things they normally couldn't do; just like they can use Dexterity to run much faster than a mortal body could, they can use Appearance to change the way they look in ways a mortal body couldn't. Having a full ichor body isn't what makes Appearance work; just like all other Scion powers, just having the spark of ichor that makes you a Scion is all it takes.
I don't disagree with you on mechanical effects - after all, a guy with only three regular Appearance and one Epic just isn't all that scary to look at even if he does have a lion head. After all, even a mortal could be that level of ugly (since the one dot of Epic Appearance is equivalent to two normal dots, and the max a mortal could have is five normal dots). But that's my point: when you don't even necessarily look more impressive than a mortal, you can't look like something a mortal could never look like. Those two things are direct contradictions. You could do it if you bought a single dot of Epic Appearance and then bought knacks only all the way up to Unusual Alteration, and I'd allow that as a specific focus that you were making for a specific reason, but handing it out for free? No.
Mostly I just don't see any reason for it. You're getting a dot of Epic Appearance at God - awesome! Every god should have a little, whether it's crazy hotness or terror. But there's just no reason that should make you suddenly able to take on any form you want for free - that's something Appearance gods do, and you and your one dot of Epic Appearance are not in their league. Not every god of every pantheon has a crazy look, and that's okay. They have other skills instead.
DeleteIchor should not be an instant-win card that lets you do things that other people had to invest a minimum of 46 XP to do. I'm not a big fan of a lot of the book's rules on ichor, honestly, because they don't really have a mythical basis - the whole mythic idea of ichor is really just one that is saying, "Gods are made of different stuff from us, we're just mortals." It's not saying that means they're incorporeal (how would they always be stabbing one another, then?) or have super-malleable forms (why don't guys like Thor ever, ever look different, then?). It's just saying that they're on a far different level from humanity, and so most of the ichor rules are out the window for us. They hurt players more than they help them.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a player to spend a little XP if he wants to have an animal head, any more than it's unreasonable to expect him to do so if he wants to run really fast or teleport through shadows or hear a conversation going on fifty miles away. They're all different expressions of godly power; making some of them randomly free for those who didn't pay for them is injurious to those who did.
(We do, however, love appearance-y stunts and regularly allow them even if it's fudging a bit - for example, if Vala stunts that she yanks on the threads of Fate so hard that her hands bleed, we're going to let that happen, because it's cool and doesn't mess with anything else in the game.)
I always assumed the Apotheosis bump let you pick one super form, and that's it, appearance people got to be super shapeshifter types
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the rules as written allow you to release your body at any time and reform from nothing, I don't know why you wouldn't let someone change their super form all the time - after all, they're building it from scratch, right? It's one of the many reasons I don't like the rule, because I can't justify making it any less versatile than the knacks that other people have been working toward.
DeleteI think RAI is that you can be whatever crazy mismash godlook you want, if you want actual shapeshifting buy Appearance(or illusion)
DeleteThat's how I'd run it anyway
That's definitely a valid interpretation of the book's original rules. We definitely don't like it and don't use it - but then, we don't use a lot of rules the original does, so that's nothing new. :)
DeleteI agree with Jomoru, and it was what I was trying to say, and I think what the book tries to say. The idealized form is a super form made of the characters deepest self image, which means that once it is taken it can't be changed except if they buy the right knacks. Since Ketillas deepest self image was that of a child it makes sense game wise that her godly form be that of a child if she didn't buy the appropriate knacks before hand. The ability to shape shift on the fly like you're talking about is beyond the ability of even many of the elder gods. It even states so about gods like Hachiman who must remain in one form for a day before changing again. It's not about having all the power of epic appearance, it's about giving the player the form they want as part of apotheosis, but then they can not change it unless they already have the epic appearance powers or buy into them. Also, this form is only taken at level 9 and higher. Avatars below this return them to a fully human form. In essence players get to choose there form during apotheosis, but then that's it, they have to stick with it or start buying up epic appearance.
ReplyDelete