Who Was That Masked Man?

Question: How do you balance out being the "nameless" hero the book talks about to avoid fatebinding while at the same time building your Legend?

To be perfectly frank, you don't.

When Scion: Hero talks about becoming the nameless hero, it's specifically talking about losing Legend, not gaining it. It's a last-ditch option for Scions who either need to drop down in Legend because the Fatebonds are getting too heavy or who have decided that they don't want in on this Scion gig after all. To become the nameless hero, you're very specifically giving up your Legend; all the legends about you and what you've done become vague and misty, and nobody quite remembers who you are anymore. This is a great thing if you're only concerned about escaping Fatebonds, but you can't increase your Legend while doing it. It's the exact opposite of increasing Legend.

In Scion, it's not possible to be a nameless hero and still gain Legend. The two are diametrically opposed. You can't have legends crop up about yourself and remain nameless; if you don't tell anyone your name, they'll just invent one for you based on what you've done. Legend, the measure of your power as a Scion and later a god, is based on actually being legendary - if you're not doing anything that anyone will remember or consider legendary, guess what? You're not going up in Legend. At all. Ever. It just won't happen. It'd be like wanting to be an internationally famous pop star and somehow still have nobody know any of your songs.

Now, this doesn't mean that you're always going to be suffering under the weight of excruciating Fatebond torture. Scions who are Hero-level (Legend 1 through 4) almost never get Fatebonds at all; it's extremely difficult to pick them up because your Legend is too low to spark them. This is why Scions make such great tools in the World for gods, because for a while they can run around and completely ignore the Fatebonds that might cripple their parents if they tried to do the same. They are in essence nameless heroes, since they're doing cool things but generally aren't badass enough that humanity as a collective whole has to sit up and notice them. Scions at early Demigod-level (Legend 5 or 6) usually only pick up smallish Fatebonds, the kind that they can just go a hundred miles away to be free of; they only matter locally and are usually a matter of a few dice or successes. And even once you do start getting Fatebonds, that's not always a bad thing. If you're lucky or play your cards right or both, you might get a majority of Fatebonds that are actually more helpful than injurious.

Once you start hitting the Legend 7 and up range, that's when Fatebonds begin to be something you can't ignore that are starting to shape your personality. And at that point you have two options: race to godhood, hoping to be able to use Avatars or create Scions of your own to help keep the Fatebonds down, or become the nameless Hero and drop back to Legend 3 again (or whatever low-Legend target you set yourself).

I've never seen any Scion, even the ones who were pretty cranky about the whole being-a-divine-tool situation, ever opt for the latter. It's not surprising; it's basically the antithesis of playing Scion, after all. It's saying, "I want to be less powerful and go on fewer adventures." I don't know any players who actively sign up for that, because they're usually there to go on more adventures and get more powerful. It's a valid choice for a variety of reasons, but I'd be surprised and interested to hear about anyone who's ever actually done it.

When people ask about playing the nameless hero, the unknown soldier or the stoic silent type, they're usually (in my experience, anyway) looking for a certain aesthetic in their characters, a kind of mysterious aloofness. And that's cool! It's as valid a character type as any other (though maybe harder to play in a group). But the important thing to remember about it is that the mysterious aloofness is going to be mostly a matter of flair, stunting and personality - if you want to build your Legend, it's not going to be literal. You can still be as mysterious as you like and build your Legend - the important thing is that people know about you and what you've done. As long as they know that you're a mysteriously aloof god who did X, Y and Z amazing things, they don't have to know about your personal emotions or motivations. The important thing is not what they know about you; it's that they know about you at all. And if they know you're mysterious and taciturn, well, hell, now you're Legendary for being mysterious and taciturn. Which is, I think, what most players for this kind of character are looking for anyway.

You don't have to look any further than Tezcatlipoca for a good example, in fact. Not only is being mysterious a big part of his schtick, but we literally don't know his name; "Tezcatlipoca" is a title (Huitzilopochtli, Xipe Totec and Quetzalcoatl are also Tezcatlipocas) and it's just what humanity happens to call him because we don't know his proper appellation. He's a god with plenty of stories of him doing impressive things, but he's still a mystery in the end.