Question: Do you ever plan to revamp Enech? It's such a neat purview as it is written, but after reading your Heku and Jotunblut revamps, I'm wondering what you might be thinking for Enech.
We've done a few passes at Enech (mostly trying to tighten up the most obvious spots for abuse and adding a few new types of geasa), but you're right, John's been just itching to do a thorough deep-dive on it for a while now. It's not a priority at the moment (argh, I feel like I say that so often! Scion, why you no make it easy to do everything at once?) because we don't have any active Irish PCs, but it's definitely on the short list of things we'd love to work on a little bit.
Personally, I love geasa but find several of Enech's boons oddly off-kilter, especially ones that don't seem to have a mythical precedent (like Twist Geas, which actually runs pretty counter to the whole geasa-as-sacred-oaths idea). I'd love to work on it being more cohesive and having more to do with those sacred covenants and forbiddances, rather than having a few weird powers sticking out at odd angles.
When I poked John about his ideas for a revamp on the purview, he mumbled something about kingship, geasa and dominion over certain spheres of influence, but then he passed out again because he's preparing for a marathon immersion in the new release of Diablo III tonight, so that may be all we'll get out of him for a while.
I'd love to see Enech re-written with new powers for levels 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10. Maybe not even 9, I can almost see that working.
ReplyDeleteTaiyi could also use a good tweaking, with replacements for 3, 5 and 7.
Samsara has a good re-write by Brent. Well, actually a good replacement in Atman. Asha is weird, but fine, I guess. The Heku re-write by you guys is very nice. Brent's new versions of Jotunblut and Tsukumo-Gami are awesome. Itztli, Arete and Cheval work just fine out of the box.
Enech and Taiyi are the two PSPs that really DO need help and haven't gotten it yet.
They're just so all-over-the-place. Enech 7 and 10 should be Guardian Boons or Spells. Enech 4 and 5 could be Sound Boons or even Charisma Knacks, kinda. More likely Sound Boons, since they're all bardic. Taiyi 3 is basically a silly, pointless vanity power. 5 is out-of-nowhere random and 7 is some kind of Guardian-Health hybrid Boon or something.
Most of the PSP's suffer from terminal cases of "everything and the Insert-Culture-Here's kitchen sink" instead of a well-organized progression of powers based on a consistent theme. Arete, Cheval and Itzlti are the only well-written and well-balanced PSPs from the books, saddly.
The only psps Im happy with atm are samsara, arete, asha, me, and heku.
DeleteEverything else imo needs a revamp to differing degrees.
Some need complete reworks from the ground up, taiyi, tsukumo, enech. Others need tweaks like the ones you mentioned.
Tsukumo-Gami needs a complete overhaul, even with Brent's modifications? Huh. I never really had an issue with it, though I haven't had a lot of experience with Kami since I tend to avoid the Asian Pantheons as a player and an ST.
DeleteIts just strange that it adds a whole new element to the game that exists, but no other pantheon can interact with. Spirits are there, but you cant see them with epic perception? Or charm them with ultimate charisma? Its just a strange mechanic, and although part of folklore, Im not sure fits in with the actual pantheon at all. Brent did a great job of adjusting and balancing the current rules, but Im not sure the core concept works.
DeleteThat'd be a big blow to other heavily animistic cultures.
DeleteOf course, I do agree that its lame the Japanese get a whole world of spirits just to themselves. There could be magic spells that allow other Pantheons to percieve them and interact with them on a limited scale. You guys even have some Boons in the Elemental Purviews to summon spirits and give them form.
Yeah, animism is such a big and widespread concept that it's hard to handle in Scion - some cultures don't have it at all, so they shouldn't have powers that work with it, but for others it's essential and you can't put them in PSPs without a bunch of people having depressingly similar "unique powers". It's something we're still ruminating on... stupid religions not being easy to fit in boxes.
DeleteItd actually help other animistic cultures. Rather then making it a psp one group gets, itd be something general that all people can see. If the spirits exist, they should be there for everyone.
DeleteSo if everyone can see and talk to spirits, Tsukumo-Gami wouldn't necessary need replacing, just reworking. A lot of it is things that even if you could see and talk to the spirits, you couldn't arrange for them to do just by chatting.
DeleteI'm on the idea train all of a sudden (in lieu of working on my homework...)
ReplyDeleteSo, let's say that Tsukumogami as we know and (arguably) love it gets scrapped and the idea of animism either becomes an APP or is effects distributed among existing APPs - what uniqule Shinto idea would replace it?
Are you SURE that you don't want to rewrite Geasa right now? I guess it's not *urgent*, but I want to mess with it (like we don't all have enough to do) since I've actually got a Tuatha PC in my group... (then again, she's really excited about the ability to use Bard's Tongue to taunt people into submission).
And, I think that the idea of transmutation can still work for Taiyi, I just don't think that it makes sense to transmute stuff into other stuff - would it be more mythologically sound if the Purview was built around transmuting energy? Feng shui gets a bad rap for being a fashion design fad, but my understanding is that it's an actual thing that allows the ambient spiritual energy of a place to be tapped. (I can post a quick-version, if desired...)
Of course she is, bard's tongue is insanely powerful :)
DeleteAnne has a list she spent a few days on of possible chinese psps. Maybe she can list them here.
I know one was ancestor worship. Im not really sure they do any transmuting of anything really. But I could be wrong.
Heh, we were JUST talking about this over cake. :) The idea of animism as an APP (Spirit or something, perhaps), so that those who have it have it and those who don't can ignore it, and then less blanket-concept PSPs for folks like the Amatsukami (and everybody else with a heavy bent toward animism).
DeleteI've always been fond of the idea of a Shen purview built around the harmony of the elements (both in the world around you and in yourself) or the wu wei action-through-inaction style of harmony, which might have similar effects but different flavors. We played around some with trying to do something with ancestor worship, too, but it's messier because it's hard not to overlap with Death, plus the Chinese are not the only people doing ancestor worship, either.
Shintoism I have fewer ideas for, since it was just today that I suddenly decided I might want to write them a whole new PSP. Maybe something having to do with harae?
I've always thought Purity/clensing was the big thing in Shinto, especially with the whole "evil is just corruption" thing you get a decent amount of options there.
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