Free as a Bird

Question: While using Wind's Freedom, what are the restrictions (if any) on your ability to lift objects or people? Is it still your base lift value, as though you were on the ground? Is it less because you have no leverage, or is it more because the wind has the strength to lift you - so why not a few more pounds?

I was going to wait to answer this question until John was awake because I wanted his input, but he was up all night Ragnaroking and who knows when he'll recover? So here's what I'd rule, as a Storyteller, and the way we've generally run it.

Wind's Freedom is a boon with a very specific purpose: giving you the power of flight. It's not about lifting other things independently of yourself or creating big updrafts or winds; there are other boons, like Wind Grapple and Gale Force, that do that. I see where the flavor text might lead readers to believe that since this power uses wind to lift you, it might use wind to lift anything, but that's not the case; the point of this boon is that you're a budding Sky god and therefore you're comfortable in the sky. You can fly if you feel like it, but you're not a master of Sky yet, and you can't get more versatile than that. That's the entire scope of what the power's intended to do (and believe me, for a level 2 boon that's plenty).

So when you activate Wind's Freedom, your lifting capacity is exactly what it would be normally; the boon allows you to fly, but it's not carrying extra items for you, so you can't carry any more than you could normally lift. By the same token, your lifting capacity isn't lessened because you don't have the ground to push off from; Wind's Freedom works effortlessly to lift you, period, and it doesn't have a weight limit. It's simple, clean and intuitive.

Attempting to use this particular boon to lift other things or attach a quantifiable scale to it would be a big mistake, mostly because it would be a pain in the ass and add a pretty useless mechanic to the game. Do we really need a system for something so easily intuitive? Do we really want to get into the murkey waters where we have to explain that somehow Thor's Wind's Freedom must be more powerful than Nezha's because it has to lift so much more weight, even though there's no reason this should be so? It's a place where adding complications would be a drag on the game, not an asset, so I'd steer well clear of the idea.

If you want to grab and lift items with air, that's what Wind Grapple is for; adding anything extra to Wind's Freedom's just going to make it unbalanced and more complicated, two things Scion can always do without.