Homework

Question: Can you explain the 'God worksheet' on the Downloads page? Do you give it to your players upon reaching Legend 9 to fill out?

The apotheosis worksheets on the download page are indeed involved in a PC's climb to divine greatness; we put them up there for our players' convenience so they didn't always have to be coming to us for copies, but I'm happy to explain them in case someone else wants to use them!

In our games, becoming a god is a very big happening, and it requires preparation; the fledgling deity must have cults in place, myths being repeated, areas of godly expertise and several other qualifications in order to make the enormous leap from Legend 8 to Legend 9. One of those requirements is completing both apotheosis worksheets; until a PC does (they usually start working on them around the middle of Legend 8, as soon as they have a reasonable hope of making it to God), they won't make the jump. The worksheets serve as both tools for the player to help figure out what they plan to do and be as a god (at least in the beginning of their career), and as a roadmap to help the Storyteller tailor encounters, Birthrights, politics and cult worship to fit the player's vision.

The home culture worksheet is pretty simple; it asks for the player to rough out what their name will be as a god and what alternative names or epithets they might also have, what they do and are as a god (i.e., what they're god of), who they know in their pantheon and what their relations are like, and what they consider the most important stories they would be known for. It's a place for as much detail as they want to include; every cool nuance of their worship, interesting relationship they have with another figure or thoughtful internal motivation helps create a clearer picture (and, we've found, players are almost never tired of telling you cool things about their characters - most of ours end up attaching extra sheets). The Other Cultures worksheet is the same idea but in miniature snapshot; most characters don't need as much in-depth stuff regarding how cultures other than their own view them, but they're free to include whatever they do have and the Storyteller will, of course, use the heck out of that information.

We actually have a third worksheet as well, which has to do with what kinds of Birthrights the Scion would like to gain upon apotheosis; it's really just a ranking system for how much they want various categories of things, and is used almost entirely for the Storyteller to make sure their swag is cool, epic and fits their newly godly selves perfectly.

It's easier to show examples than to explain, so that's what I'll do! After some hunting, I only had Folkwardr's and Eztli's apotheosis sheets close to hand, but they make great examples of what we're talking about.


Original Name: Woodrow Anderson
Mortal Aliases: None
God Name: Folkwardr ("guardian of the people")
Alternate God Names: Asmundr ("divine protector"), Gudvarr ("divine caution"), Ungeheuerlichguertelschildkroete ("monstrous turtle protector")
Epithets: The Eternal Guardian, The Frozen Fortress, The Undying, Wolfsbane
God Roles: Protector of the North, Guardian of the People
Relationship to Others in Pantheon:

• Baldur: Nice guy. Glad we saved him. Sort of introduced me to Ymir, so that's cool.
• Heimdall: Good in a pinch. Knows his job and does it well.
• Hel: Eh.
• Loki: Complete wild card. Usually bad news. Involved in more plots than we know.
• Odin: The cause of the majority of Folkwardr's problems. Not to be trusted.
• Thor: Dumb, but loyal to a fault. Would be a decent asset if won away from Odin.
• Vidar: Folkwardr feels like he lost his father's respect/favor when he lost his Jotunblut. Thinks the death of the Fenris wolf and reclamation of Landvettr helped, but it's hard to tell.
• Aurora (Vala): Usually the only one who knows what is truly going on. Usually needs protection, but can be scarily effective at times.

Important Myths: Bringing back Anansi, the polar bear hunt for Nanook, releasing Ymir, slaying the Fenris Wolf, transforming at the Well of Mimir Foreign Cultures:

• Greek: Known as a child of Chelone, the Turtle of Discord or the Wandering Turtle, an enemy of the modern church
• Irish: Laoch na Gael, ally of Nuada, a foreign protector known as Gallaoch; has a geas
• Voodoo: Known as Tortue Accables ("burdened turtle") or as the Collector of Tales, regarded as a god of burdens and stoicism who relived all the stories of Anansi
• Inuit: Aukeneck ("guardian spirit"), a provider and guardian god

Original Name: Sangria
Mortal Aliases: Sangria Mendez, Sangria Tecuhtli, Lisa Reyes
God Name: Eztli ("blood")
Alternate God Names: Madre Sangria ("mother blood"), Nantleztli ("the bloodmother")
Epithets: Miactli ("mother of many"), Tlatlachi ("the unsleeping")
God Roles: Goddess of Blood (familial, sacrificial or spilled in battle); goddess of protection; goddess of healing; goddess of willing/noble sacrifice; goddess of mercy (both to give and to withhold)
Relationship to Others in Pantheon:

• Coatlicue: Loyal granddaughter.
• Huitzilopochtli: Loyal daughter and soldier.
• Malinaxochitl: Sworn enemy, traitor.
• Maquicelotl: Ally. (Some mistaken mortals believe he is her husband.)
• Mixcoatl: Sworn enemy, traitor.
• Tezcatlipoca: Aide and hands when he needs them.
• Tlazohtlaloni (Geoff): Loyal wife, obedient soldier.
• Xolotl: Mild antagonism.

Important Myths: Eztli leads the people from the shantytowns to the "promised land", the death and resurrection of El Diablo, Eztli faces off against Xolotl, Eztli saves the people by flying them away in a giant pyramid Foreign Cultures:

• Egyptian: Raahmet ("arm of the sun"), believed to be a defender of order and the sun, thought to be a minor daughter of Ra and his current Eye
• Gaulish: Dirathia ("merciless"), invading foreign goddess/demon to be feared
• Greek: Holocaustia ("she who consumes"), goddess of sacrifice, believed to be a minor Greek goddess and possibly daughter of Nemesis or Pallas
• Norse: Ristablodr ("blood eagle") or Rota ("discord"), wife of Sowiljr, warrior figure thought to be a former valkyrie
• Ashanti: Aso ("spider-wife"), conflated with the wife of Anansi due to incident with Chicahua
• Australian: Varrulvinarr ("woman of rocks"), goddess representing fertility and fecundity in the desert as a result of being impregnated by stone
• Maya: Chi'bilzotz ("eater of bats"), a goddess of nightmares and death believed to be an evil sister of Camazotz

As you can see, no two players fill out their worksheets exactly the same way, but that doesn't matter; what's important is getting all the cool juicy details on their plans, ideas and roles as gods so that the story can incorporate as much of them as possible. For some players, especially those who have trouble visualizing their characters on the fly, it can also be a helpful exercise to get creative juices flowing and come up with new ideas when they otherwise might have only had a vague sense of where they were headed.

And that's really all there is to it; the more we know about our players' awesome characters, the more we can make the story all about them, which is, at the end of the day, the Storyteller's most important job.