Question: Spirit Lamp: Does it really fit in Psychopomp instead of Death? Underworld Portal is in Death, and really Spirit Lamp is the only power in Psychopomp that relates to the meaning of the word. It seems like more of a "Travel" Purview than Psychopomp.
Spirit Lamp is a total necessity for Psychopomp, but let's start with the rest of your question first!
We've actually talked about Psychopomp and its usage on this blog before. It's a strange purview, because while it fills a very, very necessary mythological role and is totally integral to the gods and their pantheons, it also tends to be used for other things by PCs more often than for its intended purpose.
Basically, Psychopomp is a purview that needs to exist. Psychopomps are an extremely important part of almost every culture's cosmology and pantheons, and they fulfill a function - that is, making sure the dead get where they need to go - that is paramount to keeping the world running correctly. Ancient cultures very much needed to know that A) dead people weren't going to be running around haunting the living, and B) when they died themselves someone would make sure they weren't lost and roaming, and psychopomps were thusly invented in almost every major mythology to take care of these big issues.
So the Psychopomp purview pretty much has to exist, the same way the Justice and Death and Fire purviews need to exist; it's a part of the mythic landscape that can't be ignored and permeates all cultures. It's true that many (in fact, most!) of its boons are just as easily suited to traveling around in non-psychopomping capacities as they are to actually doing the job of a psychopomp, but that's really more of a fringe benefit to being a psychopomp rather than the fundamental purpose of the purview. You will find very few Gods of Travel out there in the world; it's not a universal idea that an APP needs to represent, but psychopomping is. And we wouldn't want characters who became psychopomps to have no utility other than ferrying dead people around, because that would be very limited and usually take them out of the story with their band, and that would be lame. Psychopomp doesn't fit the mold of the other purviews, it's true, but it does exactly what it needs to do, both for the overarching mythic theme it represents and for players who want to pursue it in a game.
Which brings us back around to Spirit Lamp. It's an absolute necessity for psychopomps to do their jobs; Spirit Lamp, Come Along and whatever other boon they use to actually get their charges to the Underworld (usually Rainbow Bridge, but it really depends on the psychopomp and the situation) are the powers they cannot do without and still do their cosmically-ordained jobs. Spirit Lamp does at first look seem like it belongs in Death because it affects dead people and that's usually Death's entire thing, but a closer look debunks that idea pretty quickly; if there's one thing death-gods don't actually do, it's go around rounding up ghosts to put in their Underworld. And they don't do that because it's the psychopomp's mythic job, not theirs.
The disposition of the dead in a nutshell, mirrored perfectly by purviews.
Unless you have both Death AND Psychopomp, like Odin...and...I'm sure there are probably others who have both of them. But you're right, Death Lords usually have a sidekick.
ReplyDeleteIt's true, Odin does have both, but he also has active psychopomps - the valkyries - whose job it is to collect the souls of the dead for him and Freya.
DeleteThe only other deities in the game who have both are Hecate and Anubis, both people who, while definitely associated enough with Death to have it, are not rulers of their Underworlds or fulfilling any similar role. The Death gods who actually control the dead - your Hades, Mictlantecuhtli, Yama, Izanami et. al. - are decidedly not psychopomps.
But don't a lot of myths (Savitri's, for instance) have Yama turning up to collect the soul himself? In fact, according to your writeup he does have Psychopomp associated.
DeleteWell, damn, egg on my face. I meant to say Yanluo there, and Yama should have been mentioned as one of the only two death-kings who also has Psychopomp. I also somehow forgot about Manannan mac Lir, who has both purviews (though he doesn't bring souls to his Underworld, he does both own one and have Psychopomp). True facts all around.
DeleteYama's a strong exception to the rule, though. He is literally the only death-god I can think of who both rules his realm and actually goes after souls himself, and even so, both times I recall him doing so, it was for a specific person for a specific reason, not just because he does that for a living (it's heavily implied in Savitri's case, for example, that Yama came in person in recognition of her great holiness and dedication, an honor he wouldn't accord to just anyone). Pushan is the active psychopomp who does most of the everyday dead-moving for the Devas.
A death-god can drag ghosts to the Underworld if he wants to by using Mother's Touch and Open Underworld Portal. It's generally a lot more expensive and a pain in the ass than it would be for a psychopomp, though, and they have other things to be doing for the most part.
I agree that a Psychopomp Purview has to exist. But in it's current form, it doesn't relate to it.
ReplyDeleteThe point of my question was to state that it's the only soul guiding boon in the Purview. All the others have to do with either speed or traveling. Even Open Underworld Portal isn't in Psychopomp (tough something similar could be done with Otherworldly Portal). I wouldn't call that a «fringe benefit», since some powers can be used to travel to the Underworld but isn't the main focus. All of these boons in Psychompomp have no direct link to ''Psychopomping'' :
OPEN SESAME, UNERRING ORIENTATION, ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME, FALSE FOOTSTEPS, WHERE ARE YOU?, HEART OF THE MAZE, UNBARRED ENTRY, COME ALONG, STORM THE GATES, WHITE STAG, HAND OFF, MARATHON SPRINTER, CELERITY, RAINBOW BRIDGE, RIDE ALONG, CO-LOCATION.
Those who could qualify:
OTHERWORLDLY PORTAL, SEALED STAIR, TERRA INCOGNITA, SPIRIT LAMP
But then, the first 3 allow you any realm, they just also include the Underworld. Since you are usually careful of purviews stepping on toes, I was wondering why this one got to stay in Psychopomp rather then Death, considering it's unique nature in Psychopomp.
I guess what I am coming to is that maybe there should be (don't read: you should make one!) a whole tree for Soul-guiding and one for Travel/Speed to represent Psychopomp and still overarch to make these characters more useful. Most purviews already have 2 boons per level. It would be like War's General and Fighter trees. Careful readers will observe I overstepped Oneiric Visit. It has a cool theme (flirting with Illusion) and is also quite lonesome in that Purview. Maybe a match ?
PS to Jacob: What doesn't Odin have associated ? (with Ragnarok I think he has like 13-14 associateds. Heimdall has 4.^^)
Your looking at pyscopomp purview incorrectly.
DeleteIf its "magically teleporting people to the death realm instantly" then its not gonna have many boons. Its gonna be 1 power that just lets you do that.
Thats boring.
Instead, you have to actually get those souls to the underworld(a side benefit of it, you can help mortals travel as well). Most of pyschopomp fits in perfectly with that theme.
Open Sesame: Are the gates of hades locked?
Unerring: Need to know direction sense to get to door to underworld
All roads: Fuck, I found a greek dude in france, and I dont know how to get his soul back to athens in the timeliest fashion.
False footsteps: less fitting, but someone is following you trying to stop you from completing your soul traveling task, set them off your trail.
Where are you: Person dies and calls out to you, you need to know where they are.
Heart of the maze: you cant make it to the ghosts right now, but they can make it to you. Instead of traveling to them, get them to come to you, then head off to underworld.
Unbarred entry:better version of open sesame. Just go through door to hades instead of opening it.
Come along: finally I can take souls with me when using unbarred entry
Storm the gates: for moving massive amounts of spirits. Think of valkries picking up 100s of dead men from a battle.
White stag: see false footsteps.
Hand off: auxillery power. Fits for cultures who bury their death with belongings that should be taken with them. Or sacrificed after the fact to them so they can have them in death.
Marathon, rainbow bridge, co-location-ride along:
All of these let you do the same job as mentioned above in all those boons better, faster, and more efficiently.
Celerity is one of the alternate power type boons like oneiric that dont fit perfectly with the theme but have side benefit. Feel free to remove it if you want to stick more closely to a pyschopomp feel.
But seriously. I call total bullshit on those all not being pyscopomp boons. They have a side benefit of travel for living beings(which is why gods of travel, ganesh, also have pyschopomp), but they all completely assist the pyscopomp in his duties of moving the dead to the underworld in a variety of culture appropriate ways.
It is interesting to me how someone with just Psychopomp makes a terrible Psychopomp. You have to take Death up to Mother's Touch or you cannot use any Psychopomp boons on the dead except Spirit Lamp. And even when you use Spirit Lamp you need Death Senses or you won't even know you have spirits following you.
DeleteAnd I know John has said that people with only a few boons tend to get those taken away through fatebonds pretty quick.
I'm actually not sure how this would make someone a terrible psychopomp - you don't need to touch people to use things like Come Along on them as long as they're coming with you, so you don't need Mother's Touch or any of the rest of Death to make you able to guide the shades to their final resting place. As long as you have Spirit Lamp to make the dead follow you, touching them physically is totally unnecessary. Even Death Senses is only necessary for spot pickups; if you run through a battlefield with Spirit Lamp up, not knowing exactly how many ghosts are following you won't prevent you from taking them to the Underworld anyway.
DeleteI imagine most psychopomps have a little bit of Death to make their jobs easier (Death Senses is definitely going to be a big plus and I imagine most have it), but it's definitely not a requirement.
Well, if you don't know spirits of the dead are around then you have no idea how well you are doing. You might be doing a great job, or you might be doing terrible. You might walk through a battlefield that has already been scoured by a psychopomp, and not have a clue.
DeleteAnd unfortunately John has said that when you only have a little bit of a purview it tends to get taken away by fatebonds, so you have a hard time keeping a little death without gaining a whole lot more death.
Oh, definitely - Death Senses will always help you be better. But lacking Death boons won't make you automatically fail, either particularly if you happen to have a role that pertains to specific types of death or events that cause death - all you have to oo is show up there and not turn your Spirit Lamp off until you get to the Underworld.
DeleteThat is true - some Scions have trouble keeping a little bit of a purview due to Fatebonds, but it's not universal. You only have as many negative Fatebonds as you have positive ones; if you've got a bonus to about five purviews, you're only going to see a negative to about five others, which leaves you with 20+ that Fate isn't messing around with at that time. It can get dicey if your Fatebonds are moving around a lot - if you hop from having one thing negative to another thanks to new Fatebonds, that'll up the number of purviews that get bought off or become hard to maintain - but saying that you can never have a small to middling amount of a purview is just inaccurate. If you look at our god-level PCs, you can see that they do have purviews with only one to four levels in them; not nearly as many as they have at zero or a significant level, but it's totally not impossible.
Now, if you do things that make it look like you don't have Death, then yeah, it's going to get bought off of you. But if you don't do things that make it seem like you're bad at Death, or stand next to actual Death gods too much, it's just as likely that your Death will remain neutral as that it'll go negative. It entirely depends on the beliefs of your Fatebound mortals and cults, and they build those beliefs based on what you do. And since Death Senses, the only Death boon you really need for psychopomping, doesn't actually cost any Legend, it won't be creating Death-oriented Fatebonds for you unless you do something else that mortals will notice.
And while it wouldn't be hard to get Fatebound to having some Death as a psychopomp, it also isn't a foregone conclusion. Lots of the most famous psychopomp gods (Hermes comes to mind) don't have Death associated as well, and while I would imagine some of them have a little Death to help them out, the two purviews don't need one another to survive. They're complementary, not symbiotic.
Thank you for the quick responses !
DeleteI have to agree with «Anonymous». I will try to use John's list
Open Sesame: Are the gates of hades locked? // Perhaps, but it's first purpose isn't that. And it doesn't apply to all Underworlds either, since some have a bridge and a guardian.
Unerring: Need to know direction sense to get to door to underworld. // Still, not designed for that. You have to study a map of that door and the power also allow you to get home. It could be used that way, but not designed for ''soul-guiding''.
All roads: Fuck, I found a greek dude in france, and I dont know how to get his soul back to athens in the timeliest fashion. // You can't see that dude or even interract with him. You don't even know he's there.
Where are you: Person dies and calls out to you, you need to know where they are. // Nope, if he dies, he can't call out to you. There's no way you can hear him, unless he possesses a computer and sends you an email about it.
Heart of the maze: you cant make it to the ghosts right now, but they can make it to you. Instead of traveling to them, get them to come to you, then head off to underworld. // I can give you that one, but then, you also need Death to use this on souls.
Storm the gates: for moving massive amounts of spirits. Think of valkries picking up 100s of dead men from a battle. // I doesn't even refer to the Underworld or souls of the dead. I refers mostly to the overworld. Your clever change of myth doesn't change that it's a farfetched soul-guiding boon.
Marathon, rainbow bridge, co-location-ride along:
All of these let you do the same job as mentioned above in all those boons better, faster, and more efficiently. // All of these don't have anything to do with soul-guiding. Rainbow bridge teleports you a number of miles in the world. Marathon allows you to run fast and long. Ride Along allows you to bring a vehicule.
Using those Psychopomp boons in a creative way to help with the ''soul-guiding'' is kinda like a War god saying Fire boons can help with fighting while having a ''side benefit'' of fire and should be in War. You can make a flag pole out of a spear but it doesn't mean it was designed for that. I like creative uses of Boons, but it shouldn't be mandatory to fit them in a box they don't belong in.
If I am looking at Psychopomp incorrectly when I define it as soul-guiding/ferrying, then what does Psychopomp mean? If it's Travel with a side on soul-guiding, then it's fine.
It's okay that some powers overarch the theme and I totally agree with that. It just seems like Traveling/Speed is overarching to Psychopomp and not the other way around.
All I'm saying is, the word Psychopomp doesn't fit the current Purview except Spirit Lamp. The boons work great and all, I'm not debating that. But in theme, it seems more of a Travel purview with a side of Psychopomp.
Also, if Hermes doesn't have Death associated, it doesn't mean he doesn't need boons of Death to be any good at ferrying souls. There are some tasty boons in Death that a Psychopomp needs to be able to do his job. I wouldn't call it symbiotic since Death gods don't need Psychopomp but Psychopomp Gods needs Death to be a Psychopomping (in it's real definition, not Scion books).
We're having a fundamental disagreement here which mostly boils down to this: we think that getting souls to the Underworld is the first and intended purpose of things like Open Sesame, Marathon Sprinter, Rainbow Bridge and so on. It's the fact that you can use them with living people that's a fun side effect, not the other way around. These boons are meant for and designed (at least the ones we wrote, barring Celerity) specifically for the job of psychopomping; the fact that they can also be used for normal travel is the bonus. (And it's a nice bonus, because psychopomp Scions need something to do besides just ferrying dead people, and that helps them be useful to their bands.) You say those boons are about travel and only incidentally work for psychopomping; we say they're about psychomping nad only incidentally work for travel. That's our fundamental disagreement, and it doesn't sound like either of us is about to change our minds.
DeleteAs for Where Are You, as long as you're a psychopomp god, dead souls can simply pray to you for guidance; they don't need any more help contacting you than that. Also, depending on the culture, their living relatives may be doing that for them in addition during funeral festivities.
Also, I don't see any reason you need Death to use Heart of the Maze on dead people. The boon doesn't say one way or the other, and as long as you fit the rest of the criteria, it should work just fine. It's not as if you're talking to/touching them any more than you would be using it on a living person, and since psychopomp's purpose is to guide dead people, it'd be pretty silly if it didn't work on them.
I'd argue that, again, the only Death boon a psychopomp could really be said to "need" to do his or her job is Death Senses. Nothing else in that purview is necessary for them to succeed with flying colors, and while some might be useful, that doesn't mean psychopomps can't do their jobs awesomely without them.
Interesting point.
DeleteHeart of the Maze requires a target, and since you usually can't target what you can't perceive, that is why I said you needed Death.
Where Are You could work with Hear Prayers yeah. I also agree about Death Senses, and maybe it's the bottom of the debate. Some Death boons are nifty for a Psychopomp god, but not mandataroy.
If you can't perceive or interract with the dead, maybe that's why I read Psychopomp boons with the traveling intent first. Where as you wrote them with the soul-guiding intent.
From there, is it «working as intended» that you need another Purview's boon ? I don't have an answer now, hanging in the middle (Is it right? Not really. Is it a big deal? Not really either)
You are infuriating me because I feel like you didnt read what I typed, and I spent a long time typing it.
DeleteSpecifically:
"If I am looking at Psychopomp incorrectly when I define it as soul-guiding/ferrying, then what does Psychopomp mean? If it's Travel with a side on soul-guiding, then it's fine. "
I said the opposite of this. And then spent two paragraphs explaining that I was saying the opposite. How could you possibly get the opposite of what I was saying?
All the questions you reraise about each boon are already explained. You just added "nuh-uh" without actually addressing the things that I said.
"storm the gates, you're clever change of myth"
What? It very specifically works for the situation I mentioned. Like....I dont understand what you're talking about at all. Storm the gates does EXACTLY what valkryie in myth need to do.
True, but since Heart of the Maze is specifically designed to call people who might be on the other side of the world, in this case "target" doesn't require perception, just knowledge of who you're calling out to. Otherwise it wouldn't work on anyone who wasn't near you anyway, which would defeat its purpose more than a little. :)
DeleteIt does look like it's mostly a question of differing views on what psychopomps do and are (and it's a good discussion!). Psychopomps, depending on the culture, don't always "interact" with the dead as much as they provide a way for them to get where they're going; they're messengers and guides, not actively in charge of anything having to do with the dead people. I imagine a lot of them do pick up Death boons, because that would make life easier, but Death as a whole is a realm belonging to Underworld rulers and others who do directly interact with the dead (like Anubis, for example). Dudes like Hermes or Ogma aren't involved in that kind of disposition/containment/reward/punishment thing that Death gods are all about; they have a totally different cosmological function, so it's a matter of expressing those two different things that occasionally overlap in a way that both makes sense and makes for good gameplay.
Again, I'd say that while Death boons make Psychopomp easier, you can function effectively as one without them, even without Death Senses. Spirit Lamp isn't directly targeted for exactly that reason; it picks up the dead whether you can see or hear them or not and allows you to move them to their destination, en masse if you need to. Being a psychopomp who can't hear or see dead people is certainly going to limit a god's chances of doing things with it on the fly - he'll have a lot more trouble doing anything meaningful in situations where he doesn't know a ghost is even around - but it won't prevent him from fulfilling his cosmic job as psychopomp.
I would totally expect psychopomps to pick up Death Senses if their Fatebonds allow. It's not that I don't think they can have some Death (or should, if they want it!), but they don't need to and it's not a mistake for things that allow for the movement of the dead, like Spirit Lamp, to be a function of Psychopomp instead of Death.
Yes I read what you said and I think Anne coined the real issue.
DeleteWhen you said: «If its "magically teleporting people to the death realm instantly" then its not gonna have many boons. Its gonna be 1 power that just lets you do that.
Thats boring.» I read (past tense) that it would be boring if it was only doing was it's supposed to do.
Anne, as I agreed with my last post, said that we were not reading boons the same way. With that in mind, I understood more what you meant in your post afterwards.
What I meant in «change of myth» is that you were speaking of Greek then swapping to Aesir to use that particular Overworld. I didn't mean you changed the valkyrie myth^^
I have read your posts I am not trying to infuriate you. It seems now we were not talking about the same thing, so my response wasn't talking about the same issue and therefore not adressing directly the point you were trying to make. :s
As for Death Senses, do you agree with what Anne said?
Didn't see Anne's last post before sending. I don't have anything to say against what you said : )
DeleteSo as an ST, if a Psychopomp PC wants to be ferrying dead people but somehow got Death on negative fatebind, would you buy off Death Senses? Last? All others?
Ok, gotcha.
DeleteFirst part: Right, I meant the opposite of what I was saying there. Thats why the next sentence starts with "instead," because I meant, "that sounds bad, good thing its not true, and this other stuff I'm about to say is."
Change of Myth: Yeah, I was trying to show how pyscopomp boons are important to the bringing of dead to the underworld in different ways for different cultures. They dont all fit all cultures perfectly.
Death Sense: I "mostly" agree. But this has discussion has made me want to revisit a very high level perception knack about seeing the dead. I wouldnt want it to step on the toes of death senses, but at the same time, its silly that there are things that perception cant see.
If a psychopomping PC with Death gets a negative Fatebond to it, it will start buying Death off, but Fatebonds always start by buying off the most expensive boon you have. So if your PC had all the way up to Mother's Touch, it would first buy that off, then your level 4s, and so on down. Death Senses and Delay rot would be the last to go.
DeleteWhich gives a PC who doesn't want to lose those boons time to either fight them off by buying new Death boons with XP, go out and use their Death boons in front of a bunch of people to try to get the Fatebond canceled, or decide to be resigned to the loss.
It would be rough if they only had Death Senses, though, because that would be the only thing and would therefore be bought off pretty quickly. We do warn players when they gain a negative Fatebond, though, so they'd know it was coming in advance if they wanted to try to fight it.
John:
DeleteCould a very high level Perception Knack coexist with Death Senses? If not, I feel in favor of Death Senses.
Anne:
Giving the fact that you warn them, I guess it goes along pretty well. Diverting from the topic, I would ask: Does this forewarning have a manifestation in-game? Or is it an mechanical effect that players are aware and their characters only become aware when their first Death Boon is bought off? Generaly, how does this Player knowledge translate to the Character in your games? If there are no clues in-game, how can the player fight it without being metagaming?
okay, a bit off topic and wide. The trick is the «in your games» part. How do you and your players deal with this issue?
I find your fatebinding system very interesting. Just wandering and wondering how it's done at your table.
No worries, any topic goes. :)
DeleteThere's no in-game "warning", per se, for a character to know that they've gained a negative Fatebond, but that purview is immediately subject to the negative dice/successes a negative Fatebond entails. Most characters notice that the things they used to do are a lot harder than they used to or don't work as well now. This is often kind of a mystery to them in-game until either a god/Legendary figure explains Fatebonds to them, or one of them gets enough Magic to figure it out, or someone uses Mystery and has an epiphany, et cetera; once they know about it, they're as much on watch for Fatebond issues in-game as out. It's certainly something the gods know about, so they can find that information if they try to.
It's not really meta-gaming - after all, buying things with XP is always "out of game" rather than in, since it's not as if the PCs themselves sit down and say, "Today I will learn a new Fire power!" (Well, sometimes they do, but they don't have to.) It's no more meta-gaming for a player to buy a boon to fight off a Fatebond than for them to buy it because they really want to use it to fight things, or to buy it because it really fits their concept. In most cases the characters develop new skills without needing a justification, so there doesn't really need to be one for fighting Fatebonds, either. In in-game terms, it would be considered the strength of the Scion's ichor and connection to that purview trying to fight back instinctively against the Fatebond's effects, just like their ichor sometimes makes them spontaneously develop new powers or abilities.
I mean a 4-5 level Perception Knack to see ghosts. You'd have the option of investing in Death or Perception, but Perception would be far up the tree.
DeleteArg keep posting without noticing the other post.
DeleteThanks for the insight, I do about the same thing too. But it's relevant to me to think about those things.
Yeah. It would probably be a level 4 perception knack(somewhere around broad spectrum) that let you see the world of the dead around you as well as the world of the living.
DeleteWould that cross over to other things that Perception can't see currently? I.e., Enech, invisible spirits, et cetera?
DeleteYes. By the end of perception you should be able to see all the things.
DeleteIt sounds like your players spend a lot of time trying to keep their fatebonds in check, and wandering around the world correcting their fatebonds. Well, except that guy in the vlog who said he just took what was dealt to him.
ReplyDeleteThey definitely can; it's always an option, and it's a big part of the world. Fatebonds are the entire reason the gods don't go to the World and send Scions instead, after all. Some players do fiddle with their Fatebonds a lot, and others just let Fate do what it will. (They don't really kick in until Legend 6+, though, so Heroes don't have to bother with them much.)
DeleteIm not sure thats true. There was a period mid demigod where they fooled with them often(but that was just cuase they had a magician who loved to tempt and mess with fate). In the past year I really dont think its happened all that much at all. Its probably been 30 games or so since someone worried about fatebonds in a real time consuming way at all.
DeleteMore often its just something like "damnt I have a negative fatebond to stamina. Next time things are happening near mortals and we're spending legend, I should remember to use more stamina knacks/boons that roll stamina/show that I survive incredibly hard challenges. Its something the player has to think about a bit, but if the character is supposed to be good at stamina, it should be something they'd be doing anyway.