If anyone reading this doesn't know what tuatara are because you don't like knowing about awesome things, here's a picture of one:
Pretty cute for a lizard, eh? Except not: tuatara, according to science, are not actually lizards. They're also not snakes, crocodiles or anything except tuatara, being the only surviving examples of their distinct type of creature. They figure prominently in Maori mythology as little messengers of the gods or markers of magical borders, have a mysterious third eye, and are generally a super cool option for any Scion's totem animal.
I could see it going either way, but for the most part, I'd allow tuatara to be affected by the use of Animal (Lizard) boons. Science may know they're not the same as lizards, but it's a very small, very specific classification that nobody would have realized without modern studies in fossils and scientific evolutionary descent, so it's hardly something that makes a mythic difference. They look like lizards; they act like lizards. Animal (Lizard) should probably work on them.
But if a Polynesian Scion wanted to take Animal (Tuatara) as a more specific choice, that would be awesome; not only is that much cooler, it's much more in tune with the mythology of their pantheon. Like Komodo dragons or Gila monsters, tuatara are specialty reptiles that deserve their own place in the sun thanks to their mythic awesomeness. I'd let a Scion use Animal (Lizard) on them, but I'd reward a Scion with Animal (Tuatara) for it more.
This is one thing I've not been quite clear on, given how y'all run Animal. If someone with Animal (Lizard) can attempt to use their Boons on a tuatara, but not as effectively as someone with Animal (Tuatara), is the reverse true?
ReplyDeleteHmm, maybe I was a little unclear - I am on a lot of pain drugs right now, please pardon me when I'm incoherent.
DeleteI didn't mean that Animal (Tuatara) boons would work better on tuatara than Animal (Lizard) boons would; there wouldn't be a mechanical bonus to one or penalty to the other or anything like that. They'd just do what Animal boons do as usual. What I meant was that if a player chose to take Animal (Tuatara) to have that specific totem, knowing that it would be less versatile than (Lizard) - in essence, sacrificing mechanical utility for theme and flavor - I'd reward that player more in game by giving them more cool stuff to do with their tuatara. If a player makes a gutsy choice about their Scion's theme and totem like that, I'm more inclined as a Storyteller to give them more opportunities and cool side things in a story to support it (not that I'd neglect the lizard guy, just that he's already getting more natural opportunities so he needs less extra love).
When you specialize a totem down to something really specific, it only works on that thing. So someone with Animal (Tuatara) most often probably wouldn't be able to use their boons on non-tuatara lizards, because they'd intentionally chosen to take a cooler totem at the expense of flexibility. I'd always reserve Storyteller judgment to be able to make calls in specific cases, though - (Tuatara) might work on some lizards who were most closely similar or related to tuatara, but not on the majority of others that weren't.