Question: Why does Hecate have Epic Wits associated?
Alas, normally these are easy questions to answer - I can be like, "Look at this myth, and this other myth, BAM! That's why that person has that stat!" Such is not the case with Hecate, unfortunately, and the reasoning is a combination of system restrictions and the general enigmatic nature of Hecate's mythology.
As far as the system goes, we strive to always make sure that every playable parent god has at least one Attribute and one purview associated; while we're fine with not every god having the same number of associations, we do prefer to keep any Scions from having absolutely no options for an XP discount in either dimension. Hecate has plenty of demonstrable associations for purviews; in fact, contrary to our usual problems with Dodekatheon gods, we actually had to keep her trimmed down to the strongest of all her burgeoning possibilities instead of having to reach to give her some. But for Attributes, there was no single one that really jumped out and made itself known, which presented us with a conundrum.
And it's not that Hecate doesn't do things that look like uses of Attributes; it's rather that she does many things that look like uses of Attributes, and that they aren't consistent or repeated. Zeus appears to love her an alarming amount, making her not only one of the only Titans allowed to hang out on Olympus but declaring that, of all Titans, only she gets to keep her ancient properties in the universe (including part of his domain, the sky!) - so that might be some pretty hefty Charisma there, but she doesn't really do it again beyond that example. Along with all-seeing Helios, she's the only other god in creation who notices Persephone's abduction by Hades, a dude renowned for his sneaking abilities - so that looks like a good argument for Perception, but again this is the only time she demonstrates it. Her involvement in helping Demeter find Persephone, helping Persephone escape but also possibly being the instrument of Persephone's inescapable connection to Hades might indicate some Manipulation at work - but does it really, when with Manipulation it's so hard to tell if she manipulated unless someone caught her doing it? And she kills another Titan with fire that one time, so is there something there we should be paying attention to?
So while Hecate is definitely doing lots of things that would normally be worthy of Attribute, well, attribution, she never does the same thing twice in a row. That's a little bit frustrating, and we don't want to just give her all of the things she demonstrates, since that'd be gilding the lily quite a bit and we would require more demonstration of those qualities before we gave them to any other god. So we were kind of stuck, and we ended up doing something we hate but always seem to end up having to do for the Dodekatheon: we compromised.
Hecate eventually ended up with Epic Wits associated because it was the Attribute that made the most sense to us as a catch-all that might be able to cover all the stuff she does. Between knowing which side of the Titanomachy her bread was buttered on and demonstrating all kinds of things that most other gods would have to specialize to be able to do, we came to the conclusion that Epic Wits was the best choice to represent her magical ability to always be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing, even if it wasn't something she was normally famous for. It's not a traditional interpretation of Epic Wits the way most of our associations are - she's not a career trickster or a famous weaseler-out-of-troubler, but she is a figure who is never without the perfect skill for the occasion and who somehow managed to keep her property, prestige and influences despite being a Titan and existing alongside other deities who by rights should have easily replaced her and rendered her irrelevant but somehow failed to do so.
There are a lot of Attributes she could have, but the only one we could really make a strong case for was Epic Wits; the lady is one of the most savvy survivors and responders of her insane pantheon, and she does it so well almost nobody seems to notice.
sounds a little bit like Lugh, the person with the perfect skill at the perfect time.
ReplyDeleteSort of. Lugh has a very specific list of skills and demonstrates them specifically, while Hecate doesn't have anyone explain what she does and yet is just out there, randomly doing things. They're kind of polar opposites, actually - everyone knows Lugh can do whatever job necessary and can call him in a time of need, but nobody has any clue what Hecate's up to until she turns up, doing the unexpected. But yeah, in the general sense that both are jacks of all trades, they have a lot of similarities. Also, they're both big into dogs.
DeleteDidn't Lugh also have a habit of having the right trick at the right time? He knew the right thing to say at the door to Ogma, and he knew the right way to trick Bres, and he knew the final weakness of Balor?
DeleteI wouldn't say so, no. Those are just Lugh being solidly Irish. He didn't need a secret password to get into the court of the Tuatha, he just needed to boast about what he was good at (everything!). I would agree that tricking Bres (well, sort of tricking, it's kind of implied that Bres knew what he was up to but couldn't do anything about it because of his geas) is definitely a cool witty maneuver, but then again, ruining other peoples' geasa is something everyone in Ireland is doing, not just Lugh. I'm not sure what final weakness of Balor you mean - I don't think "shoot him in the face" was exactly rocket science.
DeleteIf you frame it in those terms, every god ever is always doing right place, right time - should Zeus also be considered the same because he always knows how to turn into an animal and seduce his target, or Thor because he always knows how to hit somebody with a hammer so they die? The difference for me is that while Lugh is doing things that are very strongly in-character for his culture and personality, they're not surprising. He's a widely-famed multi-skilled warrior; it's not really surprising that he's good at killing the most fearsome of foes, or demonstrating his awesome skilliness in any one of a variety of dimensions. Hecate, on the other hand, is not a widely-famed mistress of battle or manipulator of kings or beloved icon and example to the other gods, but somehow she still sometimes does those things. She's out of the blue where Lugh is not.
If you're just pointing out that this is kind of a weird justification for Hecate having Wits, however, I'm totally with you. We freely admit that it's sketchier than some of our other picks, and if we didn't want to avoid giving any god or goddess none in either purviews or attributes, we'd seriously consider removing it and let Hecate fly purviews-only. God knows she has enough of them.
No, unfortunately I was going for the first part and not the second part. I thought that what Fire said seemed to make sense. Lugh just always seems to end up having the right answer, more often than a lot of gods. I don't think he feels super smart, but he always comes up with something. He's like a mary sue until he dies.
DeleteI was trying to say that, since this justification normally probably wouldn't be strong enough for us to give an association to Hecate if she didn't need one, we definitely aren't going to use the same justification to give it to anyone else, Lugh included. We've talked a lot about Lugh before, but while I'm sure he has awesome Wits - probably eight Epic dots or so - he really doesn't do things that make me think he has it associated. He's a dude who is famous for doing things he's good at well, not for coming up with stuff he isn't known to be good at on the fly.
DeleteThis makes me wonder: is there anything in the game mechanics that would allow a player to use the same sort of "in the right place at the right time" model that you're attributing to Hecate?
ReplyDeleteI agree that it sounds Epic Witsy in a general sort of way, but I am not sure how I as a player would go about planning to use Epic Wits to pursue that same concept or strategy.
Hmm. Well, someone who wanted to go with that idea of having surprisingly awesome skills that they normally wouldn't at a moment's notice could get some good mileage out of Talent Mirror? It requires that you have someone else around who has that skill, but could often result in being able to demonstrate startling skills you normally couldn't. Honestly, my first instinct was to say, "Oh, that's kind of what Advantageous Circumstances does!", but then I realized that AC is Manipulation, not Wits. (Hmm. Perhaps there should be a similar power in Wits - not manipulating the world to help you but just being that great at seizing the best fleeting window of opportunity?)
DeleteAt the moment, being in the right place at the right time definitely feels like something Wits should be doing, but you're right, I can't think of much that does that concretely. As Storytellers we try to let people roll Wits to realize something's happening in time to do something about it, or let high Wits characters' players say, "Hey, I have a lot of Wits, could I make a roll to try to prevent X thing that just happened because I should have reacted fast enough?", but that's not codified, just general practice that varies between STs.
Is this a place Wits needs more utility, or are we stretching the definition of Wits too much?
I feel like more utility here could be totally appropriate, especially if you're going to interpret Epic Wits in a way that means it's totally able to do these things.
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