With Mind Bullets!

Question: Why is Telepathy an Intelligence knack? Seems to me that projecting thoughts with your powerful brain is not really from mythology, and has its roots in modern ESP claims and mentalism. I get that it can be cool and thematic to "speak without speaking," but that seems less like a "my brain is huge" situation than "I have a potent and imposing divine presence" (which would say to me: possibly a Charisma knack, or maybe just a regular feature of being a god). The same goes for Grant Visions, etc.

Whether or not Telepathy fits mythically depends entirely on which direction you approach it from, I think, and part of the problem is its name; "telepathy" is very specifically a modern word invented to describe the idea of paranormal activity in modern terms, which of course makes most of us think of science fiction or crazy pseudo-psychiatrists in the nineteenth century. "Telepathy" makes us think of the kids from Akira, the Jedi mentalists of Star Wars, Professor X from X-Men or the bald children from The Matrix. And under those terms, it's easy to see why it doesn't feel like it belongs in the same category as the myths of the ancient and all-powerful gods. Compared to driving the sun around in a chariot, that kid from Heroes is very small, very modern, very science-fictiony potatoes.

But telepathy does happen in ancient myth; it just isn't called that, and doesn't always occur in the same way that modern science fiction uses it. Gods frequently communicate divinely with their worshipers (or with other gods, who also sometimes call on each other) without actually doing so physically, most often in order to respond to prayer; of course, the mortals are praying to talk to the god, but the god certainly isn't praying back. Sometimes a god just shows up in person to talk directly to a worshiper (praying to Devas, in particular, seems to be like just going out and putting out the welcome mat to invite them over for coffee), but just as often they merely answer through unexplained eldritch means, as disembodied or internal voices, or simply as "and then God X answered him the following". If you add in the concept of granting visions, you'll see the idea abound - sometimes it's to designated oracles, which would be more accurately covered by Prophecy, but often it's in a distinctly non-oracular setting, from Arjuna being granted a vision of Vishnu's full glory by his earthly avatar Krishna to the knights of the round table receiving visions of the Holy Grail.

Not that visions and communication from gods or other beings always need to be mind-to-mind, since like most things in Scion there are multiple ways to do what you want. But it's definitely a legitimate idea for a divine power; it's merely one that's also been approached in the modern day by the scientific and speculative fiction communities.

Which brings us back around to Intelligence! While it's true that the knack's placement under Intelligence by the original authors was probably mostly due to Telepathy's modern connotations of being a psychic power motivated by the power of the mind, we've kept it there because as far as we can tell there really isn't anywhere better for it to go. It's not really about the god's force of presence; Telepathy can be used even if the god is successfully hiding from the person he's talking to, and it's definitely something that has to do first and foremost with communication, not with just being impressive at people (Charisma people usually tend to just have in-person conversations; Telepathy would be gilding their lily a bit). Hear Prayers comes from Perception, but Telepathy clearly isn't about perceiving things but rather acting upon them. It's not really Manipulation, it doesn't have anything to do with Wits, the physical Attributes are right out, and there really aren't any purviews it could fall under except possibly for Magic, but trying to parlay it into some kind of Fate-related thing is a bit of a stretch.

So it has remained in Intelligence largely because, while it isn't a perfect fit, it is still the best place we thought it made sense. And while we don't want to accidentally invoke more visions of people with hypnotism wheels and bent spoons or anything, it's not actually entirely invalid to think of Telepathy as a mental power, even in mythic terms. The idea of The Power of the Mind is certainly a modern one when applied to mortals, but the idea that a god's mind is so powerful that it can simply overwhelm and communicate with those of others without the barriers of bodies interfering isn't all that dissonant. You probably could move it to Charisma if you really wanted to, but we think the fit is worse.

I have to wonder if we would get this question quite so much if the power were called something less evocative of science fiction, like "Communion". We have occasionally considered changing its name, but we've always decided not to bother; it's a little annoying sometimes, but the word "telepathy" tells players immediately, simply and perfectly exactly what the power does, so we figure if it ain't really broke, we probably shouldn't worry too much about fixing it.