Scion Camp

Question: This might sound silly, but would it be totally out of the question for a Scion to set up something like a summer camp or club for other Scions to join? Perhaps not as well set up as the Camp Half-blood series or as illustrious as Hogwarts, but just... a building, with other Scions around. Maybe some helpful monster dudes. Be all like, "Welcome to Camp Asgard, are you Team Vanir or Team Aesir? Learn some proper Scion type things and get to hang out with other Scions and like, relax!" Or something.

Nah, don't feel silly. We wouldn't recommend it because it would be a disaster waiting to happen, but theoretically, yes, you could set up Scion Camp if you really wanted to. It sounds like a neat idea, after all - hey! Come to Scion camp, where we'll do magical arts and crafts, teach one another fighting techniques and bond with other children of the gods who can understand us the way mortals can't anymore! Seek excitement, romance and divine jam sessions! It sounds like a good time.

And an enterprising Scion who wanted to put this together certainly could; it just takes organizational skills and resources, things that Scions with decent social and mental stats probably already have. It's not leasing or building cabins and tents and fields that's the problem, or even the inescapable fact that brawling Scions are going to piss each other off and sometimes blow your camp up in the process; that's all easy enough to handle. The problem is, well... that you're Scions.

Unfortunately, for the most part Scions just don't have any time for camp, no matter how much fun it would be. They're the front line of shock troops in a divine war; they need to be out there thwarting bad guys, hunting monsters, supporting their parents and saving humanity. It would certainly be more fun for them to instead spend a week hanging out with other Scions eating smores, but that's a week that people are dying, evil is spreading and the Titans are gaining further toeholds in the world. They're needed right here and right now. Divine parents aren't going to let their kids sit around roasting weenies instead of doing their jobs, so the only Scions likely to have any leisure time for camping and hangouts are those who don't have very close parental supervision or who don't care about saving people and fixing stuff very much. Scions' very Virtues are screaming at them to get out and do stuff - nobody with Courage can hang out very long when he knows there are monsters abroad in the world, nor can someone with Valor ignore the fact that humanity is helpless against them or someone with Harmony ignore the fact that the presence of Titanspawn is badly damaging to the World itself.

The other major issue for trying to set up a congregation of Scions this way is the ever-present problem of Fateful Aura. All Scions have a Fateful Aura, which basically guarantees that since they are Legendary and divine heroes, their lives will never be calm or boring; disasters happen near them, Titanspawn and other monsters are drawn to where they are, and their mere presence makes it certain that large upheavals and dangers will be coming home to roost wherever they happen to be hanging out. Multiply that by dozens of Scions, and your Scion camp has an enormous, hideous Fateful bullseye painted across it in glowing neon. Even if you can keep the Scions themselves from knocking the place down in their youthful hijinks, it's going to be Target One for basically any nasty creature, disasterous spell or horrible coincidence that whatever continent it's on has to offer. There will probably not be a lot of hanging out and shooting the shit, and more a lot of mayhem and dying, which they may or may not be able to handle; many Scions in one place is a lot of firepower, but their Fateful Auras will be sure to bring things down on them that match up in danger and potency. You'll be rebuilding this camp from cinders every week.

And, unfortunately, it's likely that Scions will die here - with that many Fateful Auras bringing down that much mess, threats that a band of Scions might have been able to handle will be multiplied to dangerous heights. The small army of camping Scions may triumph as a group in the end, but they're very likely to suffer casualties due to the sheer scale of the dangers their combined presences are causing. Even worse, putting that many Scions in one place makes the camp a positively irresistible target for the Titans - what better way to at the same time strike against the gods and hamstring their effectiveness than by nuking dozens of their children at the same time?

This all sounds very discouraging, but if you can find ways to try to handle this, or are just game to deal with the constant crazy dangers and need to rebuild the place, there's nothing stopping a Scion from giving it a shot. It probably wouldn't be sustainable at low levels, but high-level Scions with Guardian would be ahead when it comes to protecting the camp from a lot of dangers that might come its way, and those with Industry may be able to create permanent fixtures and tools that won't get destroyed in the inevitable rains of enemy fire and squabble-fueled lightning storms.

I think the idea would work particularly well as a sort of training ground for brand-new Scions, a crash course in the divine world, their new powers and what's expected of them before they're thrown out into the trenches. It would probably be short-term - maybe a camper would stay there about three weeks or so before sallying forth against the world - but it would be a fun way to make beginning connections with other Scions and have a general idea of the dangers out there before having to wing it. A Scion could definitely create and run such a place (provided he or she was high-level enough and good enough at planning to put out constant fires) in order to continue helping turn out effective Scions for the war effort, not to mention giving the new kids a better chance at surviving the trials ahead. All it would take would be convincing a god or two that it was a good idea - or, if you want it to be pan-pantheon, convincing several pantheon heads that you were truly a neutral party.

Of course, the fights and political machinations would be endless, but that's half the fun, right?