Ties That Bind

Question: Are humans unique in causing Fatebonds, or do lesser immortals cause such problems?

Actually, everybody causes Fatebonds! At their most basic level, Fatebonds are merely the ties of fate that bind various people, places and things together in the great tapestry of myth, and everyone who spends Legend causes them while everyone who has Legend spent around them gains them. Gods are Fatebound to one another as well as to mortals, while lesser immortals and even Titanspawn are equally prone to being caught in one anothers' great weaves. Any band of Scions over Legend 5 who spends more than a week or two together will probably end up permanently Fatebound to one another thanks to the constant Legend expenditure, and the most legendary of foes usually end up Fatebound to the Scions they oppose as well.

For most of these Fatebonds, all that means is that they become part of one anothers' stories. If they leave one another, they almost always come back together at some point, or the things they do have consequences that affect one another if they don't. They become characters in one anothers' Legends, meaning that they're always prone to turning up or being part of the plot. Sometimes it's positively, as with a band of Scions who are inseparably bound by their Fates, jobs and bonds of friendship or loyalty; sometimes it's negatively, as with an enemy who is too strongly Fatebound to someone to ever leave them alone. Sometimes a legendary being may be Fatebound to a place (like Apollo to Delphi, for example) or an item (Thor to Mjolnir) as well, illustrating that that thing has become a part of their myth.

The difference between Fatebonds from mortals and Fatebonds from everyone else is in the mechanical effects past that point. Legendary beings that are Fatebound to one another may continually appear in one anothers' stories and turn up in one anothers' future, but they still have free will and are not forced into any Fatebound Role. They can take concrete actions against or for one another, but they're strong enough to both make their own decisions about people they are Fatebound to and to avoid being hapless instruments of Fate to affect them. There's no mechanical benefit or negative to being Fatebound to someone Legendary; you'll see them a lot, for better or for worse, but it doesn't have a direct effect on you beyond that.

Mortals, on the other hand, are the tools, hands and chosen of Fate. They don't have the strength of will and mythic power of Legendary beings to fight against Fate or choose their own destinies, so Fatebonds hit them like a ton of unyielding bricks. They take on Fatebound roles that they can't break out of, becoming Lovers, Traitors, Canaries or whatever other character Fate thinks they should play in the story. And, because they're the favored tools of Fate who have no way of escaping its power, they also do its work, levying penalties or granting bonuses on those they are Fatebound to in accordance with the mythic story those Legendary beings are writing with their actions. Only mortals are weak enough to be bound incontrovertibly into a Legendary being's story, but by the same token, only mortals are therefore suitable for Fate to work through in the form of belief and direct effects on Scions and gods.

That's one of our favorite cool core concepts in Scion, actually: that humanity is by far the weakest and most defenseless kind of being in Scion's universe, but through their special link to Fate and the great stories of the world, they are also, through Fatebonds, the most powerful. All hail the mighty power of mankind, for it is them who writes and remembers your story, and that gives them power over it.