Wait for It

Question: Do you always have to perform gross in-your-face Legendary feats to increase your Legend, or can you do it subtly as long as people come to know and worship you? (I have an NPC scion of Tlazoteotl who works as a brothel madam catering to the elite of society, and I would like to increase her Legend by dint of her growing notoriety).

I think this is a couple of questions wrapped together, so the answer is both no and yes.

No, you don't have to be all up in peoples' grills with what you're doing to gain in Legend. Sure, it's easy to look all Legendary when you're out fighting giants, pitching fireballs and commanding magical troops, but there are plenty of character archetypes who don't do that and are just as important. Gods who are tricksters, illusionists, politicians, masterminds or social butterflies often do none of those things and still manage to be plenty legendary.

But the key is that you have to do important legendary feats. It doesn't matter if only one person sees you do it or hundreds of thousands; what really matters is that it's a feat worthy of increasing the legends written about you. If you happen to successfully pull off a Trendsetter that affects even gods and introduces a brand new, nigh-permanent feature into your pantheon's culture, that's definitely worthy of being taken into consideration to see if your Legend increases, even if no one knows you were the one who did it. Fate knows you did it, and consequently Fate backs you up in your climb to become ever more important and legendary. There are lots of ways to be legendarily important without being in anyone's face, from managing to negotiate a seriously tricky situation between Legendary antagonists to creating a great piece of artwork or machinery to dispensing wisdom from Prophecy, Mystery or just your own smarts that the more bombastic Scions can then use to charge into the breach. It doesn't matter what you do; it matters that, whatever it is, it's important and legendary.

However, and this bleeds into the second part of your question, it still matters that you are doing things, and furthermore that they're things that really merit you increasing in Legend. And, from your brief description, it sounds like for your brothel madame I'd say yes, she needs to be doing more if she wants to go up in Legend.

Just being famous does not equate to a Legend increase, especially if you're being famous for something that mortals can be (and are) also famous for. Being a notorious madame is all well and good, but why does Fate care any more about that out of your Scion than it would for a mortal who was doing the same thing? Your Scion needs to be doing something legendary, and if all she ever does is be very good at being a brothel madame, she's not being legendary. Even if she is a better madame than any mortal can be, that'll only take her so far if she never does anything new, interesting or worthy of a story. Think about the Scions and gods of mythology and the many tales of their exploits; those exploits are what make up the fabric of their Legend, the stories that tell us who they are and why they're important enough to be remembered through the ages. If they didn't have those exploits, they wouldn't be legendary; if your Scion doesn't have exploits, she's not going to be Legendary, either. If you can't come up with any stories of awesome stuff she's done - and subtle stuff is okay, but it has to be awesome subtle stuff! If it's something a talented mortal or another Scion her level could do without too much trouble, it doesn't count! - then she's not going up in Legend, simple as that.

Now, luckily for you, it'd be very hard for your Scion to survive very long without doing anything awesome anyway, because, like all Scions, she has a Fateful Aura. Trouble, whether in the forms of critters, crazy magical situations or explosive political shenanigans, is always going to come her way, no matter what she does or where she goes. She'll never be able to sit in a brothel and run her business without continual interruption from the supernatural, because that's what being a Scion means; Fate wants her involved in the story, and it's going to get her there if it kills her. Fateful Aura is Fate directly involving a Scion in its stories, so your madame will practically have to do awesome things unless she wants to get killed or be constantly on the run.

Scions can always gain Legend by doing subtle yet gloriously important and legendary things, and those whose characters lend themselves more to doing so should never feel like the only way to get ahead is to run in with grenades blazing. But they also always have to make a difference and write a story; they have to be important, and if nothing they're doing is important enough that you'd want to inscribe it on a clay tablet and keep it for future generations, they aren't doing enough. It's a Scion's job to be Legendary, so if you can't tell a compelling legend of their deeds, no matter what form those deeds might take, then they just aren't living up to their potential the way they need to in order to play with the big boys.