Question: Suppose a child of Zeus finds out about his or her parentage prior to Visitation and asks to serve Hera as a preemptive means of appeasing her. Is this the kind of thing that Hera might accept? If so, is she going to single out the Scion for poor treatment or treat him or her the same as the rest of her adopted children?
Neat idea! Although a little difficult to pull off - not a lot of ways for mortal children of the gods who haven't had Visitations yet to find out about their birth parents or go talk to goddesses, but I'm sure there could be some way it could happen.
I think Hera would be likely to find it an interesting gesture, and depending on what kind of mood this supplicant Scion caught her in, she might be willing to adopt him. But alas, she would never treat him the same as the rest of her children; not only is she probably not inclined to, but she's almost actually incapable of doing so.
Hera has Vengeance, like all of the Dodekatheon, and is probably one of those who has it at a full, unapologetic five dots to boot. Even if she genuinely likes someone, if her Vengeance says they've done her wrong and need to be lashed out against, that lashing out has a good chance of happening. This poor Scion is coming in with no bargaining power, nothing to offer (because he's still a mortal - he has potential, but she doesn't yet know how that will develop) and no features except being the living evidence of Zeus' disrespect for their marriage, and as a result he's rolling the dice on even surviving his attempt to make nice with her. If she does keep it under control long enough to accept him, he's won a single battle in a possibly neverending war, because her Vengeance will continue to rail against him whenever she sees him.
Of course, if she turns out to really like the kid, she's more likely to be willing to try to roll against her Vengeance and pay Willpower to keep him in one piece, but if she doesn't have a reason to go to all that trouble, she's probably going to make his life hell at least some of the time. Then, too, there's always the danger that she'll make a catastrophic roll one day and hit Vengeance Extremity, at which point the Scion or his philandering biological daddy are both potentially in deep trouble as she goes to rampage mode. The more the Scion can do to ingratiate himself with her, from praising her, bringing her gifts, performing her tasks and speaking out against Zeus' misbehavior, the better his odds will be, but every god has the occasional moment of Virtue-motivated insanity, and Hera's not immune to that.
Just generally speaking, Virtues aside, Hera is probably always going to be harder on this Scion than on her others. He's going to get worse jobs, more difficult problems and colder treatment at the very least; he'll need to prove himself to her in ways that the other children, chosen by her and from less painful origins, don't. The sins of his father are going to hang over his head for a long time, and while he can certainly work to change her perception of him, the simple act of asking Hera to take him on won't make her forget where he came from or prevent her from responding emotionally. Think of the usual response a normal human husband or wife might have to suddenly having to raise their spouse's lovechild from an affair, and then multiply that by the giant overblown emotions of the gods. It can happen, but it won't be easy.
But it's definitely still possible, and I think it would make for a very interesting character story to see how that Scion tried to handle the family politics around him and decided to grow and side with one, the other, or neither of these hugely bad-tempered parents. It's a perfect plot for someone with the Expositor or Penitent nature, and depending on how well the Scion pulled it off, could lead to considerable political power for him on Olympus once he ascended to godhood himself. Hera has accepted Scions of Zeus before - Dionysus and Heracles, though both went through severe trial by fire before she stopped harassing them - and potentially could again, but it's all in how you play it.
And Hera is a pretty awesome patron for a young hero and pretty fond of blessings and forcing the other gods to provide aid or stay out of the way, so there are certainly also rewards for working for her. It's a hard road but one that probably can't help but lead to some really rewarding stories.
When is Vengeance finally satisfied? I mean, at some point after a completely disproportionate punishment Vengeance should finally say "Alight, you've had enough'.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, everyone is going to end up hating everyone else forever and ever in a giant Vengeance spiral as you hate more and more people.
hating everyone else forever and ever in a giant Vengeance spiral
DeleteAnd there you've just described Greek mythology!
Vengeance is a Virtue; it is permanent, strong and important, and it is never satisfied. Your Order doesn't at some point say, "Eh, you know, we've followed enough laws, we don't need to be law-abiding anymore," and your Courage doesn't say, "Seriously, I've murdered like seventy monsters, I think that's good enough." They continue wanting you to obey laws and kill monsters, because that is the entire point of having Order and Courage. They don't turn off because they're inconvenient or after you've been obeying them a lot; they're always there.
Vengeance is the same. It never goes away and it's never satisfied, which is the reason most feuds, rivalries and insults in Greek myth end with people being dead or locked in a war. Hera's never going to be satisfied that she's punished Zeus or his offspring "enough" for their transgressions; she can't be. As long as they exist, she will feel the need to avenge herself upon them.
Which doesn't mean she's constantly murdering everyone, of course - like all other Virtues, gods can use Willpower to fight off their Vengeance when it's not a good time, which is how she's able to, for example, handle having Heracles living somewhere on Olympus (provided she doesn't hang out with him too much). She can tamp down her need to seek revenge on those who have wronged her when she really has to, but it's exhausting and uncomfortable and if she doesn't have a good reason to bother, chances are she won't.
You can never get around Vengeance by hoping that eventually the person who has it will think they've inflicted "enough" on you; Vengeance isn't about you, it's about the person who has it and their consuming need to strike back at those who hurt or anger them. The only way you can handle people with Vengeance pointed in your direction is to become important enough or good enough friends with them that they're motivated to try to control their urge to put tacks in your shoes.
This hypothetical Scion will never be free of Hera's Vengeance, but if he can convince her he's worth saving or that it's not fair to hurt him for his father's sins, he may be able to earn the privilege of her trying her best to treat him normally.
I'm not sure that makes much sense from a gameplay perspective though. Hera wakes up and sees someone she dislikes (which is everyone). She spends some willpower to not flip out. She takes ten steps and sees someone else she dislikes. She spends some willpower to flip out. She takes ten steps and no longer has any willpower and goes right into extremity.
DeleteThat's a little exaggerated in time scale, but still illustrates the problem. If you can never stop being vengeful then you will end up vengeful against so many people that you will run out of willpower.
You're literally spending willpower every single scene because you know and hate so many people. Especially your band mates, who are inevitably going to end up on that list the first time they do anything that even remotely disagrees with you.
And that's assuming you guys use a rule where suppressing a virtue turns it off for the entire scene. You guys might use a rule where you people can trigger vengeance multiple times within the same scene which puts it closer to the ten step exaggeration.
Nah, once you've tamped a Virtue down for the scene, it's tamped down. If Hera wakes up and has to pay Willpower to avoid punching Apollo in the nose, she's managed to get her vengeful feelings under control for the rest of the scene. She won't be happy if the rest of her husband's illegitimate children all have a party on her front lawn, but she won't have to pay for each individual one. Since Hera isn't in play much unless PCs are there bothering her, "scenes" don't really apply to her much unless she's actually in the game anyway, just as we don't assume Huitzilopochtli is constantly Courage-extremitying his way through the Titanrealms. As always, the PCs' actions are the ones that shape the world, so unless you have important plot action going on behind the scenes, there's little point to trying to keep traack of Hera's daily Willpower expenditures and/or actions if she's not doing anything important.
DeleteRemember, also, that everyone here is very, very aware of the fact that Hera (and everyone else in the pantheon) has Vengeance, and they know how to behave accordingly. Hera is hardly going to be out gallivanting around Olympus visiting gods she doesn't like, and those same gods are perfectly aware that they risk bad things happening if they come around her too often, so it's unlikely that they're going to be near her if they can help it. (In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she had banished several of them from getting too close to her home, the ones she can get away with without Zeus complaining, anyway.) Zeus almost certainly keeps her Willpower topped off with Appearance and Charsma knacks (the same way Sowiljr does to keep Eztli from running rampant in our games, actually), and shit will seldom hit the fan unless the unexpected happens.
Which of course means that things get bad when the unexpected happens, but that... well, happens, just as it happens for everybody's Virtues. And there are plenty of people on Olympus that Hera isn't Vengeance'd out at for her to interact with - her children with Zeus (Ares, Hephaestus, Hebe and so on), older-generation gods like herself and her sisters (Demeter, Nike, Hecate and so on), and her own dedicated lesser god servants and flunkies. She's far from trapped in an Overworld populated only by people she hates.
Actually, we rule that unless something is particularly heinous (i.e., your bandmate ate your baby or sold your relic or something), you have to channel Vengeance against them to put them on the permanent Vengeance list. PCs with Vengeance keep a running list of the people that trigger their Virtue either because of terrible actions against them or Vengeance channeling; everyone else they don't have to roll against for normal disagreements and minor spats (although they are by nature more likely to get petty revenge or drag those things out).
Also, Hera often just doesn't roll against her Vengeance and instead sets in motion plans designed to annoy, destroy or drive to despair people she's mad at. She's the queen and nine times out of ten doesn't really even have to leave her house to do that kind of stuff, and Vengeance is satisfied that she's actively working toward an enemy's downfall. In our games, she's been prone to sending agents out to kill Scions of other gods on her list and/or to intentionally blocking and ruining political alliances or attempts at diplomacy to spite those who have earned her wrath.
DeleteAHA! You just explained how every character with Vengeance does not turn into a raving batshit crazy lunatic. You don't end up on the Vengeance list unless the slight is heinous or you channel Vengeance against them.
DeleteMaybe I am just forgetful, but I don't think that rule has ever been clearly stated in a previous blog?
It's possible that we haven't - I don't know that we've ever had a blog post exactly explaining the Virtue mechanics (probably because they're so freeform to start with in the books). Glad to clear up confusion, though. :)
DeleteYou can end up on a Vengeance list if you are part of a group that someone puts on there, though - for example, Hera probably has Vengence (Illegitimate Children of Zeus), so even if you've never met her, you're unfortunately included. Our Vengeance Scions do have individual nemeses, but group hatreds have in the past included Fire Giants, Werewolves, Norsemen and, in one spectacularly ill-advised case, Police.
Never had a blog post exactly explaining the Virtue mechanics? Then consider that question put into the question box (I actually just did).
DeleteOf course, you just answered Vengeance but there are a while bunch of fun virtues who could use some explaining. Thanks for all the info!
Sounds like a fun post! :) Looking forward to it!
DeleteHow did Dionysus manage to get along with Hera, then?
ReplyDeleteSame way all of Zeus' illegitimate god children do, probably - after being thoroughly kicked around by her Vengeance, he was officially instated on Olympus by Zeus. Hera couldn't do anything about it, so she pretty much just has to deal with it.
DeleteDionysus, in addition to getting her released from Hephaestus' trap-chair, has a suspicious number of powers that can wipe peoples' memories or distract them from what they're doing. Greek myth really doesn't explain why she puts up with him, but I would suspect he does a combination of avoiding her, shenanigans when they're around each other, and convincing other gods to get in the line of fire for him (like when he saw she was going to fight against him in the war in India and sent Artemis out there to get her ass kicked, thus avoiding Hera knowing he had anything to do with it).
Hera? Fight in India with Atremis? I've never heard of that myth. Details please!
DeleteI love that myth because it's so goddamned ridiculous. Dionysian stories are nuts.
DeleteThe quick, redacted version:
India sasses Dionysus. Dionysus decides to conquer India and brings in several armies. India starts having problems, which gets the attention of other gods. When Dionysus sees that Hera's decided to come oppose him, he grabs Artemis and convinces her to lead the army for him. Hera shows up, Artemis sasses her, combat is joined. Artemis tries to shoot her a bunch but can't get any arrows through the impenetrable veil of clouds Hera has borrowed from Zeus. Hera makes a giant club out of hail and beats the daylights out of Artemis, breaking her bown and putting her the fuck down.
That's not the only time, either - during the Trojan War, Artemis tried to sass Hera and she scattered her arrows, boxed her ears and sent her crying home to her daddy.
Forget sending snakes to your crib; Hera can and will club a motherfucker senseless when she has had enough.
Wait, can altering her memory change when Hera needs to bother with Vengeance?
DeleteNot necessarily - if she has Vengeance against someone, it won't disappear just because she can't remember why she has it. But it can help confuse, misdirect or slow her down, or possibly drag some other person in to share the blame.
DeleteOr a game could use the Deii instead of the Dodec and you get Juno doing the Visitation of Hercules.
ReplyDeleteEven if you use the Greek versions, you could always claim that Hera always does the Visitations for Zeus' kids, and she just happens to really really believe in trial by fire. ;)
Delete