It is time! Ready or not, here they come: the Orisha are busting onto the scene and nobody's going to be able to put them back in their box.
We've had a great time working on them and are super excited about having them in the game as a more fully-fleshed pantheon; they're a ton of fun, have some of the wackiest stories ever and are ready to kick the doors down into your games whether you prefer to play them as the gods of Yorubaland, Cuba, Brazil, Haiti or the Louisiana bayou.
Wait! Where's [insert X god]? Did you kick him/her out of the game?!
Most of the former Loa are actually present and accounted for among the ranks of the Orisha. Shango and Ogun remain themselves, while Erzulie's gone back to her roots as Oshun, Legba and Kalfu are being covered by Eshu and Agwe is now in his more primordial form as Olokun. The only two Loa who did not make it over in the conversion are Damballa, who more properly belongs to a neighboring ethnic group instead of the Yoruba and got mixed together in the slave diaspora (but if you want to keep the idea around, we'd like to point out that the Yoruba have a rainbow snake, Oshumare, of their very own!), and Baron Samedi, who is a purely New World phenomenon and has no recognizable African roots. We suggest that those with a hankering for the Baron treat him as a Scion of a previous age who ascended to godhood.
Is Cheval still their PSP?
No. The Orisha come with a brand spankin' new PSP that does more than one thing: Ori, which is all about the Yoruba (and diaspora) concept of discovering, pursuing and ultimately achieving one's secret and divine destiny. We test-piloted it on Jioni this week and she has given us the thumbs up. Of course, if you hate Ori and you hate us and you hope we all die in a fire, you can still use Cheval in your games as much as you want to.
I don't like your version of [insert X god]! Justify your associations and decisions!
We are definitely happy to talk about our reasoning for any decisions and placements we've made! However, before you come in guns a-blazin', consider checking out the page for the god in question. We've included several handy myths about each of them that may shed some light on the situation.
Your family tree has three dudes married to each other.
Yeah, it does. The Orisha have no time for any silly definitions of sex, gender, marriage or any rules pertaining to any of the above that might prevent them from doing whatever the hell they feel like doing.
If you have more questions or want more clarification - about anything related to the Orisha, really! - feel free to start firing them off in the comments! If a question requires a very in-depth response we may ask you to move it to the question box to get its own blog post, but other than that we're glad to talk about PSP mechanics, gods and whatever else floats your collective boat.
Since we were updating things anyway, we've also taken this opportunity to introduce two new system tweaks to better the lives of Scions everywhere. Mystery now works slightly differently, the better to reward those who have spent XP on higher levels a little bit more, and Epic Stamina now awards bonus health boxes all the way up, not just at level four and up.
PSA FROM JOHN: Guys, working on pantheons makes me tired. And when I'm tired I yell at Anne a lot and I get slower and slower about what I'm doing and I take a lot of naps instead of writing. You all voted for the Amatsukami rewrite next - I'm not going to say that we won't do it, because we will, but two pantheon projects back to back is pretty exhausting. Consider this your last call to switch your vote to something else if you want to see us produce anything faster, because if the Japanese come next, even with my best of intentions they probably won't be out until the summer. If you guys are all good with waiting that long, no problem. If you want something else sooner, switch your vote and we'll be in better shape to come back to the Amatsukami after a break to work on something else.
We're going to leave the poll up for an extra 24 hours to see what you all do. If it stays Japanese, that's what we'll roll with. If you vote something new, we'll get right on it.
Peace out and enjoy the Orisha!
Haven't your players been all up in arms asking for Industry? I vote Industry! For the Players!!!
ReplyDeleteI was just coming here to nominate Industry as a nice place to dump Amatsukami votes. Let's do this!
DeleteThat's another vote for Industry here, too!
DeleteMy personal vote goes to Industry too, but, damn... it'll be hard to beat 70 votes in 24 hours. D:
DeleteWe just need 13 more people to switch! This is totally possible.
DeleteAmatsukami definitely should be done at some point, but I would much rather have you guys working on a project you love and are excited about. Switched to Industry.
DeleteYou know, if we want to prevent the Amatsukami from being rewritten this time, wouldn't Avatars and Ultimates be better to move our votes to (it's number of votes is higher than Industry)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAvatars would have been the way to go from the start. Itd be winning already if it was.
DeleteBut the massive blatant cheatery happening will insure industry wins.
I gotta figure out a way to poll without cheating...thats a project for next time.
I don't know how to math. Avatar/Ultimates are still closer.
DeleteI just think Industry is more important.
No dude, I promise industry was 1 higher moments ago. It was borked or something.
DeleteAlso...unless something goes horribly wrong, I think you may have lucked into the luckiest cult ever.
DeleteYeah, I could've sworn when I made the post I deleted it was something like:
DeleteAmatsukami: 67
Industry: 60
Avatar/Ultimates: 58
I call shenanigans.
It might reduce the polling options, but you could make the side polls a link to a GBN blog with a list of options. Then you can tally up all the comments that are not anonymous/semi-anonymous.
DeleteI mean, you could still cheat that but it would be a lot more hassle for the prospective cheaters.
Ill see what anne things. I feel like her tech skills are completely magic, so I have no idea.
DeleteYou'd probably have to at least limit it to non-Anonymous posts.
DeleteHopefully, people wouldn't bother to use multiple names or anything like that.
I think Industry would be a lot better than Avatars. Everyone who plays a character could choose to use/buy Industry. Only legend 12 things could choose to use/buy Avatars.
DeleteAlso, Thomas has been hinting about wanting it for a pretty long time, and he's an actual player in their game.
"Hinting."
DeleteSpirit of Competition is probably broken. It needs some way to prevent a player repeatedly setting your character up to get free uses of a power.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused about Iwa Pele. If you want to stay in one form your entire existence, how quickly can you change back to your old form once you are forced to shift? One week, or immediately by spending 1 Ori?
Iwa Pele is two equally important destinies; you don't have the option to stay in one form your entire life until you get to Legend 11 and can choose Forceful or Unshakeable Ori. You must shift to the alternate destiny once per month; just like all times you shift between them, you must then remain in that form for one week before you can shift back. (You don't have to shift back after one week - you can wait the whole month - but if you want to, you can spend a point of Ori to do it early.)
Deletere: spirit of competition.
DeleteIf your friend wants to be bad at something over and over again so you dont have to pay for boons while he does....is that broken? Dont you just have a sucker for a friend?
Also in our system if your friend keeps spending legend on things for you....hes gonna get fatebound to being bad at that boon/knack and eventually lose it.
Yeah, Spirit of Competition makes it free for you, but not for the other person who uses it. They still have to pay every time they "set you up". I'm sure they will occasionally do it just to buff you, but I would very much not count on them doing it all the time, just like you can never count on other PCs to spend Legend for you. They have their own things they want to spend those resources on.
DeleteAlso, John is right about Fatebonds. If you're bad at something enough, or even just demonstrably not as good at it as someone else, the odds go up that you'll be Fatebound to lose it.
How long does the benefit of Spirit of Competition last? It doesn't specify if it is one free use, free use for the rest of the scene, or something in the middle.
DeleteAnd just to make sure I am not mistaken about what Anne said, the shortest amount of time it is possible to spend (without taking damage) in your Iwa Pele form is 1 week out of every 5?
It only works on the actual use of it that you beat them at the roll.
DeleteSo they use levin fury. Then you use levin fury and roll better then they did. Your levin fury was free. Thats it. If you guys both use it again and it goes down as above, then your 2nd one would be free, but otherwise not.
Yes sir, that's right for Iwa Pele (assuming you don't want to take damage). Form 1 for up to four weeks; then form 2 for at least one week, after which you can go back to form 1.
DeleteThere is no risk of taking damage with short amounts of time though. You cant switch earlier by taking damage. The damage only occurs if you dont switch often enough.
DeleteA little bit confused about the Mystery tweak, this part: "gets automatic successes equal to her Mystery dots as if they were an Epic Attribute" seems to contradict itself? Or am I just dense?
ReplyDeleteIs it one auto per dot, or autos as per Epic Attribute progression? (1,2,4,7, etc.)
Epic Attribute progression. If Aurora has 8 Mystery and 10 Occult, she rolls 10 dice with 29 automatic successes.
DeleteTweaked the wording to make it more clear. :)
DeleteThat clears it up, thank you! Aren't you guys worried that'll make a LOT of questions to answer per single divination, though?
DeleteAs a player nearing Legend 9 I'm worried I won't be able to come up with half the questions that my successes will give... and as an ST, I'm not looking forward to answer 20+ questions 6 times per story from our Mystery guy. @_@
I feel ya, I'm always a whiner about having to come up with too many Mystery questions.
DeleteWe charge more than one question for information about stuff that's obscured by Fate, hidden by tricksters, regarding Legend 12 gods who don't want you to find out about it, etc. That does help cut down on the total number of things you have to answer.
I know that Legba & Kalfu got folded into Eshu but can their legends still be used without folding them together into one god?
ReplyDeleteIn africa they dont have legends as separate gods. They dont exist in that form.
DeleteIt's not that Legba and Kalfu were combined so much as that the original Eshu was split in the New World.
DeleteOri gives you an easy out - if you'd like, you can just decide that Kalfu is one of Eshu's forms from Iwa Pele and Legba is the other. Or, since he's a trickster god, he just chooses to appear as one or the other whenever he feels like it, no explanation necessary.
How does Forceful Ori handle handle virtues? The text does not address that part.
ReplyDeleteHow does a PC know who to use Gun on?
Could you put spaces to separate the paragraphs in Ebo, Iwa Pele, and Gun? I'm sorry but my OCD is evil!
re: ocd. I completely agree. Ive been asking for that forever.....but anne says she'd have to fix it for the whole site and itd be something like 40 hours of work to fix.
DeleteGood point about Forceful Ori! John's yelling from across the room that both Virtues should remain at the "maximum" setting - so if Form A has 5 Courage and 1 Vengeance, and Form B has 5 Vengeance and 1 Courage, Forceful Ori gives you 5 in both Courage and Vengeance. I'll update.
DeleteGun can be used on anyone you're aware of, so the normal ways that gods find out about mortals are all possibilities. You could use Clairvoyance on your cult center and pick someone, have a Sacred Image set up there if you happen to be into Magic, et cetera. The easiest way is probably to just pick someone who you hear through Hear Prayers (our games grant this knack automatically to every PC who hits Legend 9, but that is a house rule).
The unspaced paragraphs are par for the course on the site, sadly, that's been every page, not just Ori. I'm not planning to separate them with a space because it gets visually confusing about where one boon ends and another begins, but you're right, they could use more differentiation. I've been thinking about going through the site and using fake tabs like I do for the fiction, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe I'll move a little quicker now that I know someone besides myself has noticed!
Speaking of Forceful Ori, what happens with the two physical forms when that option is selected? Can they appear as whichever they wish, become stuck as one or the other, become some amalgamation of both, or some other possibility that hasn't occurred to me?
DeleteAmalgamation, but gods who choose this route should probably have some appearance knacks by then to let them pull off amalgamation and separation better.
DeleteHave you considered swapping the order of the PSP to Ifa, Ebo, Akunleyan, Akunlegba? Akunlegba feels like it comes much too early.
ReplyDeleteWe generally consider most moving around of the boons multiple times.
DeleteWe cant do much with "feels like it comes much too early" either. We'd need some more specific reasoning to consider it for any length of time.
Not being insulting, just factual. We need reasons for things.
Hard to give you any facts, because it is all just opinion. But here are a few thoughts!
DeleteMoving Akunlegba to the 4th dot would make it coincide with the Demigod bump where you are getting more birthright points. So a storyteller could weave the benefits of this boon into becoming a Demigod (unless the character intentionally withholds buying it).
Letting your destiny take dominance feels like something that should happen after you have become more divine than human (demigod).
Getting Akunlegba later feels like it gives you more freedom to select unnatural features. A Legend 3 scion might feel pressured to pick normal looking features because he is still dealing primarily with mortals who would freak out. Meanwhile, a Demigod can cope with mortals freaking out a lot better.
We actually intentionally put Akunleyan and Iwa Pele at the Demigod bump, because they're very much powers that we felt didn't need to be reserved for gods but also were too buff and game-changing for Heroes. Akunlegba certainly does do neat stuff, but it's stuff that provides a benefit - relics - that can be used by any Scion at any level, and that hopefully scales all the way up, making it a good idea at Hero. However, I would say that, while we don't want Scions changing their Akunlegba features because they should be a permanent part of their destiny, we'd probably allow small cosmetic stunting where appropriate - that is, if Scion A took some sweet floor-length dreadlocks and then becomes associated with something like Fire in her demigod career, we'd probably be fine with a purely cosmetic change like "my dreadlocks strike sparks against the floor" or something. As long as it didn't change the feature's core representation or appearance, that kind of thing seems fine to me.
DeleteIncidentally, we did for a while talk about moving it to level 3 instead of 2, but ended up deciding that there should be a buffer between Ifa and Ebo so that those Orisha Scions who weren't doing a lot with divination didn't have to wait until Legend 4 to get something they could use.
What about the people who want to replace their head with a skull? Or add six more eyes and look like a spider? Or just have brightly glowing blue eyes? Or hair that looks like it is made of flowing fire? Or the muzzle of a crocodile?
DeleteDo they just have to choose between freaking out mortals or waiting until later to buy their PSP?
I can definitely agree with you about Akunleyan though. It is very powerful, since it can give you +12 successes to a purview that uses the epic attribute and ability you happen to specialize in.
Ah, I see the confusion! Akunlegba doesn't give you the ability to add features you couldn't normally add - all it does is make some feature you add permanent. That's why it specifically mentions Appearance knacks in the text. It doesn't give the ability to suddenly have six eyes because that would be pretty unfair to all the powers other people have to buy up to do that; instead, if you can give yourself six eyes (with Animal, Appearance, whatever), you can make them permanent if you assign them as Akunlegba features. It's going to echo whatever kind of head features you're capable of now, not suddenly confer new ones. (Freaking out mortals or not is your own choice, just as it is with all other powers.)
DeleteMost Heroes will probably not be doing anything that zany, but that's also why you get another shot at this up at level 8 with Afowofa, when you're a god and can put whatever insanity on your head you want.
Are you going to be doing an entry for the other fiddly bits of the Orisha (i.e. Code of Heaven/Detection/etc.)?
ReplyDeleteFor sure.
DeleteHow do we always forget this?!
DeleteUpdated Scent the Divine, Vestiges of a Distant Past and Code of Heaven for the Orisha. They don't have a Titan writeup yet, so no changes to Scent the Titanic.
DeleteDetails subject to change if John wakes up and thinks of something new he wanted in there instead.
Ok, now that the Baron's gotten the boot, who is Jioni's parent since it was originally Samdi?
ReplyDeleteHes still her dad. We dont force only legend 12 main pantheon gods. Hes just not super powerful.
DeleteAlso hes been dead for quite some time.
Yep - we'd consider Baron Samedi to be a lesser Orisha god, probably a former Scion who rose to power during the diaspora and is now Legend 9 or 10. He's still her dad and she can still be a Scion; he's just not one of the big players in the pantheon.
Delete*chanting* Avatars and Ultimates! Avatars and Ultimates!
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm not going to claim expertise on the Orishas. I WILL say that, in researching my Amazonian dudes, Oshosi was the dude who really stood out to me...
So, my first question is... is Oshosi a Legend 12 god under your rules? I say this because I'd have thought him L12, but I thought four was the minimum associated for L12 gods in your game... (It's five in Lost City of Atlanta)
Now, I know that you folks are very strict when it comes to which powers get associated. So essentially, I'm asking, If we're talking a system that's less restrictive on Associated Powers than yours, what could Oshosi have associated that I'm presuming you guys culled? I agree with Dex, Per, and Fertility, but what else COULD he potentially have?
(Justice seems a no-brainer to me, given that he's supposedly a patron of courts and the whole business with killing his mother cause he shot an arrow to kill whoever stole the bird. War's a stretch given that he's one of the three warrior Orisha, in Candomble at least. It seems like he SHOULD have Animal, but as a hunter god, he suffers the Artemis Problem where he's clearly animalicious, but he's not identified with a specific totem. Closest I could come up with would be double duty on Antelope and Deer, being the prime game animals in the Old and New World, but that's stretched so thin it's see-through.)
Anne will answer this more in the morning.
DeleteBut wanted to hit this bit:
The "artemis problem" always confuses me. Hunters, these two specifically, are usually very anti animal. I dont get the connection between running around murdering animals and being able to control and create them.
Hunting deities, near as I can tell, are kind of like the Theodore Roosevelt brand of conservationist. They want to make sure that the species survives because they enjoy the sport of hunting them. It may just be my own admittedly skewed perception, but deities like Oshosi tended to be worshipped as keepers of animals, where they send the tastiest beasts to their favored worshippers and curse others to fail to find a single critter. They're seen as controlling the animals much in the same way as a sky god controls rainfall and a fertility god controls harvest output.
DeleteOf course, with Oshosi in particular, this may be a quirk of Candomble's syncretism with traditional South American religions and folklore, where this sort of thinking FLOURISHED.
The conservation thing wasnt really something people had to worry about. Migratory patterns maybe, maybe luck, drought, but not any lack of animals other then that.
DeleteIt was more "please let me be a good hunter", "please make sure I have appropriate skill to take town the animals" "and enough skill to not have animals murder me."
We often forget that getting murdered by animals when you were out hunting was a very real thing.
Although I could see the other side of it as well, Im not sure we have enough information on how the ancient cultures saw their hunting gods to go off of that. And even if we did we'd argue over the semantics of what exactly it meant.
And my south american certainly isnt good enough to know either way on them.
Oshosi! I agree, actually - Justice was the other major one that we bandied around for him. I was in favor of keeping it, John's more strict and wanted it left out. If you're monkeying with him, I'd give him that before anything else.
DeleteI agree with John, though - he doesn't have Animal. The most animal association we ever see for him is murdering them for food, which is totally fine and awesome, but it's not having a totem animal or even control over animals. He controls animals because he has the power to hunt, track, capture or kill them, not because he can actually do anything with them beyond that. I agree that the conservation perspective is likely to be a new association that comes from such close contact with the Amazon down in Brazil, but it's definitely not present in his African tales. The prayers and hymns to him we dug up there are mostly along the lines of "please make me an awesome hunter and let me come back out of your forest alive", not "please send me animals". If he had a specific animal associated with him, even as a favored prey species, I'd think about it, but he doesn't - it's deer, or quail, or pigs, or basically whatever is around because he's a hunter and the animal he hunts isn't particularly important.
Technically, our minimum for a Legend 12 god is three associations (from a PC perspective, they get three by default for making it to Legend 11, but if they never purchased another Avatar or Ultimate, they'd stay that way at Legend 12). We vastly prefer four, but once in a while we have a god that we think ought to stay but we can't justify any more. I think Oshosi makes... the fifth god with three associations, across all pantheons?
GUYS. Guys.
ReplyDeleteWhen I rerolled Vivian for John and Anne's game four years ago, I statted her with the first three Cheval boons. I used them for a time, but I never purchased any more of my PSP. NEVER in FOUR YEARS.
Guess what I'm buying next week?
I wonder what Vivian's Iwa Pele will look like?
DeleteI'm betting it will be awesome.
DeleteHere is a nice place to enter a question.
DeleteDo Iwa Pele have the same stats as the original Scions, or do they have the same stats (albeit the reversed fatebonds and Akunlegbas),
and just get a few boni and restrictioons?
If your Iwa Pele for example is a Baobab, do you could get a few boni to stamina because of their sturdiness,
but you can' really commune or move.
I don't really understand the mechanics behind this boon, though I love it fluff wise.
Also: I finally got around to not posting Anonymous anymore, been enjoying your work for a while now.
DeleteKeep up the good work :)
Our original draft changed a lot of stats, but we realized partway through that we were basically going to be making all Orisha Scions have two character sheets, and that keeping track of all that was going to get confusing pretty quickly. So we scrapped changes to actual stats - if you have 5 Stamina, you'll still have 5 Stamina when you turn into a tree.
DeleteHowever! The Fatebonds of Akunleyan do swap, and that's where you'll get that change in things you're good at. If you have a maximum Fatebond to Strength but a negative one to Stamina from Akunleyan, when you turn into the baobab those'll reverse and you'll have a maximum positive to Stamina and a negative to Strength. Let form follow function: choose your second form at least somewhat based on the things your Fatebonds will be doing, because they'll shape what it is and isn't good at. (You don't have to, of course. You could also choose whatever form you want and just come up with reasons the Fatebonds apply to it. Do it your way!)
Thanks! We're glad you enjoy it! :)
Does this include the XP siphon part of fatebonds?
DeleteIt does. It has to in order to act well with normal fatebonds.
DeleteAlso big yay to Jef being no longer anonymous.
So, do guys plan on creating a downloadable PDF for the Orishin the same way you did for the Bolgovi and Anunna? That would be beyond the threshold of totally awesome.
ReplyDeleteThat is generally saved for the brand new pantheons that Anne does. That is usually an additional few months of work on her part. Because of how different the Orisha are, we probably should have done that with them as well, but I dont think we'll be doing a PDF for them.
DeleteSorry :( I wish we could.
Where did you find all the stuff on Erinle? I've read almost anything my library has on Yoruba mythology and he got *mentioned* twice at most!
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm at work now, after John pledged me to answer questions about the stack of books at home...
DeleteBut off the top of my head, two book sources for Erinle that were pretty useful include Ifa Will Mend Our Broken World: Thoughts on Yoruba Religion and Culture in Africa and the Diaspora by Wande Abimbola (which is super interesting - a lot of it is in interview format, with an interviewer asking an African worshiper of the Orisha about the New World versions of them and how they differ and vice versa), Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes by Harold Courlander, and "Images of a Yoruba Water Spirit" by Hans Witte, an article mostly devoted to Erinle from the collection Effigies Dei: Essays on the History of Religions. You might be able to find snippets of some of them on Google Books.
His name changes a lot in translation, so you have to look him up a lot of different ways to get a complete picture. Books on Candomble are more likely to refer to him as Inle, books on Santeria as Erele, and so on.
UNC-chapel hill has a massive section in their library. We had 30ish books out for the project.
ReplyDeleteAnne will probably be nice enough to list them in the morning.
I noticed the neither of the celestial Purviews (Sun, Moon, Stars) is listed for any of the Orisha.
ReplyDeleteIs it simply because no god really has anything to do with them,
or is it more along the Star/Aztecs line, that these are opposed to them?
What are forbidden/suspicious purviews among the Orisha?
They're not opposed to them, but they just don't seem to do much with them. It's possibly a holdover from the early stages of the religion, when such celestial powers would have been the bailiwick of Olodumare as the supreme power in the skies. I've only run across the one myth of any of them doing anything with celestial powers - Obatala, who kind of created the sun but who also handed it off to someone else and doesn't do anything with it now. A good place for new Orisha Scions to make their mark, eh?
DeleteThe big antagonist for the Orisha is Shapona and his control over disease, pestilence and death. While lots of them have Health for healing purposes, they'd probably be mightily suspicious of anyone who set themselves up as a plague-hag (especially since they're so close to the very disease-susceptible mortal worshipers of their religions).
They're also curiously non-Death - only one of them (Oya) has Death at all, and as far as we can tell they didn't have a really firm concept of underworld or lords over the concept of death. Another good place for new Scions to take over.
So do you guys plan on making a downloadable PDF for Orishin the same way you made for the Bogovi and Annuna?
ReplyDeleteAt the moment, probably not; it wouldn't have the bulk of things that those PDFs have, like a fully written-up Titanrealm, Overworld and so forth, simply because we haven't done those yet. We treated the project as an update to the already existing Loa instead of a PDF pantheon project like the Bogovi.
DeleteIt's definitely a possibility for the future, though, since I know some folks could probably use some more material on the many faces of the Orisha, and we'll get around to their Titan sooner or later!
Holy crap, that's what I get for going to bed early the same night as updating. Commentstravaganza!
ReplyDeleteLate to the party but I've been devouring this new pantheon all evening. Amazing as usual. Congratulations on another project completed with flying colours!
ReplyDeleteTwo questions:
Firstly, I get that Oya transforms into a water buffalo, but is that reason enough for Illusion associated?
Secondly, Ayanmo states, for unshakable Ori "his alternate personas from the Iwa Pele boon and its accompanying relics is permanently destroyed". Does that mean, if, say, I was using my ear as a relic for the other persona, does that mean I'd lose an ear?
Oya turns into an antelope as well as a water buffalo; she has basically the same echo myth with Shango as she does with Ogun, but as a different creature in both cases (the Shango version's on his page instead of hers, since we figured it'd be redundant to have the two similar myths back to back on Oya's page). She also has some examples of other illusion-y shenanigans, such as alternative versions of the myth of her stealing Shango's medicine in which she hides it from him so cunningly that it can never be recovered without her help (usually because she's peeved that he's trying to become more powerful than she is).
DeleteIt's definitely not as strong an association as Sky, though. Maybe when John wakes up, he will have his notes on her still?
Hmm... as for Ayanmo, might be a question for individual cases? If it's something that clearly wasn't originally part of your head - extra features, weird piercings etc. - I'd say you lose it, but if you had just enhanced something that was already there like your eye, I'd say it just returns to normal and is no longer a relic.
DeleteWhile that's happening, allow me to tell you how happy I am that Oya is a Goddess again! She was always my favourite of the Orishas, and seeing her as a Titan in the Pakiy writeup made me kind of sad, though I can see the justifications for making her one.
DeleteOh, I meant to mention that and forgot! Yeah, I definitely think Oya can be played either way. We decided that she was a major and present enough force that she ought to be included with the Orisha, but if anybody prefers to use her as a Titan Avatar, she's got more than enough jutsification for that, too, considering her temper and past problems with the rest of the pantheon.
DeleteOf course, that makes us inconsistent with ourselves, but I figure it's good to give people options. :) Play Oya however you like her. I suspect she won't appear as a Titan Avatar when we do the official writeup for Chaos/Destruction, but that don't mean she couldn't be one.
Random question about the Epic Stamina change:
ReplyDeleteAre the newly granted health boxes -4 boxes, like with Heroic Stature (Jotunblut). At least until epic stam 3 when those penalties go away?
I would assume that they are, though John's still dead to the world. Hopefully he'll confirm.
DeleteNah, -0. Also....Jotunblut should probably be -0 as well. I really need to fix that purview.
DeleteIs Shango into erotic asphyxiation, or something? The guy sure does like to hang himself.
ReplyDeleteActually, hanging was considered an extremely ignominious way to die and was largely taboo for the Yoruba, who thought that such a death meant that the dead spirit might wander since it had been suspended between heaven and earth, and that if anyone in the family saw the corpse that hanging would become hereditary and everyone in the family would die that way. Shango hanging himself, at least in some of the stories, is probably a response to having lost everything and therefore accepting his disgraced life with a disgraced death; but by the same token, saying someone hanged themselves is a grave insult, so that's why he comes roaring back to life and murders everyone who dared suggest he would do such a thing. It's also possible that he hanged himself as a direct middle finger to his sons, in the hopes that the same fate would befall them.
DeleteOne of Shango's titles among his worshipers is Oba Koso - literally, "The King Did Not Hang Himself," which they say at every opportunity so he doesn't ever think he needs to smite them for thinking otherwise. Shango has temper problems.
He probably does like auto erotic asphyxiation too.
DeleteI do indeed have a hankering for the Baron. Since you've done the research, which of the Orishas do you feel would be his parent, assuming he's now an ascended Scion? Or is he so far removed that it wouldn't really matter at this point?
ReplyDeleteMy best guess would be Eshu...
DeleteChaos, Darkness, Psychopomp, sounds familiar?
He pretty much fills the Death niche that the Orisha have,
so Oya is worth a shot as well.
My money is on Eshu though. Trickster extraordinaire of the Orisha,
and the Associates are a pretty good fit as well.
But since this is all only based on the Associates, lets see what our experts have to say.
I was going to suggest Oya, since she's the only one of the Orisha with a strong enough tie to the concept of Death that the Baron's all about to really pass anything of it on to him, but Jef's right - Eshu's also a great candidate, since the Baron is, like him, also a trickster figure. He doesn't have much in common as far as associations go, but Olokun might also be an option; he has some minor death associations as the god of all the slaves who drowned in the Middle Passage, and as one of the first Orisha to go New World he might also be one of the first to have a Scion over there.
DeleteThe Yoruba didn't have a very strong concept of the afterlife, at least not to the point where they needed a god in charge of it all that much, so the Baron fills a role as death god that was largely absent in Africa. A great example of a Scion taking up the reins of something his pantheon wasn't covering and making it his own. :)
So, what's going on with Ifa and Ebo? Is ignorance just bliss as far as Ifa is concerned? That is to say, the way it reads to me is that a low-Legend (or someone who just hasn't bought up to level 3 yet) Scion can use Ifa with no strings attached, but as soon as that Scion learns Ebo, all of a sudden there's an additional cost to it?
ReplyDeleteIt feels like I'm reading this wrong, but it seems like buying Ebo means that the cost of Ifa is increased by 1 Ori, or else you also trigger Ebo - but if you have only Ifa, Ifa works just fine on its own.
I'm still reading through everything, but: GREAT work so far!!!! :)
Sacrifice as a required part of divination is a massive theme for these guys; you have to scratch Fate's back, or Fate (usually in the form of Eshu) will ruin you.
DeleteBut the point is that you're supposed to trigger Ebo - Ebo is good! Ebo gives you Legend points back because it's awesome! Ebo is only a "tax" if you intend to ignore it - complaining about it is a little like complaining about having to keep the terms of your geasa being a "tax" on free benefits. It's a counterbalance, sure, but the option to just light some goats on fire or go dance at someone's shrine to get sweet Legend back is always there if you don't want to pay extra. I imagine most Scions will end up having to do a balance between the two.
Legend 2 Scions are in most cases not going to be getting much bang for their buck - that is, they can only add a couple of dice or successes to a prophet who, unless they've somehow cajoled someone much more powerful than themselves into divining for them, probably won't get a lot more than that themselves. At that early stage, they simply aren't close enough to their ori for Fate to care about them asking for help. Once they get a little higher and start more forcefully taking control of their Ori, Fate starts to take notice of them.
And yeah, an Orisha Scion could decide to never pick up Ebo and just use Ifa sacrificeless forever. They're going to miss out on all the other delicious bonuses of the entire purview levels 4 and up, though, so I'm not worried about that being a powergaming sidestep. If anything, they're hamstringing themselves.
It's more of a penalty than a benefit. Most storytellers are not going to let you run off and do a sacrifice in the middle of a pressing mission where you've got the world riding on the line.
DeleteAnd that's probably most sessions, I would guess.
Storytellers are the ones assigning the sacrifice, so if they refuse to allow you to perform it, they're kinda being assholes. Storytellers should never refuse to allow PCs to do anything they can find a way to pull off.
DeleteOf course, if you do it in a situation where you know there's a chance you can't follow through, that might be dangerous, but that's what the Ori panic button is for.
Yeah, I'm saying that doing it in a situation where you know there's a chance you can't follow through will be almost all of the time.
DeleteGotta disagree with you here Anon.
DeleteAt least in our games we use Mystery and Prophecy in the perparatory stages of adventures.
In short times of calm, or when we are just about to head out.
That is were Ebo really shines.
Sure, you are going to have to raid that Titanspawn lair soon,
but asking Fate for answers or even searching for a sign beforehand happens-
well, beforehand.
That is where you still have time to sing a song,
or build a small mount of stones or whatever fate wants.
At least in our games I can't see the porblem of NEVER EVER having time for these sacrifices.
When you are on the run from something that will squash you like a bug,
and you are asking fate to provide you a way to appease it?
That is where you have to spring an Ori,
but Prophecy and Mystery are more suited for (relatively speaking) calm moments anyways.
I'm not looking at it from a powergame perspective - it just seems disjointed to me that the sacrifice is a required part of the Level 1 divination, but there's no mention or awareness of it until you get to the Level 3 power. It's like you hit Legend 4, and all of a sudden it's "wait, you mean I was supposed to be making sacrifices this whole time I was using Ifa?"
DeleteThere's a line in the wording of Ebo that throws me off - "Upon purchasing this boon, the Scion gains instinctive knowledge of Fate’s price" - so, before buying Ebo, do you not know that you're supposed to be making sacrifices along with Ifa? Or do you know that you're supposed to be making sacrifices, you just don't know what specifically Fate wants and you have to hope for the best?
It seems to me that the sacrifice component of the Ifa/Ebo thing should be moved to Ifa - when you receive your divination, you either have to make a sacrifice, spend an Ori, or lose a bunch of Legend. Then, when you pick up Ebo, Fate starts to take a little more notice of you because you're a little cooler - now, when you perform the sacrifice, you get props in the form of Legend. This way the actual *action* of the Ifa ritual is unchanged, it just modifies the benefits of it.
Just so you know we didn't ignore ya: we've definitely been talking about this on and off since you brought it up. We agree that it's weird that you can ask for divinations early but don't have to perform sacrifices for them until a little bit later, but we also don't want to move the sacrifice component down to Legend 2. It's too much too soon, thematically and in terms of what Legend 2 Scions can probably do, and since they're not able to use Ifa except on people with Mystery 1 (since Prophecy 1 is random and ST controlled), I suspect it would result in Scions just not bothering most of the time. When you have such a small Legend pool and the benefits of the boon are also fairly small, it's not worth it to use Ifa (which has a cost itself) and risk losing more Legend or Ori.
DeleteBuuut, we do recognize the dissonance. So yeah, we're still pondering. We're wondering if it might be easiest to write in a fluff reason to explain the delay - maybe before they have Ebo and the ability to figure out what they're supposed to do, individual diviners tell them or their divine parents (or Orunmila) just do it for them or something.
Could you guys lower the dot level of Gun? A lot of us still like the old Cheval horse concept and would like to do it sooner than legend 10. The benefits scale well, and it deals only with mortals, so it could easily go anywhere in the PSP.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, it's once a month and only a mortal.
It's also something that only gods do. Only gods, only the great Orisha themselves; it's not something that mortals, near-mortals or even demigods should have access to. The rituals in which the Orisha ride their mortal worshipers are invariably those that require them to already be gods, which is why Gun is so high-level; it's important that the boon involve true divinity, not just Legend. The issue here isn't whether it could be abused but whether or not it makes thematic sense. If you're not a god, you don't get to ride mortals. That's a power reserved for the highest in the land.
DeleteIf it makes you feel better, though, we've got a note in our knack changelog to look at maybe introducing a limited possession-style knack into the Manipulation set of powers at some point. Can't promise anything yet, but we definitely did notice the cutdown on possession and are intending to follow up on it.
Do their myths actually talk about Demigods, though? Because if they don't talk about Demigods then it would be completely reasonable for demigods to be able to do something like that. But if they specifically talk about demigods (if not that word then the children of the gods) then yeah, I suppose it would be thematic.
DeleteWhich is a shame because Gun is so damn weak.
We're going to have to disagree, I think. Orisha myths do not typically mention demigods, but that doesn't mean that riding mortals is "reasonable" for them. It's very, very explicitly a communion between gods - the named Orisha, nobody else - and mortals. Humans are ridden by the gods that are their patrons and masters, specific gods who they know and worship, not random demigods who happen to be high enough Legend. If you aren't a god, you don't have access to this power in Yoruba religion.
DeleteGun is weak in that it doesn't do a lot on its own, but if you spend a lot of Ori - particularly on avoiding sacrifices from Ebo, swapping with Iwa Pele, avoiding magic spells with Olori Rere and so on - it's very important for keeping that limited Ori pool active. It'll depend on the PC and the length of a given Storyteller's stories how much that needs to happen.
It's mostly the once a month thing that makes Gun feel so weak to me. I don't know many storytellers where this would amount to more than about 4 Ori a year.
DeleteWhat I can tell you from our (Not Anne/Johns sadly) God game is,
Deletethat Overworld Terra Icognita and Titanrealms are freaking huge.
You sepdn a long time being *on the road* and Journeys that are more or less fetch-quests can take 2 or three motnh, doesn't mean they are over in a session or two.
We once narrated an entire evening because we were doing some grand landscaping;
in game it took us 4 months or so...
Tasks get more insanely huge at god level, and so more ingame time will be spent on them.
So there is that.
If Your ST doesn't swing that way and has you pretty much playing in real time it would be reasonable to houserule it to once a week or so.
Do the fatebonds given by Akunleyan buy of Attributes and so on?
ReplyDeleteI have no real comprehension of your fatebond system, but there was something about buying off Abilities and Attributes.
Since the Akunleyan fatebonds are maximum strength, wouldn't they buy off the abilities/attributes?
Yes, yes they would.
DeleteSo, with Iwa Pele...
Deleteif you spend roughly the same time in both forms?
My head breaks there a little.
Because as soon as you switch over to your other half,
so do the fatebonds. they reverse.
wich restarts the selling/buying process.
And, since re-buying Attributes that have been sold is more expensive after wach time its sold, this process gets slower over time?
Because you sell it for x. Iwa Pele. buy it back for x+1. Iwa Pele. sell it for x. Iwa Pele. Buy it back for x+2.
I might be completely misunderstanding your fatebond system here, but this looks unnessecarily complicated.
May start out with the same stats for your Iwa Pele halfs,
and then make adjustments only on one half?
So your one form, for example, would get gradually less hardy (Stam) but also smarter (int),
while your second would do the opposite?
I might be missing something crucial though :/
No, that's correct. But you can always prevent Fatebonds from buying off your stats if you buy a dot (or knack or boon) of them, which causes them to move on to buying something else off. Most Orisha Scions will probably occasionally need to do that to stave off the degradation of stats they use between the two forms. They can let them be bought off in between, but it's not a foregone conclusion.
DeleteMore importantly, at the level you get Iwa Pele, you should also be getting other Fatebonds normally as a consequence of being a Demigod. Those should balance a lot of this out - that is, if you have Sun and use it in one form, and Darkness and use it in the other, you'll probably pick up Fatebonds to Sun and/or Darkness that help cancel out the negatives. It's not foolproof like all things with Fatebonds, but it's definitely not a death sentence for either purview. It may actually make it easier to not lose those purviews if they have negatives, since you have the option to switch to a form without the negative and no other Scions do.
Things you have negative Fatebonds to that aren't attached to your Iwa Pele will probably be bought off much faster, though, since they're not part of the switching rotation.
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DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteGive me a moment or three to get these into more comprehensible forms, but I think I see more complications...
DeleteAnd I now know why John hates PSPs,
I am just checking upon the balancing of one Boon and my brain hurts.
Deleted the previous two posts due to being incomprehensible.
ReplyDeleteI am not a native speaker, so lets have another go.
Due to the 20% for buying powers with the EXP generated by selling off powers,
you might have a gain of EXP in your fatebond pool over time,
assuming you end sessions alternating between your Iwa Pele forms.
Since fatebonds do factor in reduced EXP costs when buying off abilities,
I will assume that they also factor in the heightened costs that stem from buying back boons that had been sold.
My example being two alternating non-associated level 5/4 boons:
Either it happens like this:
You sell boon A off for 25 EXP.
You buy boon B for 20 EXP.
5 XP gain.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon B off for 25 EXP.
You buy boon A for 20 EXP (25+1= 26, 20%of26>5, round up->26-6=20)
6 Exp gain,
11 total.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon A off for 26 EXP.
You buy boon B for 20 EXP (25+1= 26, 20%of26>5, round up->26-6=20)
6 Exp gain,
17 total.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon B off for 26 EXP.
You buy boon A for 21 EXP (25+2= 27, 20%of27>5, round up->27-6=21)
5 Exp gain,
22 total.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon A off for 27 EXP.
You buy boon B for 21 EXP (25+2= 27, 20%of27>5, round up->27-6=21)
6 Exp gain,
28 total.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon B off for 27 EXP.
You buy boon A for 22 EXP (25+3= 28, 20%of28>5, round up->28-6=22)
5 Exp gain,
33 total.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon A off for 28 EXP.
You buy boon B for 22 EXP (25+3= 28, 20%of28>5, round up->28-6=22)
6 Exp gain,
39 total.
Iwa Pele
You sell boon B off for 28 EXP.
You buy boon A for 23 EXP (25+4= 29, 20%of29>5, round up->29-6=23)
5 Exp gain,
44 total.
And so on and so forth?
Or does the selling of something a fatebon discounted factor in the discount?
So that, if you bought it for 20 due to a fatebon discount, the reversed fatebond sells it for 20, instead of 25?
Yes, that is all correct. Although slightly skewed. Firstly, you'd have to switch at exactly the right time each time for that to work out perfectly like that. Say you really need purview A, so you stay in that iwa pele for too long, and now you've lost 3 boons from purview B. Then you switch back, and you dont have the purview you need to use. And you're paying +3 xp for 3 levels of it to get back to normal now, not just +1.
DeleteOr you run out of Ori, now you have to wait long periods of time to switch. Anything could be bought off by then.
And, these wont be the only fatebinds you have. Maybe you get more fatebinds to one then the other, and they're buying that one faster, and not buying it off at all even when you switch.
So there are lots of outside forces that are gonna make it not as easy and straightforward as you math'd out above. But if the stars aligned for that long(that looks like about 35 weeks or so) it could maybe possibly happen.
But ....there really are just too many factors, and i dont think itd ever go down that perfectly.
Ok, good to know.
DeleteBecause we didn't have the fatebon System in the last campaign we had,
and the start of the next one is going to be run by me,
with fatebonds and virtue extremeties and all the nice things we skipped,
so I need some understanding how this stuff works.
So my theory could work, but wouldn't survive when it clashes with in game reality?
Good to know.
About the selling of stats originally discounted by fatebonds though: does it give it's value before the discount, or the discounted one?
Have a nice day, and thanks.
Just to double check. You're asking if they've had something bought with fatebonds(and thus at 20% discount). If a fatebond later buys that off, if they buy it off at 20% cheaper?
DeleteYeah, if a fatebond, for example, bought a non associated 5-dot boon, than reversed due to Iwa Pele, and sold it,
Deletewould you be getting 20 or 25 Exp for your fatebond pool?
Full 25 xp. Dont have extra time to take remembering which was bought how.
DeleteIt does certainly happen, but for most of the reasons above shouldnt happen too much. And although it might seem like an ok idea in the short term it can build up after a while.
Currently woody pays 12 extra xp for each dot of fortitude....when he needs to buy some, its brutal.
Someone stealth edited Akunleyan to allow two abilities instead of three. I almost asked earlier why it allowed three when your fatebonds usually don't allow more than five total changes. =P
ReplyDeleteOh, that wasn't stealth, that was just me mentioning it and John going, "Wait, that's supposed to be two, fix it!" I'm sorry, I must have missed you asking about it!
DeleteObviously, you are the editor that we need in our lives. :)
Awesome job on the Orisha! I just read through them and they look very fun and interesting to play, with room for a young Scion to grow into a role amongst them (say as the God of Death or the Moon). I look forward to your work on Industry and the Amatsukami. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! We're glad you like them! :)
DeleteCan you Akunleyan positive health boons and negative health boons? I would love to use Iwa Pele to get bonuses to positive health boons one month, and then bonuses to negative health boons the other month.
ReplyDeleteEssentially alternating between a Healing force and a Plague Hag.
Normally, we'd say no because we want the boon to affect different purviews... but in the case of Health, we might make an exception for someone who made a strong enough case for it. It wouldn't automatically swamp Vow of Pestilence to Hippocratic Oath or vice versa, though, so you probably wouldn't be able to use that boon if you wanted to pull that off.
Delete