Guiding Light

Question: I had an idea for using Historical figure ghosts as Birthrights, the one problem I'm seeing is as they are "mortalish" it would be hard to justify upgrading them as the character transcends the status of Hero. Any justification you guys can think of to keep Homer for example relevant as Guide?

Guides can be really tricky. They provide useful information and guidance and are experts in their field, but at the same time they're distinct NPCs and have fairly static levels of power and knowledge, meaning most of them won't scale up their level of know-how as a Scion evolves.

First of all, we give all Guides an extra ability: they grant a small number of automatic successes (equal to the Guide's Birthright rating) to three purviews associated in some way with them. For example, Shmashana, a minor Deva associated with cemeteries and cremation, grants Faruza +3 successes to all boons in the Death, Health and Sky purviews; Faruza's close association with and guidance from a being that is so strongly aligned with death and the disposition of the dead gives her an advantage in using those boons. In Homer's case, if he were a three-dot Guide you could say that he grants bonuses to War (for his stirring preservation of the greatest battles of the Dodekatheon), Death (because he's a ghost and dispenses his wisdom from beyond the grave), and... well, I don't have a great suggestion for the third one because you picked a hard example, but you get the drift.

When it comes to the Guide's advice and ability to help Scions with knowledge, that question's a little harder, though. Guides who are already fairly high Legend - having Thoth for a Guide, for example, or some other god - will still have things to teach a Scion most of the way through her career, but mortal Guides don't have the luxury of coming from a higher level of knowledge. Homer would undoubtedly be a great help to his Scion while she was a Hero or even a Demigod, giving her insight into the workings of the Dodekatheon, the exploits of heroes gone before and the laws of ancient Greece, but once she's a goddess it's unlikely that he can tell her anything she doesn't already know.

There are a few things that can mitigate this. If your Scion happens to be fairly stupid (especially with Fatebonds against Intelligence, Academics, Occult or any combination thereof), she can probably still benefit from Homer's advice, even though other gods her level probably wouldn't (but at the same time, if she has smarter people in her band that probably won't come up much). You can also try to widen the scope of the Guide's information; if these are all ghosts of previous heroes or historical figures, they may have key information about the Underworlds they reside in that wouldn't be available to others. If you feel like a Scion's Guide is too useless, you may also want to include some important clue to the current situation that only they would know about, such as some thing they witnessed way back when they were alive, though you should make sure not to overuse that device since it can be frustrating if they don't think to ask the Guide and therefore can't move the plot along. Things may or may not be happening to or around the Guide during the course of your stories as well, so if they would have been in a position to learn important things about current events, you could call upon them for that (much as Vivian used to call her Guide, who she knew lived in the Overworld, to check on current events among her pantheon members).

Guides are a great Birthright because they're very freeform and give the Storyteller many opportunities for how to help the Scion who owns them, so we're always in favor of encouraging Scions to have and talk to them.