Question: From an earlier conversation, what is divine apotheosis? Purely physical, mental, or both? Can you change how you look to appear more godly as a one time benefit of apotheosis?
Apotheosis is all things in all dimensions. It changes the very fundamental fabric of your being, shedding the last of your mortal ties and turning you into the true divine essence of godhood. It's mental, spiritual, physical and magical, and no craziness is too crazy for an apotheosis scene or story.
Lots of Storytellers run apotheosis in different ways, running the gamut from "nothing really changed, here's some new dots for your god template" to "everything is different and you're a crazy spirit being now rarrrr". It's also an area where players have (and should have!) a lot of input, since it's a very personal change that vastly affects the characters, and that causes a lot of shenanigans, too. We're going to assume you're asking about the way we run it, but know that it's one of those places in the game where pretty much every Storyteller does at least a few different things.
Apotheosis, in our games, is a major full change that affects all aspects of a Scion. While Demigods are more divine than human and have been for quite a while by the time they reach apotheosis, the change to full-on godhood is still a major, irrevocable change of your basic nature. Gone are the mortal blood of your childhood and the restrictions of humanity; and in their place are enormous divine powers and the violent influence of godly Virtues. It's a big goddamned deal.
Mechanically, the physical aspect of your apotheosis appears in the loss of any human blood and its replacement entirely with divine ichor. Among other side effects are the doubling of your normal health levels (so if you had six dots of Epic Stamina and therefore 23 health boxes, once you become a god you'll have 46), the newfound immunity to several boons that only affect the partly mortal bodies of Demigods and lower (such as Strike Dead, for example) and, of course, the possibility for higher physical possibilities as they increase in Legend. The mental changes involve the greater and more vibrant passions of the divine and include the stronger hold of your Virtues (which now grant successes to rolls instead of dice when channeled, but also roll twice as many dice as your rating when attempting to avoid Extremity), the resilience of said Virtues (which can no longer be permanently changed by things like Shape the Soul) and the same possibility for greater mental capabilities in the future. And spiritually, the role of the new god in the great weave of Fate becomes much more pronounced and important, most notably thanks to the influence of entire cults of mortals instead of singular humans.
There's no part of a god's identity and powers that don't change at apotheosis; it's the moment when the things that are aspects of a demigod become the divine roles of a god, and when a divine being who is a servant of her pantheon becomes a member of its powers with the rights and prestige of true divinity. It is awesome.
To answer your last, smaller question, usually we say no. It's not because we don't want people to look awesome as gods or anything, but when Appearance is a stat in the game with its own attendant powers and levels, it's unfair to give new gods the benefit of powers that other characters might have had to spend XP to get. However, apotheosis is often the moment that players choose to use those powers they do have to effect major changes to their appearance (Aurora used Detail Variation to cause her hair to become snow-white when she became Vala, for example, and Kettila used Undeniable Resemblance to become a permanent seven-year-old when she became Yoloxochitl); many players love to make a visual statement about their new self at that dramatic moment, and it's always awesome when they do. It's also possible for major image changes to occur as a result of either events that happen during a god's apotheosis story, such as Woody losing his turtleshell during the harrowing fight he endured to get through Niflheim and become Folkwardr, or because of changes or upgrades to Birthrights, such as when Sangria's tummy-tattoo gained the fanged visage of a bat after her acquisition of her nahualli and transformation into Eztli.
Individual characters' appearance changes at apotheosis should be handled on a case by case basis, but our recommendation is always to make changes related to the current story or Birthrights but not to allow any free ones that by rights should be handled by Epic Appearance or its powers.
How about the physical elements? As a divine being you are not really a biological entity anymore. You don't need to poop unless it is symbolic, you don't have intestines unless it is symbolic, you don't produce semen unless it is symbolic, you don't have a beating heart unless it is symbolic, you don't have a brain unless it is symbolic. etc.
ReplyDeleteThats a very modern, monotheist idea of how physical elements of gods work. One of the reasons we removed it from the game.
DeleteWhile the Scion books do take that approach, we actually don't; gods have achieved apotheosis, but they are still solid beings with physical bodies. We do that because gods in mythology are very physical and often are subject to those physical things entirely free of any symbolism in their myths; you only have to look at the story where the Morrigan beats the Dagda until he shits himself everywhere or the story where Nanabozho accidentally defecates his own intestines and eats them, thinking they're sausages, to know that. There's no particular symbolic value to those biological functions (other than hilarity), but the people who told those stories about their gods clearly envisioned them as having bodies and performing many of the things with them that humans did. There are myriad myths of gods doing things with their semen or tears or various body parts.
DeleteIt's a fairly modern conception of the divine to envision them as not having bodies or as being made more of spirit stuff than physical, and it mostly comes from the monotheistic ideas of gods that are all-encompassing and entirely unlike humanity in any way. Most ancient religions didn't conceive of their gods that way, however, which is why the Aesir can get old and die if they don't eat Idun's apples, Hun Nal can impregnate Xquic by spitting semen into her hand and various gods can be maimed so that they permanently lose body parts.
Which isn't to say that no bodily functions in myth are symbolic; Ra masturbating the world into existence obviously is, for example. But gods do bodily things just as much as mortals do, and, in usual god style, usually on a gigantic scale.
We'd totally let a Scion get rid of some body parts and things if they had the appropriate powers to do so, though. A Scion with Divine Fortitude who literally doesn't need to eat could remove his intestines with Appearance body-shaping knacks and get along just fine. But it doesn't happen by default as a side effect of apotheosis.
Unfortunately, that basically means they are not actually gods. Just really powerful people like superman, who can do amazing and wonderful things.
DeleteThe greater titans sound more like our modern definition of gods, I suppose.
That is your modern, monotheist version of what a god is. Gods in myth have actual bodies and do all/most of the things humans do.
DeleteRats have intestines and lungs. They produce semen and shit. That doesn't make humans very powerful rats. And it shouldn't make Gods very powerful humans either.
DeleteNo, it doesn't. It means they're not gods by monotheistic standards, but that's a given. They are ever inch just as much gods as any of the ancients of the Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Aztec ad infinitum pantheons, who all behave in exactly that manner. If you don't think beings who can literally move the sun and turn themselves into monsters are gods because they still have physical bodies, I don't know what to tell you.
DeleteThe Greater Titans are just places; they aren't really monotheistic-style gods, either, since they basically have no personality or agency and only work through Titan Avatars. The Avatars, like gods, have bodies and can be injured, killed, and subjected to inconvenience.
It's totally cool if your personal definition of a god doesn't include having a body, but Scion's talking about ancient pantheons, and theirs most certainly did.
well put samudra
DeleteIt's not well put. Superman isn't a human either, so saying humans are really powerful rats does not logically follow. In this case, a god is just a different race with really powerful modifiers the same way you might write Elf or Outsider on a character sheet.
DeleteAlso, just continuing on with the previous comparison Superman can literally move the sun and turns into a monster now and then.
So yeah, I think this is more about personal definition. My modern conceptions say that these "gods" are just a really powerful race.
Ok? So what would make them "gods", then? Is it just NOT having physical bodies? Wouldn't that make them just really powerful ghosts, or maybe Q from Star Trek? You're treading some awfully murky philosophical waters of 'what defines a god'? when you get into that kinda stuff.
DeleteWith all due respect Anon, that's EXACTLY what polytheistic Gods are, when you get down to the basics. A race of beings with supernatural powers at a level human beings can scarcely conceive.
DeleteAlso, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's also what your definition of Gods seems to be; only your Race appears to have the 'Permanently Incorporeal' and 'Innate Shapeshifter' Racial Powers.
Yeah, I think really powerful ghosts or Q from Star Trek might fit. Permanently incorporeal would pretty much be a necessity since they are not living beings anymore. The shapeshifter part wouldn't fit though, that would just be a case by case basis.
DeleteIf you're the same Anonymous, you failed to address the question. How does making them permanently incorporeal make them "gods" instead of just "a really powerful race"? Why then is it bad that Gods are corporeal as they are in the mythology?
DeleteIt's easier to accept super-powerful ghosts or Q from Star Trek as "gods" than it is the actual legends of the Norse or Celts?
Anon, as Anne said, you're entitled to define gods in your own game however you want. Every Storyteller does that to some extent. But when you complain that if a god has a corporeal body he isn't a god, you're complaining that no gods of the ancient pantheons that Scion uses are gods.
DeleteAnd that makes me confused about what exactly you think this game is about. By your definition, people like Thor and Zeus are also superheroes instead of gods. Who in the original setting do you consider gods, then? Because there are very few of them who don't have obviously concrete physical forms in the myths of their lives and deeds.
Mostly they can't be purely physical things. Q from Star Trek can take on an avatar or manifest the way the rules suggest, but for the most part he is metaphysical.
DeleteThe same thing for Thor and Zeus. Metaphysical beings who can take on physical form to interact with people or each other, but it is not necessary. They can have concrete physical forms, but only if they need to come down to our level for some reason.
Thor and Zeus aren't metaphysical beings, though. That's the whole point. If Thor is metaphysical and doesn't have to have a body, why does he age if he doesn't eat Idun's apples? Why is there a chunk of rock stuck in his head forever because he pissed off the surgeon who then refused to remove it? If Zeus doesn't have to have a body except when he feels like it, how could Typhon have totally paralyzed and defeated him by ripping out his sinews, and why couldn't he do anything until Hermes stole and returned them?
DeleteThe really important thing you keep ignoring here is this: these gods were not believed by the people who worshiped them, who created them and who were part of their culture, to be metaphysical or bodiless. Those are modern concepts that for the most part weren't even invented then. They conceived of gods as unbelievably, unfathomably powerful beings they could never compete with, but still as solid and bodied, which you see illustrated over and over and over again in their myths. You can decide, as a modern person, that your conception of gods is metaphysical, and that's fine, but when you say that these ancient gods who were described, invented and told stories about by people who didn't have that concept were believed and conceived of that way, you are straight, flat wrong. The ancient Norse did not in any way believe Thor was metaphysical. They believed he was very, very real and solid, and because of that his stories reflect it.
There is absolutely zero, zero support for the idea of metaphysical, bodiless or spirit-essence gods in the vast majority of ancient polytheistic mythology. The gods of ancient Egypt and Mexico and Greece were not believed to be spirits taking on physical manifestations, but rather awesomely powerful physical beings. And while you might in a modern context decide that sounds like what you'd call a superhero, to those ancient people, they were literally and absolutely gods, and the fact that they had bodies that defecated and spat and bled did not in any way prevent them from being divine.
Basically, check your modern ideas at the door here, dude. It is totally fine to run it that way, but we don't because we run our games trying to stick to the ancient mythologies and religions these pantheons are based on. They are not metaphysical.
Anon: Prove it. Cause right now you're just talkin out your ass.
DeleteWhile we are at it: How do you handle the multiple arm of many Deva? Is that represented like a relict, in the same spirit that the aztec nahualli is presented by a creature birthright?
ReplyDeleteEither relics or appearance knacks.
DeleteThat is interesting. How would relic arms like that work,exactly? Would they provide extra cations or symbolic powers? Cuz as far as I know, while the different accoutrements of different arms are pretty symbolic in art (and are probably badass relics themselves), the arms themselves are really usually only there to function as glorified display cases (not that the likes of Durga can't do battle with ten weapons at once).
DeleteIMHO, Appearance Knacks fit better. Especially since Devas are notoriously prone to manifesting different sets of arms under different circumstances.
Probably never extra actions. I prefer appearance knacks, but I wouldnt hate someone who did it as relics.
DeleteSomewhat related, my view is that things such as a hundred arms or hair made of fire or skin made out of bark are physical manifestations of a God's idealized self. I like the idea that when you become a God, you can appear as your own conception of how you want to look. So at Apotheosis (and during the creation of Avatars) you're allowed to define your appearance entirely. You can be a spider-headed woman with eight arms, or a living shadow, or a giant reptile monster. Whatever.
DeleteThe difference between defining your Godly body and having the Appearance Knacks is that someone with the Appearance Knacks can *change* their appearance. They're shapeshifters, not limited to a single visual identity. So if a PC with the Epic App Knacks wants to be a living shadow one day, they can. The next day they can be a walking skeleton or a fluffy bunnyman. The guy without Epic App Knacks was able to define his appearance in inhuman terms, but since he can't CHANGE it, it's not much different from when at character creation he said his character was 6'6'' and had red hair and blue eyes.
Actually, she's a cat head lady with 4 extra spider arms, for a total of 8 limbs, and sometimes she gets a few extra eyes. I do most of the changing about with animal boons and appearance knacks tho', since she likes to appear not kinda horrifying sometimes ;)
Delete"Among other side effects are the doubling of your normal health levels (so if you had six dots of Epic Stamina and therefore 23 health boxes, once you become a god you'll have 46)"
ReplyDeleteDoes this include Jotunblut health levels, or not?
Yep, certainly does! Giants are sturdy.
Delete