Question: What actions are you capable of taking during a Divine Figurehead? Can you still fight? Can you restrain people? Can you use social powers? Mental powers? All the questions!
You can do whatever your heart desires, my friend! Divine Figurehead is a Charisma power that causes other people to respond and become excited, festive and so forth, but it neither does anything to you nor puts any restrictions on your behavior. Hang out and drink, play poker, order executions, run marathons, eat your grandchildren, whatever you want. Divine Figurehead doesn't care even slightly.
What this will usually mean is that if you're doing something particularly crazy - say, slaughtering hundreds of people or slinging fireballs against an enemy - that the party will change to accommodate it. Fireball-tossing will probably turn it into a fire festival, complete with bonfires, coal-walking and whatever other craziness people can get up to. If you're murdering people, you've probably started a people-murdering party, so congratulations on making casual stabbing the new trend. Dionysus' strange proclivities directly contribute to the behavior of satyrs and maenads when he uses Divine Figurehead, while Uzume's dancing is so incredible that it inspires dancing all around (and inspired the invention of dance styles that endured for centuries!).
So don't worry about what you can and can't do - this ain't Guardian and since no one is immobilized or overwhelmed, there are no safeguards the way there are for many other powers. Do whatever you want, but be aware that your party fouls will harsh the vibe for everyone.
Question asker here. I appreciate the answer, and it is definitely useful, but apparently I goofed the question!
ReplyDeleteI meant when you are under the effect of someone else's Divine Figurehead.
Oh, ha! Totally my fault, too, I obviously read it wrong as well.
DeleteIf you're affected by a Divine Figurehead, you're committed to being at this awesome superparty, but you still have free will and can do things within it. If someone else you hate is at the superparty, by all means, take a shot at him, and then go back to drinking once you've mopped the floor with his remains. If you want to use your powers to enhance the partying or do other things since there are conveniently lots of people here, go right ahead.
The only things you can't do, really, are try to shut down, leave or damage the party in some way. You don't want to leave - you want to party until the party is over and be near this really cool dude/lady who is hosting it, and you don't want to try to stop everyone else from doing the same, so you aren't going to use powers to put people to sleep, calm them out of their excitement or force them to go elsewhere, etc.
People being Divine Figurehead'd in our games are prone to using any powers they might have to summon other people to join the fun. The more the merrier, after all.
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DeleteDepends on whomever is watching, really. Divine Figurehead don't care about things like noise ordinances or nudity laws; it cares about having a good time and getting everyone around the Scion to party down. If a Scion takes off all their clothes and exhorts everyone to do the same, whether they do or not will depend on what they personally would consider fun; if they love a chance to do crazy shit or are kinda tipsy and excited, the clothes might come off, but if that idea frightens or makes them uncomfortable, they probably won't do it. The only thing Divine Figurehead does is make people come to the party and have a good time; it doesn't dictate how they have that good time or what they consider fun.
DeleteOf course, Scion's charismatic enough to get a good Divine Figurehead going will usually be charming enough that people will want to follow their lead, but it's not a given. If someone would rather have an awesome partytime with their clothes on, the Scion will have to actually use a power that contravenes their free will to force them to disrobe.
I'm not sure what you mean about protecting people in the throes of a Divine Figurehead, but that also depends on the person in question. DF isn't making anyone do anything they don't want to do, so nobody's going to be in pain or danger just from the effects, and nobody's Vigil Brand is going to suddenly alert them to the fact that someone they protect is at an awesome party. Of course, if you think whatever is happening is immoral (for example, you think drinking is bad so you want to stop all these people from getting drunk), you can decide to "protect" people from it, but they probably won't be happy about it.
You answered my question on how the knack works. The tone I was asking the question in was meant to ask whether the divine figurehead makes a character imitate the scion's action (like Dionysus & the maenads) or whether it makes people come and watch the action (like your uzume example). (Basically where divine figurehead sits between the two) I deleted the question because i thought someone might look this post up and write something inappropriate (you guys do tend to get trolls on this blog)
DeleteNo worries. There are trolls sometimes, but that's the nature of the internet.
DeleteIt's neither, really; DF doesn't either make people do what you do or make them watch what you do. All it does is cause a giant party to erupt around you for as long as you're there. What people do at that party is entirely up to them.
Of course, if you have lots of Charisma, you're probably able to sway the crowd one way or the other; if you tell everyone to get naked, some of them probably will, and if you do something and make it look fun enough, people will probably join in. But individuals all still have free will and will decide what they want to do while having an awesome time, so unless you want to use other powers, you don't actually have any direct control over their actions.