You know, it's not accidental that Hephaestus is generally pretty nice-looking in ancient Greek and Roman art. He's no sexypants Zeus or Ares, mind you, but he's also not a disgusting troll or anything.
Ugliness, in the sense of having a creepy ogre-face or weird musculature or anything else, is actually not really a classical Hephaestus trait. The myths of his ostracization actually aren't due to him being ugly, but rather to the fact that he was born with a withered foot, rendering him lame and imperfect. Because the ancient Greeks idolized physical perfection and athleticism, which was represented at its pinnacle by the physically flawless gods, a god with such an obvious bodily defect was considered "hideous" despite the rest of him being technically normal-looking. It's because he was flawed and less than perfect that he was cast off Olympus by his mother (unless you prefer the version in which Zeus is the one who throws him off because he sided with Hera against him), and because of this birth defect that Aphrodite scorned him in favor of the athletic and manly Ares. His twisted foot not only makes him "ugly", in spite of his actual facial features and the rest of his body, but also makes him seen as weak and unmasculine by the rest of his pantheon.
Alas, poor Hephaestus; his people are jerks and he is therefore an outcast thanks to being handicapped, forever branded as an unattractive, pitiful cripple useful only for making the important people toys. As a result of his mythic role as the ugly member of the Dodekatheon, even though he's not "ugly" by human standards, he probably has at least some Epic Appearance. My personal guess is around five dots, although depending on how strong you think the imagery is, it might be all the way up to eight.
As our Greek PCs have discovered, even without negative Appearance, gods of the Dodekatheon tend to think anyone with fewer than seven to eight dots of positive Epic Appearance is an ugly stepchild, or at the very least disappointing. Hephaestus, even if you roll with him as not too terrible to look at for most people, will always be grotesque to his own people, who will treat him snobbishly and dismissively as a result.
Hmm...a question about the Forge God this close to the Industry release...clearly, the Gods are looking forward to this as much as we all are!
ReplyDeleteRight? Hephaestus is on deck!
DeleteWhy do you give gods so many epic attributes for unfavored things? Most of the myths I have read involve the gods being better than humans, but still close enough to relate to them.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, because it doesn't really make sense that they wouldn't have them. Why would you think gods, who are gods, haev only human levels of abilities in things that aren't their associations? Some of them definitely have tragically weak spots, usually illustrated by them epically failing at them in some way in mythology, but those that aren't those obvious failures are probably averageish, since they're never mentioned. Which means average for a god, not a human, since they're being measured against other gods, not humans.
DeleteMore mythologically speaking, however, there actually really aren't very many stories about gods being on equal levels with humans; there are certainly a few and they are awesome, but it's not a widespread epidemic, and most cultures conceived of gods as way, way more awesome than they were at most things. Those stories that do involve gods being on a level or almost-level playing field with mortals, like Athena's weaving contest with Arachne, are usually one-offs best explained by the use of the Avatar Birthright; Athena has Valor and would never compete with Arachne as a goddess because that would be unfair, so she probably dropped down to human capabilities for the competition and then went back to being batshit powerful and angry when she lost.
If you're playing a Scion, you'll never get to god without having middling stats in most things, usually not more than one that is down in the human-like doldrums; otherwise you'll have a hard time surviving. We don't use exactly the same rules for gods who come with the setting, since most of them didn't come up through the ranks as Scions, but if a myth doesn't say, "God, Hephaestus is SO VERY WEAK," it's unlikely that he's only around as strong as a human, because he would appear epically weak next to his fellow gods and people would probably have noticed that.
Just my two cents, but probably because these are still Legend twelve gods who aren't actually just meant to be people with a couple cool powers :P
DeleteBecause they are written by people who mostly only imagine and describe things a normal person could imagine or describe. We have to relate to most of them on some kind of human level, unless it is the thing they are known for doing really well.
DeleteFor example, while figures such as Loki and Odin might be incredibly smart and clever... you really don't find many stories about how smart and clever many of the other members of the Aesir are. But by your rules every one of them has at least epic three in everything but their dump stat.
That means all those gods are stupendously charming, magnificently convincing, incredibly perceptive, unimaginably brilliant, and shockingly quick witted by comparison to humans. But in the stories they are rarely any of those things. They make the kinds of decisions that we would make, notice the kinds of things we would notice, be as charming and convincing as we would be unless they are doing the things they are famous for doing.
I mean...
DeleteStephen Hawking might have five dots of intelligence and science. At the things he is amazingly good at he throws an average of 5 successes. Your entry level god is going to beat that easily. Unless intelligence is their dump stat, then every single god is going to be better than Stephen Hawking at his very best without even breaking a sweat.
And most of them don't act like it.
Not at all, because that's one of the primary functions of Fatebonds. Gods who are known as mythologically poor at a stat will have negative Fatebonds to it, which in turn make them poor at it despite having a moderate number of dots. If Thor has five Epic Intelligence and a negative Fatebond to Intelligence because he tends to be pretty dim in most of his myths, he's coming into that Intelligence roll with -20 dice and 20 autos, something that will likely cause him to botch or do exceptionally poorly despite the fact that by dots alone he's far more intelligent than any mortal could ever be. Fatebonds always skew the system in favor of what gods do in myths, and if gods had no dots in an ability and a negative Fatebond, they would be literally subhuman failures who couldn't walk, talk or tie their shoes.
DeleteGods are, at their base, almost always better than humans (with the usual exception of a dump stat or two). That's not a mistake; it's because they're gods, and that's how the vast majority of human religions view gods, as beings with capabilities and powers that far exceed those of even the best of humanity. You have to measure gods against one another, not against humans, who are seldom supposed to be in the running at all, and further remember that Fate's dictates always shape and control them, regardless of their base abilities.
And you know what? Amost every god should be better than Stephen Hawking without breaking a sweat, unless they are specifically known to be idiots. Becase Stephen Hawking is a mortal, and they're gods, and they shouldn't and usually aren't on the same plane.
My two cents in favour of Anne's argument about how cultures view Gods as perfect: there are millions of Hindus who consider Kali to be a benevolent, loving mother goddess, which, going solely by the myths of what she does, is emphatically not the case. Kali's basically the last person in myth you'd give Epic Charisma to, but clearly her Charisma is still at the level where people absolutely adore her regardless of her myths, so while she's clearly on the low end of the scale from Sarasvati or Lakshmi, she's way above mortals.
DeleteHmmm...that sounded so much clearer in my head.
But your argument does not hold up against previous things you have said. First of all, Thor would not have epic intelligence five because fatebonds would buy him down to the absolute minimum (presumably three). Thor might not even be a good example because intelligence is probably his dump stat, but you picked Thor so we're running with it.
DeleteSecond of all, you've said in the past that negative dice and successes in fatebonds only trigger during a roll and do not affect normal day to day activities. This means all the rest of the time they really are smarter than Stephen Hawking, because he had to try really hard and roll to get those successes and a god gets those successes without trying at all.
Third of all, we don't even know if most of those gods have any kind of negative fatebond towards intelligence. The only ones we might suspect of having that are the ones that act less intelligent than the normal person. Most of the gods are just going about their own business and have no reason for fate to give them crushing stupidity.
So I am sorry, but suggesting that most of them should be comparable to Stephen Hawking when they don't demonstrate anywhere near that level of intelligence just does not fly. :(
Gods are gods dude. You can play your game however you want, but your'e wrong.
DeleteIn short form:
You dont know what "the absolute minimum is", could be anything. For us, it could be 1 with no epics.
Rolls are made whenever it is appropriate. If you have many negative fatebonds, but wanna figure out physics, you would roll. You wouldnt just refuse to roll and then be super smart.
They have whatever fatebonds the ST(fate) wants them to have.
It does fly. They are gods.
Why would you say I don't know what the absolute minimum is? You guys have outright said yourselves that the absolute minimum without it being a dump stat is epic 3 for any social or mental, in your own blogs.
DeleteHow can it fly when we don't see them doing it? We don't see most of the gods being super charming, clever, perceptive, intelligent, or witty unless that is what they are best at.
There are definitely some exceptions, but for the most part we see gods acting like regular folk and being as charming, clever, perceptive, intelligent or witty as regular folk.
That is the minimum for legend 8 demigods to become legend 9 gods. That is not the minimum past that. And we arent talking about my games, we're talking about this imaginary game where my rules dont apply.
DeleteWe rarely ever see gods just being normal folks. We see them being less amazing at things then gods who do those things, but we dont see them, usually running around being human level anything. Read some more myths.
Oh, so once you become a god your fatebonds can start buying your epics down to nothing even if it is not your designated dump stat?
DeleteOf course we're talking about your games! Otherwise I would not have asked on this blog, and it wouldn't matter what rules were used. That's even why I said "Why do you guys give" instead of some other wording.
Alright, going to go read some more myths. See if I can give you some examples.
No, your fatebonds wont buy stuff below the 3/3 mark, for the most part.
DeleteSince I'll be replying with it anyway when you come back after reading myths.
DeleteWas the god able to get into the overworld? They have some epic perception. Were they able to open the doors of the giant overworld buildings? They have some epic strength. Do other gods listen to them when they talk, or notice they're even there? They have some epic charisma and epic appearance. Do they not die just walking around in overworlds? They have some epic stamina.
what is the difference between cultures that see physical deformity as taboo (the Greeks and Irish) and those such as the Norse that don't mind it, or see it as a mark of pride, honor, and strength if it is an honorable sacrifice (Odin's eye or Tyr's hand).
ReplyDeleteIt's a cultural difference in what they value. The Greeks valued excellence, which included in body as well as in mind and skill; things that are imperfect or flawed were looked down upon by them, including those with physical handicaps. The Norse, on the other hand, valued courage, survival and fortitude, so scars and maimings were seen as marks that a person had survived trauma and come out the other side, probably a great warrior or brave person.
DeleteYou can see the game try to mirror this in the Virtues of the two pantheons - the Greeks emphasize Expression, while the Norse prefer Endurance. :)
The more I come to understand the Norse, the better I like them, and think that their reputation as barbarians and monsters is entirely overblown by Christianity. Did they do horrible things? Yes, but no more horrible than any other ancient culture during the raiding, conqouring and pillaging, especially the Christians who gave them such bad press. On the other hand, their cultural values of of early democracy, courage, endurance, and exploration, along with the relatively humane and equal way they treated woman not only seemed a bright spot in the dark ages entirely overlooked and glossed over by the Christian written history, but a seems much more evolved than the Greeks.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably mostly dependent on what you personally value; the Greeks were definitely not a "less evolved" society than the Norse, simply one that believed in different important concepts. They were patrons of arts, sciences and learning in a way that the Norse never were, and pioneered their own brand of democracy and honorable governance. It's just different cultural values, which is what the Virtues represent. :)
DeleteI think the Norse were patrons of sciences, arts and learning on par with the Greeks, and certainly their superiors in exploration and nautical sciences. Just because little to nothing was written down for the future doesn't mean they were inferior to the Greeks and I think the notion that they were is another slant by Christendom. The Greeks reputation for sciences and learning comes from their drive for excellence in everything in both mind and body, but the Norse have valuable lessons of courage and endurance in their myths and sagas that the Greeks don't. Also, the Norse gods don't screw over their worshipers quiet as much as the Greeks, and do a lot more protecting them.
DeleteBut I think we can both agree that their nasty reputation was overblown a bit by Christendom. I believe they are a much more evolved people than popular culture and contemporary history had portrayed them to be, and that this fact is only recently coming to light.
ReplyDeleteMost cultures decimate the religion of those they conquer. Cant go blaming it all on christendom.
DeleteBut yes.