Vlog attack! We're about to move to a new house next week so this is the last time you can enjoy our beautiful checkered curtains and depressing walls. To celebrate, we answer a bunch of questions about Storytelling and character creation.
Question: There's an NPC I'm considering for a future game that is a Scion of Mictlantecuhtli. At Hero-level he'd basically serve as a divine messenger boy, at Demigod he'd upgrade to delivery boy, and at God he'd go about trying to break away from the pantheon altogether. The thing is, though, he's not transferrring to another pantheon. In your opinion is that a good idea all around? If so, in what way and if not in what ways?
Question: I know it's a very general question, but how do gods treat Scions? Do they view them as children in the dark, or might some of them consider them adults who just need a nudge? I know they wouldn't treat them as equals because of the power disparity.
Question: I'm not sure if you've explained this before, but how do badass star-level relics work? What does a single star represent? Can uber-talented crafter PCs make them when they're high-enough Legend?
Question: As a Storyteller, I'm having some trouble coming up with events tied to Scions' Fateful Auras that don't involve some kind of Titanspawn or combat encounter. what are some examples of non-combat events that your Scions' Fateful Auras have attracted? And is there a good way to tie Fateful Auras into the heroes' current story arc without them feeling like random encounters? Thanks!
Question: I understand you might cut back on the War purview to focus on the war aspect rather than the lone warrior aspect. If you do end up doing that, what will happen to boons like Riastrad?
Question: When creating new Hero-level Scions, do you require relic Birthrights to have a unique name or just a description?
Question: What are the rules for having a creature as both the Creature Birthright and the Guide Birthright? Is that an inefficient use of points?
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If star relics can only be made by gods with The Creator using special ingredients/conditions, how did two dwarves get away with forging Mjolnir? Even if the explanation is a relic forge, the forge itself probably isn't legendary enough to warrant being a star relic - which means it could, presumably, be forged by a god without the Creator. And if that could happen, then a god might be able to forge star relics without the Creator by forging a relic forge of their own.
ReplyDeleteAny forge that could make lower-level crafters able to create star relics is likely to be a star relic itself, so you wouldn't be able to just make it to get around the limitation. You could of course try to make use of a relic forge like that that already existed if you could get access to - for example, Hephaestus' forge might be able to do that - but since you'd be trying to use a star-level relic that didn't belong to you, odds are you'd get your face blown off for your trouble.
DeleteThe dwarves of Norse mythology fill the role of "crafter god", since the pantheon proper doesn't have one, and they're lesser immortals besides, not necessarily subject to the same rules as gods and Scions. Making stuff is what they do as a race - pretty much the only thing they do - so the ability to make fantastic relics is probably an inborn racial skill (communal crafting?) for them that goes above what creatures their Legend could normally do.
But does a relic have to be bound to one person?
DeleteCould you not have a star-level forge that was not bound to a single entity?
like it being ''The forge Hephaestus uses'' rather than ''The forge of Hephaestus''?
You could have a forge that isn't bound to anyone, but then it would melt anyone who tried to use it, Hephaestus included. It's not that using others' relics is hard and dangerous - although that may sometimes make it worse - but rather that using a relic that isn't yours is hard and dangerous, even if it doesn't belong to anyone else (or belongs to someone who is dead, etc). Fate knows that you and that relic aren't meant to be together, and therefore it's intensely difficult to use it. If you really want that relic to be part of your Legend, it needs to be bound to you with Birthright Bond.
Deletei see, thanks. I always thought the danger of using artefacts primarily were in the fact that they were bound to others. So, any ''unbound'' artefact will require a legend against rating roll too?
DeleteDoes this also apply to any artefact that is player-made, but not yet bound by magic? even at low-legend? (say 5-6sih)
Its a quick but overlooked worldbuilding/logic exercise to figure out that all relics must "bite" unless they're bound. If unbound relics work as well as relics that were bound to you, why would any relics be bound? What would be the upside? All it does is make it so others cant use it?(or rather, have a difficult time using it?) That hardly seems too useful or worth it.
DeleteItd be far easier for a pantheon to have tons of relics, none of which were bound, that everyone just uses all the time.
And...that makes unbound relics not being dangerous not make much sense.
The whole reason binding must exist is for unbound relics to stop being dangerous.
I can certainly get behind that idea. It only leaves me with one problem:
DeleteIf a player has an artistry-based character, he will have to wait untill someone from their group get to the point in magic that they can bind birthrights. Or he could ask the gods for help, but with the description at the bottom of this comment section, it would not seem that would work untill higher legend either.
So is Artistry, in your eyes, meant to be only used for mundane tools untill you can get the birthright-binding magic?
Ohh and you can have a artefact that just ''adds +1 acc +2L dam to the naginata template'' without it being considered an unbound artefact, right?
I guess this i a question that can take some time to answer, so ill just dump it in the Ask John Anything :)
DeleteYayy vlog!!!! Not the question asker but follow up to the follower question sort of. Could a scion potentially have their children as followers? If so what do you guys consider to be an appropriate or reasonable age? Thanks in advance. Have fun and good luck on the move cause I know I hate moving
ReplyDeleteSangria does! Chicahua is her official Follower, gained as such at God. He eats the bodies of the fallen, but I imagine other Scions' children are probably less ghoulish.
DeleteThe biggest question is: what will your children do for you as Followers? Are they army-trained, so they can fight for you? Are they scientific geniuses who can help you out with your problems? Why do you want them to be Followers, and what will they do as such?
Also, keep in mind that Followers belong to you, completely and totally and utterly and forever. They obey you completely and blindly and don't do anything you don't tell them to you; you can summon and unsummon them at will and if they die, no big deal, you just resurrect them like resetting a video game. They're part of your Legend, and that means they can't have one of your own. If you attach one of your children to you as a Follower, he will never be a Scion himself, never have his own adventures or divine identity; you're choosing to make him part of you instead of letting him be his own person. (If your kid's already a Scion or a god, we would rule that you can't make him a Follower - he already has his own Legend and can't be subsumed into yours anymore.)
So while it's possible, it may not be something you want to do.
If you want to be a god (or mabye just demigod/hero) that cares for your own children more than the average god of old, would you then consider it Adding yourself to their list of birthrights as a Guide or would you rather make a birthright called ''dependant'' or ''charge'' for the Scion?
DeleteI don't think there's any need to invent a new category of Birthright just for people you want to take care of - sounds like something you should do through roleplaying to me. If you want to take care of them, that's on you to organize and manage - Guardian and Psychopomp are especially helpful, as are hiring or bullying people into looking after them for you, but there are plenty of ways to go about it.
DeleteYou could totally be a Guide for your children if they become Scions, though! You'll need a Magic god to attach you as a Birthright as well as some other relic that allows the two of you to communicate, and your Storyteller is probably going to make sure that your kid bothers you at inopportune times more than a little bit, but if you're willing to deal with the inconvenience of them bothering you for help all the time, sometimes in the middle of important things you're doing, you can absolutely act as a Guide.
Sangria got a magic-god to bind her scion to her as a follower too then?
DeleteIt seems like a thin line to walk for the god, as the two are so close in concept, but so fundamentally different in reality.
Chicahua was half-Titanspawn, so he actually wasn't a Scion and never could have been, so it was more like binding a lesser immortal or other magical being as a servant. Tezcatlipoca bound him to her as a Follower when she hit God.
DeleteThat is pretty awesome ^^
DeleteBased on your question about Riastrad I pose another If under your rules, someone purchases Riastrad at a lower level could they purchase it then again later on to override the current Riastrad to add boons and Knacks to it as they grow, or if they want to do that must wait till they are higher level to purchase it or can they add boons and knacks to it as they progress if in fact they want it that way?
ReplyDeleteNope - there are very few powers you can buy more than once, and they all say so. Riastrad's power setup is set in stone when you purchase it and choose those boons and knacks, so make your choices with careful deliberation! You do get to continue with some new customizations as you go up in Legend, though - Riastrad has powers equal to your total number of War boons, so whenever you get a new War boon, you get to add a new power, allowing your Riastrad to grow with you as long as you keep up with your War.
DeleteWe always suggest players be careful not only with what powers they want on their Riastrad but also with their activation costs; the last thing you want to do is set yourself up with a Riastrad that costs 11 Willpower to activate and never be able to use it when you want to.
I would love to see riastrad taken out of war and possibly put into the rewritten enech, or just turned into a custom birthright of some sort.
DeleteAlso, one of my favorite use of birthrights in a game was a golden servant of hephaestus that was a guide, relic, and creature all at once.
He had the personal stats of a creature and could be broken and repaired by spending legend. He had access to all the unclassified schematics of Hephaestus and could provide extensive guidance on how to craft and create things. And he was a relic channel for fire and industry (back before it was artistry).
So guides, relics, and creatures can totally be combined together for great fun, if you have a big imagination :D
Gods help you if you lost that combination birthright, though!
DeleteI'm not sure Riastrad makes sense as part of Enech - it's certainly Irish-flavored, but doesn't really have anything to do with the themes of Enech itself. I'm also hesitant to make it too specific to any one pantheon, since the Irish certainly don't have the monopoly on people who go bananas and mow everything down in an insane and ugly bloodlust (see: Sekhmet, Kali, Ninurta, et al). It is weird and unwieldy right now, though, so something that helped it be easier for everyone to use or changed its place in the game would definitely be welcome. I'll put it on the giant to-do list. :)
DeleteRegarding the break away from pantheon question, what about gods (any legend) that preferred to hang around in their own place (maybe sanctuary or a terra incognita)?
ReplyDeleteI believe that could easely happen.
DeleteTo be part of a pantheon, as i see it, is to have somewhere that you owe loyalty and are, by fate, bound to.
It doesent mean you have to hang out with them ALL the time.
Mabye not the best example, but Hephaestus is not hanging out with the other gods, having his own forge in some Sanctuary, as he was rejected by Zeus/Hera (depending on the myth). He is still a part of the pantheon though, and he provides them with Zeus' lightning bolt and other wonders.
I do not think Hecate is on Olympus either. Even though she is a part of the Theoi, she is still a former titan. They problary do not want her around too much, and she problary prefers solitude anyways.
Having your own Terra incognita would not be that diffrent from any death god hanging around in his/her underworld, instead of the overworld with the other gods.
Well, that is just my scattered thoughts on that subject, in the end every GM could make his own call on how accepted it would be that the god did not live with his/her pantheon.
Rasmus is right - you can live wherever you want to as a god, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in the Overworld. We assume that most gods have both Sanctums and residences in the Overworld, and that they can hang out in either place, although this isn't always the case. Gods can easily live in their Sanctums or Terrae instead of officially in the Overworld, as long as they can get there when needed - even if they don't live on Olympus proper, you'd better believe they need to show up and help defend if Cronus is storming the gates, or arrive when there are important meetings called or trials going on. Overworlds don't have to be like frat houses where everyone lives together, but they are the important communal spaces for divine business, so even if you don't live there you'll still need to make appearances fairly frequently.
DeleteUnless you're Loki or Set kind of god? I guess getting a character to be a god like them (exiled but still accepted as a member of their pantheon) would be a hell lot of work.
DeleteThe Aesir is a very strange religion, because it details both things that have been, but also things that have not yet happened.
DeleteHowever i could imagine that, even if Loki has been bound to a rock, i can imagine him being unbound for the Titanomachy, as the Aesir needs everyone and Loki is not interested in dying before Ragnarok either.
Loki and set arent exiled! Loki is the blood brother of the king and set is the protector that makes sure the entire pantheon doesnt die EVERY DAY.
DeleteYeah, Loki's a dude who hasn't actually done anything yet - he's a pain in the ass to be sure, but no worse than any other trickster. The prophecies of Ragnarok haven't happened yet, and so he hasn't done anything to make them kick him out of the pantheon any more than someone like Hermes. And, as John said, he's Odin's blood-brother, so he's actually in a pretty secure position despite the fact that everyone is very worried about the day he goes off the rails.
DeleteAnd Set actually is still doing what he's been doing for millennia; fighting Apep every night to save Ra and keep the sun going. He definitely had a giant war of succession with Horus, but he lost that a long time ago, and he wasn't exiled as a result or anything, just told to shut up and go back to work and respect his nephew as king. He's a scary dude but a pretty dependable one.
There are gods that get exiled but are still members of their pantheons, though - the Kami are pretty famous for that, with Tsukiyomi exiled from Amaterasu's presence and Susanoo getting kicked out of the Overworld twice for being an asshole. You can definitely have a Scion that turns into a god like that, though having part of your pantheon hate on you is always a hard row to hoe.
Ah, so..You can piss them, you can insult them, you can stay away most of the time, but always make sure that you do your job or is more useful that pissing someone is acceptable?
DeleteIf you have a Scion group that wants to form their own pantheon, they obviously need planning. But with the gods not wanting these ''investments'' to get away, How big are the risk that, while idea-generation and planning scions between, a god or godess with mystery or prophecy just randomly stumbles upon their plan and tells the whole pantheon about it? is there a way to prevent that from happening?
ReplyDeleteThe risk of starting your own pantheon should be huge. There is very little reason for the gods to let this happen. Dont even worry about mystery or prophecy, what about just gods with excellent perception? Scions should never think they are talking "in private". Hell, you really shouldnt even think you're "thinking in private".
DeleteYou can still do it, of course, and you have a better shot as a group that can watch one anothers' backs than you do alone... but politically speaking, it's really, really difficult.
Deleteas always: thanks for the great answers ^^
DeleteOn a comedic note, I like to think of Scions as Cows.
ReplyDeleteTo the gods you are a beast of burden, sometimes so stupid that you won't even cross a bridge for fear of breaking your leg. Sometimes you go break something or take a dump in someone else's yard, and need to be scolded.
But some gods love their cows and respect their rights to a degree. Some gods treat their cows like crap. Some gods just wish the cows would stop mooing all the time and get back to work. Some gods will see a good days work done, give their cow a pat on the head, and say "That'll do, cow."
lol, pretty perfect.
Delete