The Model Look

Question: If a Scion with no dots in Epic Appearance is horribly disfigured/scarred, can they buy positive Epic Appearance, or are they restricted to negative for being so ugly already? If they can get positive, does it reduce the ugliness of their scars/disfigurements until eventually the scars vanish, or would positive appearance simply make them extremely beautiful in spite of their scar/disfigurement without actually reducing the visual impact of the scars/disfigurements?

Any character can buy any kind of Epic Appearance they want! Go nuts! Do whatever you feel like, young heroes!

Appearance is a little bit of a tricky stat when it comes to the mortal realm; it really just measures how striking and noticeable you are, but whether people like that or don't is entirely dependent on the standards of beauty and physical averages of the culture you're hanging out with. As we know already from living in a world with a lot of different people with different tastes, wherever you go you'll encounter different standards; some cultures like large breasts while some like small, some cultures love ear- and lip-disks and others think they're disfiguring, some cultures prize certain colors in skin or hair or eyes that might be totally different from other cultures, and so on and so forth. There's no universal standard of beauty that everyone on earth recognizes, so it's likely that no matter what you look like, somebody out there thinks you're attractive, and likewise somebody is totally grossed out by you. Normal dots of Appearance make sure people visually (and aurally/scent-wise) notice you, but whether they think you look good or not is totally up to their personal preferences.

But Epic Appearance is a divine quality that transcends normal human preferences. People with positive Epic Appearance are attractive to everyone, not just people who would normally think they have a good look, and people with negative Epic Appearance freak everyone out, even if they would normally not have a problem with your specific physical attributes. If you have negative Epic Appearance and a bunch of traits that people around you would normally find very attractive - super clear skin, well-defined muscles, long eyelashes, whatever - they still don't want you anywhere near them, because you have a divine quality of scariness or ugliness that overrides their normal preferences. In essence, Epic Appearance takes the power to decide whether or not you're ugly or beautiful away from the viewer and gives it back to the Scion. You buy Epics, and you're whichever flavor of Epic Appearance you bought, end of story.

So yes, even if your character was horribly scarred as a mortal and most people considered her unsightly or disturbing or ugly, if she buys positive Epic Appearance, she is beautiful. How she is beautiful is up to you and your stunting prowess; the scars won't disappear unless you buy knacks that actually allow you to shapeshift and remove them, but maybe they now enhance the rest of her skin's flawlessness, or they form exotic and exciting patterns on her skin, or their texture makes people want to run their fingers across them, or they make her look mysterious and badass instead of injured or pitiful. Whatever way you think someone with scars might be attractive, that's what your character is now. And conversely, a Scion who looks like his culture's pinnacle of physical perfection who then purchases negative Epic Appearance is now horrifying regardless of his previous attractiveness, and his bulging muscles look grotesque or his full lips make onlookers think of scary things that want to eat them or the entire package of him now says violence and danger to people instead of power and sexiness.

You'll never lose any actual parts of your current anatomy or physical features when you buy Epic Appearance (unless you use a knack that actually changes those things); you still look like yourself and people who know you still recognize you. You're just now a divinely beautiful or horrible version of yourself, no matter who's interacting with you or what their normal standards might be.