Greek Week

Hey, everybody! It's vlog time, and this week is Greek Week! The kind where we talk about a bunch of Greek mythology stuff, not the kind with beer and toilet paper togas. (Although we could potentially do both. That would be a fun Saturday.)

Question: I read your blog about how the Theoi don't like anything that deviates from normal human physical perfection. So, then why do the Theoi have Gods with Animal associations? Wouldn't that mean that any Greek God with Animal would pretty much never use Animal Feature and/or Animal Form? Okay, maybe Aphrodite could get away with giving herself a pair of swan wings (since you mentioned that the Theoi don't mind wings) but if Ares gave himself ANY wolf feature, wouldn't that be kinda wrong to him?

Question: How do you guy treat Charon, as he is son of two Titans - a god, titanspawn, or even a Titan?

Question: When I was reading your post on how other pantheons laugh about the Greek/Romans small "swords", I realized that since different pantheons may have different standards of beauty, then how does having a high Apperance in one pantheon affect another who may have a different version of an ideal apperance?

Question: How might the Virtues of a Roman Scion differ from those of his or her Greek counterpart?

Question: Hera's Vengeance demands that she continue to punish Zeus' bastards forever. However, in some versions of the Heracles myth, Hera ritually adopts Heracles as her own son when he achieves apotheosis. Would that satisfy Hera's Vengeance toward him? Technically he isn't a bastard anymore. Hera has formally claimed him as her own son. Would she still need to fight her Vengeance around him? Would this option apply to other Scions of Zeus who manage to become gods?

Question: I know this will sound stupid, but what exactly is Tartarus?

Question: Valor is the Virtue of acting honorably, right? Does that mean Scions with Valor can't lie? Can't steal? Can't work undercover?

Please pardon the lack of question text in the video - the editor crashed on me so I had to rush it to make sure it go out on time.

Next week, more themes, plus the exact same faces and clothes you saw this week.

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.

Behold!

Question: Why isn't Visage Great and Terrible under the shapeshifting-based knack tree? Is it because Eye of the Beholder works better with it on the tree it's on?

Not really - Eye of the Beholder is where it is because it needs to follow Visage Great and Terrible, not the other way around.

Actually, Visage Great and Terrible isn't in the tree with the shapeshifting knacks - Detail Variation, Undeniable Resemblance and Unusual Alteration - because it isn't shapeshifting. The knack represents turning your positive Epic Appearance to negative or vice versa, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything actually changed shape - in fact, other than small cosmetic stunts, we would say it never involves shapechanging, because that's what those other knacks do. You could stunt small changes, like maybe your scars become prominent or you gain sores on your skin when you turn ugly, maybe your hair becomes perfect or your scent divine when you turn beautiful, but you won't actually change shape. And often, use of the knack wouldn't involve any shapeshifting at all, and the character has the exact same physical features but they are now supernaturally lovely or epically disturbing.

So Visage Great and Terrible doesn't actually shapeshift you into anything different outside the boundaries of small stunts, and therefore it and Eye of the Beholder don't need to be in the shapeshifting tree with things that do. We don't think it would fit badly there, but we think it works just as well in the tree that is about using the impact of your Appearance itself to affect those around you.

From the Heart of the Vortex!

Today, we're clearing out a bunch of quick and easy answers! Blog attack, go!

Question: Would you use Larceny or Art/Science: Computer/Hacking for hacking?

Art (Computer), or, if you happen to have the Polymath boon, it would fall under Art (Modern). It's too specialized a skill to be done with plain old Larceny.

Question: Do improvements to relics always have to come from a crafter god, or can certain relics gain power through mythical events like their Scion owners gaining legend? For example, if a Scion defeated a powerful monster and gained a Legend dot, would her magic axe gain new abilities?

Relic improvements always need to come from Artistry within the game itself; you won't spontaneously gain new relic points from things you do, because that would be overpowered and difficult for a Storyteller to adjudicate (not to mention making people with Artistry have a purview that was way less useful). However, you gain new Birthright points when you become a Demigod and when you become a God, so you could have relics spontaneously gain dots at those jumps if you wanted to.

Question: Why doesn't Ra have Animal (Scarab)?

Because it's really Khepri, the scarab god, who has that association. Ra was syncretized with Khepri sometimes, where the beetle god was seen as Ra's aspect as the rising sun, but if we gave Ra associations for everyone he was ever syncretized with, he'd be Voltron.

Question: According to your posts, Hecate is still a titan (or at least very, very titanic). Does this mean she can't sire scions, or is she goddess enough to do so? Do her hypothetical kids have any side effects (showing up when scenting the titanic, gaining dark virtues etc) or are they just normal scions who might have to put up with some prejudice due to their heritage?

Hecate is a goddess for purposes of our games, and creates Scions normally as part of the Theoi. She is of Titanic lineage and occasionally called such in Greek mythology, but she's the same generation as Zeus' children and had a strong cult worship that made her close enough to humanity to be considered a god.

Question: What do Pakiy, Emamu and Stvaranje mean?

Etymological roots for all the Titanrealms can be found in this old post.

Question: Aura of Dread doesn't specify that it's only for Scions with Negative Epic Appearance, yet it is clearly the starting point for the Negative Knacks. Since it doesn't say "Negative only" does that mean an attractive Scion can still take that Knack? If I wanted my good-looking warrior Scion to still project a terrifying image on the battlefield, would that work?

No. Aura of Dread, like all the other knacks in the terrorizing tree, us usable by negative Epic Appearance only. It should say that, so we'll fix it, but it should also be pretty obvious, y'all.

Question: Are the Avatars going to get worked over with the boon revamp? Or is that a separate project?

It's a separate project, but one that we hope to work on soon, and we're talking about basic ideas for it while we work on the APP project.

Question: I was looking for how Sanctums worked, and found that your post from April 1, 2012 that said you were working on definite rules. Is that something thats progressing without a bar? has the project been demolished? up for vote? finished but not released?

It isn't being worked on at this particular moment, but we could certainly add it to the voting block if it's something you guys would like to happen sooner rather than later!

Question: Creatures are always lower legend than the scion. Does this also apply to Nahualli? I mean, they're YOU?

No. Nahualli are not Creature Birthrights and are not bound by that rule. They are a unique kind of Birthright all their own.

Question: Hello! If a Scion has a child as a Hero or Demigod, I know that the ichor would still flow from the grandparent and the grandparent will be able to activate the child, but what happens if the Demigod becomes a god - could they THEN activate their own child?

Yep, sure can.

Question: I was looking at your Perceptive Capacity table. Does it mean that the furthest any mortal can see is 12 yards (5 on the table)? That seems a little harsh to me, am I misunderstanding the rules?

You are, but that's okay, we explain it in this old post back here.

Question: Do the Aztecs have a legendary smith like Vølund or Hephaestus?

They do not; most of their armor and weapons were made of non-metal materials like obsidian and stiffened paper or cloth. They had artisans that performed goldsmithing (mostly for jewelry and ritual objects) and occasionally traded with their neighbors for bronze, but it wasn't an important enough style of crafting to merit its own deity.

Question: Do Fatebonds get the XP discount if the player has the appropriate Me PSP associated with a purview?

Yes, both the player and their Fatebonds get to buy (or unbuy) that purview at the lower rate thanks to Me.

Question: Do Empath auto-successes apply to Manipulation + Empathy rolls for lying?

Yes, they apply to anything that you roll Empathy for.

And that'll be it for now! Don't worry, we won't be doing a lot of these (we prefer the big in-depth posts!), but since the questionado has grown to a current maelstrom of 203, we figured we'd get a few of the quick ones out of the way.

Back into the fray!

They Have Opinions

Okay, you guys, today we're doing a vlog treat (one day late, but we needed to ambush the star-studded cast). Today's vlog is being performed totally unplanned and unscripted by three of our fabulous players, who took time out from their busy schedule of being screwed over by other king gods to answer some player-centric questions. In fact, they were so awesome at it that it was over an hour long when it was done, so we split it into two parts and you'll get to see the second half next week.

In the meantime, here are some questions!

Question: Does high positive/negative Appearance usually affect internal band interactions? Or is it often forgotten/shrugged off by players and their PCs? For instance, does Woody often find himself getting lost in Geoff's eyes, or is he just used to it?

Question: Have you used Gods in your games as NPCs, actually involved alongside the PCs, not just as observers/catalysts, and if so, which ones?

Question: Has your PCs been in a Avatar vs. Avatar fight?

Question: Sowiljr has a keycard for the handsome gods club. What is that? A cult for him or a mens' club for gods? Or what?

Question: Okay since every pantheon seems to be big messed up families I gotta ask: who is your "unfavorite" in each pantheon?

Awesome shout-out props to Alex Preston-Bosch for the fancy new opening credits - he is awesome!

This Glorious Presence

Question: You've talked about the difference between Charisma and Manipulation before, but what about the difference between Charisma and Appearance? Aren't they both just the ability to make people notice you?

No, but that is a thing they can both do, so the confusion's understandable. Charisma and Appearance both can be used to make people notice you, but that's not the only thing they do, and they also generally don't do it the same way.

To begin with, while both Charisma and Appearance do depend on people paying attention to you, the stat that actually means "pay attention to me!" is Presence. That's the stat that actually measures how good you are at being noticed; without it, even with all the Epic socials in the world you're still at the same level as a really stunningly noticeable mortal at best. So it's really the interplay between Charisma - the force of your personality - or Appearance - the force of your physical self - and Presence that makes people notice you.

And they do that separately! Getting someone to notice you with Charisma involves impressing them in some way with your personality, which will take whatever form your personal brand of Charisma is most suited to. It might mean coming on so strong that you scare people with your intensity, being so hilarious that you brighten the whole room, or being so warm and comforting that people are naturally drawn to you no matter what you're doing. Charisma may also do any number of other things, including making people feel bad for you if you're in trouble, making people who know you want to be your friend, making people fall in love with you, intimidating people, or even making them feel better about themselves.

Getting someone to notice you with Appearance, on the other hand, involves you being incredibly physically impressive, which again depends on the specific kind of Appearance you're rocking. It might mean being so hot that you melt peoples' brains the second they catch sight of you, being so ugly that they can't take their eyes off you, being so terrifying that no matter where they go they feel like your eyes are on them, or you smell so intoxicating that when you walk too close their synapses all shut down. Appearance can also instigate lust, provoke revulsion, make it impossible to touch you or inspire people with the mere memory of how amazing you happen to physically be.

The difference lies not necessarily in the result but in the method; it's possible to be magnetically noticeable because of your Charisma but to look incredibly ordinary, which you might roleplay as being generally unnoticed until you say something or put yourself forward, and it's also possible to be completely uninteresting in every possible way but being so incredible-looking that people have to notice you even if you have the personality equivalent of a dirt stain. And, you should also keep in mind that the result can vary quite a lot - someone who notices you because you're a great conversationalist and they really like you will react extremely differently from someone who notices you because you look like the monster under their bed crawled out to say hello. Just getting noticed is really only the beginning of any interaction, and what happens next will depend heavily on exactly how that notice came about.

Social stats are weird because they're all about interaction with other people, which means that they aren't simple levers; they all could theoretically do all kinds of stuff, with lots of overlap between them. What really makes them pop is how you use them and how other people react to them, so when you're making a social character, think through what kinds of effects you want to have on people and what socials will serve you best in achieving that in your particular way.

Oh, and buy Presence. Life's a pain in the butt for social characters without any.

Regrets

Okay, guys, John recorded this yesterday but couldn't figure out how to get it uploaded to YouTube, so instead of posting it here he threw a lot of furniture, drank some beers and stomped around until our cats had anxiety seizures. Now that it's finally up, we can bring you the belated vlog. He wants you to know he did it entirely by himself and it's awesome.

Hey, this isn't a question but more of a Request. Could we possibly get another John Only Vlog i love how he rages on questions when Anne isnt there to calm him down. Lie when the Vlog when he was in yall old house in the room talking bout Thor being a personification of Odin's strength. A blog like that where he answers questions and just lets us have it. In all his Johnny Goodness. Those are my favorites. PS i still love you anne just want to see some John Rage.

Question: Through EPIC COSMIC TRICKERY and MANIPULATION, a pantheon of gods sits down to all play D&D together. You are the DM, and they tell YOU to pick their char classes for them. What do you pick for them and why? Greeks (big 12), Norse, Aztec. GO! (pretty pretty please?)

Question: I know your views on made up stuff for Scion when there's worlds of material from real world mythologies, but I'm curious and cannot resist asking. If you guys had to take a pantheon from any fictional piece (other RPGs, Lovecraft, etc.) and create a Scion version for use as divine parents, which pantheon would it be?

Question: Can we get a hint on the secret project you're working now? Just a tiny one, I beg you!!

Question: You ever read any of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson or Kane Chronicles books? And if so, what did you think of them?

Question: Regret guy here. What does Zeus regret. What does Eshu regret. What does Vishu and Braham regret. What does Sarsovitch regret. What does Perun regret. Choose any and all you feel like answering. Sorry about the spelling, pressed for time.

Question: Okay, i am not the original asker of this question: Power and responsibility go hand in hand. And with every great decision comes regret. Regret for what could have been, should have been, and what ultimately was. What do the gods regret? , but you talked about comming back with ONE god. Prove. What does the law regret? banishing his twin-son-bird-thing to the underworld for attacking Veles son? (who were dicks) or is there other things?

Question: Can you hide Epic Appearance (positive or negative) by wearing lots of clothes? I mean, bundled up like an eskimo without an inch of skin showing. Like Kenny from Southpark level bundled up. Sight? Clothes. Smell? Clothes. Touch? Clothes. Taste? ... ... stop licking my jacket!

A Great Personality

Question: What is the interplay between high Epic Charisma and high Negative Appearance?

An uncomfortable one, sad to say for those on the receiving end. Those two social stats can and do coexist, but they do so in an uneasy and distressing way.

First of all, everything that you would normally have with either of those Epic Attributes is still in play. Your high Epic Charisma makes you a focus of attention and makes your actions and speech relevant and noticeable, whatever form you choose for your Charisma to take; you're noticeable, important, magnetic, and difficult not to pay attention to. Your high Epic Appearance makes people instinctively dislike you, again in whatever form you manifest that; you're hideous, terrifying, disgusting, and you inspire revulsion and fear in those who see you.

Not a fun cocktail for the viewer, right? You're horrifying, but they want to be near you anyway. They're revolted, but they can't take their eyes off you.

The exact specifics of that interaction really depend on a given character's manifestation of their stats, though. The most common combination of those is probably Epic Charisma that manifests as the character being commanding and fearsome, inspiring obedience rather than encouraging friendship, which is then magnified by the Epic Appearance also making anyone who sees her gut-wrenchingly terrified of being around her in the first place. Such characters are powerhouse dictators or generals - people jump when they say jump, not just out of respect but also out of fear. Another way of combining the two would be Epic Charisma that manifests as the character being sympathetic and endearing along with Epic Appearance that makes them physically disgusting or pitiful - the Beauty and the Beast approach, where the physicality is undeniably ugly and unsettling but there's clearly a good heart within that might be able to win people over in spite of the exposed organs or gross gravelly skin. You might also go with a respected old warhorse concept, with your Epic Charisma affecting others as your noble spirit and admirability but your Epic Appearance going along with it as the harsh scars of whatever heroic life you've led. There are tons of ways to combine the two; just decide how Charisma and Appearance happen to appear for your character, and the rest will follow.

Keep in mind, too, that a lot of how social stats affect someone depends upon their roleplaying decisions, so your stats will not always give you a perfect predictor of what others around you will do. Sure, you might be an uggo-monster with an irresistible heart of gold for most people, but it's still possible that a given character has a particular personal issue with your appearance that makes him too grossed out to give your sparkling personality a chance, or that another character notices your hideousness less thanks to having been exposed to worse in her time. There's always a little room for interpretation from the side of the person being affected as well, so don't get hung up on the idea that everyone always has to respond the same way.

If you're a Storyteller and you're wondering how an NPC ought to respond to a PC's Charisma/Appearance happy/ugliness combo, we recommend edging them toward whichever stat is higher; if someone's charismatic but they're more hideous, NPCs are apt to be more freaked out than drawn in, whereas if someone's ugly but they're more charismatic, they're more likely to be forgiving of her physical eccentricities. If both stats are equal, check to see if the NPC has anything in their background or personality that would sway him or her one way or the other, and if not, play it by ear and try to give both stats equal importance based on what the PC is doing. If it's just a conversation, Charisma might make everything fine and dandy, but if the rotting slime monster comes in for a hug, all bets may be off.

How to Get Pregnant Without Really Trying

Question: Is it possible to have a Scion of the Morrigan birthed by a lesbian mortal mother after the goddess impregnated her in female form after a torrid night of lesbian passion?

You know, I have gotten variations on this question way more than I ever would have predicted. I guess people are very concerned about the possible outcomes of divine lesbian encounters.

Sure, dude, you can totally do that; Scion's full of people doing crazy shit, and I see no reason this can't be one of those moments. Compared to some of the reproductive shenanigans going on in various mythologies, this is downright tame.

I'm not going to go into the details of all the ways two ladies can have sex (you guys have the internet, I'm sure you can figure it out), but the only thing to really worry about is the fact that somehow one of these women has to get knocked up, which means something has to fertilize an egg. In humans, that requires particular equipment, but gods don't have to play by those rules. Appearance knacks - Undeniable Resemblance and Unusual Alteration - that allow specialized shapeshifting can easily provide ways for this to happen, whether it's creating fertilizing fluid of some kind that is released through small openings in the fingers or even modifying the pores of the skin to allow simple contact to pass something unnoticed from one to the other. Purview Avatars, of course, can also probably pull this off easily as well; the Savior especially can probably just impregnate via finger guns if you want it to, but others can likely pull off similar events as well. Exactly how this works mechanically depends completely on the actions and interests of the ladies involved and the Storyteller's rulings, but it's far from something that is difficult for your average goddess to do.

To digress for a moment, you'll see very, very few cases in ancient mythology where someone is born without a male being involved anywhere. This is because most ancient societies' understanding of the process of procreation mandated that both male and female parts be involved, which is why even most of the most famous parthenogenic stories involve some kind of opposite counterpart or proxy - Cavillaca becoming pregnant by eating Coniraya's sperm in a fruit, for example, Erichthonius being born when Hephaestus's seed fell on the ground and therefore impregnated Gaia, or Xquic being impregnated by Hun Hunahpu spitting into her hand - even if sex isn't directly involved. There are a few, with Hera's solo birth of Hephaestus probably the best example of a story with no dudes involved anywhere, but not a lot, and I can't think of a single one in which two ladies were able to combine to make a child (unless you want to get funky with the confusing myth of Heimdall's parentage, maybe?).

But that's okay, because those ancient stories aren't the boss of us! Today's Scions are being born in a world where lesbian relationships are commonplace, in vitro fertilization is an everyday occurrence and scientists have figured out how to make viable sperm with no male genetic material involved at all, so there's no reason whatsoever they have to adhere to those crusty old classical ideas of how babies are made. Especially if it's just something in your Scion's backstory, feel free to be creative, and if the Storyteller wants details, work them out. In the end, it's perfectly plausible roleplaying favor that doesn't affect your mechanical abilities or behavior as a Scion, so I see no reason to restrict it.

Half an Hour of Questions

Hi, everybody! Today, John is not home so I go off the rails on a mad question-answering spree. As usual, trying to get caught up so you guys don't have to feel like you send in your questions to a massive black hole in the universe. Hooray!

Question soup, coming at you:

Question: I don't remember where I read this, but there was an article that said that the reason Zeus went on a raping frenzy was so that Hercules would be born to deal with the gaints that Gaia created, and that the battle of Troy was orchestrated so that Zeus could get rid of the demigods that were born as a result of this Batman gambit for Hercules to be born. Is this part of Greek myth?

Question: Mechanically, how do you deal with Thor's strength belt and how it works when it doubles his strength, especially when he pops Ultimate Strength while wearing it?

Question: How would you classify the Aztec land of Tlillan-Tlapallan? Terra Incognita? Part of the Overworld? Sanctum for Quetzalcoatl? Alternate name for some mundane place (some scholars think it might be a name for Chichen Itza)?

Question: Did any of your Visitations have a parent god show up in their true form, or were they all avatared down?

Question: Can you name some of the Titans that might have been responsible for the shattering of Tartarus?

Question: How do you deal with Negative Epic Appearance in a party? Every game I see forces that player to get My Eyes Are Up Here or Visage Great & Terrible, or get kicked out of the group. Nobody wants to be constantly terrified of you or throwing up.

Question: So Hera being the enforcer of fidelity in marriage seems to mean that she only enforces fidelity from wives to their husbands, not the other way around. She never comes down on Zeus, and never smites any mythological male hero who is married for not keeping it in his pants, but comes down on all the women who cheated with Zeus.

Question: In your Fatebinding system, are the expectations and rejections worked out as soon as the Legend is spent? If a Scion spends a bunch of Legend, and then quickly follows that up with some awesome heroic stuff that doesn't cost Legend, would Fate take that into account? Or is it just based on the "initial spend" kind of thing?

Question: Speaking of Celtic Underworlds! Any ideas on the Overworlds and Underworlds of the continental Celts and the Nemetondevos?

Question: Hey, on the progress bar I see there is a Secret Project. Is there anything you can tell us about what it may entail and how large it may be?

Man, sorry for the crazy lighting changes. Someday I'll learn how to video.

The Measure of a Man

Question: Just how gross is Hephaestus? Just one or two negative Appearance, or more like an 8 or 9? I mean, he's not very ugly in art, but then again his own mother did throw him away...

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.

Endless Questions

Late-night vlogging! With both of us now, like a band reunion tour but with more crochety mythology!

Question: When I reread the Aztlanti pantheon, I noticed that Tlazolteotl has a loooong enemies list. How did that happen?

Question: I think by now we know your hatred of World at War Scion and the gods of the US and the Allied pantheons, but I still like the idea of being a Scion of Robin Hood or someone similar. Who would you say would be most thematically similar to him (not mechanically)?

Question: Been reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman and loving it. If you HAD to, hwo would you model the Endless in Scion?

Question: Love your version of Jotunblut, but two questions about it. Does the size increase also affect your shape in boons like Animal Form and Beast Shape (do you turn into unusually big animals)? What about Appearance knacks like Undeniable Resemblance - if you change your size with it, is the shit permanent or not (giantsblood is strong stuff, after all)?

Question: Is there any way to be able to reply on Dodge late in the game? I was looking to be more of a dodge-tank, but after reading a couple of blogs and doing some math, dodging is not a good path for a combat god. Do you have any suggestions for me that would help me build a character who fights like Jackie Chan - all over the place and rarely getting hit hard? If it comes to boons, would the more ethereal elements (air and fire) be a good place to start? Are there any untouchable combat gods?

Question: My character has ripped out his eyes. Does Epic Appearance still work against me? If it still works by smell or sound, what if I destroy my nose and ears?

Question: So Lionel Cuthbert, the plantation-owning raging demigod of death, sun and ice... is he also a racist who would own slaves if he could?

The freeze-frame on this video makes us both look like someone just asked us something that makes us tired and annoyed.

Point and Click

Question: You've mentioned Detachable Murder Vaginas and Prehensile Phalli and other such things being fairly frequent in mythology, especially among fertility gods. Do you feel these features warrant a boon or knack of some kind, or are they already covered under a knack or boon?

Hey, genitalia doing weird things in mythology! It must be Tuesday!

No, those probably don't need a specific knack or boon invented for them; they're definitely not really something that falls within the Fertility purview's scope despite the many fertility gods who have them (symbolism doesn't always translate directly to powers), and "do weird stuff to my junk" would be a pretty narrow and specific power anyway. But there are already several ways to get this kind of stuff going in the game now, so no need for extra fiddling!

Things like enormously distended or prehensile phalli or shark-toothed vulvas are easily covered by the Epic Appearance knack Unusual Alteration, which allows Scions to do basically anything they want with their appearance as long as the Storyteller is down with it. Most people use it to give themselves wings, crazy-shaped ears or extra arms, but there's no rule that says you can't use it to give your nether regions fangs or fingers or whatever other crazy thing you decide fits your divine image. Such things won't have extra powers - vaginal teeth, for example, probably won't get more than a couple of bonus dice to attacks made with them (yikes) and would just use your normal physical stats - but they're definitely a quick, cool and easy way to solve your hankering for a penis that can literally sit up and talk to you. If you're lower than Legend 9, Health gods with Human Clay can also reshape you into a new form if they're so inclined, though it'd probably be more fun for you to have control over that than to get stuck with whatever they happen to think is funny.

One of the firm Unusual Alteration/Human Clay rules we favor, however, is that you can't actually separate parts of your body (that'd just be taking damage!), so while you could easily have a Murder Vagina, a detachable model like Kapo's is a little more difficult. The easiest way to go about this would be to just make it a Birthright - stop laughing, you're the one who brought on the discussion of how to mythologize insane body parts! - and have a piece of relic genitalia, much as some other Scions might be wearing a relic eye in their foreheads. Relics can do and have all kinds of wacky powers, and you could probably stat up a roving mobile penis without too much trouble (other than getting your Storyteller to take you seriously, that is, but remind him or her that this is far from the weirdest thing out there in the wide world of myths). If it's actually truly your body part and you can detach it, leaving you body-part-less, you might even want to stat it as a maiming instead of a relic, or if it's an independent critter with a mind of its own, as a Creature or Follower; it's all about what kind of ideas you want to use.

Finally, you could just have something that "is your genitalia" that really isn't but looks and acts like it, doing your bidding with gleeful abandon. Those with power over the Industry, Health or elemental purviews could probably create little "creatures" or reshape mortals so that they appear to be roving genitals bent on unspeakable acts of procreation, and those with the Illusion purview can simply pretend to have those kinds of features without anyone low in Perception being any the wiser.

Incidentally, Goze had a relic penis (enlarged and eternally fertile) for a short while, thanks to being zapped by a Magic goddess who was trying to get Geoff into bed and ended up with him instead. She was disappointed, but made do with what she had.

The Saga Continues

Question: Question about Undeniable Resemblance and Fatebonds, if one Scion willing to spend all the Legend needed to change his/her appearance to a perfect replica of another Scion without being seen by anyone, would any subsequent Fatebonding be attached to the copied Scion?

Man, is this that same person who keeps asking about getting out of Fatebonds by, like, mind-controlling other people or whatnot? You are persistent!

No. That doesn't work.

As we've mentioned in previous posts about trying to Fosse dance your way out of Fatebonds, this kind of thing simply doesn't work because fooling mortals doesn't fool Fate. It is totally possible for a Scion to use Appearance to turn himself into a perfect copy of another person or being, but he is still the one spending the Legend and getting the Fatebonds, which will be based on whatever he was doing or whatever image he was projecting at the time. If Loki goes out and turns himself into an exact copy of Baldur before spending a bunch of Legend, Baldur will be totally unaffected, since he's not the one actually affecting Fate by doing things. He will get no Fatebonds unless he spends some Legend himself. Loki, on the other hand, might be likely to suddenly pick up Fatebonds to Sun or Appearance as well as whatever else he was doing, since the people he's being Fatebound to are probably thoroughly confused into believing his disguise is real.

As always, remember: you can absolutely fool mortals into thinking white is black, and often that will affect what kinds of Fatebonds they generate, but Fate doesn't care what you look like. Fate always knows you're you, because it's freaking Fate and it knows and maps your entire destiny and couldn't care less what face you're wearing when you spend Legend and accrue Fatebonds. There is no kind of undercover shenanigan you can pull that will be able to confuse the all-powerful web of Fate unless you have powers that specifically do that - Magic spells, Shuck Fate in high-level Chaos, or the Nemetondevos PSP of Deuogdonio.

I think this is actually a common confusion, so here's the easy rule of thumb. Fatebonds are what happens when you spend Legend and therefore become part of the web of Fate. What those Fatebonds do depends on the beliefs of the mortals to whom you're Fatebound. Messing with those mortals' minds may change what the Fatebonds do, but you have to mess with Fate to change the fact that the Fatebonds are there in the first place.

Is This Thing On?

Solo vlog flight! Today, clearing out a bunch of older questions that have just been waiting for their turn in the sun! Talkin' 'bout associated powers, Appearance knacks, character concepts and the checkered history of African civilization.

Question: What do you think about people using Unusual Alteration to turn themselves into trees or animals? How would that function differently from Animal Form or other shapeshifting boons?

Question: Brahma seems so powerful, yet he has so few associated purviews and Epics. What's up with that? How do you reconcile what the gods can do and how important they are with how they are mechanically represented in Scion?

Question: What would you think of a character - a Japanese Scion or other - trying to model themselves off an anime character?

Question: What does The Sentinel going rampant look like? If a god with the Avatar of the Guardian purview gets killed, I somehow can't imagine the consequences.

Question: Code of Heaven says the Orisha are against slavery, and yet Shango has slaves. Can you explain?

Question: Do the social sciences belong in the Science ability?

Question: May I use the name Ian Jupiter (not the character, just the name) for my story? He's going to be the name of a reincarnated Zeus.

Back into the Industry/boons/Atua/Seamus mines with me!

Faces on Parade

Question: I get that a Scion of Bast does not get an XP break to Animal (Koala Bear) by your rules. Does a Scion of Aphrodite get an XP break to negative Epic Appearance? Also, is it possible for a Scion to be positively Fatebound to one side of Appearance and negatively Fatebound to the other?

This is an area where I think I've seen some confusion floating around in the comments, too, so I'm glad you asked! While Animal is specifically tied to a totem beast, it is the only power in the game that requires specialization that way. Epic Appearance, which is at its base the stat that determines how awesome, crazy and inhuman you look, can be messed around with by Scions but is a single stat that is affected singly by Fatebonds.

So yes, anyone whose parent has Epic Appearance associated gets an XP discount to buying Epic Appearance, regardless of which kind they pick up. Aphrodite's children can be uggo-monsters if they want to, while Kali's kids can be as gracefully beautiful as the morning dew. (There are, however, always those non-mechanical pitfalls to be aware of; Hephaestus getting thrown off Olympus at birth by his disgusted mother is a cautionary tale for those who play against their parent's favored Appearance.)

Because Epic Appearance isn't really two kinds of stats the way two separate Animal purviews would be, it's too much of a headache to try to track positive versus negative versus neutral for XP and Fatebonds, so we don't do it. We started out with it early on, but if mortals who believe a Scion has Appearance are normally counteracted by those who believe he doesn't, then you have a mess if you add a further layer of two different kinds of Appearance that are unfairly detracting from one another in a way that doesn't happen to other stats. If you're Fatebound to have Appearance, you get Appearance and Epic Appearance bought for you, period, regardless of whether the mortals believe in your hideousness or your flawlessness or different ones believe in both. What they really believe is that you Look Really Impressive, so they buy dots accordingly.

We do keep a couple of nods to the different Appearance specializations in the Fatebond system, mostly to reflect the power of the mortals involved. If you're currently rocking beautiful Epic Appearance and mortals who believe you're terrifying buy you a new dot of it, your Appearance immediately reverts to the scary side of the scale as their beliefs affect you; if you want to go back to being pretty, you'll need to have the appropriate knacks to exert your powers to overcome Fate's preference. This can lead to some wacky swapping if more than one mortal believes you have different specializations, and we have had characters who flipped from beautiful to ugly and back on the whim of Fate, much to the distress of their comrades and mortal onlookers. Also, if you have a Fatebond to a specific kind of Appearance and you have all the dots they can buy you at that time, they won't buy you knacks of the opposite speciality; if you have a positive Appearance Fatebond and they need to buy a knack, they'll never choose the Aura of Dread tree, while if you have a negative Appearance Fatebond they'll refuse to embark on the Doin' Fine set of powers.

We've lowered the number of knacks that are tied to one or the other - lots of them are able to be used regardless of your kind of impressiveness - but there are still a few out there. Appearance is a stat we think is absolutely necessary for Scion, in which so many gods have it as such an important and defining characteristic of their legends, but it is still a little bit weird when compared to the other Attributes that don't have a built-in revolving door. Our goal is usually to make it up to the character to decide what they look like and what powers they purchase to control that, and to let Fate's chips, as usual, fall where they will.

Just Want You Guys to Know: John is the worst blogger in the history of the world.

Let It Shine

Question: Can you use Disorienting Countenance when you cannot be seen thanks to Phase Cloak, Absorb Light, or mundane stealth?

You can, but you'll become immediately visible; Disorienting Countenance depends upon your impressive appearance, which means that for it to work you have to actually appear. Using it to resist a power immediately breaks any stealth cover you might have been hiding in, whether mundane or supernatural.

It won't prevent you from ducking back into the foliage for your Natural Camouflage or diving back into a Shadow Shroud as soon as it happens, however; since your resist will be happening on the same tick as your antagonist's use of a power on you, you may be able to just hide again before he can react (assuming you don't have abysmally bad Wits; if you do, your Storyteller may rule that your reaction time isn't good enough for that, depending on the situation).

Luckily, this shouldn't come up too much, since being successfully stealthed in the first place is basically three quarters of being immune to social and mental powers anyway; they can't target you if they don't know where you are, so the only things that can affect you are wide-range, non-targeting powers like Loathsome Presence or Bacchanalia. If you can avoid your opponent being able to find you, you've already won half the battle.

But in general, Appearance-heavy Scions don't have the luxury of those who have the mental resist knacks to sit back and refute powers without having to be part of the situation. Scions with Disorienting Countenance are built to be seen and get much of their power from being seen; if they want to access it, they won't be able to do so from behind a comforting veil of invisibility.