Hearts in the Dark

Question: How do you deal with Titanic Virtues? You've mentioned that your characters sometimes get one, but you also reference the fact that some Avatars retain some of their original pantheon's Virtues, like Cronus with Vengeance or Danu with Piety. So, what Titanic Virtues do you use and who has them?

Hmm, Dark Virtues, that's something we haven't talked about in a while. It's definitely an area under construction right now, but let's dive in!

To start with, we currently use the same Dark Virtues that are presented in the books: Ambition (advancing your own agenda and seizing power at all costs), Malice (delight in the destruction and suffering), Rapacity (the need to fulfill one's own desires no matter what) and Zealotry (blind devotion to the goals and orders of the Titanrealm). These Virtues are common in Titans and their spawn, but may also occur in gods or Scions, depending on what happens to them and what choices they make.

We've talked a lot, on and off, about whether or not the Dark Virtues are the best way to handle Titanic personality disorders. On the one hand, they're simplistic; they were designed as "bad guy stats" and it's very clear that that's what they are. They in turn tend to make it very difficult for anyone who has them not to become a bad guy, which can be an interesting personal struggle but also makes it very easy to go flat. However, at the same time they're a great way to express that Titans are on a fundamentally different mental plane than gods, motivated by things that far transcend normal human morals and don't care a lot about the sorts of things that affect mortal hearts.

All Titans having the exact same Dark Virtues is confusing and weird, though, because it not only gives them all the same baseline personality (unlike gods and Scions, who have many different Virtue spreads), but also removes any cultural delineation, making an Aztec Titan the same as a Japanese Titan the same as a Norse Titan. We've never liked that - why should different cultures' gods have all these cool unique features, but their Titans are all just Evil Dude #3? So instead, we consider that, like gods and Scions, Titans may sometimes - in fact, often - have different Virtue spreads than their fellows. Any given Titan Avatar is likely to have a Virtue or two from their home pantheon as well as some Dark ones, and we'd consider Titans that have only Dark Virtues to be the exception, not the rule.

It would take forever to go through all of the Titan Avatars and what exact Virtues we think they should have, and anyway a lot of that is going to depend on a particular Storyteller's preference; some may prefer to play a given Titan as more sympathetic or on a closer wavelength with his pantheon than others. But Prometheus is a good example; we're certain he has Intellect, which manifested pretty spectacularly in his need to give humanity the secrets of the divine and the tools to discover and create. On the flip side, he probably doesn't have Rapacity, since we never see any evidence of him indulging any kinds of hungers or desires.

This is a two-way street, incidentally; gods can have Dark Virtues, too, and we think many of them do. We're almost certain that Tezcatlipoca has Malice, probably instead of Loyalty, because he is a dude that absolutely loves ruining peoples' days and reveling in their tears, but who still performs his Duty, holds his Convictions and shows no lack of Courage. And Scions can have Dark Virtues as well; we don't allow them to start with them, because gaining a Dark Virtue is a major personality shaper and should be something earned or experienced during play in our opinion, but they can gain them from interaction with Titans, poor decisions or magical meddling of various kinds. It doesn't happen very frequently, but it definitely can, and has to several of our PCs. It's very, very hard to manage as a PC, but can also be very rewarding to roleplay.

The Slippery Slope

Question: Hello, John and Anne. This is a question spawned by your answer to The Golden Age. What would happen in a game if Scions began to side with the ideals of Titans? What would then happen story-wise? Would the game end? Would it then be a battle against the gods at that point? What if they were split amongst the party? I'm sure this is just at a Storyteller's whim to allow or disallow. But out of curiousity, what could be the ramifications of that happening?

There are a lot of ways it could go - literally almost as many ways as a game in which the players weren't being sympathetic to the Titans could go. John wrote an old post here that talks about a few of the options, but we're happy to revisit it as well.

Siding with "the ideals of the Titans" is a really big umbrella, to start with. Each Titanrealm wants different things, and even within each realm the individual Titan Avatars all have their own drives and goals that may or may not agree. Cronus, who wants to reexert his ultimate authority over humanity and the natural world, wants very different things from Kagutsuchi, who wants to cover the world in lava-spewing volcanoes, or even from fellow Ourea Avatar Aranyani, who wants all civilization overwhelmed by impenetrable primordial forests. Titans, like gods, all want different things.

Also, a Scion's level of sympathy with a given Titan, and how they choose to act on it, can vary widely and have extremely different impact on the game. Some Scions might agree with a particular thing a Titan is doing and help him succeed at it, but not work for them any further; this isn't any different in effect from Scions accidentally helping a Titan by being manipulated into it or not knowing what they were doing. Some might sympathize with a particular Titan without actually working for her, and attempt to convince other gods to look at her in a more positive light and perhaps forge alliances with her, spreading that sympathy throughout their allies. Others might become allies of the Titan in a firm way, running errands for him or providing him information, for any number of reasons - they're loyal family, they've been helped by the Titan before and feel like they owe him, the Titan's cause seems just to them or anything else - which means they're subject to all the dangers and problems of working for the enemy team.

Most of the time, when a Scion works with a Titan or her minions too much, we have that color and affect them mechanically. This usually takes the form of Dark Virtues, gained by the Scion after he spends a certain amount of time with the Titan's people or interacts with them significantly in some way. To use an example, Kettila at one point spent several months hanging out with a specific Titan, who "adopted" her and taught her several skills as well as convincing her to be her ally; by the time Kettila received her relic gifts from the Titan, one of her usual Virtues had been replaced by a few dots of Zealotry toward her new patron's cause, making her more likely to make Titan-aligned decisions. Other Scions, including Woody and Will, agreed to do a single job for a Titan and gained a Dark Virtue as a result, but didn't lose most of their normal Virtues, leaving them more aligned toward the gods despite the slight spark of Titanic sympathy in them. In a few cases, a Scion doesn't face a mechanical change for helping a Titan, but suffers from a major in-game one - as in the case of Sangria, who supported her grandmother Coatlicue thanks to ties of famiyl loyalty but as a result was subjected to a lot of political conflicts and problems thanks to her pantheons' severe displeasure.

However, when a Scion completely crosses over into working exclusively for a Titan, they usually leave our games. It's not because they're being a pain in the ass, necessarily, although they usually are, but because they become largely unplayable for a player at the table. Scions with Dark Virtues are incredibly hard to play in a band with normal Scions, because they are inclined to do terrible things - their Malice wants them to be cruel and capricious to their bandmates and those who need their help, their Zealotry wants them to act against the interests of the gods, their Rapacity wants them to take what they want no matter who it hurts, and their Ambition wants them to climb to the top over the bodies of their friends if they have to. Sure, they can try to control that by fighting those Virtues, but anyone who has Virtues knows that sometimes you can't control them, sometimes they will force you to act the way they want no matter how much you might otherwise want to avoid it, and those times will see you doing unspeakable things. And even if you don't have Dark Virtues, you're working for a being that wants to do terrible things, and if you're not careful, you'll be part of those terrible things.

Because that's what Titans are about. It's not that they're all inherently evil, but they're Titans because something about them - their powers, their goals, their behavior - is dangerous and destructive to others. A Scion who supports one of them is supporting that negative aspect of them, even if they also believe in the positive, and they're going to have to accept that that means they'll both be part of something they may not be able to morally justify and that their comrades among the gods may treat them accordingly.

Story-wise, things will develop depending on the PCs' action. If they support Titans, those Titans might become more powerful, even start winning against the gods, and that'll change the story. Some Storytellers may decide that if the whole group goes to the Titans, the game has to end; after all, they're probably all going to become very hard to work with thanks to Dark Virtues, and they may be cast out of their pantheons or doomed to be hunted down and killed for their traitorous actions when they become known. On the other hand, the Storyteller might let them continue for a while, to see if they embark on a redemption story (either the Scions redeeming themselves back to the side of the gods, or finding a way to redeem the Titan, even) or find a way to actually pull off balancing working both sides at the same time. In a split party, the PCs who realize that their fellows are tending toward the enemy may kill, imprison or turn them in, and it's entirely possible that they'd be right to do so.

It really depends on the characters, the Titans, and why the one is deciding to ally with the others. Sometimes it might be the smart thing to do; sometimes it might even be the right thing to do. But it will never be the easy thing to do, and it will probably always be bad for the PCs in the long run in some way.