Ten Questions with Excited Waving Arms

On today's blog, project updates, future possibilities, a call to action for you guys, and a whole bunch of questions!

Question: How do you handle "secrets" in myth? Things that supposedly certain gods do not know (and would have extreme reactions if they found out) yet are an established part of the myths about them?

Question: How do you explain the story of King Midas? I mean, the guy's an ordinary mortal who gets the power to turn anything he touches into gold. What Scion powers can give such a power to a mortal?

Question: Can you kill a death god? Should you be able to kill a death god? Does killing a death god really accomplish anything?

Question: What do you think would happen if a Scion, who has not yet received a Visitation, were to simply stumble across a Birthright relic that doesn't belong to an active Scion? Could that result in a kind of "triggered activation" of the Scion's divine blood? Or would nothing happen since it isn't a true Visitation?

Question: How do you determine the damage from some of the more extreme attacks that Scion's power allows? If my Strength monster picks up the Empire State Building and hurls it at a Titan Avatar, or some other powerful foe, how do I determine how badly such an impact hurt the target? If I used Create Earth to conjure up a mess of diamonds, then threw the diamonds into a tornado conjured by Tornado Tamer and hurled the whole thing at a bad guy? How would I determine THAT damage?

Question: How far is too far for you guys at GothamByNight when it comes to PC morality? When do you take one of your Players to the side and ask them if their PC could still be considered "a good guy/aligned with the Gods" and not some Chaotic Evil Titan in waiting that is deserving of a Dark Virtue or two? For example, do you think that a God-level PC Band's active attempts to wipeout humanity or kill off their parents for their own ambitions justify them gaining Dark Virtues?

Question: Do you guys have anyway of setting apart gods and goddesses of hunting mechanically? I'm working on some homebrew and I feel like these hunt gods need some association to really drive the point home, but I don't know what. I almost find myself wanting to make a Hunt Purview, but that's a heck of a lot of work. But what else to use? Is War fitting? An attribute that most fits their hunting style? I'm really at a loss here.

Question: You said in an earlier vlog that the difference between Followers/Creatures and Guides were that Creatures and Followers were below you and Guides were beings above you. Now what if I have a character who's got contact to the Valkyries as a Guide from Hero - would it be possible at Demigod that they turned into more like an equal ally type of thing? That instead of them just giving you good advice, they help you out physically when you really need it.

Question: Nut is a Titan, Shu is a Titan, and Geb is probably going to be a Titan as well - but the most ancient of them, Ra, is not?

Question: So! If everyone on Earth, for whatever reason, suddenly got a point of Legend, and the Gods were then able to get up to their old tricks without having to worry about Fatebinding, would they? If they could without having to worry about Fatebinding, would the Gods return to Earth? Related question, is there anything you can think of from any mythology that would be capable of giving everyone on Earth a legend point? Some Uber Relic or ritual that, if done, would give everyone that kind of power?

To our sixth questioner, we now realize that while we talked about PC morality in answer to your question, we didn't really address Dark Virtues. Our rule of thumb is that Dark Virtues are something PCs gain by contact with Titans or otherwise through magical events, so for the most part we would not give them any Dark Virtues automatically just because they're being jerks. It is entirely possible for Scions (and gods, too!) to be sometimes or even often malicious without actually having Malice, just as it's possible to be interested in knowledge and learning without having Intellect or to bravely run into battle without having Courage. However, Scions who are consistently evil or often do things that are in line with the goals of the Titans are likely to attract their attention, in which case it is entirely possible they might end up corrupted by a Titan Virtue later on.

If you want to email us boons, do it here! Go nuts!

Guiding Light

Question: In your house rules, you have it written that followers numbering 5 or more are 4 Legend behind the character. How does this apply to the Vanir for Sverrir? Are they all going to be Legend 8 when he reaches 12 (if he reaches 12)? What about the ones who were higher Legend than 5 when they joined him (since he's Legend 9 now I think)?

Easy question to resolve here! The Vanir aren't Followers; they're a collective Guide.

While Followers and Creatures are always lower Legend than the Scion they're attached to, Guides don't necessarily follow the same rules. In fact, Guides are usually (though not always) higher Legend than their Scions, at least early on in a Scion's lifetime.

Since their job is to provide advice, help and political contacts for their Scions, Guides are often more powerful so that they have more expertise and connections to offer than the Scion himself would. They don't usually change Legend level as a Scion progresses, since they are independent people serving as advisors rather than creatures with no life outside of the Scion's, meaning that if you have Homer as a Guide, he'll always be human no matter how high in Legend you get, and if you have Ptah as a Guide, he won't randomly dip in Legend just because you're less powerful than he is.

Sverrir has the spirits of the Vanir who have gone before him as a Guide, mostly because as their new king (and one of the last Vanir still standing) they are all on deck to provide him with their wisdom and guidance to make sure he navigates the shark-infested waters of divine kingship and takes care of his kingdom appropriately. They're not Followers; he can't summon them, they don't fight for him, he can't magically resurrect them if they die, and they don't gain or lose any powers beyond those they've always had. Instead, they remain in Vanaheim, and when Sverrir needs help he goes there to ask them to share their knowledge and help him make important decisions (and, occasionally, collectively snub Sowiljr for his dirty Aesir ways).

So no worries about the Follower Legend rules and Sverrir; they don't actually apply to him. Those rules are only for the kinds of summonable creatures that have no existence outside of their Scions.

Man in the Woods

Today, John goes out into the woods and vlogs alone, like the man of nature he obviously is, to answer a bunch of questions like some kind of crochety forest troll. I hope you're ready for his manly beard and masculine robe and hat combo.

Question: In Follower Upgrade, you mention having a list of adjusted templates for Creatures and Followers. Would you please post it? It doesn't need to be a beautiful PDF, I would gladly take a Google Doc or .txt!

Question: Just how is marriage structured in the Orisha pantheon, and by extension the Yoruba? It seems that everyone is married to everyone else, both male and female, and that the women are pretty much equal to the men unless Shango is wailing on them.

Question: Did you ever see the History Channel's "Clash of the Gods"? And if so, what did you think?

Question: Do all dogs go to heaven? Do animals have souls? And most of all, how do I get spectral wolves to do my bidding?

Question: Have you ever considered scaling the Legend point gains from Raise Your Glass, making it usable more than once per day or in the presence of people who have seen you use it already? I understand why the limits are what they are, but I think the knack would still be balanced (maybe even a little fairer, since one Legend doesn't seem like much of a reward at late Demigod or God) if any of those were removed.

Question: Mictlantecuhtli is presented in the Scion RAW as a completely evil misanthrope, that apparently only exists to torture his own Scions and everyone else for that matter. Since you guys deal with a lot of Aztec politics in games, I just wanted to ask how you characterize him?

Question: Any players thinking of creating a new Orisha PC for your next game?

Question: We know a lot about your god game, but what can you tell us about your other two games? Still hush-hush?

Question: Is stunting pretty much limited by your own imagination (in conjunction with the rules)?

Question: In your game, what did Odin do to make Amaterasu his enemy? Was it because of the Aesir assault on Japan, and what's up with that?

Question: Does your PSP count as a Birthright that takes up one of your five Birthright points?

Question: In a game that's all about smashing monsters, what good way is there to play a character with the Pacifist Nature?

Question: Could a character use high levels of Epic Manipulation to convince mortals that he is really great at a purview and gain Fatebonds from those mortals (assuming he spent Legend around them)? Like, if he tells great tales (lies) of destroying entire cities and civilizations with Fire when he has actually never used the Fire purview? If this does not work, how is it different from mortals misconstruing an event they see a PC perform from one purview to another and Fatebinding based on that?

Question: What kind of asks do you reject or refuse to answer?

That was delightful. I don't have much extra to add except that if you're the question-asker who wanted to know about Epic Manipulation and Fatebonds, there are also a couple of old posts here and here that might also help.

They Grow Up So Fast

Question: How do you guys handle Birthright Creatures, Followers, Guides? Do you allow them to progress with the Scion, or do they just progressively suck as the Scion ascends the divine ranks? (If not do you have a formula for how they advance?)

Birthright Creatures and Followers do indeed progress along with a Scion! Our basic formula is on the House Rules page, but I'll reproduce it here for ya:

Followers and creatures gain in power along with their controller. One to two followers are 2 Legend behind their Scion; 3 to 4 followers are 3 Legend behind, and 5 or more followers are 4 Legend behind.

That gives you the basic shape, but it doesn't give direct guidelines for increasing the stats of Followers or Creatures. You're not alone, however - we've had many questions on the subject, so here are a bunch of old posts about it:

Follower/Creature Basics
Groups of Followers/Creatures versus Single Ones
Upgrade Process for Followers/Creatures
Follower/Creature Character Sheets
Stats for Creatures of Various Levels
General Usefulness of Followers

Hopefully you'll find something in there that helps, and you can also try the search box over on the right to parse through old posts if there are other keywords that might get you the results you're looking for.

Guides, on the other hand, do not automatically increase as you go up in Legend. A Guide's rating should be based on how powerful and knowledgeable the Guide is and how easy they are to contact; a Guide who is simply a mortal expert will not become a Legendary expert over time, though he'll still be useful for mortal-level knowledge. You can try to get them upgraded at the Demigod and God jumps, though, which are usually when we throw around a bunch of Birthright points.

Follow the Leader

Question: Can you please clarify your position on the Legend rating of Followers? We are having a discrepancy in how you have it written within your House Rules. Are you stating that if a Scion has 5 or more Followers each Follower is 4 Legend behind the Scion, or that Followers 1 & 2 are 2 Legend behind; 3 & 4 are 3 Legend behind, and 5 or more Followers are 4 Legend behind? Thanks for the assistance.

Wow. I made a very confused face for a second there while I was trying to figure out what on earth your second option was even talking about. I get it now, but it sounds like a very convoluted, weird reading of our house rule.

If you have one or two Followers, they're two Legend behind you. Rick Nolan has one Follower, his bodyguard Bruno. Rick is Legend 2 and Bruno is Legend 0, a normal mortal. When Rick becomes Legend 2, Bruno will become Legend 1.

If you have three or four Followers, they're three Legend behind you. Ixion has four mechanical centaur Followers. Ixion is Legend 7 and the centaurs are all Legend 4.

If you have five or more Followers, they're four Legend behind you. Folkwardr has five glowing giant Followers. Folkwardr is Legend 10 and the giants are all Legend 6.

Groups of Followers are always the same Legend; it would be a huge pain in the ass to try to deal with them as a group if they were at different levels of power, and I don't know why anyone would want to do so. The entire point of putting different groups of Followers are at different levels of Legend is to keep them balanced against one another, so that smaller numbers of Followers are more powerful in order to be as useful as larger groups. If a group of five followers had some members as powerful as the group of two, it would still be more powerful just by virtue of having more members, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid.

We want Scions to be able to take the number of Followers that is most appropriate for them without having to feel like taking more is always better; therefore, larger groups of Followers should be individually weaker so that their advantage in numbers is balanced out. A Scion with five samurai should be getting approximately the same usefulness out of her Followers as a Scion with a single bodyguard, so the scaling Follower Legend rating rule is there to ensure that taking multiple followers doesn't always result in your points being worth more.

Separate Follower Birthrights that are not in a group together, however, don't have to be counted as a single group. If you have two Followers who are twin ninjas, and a separate Birthright that is two Followers who are political advisers, both sets of Followers will be two Legend behind you, not three.

Hopefully that's all clear, but ask away if anything's still confusing.

Points! All the Points!

Today, the Vlog of Unanswered Questions. A big fat grab-bag of stat- and point-oriented questions that may or may not be answerable in a vlog format.

Question: How do you guys develop NPC/antagonist stats from scratch at different levels?

Question: You’ve made it clear that you don’t like the way that antagonists are statted in the books. How do you stat your antagonists?

Question: When increasing the Legend of a Creature or Follower, how do you determine what bonuses are given? I just got done looking through the Reliquary and I couldn’t really figure out if there was a pattern.

Question: Did you rework the point distribution system for character creation? Because the low points for Hero-level Birthrights makes it seem like you would have to give every beginning Scion at least three Hero-level Birthrights to use the five points.

Question: What changes in your character generation rules do you implement in light of the escalating cost and dependencies of various knacks and boons?

Also, hey, have you guys been to Better Myths? Because you should go. It's awesome. He will yell myths at you until your ears bleed.

Edit: We now think we might have figured out question number four up there after the fact. Were you saying that Hero-level Birthrights only cost a few points, so Scions would need to have several of them to use up their starting 5 Birthright points? If so, we'd like to point out that Hero-level Birthrights can go up to 5 dots, so you should have no trouble simply having a single, more powerful Birthright instead of several smaller ones.

Follow Me

Question: Do you give your players control over their creatures/followers? As in an actual character sheet?

Yes and no. Players do receive character sheets for their Creature and Follower Birthrights, which gives them a good idea of their capabilities and what kinds of things they can be effectively used to do. However, since most of these things have free will when not actively given orders, they do not control them the same way they control their PCs; they can give their Followers orders, but it's the Storyteller who actually "plays" Birthrights. We do this partly to prevent players from being overloaded by needing to keep track of six people instead of just one, and partly to ensure that the Followers/Creatures are being played in a way that's consistent with their capabilities and character.

A character sheet for a Follower has their basic powers and stats on it, and looks approximately like this example of Eztli's current sheet for her Follower Chicahua (click to enlarge):

As you can see, it gives the Follower's general stats and powers, and lets the player know what they probably can and can't do. The player is the custodian of this sheet, and lets the Storyteller know when they need a stat from it (i.e., "This monster is taking a swipe at Chicahua, what's his DV?"). The player won't officially play Chicahua, however, so it'll be the ST who speaks his dialogue, makes his decisions, follows Eztli's directions, hits Geoff in the knee with a hammer, and so on. The Storyteller might occasionally have a player make a roll for the Follower, but only if they're not doing anything else.

Players also don't control the upgrading of Followers or Creatures without appropriate powers, just as they don't control relic upgrades without Industry; Followers and Creatures don't get or spend XP, so they really only grow and change with the Scion as the Scion goes up in Legend, with the largest changing happening at the jumps from Hero to Demigod and Demigod to God. Players can always give input into what they'd like to see their Birthrights develop into - say, "I'd like my bear to become much more hardy so he can take hits for me!" or "I'd like my troop of fairies to become really smart so they can give me advice on occult matters!" - but the stat changes themselves are handled by the Storyteller, the same as for relics.

Players that have appropriate boons can use them on their Followers or Creatures, though; a player with a Birthright rhinoceros and Animal (Rhino) could use Epic Enhancement on his companion, and a player with appropriate Followers and Health could use Human Clay to make improvements and changes to them if she wanted to.

The bottom line is that while Followers and Creatures are living things, they're also still Birthrights, which means their upgrades and behavior are handled by the Storyteller. They're completely loyal and dedicated to the Scion, of course, so she can boss them around right and left however she wants, but she won't directly play them, which might be overwhelming or unfairly spotlight-hogging to other players who only get to play one character.

Follower Upgrade

Your solution that followers and creatures gain legend at a set rate in tandem with their owners is very elegant, but I was wondering how you increased the stats of such a creature as they gained legend.  Using the hound of lugh as an example please show how he goes from legend 2 to 3, and legend 3 to 4.  Also I have many specific questions about your crafting system, will you answer them for me please?(paraphrased).

I dont have a "formula" for statting followers or creatures, but I do have a system.  I shall attempt to share it with you.

According to the book, (ok, not really the book, its in the other room, Im copying this from a website that I hope copied the book correctly) the hound of lugh should be:
Strength 3 + 1 epic
Dex 3
Stamina 3 + 1 epic
Charisma 0(what? ...the fuck?  Dogs have excellent charisma)
Manipulation 0(uhuh...you try not giving a dog some food while you're cooking)
Appearance 2 + 1(ok, maybe depending on breed)
Perception 2 +1(bullshit, dogs less perceptive then most humans?)
Intelligence 2(but  as smart as many humans?)
Wits 3

Athletics 2, awareness 3 brawl 1 integrity 1 investigation 1 presence 2 fortitude 3 stealth 1 survival 4

8 health levels
3 willpower
5 legend
Some virtues

Im just gonna start the hero at legend 2, and thus the dog would actually start at legend zero.
(I just realized I did this exact thing for tigers a few months ago...I should have just linked that).  Its a very big dog, so some basic adjustments(and fixes).  Also we'll stick with it being a 4 dot birthright.  This translates to 2 stats going up every legend, and 2 stats going up every other legend(stats can be abilities, although they go up faster, attributes or purview-esque things, ill explain later).
Strength 5
Dex 3
Stamina 5
Charisma 3
Manipulation 2
Appearance 3
Perception 4
Intelligence 1
Wits 2

Athletics 3, Awareness 3, Brawl 3, Empathy 2, Integrity 3, Investigation 4, Presence 3, Fortitude 3, Stealth 1, Survival 4
8 health levels

This is a beast of a dog.  Yes, the guy who chose a bear or an elephant is probably a little bit ahead.  But something that powerful would cost an extra birthright point, and something much smaller would probably cost less for the same build scheme.

Then the Scion goes to legend 3, and the dog becomes legend 1.  Deciding that Strength and Stam were its two main stats.  Those dont gain an epic, cause hes only legend one, but they go up significantly.  Instead of knacks, creatures get powers more akin to how I do titanspawn.  At legend 1 they get 1 of these that relates to one of their powers(epics, abilities, purviews) that will be gaining in future legend.  This prevents worrying about having to spend their legend.  This applies to willpower and virtues as well.  You can give the creature the "sense" of one of those virtues, he can be very courageous, but its messy to worry about the creature channeling, and really unnecessary.  Sometimes I'll give small bonuses as creatures go up to just make them feel a little more growth, usually these are in abilities.  Like below I added a dot of empathy to show hes getting more used to people and understanding them a little better.  This isnt necessary and should be done for rp purposes more then stats.

Legend 1 Hound
Strength 8
Dex 3
Stamina 8
Charisma 3
Manipulation 2
Appearance 3
Perception 4
Intelligence 1
Wits 2
Athletics 3, Awareness 3, Brawl 3, Empathy 3, Integrity 3, Investigation 4, Presence 3, Fortitude 3, Stealth 1, Survival 4
8 Health Levels

Although he doesnt have epics yet, remember that strength that high is equal to strength 6, 1 epic.  So max for even an aesir legend 2 scion.

Scion goes up to legend 4, dog goes up to legend 2.  At legend 2 he'll get strength and stamina again, but in addition will get a point in each of his auxiliary ones.  For this I chose perception and darkness to play no his theme of running through the moors or hills or whatever.  He'll also get his first "powers" here, one from each of the things that are being added.

Strength 8 + 1
Dex 3
Stamina 8 + 1
Charisma 3
Manipulation 2
Appearance 3
Perception 4 + 1
Intellignece 1
Wits 2
8 health levels
Same abilities

Special powers:
Here I try to pick individual things, usually based on knacks that the creature/follower can have up all the time, or automatically pop when certain events hit(blessing of bravery when ever combat starts).  This lets them be useful, but free so that we dont have to worry about legend and they dont become a chore that you have to manage.  Also, usually anne adds flavorful names to the powers...but Im rather utilitarian, so you get boring names.

Leap Attack:  Hounds massive legs throw him towards the first opponent he attacks in a scene, doing 5 additional dice of damage on a successful attack.
Extensive Running: The hound does not tire when running.  Ignore any stamina fort rolls to continue running.  It need only rest for food water or sleep.
Scent poison: Much like a drug dog, the hound can automatically roll perception + investigation(in secret...otherwise players know whats happening) to find out if something is poisoned.  Its owner can also command him to do check if he suspects something may be poisoned.
Fear of the Moor: Apparently this dog is a scary thing.  When someone first lays eyes on it, they roll W+I+L vs its 10 dice(arbitrary, balance as needed) or lose 1 point of willpower and have -2 to all rolls for the rest of the scene


When the heros reach demigod(and god) I have them invest in their creature again if they want him to continue to grow with them.  I do a lot of weird stuff for demigod upgrades that would take too long to explain, but basically pay 4 points at demigod to keep him growing with you(he'd become a 6 dot creature at that point) and the option to pay more points to make the creature even more powerful(for each dot adding a regular upgrade or an auxiliary one).  Also at this point you could change what the regular and auxillaries were if you felt the creature was changing.

Each odd legend the creature hit he'd get plus to both regular upgrades(strength and stamina) and at even legends upgrades to both regular and auxiliary.
At odd legends you get one power from any of the regular upgrades and at even you get 3 powers chosen from any of the regulars or auxillary.  As you get more of each kind they should get more powerful.

Common upgrades for stamina are body armor always on, extra health levels, big boost to regular stamina.  They take a bit of work and imagination, but work out very well.

When the creature reaches legend 5 I also generally give it a large boost by adding a template to it.  Some templates are in the book(some are bad or imbalanced, I usually find nemean pretty basic) and I have a bunch of adjusted templates that I may get around to posting one day.

I hope this was helpful and not as confusing as it looks like its gonna be.  Please ask lots of questions and hopefully I can help guide people through this better.


O YEAH!  There was that question about crafting.  Crafting is a huge thing to talk about, and instead of a normal post itll be covered in a future Vlog.  So, excitment!

A Breath of Fresh Air

Question: Vetervnuk. I can’t seem to find information on them anywhere. Is there any chance we could learn little bit more about them and perhaps some other Slavic critters.

The Vetervnuk are the winds of the world, Stribog's grandchildren and therefore some of his most potent tools (and quite potent for Scions he lends them out to, as well!). Slavic myth paints them basically as little wind daemons or elementals, nominally sentient but playful and mindless, only controlled by Stribog himself. They're similar to sylphs, air spirits or the Anemoi of Greek mythology - mostly formless because they're just air in the end, but animated by life and thought and obedient to the wind-god's commands.

They're probably not very bright, nor are they very good at things that air can't do - they probably can't lift a lot and aren't great for more than a distraction in combat - but they probably make useful and entertaining helpers, attendants and message-bearers (particularly the last, as I imagine they're quite good with Divine Threnody). They're more of a flavor Follower than one a Scion will probably be finding an absolute need for most of the time, but they're thematic and very, very cool. Having the air move things around for you or whisper in peoples' ears is badass even if it doesn't help you punch the monsters much.

We're always willing to talk about more Slavic creatures! If there are specific ones you're interested in, hit us anytime.

Follow Me, Ye Weary

Question: In your experience, are Followers useful at all? If so, in what ways are they useful? As fighters? As an extra set of hands? As an extra source of purviews and Legend? As set pieces there mainly for fluff reasons?

Followers are really what you make of them. They can be super effective in the roles you choose for them if you choose wisely and recognize their limitations, or they can be entirely useless if you chose them to do something that becomes irrelevant or you wanted them only for window-dressing. Every PC with Followers chooses and designs them differently, so they seldom resemble one another when all's said and done.

I'm not sure how everyone around here runs Followers, so it's probably a good idea to point out that we don't do it by the book (I know, you are all so shocked). In the original rules, Followers could not be enhanced or grown from their original forms at all, and the point system governing them was so restrictive that it was impossible for them to be really useful for combat purposes. Followers who were super badass at Legend 2 would become merely helpful backup at Legend 3 and totally useless thereafter, which was hardly much fun for those who wanted to spend points on them, so we have Followers advance in power along with their owner, gaining Legend and stats as they go along. Some people do this by giving out XP for the PC to spend on the Followers, but we prefer to just upgrade them as the STs and then give out their new stats, since it's simpler that way and we like the PCs themselves being the only real people who get to make bold character choices with XP.

Followers can be incredibly useful; at the moment, Folkwardr is rolling deep through Ragnarok with his team of sun-powered giants, and while they can't take on a Titan Avatar on their own, they're more than useful for plowing through the gruntwork while the PCs go head to head with the big cheeses. Followers can't be all things all the time, however, so they're not really any use when it comes to social situations or advice (though they can be admirable fetch-and-carries if necessary). On the flip side of the coin, Eztli's Follower is her son Chicahua, and being a Legend 4 or so toddler he's not a lot of help at the moment and is mostly staying at home; at other times, however, he's a hilarious source of entertaining antics and even political machinations that his mother doesn't even notice happening (and, we discovered the other day, he's more than capable of murdering a small giant if she's not watching him carefully). He'll be useful in a different context than combat, because he's not primarily a combat-oriented Follower.

Really, as a player you have to decide what you want Followers to do and then sit down with the Storyteller and figure out how to build them. If you want them to be primarily fighters, they probably won't be much use at anything else; if you want them to be primarily a posse of political advisors or courtiers, they'll probably only be really good at that, and if you want them to be small-scale wizards with magical backup talents, they probably won't have anything else to fall back on. They're not PCs; they don't get to be really well-rounded and fleshed-out. Your Birthright point expenditures matter, too, and the more points you spend on them, the better they'll probably be at whatever you want them for - you can't expect a one-dot Follower to be as badass as a five- or even three-dot one, after all.

In the end, working out with a Storyteller what you want them to do and be, and trusting that Storyteller to make sure that will work out, is all the complex Follower tinkering you really need to do (and Storytellers, if your players have Followers, remember them). We've seen every flavor of Followers in our game, from useless deadweight to helpful aides to badass combatants and all the options in between. Followers themselves are as flexible as any other Birthright; whether or not they're useful for anything depends completely on the creativity of the player and the mindfulness of the Storyteller.

Spartoi, Samurai and Other Pets

Question: I don't really understand your house rules concerning followers. Does it change the number of followers you get or is it about the point value of the birthright?

Neither, actually. What we're talking about when we say that Followers and Creatures gain in power along with their controller is a fix for the serious problem of those Birthrights becoming about as useful as lukewarm noodles once their owner hits Legend 5 or 6.

In the original rules, if you blow all your Birthright points on a sweet backup army of five samurai, those guys are awesome through your early Hero career. They kill bad guys, watch your back, run errands and anything else you need them to do. They're as effective as the best-trained human warriors, and as a result they're the most useful of your Birthrights.

Then you get to Legend 5, and you're a demigod! It's time to celebrate! But now when you're fighting foes appropriate to your Legend, something becomes depressingly clear: your samurai can't compete anymore. They're still the best-trained human warriors in existence, but they're just humans. Legend 5 and 6 monsters decimate them without even trying; they can't even make a dent in return. Suddenly all your Birthright points were spent on something that is totally useless.

So what our rule is trying to accomplish is making sure that your Followers and Creatures don't become pointless as soon as you get a few dots of Legend under your belt. Instead, when you go up in Legend, so do your Followers and Creatures; they don't remain stuck at their starting level of power forever. To keep things balanced, larger groups of Followers aren't as powerful as if you poured all your points into a single one. This doesn't change the Birthright point value; it just makes sure that you're always getting about as much benefit for your Followers as you were when you purchased them.

So if you start with a single Legend 0 Creature (let's say a giant crocodile) when you're Legend 2, it'll "level up" with you; when you're Legend 3, it'll become Legend 1, and so on until when you're a Legend 12 god it'll be a monstrous Legend 10 itself, a beast that rivals the typhonian monsters of the Titans. Your group of 5 samurai will only make it up to Legend 8 when you're a Legend 12 god, but since there are a bunch of them and they can work in concert, they're still useful backup for a variety of situations.

A Scion should never be only about his Birthrights, but Birthrights are still a cool and important part of an individual Scion's Legend. We use this rule to make sure that Follower and Creature Birthrights stay part of the story for their owners for their entire careers, if they so choose.