Scion AMA: Vivian Landry

Today's questions come from Jioni, goddess of the welcoming night and queen of the realm of Erebus, formerly known somewhat less grandiosely as Vivian Landry, healer and party girl extraordinaire. She is the longest-lived character still remaining in any of our games, having begun in our very first one as part of Alison and Colin's group and then progressed into Aurora's band and now finally into Geoff's, so she has plenty of life experience to spare when answering your questions.

She's also a delight, so feel free to ask her more things in comments if you want to!

Scion AMA: Kettila Blomgren

It's time for Kettila! Also known now as Yoloxochitl, the child goddess, she's a bundle of Peter Pan complex goodness and wacky bloodletting shenanigans. She will murder you with a happy smile on her face, but she'll obey the rules of bedtime. And answer questions!

Scion AMA: Aurora Dahl

If you're a fan of all things Norse and the most Norsey prophetess ever to meddle around with them, it's your AMA day! These questions are being answered by Aurora, later Vala, daughter of Odin and goddess of hope and foreknowledge.

Anne's Fiction Corner

Fiction party time! Or not, really, because this was the Skeins of Fate group, and they don't have parties. They have wakes. In this particular case, they are being affected by the events of the recent The Fall of Tenochtitlan; Geoff's group saw what happened in Mexico, and Aurora's group will see what is now happening after.

Today's story is Wages of Sin, starring Aurora Dahl, Woody Anderson, Kettila Blomgren, Vivian Landry and Will Nordstrom. It is a tale of the wreckages left behind by the actions of the divine, the price of subjugation, and the very real and cosmic damage of a pantheon meddling where they should not be. Unfortunately, even the Norse Scions don't come out too great when Odin goes on a rampage.

Eastern Promises won the poll, so they will get the next story, followed by Strawberry Fields, who were the last place finisher in this particular race (but don't worry, Tuatha Scions, we still love you). That means it's time to reset the entire poll for new votes - go nuts, guys!

• If you vote for Better Next Time, you're voting for stories from the misfit bands of demigods hurtling toward their destiny in a mismatched group of cultural clash - Geoff Matheson of the Aesir, Sangria Tecuhtli of the Teotl, Sophia Archimedes and Mitchell Gozer of the Theoi and Marcus James of the Orisha. They're currently trying to bring together disparate pantheons who don't get along, support the people they're loyal to and still find a way to make their mark on a great wide world that is waiting for them.
• If you vote for Eastern Promises, you're voting for stories from the nineteenth-century band in a world of colonialism and industry - Leona Middleton, Samuel Vanderbilt and Paniwi Bayteru of the Netjer, Faruza Alinejad and Yadi of the Yazata, Mohini Misra and Padma Billingsworth of the Deva, James Howard and Alvin de Lafayette of the Anunna, and many more. They're currently fighting corruption among local authorities, learning what other cultures have to offer them and finding ways to survive no matter what the cost.
• If you vote for Gangs of New York, you're voting for stories from the modern-day miscreants of New York terrorist fame - Michael Chambers, Corey Holbrook and Winona Nelson of the Anunna, Russel Pride and Valentina Radic of the Pesedjet, Skylar Copperwithe and Zoe Vrontopoulos of the Theoi, and many more. They're currently struggling in an entropic world, breaking and making law where it suits them and attempting to find their way around a strange new supernatural landscape.
• If you vote for Skeins of Fate, you're voting for stories from our frozen northern band - Aurora Dahl, Woody Anderson and Will Nordstrom of the Aesir, Kettila Blomgren of the Teotl and Vivian Landry of the Orisha. They're currently handling the looming shadow of Ragnarok, the fallout of their parents' political decisions and their own personal desire to deviate from the paths Fate has set them.

Typhonian Hugs

Question: I was looking at Kettila's character sheet and noticed that she has Set as her ally. I'm really curious as to how that happened! Until you guys tell me, I'm gonna go ahead and pretend that she just walked up to him and gave him a big, warm hug!

Heh, I'm enjoying envisioning that scene. Alas, that isn't what it was, although I would have enjoyed it; Kettila has never met Set in person, and if she did she would likely be too scared of him for hugs (although if he's nice to her, she's equally likely to instead decide he's awesome and just scary in order to protect her from things).

Actually, the Skeins of Fate band, including Kettila found at one point that they needed to cross the Libyan Desert, known in Egyptian mythology as The Desert That Is Set and acknowledged as his sole domain. They were confronted in the heart of the desert by the Egyptian goddess Serket, who was acting on behalf of Set as his messenger; she informed them that they were trespassing in Set's territory without permission, but that he would allow them to pass unmolested if they pledged officially to perform one task or favor for him in the future. Vivian, Will and Kettila, not wanting to make waves and acknowledging that they were in his territory, agreed to the deal; Aurora, who was not okay with writing blank checks to foreign gods, refused, and Woody followed suit in solidarity with her. Set responded by causing the desert to rise up and entomb Aurora and Woody in impenetrable earthen coffins, but everyone else was allowed to sign a contract with Serket promising to come to Set's aid if he called, and then pick up their earth-swallowed friends and go on their way. Kettila, specifically, had had no idea she was on someone else's turf, but she was happy to promise to help her new "friend" and relieved and excited that she was rewarded with being allowed to travel through without being bothered, so she immediately decided Set was a good guy and she was going to like him, and that he was probably good "new dad" material.

After getting out of the desert and determining that nobody was strong enough to crack open the caskets Woody and Aurora were trapped in, Kettila then took it upon herself to solve the problem by flying the rocks into the air and throwing them at the ground, hoping that gravity would take care of it since she couldn't. She had to fly almost into space to get high enough, but eventually managed to drop them from a high enough altitude that they broke on impact, after which everyone hastily put Aurora back together again and continued on their merry way. Much later, Vivian made Kettila come back and fill in all the giant craters she created all over Ethiopia during her many attempts, because her Harmony wouldn't leave her alone about the ecological damage.

So Kettila thinks Set is a nice man who was tolerant and let her through with just a promise to be friends in the future, so she is totally down with him.

Cross-Universe Teotl!

New art time! This time, we have a really neat treat: GriffinGuy24, who many of you know and love from the Onyx Path forums and our own comment threads here has done some artwork of not only our own characters, but with his own Scion Alan Lord guest starring with them. Alan and our own Aztec PCs have obviously never actually met, since they're in different games, but he created some imagined scenes of what interacting with them might look like.

In this one, Alan tries to do some sciencing, but Maquicelotl is just as big a pain in his ass as he is in Geoff's. Jaguars are territorial creatures. There ain't room enough for them all on this pyramid.


In this one, Alan, who is all about being in touch with nature, tries to mediate between Yoloxochitl and her axolotl nahuatl, with whom she never gets along because she has no Animal Ken or Animal boons and is basically salamander kryptonite. It seems to like him way more than it likes her.


And in this one, Eztli has gone into Courage Extremity, so Alan, who is built to soak a lot of hits but doesn't have the hierarchical clout to try to pawn the job off on someone else, has been sent by the pantheon to let her knock him around until she gets it out of her system. In the back, their nahualli are similarly embroiled.

Basically, all of these are adorable, and we love the look into what it might be like if the characters of these games collided! And of course, you know I can never have enough Aztec deities running around here. Thanks for these, Griff!

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!

Places, Everyone!

Today, we're having some fun with charts! One of our players, who happens to be a graphic design wizard, got to thinking after some of our recent posts about the different roles various characters play in games - who's the social mojo-mover, the physical ass-kicker, the mental note-taker, the magical occult-bender. We have a general awareness that various characters fall into various categories, but we've never really sat down and done the math to see exactly who and how much.

He came up with these super neat venn diagrams of what all the characters in our most prominent games (sorry, Hong Kong and Red Sun) do and how they stack up against each other, and we're sharing them with you because it's our blog and we can do that if we want to.

Wow. Apparently Gangs has way too much brains for its own good, which balances out with Strawberry Fields, which had none (I guess that's what happened to them). And that social/physical job must be pretty difficult to maintain, because Kebo stands stoically alone. It's also very neat to see very different characters that are still of the same "type" - there's a lot of range to be hand among different personalities!

And that's not all! Remember a while ago, when we made that ridiculously complicated flowchart of the relationships between all the Scions in our main game's universe? Well, the same intrepid player just put one together for Gangs of New York:

It's much smaller because they're just baby Scions, but they're already weaving themselves a tangled web, aren't they?

Tea with the Queen

All right, folks - new art!

This here is some fantabulous lineart of Jioni and Eztli. Sowiljr sent Jioni, Queen of Erebus, off to a coffeeshop on a mission to help Eztli be better at politics. Basically, her job was to try to teach Eztli how to be a queen, which Eztli was failing at spectacularly due to a combined disinterest in politics and inability to take her husband's position as "king" of like five people seriously.

But, undaunted, Jioni took her to a coffeeshop and sat down and tried to explain politics, which was endlessly entertaining. Jioni would explain things in awesome, expressive, badass ways; Eztli would stare at her in noncomprehension or answer in monosyllables. After about two hours, the entire mortal population of the coffeeshop had cleared in terror, and Jioni had succeeded in teaching Eztli that when you go to the house of another ruler, it's polite to tell them they have many tables. Which is now all she knows how to say in political situations.

By the excellent Raven Saith!

The artist originally intended to do a full digital color picture here, but real life caught up to her and she had to set the project aside. But it's still super neat - how about Sangria's totally uninterested expression and badass muscles, or Vivian's sassy pinkie finger? - so we're posting it anyway, because we like it, darn it. I'm especially tickled by the suspiciously child-sized toothmarks on Sangria's arm. Battle scars of motherhood.

And, since it's lineart, how about this - anyone who feels like coloring it, go ahead and do so! Show it off to us later. :)

Chess with a Pirate

It's art time again! Today we have a painting of two of the biggest Fate-twisting headaches any Scion ever had to deal with: Aurora as the goddess Vala, and Colin as the Nameless God.

In this particular scene, Colin had created a giant chess game (with not enough pieces, and obviously not normal rules) and invited Aurora's band to play it in order to gain secret knowledge from him. Since they had no idea how it was played, one by one they made wrong moves and fell over having Chaos-motivated seizures until only Aurora was left, at which point she sat down on the fallen chess pieces and played Twenty Questions with Colin instead. Much occult was learned, although both of them weren't entirely sure they knew what the other was talking about.

By talented artist Samantha Braithwaite!

As always, many props to the awesome artists who do these things. You guys are great!

Status Report: Still Flailing at the Unknown

Question: Can we get an update on what is happening in your three games?

We sure can - in fact, let's ring in the new year with one!

Things are rough in the god-level game, where our Legend 11 superstars are having serious trouble juggling their loyalties, their secret missions and their political obligations. They're still on a secret mission from their parents, who charged them with gathering the omphalus stones of each of the Titanrealms in order to use them in a ritual to reinforce Tartarus, which is in danger of breaking open again now that they've managed to get a bunch of Titans back into it but nobody really bothered to go and spackle up the cracks they got out of last time. Going to Titanrealms is dangerous and difficult and takes up a whole lot of time, and in the meantime Sowiljr's position as king of the Aesir is suffering because he's not around to do it. They recently also figured out that removing a realm's omphalus stone makes it more powerful, so they're just beginning to realize they may have royally screwed some of the other pantheons who were fighting those Titans and just got suddenly overwhelmed by extra power. And while they have a few friends among the gods, they know that their parents are still incognito after Ragnarok and they're not allowed to tell anyone they're alive, which means they can't ask for a lot of help with their mission without having to field uncomfortable questions. Already some of the Bogovi are angrily trying to stop them, because what they're doing is pretty much directly opposed to both Harmony and the usual Bogovi mindset of not touching things that aren't yours.

At this exact moment, Sowiljr and Jioni are in Gimli (the renamed Asgard, post-Ragnarok), trying to get it ready for the Kingsmoot, a meeting of all the pantheon heads that Sowiljr has called in an effort to get everyone to make some policies, alliances and plans that help the overall war, not to mention solidify his own tenuous position as king of like two people. Folkwardr has likewise called, or is trying to call, a Magemoot to deal with the problem of the Titanrealm of Fate having been severely screwed up by Theoi shenanigans, making the Fate purviews not work properly, but he's unable to get much going on that since he's currently trapped in the Titanrealm of Illusions with Eztli, who he's desperately trying to get out since he knows she's ill-equipped to do so herself. Eztli, in turn, almost got out once but refused to go when she realized that Tonatiuh, the sun god of her struggling pantheon, was trapped there, too; she refused to leave him, and all three are now fighting to survive and remember who they are before the Titan eats them whole. Sowiljr is miserable over Folkwardr and Eztli being stuck in there, but knows that he both can't really help them and that he doesn't dare not show up to this major political event he's throwing, so he's just doing the best he can and trying not to Loyalty extremity every day. Jioni's just tired. Of everyone.

In Eastern Promises, the current band consists of Alvin, James, Leona, Mrs. Young and Haji, the same misfits from the last adventure, who have just begun a new saga in order to fulfill requirements asked of them by Fate after James used Deus Ex Machina to save their lives in the last story. They've been sent to go to the Garden of the Hesperides and retrieve a box for Ishtar; they have no idea what's in the box, nor are they feeling great about going to the Garden of Hera Kicks Your Ass, but Fate wants what Fate wants. They've just begun to get some clues that not all of the gods may be around, although where they are and what happened to them is anybody's guess, and that they're largely on their own when it comes to dealing with their supernatural problems. Most recently, James attempted to get permission from Queen Victoria to marry Leona, only to be told in the politest terms possible that he wasn't about to get permission to marry anyone who's half brown and he has a duty to the Crown to marry someone more suitable in case his children come up to inherit the throne one day, which he's trying to combat by finding a way to prove that Leona is descended from the pharaohs and therefore appropriate marriage material; and Alvin, in order to save his drowning comrades from an angry Proteus, agreed to spend a night with the god as his eromenos and is exploring a strange but interesting new world of sexuality. Mrs. Young hates everyone and wants to go home. Haji's good, though.

Finally, the Gangs of New York game just brought their story, starring Zoe, Skylar, Russel, Isaac and Anton, to a thrilling conclusion where somehow most people survived. Isaac accidentally got himself dragged into a world where he exists as pure computer code, and there met the mistress of the giant technological web, who turned out to be Arachne; she offered him the chance to stay with her and influence the web (and thus the world) from within, which he accepted, bowing out before the final game session. Back on earth, where all the Scions of the current story are duly appointed superheroes (codenamed Containment Prime) in the employ of the United States government in charge of defending New York City from supernatural threats, Skylar fled a monster attack that destroyed an Army base and was subsequently sentenced to death for abandoning his duty; Zoe and Anton made a desperate helicopter trip from New York to Washington, D.C. in an hour and half in a stolen military jet, being attacked by monsters all the way, to barely make it in time to stop Congress from voting in his execution. Zoe made an incredible patriotic speech about Skylar's value to the country and the need for superheroes, successfully saving him from death and the group from disbandment, and Anton made sure it went viral so that the United States as a whole is now on the superhero bandwagon. Meanwhile, Russel and Skylar, defending New York on their own, teamed up with a surprisingly skilled human cop they ran into to take on the last of the fire demons that have been plaguing the city recently, in a fierce battle that nearly killed all of them but finally managed to take her down and save the day.

At the end of the story, Zoe was recalled to Washington to coordinate political concerns for the new group (and deal with the fact that Isaac has gone AWOL and, since he's a former terrorist, that's super not good), Anton went with her as bodyguard and chauffeur, Russel missed his opportunity to try to tell Zoe he has feelings for her because of Skylar's bionic interference, and all was well in the Big Apple. The next story will rotate characters again, so Zoe, Isaac and Anton will go out and Russel and Skylar will stay in, and we'll pick up with a new crisis and set of heroes next week.

So, you know, they're keeping busy.

It just occurred to me that this post is queued, so there might have been a game or two between when I wrote it and when it goes live, but that just adds to the mystery, I think.

Son of Wolves, Daughter of Ravens

Question: Are we ever gonna see the sad Aurora/Wolf mix tape you mentioned in the "Scion Symphony" blog?

Sure.

We made this a while ago, and it's a continuum that covers all of the relationship between Aurora and Wolf, from their roots at Legend 5 through the final events of Ragnarok. It's not too much of a spoiler to say that they will be seeing each other again, even though they're currently separated in the fiction.

As you guys know, we commit when we do ridiculous things for Scion games, so there are album covers and relevant excerpts involved. I'm hiding them behind a cut so we don't spam the whole blog with song lyrics.

Scion Symphony

Question: In a previous vlog you had mentioned that many of the characters have a "theme song" without the knack itself. Could you share some tunes for your characters who are not rocking Theme Music?

I hope you guys are ready for this! We got all the players involved, went to our own giant playlists of character theme songs, and even after slimming it down (WAY down) we still have an awesome musical journey going on here. I'm not kidding when I say that John and I have songlists that are literally five or more hours long for each of our games, including songs for each character, for their relationships and for their great deeds. We love epic musical soundtracks!

Don't mind the videos for these. We're talking about the music, not the silly band dances.

Better Next Time:

There's a pretty neverending stream of music for these guys; you can sit through our iTunes list for them for about six hours without even being able to see the end of the tunnel. In addition to Geoff's official theme music - "How You Like Me Now" by The Heavy and "Lover of the Light" by Mumford & Sons, depending on his moon - we also like Natasha Marsh's "He Moves, Eyes Follow" and Rise Against's "Savior". The last one in particular is a great song for describing his relationships with his family members (mostly women) over the course of his life.

Sangria has a cocktail of songs about physical badassery and determination, but our top favorites would be "No Gringo" by Vienna Teng, "Indestructible" by Disturbed and "Titanium" by Sia/David Guetta.

Sophia's image song has always been Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger", which really captures her attitude (and lack of normal human-like function). At the point where she became (according to John) infatuated with a particular Scion who shall remain nameless, we also started playing Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" a lot.

Goze's playlist is as multiple-personality as he is, but Jim's Big Ego does both of his major songs, the frenetic "Stress" and the introspective "The Ballad of Barry Allen". When he impersonated Geoff, we also used to always play Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" to illustrate his hilarious impersonation of his more charismatic friend.

Marcus James' unofficial theme song was always "I'm On a Boat" by The Lonely Island, which covered his bombastic crazy-ass personality traits, but in his sadder moments we also associate him with "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc. His player has also been known to remark that any song by Jay-Z is relevant to Marcus' life.

Eastern Promises:

There are a ton of characters in this game, so we'll try to be brief and split them up by group.

Mohini is all about some high-energy dance music (if techno dance beats had existed in her time period, she'd have been all over them); she has a lot of similar songs on her list, but some of the most often-played are "Come and Get It" by Selena Gomez and "Turn Me On" by Nicki Minaj/David Guetta. Shadan, the ever-irrepressible, rocks out to "Crown on the Ground" by Sleigh Bells, while Kebo's easy-going nature lends itself to "Movin' Right Along" by The Muppets and Cassara of course has to be "Food Glorious Food" from the musical Oliver! Padma's player wasn't sure what song to use for her, but said that she and Shadan should totally be the subjects of "Something There" from Beauty and the Beast. Akhi's song is Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood", which handily contrasts with Faruza, who obviously has to go with Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire". Samuel, scourge of the skies on his ornithopter, is heralded by Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", while Darrius' secretive nature lends itself to the moody "Hideaway" by Passion Pit. Mshai's player suggests "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky for his brief run, and Alvin, the suave son of a bitch, gets "In the Air Tonight" covered by Nonpoint. Adorable Yadi is Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine", and old, crochety, adventurous Paniwi rolls along to "Muddy Water" from the musical Big River. Lionel's grossness is aptly represented by Radiohead's "Creep" and "Brand New Day" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and Mrs. Young's creepy personality makes everyone uncomfortable with "Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saens, rounding out our unpleasant team members. James' player suggests several upper-crust classical pieces for him, including "Dawn" by Dario Marianelli, and "Rule Britannia" by Thomas Arne; Leona of course gets Katy Perry's "Roar".

Terry's player totally did not okay it, but we play "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" by Big & Rich for him anyway.

Gangs of New York:

The first Gangs group, full of socialites with poor decision-making skills, was of course headlined by Michael, whose official theme song is Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" and whose unofficial followup is Franz Ferdinand's "Michael". Sexy mysterious Valentina gets "Die Another Day" by Madonna, poor displaced party boy Nic gets "All I Ever Wanted" by Airborne Toxic Event, and psychotically vengeful James gets "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley.

The second group, which was more of a moving demolition derby than a set of semi-human beings, has an accordingly sadder and more dystopian list of music. Poor Winona's song is "Grey Street" by Dave Matthews Band, with "Down" by Jason Walker/Molly Reed as a secondary choice. Alan's song is Great Big Sea's "Wave Over Wave" or "Nautical Disaster" by Tragically Hip, while Jake (and everyone else in the group, eventually) gets Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and Simon's player informs us that, now bereft of his only true love in death, his character will be represented by Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You".

Our current group (the... good group?) in that game is slightly less depressed about their lives. Anton's song is "Stickshifts and Safety Belts" by Cake, Isaac's is "The Future Soon" by Jonathon Coulton, Skylar's is "Hannah's Theme" by The Chemical Brothers, and Zoe's is "By the Sword" by Emilie Autumn.

Land of the Red Sun:

Alison and Colin have an entire album dedicated to them, but a few highlights for the fractious son of Dionysus include "Frontier Psychiatrist" by The Avalanches, "Magic" by B.o.B. and "Unwell" by Matchbox 20. Alison's official theme music is "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, but she's also partial to "I Am a Scientist" by The Dandy Warhols, "Control" by Poe and "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin.

Of the Japanese crew, only Saki ("Bumblebee" from DDR) and Hachiro ("This Is Halloween" covered by Marilyn Manson) have the Theme Music knack. The rest of the group wasn't played for long and didn't have a strong musical set yet, but the Japanese group was so consistently ice-cool that we enjoy playing Far East Movement's "Like a G6" for them as a unit.

Skeins of Fate:

Aurora has hours of music all by herself, but in addition to her official theme music (Kelly Sweet's cover of "Dream On"), I'm also fond of Sara Lov's cover of "My Body is a Cage" for her, while John loves Michael Card's "The Prophet". We actually made the saddest double CD of music about her and Wolf several months ago, but listening to it made us turn to drink.

Woody, the old soldier that he is, has always had "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas as his main song, but songs about war almost always suit him; some of our other favorites are Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son".

Vivian's official theme song is the 30 Rock Theme, which suits her awesomely, but she is a lady of many and mercurial moods. We also love Nightwish's "Slow Love Slow" for her, and of course "Lady Marmalade" from Moulin Rouge.

People often forget that Will actually has Theme Music - Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" - because he doesn't use it very often. Bonus: John Doe's unofficial theme song was "Going Down" by Sick Puppies... and he did.

Kettila's adorable theme song is "I Won't Grow Up" from Peter Pan, and her creepy childhood schtick dominates her playlist. We also recommend "In My Arms" by Plumb, "Fields of Innocence" by Evanescence and "I Want My Innocence Back" by Emilie Autumn.

Strawberry Fields:

Cheerful Dierdre is the frontrunner here, with either "The Elfin Knight" by Kate Rusby or "Turn Loose the Mermaids" by Nightwish. Seamus is gloomier with "Save Yourself" by Stabbing Westward or "Disarm" by Smashing Pumpkins. The other Irish kids were sort of cannon fodder in Seamus' ruthless quest, so they didn't end up with many songs of their own.

I'm serious, this could go on for a very long time, but that's not very surprising. Lots of players and games have theme songs for their characters, so our list is only impressive because of the sheer number of characters making it massive.

Call Once in a While!

Question: What happened to mortal parents of your God PCs?

Various fates. It's hard to be a human who has been touched by the divine; your life never goes smoothly or normally, and when it ends (which is often) it's usually in an unusual way.

Sowiljr's mortal mother, Marlene Matheson, was a Las Vegas showgirl and single mother who raised him on her own before dying of cancer when he was in his twenties. Her story, and Geoff's rise to Scionhood, are told in the story Close to the Sun.

Folkwardr's mortal parents, Benjamin and Margaret Anderson, are long dead of natural causes; they lived in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and while Woody had Eternal Youth and whiled away the centuries until today, they had no such option.

Jioni's mortal mother, Eugenia Landry, was a devout Catholic stay-at-home mother who was put into the care of a nunnery shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, right before Vivian was called away to go become a Scion. No one ever checked in on her again, so it's generally assumed that since she was in frail health anyway, she probably died during Fimbulwinter. If she didn't, she'd be somewhere in Africa right now with the rest of the population of New Orleans that Zwazo Fou Fou and Shango hijacked and relocated. The story of her interactions with Vivian is in her backstory, Godless.

Eztli's mortal mother (her name was Necahual but she went by Maria if anyone wonders, although Sangria never knew her and doesn't know her name herself) died in childbirth with Sangria, who came into the world bloody from the beginning. Since the Aztecs considered women who died in childbirth to have died in glorious combat, it is generally assumed she went to the House on the Left, although no one ever checked.

Vala's mortal mother, Hilda Dahl, died in a car accident the night of her Visitation. No one has any proof, but it seems like there might have been some kind of foul play involved. Read the story of Hilda and Aurora, Colors of Fate, and decide for yourself.

Kettila's mortal parents (her real ones, not any of the random ones she adopted), Oskar and Emma Blomgren, were never checked up on and probably also died during Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok. If they survived, they'd be among the meager few post-apocalypse people that live under Sowiljr's protection, although he would have no way of recognizing them.

Zwazo Fou Fou's mortal mother, Katherine James, died of natural causes somewhere during his Hero-to-Demigod career. He and his twin brother Mathias visited her grave once in a while, but not much once they got busy enough to make trips home impractical for them.

Aiona's mortal parents, Richard and Brenda Archimedes, were actually adoptive and she was aware of this from the start, consequently giving the poor couple little of her attention. Her real mother, Olivia, was seen several times in Hephaestus' company while he was posing as a mortal scientist, but her current whereabouts and what might have happened to her are unknown.

Sverrir's mortal mother, Amelia Nordstrom, was killed by a criminal during a holdup when he was a teenager, something that deeply affected his life and outlook thereafter. His stepfather, Michael Whitman, knew he wasn't Will's real father but was actually coopted to become his Guide by Njord, and helped his stepson as much as possible until he arrived at godhood, at which point he was lost to the furor of Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok.

Terminus' mortal mother, Claire Gozer, continued living in Wisconsin after his abrupt departure until he returned at Legend 9 to save her from Fimbulwinter, relocating her to his cult at Delphi. After Goze's death, Sowiljr took her in out of honor for his dead comrade, transplanting her to his Sanctum for a short period of time before resettling her in his cult lands in Iceland. She's one of the few parents of god-level Scions who is confirmed to still be alive and active, although she's pretty broken up over the loss of her son. Some of the story of their interaction is in his backstory, Wayward Son.

Elissa Margaritas, mother of both Alison and Colin, was left something of an emotional wreck after being left by both Apollo and Dionysus, but she was last seen still living quietly alone in her home in North Carolina. Alison saw her briefly just before her apotheosis and she seemed normal; no one has checked on her since, so it's unsure whether she survived Fimbulwinter to the end.

Saki's parents, Ichiro and Natsumi Kimura, are extremely not alive anymore. You can see why in her backstory, Little Fish.

And that's everybody that's a god right now! Many of the younger Scions of the Eastern Promises and Gangs of New York games are very much still part of their parents' lives; Zoe went to get nagged incessantly by her mother about getting married this weekend, while James sends telegrams home to the family when possible, Leona is deeply put out with her father for kicking her out of the house to go have adventures, and Skylar's poor mother is beside herself with worry trying to figure out what to do about her son being a mentally unstable superhero that the government won't let her see.

Any of you guys got any interesting stories about what mortal Scion parents are up to these days?

Norse-World Problems

New art time! Hooray!

Just one today, this time for the Skeins of Fate band. I'm sure some of you remember that time Aurora threw herself into the Well of Mimir and then Woody leapt in to save her, and nobody came out with all their body parts intact. That moment of frenzied magical awfulness has now been immortalized in painting.

By talented artist Samantha Braithwaite!

That's something nice and cheerfully calming for everyone's Friday morning, isn't it?

Time Flies

Question: How many in-game years did your Skeins group need to reach godhood? And roughly how many sessions?

It depends on when you start counting from! Vivian, the oldest member of the band in terms of actually being played, started her career as a Scion in the in-game year 2008 with the Land of the Red Sun group; she hit god in 2014, making her Hero and Demigod run about six years long. The first time the whole group (Aurora, Vivian, Kettila, Woody and John) was together, they started in the in-game year 2010, making it about four years to god-level, although they started at Legend 5 then so their run was probably about the same as hers. Woody is of course the exception... because he's older than the dirt on Jord's heel, he spent about 252 years being a pre-god Scion before hitting apotheosis. Now that's dedication.

As for the real-time out-of-game number of game sessions, our players rolled those dice for approximately 110-120 sessions from Legend 5 to Legend 9 (Vivian played about 8 more in Land of the Red Sun, and Woody maybe 6 more in Strawberry Fields). That translated to about three years of real time, playing once per week.

Man, it seems like only yesterday. Now they're arranging god marriages and irritating tricksters and talking old warhorse stories about Ragnarok and what happened after.

Govern Thyself

Question: What does the mortal world think of your various characters? Also, are all of your characters in the same universe/continuity? Finally, what do mortal governments tend to think in general of Scions during that time when the governments know about them but the general public doesn't know yet (assume they ever get to that point)? Thanks for all your hard work!

Hey, you're welcome. Hard work can be fun, sometimes!

Our characters are not all in the same continuity, but rather in three distinct universes. I'm not going to link to all of them because that's a lot of linking action, but here's the breakdown of who's where:

Continuity One: Better Next Time, Skeins of Fate, Strawberry Fields, Land of the Red Sun and Hong Kong. This is the big motherlode universe, involving the most of our characters and by far the dominator of our fiction section; it's set in the modern day and has been played in consistently for the past 4+ years of our games running, involving a modern world in which the resurgance of the Titans causes the ancient and magical to suddenly spill back over into everyday life. Its PC characters include Geoff Matheson, Sangria Tecuhtli, Mitchell Gozer, Sophia Archimedes, Marcus James, Chuck Clark, Aurora Dahl, Woody Anderson, Vivian Landry, Kettila Blomgren, John Doe, Theo Arnoux, Will Nordstrom, Dierdre O'Riordan, Seamus McMann, Alaina Bertrand, Killian Corvinus, Luke Honre, Ian Jupiter, Sam Striker, Najarat Sekhar, Amunet Ipi, Iggy Rex, Auggie MacDonough, Jude Shriver, Tyler Hamilton Orton, Art Eclipse, Lapis, Darcy Jolie-Pitt, Hime-Kame Jolie-Pitt, Carlos Jolie-Pitt, Cora Champagne, Maximus Giovani VII, Sora Sato, Saki, Hachiro Taro Koga, Hiro Subaru, Aisu Sutoraiku, Ahuiliztli Matheson, Chuck Clark Jr., Charlie Gozer, Alison Margaritas, Colin Margaritas, John Shimoda and Raymond Dent. There's also a much-too-large host of NPC and side characters fleshing out the stories, with the most famous being Jay Ortiz, Kane Taoka and Wolfgang Amery.

Continuity Two: Eastern Promises. This is our second longest-running universe, and is set in the middle of the nineteenth century, incorporating elements of steampunk and political intrigue into the tale of Scions trying to save the world without anyone noticing. Its PC characters include Mohini Misra, Shadan Ferma, Penelope Young, Padma Billingsworth, Kebo, Cassara Mitchell, Terry Gaither, Faruza Alinejad, Samuel Vanderbilt, Shanti Paavatika, Nisha, Kitty Sanders, Sanjiv Nayak, Mshai, Ahkileswar, Layla Wahab, Lionel Cuthbert, Darrius, Leona Middleton, Paniwi Bayteru, James Howard, Haji, Zahed Al-Azif and Yadi. They don't have quite the giant backlog of famous NPCs yet (although there are a few - hi, Paul Bunyan) and don't have a ton of fiction stories yet, but they're heading toward being a force to be reckoned with.

Continuity Three: Gangs of New York. Our most recent game is another modern-day, normal Scion setting, but set in a different universe from Continuity One to allow a new crop of Scions a chance to blow up landmarks. Its PC characters include James Keenan, Valentina Radic, Nic Mason, Mabel Grey, Michael Chambers, Alan Parillo, Winona Nelson, Simon Rockwell, Jake Devon, Rick Nolan and Adira Bazzi. They don't yet have any fiction (although believe me, I have notes on them), and are still babies in Scion terms, with the most powerful scarcely Legend 4.

So, yeah. For the most part, you'll see us talking about the folks in Continuity One the most, because there are the most of them and they've done the most things over time (some have made the journey all the way from Legend 3 to Legend 11 now, in fact!), but the other games are also awesome and we love their different possibilities.

As for what the mortal world thinks, I won't do a full rundown because it would take forever, but it's about what you'd expect. The government, once it realizes that there are superpowered people running around, tends to react with paranoia and immediate steps taken to understand and contain any threat Scions might be to the world, which works better in some areas than others. Entire armies have scrambled to try to take down Sangria or hunt Michael out of the streets of New York, with very limited success; on the other hand, the Strawberry Fields game's plot revolves strongly around the government's new Dangerous Supernaturals Division and its attempts to understand and combat magical phenomena by capturing and experimenting on Scions and Titanspawn alike. Some Scions, like James Howard, are actually members of the government themselves, allowing them to influence national and even global policy, and even where the Scions aren't pulling the government's strings, very often some supernatural agency is. In the nineteenth-century Eastern Promises game, different countries are still trying to figure out how to handle the possible dangers of Scions; some, like Russia, are embracing the supernatural and are employing magical beings of their own to serve the country, while others, like England, have instituted strenuous registration and behavior restrictions on Scions and punish any infractions as threats to the Commonwealth.

These are all possible reactions any government might have; it's always scary for mortals to find out that there are things way more powerful than themselves running around, and since a government's job is to protect its people and enforce law and order, they're almost all going to have to have a knee-jerk reaction to try to contain, control or even eradicate such frightening threats. But since Scions themselves are fully capable of involving themselves in the mortal government as well, either front and center or from behind the scenes, how the world at large views and treats them is as much up to them as anyone else.

Vlog

Today we have a special vlog. I explain it all in the video. But here is a more in depth look at some politics stuff going on in our game and how we organize it.

Anne's Fiction Corner

It's that time!

Today's story is What Dreams May Come, starring Woody Anderson with appearances by Aurora Dahl, Vivian Landry, Kettila Blomgren and Will Nordstrom. It is a tale of dreams versus reality, familial loyalty and the enduring nature of consequences. And since I know this story took a long time to come out, here's a little bonus: Weregild, a secret look into some things Aurora's doing behind the scenes. Because any time Woody is in there busting his ass, it's a good bet Aurora's in the back sabotaging his efforts somehow.

As of the writing of this post, Seamus has eked out a mighty lead of 2 votes and will get the next story. I hope you're all ready for some Irish cross-country travel shenanigans, because that's what's about to happen. A new poll will go up to the right momentarily, and you can weigh in on whose story you'd like to see next.

At the write-in request of a few of you, I'm going to start providing teasers summaries of the stories you're voting on, so you'll know exactly what you might be signing up for. Ready? Here goes!

• If you vote for Alison Margaritas, you'll be getting a story about her response to Kane's betrayal and the theft of Colin by Geoff and company, and see exactly what lengths a truly vengeance-driven Scion can go to.
• If you vote for Darcy Jolie-Pitt, you'll be getting a story about two sisters trapped in a foreign underworld, trying to find their way back to the light.
• If you vote for Faruza Alinejad, you'll be getting a story about unlikely friendships and the sacrifices bandmates sometimes make for one another, physical or spiritual.
• If you vote for Mohini Misra, you'll be getting a story about her band undermining a corrupt raja and making difficult decisions about whether or not love can overcome evil.
• If you vote for Sangria Tecuhtli, you'll be getting a story about the consequences of recent Norse actions on the struggling Mexicans and what exactly it looks like when something pushes her over the edge.
• If you vote for Sophia Archimedes, you'll be getting a story about her stormy non-relationship with a certain notorious Scion.
• If you vote for Will Nordstrom, you'll be getting a story about his childhood and growth into one of the last Vanir Scions in the world.
• If you vote for Yadi, you'll be getting a story about her origins as a street rat in the back alleys of Tehran and her hopes for a better life as a child of the righteous gods.

Happy voting - I'm off to start wrangling Irishmen!

Personalities from the Pages

Question: I was wondering, have you guys ever updated the sample characters from the books for use in your games?

Sort of? We've never used the sample characters as PCs; they're nice to give players an example of what Scions might be like, but we always want our players to make their own rather than trying to play something lifted from the book, and at any rate the sample characters suffer a bit from parent-clone disease, which we don't want to over-encourage. Members of both the "heroic" and "antagonist" bands from the core line of books have been used in our games as NPCs, though, both positive and negative, with stats shored up to make them actually matter to the game.

Kane Taoka is the most obvious and prominent of them; in addition to being an antagonist that the Better Next Time band only sort of managed to conquer during his attempts to raise sunken Atlantis, he also married Alison Margaritas, one of the old Skeins PCs, and was part of a large Japanese-Scion-wide effort along with the Land of the Rising Sun PCs to create a nationwide protective barrier around his home country at the behest of his pantheon. After his Titanic master was quelled by the gods, he chose to abandon ship and beg to be let back into the Amatsukami on probation, where he spends most of his time doing whatever Amaterasu wants until such time as everyone trusts him again. He's usually a bit of a bastard, but, especially when dealing with other Japanese Scions or projects that benefit him, not always impossible to work with.

Both Seth Farrow and Horace Farrow are dead, having been murdered by PCs for entirely different reasons (our PCs do not always make good decisions about killing other Scions). Seth was beheaded by Marcus James as he attempted to protect Kane from him when the BNT group was assaulting their command station, which led to Set's minions constantly harrying him for most of his Demigod career and an eventual need to pay the aggrieved god back in some way. On the other side of the coin, Horace was beheaded by Geoff, who specifically hunted him down when he realized that Horace was attempting to magically poison one of his cults on the orders of Isis, whom Geoff had already thoroughly pissed off by deciding to side with Set instead of her son. Geoff went on to have a towering and frequently dangerously lethal enmity with Horus that continues to this day.

Marie Glapion has a bad habit of turning up to make peoples' lives hard and then vanishing without a trace. In the very first BNT story, she had a torrid one-night fling with Geoff only to have him bound and sold into slavery before he woke up (she was misdirecting him away from what Kane was up to at the time, quite successfully), and he went unrescued for several months before the rest of the band found him. She popped back up when the BNT band was trying to stop the raising of Atlantis and abandoned Kane's cause at their urging; she then resurfaced again in the LotRS game, where she and Saki instantly hated one another and made life intolerable for everyone else until she went away again. Her current whereabouts and activities are unknown (though Jioni should probably check on that, eh?).

Eric Donner appeared in a fairly recent god-level game in which the Skeins team, attempting to work off a debt to Sif, went to "work for him" in his sanctum, which was set up as a gigantic divine advertising agency (suspiciously similar to Mad Men) that he lorded over with many booms of thunder and shots of scotch. Despite Sverrir being incapable of performing office work, Yoloxochitl getting lost in a Chaos-haunted hallway for days and Vala and Folkwardr struggling with their Intellect and Expression to avoid telling anyone that Donner, who believed himself to be a son of Thor, was in reality an illegitimate son of Susanoo and Sif, it was actually Jioni that torpedoed the situation. An ad exec working for Raiden got a little too friendly and she called on her husband for help, and he responded by starting a cross-Titanrealm military campaign that the PCs affectionately refer to as The Great Storm Wars. Donner hasn't been seen since his sanctum got blown up, but presumably he's not in a great mood with the Skeins team after that.

Orlanda Elliot, who the BNT band ran into in Antarctica where she was helping Kane attempt to raise Atlantis, nearly got bisected by the combined fury of Marcus and Geoff before being saved by Sangria, who made it point-blank clear that nobody was killing any Aztec Scions on her watch. She then moved back to Mexico to help Sangria regroup and support the small, struggling Aztec community there, and eventually married Kenton McGee, a mortal Fatebound follower of Sangria's with whom she fell in love.

Poor Sly Guiler has died not once but twice in our games, killed by PCs both times. The first was in the very first Skeins group, when Colin and Ray colluded to kill him and Victor Fingers in order to steal their toys and affirm their bond of friendship. Loki got his son out of hock with Hel, only to have him promptly murdered again by his brother Chuck Clark, who, confused by illusion trickery into believing that he was actually a Scion of Thor and Sly's sworn enemy, lopped his brother's head off when he was supposed to be meeting up with him for a mission. Loki dragged Colin and Ray up to Asgard for trial and weregild, but unfortunately couldn't do much to Chuck (who was genuinely confused and sorry) without losing another of his investments, and had to content himself with just hating everyone and everything. We elected to let Sly stay in Hel rather than bringing him back for a third round of murder.

Finally, Victor Fingers has been around as long as Kane has, first making friends with Colin before swearing eternal enmity against him for killing Sly, then meeting and swearing eternal enmity against Geoff after discovering that the Norse Scion had lied to him to get him to betray his boss and possibly cheated in an athletics competition against him. He also later realized that Kane was using him and decided to swear eternal enmity against him (Victor has a lot of anger problems). Most recently, he and Geoff made up after meeting up as gods and performing an honorable duel of military command prowess, in which they managed to impress one another enough to let bygones be bygones. (Colin's place on Olympus has a giant Chaos maze surrounding it, though, specifically to prevent Victor from just walking in there and killing him. Greeks and their Vengeance.)

And that's about the story. Donnie Rhodes, Yukiko Kuromizu, Aaron Tigrillo and Bridgette de la Croix have not appeared in our games to date; Aaron was superfluous with the large numbers of Aztec PCs already in play (and anyway, he's way outshone by Jay Ortiz), Yukiko might exist but nobody ever bothers to find out what Susanoo is doing because I guess they have a death wish, Vivian was a better Bridgette than Bridgette ever was, and while I know John has a soft spot for Donnie, he hasn't turned up as a specific personality yet (and I don't know if he will).

Oh, and I guess we've used a few other NPC Scions - not from the official bands, but from the bonus Scions of the Hand of Tyr, tucked away in the back of Scion: Demigod. The name's not very appropriate for them anymore, considering that the very first time the BNT group met them, Tyrone Norris was turned to stone by a basilisk and summarily removed from play (our own NPC Scion of Poseidon, Bradley Dupree, took over their leadership). Amelia Battelle and Blair Thomas played small roles, with Marcus attempting to make friends with his little sister and then letting her wander off into the sunset when he failed, and Sangria hounding Blair into performing her duties and helping the fledgling Aztec community. The only one to play a major role in the story was Niles Horne, who, again on Isis' orders in vengeance for Geoff having double-crossed her, infiltrated Sangria's Aztec village in the guise of a local Scion, did extensive damage to everyones' Fatebonds there and ultimately kidnapped one of their children for his mother. He's still at large somewhere (hilariously, Sangria still has him Vigil Branded, as she still thinks he's one of her people), but one assumes that if Geoff ever finds him, he won't be much longer.

It goes without saying that all NPCs borrowed from the original line had their tragically poor stats rewritten, refitted and transformed into something that worked against actual players. I don't happen to have those stats, myself, but if you ask really nicely about a particular character, John might have some hidden away somewhere to pass on to you guys.