Hey, everybody! It's vlog time, and this week is Greek Week! The kind where we talk about a bunch of Greek mythology stuff, not the kind with beer and toilet paper togas. (Although we could potentially do both. That would be a fun Saturday.)
Question: I read your blog about how the Theoi don't like anything that deviates from normal human physical perfection. So, then why do the Theoi have Gods with Animal associations? Wouldn't that mean that any Greek God with Animal would pretty much never use Animal Feature and/or Animal Form? Okay, maybe Aphrodite could get away with giving herself a pair of swan wings (since you mentioned that the Theoi don't mind wings) but if Ares gave himself ANY wolf feature, wouldn't that be kinda wrong to him?
Question: How do you guy treat Charon, as he is son of two Titans - a god, titanspawn, or even a Titan?
Question: When I was reading your post on how other pantheons laugh about the Greek/Romans small "swords", I realized that since different pantheons may have different standards of beauty, then how does having a high Apperance in one pantheon affect another who may have a different version of an ideal apperance?
Question: How might the Virtues of a Roman Scion differ from those of his or her Greek counterpart?
Question: Hera's Vengeance demands that she continue to punish Zeus' bastards forever. However, in some versions of the Heracles myth, Hera ritually adopts Heracles as her own son when he achieves apotheosis. Would that satisfy Hera's Vengeance toward him? Technically he isn't a bastard anymore. Hera has formally claimed him as her own son. Would she still need to fight her Vengeance around him? Would this option apply to other Scions of Zeus who manage to become gods?
Question: I know this will sound stupid, but what exactly is Tartarus?
Question: Valor is the Virtue of acting honorably, right? Does that mean Scions with Valor can't lie? Can't steal? Can't work undercover?
Please pardon the lack of question text in the video - the editor crashed on me so I had to rush it to make sure it go out on time.
Next week, more themes, plus the exact same faces and clothes you saw this week.
Showing posts with label Vengeance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vengeance. Show all posts
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Can't Live With Them...
Question: My character has Vengeance and Loyalty. Someone got on both lists, so is there a way to drop that person from one of them or am I doomed to be a walking, talking Virtue Extremity?
You are doomed. Virtues are not convenient things; it sucks for there to be someone who makes you so insanely angry you must act against them, but who is also your family member/bosom friend/wartime comrade/someone you owe, but that doesn't mean you get to weasel out of one of those things. It is a part of your divine personality to take care of those you're loyal to and back them up no matter what, and it's also a part of your personality to smite people who have done you wrong, and neither of those things will stop being true. You're about to ride a very sad train.
However, that doesn't mean you're unable to do anything ever again, or that you'll spend your life in shrieking Extremity all the time. As with all Virtues, if you want to act against them you're going to have to dedicate some Willpower, so find ways to make sure you're as juiced up on it as you can be if you're going to have to be around this person a lot (I assume they're in your band or something from the question, but if not, also avoid the shit out of them when you can!). If that other person is a player, they can also get Willpower-granting powers to help you not go bananas on them, and if they really want to be proactive (possibly because they fear your vengeful rage), they might be able to invest in powers to trick or misdirect you so that your Virtues never activate, such as only appearing in disguise as someone you don't hate.
Of course, the really balls-to-the-wall heroic Scion thing to do is to not fight those Virtues all the time. You're not really meant to; do it too long, and you'll eventually Extremity and they'll take over whether you want them to or not, right? You have two options here: you can try to satisfy both of them when you can, or you can commit fully to one and tell the other to go to hell. If you try to satisfy both Virtues, you'll play a constant dangerous game of deciding which is more dangerous, which you can afford to indulge right now and how much Willpower you have to cover it; generally speaking, following one will almost always trigger the other, so choose your battles wisely. If you commit to one completely, you'll be saying that either this person's transgression against you is so great that they have to pay no matter who they are, or that your loyalty to them can't be broken even by whatever they did and you'll have to swallow the anger down. You'll probably want to choose the one you have the most dots in to commit to, since it has both a stronger hold on your Scion's personality and will prevent you from having to roll the higher one and thus risk Extremity more, but it's a roleplaying decision that only you can make. Once you do that, do it to the hilt: go all out to murder or bring this person to ruin, or righteously defend this person from all ills and dangers and suffer in silence. Choosing one of the Virtues to follow is easier in that it doesn't involve all the balancing and considering of trying to play both of them, but it also means that there will be a lot of times you hate what's happening and simply have to ride that feeling out.
If you're still a pre-God-level Scion, you can also try to lose one of those Virtues completely, thus preventing you from having to follow its dictates. The Shape the Soul boon in Magic allows a high-level magician to rewrite your Virtues, potentially changing them to new ones; however, you might have a hard time finding a magician god who A) feels like doing that for you and won't feel any conflict with his Virtues, B) is accessible and willing to pay for it, and C) you can convince or give something he cares about to get him to do it. That's a pretty tall order, more so the lower in Legend you are, but technically possible. You could also try to find relics or artifacts that might affect your Virtues, such as Kebauet's waterfall in Duat, which are few and far between but definitely do exist. Figuring out what those things are and where to find them will be a task in and of itself, possibly one requiring Mystery or tracking down other people who have secret knowledge, and your Storyteller will be the final arbiter of where those things are and whether it's feasible for you to go after one. And if you want to play the most dangerous game, you can try hanging out with a Titan Avatar or its servants long enough to get one of your Virtues replaced with a Dark Virtue; you have a 50% chance of losing either Loyalty or Vengeance that way, but of course also the massive downside of fraternizing with a dangerous enemy and ending up with a Dark Virtue that is probably even more problematic than your original one.
Actually, having a single person who activates both your Loyalty and Vengeance is a pretty fantastic roleplaying tool, no matter how you try to handle it; you're a divine hero trying to do whatever you think is right or good or pragmatic in your fight to aid the gods, and here's this person who you both love and hate, who you have to deal with but who drives you to distraction. That's a perfect recipe for heroic saga and inner conflict, and your story sure as hell will be interesting and emotionally charged. Those Virtues are maneuvering you to become part of a classic tale, one that only you will choose your role in, and that's what Scion is all about.
You are doomed. Virtues are not convenient things; it sucks for there to be someone who makes you so insanely angry you must act against them, but who is also your family member/bosom friend/wartime comrade/someone you owe, but that doesn't mean you get to weasel out of one of those things. It is a part of your divine personality to take care of those you're loyal to and back them up no matter what, and it's also a part of your personality to smite people who have done you wrong, and neither of those things will stop being true. You're about to ride a very sad train.
However, that doesn't mean you're unable to do anything ever again, or that you'll spend your life in shrieking Extremity all the time. As with all Virtues, if you want to act against them you're going to have to dedicate some Willpower, so find ways to make sure you're as juiced up on it as you can be if you're going to have to be around this person a lot (I assume they're in your band or something from the question, but if not, also avoid the shit out of them when you can!). If that other person is a player, they can also get Willpower-granting powers to help you not go bananas on them, and if they really want to be proactive (possibly because they fear your vengeful rage), they might be able to invest in powers to trick or misdirect you so that your Virtues never activate, such as only appearing in disguise as someone you don't hate.
Of course, the really balls-to-the-wall heroic Scion thing to do is to not fight those Virtues all the time. You're not really meant to; do it too long, and you'll eventually Extremity and they'll take over whether you want them to or not, right? You have two options here: you can try to satisfy both of them when you can, or you can commit fully to one and tell the other to go to hell. If you try to satisfy both Virtues, you'll play a constant dangerous game of deciding which is more dangerous, which you can afford to indulge right now and how much Willpower you have to cover it; generally speaking, following one will almost always trigger the other, so choose your battles wisely. If you commit to one completely, you'll be saying that either this person's transgression against you is so great that they have to pay no matter who they are, or that your loyalty to them can't be broken even by whatever they did and you'll have to swallow the anger down. You'll probably want to choose the one you have the most dots in to commit to, since it has both a stronger hold on your Scion's personality and will prevent you from having to roll the higher one and thus risk Extremity more, but it's a roleplaying decision that only you can make. Once you do that, do it to the hilt: go all out to murder or bring this person to ruin, or righteously defend this person from all ills and dangers and suffer in silence. Choosing one of the Virtues to follow is easier in that it doesn't involve all the balancing and considering of trying to play both of them, but it also means that there will be a lot of times you hate what's happening and simply have to ride that feeling out.
If you're still a pre-God-level Scion, you can also try to lose one of those Virtues completely, thus preventing you from having to follow its dictates. The Shape the Soul boon in Magic allows a high-level magician to rewrite your Virtues, potentially changing them to new ones; however, you might have a hard time finding a magician god who A) feels like doing that for you and won't feel any conflict with his Virtues, B) is accessible and willing to pay for it, and C) you can convince or give something he cares about to get him to do it. That's a pretty tall order, more so the lower in Legend you are, but technically possible. You could also try to find relics or artifacts that might affect your Virtues, such as Kebauet's waterfall in Duat, which are few and far between but definitely do exist. Figuring out what those things are and where to find them will be a task in and of itself, possibly one requiring Mystery or tracking down other people who have secret knowledge, and your Storyteller will be the final arbiter of where those things are and whether it's feasible for you to go after one. And if you want to play the most dangerous game, you can try hanging out with a Titan Avatar or its servants long enough to get one of your Virtues replaced with a Dark Virtue; you have a 50% chance of losing either Loyalty or Vengeance that way, but of course also the massive downside of fraternizing with a dangerous enemy and ending up with a Dark Virtue that is probably even more problematic than your original one.
Actually, having a single person who activates both your Loyalty and Vengeance is a pretty fantastic roleplaying tool, no matter how you try to handle it; you're a divine hero trying to do whatever you think is right or good or pragmatic in your fight to aid the gods, and here's this person who you both love and hate, who you have to deal with but who drives you to distraction. That's a perfect recipe for heroic saga and inner conflict, and your story sure as hell will be interesting and emotionally charged. Those Virtues are maneuvering you to become part of a classic tale, one that only you will choose your role in, and that's what Scion is all about.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Mad World
Question: So my character's mother has been been horribly cursed (short form: with insanity) by Hera for the last two decades for having the temerity to get raped and impregnated by Zeus. How would one go about to unravel such a curse? The Greek gods seem very limited in their capacity to undo each others' curses (case in point, Tiresias). Merely compensating for it (again, as in the case of Tiresias) isn't really an option, and even if Hera could withdraw it, she hates my character's guts. Please advise.
Well, that really depends on what exactly Hera did to curse your Scion. Did she use Moon? Magic? A relic? A favor from some other god with that power? Something else entirely? All of those will be different in how they work, what can counter them and how you would go about trying to undo their effects, so without more information there's no way to give you advice about what exactly to do.
But that's a good place to start! If all your character knows is that Hera has cursed him, the first step to trying to fix the problem is to find out what exactly happened. Talk to other people who might know; call on divine allies who might have seen this kind of thing before; bust some Mystery, whatever it takes. Once you've found out what or who actually did a number on you and how, you have the tools to start looking for ways to reverse it.
We can give you a few general suggestions; to start with, the Moon purview has the ability to cure some forms of insanity with boons like Mirror of Lunacy or Tranquility, and if those can't do it, it's almost certain that The Mirror can. Of course, you'd have to come up with some totally baller reasons why a moon god should spend resources on your sorry ass, especially if they have to go all the way up to spending the Avatar, especially if they might have to deal with Hera's displeasure as a possible consequence. Depending on the form of insanity and whether or not it has a physical component, a god with The Savior might also be able to help, although magical madnesses are often totally independent of the body and there may not be much they can do. It's also possible that magical potions, remedies or relics might be able to cure or at least help your Scion keep his condition under control; if you can find out what and where they are, you may be able to go on a quest to find them or work with a crafting Scion or god to try to build something to give you some relief.
Dodekatheon Vengeance-binges are no joke, so our hearts go out to you. Good luck, and remember: even Dionysus managed to get (mostly) back to sanity eventually!
Well, that really depends on what exactly Hera did to curse your Scion. Did she use Moon? Magic? A relic? A favor from some other god with that power? Something else entirely? All of those will be different in how they work, what can counter them and how you would go about trying to undo their effects, so without more information there's no way to give you advice about what exactly to do.
But that's a good place to start! If all your character knows is that Hera has cursed him, the first step to trying to fix the problem is to find out what exactly happened. Talk to other people who might know; call on divine allies who might have seen this kind of thing before; bust some Mystery, whatever it takes. Once you've found out what or who actually did a number on you and how, you have the tools to start looking for ways to reverse it.
We can give you a few general suggestions; to start with, the Moon purview has the ability to cure some forms of insanity with boons like Mirror of Lunacy or Tranquility, and if those can't do it, it's almost certain that The Mirror can. Of course, you'd have to come up with some totally baller reasons why a moon god should spend resources on your sorry ass, especially if they have to go all the way up to spending the Avatar, especially if they might have to deal with Hera's displeasure as a possible consequence. Depending on the form of insanity and whether or not it has a physical component, a god with The Savior might also be able to help, although magical madnesses are often totally independent of the body and there may not be much they can do. It's also possible that magical potions, remedies or relics might be able to cure or at least help your Scion keep his condition under control; if you can find out what and where they are, you may be able to go on a quest to find them or work with a crafting Scion or god to try to build something to give you some relief.
Dodekatheon Vengeance-binges are no joke, so our hearts go out to you. Good luck, and remember: even Dionysus managed to get (mostly) back to sanity eventually!
Thursday, May 30, 2013
John has IRL vengeance...it's a problem.
How do you reduce your virtues? My character started out incredibly vengeful but has grown as a person and repented his ways. I want to trade my Vengeance rating for Valor rating (Dodekatheon.)
Let me relate a personal story that hopefully will help explain. As a teen/young adult, I had terrible rage problems. Although I had great successes in the classroom and in many after-school activities, I was also in trouble in the principal's office often. It wasn't just that I got angry, or even that I got irrationally angry. It was that when I acted on that anger, I lost control and horrible things happened.
My parents didnt want to admit that anything was wrong with me. And my success in other areas made it something that was easy to overlook. Also, although I didnt realize it then, looking back, I was a very manipulative little shit, and got away with things I shouldn't have with bold-faced lies.
But to save you the details of many insane stories, by the time I was 16, I had court-appointed anger management (was far better than jail for attempted murder... yay, lawyers). After several years of counseling, group therapy and a deeper immersion in the arts, I was "cured".
This didn't mean I didn't get angry anymore. Or that something chemically changed that let my brain react to anger like other people do. Instead, I learned how to control my anger better, and to find ways to channel the anger/energy in a health(ier)y manner.
I still get really, really angry sometimes. But the times where that anger causes me to be excessivly violent/destructive have been greatly reduced. However, there are definitely times when I fail to control myself, and can get myself into pretty bad trouble. But it's never something that stops existing as part of me. It's just something I struggle to control for the rest of my life.
An alcholic will tell you a similiar story.
Where am I going with all this rambling?
Virtues aren't things that change over time because you grow or change. Vengeance isn't the angry "phase" of our youth that we grow out of. Harmony isn't that hippy "phase" in college that we mature through. Order isn't something only stuffy old gods have. Virtues are an important, intrinsic parts of your character's very being. They represent not only the inner values that you feel as part of your soul, but also your connection to your people and your pantheon (rage problems are well-documented for generations in both sides of my family).
I promise that a character who has changed and become Pious, but still suffers under the yolk of intense levels of Vengeance, constantly struggling to control their emotions and actions is WAY more interesting as a character than someone who gets to take the easy way out and just be done with the emotions they don't like when they don't want them anymore.
Gods are giant, awesome, super versions of humanity. Virtues represent those giant, awesome, super emotions/needs/VIRTUES that they have. If they disagree with them, that can be great, but it should be a struggle, not a switch you can turn on or off.
That being said:
I've had lots of Virtue changing in games (although usually, almost always, it's against the will of the Scion).
There's a magic spell that does it for non-gods.
Avatar of Magic could work for gods probably, but maybe would take several to do a Legend 12 god.
Avatar of Justice, if swearing an oath to forever defend another pantheon or something similiar.
Some sort of blood-mixing oath-swearing with Avatars involved.
Titanspawn infection, or Titan worship at Hero/Demigod.
Titanrealms/Avatars at God.
So there are many options, but for all except Magic it's usually a suprise to my players and not something they're happy with.
So use one of those ways if you must. But I promise, sticking with that high Vengeance and making a go of it will be a far more interesting adventure/story for your character. It'll cause many problems, but it'll be far more rewarding.
Let me relate a personal story that hopefully will help explain. As a teen/young adult, I had terrible rage problems. Although I had great successes in the classroom and in many after-school activities, I was also in trouble in the principal's office often. It wasn't just that I got angry, or even that I got irrationally angry. It was that when I acted on that anger, I lost control and horrible things happened.
My parents didnt want to admit that anything was wrong with me. And my success in other areas made it something that was easy to overlook. Also, although I didnt realize it then, looking back, I was a very manipulative little shit, and got away with things I shouldn't have with bold-faced lies.
But to save you the details of many insane stories, by the time I was 16, I had court-appointed anger management (was far better than jail for attempted murder... yay, lawyers). After several years of counseling, group therapy and a deeper immersion in the arts, I was "cured".
This didn't mean I didn't get angry anymore. Or that something chemically changed that let my brain react to anger like other people do. Instead, I learned how to control my anger better, and to find ways to channel the anger/energy in a health(ier)y manner.
I still get really, really angry sometimes. But the times where that anger causes me to be excessivly violent/destructive have been greatly reduced. However, there are definitely times when I fail to control myself, and can get myself into pretty bad trouble. But it's never something that stops existing as part of me. It's just something I struggle to control for the rest of my life.
An alcholic will tell you a similiar story.
Where am I going with all this rambling?
Virtues aren't things that change over time because you grow or change. Vengeance isn't the angry "phase" of our youth that we grow out of. Harmony isn't that hippy "phase" in college that we mature through. Order isn't something only stuffy old gods have. Virtues are an important, intrinsic parts of your character's very being. They represent not only the inner values that you feel as part of your soul, but also your connection to your people and your pantheon (rage problems are well-documented for generations in both sides of my family).
I promise that a character who has changed and become Pious, but still suffers under the yolk of intense levels of Vengeance, constantly struggling to control their emotions and actions is WAY more interesting as a character than someone who gets to take the easy way out and just be done with the emotions they don't like when they don't want them anymore.
Gods are giant, awesome, super versions of humanity. Virtues represent those giant, awesome, super emotions/needs/VIRTUES that they have. If they disagree with them, that can be great, but it should be a struggle, not a switch you can turn on or off.
That being said:
I've had lots of Virtue changing in games (although usually, almost always, it's against the will of the Scion).
There's a magic spell that does it for non-gods.
Avatar of Magic could work for gods probably, but maybe would take several to do a Legend 12 god.
Avatar of Justice, if swearing an oath to forever defend another pantheon or something similiar.
Some sort of blood-mixing oath-swearing with Avatars involved.
Titanspawn infection, or Titan worship at Hero/Demigod.
Titanrealms/Avatars at God.
So there are many options, but for all except Magic it's usually a suprise to my players and not something they're happy with.
So use one of those ways if you must. But I promise, sticking with that high Vengeance and making a go of it will be a far more interesting adventure/story for your character. It'll cause many problems, but it'll be far more rewarding.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Something is a Virtue
Question: Dear JSR: Please change the Tuatha Virtue from Intellect to Vengeance. They were all about holding grudges.
We'll take it under consideration!
We've had a lot of conversations about the Tuatha Virtues and whether or not they need tweaking, actually. We're cool with Piety - if there's one thing the Tuatha believe in, it's the awesomeness of the Tuatha and their right to invade wherever the hell they feel like as a pantheon - and Expression and Courage are no-brainers, but Intellect's a more complicated choice. We're not entirely sure it fits; sure, Irish mythology respects brains, but it respects physical badassness and honorable insanity more, and they definitely don't fit into the same model of Intellect as, say, the Devas. But at the same time, the Tuatha love cunning and cleverness, and when they succeed, they succeed big-time, such as when Aengus wins his divine estate from his father with the badass Power of Motherfucking Grammar. So we're unsure.
There definitely is a theme of vengeance running through some of the stories of the Tuatha, but we're similarly unsure about it. When it appears, it's insanely violent, but there are also Tuatha figures for which it seems entirely absent, so we're not sure if it's really a Tuatha-wide thing. Cu Chulainn refuses to sleep with the Morrigan and she's like "I will kill everything you love," and Lugh manages to pull off the greatest revenge-caper in anyone's history on his father's murderers, but when the Fomorians threaten and then mock the living shit out of the Dagda he just sort of sad-Eeyores his way back home, and when Sreng lops off Nuada's arm, he's just like, "Well, damn, that's inconvenient, you guys want to just live in Connacht and we'll call it even?"
We're still thinking about it. Feel free to weigh in in the comments if you have strong feelings one way or the other!
We'll take it under consideration!
We've had a lot of conversations about the Tuatha Virtues and whether or not they need tweaking, actually. We're cool with Piety - if there's one thing the Tuatha believe in, it's the awesomeness of the Tuatha and their right to invade wherever the hell they feel like as a pantheon - and Expression and Courage are no-brainers, but Intellect's a more complicated choice. We're not entirely sure it fits; sure, Irish mythology respects brains, but it respects physical badassness and honorable insanity more, and they definitely don't fit into the same model of Intellect as, say, the Devas. But at the same time, the Tuatha love cunning and cleverness, and when they succeed, they succeed big-time, such as when Aengus wins his divine estate from his father with the badass Power of Motherfucking Grammar. So we're unsure.
There definitely is a theme of vengeance running through some of the stories of the Tuatha, but we're similarly unsure about it. When it appears, it's insanely violent, but there are also Tuatha figures for which it seems entirely absent, so we're not sure if it's really a Tuatha-wide thing. Cu Chulainn refuses to sleep with the Morrigan and she's like "I will kill everything you love," and Lugh manages to pull off the greatest revenge-caper in anyone's history on his father's murderers, but when the Fomorians threaten and then mock the living shit out of the Dagda he just sort of sad-Eeyores his way back home, and when Sreng lops off Nuada's arm, he's just like, "Well, damn, that's inconvenient, you guys want to just live in Connacht and we'll call it even?"
We're still thinking about it. Feel free to weigh in in the comments if you have strong feelings one way or the other!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)