From the Heart of the Vortex!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: What do Pakiy, Emamu and Stvaranje mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep, sure can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back into the fray!

Fighting the Good Fight

Iiiiit's vlog time! Today we have those fancy new lights and I look less like a zombie, but I'm also on pain drugs so I sound a little bit more like a crazy person than usual. Trade-off. Next week I hope to be more functional, and of course John is here being a helpful rock of sanity.

Today's questions are on a bunch of topics including Titans, relics and politics, but they're all about the greater world of Scion at large. So here we go!

Question: In your games, I'm assuming that the gods are very much besieged on all sides by Titanrealms and Avatars aplenty, and the corebooks make a point of saying how Avatars have to stay in their realms most of the time to avoid being rebound. My question is, if the terrifying nature of the Titanrealms is what is preventing various pantheons from attacking them en masse, what is it that's preventing Avatars from doing the same to the gods? Do Overworlds (and Underworlds, I guess) have similar built-in defenses?

Question: Why do relics bite when not bound to you? There seem to be multiple myths where people take each others' weapons and use them, and I can't name any where that has actually damaged the person (without the involvement of a curse/geasa).

Question: How do you deal with gods that have unique powers that don't seem to fit in with any of the purviews? The best examples I can come up with are mostly from the Deva. For example, Shiva's "Destructo-Eye?" The guy opens his third eye and shit just blows up! How does one make that happen in Scion? For that matter, Shiva and Kali are both known for their destructive dances wherein they dance and the world just starts to fall apart. How do these things work in your system?

Question: How would you represent Diomedes in Scion, given how he's Mr. "I'm totally a mortal man but I'm so badass that I fuck up Scions and gods alike, and then Athena made me into a god when I died?" I mean, the dude got in a fight with *Ares* and kicked his ass!

Question: I've been doing some (admittedly small) amount of research into the Orisha. Is Courage really a valid Virtue for them? They certainly talk a big game, but most of their conflicts are tricks and pranks against each other rather than huge monsters (compare to the Theoi). At the same time, they seem to highly value Intellect. Particularly with Orunmila.

Question: Could the Olympic Games have been a Birthright? It may sound stupid, but you've discussed relic songs before, and your Birthright PDF has a Shinto shrine for the Kami. Could Zeus have gotten some cool bonuses when mortals dedicated their great victories in his honor?

Question: This might be a weird question, but what are the likely consequences (politically) when a Titan (and its Avatar) manages to overpower a pantheon?

Question: How do you guys feel about the idea of making Titanrealms a one-per-purview deal? Currently I'm having to choose between one realm per pantheon (where the realms don't match up to purviews, e.g. the Kami opposed by the realm of corruption) and one per purview (e.g. the kami are opposed by Izanami as a death titan but the realm itself is split between them and the K'uh), and I can't decide which I prefer. What do you think?

Question: So my game master is most likely planning to have my character's godly parent marry her away as part of inter-pantheon politics. I know how common a practice that has been through time; is that something you have dealt with before? I'd like to know more about how the gods use their children in the politics game now that it has expanded so much since the start of the war.

Question: So, among a handful of us, "Goddamnit, Stribog" has become a touch memetic. What the chuffing hell is he doing?

Oh, Stribog. I know the players hope you never change.

No Crutches

Question: Does a Scion of the Anunna Pantheon even need relics? All he has to do is take Me 1 in any purview he wants.

Well, he doesn't need relics for purviews if he has Me for them, but we assume he might like to have relics that do other things.

Absorption of Me does indeed remove a Scion's need to have a relic in order to get access to a purview; buying that first level means that he has attuned himself to that purview and begun to assert his mastery over it, so he doesn't have the same need for an intermediary that other Scions do. This is especially useful for Hero-level Scions, since it makes the Anunna the only pantheon that can pick up new purviews pretty much at any point they want to even if they're only Legend 2.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't need relics - relics can be all kinds of stuff! Potent weapons, relics that grant bonuses to certain rolls, Birthright Creatures, Followers or Guides, vehicles, or any other unique powers a young Scion might need. Really, it just means he has the opportunity to spend his relic points on things other than purviews, and our Anunna Scions pretty much seize the day on that whenever possible.

In the Name of Rome

Today on the vlog, we answer questions, I pronounce the word "jotun" wrong a lot, John passionately explains how much he loves Marduk, and a good time is had by all.

Question: Question about Form of the Giant/Jotun: upon activation, should I also use Undeniable Resemblance to shrink my size, do the bonus successes given stay? (Other than the DV bonus from Form of the Jotun, I know that one goes out.)

Question: Why do gods sleep with mortals? Compared to other gods and creatures of Legend, even the most amazing mortals are droll, hideous, stupid, and slow. Wouldn't it be like having sex with a chimp?

Question: Sexytimes with certain gods is probably really dangerous. How do you determine how much damage gets inflicted when you sleep with gods like the Morrigan, Sekhmet, Kali, or the Dagda?

Question: Is it possible for a relic to be some sort of reverse Maiming? I mean, it's like a tattoo and instead of taking your body part for power, the gods give/replace one for the power.

Question: Suppose a Scion was bored/curious/mischievous enough to shout the secret name of Rome in public within hearing distance of thousands of people. What might that do? Furthermore, how might the Roman gods and goddesses react?

Question: A question about 'purview lasers', or using purviews offensively against Titans/Titanspawn: Some applications are pretty easy to imagine, but what would a Psychopomp purview laser look like? Animal? Mystery? Artistry? Prophecy?

Question: Of all the pantheon heads, who do you consider the most beneficent King?

Question: In your games, if it has come up, how do the Aesir view their Marvel Comics counterparts?

The previous vlog where all this "purview laser" nonsense is explained can be found here. And the Marvel pantheons that appear in the Thor universe can be found checked out here if you're interested!

The Four Fairest

Question: I'd like to know - what are the so called "Tresures of Erin/Ireland", and how could they be adapted to Scion?

The Four Treasures of Ireland, usually better known as the Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danann, are some of the most important magical items in Irish mythology. They are the great relics of the gods: the spear of Lugh, the sword of Nuada, the cauldron of the Dagda and the stone of rulership that passes from king to king.

The spear of Lugh (or Sleg Luin) is a magical spear that grants its wielder the ability never to be defeated in battle. Lugh used it to kill his grandfather, the Fomorian Balor, by hurling it through his evil eye and then going on to defeat his armies and restore control of Ireland to the Tuatha de Danann. The sword of Nuada (Claimh Solais, meaning "sword of light") is said to burn with a bright, glowing light, and once it is drawn from its scabbard, no one can escape it if its wielder does not choose to let them go. It was with this sword that Nuada conquered Ireland for the Tuatha when they first arrived, and defeated the forces of the fearsome Fir Bolg. The cauldron of the Dagda (Undry) is a great enchanted vessel that pours forth food and drink in so much bounty that no one who ever eats from it can still be hungry, and is one of the Dagda's many food-creating relics (he also has plants that continually bear fruits and pigs that renew themselves after being roasted and eaten); it may or may not be connected to other magical cauldrons in Irish myth, including the one Goibnhiu uses to brew the mead of immortality, but is definitely a symbol of fertility and plenty either way. And, finally, the stone of rulership (or Lia Fail) is a magical stone that the Tuatha brought from their home to Ireland in time gone by, and whenever the feet of the rightful king of Ireland stand upon it, it sings or cries out from joy to inform the land that its ruler has arrived. It was used to crown all the mythical kings of Ireland, and since it refuses to sing for unfit or illegitimate rulers is also an important object for determining the true right to rule the island. (And if that sounds familiar, it might be because a certain legend of a sword in a stone might very well have some of its roots in the old legend of Lia Fail!)

As for adapting the Four Treasures to Scion, you really barely need to do anything to "adapt" them at all. They're clearly relics owned by the Tuatha de Danann, and as such may appear being used by those gods or even granted to sufficiently high-level Scions, either to own or to use for a short time as part of an adventure. All four of them are actually statted in Scion: Companion on page 30, but as usual we would recommend ignoring that except as a starting point; these are clearly divine, star-level relics owned by gods, not three- to five-dot relics that beginning Scions should be starting with, and we would save them for important plot moments or the use of the Tuatha alone unless you have a really good reason otherwise.

You may also be able to do some neat stuff with the legends surrounding the relics; for example, Lia Fail is supposedly still standing in Ireland on the Hill of Tara, but it was damaged by Cu Chulainn long ago and has never sung again, so you might want to spin a plot having to do with repairing it (or perhaps it isn't broken at all, but there has just been no worthy king in Ireland since Cu Chulainn, hmm?). Manannan mac Lir, god of sorcery who acts as Lugh's foster-father and is one of the senior-ranking Tuatha, serves in Irish mythology as the owner or caretaker of most famous relics, so Scions with a connection to him might be able to borrow some of the Treasures - Manannan does in fact lend his relics out, something that few gods do but that he has at least done repeatedly for Lugh - or go to him for advice on how to find or handle them if he does not currently possess them.

The Four Treasures are a great place to start with crazy awesome high-level Irish relics, but they're just the tip of the iceberg; Irish mythology is lousy with magic items and super relics used by both gods and mortals. Scions of the Tuatha might also encounter the eight relics that Lugh demanded the sons of Tuireann recover from faraway lands and bring back to Ireland or other single relics such as the famous harp of the Dagda, sword of Manannan mac Lir, silver hand of Nuada, fearsome spear of Cu Chulainn, and so on and so forth.

Fruits of Our Labor

Question: If a player has an Artistry-based character, he will have to wait until someone from their group get to the point in Magic that they can bind Birthrights. Or he could ask the gods for help, but with the description at the bottom of this comment section, it would not seem that that would work until higher Legend, either. So is Artistry, in your eyes, meant to be only used for mundane tools until you can get the Birthright-binding Magic? Oh, and can you have an artefact that just "adds +1 acc +2L"?

Not at all! Artistry can and should be used for magical tools and creations all the way through your Hero and Demigod career - certainly you don't have to wait until you have a god-level friend who can get Birthright Bond. You won't be able to bind relics you make to yourself or others without that spell, but that doesn't mean you can't use them, or that they can't be useful and awesome!

Let's say you're a Legend 5 Scion with Artistry, and through your awesome powers of hard work, amazing planning and very patient band members, you make a two-dot relic that gives access to Water and adds your Legend to Perception + Survival rolls. That relic isn't bound to anyone, so it will always try to bite people who use it, and you don't have the high-level Magic skills to tie it to anybody to prevent it from doing that. However, using a relic that isn't bound to you means that you have to roll your Legend and get its rating in order to succeed, so using this relic requires you to roll your five dice and get two successes. That's easy enough for you to do - you only need a barely average roll to succeed at that most of the time, and with rerolls or spending a Willpower for a success, your odds of success are even better. You can probably use that relic a good amount of the time without having to worry about it biting you, even though it doesn't technically "belong" to you.

Of course, you still can't reliably use relics you make that are too high in dot rating compared to your own Legend without the help of Magic... but that's as it should be. If you're only Legend 5, you shouldn't be using some crazy seven-dot relic anyway, or even a five-dot relic that doesn't belong to you. Those things are extremely difficult and time-consuming for low-level Scions to create in the first place, but if you do get hold of one, you can also hang onto it and only use it when you really need to go all out for the showstopper. If its powers are normally too great but you might need it in a moment of crisis, you can always blow a Legendary Deed and go for it at crunch time.

Relic backfires are definitely painful and there's no way to be sure one will never happen to you without the Birthright Bond spell, but that doesn't mean you can't make and enjoy using relics without it. It's just an occupational hazard of being an engineer or architect or tinkerer, just like any mortal example of one of those could get hurt in the normal course of their jobs.

As for adding accuracy and damage to a weapon, John says you could add +2 accuracy, +2 lethal to a weapon for three relic dots. He also says he usually charges one dot for two accuracy, so he would never make something with only one accuracy on it.

Turning Heads

Question: Perhaps it is just a misread on my part, but are the Ori relics you get with the Akunlegba boon subject to relic progression? That is, can they get more powerful? I know it says their given power cannot be changed, but can abilities be added to them at a later point?

Good question! Ori-given relics don't change in power level as time goes by.

Because the "relics" granted by Akunlegba are creations of the Scion's PSP - that is, they're not relics that were made by anyone but rather manifestations of her own inner Orisha-ness - they don't follow all the rules of normal relics. They don't count toward a Scion's beginning number of Birthright points when creating the character, but they are also uniquely hers and can't be detached or shared with others, nor modified by outside sources. They're extremely difficult for anyone to change or steal with Magic spells, and they won't morph or upgrade when she makes the jump from Hero to Demigod or from Demigod to God.

However, that's intentional; the Orisha are many-splendored beings, and the PSP is designed to encourage Scions to choose various different features and images as they grow into one of these fluid and expressive deities. Your normal relics and Birthrights are all still there and subject to enhancement, change, loss or whatever other crazy things you find to do with them, but your Ori relics are part of yourself and not so easy to mess around with. Their powers will remain whatever you chose for them originally, and you won't be stacking new powers on them, since each time you gain a new Ori power it comes with a new relic feature. (We will, however, of course consider cosmetic changes at Demigod or God as appropriate - if you become a god and want your old battered Knicks cap to look like a bitchin' flame-red top hat now, that would be a perfectly fine thing to happen as a consequence of your apotheosis.)

If you're feeling daunted by the need to choose five different things that go on your head, remember that it's all about what cool image you want, and that it's okay to choose more than one of the same thing if that suits you. One Scion might start at Akunlegba with an earring, a nose ring and some bleached-white dreadlocks, and then gain a fancy beard and glass eye with Afowofa; another might start with a facial tattoo and eardisks at Akunlegba, and go totally bald with a new tattoo on her smooth head at Afowofa. Different Orisha all obviously have different features from their PSP, from Shango's focus on ritual scarification to Oya's fantastic hairstyling, so don't feel like you have to come up with a bunch of stuff that's wildly different. Just be you - that's the point of the PSP, after all!

We should note here that we were still messing with the relic system when we wrote Ori so some things weren't quite ready yet, but now that they are, we've updated the boon with the one way you can potentially change your Ori relics from their original configuration. That way is the Reforging spell, which allows a Scion of sufficient magical power to attempt to change the configuration of powers on a given relic. As with the Steal Birthright spell, it's much more difficult to use on an Ori relic than usual, but it is technically possible for a mage to grab an Orisha's head and drag the features of its topography around until his powers have actually changed, as long as she's able to overpower the inherent strength of the relic and the destiny it represents.

Which is yet another reason that the Orisha are deeply mistrustful of witches and sorcerers. Stop touching our destinies! Those are for us, not you!

Showing Your Colors

Question: If your PC had a Birthright in the form of a tattoo, scar, brand or other body marking, would they have to display it (or at least have it exposed) to use it?

Not necessarily, but that's also not out of the question. It really depends on the Birthright in question.

It's not always a requirement for a tattoo or maiming or what have you to be visible to "work" - that is, if you wear a shirt over your Birthright tattoo, it will still give you access to the Darkness purview and +Legend dice to fishing, or whatever else it does, regardless. That doesn't mean you'll necessarily have much success keeping it hidden, however; you're going to be hanging out around people with Epic Perception, after all, not to mention the fact that it'll glow like a beacon to anyone using The Unlidded Eye no matter how many clothes you put on over top of it. This is all pretty standard for any Birthright, though - you could also have a relic piece of jewelry you carry around in your pocket but don't actually wear, and that would also work fine.

However, it's also totally possible that you could have a Birthright that does require usage or display, which will be one of the terms attached to its powers. We see that sort of thing all the time - a sword that grants a bonus to damage when you attack with it (but not when you attack with other swords, because that wouldn't make much sense) or a cell phone that gets reception from anywhere are both examples of relics that have to be used by nature. You can also have a relic that requires a special action to activate its powers; in our games, for example, Mohini's ghungroos grant her a bonus to social rolls against anyone who watches her dance while wearing them, and John Doe's battle standard gave him combat bonuses only if he first planted it in the ground and declared himself to his enemy. In both those cases, the Birthright has to be used in a certain way for its powers to work, and otherwise is meaningless; Mohini's dancing is spectacular, but if she leaves the ghungroos on the sidelines or hides them in her clothing, they can't add their magic to her social interactions, and if John doesn't roll into battle front and center with his own name on his lips as a battle cry, that standard is just an annoying log he drags around everywhere.

Usually, that kind of a restriction is there to provide balance - that is, the power the Birthright grants is particularly potent or dangerous or special, so there are guidelines for when and how it can be used. Both of those relics above could have been built as objects that just gave the Scion bonuses for owning them and didn't require them to do anything special to use them, but they would have been less powerful as a result. Basically, you're trading convenience for power; if you want a relic that is super easy to use and on all the time, it'll always be less flashy and badass than a relic of the same dot rating that requires its Scion to put some time or effort in first. The more specific and complex a relic's requirements, generally, the more powerful the end result is - that's both good storytelling and necessary mechanical balancing.

Of course, there are always times we want to hide our divine light under a bushel, especially when stuck at Hero level and trying not to alarm the local populace/get mugged/alert the authorities to our possession of alien technology. But in general, we normally find that most Scions don't want to hide their Birthrights all that often, because they're cool. That's half the point of Birthrights, after all - they're cool! They're neat! They're part of your character's imagery! If nobody ever sees them, it's kind of hard to get excited about how awesome they are. And, actually using or displaying magical items instead of carrying them around in a backpack almost always leads to more opportunities for stunting, and stunting is a Scion's lifeblood.

So check in with your Storyteller about whether or not a given Birthright requires anything to use its powers. As a general rule, we normally assume that granting access to a purview works no matter what as long as the Birthright is in your possession, but that any other bonus or power is fair game for a relic designer to decide that it has some other requirement for its use.

Storytelling and Such

Vlog attack! We're about to move to a new house next week so this is the last time you can enjoy our beautiful checkered curtains and depressing walls. To celebrate, we answer a bunch of questions about Storytelling and character creation.

Question: There's an NPC I'm considering for a future game that is a Scion of Mictlantecuhtli. At Hero-level he'd basically serve as a divine messenger boy, at Demigod he'd upgrade to delivery boy, and at God he'd go about trying to break away from the pantheon altogether. The thing is, though, he's not transferrring to another pantheon. In your opinion is that a good idea all around? If so, in what way and if not in what ways?

Question: I know it's a very general question, but how do gods treat Scions? Do they view them as children in the dark, or might some of them consider them adults who just need a nudge? I know they wouldn't treat them as equals because of the power disparity.

Question: I'm not sure if you've explained this before, but how do badass star-level relics work? What does a single star represent? Can uber-talented crafter PCs make them when they're high-enough Legend?

Question: As a Storyteller, I'm having some trouble coming up with events tied to Scions' Fateful Auras that don't involve some kind of Titanspawn or combat encounter. what are some examples of non-combat events that your Scions' Fateful Auras have attracted? And is there a good way to tie Fateful Auras into the heroes' current story arc without them feeling like random encounters? Thanks!

Question: I understand you might cut back on the War purview to focus on the war aspect rather than the lone warrior aspect. If you do end up doing that, what will happen to boons like Riastrad?

Question: When creating new Hero-level Scions, do you require relic Birthrights to have a unique name or just a description?

Question: What are the rules for having a creature as both the Creature Birthright and the Guide Birthright? Is that an inefficient use of points?

Join us next time from our new residential palace, decorated in Cardboard Box Fantasy!

There Are Many Plants, but This One is Mine

Question: The Fertility purview, unlike the Animal purview, is rather unspecific in its designations. My question is, how do you deal with specific associations? Do you give bonuses or advantages to gods associated with particular plants, such as Dionysus with the grape vine or Xipe Totec with corn?

First of all, here's an in-depth post on the topic of specialized totem plants in regards to the Fertility purview. You're right; it doesn't have the same kind of narrowed focus Animal does, so gods with particular plants associated with them don't have anything particularly fancy happening within the purview itself.

However, we would assume that most gods who are really and truly tied strongly to something have some kind of relic power that bolsters that association. Dionysus, for example, probably has a relic (perhaps that kantharos he's always carrying around?) that gives him mad bonuses when he uses his Fertility powers on grapes or grape products, enabling him to specialize in his chosen drunken plantlife the same way Zeus probably specializes his Sky boons with powers granted by his relic lightning bolts. Individual Scions can do all kinds of stuff with relics that relate to specific things they want to be associated with, so they might as well extend it to plants if they happen to be gunning to becoming the Gods and Goddesses of holly and ivy or something.

I usually don't put site spoilers on the blog, but since you asked, we're also talking lately about adding a boon to the Fertility purview to help handle the idea of specialized plant totems; I don't know what mechanics it might use yet (or even if we'll end up formally adding it), but it's also definitely something that we'd consider a reasonable approach to representing gods of specific flora or fungi.

Hand Off

Question: Hey, I know this may be a weird question, especially since I am mixing up two genres, but how open are you to the concept of relic robotic limbs? I mostly got the idea from the Irish and the idea that you have to be perfect. The particular tale I was thinking about was with Nuada losing his hand and having one crafted from silver before he got a flesh one again. I was mostly wondering if in mythology of other pantheons this can be allowed, or if it's a taboo.

It doesn't come up very often, actually. There are surprisingly few cyborgs in ancient myth. There are pantheons that are more concerned about physical perfection than others, though, so we can make some guesses about who would have a problem with it and who would probably not mind!

Alas for Nuada, but unfortunately having the silver hand did not actually solve his troubles; no matter how cunning and useful it was or how much it allowed him to avoid suffering from the handicap, it actually didn't restore him to "physical perfection" status. He remained considered maimed and imperfect until his actual flesh was regenerated, and only then was he able to become High King of the Tuatha again. Irish mythology's emphasis on physical perfection is closely linked to the idea of face, which implies that one's physical appearance and form is directly affected by one's honor and reputation, so those who are perfectly honorable and heroic are always physically perfect, and those who are physically imperfect are assumed to have some flaw of character or behavior that prevents them from achieving true greatness. Of course, Nuada's deformity was an injury, not his own fault, but that law is there to make sure only the most worthy can serve as king, so even with a fancy prosthetic he was barred from the post.

Now, this doesn't mean it's impossible to have a relic limb or prosthetic as a Tuatha Scion, but it does mean that other Irish gods and heroes may make assumptions about you. They might wonder what's wrong with you that you were deformed in the first place, or even decide on what that flaw might be and spread the rumor of it to others among their people. Young Scions who didn't grow up in ancient Ireland probably won't always cling to that idea and be more likely to be sensitive to the physical challenges of their fellows, but it'll probably always be a stumbling block when dealing with the old guard.

The other pantheon that will probably be a big old bucket of asses about a robotic fixture is the Theoi, which is made up of gods with a serious fixation on physical awesomeness. In their case, it's not a matter of honor and moral fiber but rather the result of an obsession with ultimate excellence in all things, including physical athleticism and appearance. The Theoi don't accept less than the best, and anyone with a physical handicap is, by their reckoning, automatically less than the best; that's why Hephaestus got hurled off of Olympus at birth, because he was physically unfortunate and his mother automatically rejected him. (Unless you prefer Homer's and Apollodorus' versions, in which Zeus is the one who threw him off for trying to prevent him from punishing Hera, which is less about physical perfection and more about Zeus being a dick as usual.)

The Theoi take it one step further; they don't just view people with physical handicaps as failures, they view anyone who doesn't approach physical awesomeness as a failure, meaning that even if you have all of your parts in working order they'll still look down their noses at you for having a poor Appearance score (or, god forbid, negative Appearance). They're probably not going to praise you for having the ingenuity to rock an awesome Skywalker-esque cyborg arm; they're just going to pity you for having the epic patheticness of a permanent injury or congenital defenct. Hephaestus might be understanding... but even he lives in that culture of peak physicality, so it'll depend on the Storyteller's take on him.

But despair not, you intrepid pioneers in the field of robotic replacement! There are plenty of pantheons with less of a fixation on your physical perfection who would have no problem with relic body parts, especially if they're particularly artist or useful. In fact, some pantheons have examples of magical prosthetics in their myths already; Vishpala, a legendary warrior from the Rig Veda, lost her leg in battle and had an iron replacement made so that she could head right back in and continue kicking ass, and of course the Egyptian story of Isis creating a golden penis replacement for her castrated husband is one of the most famous myths among those gods.

We've had a few prosthetics among our characters, as a matter of fact. Tyler Hamilton Orton, missing his right arm, has a hammer grafted on to render him the most efficient face-smasher around, John Shimoda and Sora Sato have actually had their entire bodies replaced by robot parts, and several young Egyptian Scions have started out with a magical eye in place of their original organs. We haven't had anyone go fully ambitiously robotic yet, but I feel like it must be only a matter of time.

Maimed but Magical

Question: How important are Maimings in your Relic system? Could a character make a Maiming of a significant portion of himself (such as removing his spine to replace an Axis Mundi, removing his head/other body part to perform some great deed), or are Maimings more personal to the god that bears them?

Maimings are awesome and as important as any other kind of Birthright, and we encourage their use! Of course, part of the joy of maimings is that they also carry weighty downsides because not having functioning body parts is a pain in the ass, which means they aren't nearly as popular as things like relics or Followers, but that's what you're signing up for.

Maimings can theoretically come from any source. They can be self-inflicted by Scions who choose to eschew a particular ability, body part or personal comfort in order to gain power by doing so. They can be injuries suffered in the line of duty or during the most important of the Scion's mythic actions, sealing their deeds with permanent consequences. They can be performed ritually by another god or person important to the Scion as part of a religious ceremony or rite of passage, and they can simply be situations that happen when a Scion gains in Legend or crosses the line from demigodhood into full-blown divinity.

However, there's more to a Maiming than just getting a body part whacked off in some impressive manner. Just like every other Birthright, Magic is required to create your injury as a true Maiming, grant you magical powers from it and bind it to you as part of your Legend. Just like any old sword you pick up won't become a relic just because you happen to kill an enemy with it, so any old wound you sustain won't morph into a maiming just because it happened under cool circumstances. If that were true, all Scions would be paraplegic amputees.

Like Followers and Creatures, there is no specific Magic spell that allows a Scion to create a Maiming. That's intentional, because otherwise Magic-users become even more bananas-level overpowered than some feel they already are; they could just constantly create Followers and Creatures from all the beings that they meet, amassing an enormous army and not just defeating enemies but permanently forcing them to be devoted servants who can never escape them, bind all the gods they see into being forced to act as Guides for them and cut off their fingers one digit at a time, gaining fantastic bonuses all the way. Obviously, they can't all be running around doing that all the time. Gods can't even be doing that all the time, or everyone in the universe would just be the minions of a few all-powerful puppeteer magicians.

Figuring out how to allow Scions to create or gain Maimings and other specialty Birthrights on the fly is something of a sticky spot in Scion, one that we don't have a great solution for yet (nor does anyone else we've asked, alas). We would assume that The Wyrd can do it, of course, so that's always an option, and we're a big fan of very powerful (star-plus) Relics that can also create or enforce Maimings, the Well of Mimir being the most obvious mythological example. Injuries suffered while within the borders of Comprenion, the Titanrealm of Fate, might spontaneously become Maimings thanks to their coming into being under the auspices of destiny itself, or wounds carried during some scene in which Avatar-level powers are going off like firecrackers might spontaneously turn into a Maiming. If you really want Scions and gods to be able to do those things themselves as well, you could experiment with levying a hefty penalty for doing so - allowing them to create a Maiming with some variation on the Birthright Bond spell, but requiring them to drop one or even two or three permanent Willpower on doing so, and perhaps ruling that the result is irreversible by themselves and can only be removed by someone else of equal power.

But if you're just a baby Scion planning out what kind of Birthrights you want to have and contemplating a Maiming, none of that behind-the-scenes stuff matters too much. Work out what kind of Maiming you want with your Storyteller and what powers and disadvantages it brings with it, and they'll come up with whatever background events occurred that brought it into being.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Question: When a Scion dies, what happens to his Birthrights? is it possible to make a Scion who has the concept of hunting lost Birthrights/Relics and reclaiming them and giving them to other Scions for re-use?

Technically, nothing happens to a Scion's Birthrights when he dies. He's dead, but the objects aren't; they're still there with his body, dropped and forlorn. They could be damaged or destroyed if whatever killed him was sufficiently dangerous enough to damage relics - for example, he fell into a volcano or something - but most of the time, they'll be just fine.

As a result, anybody can pick them up and make off with them after the Scion meets his unfortunate demise. Quite often, whomever killed the Scion will take their relics as trophies, part of the spoils of battle. If the enemy who took a Scion out can't identify relics, doesn't want them or is too pressed for time to bother with them - or if it wasn't a being that killed the Scion but bad luck or environmental hazards - they probably remain where they fell. Relics have their own weaker Fateful Auras, however, and are hot commodities among gods and Titans, so it's unlikely that too many relics remain unclaimed for very long; even if an enemy doesn't take them, whatever divine creatures are nearby, not to mention the Scion's parent, probably will.

However, sometimes relics do lie around for a while before someone suitable comes along to find them, and sometimes they're in such challenging locations that it's not worth it for those who aren't dedicated to go retrieve them. In those cases, a Scion who wanted to make Birthright retrieval one of his priorities could absolutely go forth and try to grab them up, braving danger, turmoil and others with the same goal.

We've actually had Scions pick up lost Birthrights in our games several times; the relics belonging to Wolf and his followers before they died were found by Aurora's band and later became major plot motivators, and both Sverrir and Folkwardr were gifted by gods with relics that once belonged to the Jolie-Pitt kids (Sverrir gained possession of Darcy's Dodge Ram, while Folkwardr was given a piece of Carlos' corn-husk shield) while Sowiljr once picked up a sword that originally belonged to Ian Jupiter. Some gods that famously died in the World also left behind major relics, and the PCs have often wished they could get to the bottom of the Wyrd-infested Pacific ocean to retrieve the magical skis and bow left behind after Uller died there at the onset of Ragnarok.

A Scion who wanted to become a sort of relic-recycling fairy could definitely make it her business to run around trying to get ahold of these relics to make sure they get rehomed with new, deserving owners. It would likely be harrowing, since many other people would want them, and there would also be a whole set of challenges associated with trying to give them to others; she'd need to manage relics that might bite her, have the higher enemy-count that carrying a whole bunch of relics always brings, and probably need some serious diplomatic chops to deal with a lot of gods being very, very pissed that she's decided she gets to redistribute the relics that by rights they created or believe belong to them. She'll also probably want to be a badass enough mage to use Birthright Bond to give those relics officially to whomever she's handing them out to, to ensure that they're able to actually use them (although if she's not high enough Legend to get it or just doesn't want to go the Magic route, it's also pretty hilarious for her to give out relics that have a chance to blow up on the lucky Scions who get them; nobody said fancy prizes were free).

But heck yeah, if you want to create a Scion who makes treasure-hunting and Robin-Hooding old relics one of his major foci, that's totally doable. Just be aware of the pitfalls, invest a lot in tracking, hunting and/or Magic, and be ready to dare the exact places that are most lethal to previous Scions.

All of the above regards relics, which it sounds like your question was mostly referring to; things are more nebulous for non-item Birthrights like Followers and Creatures. We usually assume that those either die with their Scion (but could be brought back with him if he were to return to life) or are able to keep running around and doing things only as long as they can survive on their own. Just like relics, they would be uncontrollable by any other Scions unless they were severed from their original owner and rebound through the use of Magic.

Talos

How would you guys put Talos into your games? Would he be a relic, a creature, a follower? What would he have? Cause it sounds like a cool birthright idea to me, but I do not know if it would be or not. Thanks for answering!

Like several greek characters, one of the problems with Talos is that there are many "versions" of the story. Instead of repeating them, here is wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talos.

For ease, we'll say you're going with the most popular theory, made popular by the adventures on the Argo. Talos is a massive giant, with an achilles heel of sorts.

From there...Id say hes probably not a birthright of any sort. Probably a dude with "free"-ish will that gets to have a story and do things. And, following the myths, more then likely an antagonist to most heros. Greek heros dont like dudes getting in the way of stuff they wanna do.

If we're looking for relic foddere specifically though, Id say hes probably too massive to be a birthright(maybe a god level one), but a smaller version of him. Almost like the brother from Full Metal Alchemist could make a good demigod(maybe hero) follower.
I definitely dont think itd be a creature, and a follower would fit better then it just being a relic.

Another option(one of our characters is looking to do this) is a character becoming a talos-esque person themselves. If/when that happens Ill do a write-up of how I handled it, and what changes he went through.

User Unfriendly

Question: What's the deal with using relics that aren't yours? I think you mentioned somewhere that there's some kind of danger involved - care to elaborate?

Indeed there is! We'll probably try to include something about this in the upcoming relics/crafting/Industry rules, but we're happy to talk about it right now anyway!

Relics are neat things; they're part and parcel of a Scion's Legend, tied to them in almost unseverable bonds as parts of the myths and legends they write about themselves, and they're also artifacts of power in their own right, with their own Fatebonds and Fateful Auras once they become powerful enough. Of all the magical items and substances populating the worlds of Scion, they're the most important for the simple reason that they are part of the most important beings in the universe - the players, and the gods with whom they interact and form relationships.

We all know that relics are, of course, bound magically to their Scions and nearly unbreakable or unlosable short of ridiculous forces or high-level shenanigans from the Magic purview. But they are still items that could theoretically be borrowed, lent, lost or stolen, which means that it's possible for people who don't own them to try to make use of their fabulous powers and bonuses. When that happens, the relic automatically fights back against the unfamiliar power that is trying to make use of it; it may not be a thinking being (unless you're Amatsukami, in which case it's also probably offended and shouting), but it still recognizes its owner and rejects anyone else who can't bamboozle it with the Steal Birthright spell.

Also, before we get into this, we'd just like to make sure everyone is on the same page with us: do you know that rule on page 162 of Scion: Hero, where it says that if you use someone else's relic you get access to all the boons they have in any purview that relic channels? If you don't, that's okay, because you shouldn't. Nobody should. It is a bad, bad rule. It is the dumbest rule to ever have dumbed. Not only does it make relic-stealing way more powerful than anything else anybody could be doing (oh, you mean I can get an entire purview's worth of boons I never paid XP for, for free? SIGN US UP), but it's also stupid because it implies that it's the relic that knows those boons, not the Scion, who apparently doesn't have any control over the purviews he embodies at all. Do not use this rule.

Okay, everyone on the same page? Back to how stealing relics works, then!

Whenever you try to use a relic that doesn't belong to you, you roll a number of dice equal to your Legend (and you can channel, Deed, stunt, or whatever other nonsense you want to try to increase this roll's chance of succeeding). If you roll successes equal to or higher than the relic's rating, then presto, you get to use it this one time! That means you can swing this stolen relic sword once, or add this borrowed relic necklace's Presence bonus to the roll you're making right now, or call upon the powers of this book you found on the ground to use its unique power to read something in the blink of an eye, or whatever else it does. Every single time you want to use the relic, you will need to succeed at this roll, meaning that if you want to continue stabbing people with a relic sword that isn't yours, you'll have to roll against it every time you swing; you may have bent it to your will once, but there's no guarantee that it won't manage to reject your lack of authority over it next time. It is possible to simply carry around a relic without using it, meaning that you don't need to roll for it as long as it stays inert, but they always trigger the roll when their powers might come into play - a suit of relic armor, for example, would need to be rolled against every time someone hit you, but it wouldn't need to be rolled against every five minutes if you were just sitting around in it.

If you fail at the roll, you land in Paintown (population: you). Unsuccessfully trying to wrestle a relic that you don't own into working for you causes an instant backlash from Fate, which knows perfectly well that you and this relic aren't meant to be together, and it deals an amount of unsoakable aggravated damage to you equal to its relic rating, something our PCs usually describe as "motherfucking thing bit me" in very aggrieved tones. This is often accompanied by fairly severe maiming, which the Storyteller decides based on what the relic is and what you were trying to do with it - a relic gun might just blow your hand off, for example, or a relic pair of glasses burn your eyes out. Not only did you take some damage, which sucks, but you also failed to force the relic to behave, meaning that whatever you just tried to do did not work; you didn't get its bonus to your rolls, or you couldn't channel that purview, or you were unable to lift it against your enemies, whatever. You don't necessarily drop it (unless it blows your hand off, in which case you probably do), but it offers you no benefit whatsoever.

So, as you can imagine, it's always a (literal) roll of the dice to try to use someone else's relics; the rewards might be fantastic, but the penalty for failure is uncomfortable at best and disastrous at worst. This sucks for Scions who are trying to accumulate a collection of stolen goods for their own aims, but it also protects them, since far fewer enemies will bother with trying to take their toys if they can't reliably use them. The natural defenses of a relic can also be augmented (we allow Scions to spend Birthright points on making their relics more thief-resistant, which generally means they bite when you touch them even if you aren't using them yet or that they deal more damage when they do, or both), and of course they can also be circumvented by those with high-level Magic or Tsukumo-gami, although doing so is rare. It's also possible to have relics that aren't bound to anyone, which means they fall under two categories - they don't bite, like minor relics created with Trusted Tool, or (more commonly) they bite everybody until someone with Magic comes along and makes sure they get properly homed with an owner.

Of course, that does mean that is pretty likely that you're not going to be able to sneak into Thor's place on a lark, steal Mjolnir and command the skies of Asgard, but if you can't make the Legend roll, you just aren't worthy, my friend. And if you can make that roll - Deeding and channeling and busting off Bona Fortuna and Lucky Star and using your dice from Become the Herald and whatever else insanity you can pull off - well, that one moment of glory when you can use it is going to be epic as all hell, isn't it?

Boom!

Question: My player wants to use Industry to build a relic rocket launcher. What the hell kind of stats would that have?

We're still working on our Industry and relics revamp, so we aren't ready to slap you with a magic formula for building relics, rocket-filled or otherwise. But we can do just some general advice for handling this specific request!

Start with stats for a normal, basic rocket launcher, the kind any mortal with the right government or mob connections might be able to get hold of. Scion: Companion lists stats for a bazooka on page 269 that might be useful for a quick template, or you can come up with your own idea of what kind of range and damage it ought to have.

Once you're armed with that, talk to the player about what they want the rocket launcher to be able to do outside of a normal, non-relic weapon's capabilities. Does the player want it to deal more damage or splash in a larger radius? Never run out of rockets? Provide any passive bonuses to anything? Grant increased effectiveness at other powers when using it? Whatever it is, your player needs to have a clear idea of what it's supposed to do before you can set the relic cost or determine the difficulty involved in making it. If the player isn't sure what it's actually supposed to do besides being a relic, work together to provide suggestions, and if they suggest something too wacky and insane ("I want it to deal ten million dice of damage and instantly vaporize anyone not named Dave!" No.), be on hand to rein it in or explain why such a thing would be game-breaking or too many relic dots. If the Scion in question only has Industry, make sure to remind the player what things are and aren't possible with the boons provided; if they have CtE, there'll be much more flexibility in what it could potentially do and you may need to do more work to decide what its requirements and power levels are.

After you know what the player is trying to create, you could use the relic points system detailed in Companion starting on page 150 to determine how many dots the thing will end up being, which should in turn give you some idea of how difficult it will be for the Scion to produce it with Concept to Execution or Industry boons. If you don't like the Companion table or use different criteria for relic costs, roll with those instead, but you should have the basic tools needed to build your relic.

That's all we've really got for you, but hopefully it's somewhere to start, at least. Our advice past that point is to just make sure that the relic balances - either that it's in line with the relics already in the game for the other players, or that it represents enough of a significant investment of time, energy or both for the Scion building it that it's justified in being more powerful.

Look, Now Look Again

Question: This is a two-part relic. What do you think? Doppleganger Stone: A stone necklace with ancient writing on it. A Scion who possess it can do two things: suppress their Legend by spending 5x the player's Legend score in Legend and choosing which level the player wishes descend to. The player loses access to all powers above that level. Part two: the player can generate a Legend 1 copy of themselves by splitting off a piece of themselves (hair, blood, etc.) and merging it with the stone, and spending Legend points equal to five times the number of days they wish the copy to exist. This item is only usable by Scions that are legend 8 and below (Scions who still have enough humanity to generate a double). The Scion also places a part of their psyche into the stone as well, causing minuses to Integrity and Fortitude rolls.

Wow. This is ambitious, to say the least. Let's dive into it.

First of all, we have no idea if this relic is overpowered - or, well, okay, it is overpowered no matter what, but we don't know by how much because you didn't include a relic rating. Something like this is going to be way above the usual five dots Scions start with, and possibly out of reach of most Demigods, too. There is a whole lot going on there and we aren't sure exactly who you were designing this for or why.

To start with, the first power on this relic, that of lowering your Legend rating, is already a Birthright available to all Scions at god-level; it's called Avatar and allows them to become anywhere from two to ten dots of Legend, depending on how many dots of the Birthright they invested in, and is the form in which most gods probably visit the World. There's nothing the first power on your relic is doing that Avatar doesn't already do cheaper and better; details on the Birthright are available in Scion: God on page 37, or you can also check out this old post on our house rules for it.

The only possible reason we could see for wanting this Birthright instead of an Avatar is to have access to the ability to shed Legend before you're a god, and frankly we don't think that's a good reason. When you're not yet a god yourself, trying to divest yourself of your divinity doesn't really make sense. It looks like it might have been conceived as a tool to cheat the system and avoid Fatebonds entirely once you're Legend 6+ and in danger of being caught up in the coils of destiny, but not only is that not a good reason, it's going to leave you behind your fellows in points if it works and in reality probably won't most of the time anyway, usually just getting you immediately Fatebound as soon as you use it when you're blowing 30-40 Legend in one shot.

You didn't mention whether this regression to a lower Legend rating is permanent or not in your writeup. We are assuming it's not, because if it were permanent that would be bananas and we would never allow it in a game. Things that permanently drop your Legend rating - other than renouncing your Scionhood and retiring from Legend - are not a good idea to introduce into the game, because as soon as someone can do that from an outside agency instead of their own powers as with the Avatar Birthright, it becomes possible for it to be weaponized, which is just not a great idea for the game. Not only does it make no mythic sense - gods are not exactly wandering around turning into humans, with the exception of course of the Deva avatars and things of that nature - but it's one of those things that would be incredibly crippling and unfair if someone else did it to your character. If Hephaestus can make a relic that allows the user to drop in Legend, I don't see why he couldn't make one that allows the user to drop someone else's Legend - and that would be the worst if someone did it to your PCs, you know? Besides, Legend is a representation of your fame and awesomeness and divine mark on the universe, so it's not a stat that's as easy to drop as an Attribute; dropping in Legend involves the world forgetting who you are and your great deeds and creations being lost or destroyed, and a single relic isn't going to do that.

So: for a lot of reasons, this doesn't work for us, even though we can see you were making an effort to balance it by giving it a humungoid Legend cost. Its premise is just not good idea bears.

The second part has a better idea at its base, but it would definitely need tweaking. At the moment, it's too vague for us to really tell exactly what it can do; when you say the Scion "places a part of their psyche" into the stone, do you mean that just owning this relic gives that Scion penalties to Integrity and Fortitude? That's not a bad idea, since penalties that make sense for the relic's powers are sometimes a good way to balance it out. Do you mean that using the stone's power to create a doppelganger inflicts these penalties, and if so, how much are they and how long do they last? As long as the copy? Longer? Shorter? Permanently, so that the relic gets more and more injurious the more you use it? These things all affect whether or not the thing has a hope of being balanced, and some are distinctly better ideas than others. Also, do you mean that by placing the Scion's psyche into these doppelgangers, they think in tandem with him or he sees through their senses? If they're separate creatures, useful for running errands and acting as spies, that's a pretty neat idea, but if he's able to see through their eyes and act through them as if they were himself, this is way hella broken ohno overpowered. In that case, it's just Psychopomp's Co-Location, but non-gods can use it, it doesn't cost permanent Willpower and you can use it unlimitedly to have as many copies as you're willing to pay for. The high Legend cost doesn't remotely begin to cope with how overpowered that is.

We'd say that if you removed anything about you acting through the copies and just allowed them to be separate creatures that take orders from you, this is pretty neat. They're great as spies, errand-runners or scouts, and the fact that they're identical to you begs for identity confusion and shenanigans. You'll need to codify exactly how identical they really are - for example, are they identical in a lab test? Do they have the same personalities? How high does someone with Epic Perception need to roll to tell them apart? And so on and so forth.

Also, we'd point out that if you're using our rules, this already exists as an Illusion boon that is also called Doppelganger, easily accessible at Legend 4 and above. If that's a possibility in your game, you might as well just get that and spend your relic points elsewhere on something that's more unique and attuned to your character.

If you're out there in the woods of the internet, question-asker, please feel free to come clarify what you're looking for or explain things that might have been left out!

Fruitcake

Question: Thanks for your efforts/work into the Scion RPG. Now question time: I'm interested in making available to PCs the two following artifacts/Birthrights: 1) The peaches of immortality of Xiwangmu, and 2) the Apples of the Hesperides from Hera's own garden. How powerful should they be? Also, I'd want them to be different both thematically and mechanichally, so could you give me some tips? (PS, English isn't my own first language, so sorry for the grammar mistakes.)

Hey, we love putting effort into Scion, so thanks for noticing. And don't worry about your English - we understand you and that's what's important!

Unfortunately, statting up incredibly powerful relics like these is very difficult and time-consuming, and we don't have an easy answer for you. If you're looking to make these kinds of multi-star or ten-plus dot relics, we'd suggest you take a look at our Reliquary PDF, which has a lot of high-level super-relic examples that might give you a good idea of the kind of power level we'd recommend.

If you're looking for something more appropriate for a Scion to possess before becoming a big bad god, you could still create some relics that are related to the fruits of immortality up there without directly handing them out to Scions who aren't powerful enough for them yet. The two famous fruits have slightly different effects; the apples supposedly provide true immortality, while the peaches grant incredible but limited longevity (one thousand years of life per peach), more similar to the apples of Idun in Norse mythology (another good fruit for this theme!). We would suggest building relics that are small pieces of those famous fruits, or maybe created in their image and infused with a bit of their juice or power; you might want to have them provide a limited number of seeds that could be planted to give mortals or other Scions bonuses, that give a Scion Appearance or Stamina bonuses while they own it to illustrate their enduring youth, or that allow them to use certain Fertility boons more easily or effectively than most. Unless you're starting your Scions around Legend 10, though, we'd say it's always better to give them smaller Birthrights rather than handing out the fruits themselves.

Unless Scions happen to go on quests to get those fruits, of course, in which case, have at it!

Chasing and Driving

Question: Do you have any cool Canaanite relic ideas that didn't make it into your Elohim PDF or your Reliquary?

Not really. I know some of you crazy kids out there just build relics for fun in your free time, but we really don't; if we build a relic, it's because we need it for a specific purpose, whether that's for a PC or NPC that's about to hit the streets or for inclusion in a supplement. We don't have extra homeless relics built and lying around, so pretty much all of the Canaanite toys we've ever built are already on display in the supplements.

Canaanite mythology is full of neat stuff, however, so the fact that we haven't put any more together shouldn't stop you from doing so! Weapons in the mold of Baal's famous clubs, Yagrush and Ayamur, are an excellent place to start, especially for Scions of Baal or Kothar, and chips of the crown of the gods that was passed around so ridiculously between the brothers and their father El might also have regal powers. A vial of Asherah's waters, cattle descended from Baal's and Anat's bovine tryst, skulls and chunks from the long-fallen walls of Jericho or the plague-spreading arrows of Resheph could all be repurposed for Scions' relics, or at least lend some of their material or imagery to new ones.

We don't have any ready-made toys for you, but the Canaanite myths have a wealth of options just waiting for you to get creative with!

Little Things from Yorubaland

Another solo vlog! Sorry, folks. You'll have to put up with me for just a week longer, but to make up for it, here's a bunch of questions about the Orisha!

Question: How should a group that doesn't use your Fatebond system use the Akunleyan boon?

Question: Is there any correlation between Erinle and Ganesha?

Question: How much of a freaking badass is Eshu?

Question: What are some cool Orisha relics for a Scion of Oko?

Question: Hello. I'm a little curious about something in your Orisha writeup. You mention that Oya is a warlike goddess, yet she doesn't have the War purview. Why not?

I'm imagining elephant parties now and they are totally ponderously awesome. (But the posturing and gang signs between the African and Indian elephants are getting dangerous. Elephants are serious business.)