Question: Hi! I have a question. I was rereading the Bogovi on the Pantheons page and I noticed Chors has Larceny. Why is that? She doesn't seem the sneaky type.
Ah, Chors! Poor Chors. She does indeed have Larceny, thanks to a story in which she helps a fellow goddess in need with her mad larcenous skills. You're right that she isn't the "sneaky type" - at least, she's not a criminal nor is she particularly given to sneaking around hiding from people - but she's a perfect example of the kind of character that has a high Larceny score but uses it for other purposes.
As some of you may know from the stories on his page, the great king-god Svarozhich once fell in love with a mortal maiden named Pizamar, the most beautiful mortal ever to have been born. Because he himself had banned the consorting of gods with mortals, however, he was forced to hide his passion even from her, and instead visited her in various forms so that she had no idea what was happening to her. The creation of demigods was also illegal, so he caused her to miscarry whenever he impregnated her, and after a few rounds of this she was so miserable that she started trying to commit suicide on a regular basis. Svarozhich prevented her from succeeding, however, by putting several lesser gods and demons on suicide watch and outright forbidding Smert, the psychopomp, to take her to the Underworld.
It's at this point in the myth that Chors enters; she notices what Svarozhich has been up to and, since she has a little experience with gods being absolute douchebagels to defenseless women (see: Stribog), she goes to him and asks him to stop tormenting the poor girl. When he refuses to give Pizamar up, Chors then suggests that he should turn her into a goddess so it won't be illegal to date her and all this unpleasantness can be avoided in the future. When Svarozhich protests that this is impossible because Pizamar is only a human, Chors convinces him that she'll be able to steal immortality for the girl - provided, of course, that he backs her up by granting her a pardon if she gets caught for the crime.
Svarozhich eventually decides that he's being a little too much of a horrible person for even him to put up with, so he agrees. He and Chors then go to see Podaga, the goddess of weather (mother of Perun, for the interested) who listens to the many winds and guards the fabled mead of immortality so that it cannot be stolen. Svarozhich gets his mack on with Podaga to distract her, and while he's distracting her, Chors ninjas her way into Podaga's home and steals the mead, which she then delivers to Pizamar by sneaking up on her and pouring it into her while she sleeps. Pizamar is summarily rendered immortal, Chors escapes judgment because no one but Svarozhich ever knows what she's done, Podaga gets angry and rejects everyone who comes to court her for the rest of her life in case they're secretly thieves, and Svarozhich is able to bring Pizamar to live with him while pretending that everything is totally fine.
So while Chors is not any kind of a secret agent or safe-cracker on most days, she demonstrates some seriously larcenous chops in her bid to steal the most precious substance in the universe from under its guardian's nose and somehow get off scot-free. And, touchingly, she does it not for her own personal gain or amusement, but to help out a sister in need. You couldn't ask for a nicer burglar.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Kingdom of Oyo
Question: What region of Africa actually worshiped the Orisha?
I'll answer your question, but first I'll object to the past tense in it. While it's true that some of Scion's pantheons come from religions that are functionally dead, especially the really old ones like the Anunna or Pesedjet, the worship of the Orisha is alive and kicking; there are estimated to be a few million practitioners of Orisha worship in western Africa even in the modern day, though some of their traditions have been understandably colored by syncretization with and influence from Islam and Christianity.
The Orisha are the gods of the religion of the Yoruba people, an ethnic group that is still very much alive and active today. The Yoruba ethnic group spans a fairly large area in western Africa, mostly covering Nigeria, Togo, Benin and some adjacent territories. Their traditional territory doesn't conform to any country lines because, unlike most country borders farther north, the states in Africa were carved out by colonizing imperialists from Europe instead of according to ethnic groups and traditional boundaries.
As you can see, they take up a pretty good chunk of the African landscape - about the same size as Germany and Austria combined, give or take a little - but are nowhere near being in charge of the whole continent. Which of course makes sense; we may be predisposed to think of Africa and African gods as some kind of Lion King-esque conglomeration of a single culture over the continent, but guys, Africa is huge. Before the invasions from the north, it probably had more distinct ethnic groups and tribal religions than Europe ever did.
In the modern day, Orisha worship is no longer that widespread; the map above shows where the Yoruba people traditionally live, but Sierra Leone and Ghana have pretty much ceased practicing the religion much due to evolving cultures and outside influences, leaving the core of the gods' territory in Nigeria, Togo and Benin. But while that's probably pretty saddening for the gods of the western coast, they've more than made up for it by expanding like crazy motherfuckers all over the rest of the world. The Orisha, in various forms, are worshiped all over the western world, from their dominating power in Brazil and the Caribbean islands on up to their famous vodun incarnations in Haiti and the southeastern United States. If there's one thing you can say about the Orisha, it's that they have staying power; being thoroughly and ruthlessly colonized by Europe not only didn't stamp out the religion on the home front, it actually enabled them to spread all over new territories and become a thriving religious force in the modern world.
The Yoruba religion also influenced several of its neighbors, most notably the Fon, and you'll find traces of them all over western Africa as a result, even in areas where they aren't traditionally worshiped. Shango is, after all, always on the lookout for opportunities for glorious conquest.
I'll answer your question, but first I'll object to the past tense in it. While it's true that some of Scion's pantheons come from religions that are functionally dead, especially the really old ones like the Anunna or Pesedjet, the worship of the Orisha is alive and kicking; there are estimated to be a few million practitioners of Orisha worship in western Africa even in the modern day, though some of their traditions have been understandably colored by syncretization with and influence from Islam and Christianity.
The Orisha are the gods of the religion of the Yoruba people, an ethnic group that is still very much alive and active today. The Yoruba ethnic group spans a fairly large area in western Africa, mostly covering Nigeria, Togo, Benin and some adjacent territories. Their traditional territory doesn't conform to any country lines because, unlike most country borders farther north, the states in Africa were carved out by colonizing imperialists from Europe instead of according to ethnic groups and traditional boundaries.
As you can see, they take up a pretty good chunk of the African landscape - about the same size as Germany and Austria combined, give or take a little - but are nowhere near being in charge of the whole continent. Which of course makes sense; we may be predisposed to think of Africa and African gods as some kind of Lion King-esque conglomeration of a single culture over the continent, but guys, Africa is huge. Before the invasions from the north, it probably had more distinct ethnic groups and tribal religions than Europe ever did.
In the modern day, Orisha worship is no longer that widespread; the map above shows where the Yoruba people traditionally live, but Sierra Leone and Ghana have pretty much ceased practicing the religion much due to evolving cultures and outside influences, leaving the core of the gods' territory in Nigeria, Togo and Benin. But while that's probably pretty saddening for the gods of the western coast, they've more than made up for it by expanding like crazy motherfuckers all over the rest of the world. The Orisha, in various forms, are worshiped all over the western world, from their dominating power in Brazil and the Caribbean islands on up to their famous vodun incarnations in Haiti and the southeastern United States. If there's one thing you can say about the Orisha, it's that they have staying power; being thoroughly and ruthlessly colonized by Europe not only didn't stamp out the religion on the home front, it actually enabled them to spread all over new territories and become a thriving religious force in the modern world.
The Yoruba religion also influenced several of its neighbors, most notably the Fon, and you'll find traces of them all over western Africa as a result, even in areas where they aren't traditionally worshiped. Shango is, after all, always on the lookout for opportunities for glorious conquest.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Deliver Us From Punches
Question: How does Unseen Shield react to incapacitating but not damaging boons like Web of Stars? If a person inside the Shield decided to use Starfire, then would he lose his protection immediately, or at the end of 10 ticks when the actual damage happens? Can a person inside the Shield summon Star Beasts and order them to attack without losing its protection?
Every now and then, players like to play a game called Let's Try to Circumvent the Safeguards on the Guardian Purview. We're not really sure why; it's been made very clear in both our games and on the website that Guardian can't be used to harm anyone or hidden behind if you're in the process of being aggressive, but still sometimes someone just has to test those boundaries. Of course, as the quesetions above illustrate, there are always some grey areas when it comes to what "violence" or "aggression" means in context of Guardian boons, but that's why this blog is here to clear up the confusion!
Firstly, boons that involve directly attacking another person in any way always prevent you from remaining in an Unseen Shield. An "attack" doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to inflict damage; tying someone up, throwing someone across the room, blinding someone with light or making someone fall over unconscious are all attacks, regardless of the fact that they don't technically deal damage. If you're trying to do something that directly restrains a person against their will or deprives them of their basic personal rights in some way, you're still assaulting them and Guardian is still not going to stand for any of your shenanigans. Attempting to snare someone in a Web of Stars would still kick you out of an Unseen Shield's protection, because you're directly taking an aggressive action against someone else, regardless of whether or not the web technically causes them physical pain.
Of course, not every incapacitating boon or knack is disallowed by Guardian; it depends on what you're doing. If it's a passive effect - for example, Lasting Impression, which for negative-Appearance users inflicts Willpower loss and dice penalties - then Guardian will probably give you a pass, because it's not that you're attacking that person but rather that the sight of you is disturbing and they're upset about it. On the other hand, using Paralyzing Confusion on someone to make them fall over gibbering will get you punted out of that protective bubble at light speed, even if you aren't planning to hurt the person you've affected, because you took a direct action designed to incapacitate that person and render them defenseless. Storytellers will probably make their own calls about what is and isn't allowed, but we think it's pretty obvious when something is a generalized or defensive power and when it's an aggressive act that isn't playing nice with Guardian's non-aggression policy. A useful rule of thumb (that doesn't cover everything, but is a good general starting point) is that if it's something you could be charged with a crime for doing if you did it with completely mundane means, Guardian won't let you do it; you won't go to jail for being ugly, but duct-taping someone into submission or intentionally drugging them into having a seizure sure as hell qualifies as assault.
So yes, your web-slinging will leave you vulnerable to retaliation if you go after an enemy. Starfire, which is one of the most dangerous and damage-heavy powers in the game, most definitely will, and it will do it immediately, not ten ticks after you decide to go for it. Your Unseen Shield does not care about the exact tick someone else takes damage; what it cares about is that you're actively taking an action to hurt someone, and the second you start doing that, you're out. Starfire may take ten ticks to actually hurt everyone, but you're spending those ten ticks concentrating your celestial energy to blow it out and kill everyone, so you're already taking a violent action as soon as you start (albeit a slow one). The same goes for every other action in the game; you're out of the shield the moment you start swinging your sword to hit someone, and that goes for all five ticks of your swing, not just the one that actually hits somebody (or misses, as the case may be). Your ass is already being obviously violent, and the Guardian purview doesn't need to wait around to see how successful you are at it.
However, there's good news in the third part of this question for the squishy social characters out there: you can indeed order creatures to attack on your behalf without leaving your protective hamster ball of safety. While ordering a gaggle of Star Beasts or Flameborn Spirits or Jotunblut'd up squirrels to tear your arch-rival apart while you hide behind impenetrable invisible walls certainly qualifies as you being a dick to him, you are not personally actually taking any violent actions, and as long as you don't do anything but give orders, you're home free. It's the creatures that are acting aggressively and are not allowed into your zone of protection. Just be careful about what you may or may not do to help them, because Guardian will not accept "but I was helping my friends so it doesn't count when I hurt others" as a valid reason to not deliver you into the waiting jaws of your enemies.
The point of the Guardian purview is that it is meant to defend and protect, and that's the only thing it's meant to do. It is not meant to give you an advantage in combat or help you hurt anyone in any way, so the second you start trying to use it that way, you're probably doing it wrong. When in doubt, ask your Storyteller if you'll be disqualified before you take the action instead of doing it and then trying to argue your way back to safety.
Every now and then, players like to play a game called Let's Try to Circumvent the Safeguards on the Guardian Purview. We're not really sure why; it's been made very clear in both our games and on the website that Guardian can't be used to harm anyone or hidden behind if you're in the process of being aggressive, but still sometimes someone just has to test those boundaries. Of course, as the quesetions above illustrate, there are always some grey areas when it comes to what "violence" or "aggression" means in context of Guardian boons, but that's why this blog is here to clear up the confusion!
Firstly, boons that involve directly attacking another person in any way always prevent you from remaining in an Unseen Shield. An "attack" doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to inflict damage; tying someone up, throwing someone across the room, blinding someone with light or making someone fall over unconscious are all attacks, regardless of the fact that they don't technically deal damage. If you're trying to do something that directly restrains a person against their will or deprives them of their basic personal rights in some way, you're still assaulting them and Guardian is still not going to stand for any of your shenanigans. Attempting to snare someone in a Web of Stars would still kick you out of an Unseen Shield's protection, because you're directly taking an aggressive action against someone else, regardless of whether or not the web technically causes them physical pain.
Of course, not every incapacitating boon or knack is disallowed by Guardian; it depends on what you're doing. If it's a passive effect - for example, Lasting Impression, which for negative-Appearance users inflicts Willpower loss and dice penalties - then Guardian will probably give you a pass, because it's not that you're attacking that person but rather that the sight of you is disturbing and they're upset about it. On the other hand, using Paralyzing Confusion on someone to make them fall over gibbering will get you punted out of that protective bubble at light speed, even if you aren't planning to hurt the person you've affected, because you took a direct action designed to incapacitate that person and render them defenseless. Storytellers will probably make their own calls about what is and isn't allowed, but we think it's pretty obvious when something is a generalized or defensive power and when it's an aggressive act that isn't playing nice with Guardian's non-aggression policy. A useful rule of thumb (that doesn't cover everything, but is a good general starting point) is that if it's something you could be charged with a crime for doing if you did it with completely mundane means, Guardian won't let you do it; you won't go to jail for being ugly, but duct-taping someone into submission or intentionally drugging them into having a seizure sure as hell qualifies as assault.
So yes, your web-slinging will leave you vulnerable to retaliation if you go after an enemy. Starfire, which is one of the most dangerous and damage-heavy powers in the game, most definitely will, and it will do it immediately, not ten ticks after you decide to go for it. Your Unseen Shield does not care about the exact tick someone else takes damage; what it cares about is that you're actively taking an action to hurt someone, and the second you start doing that, you're out. Starfire may take ten ticks to actually hurt everyone, but you're spending those ten ticks concentrating your celestial energy to blow it out and kill everyone, so you're already taking a violent action as soon as you start (albeit a slow one). The same goes for every other action in the game; you're out of the shield the moment you start swinging your sword to hit someone, and that goes for all five ticks of your swing, not just the one that actually hits somebody (or misses, as the case may be). Your ass is already being obviously violent, and the Guardian purview doesn't need to wait around to see how successful you are at it.
However, there's good news in the third part of this question for the squishy social characters out there: you can indeed order creatures to attack on your behalf without leaving your protective hamster ball of safety. While ordering a gaggle of Star Beasts or Flameborn Spirits or Jotunblut'd up squirrels to tear your arch-rival apart while you hide behind impenetrable invisible walls certainly qualifies as you being a dick to him, you are not personally actually taking any violent actions, and as long as you don't do anything but give orders, you're home free. It's the creatures that are acting aggressively and are not allowed into your zone of protection. Just be careful about what you may or may not do to help them, because Guardian will not accept "but I was helping my friends so it doesn't count when I hurt others" as a valid reason to not deliver you into the waiting jaws of your enemies.
The point of the Guardian purview is that it is meant to defend and protect, and that's the only thing it's meant to do. It is not meant to give you an advantage in combat or help you hurt anyone in any way, so the second you start trying to use it that way, you're probably doing it wrong. When in doubt, ask your Storyteller if you'll be disqualified before you take the action instead of doing it and then trying to argue your way back to safety.
Lesser Nobility
Question: I'm kinda new to your Scion world, (which I love, keep it up) and maybe I haven't found it yet, but what happened to Baron Samedi? I remember that Vivian was his Scion. Does he no longer exist?
I feel like we've answered this question ninety-something times, but it's always been either in comments on other posts or emails from concerned citizens, neither of which is easy to find with our search function. So here you go, guys, the Baron can have his very own blog post!
Nothing happened to Baron Samedi (okay, well, things happened to him in our games because he has bad taste in friends, but not in the default setting), nor did he somehow spontaneously cease to exist. While we removed him from the playable roster for the Orisha thanks to his comparatively lower Legend rating and lack of mythology, that doesn't mean he somehow disappeared from the universe; there are loads of minor gods in every pantheon who aren't Legend 12, and the fact that they aren't rocking it up on our family trees doesn't mean that they don't exist. Believe me, we would have committed near-genocide of the Dodekatheon minor god corps, not to mention the numberless Babylonians, if we tried to say that no gods of lower Legend exist. They're still in the world and still just as available for players to interact with and learn to love or despise, and as long as they're at least Legend 9, they can even have Scions if they so choose.
Vivian was and is the daughter of the Baron; his removal from the ranks of the Legend 12 also did not cause her to suddenly mysteriously become someone else's Scion or anything like that. In our games, the official assumption is that Baron Samedi is a former Scion of one of the Orisha himself (most likely Eshu, but it could have been any of them) and a minor god who rose to power fairly recently in history after the African diaspora, along with a number of other younger gods who make up the ranks of the American loa that obviously aren't as old as the orisha of Africa. His influence in Haiti and Louisiana still exists just as it does in the real world today, and since lesser gods are just as capable of having Scions as the big ones, Vivian is still his daughter, a success story of a Scion able to eclipse even her parent's importance with a little heartbreak and elbow grease.
The entire point of Scion is to play and hang out in a world where the polytheistic gods are real, and the Baron is still one of them, even if he lacks the roots in ancient Africa and crazy stories of exploits that the rest of his pantheon has. Everyone should still feel free to use him to their hearts' content, as well as any other god that doesn't appear as a Legend 12 heavy hitter on our site but is still an interesting character in mythology.
I feel like we've answered this question ninety-something times, but it's always been either in comments on other posts or emails from concerned citizens, neither of which is easy to find with our search function. So here you go, guys, the Baron can have his very own blog post!
Nothing happened to Baron Samedi (okay, well, things happened to him in our games because he has bad taste in friends, but not in the default setting), nor did he somehow spontaneously cease to exist. While we removed him from the playable roster for the Orisha thanks to his comparatively lower Legend rating and lack of mythology, that doesn't mean he somehow disappeared from the universe; there are loads of minor gods in every pantheon who aren't Legend 12, and the fact that they aren't rocking it up on our family trees doesn't mean that they don't exist. Believe me, we would have committed near-genocide of the Dodekatheon minor god corps, not to mention the numberless Babylonians, if we tried to say that no gods of lower Legend exist. They're still in the world and still just as available for players to interact with and learn to love or despise, and as long as they're at least Legend 9, they can even have Scions if they so choose.
Vivian was and is the daughter of the Baron; his removal from the ranks of the Legend 12 also did not cause her to suddenly mysteriously become someone else's Scion or anything like that. In our games, the official assumption is that Baron Samedi is a former Scion of one of the Orisha himself (most likely Eshu, but it could have been any of them) and a minor god who rose to power fairly recently in history after the African diaspora, along with a number of other younger gods who make up the ranks of the American loa that obviously aren't as old as the orisha of Africa. His influence in Haiti and Louisiana still exists just as it does in the real world today, and since lesser gods are just as capable of having Scions as the big ones, Vivian is still his daughter, a success story of a Scion able to eclipse even her parent's importance with a little heartbreak and elbow grease.
The entire point of Scion is to play and hang out in a world where the polytheistic gods are real, and the Baron is still one of them, even if he lacks the roots in ancient Africa and crazy stories of exploits that the rest of his pantheon has. Everyone should still feel free to use him to their hearts' content, as well as any other god that doesn't appear as a Legend 12 heavy hitter on our site but is still an interesting character in mythology.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Vice Roulette
Question: Can the Heart of Darkness boon be used to reverse Dark Virtues?
Yes, it can! In fact, that's what we've most often seen it used to do in our games; while flipping your friends' Virtues to encourage them to be ridiculous has many situational uses, flipping a Titanspawn creature's Virtues so that it suddenly fundamentally opposes its dark masters is almost always hella useful. When you successfully use Heart of Darkness on a Titanspawn enemy or other entity with Dark Virtues, you suddenly instill new and militant virtues where none existed before:
If you don't think that's amazing, check out the most famous time it was used that way in our games: Vivian and her band were in a Terra Incognita connected to the Drowned Road and were confronted with a daughter of Mami Wata, a powerful Titanspawn enchantress with an eye for conquest. When it became obvious that combat against her hordes of faithful minions was not possible, Vivian marched in front of her and made an impassioned speech about the principles of the Loa and the wrongness of her crusade to pollute the World's waters. She then used Heart of Darkness to turn the Titanspawn's Zealotry into visceral horror and rejection of Mami Wata and the rest of the Titanrealm, and she immediately defected with Vivian to join the Loa and aid their cause. The Loa, who were not about to pass up an opportunity that came knocking with such watery determination, held a pantheon-wide ritual to officially induct her into their ranks and sever her connection from her home Titanrealm.
Of course, everything was not smooth sailing and this event led to some distressing Titan-related problems down the road, especially once Heart of Darkness wore off and they were left with a very confused and conflicted young goddess with some remaining Dark Virtues and some new god-oriented ones that didn't get along. But no large-scale religious conversion is ever easy, after all.
Of course, the boon can also be used on the normal Virtues of Scions, gods and lesser immortals, turning Endurance to Sloth or Vengeance to Forgiveness, which is not only a hilarious party trick but also very useful when someone's berserk Virtues are ruining your life. It's a crapshoot whether it'll come back and bite you in the ass later... but really, that describes Virtues in general anyway.
Yes, it can! In fact, that's what we've most often seen it used to do in our games; while flipping your friends' Virtues to encourage them to be ridiculous has many situational uses, flipping a Titanspawn creature's Virtues so that it suddenly fundamentally opposes its dark masters is almost always hella useful. When you successfully use Heart of Darkness on a Titanspawn enemy or other entity with Dark Virtues, you suddenly instill new and militant virtues where none existed before:
| Dark Virtue | Reversed Virtue |
| Ambition | Apathy |
| Malice | Compassion |
| Rapacity | Asceticism |
| Zealotry | Rejection of the Titans |
If you don't think that's amazing, check out the most famous time it was used that way in our games: Vivian and her band were in a Terra Incognita connected to the Drowned Road and were confronted with a daughter of Mami Wata, a powerful Titanspawn enchantress with an eye for conquest. When it became obvious that combat against her hordes of faithful minions was not possible, Vivian marched in front of her and made an impassioned speech about the principles of the Loa and the wrongness of her crusade to pollute the World's waters. She then used Heart of Darkness to turn the Titanspawn's Zealotry into visceral horror and rejection of Mami Wata and the rest of the Titanrealm, and she immediately defected with Vivian to join the Loa and aid their cause. The Loa, who were not about to pass up an opportunity that came knocking with such watery determination, held a pantheon-wide ritual to officially induct her into their ranks and sever her connection from her home Titanrealm.
Of course, everything was not smooth sailing and this event led to some distressing Titan-related problems down the road, especially once Heart of Darkness wore off and they were left with a very confused and conflicted young goddess with some remaining Dark Virtues and some new god-oriented ones that didn't get along. But no large-scale religious conversion is ever easy, after all.
Of course, the boon can also be used on the normal Virtues of Scions, gods and lesser immortals, turning Endurance to Sloth or Vengeance to Forgiveness, which is not only a hilarious party trick but also very useful when someone's berserk Virtues are ruining your life. It's a crapshoot whether it'll come back and bite you in the ass later... but really, that describes Virtues in general anyway.
Undefensive Strategy
Question: So did you strip Baldur of Guardian because you felt the writers gave it to him only because of the spell of protection put on him by Frigg?
We stripped Baldur of Guardian because we couldn't find a single good reason anywhere in Norse mythology for him to have it. He has absolutely zero Guardian connotations; he doesn't protect or guard anyone or anything (including his own damn self), doesn't act as patron or protector of any items or places, and has nothing at all anywhere to suggest that he might be guarding anything in any way. He leads some armies and fights in some wars, and he's beloved and beautiful and shiny, and he stole his wife from his brother that one time, and he likes to play a game called Stand Around While People Throw Lethal Weapons At Me Until I Die until he dies, but that is it. In fact, he's an extraordinarily bad guardian; the one time he actually does anything helpful for anyone, regenerating the world after Ragnarok, he doesn't show up to do it until basically everybody is already dead anyway.
We think that Frigg's super-potent guardian spell on Baldur might be the reason that the original writers of Scion gave Baldur Guardian; at least, it's as good a guess as any, since we can't think of a good explanation otherwise. They might also have just given him Guardian because it's a happy, heroic purview and Baldur seems like a happy, heroic dude. Scion's kind of all over the place about how it models Baldur's invulnerability anyway; it repeats the story about Frigg's spell, but then instead gives him a custom Stamina knack for some reason even though that doesn't make a lot of sense, and then had to randomly allow the plant and sword versions of mistletoe to damage him in spite of the knack with no system explanation, and so on.
It's all pretty baffling, so we ignore it. Baldur has neither Stamina nor Guardian, and his invulnerability from his mother is easiest explained as an example of Frigg using the Entreat Immunity boon.
We stripped Baldur of Guardian because we couldn't find a single good reason anywhere in Norse mythology for him to have it. He has absolutely zero Guardian connotations; he doesn't protect or guard anyone or anything (including his own damn self), doesn't act as patron or protector of any items or places, and has nothing at all anywhere to suggest that he might be guarding anything in any way. He leads some armies and fights in some wars, and he's beloved and beautiful and shiny, and he stole his wife from his brother that one time, and he likes to play a game called Stand Around While People Throw Lethal Weapons At Me Until I Die until he dies, but that is it. In fact, he's an extraordinarily bad guardian; the one time he actually does anything helpful for anyone, regenerating the world after Ragnarok, he doesn't show up to do it until basically everybody is already dead anyway.
We think that Frigg's super-potent guardian spell on Baldur might be the reason that the original writers of Scion gave Baldur Guardian; at least, it's as good a guess as any, since we can't think of a good explanation otherwise. They might also have just given him Guardian because it's a happy, heroic purview and Baldur seems like a happy, heroic dude. Scion's kind of all over the place about how it models Baldur's invulnerability anyway; it repeats the story about Frigg's spell, but then instead gives him a custom Stamina knack for some reason even though that doesn't make a lot of sense, and then had to randomly allow the plant and sword versions of mistletoe to damage him in spite of the knack with no system explanation, and so on.
It's all pretty baffling, so we ignore it. Baldur has neither Stamina nor Guardian, and his invulnerability from his mother is easiest explained as an example of Frigg using the Entreat Immunity boon.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Bloodrush
It's another solo vlog, but don't despair. We'll get back together someday.
This week, because I'm on my own, I'll be talking about Mesoamerican stuff. Because that's what I do when left alone without supervision!
Question: Why did you strip Fertility, Sky, Water and Epic Intelligence from Quetzalcoatl when his description says he is a god of those things? Should the unspoken understanding that he is those things outweigh tthe fact that there are no stories expressly describing him doing said things?
Question: In comparison between Maya and Aztec culture and myth, which one was more prolific with human sacrifice?
Question: First, I just wanted to say that I love your Maya writeup. Kudos to you guys for your awesome work. I have a question, however, concerning the PSP. For the Unici Chupla, Utzil Keban, Caan Cab and Sucun Palil boons, what are the options for characters who want to embody a "between" state, instead of one or the other (say, a hermaphroditic god, or a character who wants to appear as middle-aged, or a "wise child", etc.)? It sems like those boons don't allow for an in-between.
Question: I have a question regarding the sun and moon among the Maya. Who ultimately controls the sun and moon amongst them: K'inich Ahau and Awilix or the Hero Twins? Both pairs seem to have power over the celestial objects, so I was curious.
By the way, for those who wanted some unnecessarily graphic pictures of Maya autosacrifice, I'm here for you. If you didn't want that, I'm here for you anyway. Sorry.
These people are serious about getting serious.
This week, because I'm on my own, I'll be talking about Mesoamerican stuff. Because that's what I do when left alone without supervision!
Question: Why did you strip Fertility, Sky, Water and Epic Intelligence from Quetzalcoatl when his description says he is a god of those things? Should the unspoken understanding that he is those things outweigh tthe fact that there are no stories expressly describing him doing said things?
Question: In comparison between Maya and Aztec culture and myth, which one was more prolific with human sacrifice?
Question: First, I just wanted to say that I love your Maya writeup. Kudos to you guys for your awesome work. I have a question, however, concerning the PSP. For the Unici Chupla, Utzil Keban, Caan Cab and Sucun Palil boons, what are the options for characters who want to embody a "between" state, instead of one or the other (say, a hermaphroditic god, or a character who wants to appear as middle-aged, or a "wise child", etc.)? It sems like those boons don't allow for an in-between.
Question: I have a question regarding the sun and moon among the Maya. Who ultimately controls the sun and moon amongst them: K'inich Ahau and Awilix or the Hero Twins? Both pairs seem to have power over the celestial objects, so I was curious.
By the way, for those who wanted some unnecessarily graphic pictures of Maya autosacrifice, I'm here for you. If you didn't want that, I'm here for you anyway. Sorry.
These people are serious about getting serious.
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