Question: When you go through the different pantheons, what do you look at to decide what Legend a god is at? What makes the difference between a Legend 9 or 10 god and a god of Legend 11 or 12?
Hey, just a quick pretend blog post to let you know we saw this question! It's come up many times before, but here's the quick answer:
1) Myths and stories of their exploits and deeds
2) Associated powers and famous abilities
3) Cult presence and popular worship by humanity
For a more in-depth and detailed look at our process, check out these old posts about it here and here.
If y'all want to discuss it again, feel free to do so up here so more people see it.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Beneath the Aegis
Question: How would/have you handled the Aegis in your games? I think the Demigod book's idea of “stick a gorgon's head on a thing and get some agg soak” was pretty poor, considering Zeus himself used the thing and both Homer and Virgil describe it in pretty fancy terms.
While we do pick on Demigod a lot around here, I wouldn't necessarily consider the gorgon-head trophy and suggestions for building an aegis on page 262 one of its real faults. It seems pretty clear to me that the writers there are talking about allowing Scions to use their trophies to create smaller "aegises" of their own, not suggesting that the Aegis of the Olympians, created from the flesh and skin of various mythical monsters and forged at Hephaestus' hearth, should be handled the same way.
As for the capital-A Aegis itself, it has occasionally appeared in our games when Athena's around, but it's undoubtedly one of the gigantic multi-star-level relics of Greek mythology. It would take us a while to try to stat it out, so we're not going to give you a full rundown of exactly what it should do or be. It's definitely an incredibly potent defensive relic, but its exact form depends on a Storyteller's decision, since there are many different interpretations of what it is - a shield, a garment, a breastplate and so on - and where it came from, the most popular options being the skin of Amalthea, the hide of a great dragon slain by Athena, or the skin of the Titan Pallas, in all cases with the head of Medusa later added.
Like Zeus' thunderbolts or Aphrodite's girdle, this is one of those relics that is insanely high-powered and well above anything any Scion's going to be able to aspire to until he's established himself as major Legend 12 god in his own right. We haven't done a full workup on it, but you can check out the section at the end of our Reliquary for examples of what relics of that power scale generally look like. If you're Storytelling a game, things like the Aegis, Mjolnir or Ruyi Jingu Bang are more plot devices than things you need to have exact stats roughed out for unless your PCs are actually going to battle against the god in question.
John says he'd be willing to do a full writeup on the Aegis some time in the future, probably if we ever do another Reliquary-style project, but we're so deep in the heart of Africa at the moment that I don't think we're getting out any time soon.
While we do pick on Demigod a lot around here, I wouldn't necessarily consider the gorgon-head trophy and suggestions for building an aegis on page 262 one of its real faults. It seems pretty clear to me that the writers there are talking about allowing Scions to use their trophies to create smaller "aegises" of their own, not suggesting that the Aegis of the Olympians, created from the flesh and skin of various mythical monsters and forged at Hephaestus' hearth, should be handled the same way.
As for the capital-A Aegis itself, it has occasionally appeared in our games when Athena's around, but it's undoubtedly one of the gigantic multi-star-level relics of Greek mythology. It would take us a while to try to stat it out, so we're not going to give you a full rundown of exactly what it should do or be. It's definitely an incredibly potent defensive relic, but its exact form depends on a Storyteller's decision, since there are many different interpretations of what it is - a shield, a garment, a breastplate and so on - and where it came from, the most popular options being the skin of Amalthea, the hide of a great dragon slain by Athena, or the skin of the Titan Pallas, in all cases with the head of Medusa later added.
Like Zeus' thunderbolts or Aphrodite's girdle, this is one of those relics that is insanely high-powered and well above anything any Scion's going to be able to aspire to until he's established himself as major Legend 12 god in his own right. We haven't done a full workup on it, but you can check out the section at the end of our Reliquary for examples of what relics of that power scale generally look like. If you're Storytelling a game, things like the Aegis, Mjolnir or Ruyi Jingu Bang are more plot devices than things you need to have exact stats roughed out for unless your PCs are actually going to battle against the god in question.
John says he'd be willing to do a full writeup on the Aegis some time in the future, probably if we ever do another Reliquary-style project, but we're so deep in the heart of Africa at the moment that I don't think we're getting out any time soon.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Dark Side of the Moon
Question: How does Mani treat Hjuki and Bil? His page says that he considers humans to be no more than flies, yet he keeps two children in his home. He would also be upset if you took them away from him. Does the Man in the Moon have any paternal feelings for his sidekicks?
Hjuki and Bil, if they were once human, are definitely not human anymore. They're incredibly old and have been cohabiting with a Titan Avatar since time immemorial; it's not possible for them to remain true mortals, and indeed Bil is actually mentioned elsewhere in the Norse sagas as a goddess in her own right, though of what remains a mystery. It's likely that, if they once were human, Mani or others he bullied into it long ago shaped and altered them into something more suiting his purposes.
Of course, the real question is what those purposes are, and the answer is that nobody knows. The Prose Edda relates the story of Mani snatching the children from the world to accompany him through the heavens, but it does not mention why, nor what might have motivated him to choose these children and not any others. It's likely that they represent the dark spots on the moon, but why Mani would want those is difficult to say. If they really have some power over shadow or darkness, they might be helpful to him in attempting to hide from or avoid Hati, his wolfish adversary. It might be a clue that the well they were drawing water from when he snatched them is named Byrgir, literally "that which hides", which might suggest again that they can help him try to escape being eaten. Or, perhaps, that they have some hidden wisdom or secret from the well, which would fit in nicely with the general treatment of magic wells across Norse myth.
Bil being referred to as a goddess might also suggest that the two were deities, not mortals, before their kidnapping, and that Mani perhaps holds them as hostages or emissaries for the rest of the Aesir. Another interesting possibility is that they might have been ancient Scions, allowing them to be both human and eventually divine, and of course begging the question of whose children they were and why Mani stole them away (perhaps they're some of those elusive lost Vanir?). In the same vein, you could even say that they might have been Titanspawn children of Mani himself, in which case it would make perfect sense for him to have paternal feelings toward them (or, at any rate, as paternal an attitude as most Titans can have).
As with many things in Norse mythology, we know that Hjuki and Bil exist and we know what they do, but much of their background is shrouded in mystery. There's plenty of room for a Storyteller to play with where they came from and what their motivations might be; exercise that creativity!
Hjuki and Bil, if they were once human, are definitely not human anymore. They're incredibly old and have been cohabiting with a Titan Avatar since time immemorial; it's not possible for them to remain true mortals, and indeed Bil is actually mentioned elsewhere in the Norse sagas as a goddess in her own right, though of what remains a mystery. It's likely that, if they once were human, Mani or others he bullied into it long ago shaped and altered them into something more suiting his purposes.
Of course, the real question is what those purposes are, and the answer is that nobody knows. The Prose Edda relates the story of Mani snatching the children from the world to accompany him through the heavens, but it does not mention why, nor what might have motivated him to choose these children and not any others. It's likely that they represent the dark spots on the moon, but why Mani would want those is difficult to say. If they really have some power over shadow or darkness, they might be helpful to him in attempting to hide from or avoid Hati, his wolfish adversary. It might be a clue that the well they were drawing water from when he snatched them is named Byrgir, literally "that which hides", which might suggest again that they can help him try to escape being eaten. Or, perhaps, that they have some hidden wisdom or secret from the well, which would fit in nicely with the general treatment of magic wells across Norse myth.
Bil being referred to as a goddess might also suggest that the two were deities, not mortals, before their kidnapping, and that Mani perhaps holds them as hostages or emissaries for the rest of the Aesir. Another interesting possibility is that they might have been ancient Scions, allowing them to be both human and eventually divine, and of course begging the question of whose children they were and why Mani stole them away (perhaps they're some of those elusive lost Vanir?). In the same vein, you could even say that they might have been Titanspawn children of Mani himself, in which case it would make perfect sense for him to have paternal feelings toward them (or, at any rate, as paternal an attitude as most Titans can have).
As with many things in Norse mythology, we know that Hjuki and Bil exist and we know what they do, but much of their background is shrouded in mystery. There's plenty of room for a Storyteller to play with where they came from and what their motivations might be; exercise that creativity!
The Flowchart of Our Discontent
This is useful for pretty much all cultures. Dont get stuck in the classic traps!
Treason and Plot
Question: So I read in your fiction that Mixcoatl betrayed the Aztlanti and became a Titan. So why did he turn right then? Was it because doing it before the Titans escaped from Tartarus would have been suicidal?
The episode in which Mixcoatl begins his concerted assault on the Aztlanti appears in the story Drums of War, in which Sangria responds to her father's call to arms while Geoff is off learning uncomfortable truths about his Norse brethren. While we have had gods go Titan during game - Danu was one, since we already had a Scion of hers in play - Mixcoatl actually isn't one of them.
Mixcoatl was already a Titan in our game, and was locked in Tartarus with the rest of them. Why that was the exact moment that he fully roared back to ruin the Aztlanti's day is unclear; maybe he was late getting out of the prison, or maybe he was gathering his power and recruiting allies before making a head-on assault on the pantheon; Quetzalcoatl had recently been severely injured in an altercation with the Amatsukami and was mostly out of commission at this time, meaning that he wouldn't have been available to run interference between his father and his people. Whatever the reason, Huitzilopochtli and the rest of the pantheon were not surprised by Mixcoatl's attack. They had to have been expecting it to happen fairly soon after the sundering of Tartarus, and they weren't wrong.
Sangria and Huitzilopochtli both refer to Mixcoatl as a traitor because, from their point of view, he is the definition of one. He's Aztlanti by blood, the father of several of its gods and the maintainer of part of its universe, yet he is choosing to break every bond of sacred loyalty and duty to assault his own people and destroy the world they maintain. He is and always will be a traitor in their eyes.
Prior to Mixcoatl charging in to lay seige to Acopa, the Aztlanti were primarily trying to deal with Coatlicue, who was not being overtly dangerous enough for anyone to get away with hurting her for fear of being murdered by Huitzilopochtli, but who was also laying the groundwork to severely damage them in the future. With the all-out assault from the stars, however, almost all of the Aztlanti efforts have been turned to the war in the heavens.
The episode in which Mixcoatl begins his concerted assault on the Aztlanti appears in the story Drums of War, in which Sangria responds to her father's call to arms while Geoff is off learning uncomfortable truths about his Norse brethren. While we have had gods go Titan during game - Danu was one, since we already had a Scion of hers in play - Mixcoatl actually isn't one of them.
Mixcoatl was already a Titan in our game, and was locked in Tartarus with the rest of them. Why that was the exact moment that he fully roared back to ruin the Aztlanti's day is unclear; maybe he was late getting out of the prison, or maybe he was gathering his power and recruiting allies before making a head-on assault on the pantheon; Quetzalcoatl had recently been severely injured in an altercation with the Amatsukami and was mostly out of commission at this time, meaning that he wouldn't have been available to run interference between his father and his people. Whatever the reason, Huitzilopochtli and the rest of the pantheon were not surprised by Mixcoatl's attack. They had to have been expecting it to happen fairly soon after the sundering of Tartarus, and they weren't wrong.
Sangria and Huitzilopochtli both refer to Mixcoatl as a traitor because, from their point of view, he is the definition of one. He's Aztlanti by blood, the father of several of its gods and the maintainer of part of its universe, yet he is choosing to break every bond of sacred loyalty and duty to assault his own people and destroy the world they maintain. He is and always will be a traitor in their eyes.
Prior to Mixcoatl charging in to lay seige to Acopa, the Aztlanti were primarily trying to deal with Coatlicue, who was not being overtly dangerous enough for anyone to get away with hurting her for fear of being murdered by Huitzilopochtli, but who was also laying the groundwork to severely damage them in the future. With the all-out assault from the stars, however, almost all of the Aztlanti efforts have been turned to the war in the heavens.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Powerleveling
Question: I've noticed that in your character sheets you have a place to record the 'level' of a character's purview. What purpose does that serve? Do you, perhaps, use one of the many homebrew rules I've found on the net where characters use their purview level instead of Attributes to use Boons? And if you don't use this system, what are your views on it?
We don't use that system, but we do occasionally use purview levels for various things. While the total number of boons a character possesses in a given purview is a more common mechanic for things we write, the level of the purview also makes fairly frequent appearances where it makes sense for it to. For example, the Fool Me Once... Perception knack directly pits the Scion's level of Epic Perception against his opponent's level of Illusion, and the Me purview uses purview level as a control to make sure that the purview is only used when it's at an equivalent level of power. You'll see things here and there that depend on the level of the purview; it's a helpful mechanic for situations in which we want a player's investment in a purview to matter, but don't need the variable number of boons to be a factor.
We also use the level of purview for a few basic mechanics; for example, Scions with elemental purviews who have at least level 8 or higher are able to ignore the immunity boons of those who don't, so that a Scion who has clawed their way up to Control Fire isn't automatically defanged by someone else who only has Fire Immunity. Your purview level also matters when it comes to looking at whether you're ready to move up in Legend; someone who doesn't have any max-level purviews is probably not skillset-ready to move on.
As for the system of replacing Attribute-based boon rolls with the level of the purview, that is indeed a common houserule for several games around the web. We don't use it, but we understand why some people do: divorcing the purviews from the Attributes allows players to invest in a purview without worrying about also buying the Attributes that go with it, allowing them to be good at Water without having to buy anything else to shore that up. It's a neat solution for those who don't like having to invest in more than one thing to make their powerset work.
We prefer to keep Attributes and purviews together, because we like the interplay between them and think it makes for a richer, more complex game. It makes sense for Attributes to play a part in purviews, whether it's because you need a decent amount of Charisma to command your magical troops, a good deal of Intelligence to comprehend the inner workings of a divine being's systems or a heavy dollop of Manipulation to convince others that they're not seeing what they think they're seeing. We like to keep purviews diversified enough that, while there are certainly probably a couple of Attributes that are leaned on heavily (Stamina for Guardian, Manipulation for Illusion and so on), no purview uses only one or two attributes exclusively and every one has room for characters of various different types to be good at at least some of its powers without too much hassle. Our Fatebond system, which heftily rewards those who are good at a given purview, also helps boost those who are good at the purview but not necessarily at the Attributes involved in a given boon. We're also big fans of letting Scions who earn them pick up relics and Birthrights that help enhance their purviews of choice, which often makes a big difference depending on what they're doing.
Honestly, the purview-level epics system bores us; it puts everyone with that purview automatically on a level playing field, and ignores the fact that some War gods are probably better at X kind of War boons that other gods who specialize in Y. Keeping Attributes involved allows those kinds of differences within the purview to be manifest, with both gods obviously being badass masters of their domain but expressing it in different ways, and we enjoy that.
So if you goal is for all Fertility gods to be exactly as good at Fertility as all other Fertility gods, the boon system will probably work awesomely for you. But we like the system more diversified than that, and we like encouraging players to think about how various facets of themselves play off of and enhance one another, so we prefer to keep the Attribute roll system and help individual players find the best way for them to shine in it.
We don't use that system, but we do occasionally use purview levels for various things. While the total number of boons a character possesses in a given purview is a more common mechanic for things we write, the level of the purview also makes fairly frequent appearances where it makes sense for it to. For example, the Fool Me Once... Perception knack directly pits the Scion's level of Epic Perception against his opponent's level of Illusion, and the Me purview uses purview level as a control to make sure that the purview is only used when it's at an equivalent level of power. You'll see things here and there that depend on the level of the purview; it's a helpful mechanic for situations in which we want a player's investment in a purview to matter, but don't need the variable number of boons to be a factor.
We also use the level of purview for a few basic mechanics; for example, Scions with elemental purviews who have at least level 8 or higher are able to ignore the immunity boons of those who don't, so that a Scion who has clawed their way up to Control Fire isn't automatically defanged by someone else who only has Fire Immunity. Your purview level also matters when it comes to looking at whether you're ready to move up in Legend; someone who doesn't have any max-level purviews is probably not skillset-ready to move on.
As for the system of replacing Attribute-based boon rolls with the level of the purview, that is indeed a common houserule for several games around the web. We don't use it, but we understand why some people do: divorcing the purviews from the Attributes allows players to invest in a purview without worrying about also buying the Attributes that go with it, allowing them to be good at Water without having to buy anything else to shore that up. It's a neat solution for those who don't like having to invest in more than one thing to make their powerset work.
We prefer to keep Attributes and purviews together, because we like the interplay between them and think it makes for a richer, more complex game. It makes sense for Attributes to play a part in purviews, whether it's because you need a decent amount of Charisma to command your magical troops, a good deal of Intelligence to comprehend the inner workings of a divine being's systems or a heavy dollop of Manipulation to convince others that they're not seeing what they think they're seeing. We like to keep purviews diversified enough that, while there are certainly probably a couple of Attributes that are leaned on heavily (Stamina for Guardian, Manipulation for Illusion and so on), no purview uses only one or two attributes exclusively and every one has room for characters of various different types to be good at at least some of its powers without too much hassle. Our Fatebond system, which heftily rewards those who are good at a given purview, also helps boost those who are good at the purview but not necessarily at the Attributes involved in a given boon. We're also big fans of letting Scions who earn them pick up relics and Birthrights that help enhance their purviews of choice, which often makes a big difference depending on what they're doing.
Honestly, the purview-level epics system bores us; it puts everyone with that purview automatically on a level playing field, and ignores the fact that some War gods are probably better at X kind of War boons that other gods who specialize in Y. Keeping Attributes involved allows those kinds of differences within the purview to be manifest, with both gods obviously being badass masters of their domain but expressing it in different ways, and we enjoy that.
So if you goal is for all Fertility gods to be exactly as good at Fertility as all other Fertility gods, the boon system will probably work awesomely for you. But we like the system more diversified than that, and we like encouraging players to think about how various facets of themselves play off of and enhance one another, so we prefer to keep the Attribute roll system and help individual players find the best way for them to shine in it.
Sadface!
Hey, everybody!
We're aware that the main site is down. We're not sure why, and it looks like our hoster's entire network is down at the moment, so we aren't able to get through to them. Hopefully it's just a temporary power outage or server move, but we'll keep you posted when we know more.
In the meantime, we'll keep on blogging and shaking our little fists at them.
EDIT: And we're back up! Woohoo!
We're aware that the main site is down. We're not sure why, and it looks like our hoster's entire network is down at the moment, so we aren't able to get through to them. Hopefully it's just a temporary power outage or server move, but we'll keep you posted when we know more.
In the meantime, we'll keep on blogging and shaking our little fists at them.
EDIT: And we're back up! Woohoo!
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