Question: Did Woody really allow Ymir to rise again?
Yes, he certainly did (as you will see in a story that hopefully makes its way out of half-finished status pretty soon). Don't be too hard on the poor guy; he was in something of a catch-22 situation, thanks to things outside his control, and he chose to give Ymir some power to make sure he could help other people who were important to him. As Folkwardr, he spends a lot of time trying to safeguard against the Titan as well.
It did get an awful lot colder in the World, though. Vala was not amused.
Vala hates the cold right.
ReplyDeleteVala's pretty fragile all around. She has sadly had to be saved from freezing to death on a great number of occasions. Folkwardr's investment in Winter's Mercy has been the only thing between her and hypothermic death pretty frequently, alas.
DeletePssssshhh.... Vala's a prophet! She should've known to dress warmly.....
DeleteIt's the apathy. The terrible, terrible apathy.
DeleteHow can you call Vala frail when she has seven dots of regular stamina and five dots epic stamina? That's like saying someone with high dexterity and epic dexterity constantly trips over there own feet or someone with the same stats in strength is a 98 pound weakling.
ReplyDeleteBecause, compared to everyone else, Vala is easily able to be instantly murdered with almost no effort. Any other member of her band except maybe Folkwardr could one-shot her without trying, and so can enemies who are at the same level of power they are. Vala's got great Stamina for a low- to mid-level Demigod... but she's a God, and she lives in the big leagues now. Any enemy at their level of power can kill her with about as much effort as it takes to sneeze, and any environment that is even remotely dangerous to Legend 9 gods (like, say, a negative-one-hundred-degree Ymir world) will destroy her in the blink of an eye.
DeletePower levels are always relative; Vala may look hardy to a Hero Scion, but she's pathetic for a god. Poor Vala only even got five dots of Epic Stamina at Legend 9; when she was a Demigod, she only had the one. She almost froze to death pretty habitually.
but in return she can hear a fly fart in a hurricane anywhere in the nine worlds, can only be outsmarted by characters like Aoina, and can force almost anyone to do anything she wants. I also note that her epic charisma is fairly good so she sees what she wants accomplished and gets others to do it for her. I also not that her dexterity is the same as her stamina, which means she is able to move like lightning to mortals but only fairly quickly to other beings. What I find confusing is why her wits is so low. By divine standards her thoughts move like molasses in an igloo when (being blind) she can dodge and fairly well. Is she supposed to be like the hero daredevil, with divine sonar bolstered with semi divine grace to help keep her out of danger? Being the seer she is, I would except her thoughts to run a mile a minute to form plans for the visions she sees.
ReplyDeleteAurora has always been one to think a long think. Wit is the realm of comedians, politicians, actors. People who need to come up with an amazing answer very quickly. Geniuses in the realm of intelligence usually have the luxury of taking time to think out giant problems because their brain is so massive. They think of all possibilities and all end roads and that takes time.
DeleteAnd although her dex makes it seem likes she is graceful. She has zero athletics, and so doesnt get her epics on any "grace" type rolls. And because of her strength can only run really fast when she isnt carrying stuff.
Generally she sits in danger and almost dies. Her Dv isnt really high enough to avoid much, and if its a dex athletics roll to avoid she botches. She relies a lot on her band.
Oh, Aurora's awesome at thinking important thoughts, hearing important information and then convincing others to do something with it, but when it comes to physical things, she might as well still be a human. Which is, as you say, a tradeoff - she spent her points on being a mental and social juggernaut, not on any kind of physical abilities.
DeleteIf she didn't have Folkwardr, John and Will throwing themselves in front of her all the time, she'd have died long, long ago. Actually, even if she weren't in physical danger, she'd still have died just from Prophecy overload if she didn't also have Jioni and Yoloxochitl bolstering and healing like pros whenever the visions start coming over her.
Or frozen to death because of Ymir. See, we came full circle!
Also, humanity decided pretty early on that Vala was very smart but not good in crises, so she has a lot of Fatebonds preventing her from really being any good at Wits. Which is not all that abnormal; Jioni and Sowiljr are in the same boat. Someone with both Intelligence and Wits super high is actually pretty rare, we've found in our games - Aiona's the closest we've got, and even she isn't all that great at the Wits half.
DeleteShe still plans for her visions, and in fact usually has a complicated spiderweb with a lot of moving parts going on to try to push events to play out the way she wants them to. She just needs to think about that to do it, instead of being able to come up with it on the spur of the moment.
why do you have her prophecy damage her? It seems like an unneeded and somewhat unfair tack on to the prophecy purview. The book say's nothing about prophecy being harmful to the scion who uses it, though many cultures (notably the Greeks) do equate prophetic visions with madness and note the stress it puts on the oracle. I just think in Scion it would be more deadzone and less delphic oracle.
ReplyDeleteI disagree! I love Prophecy's no-holds-barred mental overload. As you note, many cultures associate that kind of insight and vision of the future with madness, illness, fatigue or even death; that's a legitimate part of world myth, and one we thought was far too cool to ignore just because it's inconvenient for some people. Oracles are famous for being crazy, overloaded people whose bodies often can't handle that much future knowledge, so we changed the Prophecy purview to accommodate this idea. It's not a hidden catch; players know that if they choose Prophecy there's a chance they'll get punched in the brain. So far it hasn't stopped anyone from being excited about the purview.
DeleteIt's also actually not hard to have prophecies that don't hurt you in the slightest; the Prophecy purview only deals you damage if you roll much higher on your Prophecy roll than on your Stamina roll. An oracle with decent Stamina is probably going to be fine most of the time; Vala may fall over and bleed from the brain when she has visions, but that's because she has an extremely powerful brain and all the physical endurance of a dishtowel. Folkwardr, on the other hand, almost never takes any damage from Prophecy, because he's got Stamina to match his brains. At worst, he's occasionally a little tired afterward. Sowiljr walks the fine line in between, where he's usually tired and maybe takes a little bit of damage, but it's never been truly serious.
I'm not sure why you'd think that. The Delphic oracle is part of the very myths that Scion is based on; Dead Zone is just Dead Zone (and even modern depictions of prophecy aren't all fun and games - just look at Angel).