Question: What are the criteria you use to determine whether or not a God gets the Mystery Purview associated? I noticed that in all three of your homebrew pantheons, not a single of the Legend 12 gods has Mystery associated. Additionally, with your changes to associated purviews, four canon pantheons and two homebrew pantheons lack any gods with Prophecy associated as opposed to just one in canon. While myths are core to Scion, shouldn't game balance be considered too?
Actually, two of the homebrewed pantheons have a god with Prophecy: Svantovit of the Bogovi and Shamash and Nanshe of the Anunna. You are correct, though, none of them have Mystery.
Mystery is one of the rarer purviews, and you're right, it's become rarer still since some of our rewrites. Our criteria for Mystery is actually very basic: a god gets it if they have some kind of strong association with knowledge from an unexplainable source. Odin gets it because he gained the runes of knowledge from hanging himself on Yggdrasil. Dionysus gets it because of his in vino veritas and madness-equivalent-to-enlightenment concepts. Damballa gets it because he inspires his followers with sudden occult knowledge from no explainable source, and so on and so forth. Just being very wise or being able to come up with an answer aren't enough for us, because those are things you could do with Epic Intelligence. There has to be a strong component of knowledge from beyond the veil for us to associate a god or goddess with Mystery.
Alas, none of the three pantheons on our downloads page had anybody with Mystery, but that's not overly surprising, since they're just not mysticism-and-smoke kinds of pantheons. Some cultures hold that kind of thing in awe, and some don't; the Elohim are all about some badassery and some kingliness and some deciding the order of the world, but they don't have a lot of interest in arcane knowledge, so none of them ended up with Mystery associated because it's something they just don't do. Similarly, the very earthy Bogovi and the very civic-minded Anunna don't come from religions with any real strong mysticism, mystery or vision traditions or rituals; their religions were practiced and celebrated in different ways and their deities renowned for different things.
Prophecy and Mystery are rare, but that's not really a mistake, I don't think - they're rare in mythology, too, even in cultures wherein they happen in important ways. Prophets and seers are fairly uncommon and usually held in pretty high esteem because of it; even pantheons like the Aesir, which pretty much live and die based on prophecy and are probably the most prophecy-heavy pantheon out there, don't have everyone practicing it simply because it's a skill that only a select few ever master. The cultures that view those things as most important (for Prophecy, the Aesir and Dodekatheon) are the most likely to have them, but there's no reason others, in which even stories involving prophecies are rare, would necessarily have anyone associated with them. I don't have a problem with there being no prophets among the Elohim, because none of the Elohim ever foretell the future, just like I have no problem with there being no Chaos god among the incredibly order-focused Yazata or no problem with there being no Frost god among the desert-dwelling Aztlanti.
(I feel compelled at this point to note that we're not done with associated overhauls yet, though - the Aztlanti, Amatsukami, Celestial Bureacracy and Loa still haven't had their turn, so a lot of them are subject to change. For example, I'm pretty sure Quetzalcoatl will be getting Prophecy back once we're finished with the Aztec gods, but sadly we're not quite at the stage where we can post things to the website yet.)
Game balance is very important in Scion, but the spread of associated purviews isn't unbalancing for the game at all in its current form; you will never have every purview represented in every pantheon without shoehorning things in where they don't belong, and I don't think there's any need to. One of the beautiful things about Scion, after all, is that you can pick up whatever purviews you like; you're not stuck with only the things your divine parent does, and while it'd be nice to have them at a reduced XP cost, the discount is not nearly enough to make operating without it unreasonable (especially for Mystery and Prophecy, which don't even have alternate boon levels to buy). The game is not made unplayable for those who want to invest in non-associated purviews; at the very worst, it's made mildly inconvenient in one small dimension. Each pantheon has its own unique flavor, and that's going to show up in its associated spread; I'm not about to use flimsy reasoning to try to claim that some poor Tuatha has Darkness when they don't, or start stripping away Animal associations from the Aztlanti and Pesedjet because they have more of that purview than everybody else. It's not necessary for every pantheon to represent every available association; in fact, it would detract from their unique flavor and make them more of a whitewash, something that we're constantly trying to avoid because (outside of PSP and Virtues) there's already precious little mechanically dividing them. It's reasonable for a pantheon's associations to reflect what the individual gods and the culture as a whole revere and practice in myths, even if that means some purviews won't be represented and others will do double duty.
I recognize that sometimes you have a cool concept and you really want to bring it into play, but nobody in that pantheon has the stats you want most. That can be frustrating. But the XP difference is not huge; it really is not, especially not over time, and I've never had a PC that didn't start buying boons or Epic Attributes that weren't associated by the time they were Legend 5 anyway. Your divine parent's associations are there to illustrate that, as their child, you're predisposed to be good at what they're good at. Not very many gods are good at Prophecy and Mystery, which are traditionally culture-specific rarities that are held in great esteem by the pantheons that have them. That doesn't have to be a bad thing; in fact, becoming the first holder of occult knowledge for a pantheon that has never had one before is a worthy and badass goal for a budding Scion.
I'm surprised you singled out Prophecy and Mystery, to be honest. They're far from the least-represented purviews - at the moment, there are fewer gods with Darkness (10), Frost (5), Illusion (6), Industry (6) or Stars (11) than there are with Prophecy or Mystery (13 and 12, respectively), and they're right on par with other low-population purviews like Chaos or Moon.
I think the bigger issue is canon scion makes it really hard to be yourown guy vs "MiniZeus" but your whole Fatebinding rework solves that problem completely.
ReplyDeleteHowever if you aren't using that(or some method of gaining purviews via gameplay) it becomes really hard to add something new to your story(or lose something you have little connection to). Its not just 1 or 2 dots of xp that's the situation, at Demigod you can channel stuff without relics, and you need to hit full on God 12 to do that with nonfavored boons for example. I know there's afew other minor things like that.
Because we dont use those rules at all Im not gonna run and get the books to double check myself. But you really can only channel without relics if its associated? That seems asinine. If its true, itd be one of the first rules I cut.
DeleteIt is, it really is. And something can only become associated not if you become a god but god 12. So all you minor godlings out there.. no associateds your parents didn't give!
DeleteI don't understand how it's hard to add something to your concept in play. You just go find a Relic or ask a God for one, or hunt down a Trophy. That kinda thing makes for some GREAT stories. My players'll tell ya!
DeleteSo far none of them have bothered to ask about channeling a Boon without a Relic; they carry their Relics with them and mostly don't have any problems with it. It seems fairly elegant to me, though. At Hero, you need 100% your Relics 100% of the time. At Demigod, you only need your un-Associated Relics 100% of the time. At God, you don't NEED any of your Relics all the time and only when you're using Un-Associated things do you need 'em at all.
Seems fairly straightforward.
I still think its doable, but your parents associated's mattering to whether or not you need a relic at demigod or god seems stupid. Especially at god, it just doesnt make sense. You are your own person by then, why does whether or not you need an item to use your massive god powers determined by what powers your parent is good at?
DeleteOh, I agree THAT doesn't make sense. Which is why I strip all parental Associations and Favorings away from PC's at Godhood. I also give them one Attribute and one Purview at Godhood, then another for each Legend bump after that, until they start forming their own naturally via Ultimates and Avatars.
DeleteBut as a Demigod, you're still under the auspices of your parent, so their Associations still rule you. I can groove on that.
getting purview's different from most of your pantheon can also make an interesting storyline as well as an interesting new place in the divine order. An atzlanti Scion who picks up frost and becomes the first god of cold among the pantheon can make an interesting place for themselves. Also I think you meant jungle-dwelling atzlanti.
ReplyDeleteShould've said semi-arid-highland-dwelling Aztlanti, really - Tenochtitlan and surrounding area are mostly scrublands and normal trees and vegetation, though the empire does include both desert and tropical areas. It's the Maya over toward the Yucatan that live in and around the jungles. :)
DeleteBut yes, being the first to do something in a pantheon is super cool!
especially if you're the first to bring snow storms to the desert, or you could be the god of the frigid desert night. And you're right, I was seeing the Mayans when you were talking about Aztec.
Delete