Let Me Hear Some Soul

Question: Do you think that Heku practitioners could extend their influence over soul anatomy to messing with other pantheons' ideas of the soul? Say, for example, manipulating a Teotl Scion's nahualli?

You're getting here into some very dangerous waters, where the deep, deep seas of Comparative Mythology and Game Mechanics meet and become choppy.

The answer to this is no, for a few different reasons. The major problem with this, from a game-balance perspective, is that that would automatically make Heku very, very overpowered. Many different pantheons and cultures have different ideas of what the soul is and ways that that could be expressed in Scion, from things that happen in their PSPs to custom Birthrights to interactions with their pantheons or lesser immortals, and since they're not all the same, it would require a pretty hoss set of powers with carefully-delineated effects to find good ways to interact with all of them. Heku is way not equipped to do all of that, and furthermore it would severely penalize people in other pantheons just for getting in touch with those things - if they have to voluntarily put a lot of time/effort/Birthright points into even getting that thing, and then the Heku guy can just fuck with it, why would they both doing that instead of getting some other relic that nobody would get to unfairly screw around with? What about cultures where the soul and its disposition is being handled primarily by APPs - is the guy with Heku just royally cheating people with the Death purview, too? Where are you drawing the line on what a "soul" is and what powers can and can't affect it?

So game balance is obviously an issue here. But, more importantly (at least in my opinion!), Heku is specifically designed to work with the Egyptian idea of the soul. Egyptian deities and religion believe in that idea of the soul, and interact with the soul that way; as we say every time we talk about comparative religion, it's their mythological truth. But it's not the mythological truth of other pantheons that have entirely different conceptions of soul, which vary widely and are often totally incompatible, and it doesn't make sense for the Egyptian "truth" to intrude on, for example, the Aztec "truth" and invalidate it. From the Aztec perspective, the twin-soul nahualli is the truth of how souls are put together, and it's the Netjer who have some weird exotic theory, so why do the Netjer get to impose their truth on other pantheons, when the same is not true in reverse? It's true that the Netjer have powers over the manifold soul of Egyptian mythology, but that doesn't necessarily translate to having power over everyone's soul ever across the universe, just as an Orisha Scion's control over her own destiny doesn't necessarily mean that she gets to invalidate every other culture's notions of Fate that don't match up to hers.

This is a place where, because All Myths Are True in Scion, you need to decide how it can be true that the Egyptians believe that everyone has an eight-part multi-soul but the Aztecs believe that everyone has a dual-animal soul but the Inuit believe that everyone has a triple soul of which one is the quality of breath that keeps them alive, and so on and so forth. All of them are true, but they cannot intrude on and make one another untrue without breaking the game. One answer might be that because the Egyptians have the power of Heku, they can interact with their own souls (and to a limited extent the souls of others) in the context of the eight-part Egyptian soul, but that that's a characteristic of their PSP, not a universal truth of how souls work. Another might be to say that everyone within the Egyptian religion's range has the multi-soul - after all, they all want to be mummified so their various soul parts head off to the afterlife correctly, right? - but that this only applies to Egyptian people and not to anyone else. Yet another option might be to say that all people everywhere have all the different cultural conceptions of souls, at once, and it doesn't matter because it only comes into question when someone has a set of powers that specifically affect one of those setups. Or maybe you have yet another idea for reconciling all these things that works better for you. I don't know, because I don't run your game.

But I do know that every culture's religious ideas of souls must be equally valid for Scion's universe to function without one pantheon being "better" or "more important" than the others, so while you can have powers like Heku interact with other people in some senses, you can never have them override another culture's conception of how things work. Heku and nahualli are both concepts that work with the soul, but they're not the same and it would be very difficult to find a way to make sure that not only those two interact in a balanced way, but that every kind of soul expression in the entire game does, too.

At any rate, Heku does not affect either other peoples' Birthrights or their PSPs, so no matter what way you run nahualli, the powers of Heku shouldn't be applying to them. Both are cultural expressions of a pantheon's religious idea of the soul, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're the same or compatible, or that trying to make them so would be good for the game.

Five Cycles Later... This Question Is Still Being Asked

Question: What does Five-Cycle Conjunction actually do, in terms of mechanics? Does it allow you to roll your total numbers of boons from another purview where possible, or is it mainly a visual effect?

Nope. It does nothing. Like, literally nothing. There's an old post about it here - basically, the only thing it does is pretend that some of your boons are hybrids of two purviews, and the only reason that matters is that it defends against Yin-Yang Destruction, a different Taiyi boon that blocks boons from a single purview. We haven't gotten to rewriting the Shen and Taiyi, so unfortunately it still does what it did in the original books. Which, again, was basically nothing.

However, if you happen to be running a game right now that is using Taiyi, we would say that something along the lines of letting you count the boons in both purviews toward boon totals, when using our boons where boon totals matter, is a good place to start. We haven't tested that so we couldn't say if it's power-balanced or not, but you can always give it a spin and let us know!

Lazzzzers

Question: Are purview lasers now restricted to the Inue with their 6-dot boon?

Nope. If you check out the "Ready, Aim, Fire!" sidebar on page 10 of the supplement, right next to said six-dot boon, you'll see that it suggests using purview lasers for everybody and offers a suggestion for how to implement doing so alongside Inue Scions using Qipanniq.

We use "purview lasers" in our games, but they aren't a feature of the original system, and as we have frequently noted, the pantheon PDFs are designed to be compatible with the original system for those who might still be using it.

Heart of Flame

Question: I really like the Inue supplement, so thanks again for all your work on that. The first PSP boon replaces Conviction with an "elemental" Virtue, which compels the Scion to promote and protect the "principle" of the selected element, leaving him or her with "Fire Virtue" or "Moon Virtue." Could you explain what this means, exactly? Would someone with "Fire Virtue" become a pyromaniac who prevents firefighters from doing their job and who starts forest fires just because? And how would Stars work?

Question: Hi! I finished the Inue and read about their purview, which is really interesting. The problem is, I do not know how you can act out a Virtue that responds to an element. Is it still possible to roleplay it - for example, Fire = being passionate and expressive?

We talked about this a little bit in the comments when the Inue were first released, but since it's a new kind of thing, we thought a post about it might be helpful for everyone. And since we've talked in depth about what the normal set of Virtues do, it seems only fair to address these.

In answer to the second question, no, the purview Virtues from Inue cannot be "interpreted" or "stunted" into abstract concepts. Having the Fire Virtue means that you are all about protecting and promoting fire, as in the element, not theoretical ideas that are poetically associated with fire. Being passionate and expressive is the Expression Virtue; there would be no need to create a second Virtue that does the same thing.

Instead, these Virtues are specifically geared toward the preservation, support, encouragement and natural domination of the elements or heavenly bodies they are tied to. You are compelled to act in the best interests of your chosen purview's concept at all times, meaning that you want it to flourish and act the way it wants to, and that you are opposed to people who want to thwart, pollute or mismanage it. If it helps, you could think of them as a little bit like having Conviction that applies only to that specific thing - you have Conviction that urges you to always take action to protect Water, or Conviction that specifically only wants you to support the Sun.

Since we know they can be a little hard to conceptualize, especially for the purviews related to heavenly bodies which are less straightforward than the elemental ones, here's a Virtue-by-Virtue breakdown of guidelines for how to handle each one.

• Animal. A Scion with the Animal Virtue has an innate drive to protect, care for and crusade for animals in everything she does, specifically her chosen totem animal. She wants to encourage the natural safety and spread of the animal and therefore wants it to be free of hunting or harvesting by humans and wants its habitat to be safeguarded and spread, usually beyond what it has now - she cares more about these animals having safe and optimal lives than humans, in many cases. She can and will want to stop people from hurting or killing the animals, even if humans need to do so to survive (such as needing the animals for meat or needing to kill them to prevent them from attacking them), which can often be difficult in wilderness areas where humanity and animals are in direct conflict. Scions with the Animal Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they hurt, confine or upset an animal (or allow others to do so, such as allowing someone to kill an animal for food or allowing an animal to be kept in a zoo that treats it poorly), attempt or allow destruction of their natural habitat or needs in a way that will cause them difficulty or danger in the future, or participate in any action that forces animals to become subservient or unhappy thanks to outside dangers.
• Darkness. A Scion with the Darkness Virtue is aligned with the forces of night and shadow, opposed to illumination and invested in the darkness as an important part of the natural world. He wants to keep places and creatures in the dark, especially those that naturally live in shadow, and needs to blot out bright lights and provide safely dark areas whenever he can, and he is especially the champion of creatures, people or activities that are more common in the dark or require shadow to survive. And, of course, he can't help but want to have and use as many Darkness boons as possible. Scions with the Darkness Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they try to provide or allow any kind of light in a previously dark place, escape the darkness instead of conducting business and pleasure within it when possible, or in any way participate in the institution of light where things should naturally be dark.
• Earth. A Scion with the Earth Virtue is the champion of soil, stone and all other natural bones of the earth. She is inclined toward dedication to the earth's maintenance and well-being, and wants to ensure that the soil isn't disturbed unnecessarily, that it is treated properly by farmers and casual travelers alike, and that it remains unspoiled and capable of whatever life-bearing or chemical properties it is meant to have. Scions with the Earth Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they do not prevent pollution or massive destruction or upheaval of the earth by unnatural means, if they do not educate others on the proper use and care of the earth they administer, or if they allow or participate in the abuse of earthen resources in strip mines, chemical dumps or similar operations.
• Fertility. A Scion with the Fertility Virtue protects and nurtures plant life in all its forms, wherever and whenever he encounters it. He is the guardian of the natural cycles of vegetable life, and is motivated to make sure that plants are respected by humanity, that natural preserves remain lush and indisturbed, that plant resources are used responsibly and that the ecosystem of the local flora remains balanced and thriving. Scions with the Fertility Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they allow destruction of healthy plants, fail to correct imbalances in plant life in a given environment, or ever prioritize human needs (such as food or clothing) above the needs of the natural world of green and growing things. To the Scion with this Virtue, a mighty tree being allowed to live out its life in peace is more important than a human family being able to survive the cold night by cutting it up for firewood.
• Fire. A Scion with the Fire Virtue prioritizes flame over all other natural elements, and seeks to allow its spread and prevent its smothering wherever possible. As such, it is one of the most dangerous Virtues in terms of accidentally endangering others. People with the Fire Virtue want to have and use Fire boons, to set fires in receptive areas (for constructive purposes, such as clearing brush or hurting enemies, as often as destructive ones), to prevent fires from being put out or restricted and to encourage the use of fire for whatever uses it might be applied to, including warmth, cooking, cauterization or anything else that humanity might use it for. They often suffer from temptation to set fires even when doing so might be detrimental to the local environment, especially if confronted with very flammable material or easy access to do so. Scions with the Fire Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they try to put out fires, prevent the spread of fires, discourage others from setting or feeding fires, or otherwise inhibit the element's natural action.
• Frost. A Scion with the Frost Virtue is allied with the forces of cold, winter and the frozen elements of ice and snow, and must act accordingly. She wants to encourage creatures to survive - or not - in frozen locations in such a way that they do not alter the cold environment itself, believes in the helpful properties of freezing for purposes of preservation and renewal, and always tries to uphold the cold as an important part of the natural order rather than giving in to the human desire for warmth. A Scion with the Frost Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if she allows or creates any kind of heat that significantly raises the temperature of a cold location, fails to campaign against things that threaten frozen natural areas (such as global warming or thermal mining), or allows the melting of ice or snow for any purpose.
• Moon. A Scion with the Moon Virtue loves the silver disc of the night skies and does everything in his power to respect it and make it continuingly relevant and important to life on earth. He tends to want to be able to see the moon whenever it is out, making it difficult for him to stay inside at night (or even during the day, if it's out), and wants to encourage others to study, venerate and respect it as the important celestial body it is. Scions with the Moon Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they encourage or allow airborn pollution that obscures the moon, allow others to remain disrespectful or ignorant about it, allow space technology that might damage or deface it or inhibit technology dedicated to studying and celebrating it. This extends also to artistic representations of the moon, or literature related to understanding and promoting the moon, both of which the Scion is motivated to encourage and protect. Like the other celestial purviews, the Virtue tied to Moon is a little more difficult to adjudicate for Storytellers, so if something comes up that isn't covered here, use your best judgment as to what constitutes the Scion promoting or protecting the moon in some way.
• Sky. A Scion with the Sky Virtue is the champion of air, sky and wind, a lover of natural storms and calm skies alike, and she campaigns to make sure that they remain safe and pollution-free and that their natural phenomena and inhabitants go unmolested. She tolerates human intrusion into the lofty heavens only when it brings with it no danger or damage to the environment, and is happiest in wide open spaces where she can feel the wind on her face. Scions with the Sky Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they allow any kind of air pollution, acid rain or other related environmental poisoning, tolerate human inventions that invade airspace with detrimental consequences (jet fuel pollution or engines that destroy airborne wildlife), or prevent the natural consequences of storms from affecting the landscape.
• Stars. A Scion with the Stars Virtue wants to promote and dedicate his time to the celestial sphere, specifically the stars and satellites that twinkle in the night skies. He not only wants to ensure that he (and everyone else, when possible) has an unobstructed view of the stars, but also that everyone learns about and respects them, seeks to promote them in art and culture, and appreciates their natural beauty. A Scion with the Stars Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they allow pollution or too many structures that obscure the stars, perpetuate or fail to correct ignorance or disrespect of them, or do not protect or appreciate artwork and study regarding the stars when given the opportunity.
• Sun. A Scion with the Sun Virtue is dedicated to the respect and preservation of the sun, that awesome power that lights the world and warms it from afar, and she will go to great lengths to make sure it is appreciated and protected. She is a proponent of mankind harnessing the power of the sun safely to better the world (i.e., through solar power or related technologies) and wants light to be freely and constantly available to everyone all over the world; and likewise, she is opposed to darkness and wants to illuminate it whenever possible. Scions with the Sun Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if they allow obscurement of the sun's light, tolerate misinformation or destruction regarding the sun or artwork related to it, or destroy any kind of benign sun-related technology.
• Water. A Scion with the Water Virtue is dedicated to the protection of water and marine ecosystems wherever they occur, and to responsible and safe use of them. She doesn't mind humanity using water to drink or cook with in moderate amounts, but she is concerned with making sure that the world's water resources remain clean and that their natural paths and behavior are not diverted. A Scion with the Water Virtue may trigger a Virtue Extremity if she allows or contributes to water pollution, attempts to dry up or divert the natural flow of water, or ever puts the wellbeing of other elements, creatures or natural features above that of oceans, rivers, lakes or other water sources.

We like to think of it a little bit like considering what the Virtue would want if it were a living being - Fire wants to burn, Darkness wants to shroud things in shadow, Stars want to shine and look down on the world below, and so forth. These are not comprehensive; there may be situations that aren't covered here, and your Storyteller will, as always, be the final arbiter of what does and does not fall within a Virtue's scope.

Hopefully that helps out all you would-be Inue Scions out there. The Virtues granted by the Shua purview prioritize the needs, spread and importance of their chosen purview's elements above all other concerns, so just like a Scion with Order cares more about the law than about any reason given for breaking it, no matter how good, a Scion with Fire cares more about flame burning and acting as it naturally does than about anything or -one who might be hurt by its rampage.

Souls that Walk

Question: In your Inue supplement, which Shua purview to does each legend 12 god have? And what happens if any of them have the same one?

We addressed this somewhere in the bucket of comments, but here's a post so people can find it in the future. :) All the lower-Legend gods should have their Shua already detailed in their writeups, but the big fish should go as follows:

Pinga, Nakturiak, Tornarssuk and Tulungersak all probably have Shua for their specific animal totems (so Caribou, Eagles, Polar Bears and Ravens, respectively). They're the rulers of those specific animals and in charge of protecting them from wilderness and disasters as well as making sure that they're available to hunters when needed and thriving as part of the local ecosystem.

Aningat and Seqineq, as the deities of the moon and sun, almost certainly have Shua for their celestial bodies. Aningat controls and embodies the moon, its influence over the human body and the tides, while Seqineq embodies and administers the warmth and light of the northern sun.

Likewise, Sedna and Nunam are the gods of the ocean and the land, and probably have Shua for Water and Earth respectively. Sedna is in charge of many sea animals, but it's really the sea, with all its cold, frightening depths, that she is most associated with and that she can whip into a killing frenzy when angered, and Nunam personifies the earth itself, from which all life is grown and to which it returns. You could make a case for Nunam having Shua (Fertility) instead, considering that she is also the inventor of most plants, but we like the earth connection a little bit more.

And finally, there's Anguta, the hideous psychopomp that nobody likes. He doesn't exactly have a strong connection to any natural phenomena and is definitely the hardest to peg, but we would probably give him Shua (Darkness), based on the purview's connections to fear and misery and Anguta's own practices of terrifying, punishing and hiding souls in the oblivion of his dark house.

In general, two gods having the same Shua shouldn't make a whole lot of difference. Just like you might have more than one god with the same associated purviews in a pantheon, the same Shua doesn't mean there will be conflict; one person with Shua (Water) might have it because they're associated with freshwater lakes, and that doesn't interfere with Sedna as the mistress of the ocean at all. The only way there might be a conflict is if two Inue try to use their level 10 power, Tlam-Shua, to inhabit the same area of their concept, and in that case, we would probably say that both gods roll their total number of boons in the associated purview, and the winner is the one who embodies the area. But since the Inue are fighting a continual battle against the Titans in their homeland, most of the time we don't imagine that issue comes up much; it's much better for two gods to spread out and be able to inhabit (and thus protect) two different areas, rather than stacking up on the same one. We could see it being a problem if both gods were trying to dive into their element to escape something that was about to kill them, and only one could succeed... but hopefully that isn't happening much. That sounds like the worst situation ever.

Shua is about embodying a single element or concept as its very soul; the Inua who does so gives it its power and drive, and can control how strong and effective it is by supporting it or withdrawing her support from it. More than one god can do so without conflicting; after all, the more gods support an element, the more powerful it becomes, so as long as they don't step on one anothers' toes politically, they're probably perfectly happy to have the help.

Fourfold Faces

Question: I don't quite 'get' Tal'ich. I mean, I love the mechanical aspect of it and I think it's a very cool PSP, but while I understand the concept achieving excellence through Arete, gaining power through sacrifice through Itztli, or escaping the bonds of Samsara, I don't understand the cultural and mythological basis of Tal'ich. Could you give me some examples from Mayan myths? And, for the record, you guys do amazing work!

Thank you! We're always glad that someone enjoys the things we do.

Tal'ich is one of the most complex purviews we've ever written; that doesn't necessarily mean that the K'uh are a more complex pantheon than all the others or anything, just that their relationship with themselves and their universe required more fiddly detail to illustrate than some others. The basic concept beneath it is that the Maya gods consistently appear as dual or quadruple aspects of themselves, which handle different duties and carry different symbolic attributes to illustrate this. The K'uh are individuals, but they are also dual and quadruple creatures, many in one at the same time.

Maya myth is a little bit scarce thanks to The Great Spanish Exploding, but we do still have some great examples of this motif being repeated throughout Maya stories and deity personalities. Pauahtun (also called Bacab) often appears in Maya myth as a single figure, especially in his role as the codical God N; however, in the creation myth of the Chilam Balam, there are four Bacabs, which collectively act as earth deities who support the sky and allow it to be thrown into chaos and destroyed when they abandon their post to go gallivanting around the world. Similarly, Chaac appears as a single deity in myths where he brings storms with his lightning axe or fights other gods, but also as four Chaacs in the myth where they collectively break open a mountain to release the maize or the image of the group of them striking the earth with lightning bolts simultaneously as part of a giant lightning storm.

Duality, of role and personality, is yet more common; pairs of gods who are opposing aspects of one another are a common phenomenon among the K'uh, often as married pairs or twins, usually displaying largely similar qualities with a few important difficulties. The Hero Twins are a classic example of this, with the majority of their attributes (cleverness, magic, ball-playing, fertility powers) in common, but one key area in which they're different, in their case that one is the sun deity and the other the moon. Itzamna and Ix Chel are both ancient, primordial creator gods with major control over the natural world, differing mostly in the fact that one is male and the other female; and another step down, Ix Chel and Awilix are related but opposing aspects of the same figure as well, with both representing themes of femininity and power but one old while the other is young. Scholars of Maya mythology have been fascinated by the alternate-aspect theme in its deities for a long time, and debates rage over whether various sets of gods are separate because they grew from a single original source, or actually really a single god that simply manifests in two different ways, or something that encompasses all possibilities, similar to the Christian theory of the Holy Trinity being three distinct entities that are really just aspects of one God.

So Tal'ich is attempting to illustrate this idea of the Maya gods as being many in one. The directional boons (Likin, Xaman, Chikin and Nohol, along with their auxiliary boon Chun) tie into the tendency of some of the K'uh to act in fourfold forms. The dual boons (Uinic Chupla, Utzil Keban, Caan Cab and Sucun Palil) likewise illustrate a K'uh Scion's ability to switch between opposing aspects. And Pakte, the ultimate boon, both allows them to take on these differing aspects all at once (as gods occasionally do in Maya mythology) and provides for the possibility for their aspects to split off and become new deities themselves, thus explaining the existence of some pairs that seem to have become established separate from one another.

A little while ago, while talking about this phenomenon, I made a little (very little, very rough) possible family tree for the K'uh showing where some of the splits might have taken place:

This is just one possible setup, though - scholars are endlessly trying to figure out which figures might be the same as which others, not to mention the thorny thicket of the differences between Yucatec, Lacandon, Tzotzil, K'iche and other branches of Maya mythology that sometimes slightly change the lines of descent. Any of the sets of twins might be considered aspects that split off from one another (the Hero Twins, their father and his twin, their brothers the Howler Monkeys), and there are also theories that Itzamna and K'inich Ahau might be apsects of the same original deity, Sucucyum and Yum Cimil might be split aspects related to death, and Tepeu might be an alternate aspect of Huracan that split off at some point as well.

Basically, Maya gods and their different aspects are complete and utter craziness, and Tal'ich is there to try to help their Scions get in on that madness as much as they want to.

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!

Fates Intertwined

Question: I use a lot of your rules, but not your Fatebonds. What numbers would you use for Akunleyan if it were just bonuses and penalties?

Question: In Akunyelan, can you pick purviews or abilities you don't have any dots in to get the negatives? If not, what if you only have 1-3 purviews?

Question: In Akunlegba, do you have to pick one item from each of the three columns? Can you pick the same choice more than once, as long as it is not for the same ability/purview/whatever?

I'm lumping these questions about Ori together today because they came in all together, and I'm pretty sure they're from the same person. If not, well, two or three people went in on an Ori conspiracy, so they're sitll getting answered together.

Your first question is hard to answer, because we don't know what Fatebond rules (if any) you do use or what other house mechanics might get involved. However, I can tell you that our maximum-level Fatebonds are 10 dice and 10 automatic successes to or from a given stat up through Legend 10, so that's what the boon was designed by us to provide to most Scions. Scions of Legend 11 have a maximum of 15 dice and 15 autos, and Scions of Legend 12 have a maximum of 20 each.

In fact, you can choose things you currently have no dots in for Akunleyan, either for positive or negative. However, we designed the boon to work with both our Fatebond system and the rest of the Ori purview; under our rules, those positive Fatebonds will begin buying new boons/attributes/dots for the Scion who has them, while the negative Fatebonds will begin subtracting powers the same way. This is intended as a balancing tool to prevent Scions from just choosing negative stats to things they don't have any of anyway free of consequences - the Fatebond will, when they swap to their alternate identity with Iwa Pele, buy them some of those things, meaning that they do get some (which may then be bought back off next time they switch) and at the very least involves their XP in a meaningful way to illustrate that they're actually a being with two distinct aspects, not just a guy with some penalties that don't really matter anyway. Similarly, the fact that switching to the alternate persona might cause the now-negative Fatebonds to buy off stats the Scion was using forces them to weigh how they want to be seen as a god, what situations merit a shift to a new personality and set of skills and what these different personas mean to them.

So if you're not going to use Fatebonds at all, you're going to pretty much need to completely rewrite this boon, along with the terms of Iwa Pele as well. As it stands now, if you remove Fatebonds, all the boon does is give you semi-permanent bonuses to stuff you want to do and dump all your negatives into stuff you don't do anyway, and Iwa Pele loses all of the mythic resonance of trying to balance your different personalities and how they interact with the divine world, not to mention removing the part of the boon that really relates to the core concept of Ori (your destiny, here represented by Fatebonds). You'll need to find a different mechanical way to make sure that Scions aren't just using it for mad bonuses without having to actually be particularly Yoruba about it.

You could just reduce the bonuses to make them less overpowered without the counterbalance of Fatebonds, but most players would probably find a level 4 boon that just gives them +5 dice or whatever pretty underwhelming. There are already a lot of powers in the game that do things like that. We'd suggest maybe exploring actual stat-swapping - maybe when they switch personas with Iwa Pele, they lose their previously positive Sun boons but suddenly gain a bucket of Moon boons, and vice versa when they switch back - or otherwise finding a way that the switching of personas actually seriously affects Scions and gives them the opportunity to become completely different creatures or aspects of themselves.

(Of course, most of this doesn't apply to Scions who never buy Iwa Pele, but we should probably design the purview for Scions of the Orisha who want to buy all their powers, not the ones who want to just buy up to level 4 for a quick bonus and then never touch it again.)

As for Akunlegba, that one's easier. As the boon says, you must choose one from each of the categories, which is intentional so that Scions get one power from each of the three "types" of abilities that Orisha gods and Scions usually manifest, affecting their bodies, spirits and divine powers rather than only one or two of the three. Ori is about the Scion's destiny, in fact her entire being, so especially at these early levels we want characters to see it affect all different facets of their lives. Of course, we do want players to be able to specialize later in the game, which is why the later powers added by Afowofa can come from any category the Scion wishes, allowing her to commit more fully to a particular aspect of her destiny now that she's high enough Legend to know who and what she is as a deity.

Hopefully that helps you on your way to becoming the best non-Fatebond user of Ori that you can be. (And by the way, you may also want to explore giving users of Gun another small benefit or two of some kind, since the protections from negative Fatebonds that boon provides don't matter in your game.)

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Question: Itztli seems to work just fine except for the last level, which is just an invitation to squick and/or getting murdered by your divine parent for a Legend fix. How would you change it? Maybe something involving the sacrifice of Legendary beings that aren't family?

We've said it before, but we'll say it again: Familial Sacrifice is stupid. We get the underlying concept - the boon is trying to say that the ultimate sacrifice reaps the ultimate reward, and family members are probably among the most precious people you could ever sacrifice - but it falls flat on a number of levels. For one thing, the Loyalty-ridden Teotl would have severe difficulty killing their family members even if it was necessary, and this boon is just an invitation for someone to have to roll their Duty vs. their Loyalty and go bananas in one direction or the other; a boon contradicting a pantheon's Virtues isn't always grounds for dismissal, but PSP boons, which are supposed to be the core powers and rituals of a given pantheon, should work with their native Virtues, not against them. Also, the boon is weirdly thematically disconnected from actual Aztec practices, which the vast majority of the time did not involve killing one's family members and would generally have been pretty severely against it if anyone else at all was available. Aztec theology believes that blood begets power, period, but your family's blood (while certainly more precious to you) does not actually have any more power in it for the gods than anyone else's. Finally, the boon is just tragically easy to cheat, making it lose what thematic resonance it has; all you need is a family member you don't care about or dislike, and suddenly you can happily boost yourself to insanity levels of power without giving much of a shit about killing that person. Which is hardly much of a sacrifice, is it? (Worse, the book actually encourages this undercutting of the boon's point by suggesting that some of the Teotl keep stables of untapped children around so they can murder them at will. Because of course the Teotl are all murder-motivated soulless evil people who just love killin' folks.)

So, yes, it's a wreck of a boon, and we do not recommend using it. However, we have not yet replaced it with anything, much as we'd like to. Eztli continues to sit at level 9 Itztli because, like most Teotl, she'd vastly prefer to kill herself painfully with a blunt splintery rock than hurt a family member, and we've sort of waffled around the fact that the rest of the Teotl only have nine PSP boons right now and tried not to look embarrassed about it. We desperately need something to give them the option of being awesome in a more appropriately Aztec way.

We're still debating exactly what to replace Familial Sacrifice with, though. We have a few potential ideas; John is a fan of constructing a boon based around the idea of the nahualli, the animalistic Aztec spirit-twin, and we've also floated the idea of building something around the ixiptla cults, an ancient Aztec practice of "impersonators" taking on roles related to the gods in order to honor them before sacrifice. Our current problem is that while these are both very excellently Aztec ideas, they also don't quite fit the theme - either mechanically or spiritually - of the rest of the Itztli purview. Nahualli are deeply connected to Aztec spirituality but have little to do with sacrifice or empowerment of the universe, and we're also still debating whether they work better as a Birthright anyway (current score: Anne yes, John no, fights continuing). Ixiptla cults are likewise super neat and something we'd love to see more of happening around our Teotl PCs and gods, but they may not be quite widespread enough across the pantheon's worship (Tezcatlipoca and Mictlantecuhtli definitely have them, but some others don't have any records of ixiptla practices) to be something they all universally have available via PSP.

Ideally, we need a top-of-the-line showstopping Legend-granting boon that involves sacrifice on a cosmic level - something akin to what Quetzalcoatl did when he pierced his own penis to help create mankind, or when Tezcatlipoca lost his foot to lure Cipactli, or Xipe Totec is flayed alive over and over to renew the earth. But we don't yet know what that should look like exactly, and ideally we may need to work on overhauling the whole Itztli scale at the same time to make sure it progresses smoothly.

Yeah, basically we have no good excuse for not having done this yet. Sorry. :(

Dream On

Question: I'm working on a PSP that uses Vision Quests as a core mechanic. Since these depend on a lot of fasting and deprivation, how should I factor Epic Stamina (especially the Divine Fortitude line of knacks) into how it works?

That is a great question, and also a hard one to answer.

We feel you, because we ran up against the same thing when working on Samsara, where one of the important parts of Hindu spirituality, fasting until the body is cleansed and the mind cleared, was not interacting very well with Epic Stamina. When you can sit around for literally months before you even start feeling peckish, it's a lot harder to meaningfully fast, and while we could say that this is why gods tend to fast for eleventy zillion years at a time in mythology, that wouldn't be very useful to Scions who don't have that kind of time.

Our solution in the Tapasya boon was to create a separate system that totally bypassed Epic Stamina; instead of trying to figure out a scale of penalties or times that would be able to adjust to all the ridiculous bullshit Scions can do to their Stamina + Fortitude rolls, we decided to levy a straight penalty to the stat, proportionate to the benefit granted elsewhere. That does mean that those who are more stamina-worthy are penalized less by Tapasya than those who are already lightweights, but since that's something a Scion has to specialize into with XP, we figured that fell into the realm of player choices. Another place we've dealt with the idea in a separate system is the Prophecy purview, where Stamina still gets to roll as usual but a separate system determines the penalties and damage inflicted based on the results.

So that's one option; you can invent a system that only the PSP uses, therefore bypassing some of the problems of Epic Stamina. The easiest thing to do, if deprivation effects are an important core mechanic of your purview, is to take a cue from the Raise Your Glass knack and unilaterally declare that Epic Stamina doesn't apply when you're using boons from this PSP. That way, gods will still be technically better at it than humans could be, but not by much, and you can work with a much smaller scale of potential Stamina resistance when designing how difficult various boons should be or how much of a physical toll they take (or require) on the user. If you do want Epic Stamina to be in play, you might try mechanics that work based on dots instead of successes, or do something wacky with how the purview interacts with Epic Stamina (your Epic Stamina dots only count inversely to your dots of the PSP, or something).

Or, you can bite the bullet and just deal with the fact that nobody past Legend 3 ever really gets hungry without dire craziness ensuing. Instead of basing the PSP's powers on how hungry a character gets (since you know the answer is probably not very), base it on time invested, other substances ingested, spiritual toll taken (maybe represented by Willpower?) or whatever else you can think of. Maybe using the PSP makes you hungry even if you normally wouldn't need to eat more than once a year. Get creative.

Our suggestion here is to try several different things until you find one that works; don't feel like you have to commit to a mechanic immediately even if it doesn't feel quite right. Choose a few boons and map out what they would be like under a variety of different kinds of systems. Take your time and don't be afraid to mix and match different methods for different boons in the same purview, if that's what works best.

This post brought to you by Dave, who beat the internet to retrieve it! Thanks, Dave!

Melting Pot

Question: How do cross-pantheon gods and PSPs work? Does Quetzalcoatl, for example, have Itztli, Tal'ich, both? Apologies if this has been answered before, I've got a feeling it has but couldn't find it anywhere.

We've talked about it on and off, but I think mostly in comments and asides, so no worries about not finding those. We don't actually come to your house and hit you with bats when you ask about something that's been talked about before. That's just something John threatens people with.

The most important thing is that no god gets to rock two PSPs at once, regardless of line-crossing between pantheons. PSPs are so powerful that it's insane to have more than one, and many PSPs would have even more off-the-scale effects if stacked on one another. They were never meant to be used together and aren't balanced for it, so some will render one another redundant while others will be wildly out of control together. If Quetzalcoatl had both Tal'ich and Itztli, he would end up with Utzil Keban and Communal Divinity overlapping to an annoying degree, but his boons would end up almost free thanks to the combination of Caan Cab rendering them Willpower-free and Itztli boons making Legend an easily wasted commodity. Other combinations are even more bananas - can you imagine the guy who has both Dvoeverie and Heku and his endless, unconquerable Virtue Channel mill?

But Quetzalcoatl is clearly both Maya (as Kulkulkan) and Aztec, and he's not the only one. There are plenty of gods in more than one pantheon; if Mithra is a major figure in Hinduism and Zoroastrianism and a Roman mystery cult, how do you decide which of his cultural affiliations grants the PSP? Does he just choose one, and if so, which one? Does he swap between them depending on where he is and what he's doing, so that his command of Asha suddenly turns into an affinity for Samsara as soon as he crosses the Indian border? What if he's the major god of one religion and then centuries later becomes much more prominent in a different one - is he stuck with the PSP of the pantheon he barely belongs to anymore for the rest of eternity?

This is one of those places that Scion doesn't have a good way to reconcile ancient religions with game mechanics. Scion treats pantheons as discrete entities with their own specific powers, which means that gods have to be considered a member of one or the other no matter what their ancient cultural roots might be. It's a Storyteller call in the end, but we use the following guidelines:

1. What pantheon is the god most prominent in?
2. What pantheon's PSP does the god demonstrate powers from?
3. What pantheon are we planning to run the god's stories around?

Most of the time, the decision's made pretty easily by just looking at which pantheon a given god is most important, present or celebrated in. Guanyin is also known in India and Japan, for example, but her Chinese worship is clearly much more widespread and centrally important, so she has Taiyi instead of Samsara or Tsukumo-gami. But sometimes it's not so clear-cut which culture has the best claim to be a god's home base, as in Quetzalcoatl's case, so then we move on to seeing whether or not he actually uses any of the powers of that PSP in his myths. We have the feathered serpent mostly pegged at this point; he certainly appears in Maya myth, but he doesn't have much in the way of alternate personas or aspects, while on the other hand we know he does receive sacrifices and perform autosacrifice on himself in Aztec myths.

Most gods are sorted out by the time you get through those first two criteria, but once in a while one is just overly difficult to figure out, or you don't want to cut your options down too much as a Storyteller. In that case, it all comes down to the final and possibly most important issue, which is what you're planning to do with a god in your story. If you're crafting a giant master metaplot surrounding the Deva but aren't planning to do much with the Yazata, you're probably better off using Vayu in his Hindu guise rather than bothering with his Persian persona and powers, and if you have a story that revolves around the pantheons of the Celtic isles, you probably want Ogma as one of the Enech-wielding Tuatha instead of the continental Gaulish gods.

We're mostly talking about Storytelling here; which powers a god uses are under the control of the Storyteller, of course, and separate from issues of Scions and character creation. If you're a player and you're wondering what PSP you might get from a given god, always check with your Storyteller first. We've done a little monkeying around with it in the spirit of experimentation; in our Eastern Promises game, some of the Deva and Yazata that have overlap allow Scions to choose either Samsara or Asha for their PSP at character creation, although they can't change it later. It's a neat idea that allows the Scions to choose which culture and expression of their patron god they most identify with. That's worked out all right so far, although we're not sure how far we want to extend that or if it's a great system-wide idea.

But the most important thing to take away for Scions (the same as their parents) is this: they do not get two PSPs, ever. Whatever you choose, you'll have to give them access to one and only one PSP unless you feel like doing a massive, far-reaching rewrite of all the PSPs to make them capable of playing nicely together without being overpowered. We definitely don't want to do that and can't imagine anyone else would want to... but if you do undertake the sisyphean labor, let us know how it turns out!

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!

Borrowed Feelings, Real Attachment

Question: Each of the Legend 12 Bogovi presumably has Dvoeverie at max for at least one Virtue. Could you give any examples from your own game table or from mythology of a Bogovi god/dess' fifth virtue? Stribog, perhaps, given how large a part he's played in your Bogovi adventures?

John grumbled that this was an unfair question, because it depends so much on how a given Storyteller plays a god's personality and might vary completely depending on how many extra Dvoeverie Virtues you think they actually have. It might be only five, but then again it might be all twelve. Probably not, because that god would be batshit crazy and off the rails and probably dead, but technically possible.

But hey, we can take a few stabs at them anyway! We'd guess that Svarozhich probably has Courage, linked possibly to his Duty, thanks to the tales of his ceaseless near-death battles with Chmarnik. He probably uses it to pick up either Jotunblut from the Aesir, granting him extra badassery in his desperate combats, or maybe Me from the Anunna, bolstering his power over his elemental creation powers. Stribog, John tells me, absolutely has Conviction, which enables him to do whatever he wants if he really wants it enough, even when it breaks rules; he's not very good at truthfulness so despite the history of cooperation between Bogovi and Yazata he probably doesn't use it for Asha, but he, too, might get some use out of Me boons that increase his powers over wind and frost. Perun's a shoe-in for Courage with a healthy side helping of Jotunblut, while on the flip side Veles' love of illusionary shenanigans that teach lessons might manifest itself as Expression, probably giving him some sweet Arete with which to pull off ever bigger and nastier feats. Morena, who murders her husband for his infidelity and makes him live in the underworld in a house made of his own bones half the year, sounds like a lady with Vengeance to us, again probably dipping into the Greek pool.

Of course, while the Virtues are forever, the different PSPs can be swapped out per story, so whatever your Bogovi gods are doing in a given story or plot will affect what they might take on as their extra suite of powers. Which pantheon's powers they align with also always has neat political ramifications - Norse, Greek and Persian are old standbys, but how did a Bogovi goddess get Itztli when she's half the world away from the Aztec lands, and what did that entail? The boon doesn't require swapping fluids with a god of that pantheon or anything, but it's still a great place for Storytellers to nonkey around with politics and cultural crossover.

For Great Justice

Question: Probably too late to change public opinion, but since it's literally the only project that hasn't gotten its day in the limelight yet... what's in store for Asha?

I agree, I don't think Asha's going to be able to come back from the current 83-vote gulf between it and the frontrunner, but that doesn't mean it's not a great project. It just means fewer people are playing Yazata Scions right now than Tuatha (come on, guys! Yazata are awesome! Just ask the Eastern Promises crew!).

Asha has already gotten an edit and brush-up from us (jeez, like a year and half ago now?) so that it was at least in decent enough shape to be usable by our Yazata PCs, but it's still got a lot of holdover problems from the original writeup in Scion: Yazata. In no particular order, some things we'd like to do include:

• Fix the Amesha Spentas. You guys know the biggest problem boons - we already had a whole post about their issues. These three boons do exactly the same thing but cost escalating amounts of XP, and they unfairly prioritize some PC skillsets over others (in the name of religious appropriateness, but it still sucks mechanically). The original writeup actually didn't even write separate boons for the middle of the purview, and while this is a little better than the black hole of boredom in the published rules, it's not by much. We want to really focus up and make this part of the purview better in every way - more fair, more interesting, more cost-appropriate, and more exciting so players have a reason to want to invest in it.
• Work more with the idea of Asha. The purview's called Asha, and yet it somehow doesn't do a great job of getting that idea (truthful righteousness) across very well sometimes. We'd love for some of these boons to be more thematic and less blank crunchy. Which leads me to...
• Less boredom. ARGH, this is the most boring PSP in the universe, and that's the worst because the Yazata are interesting people with interesting powers, and these mechanics are letting them down in a big way! Players have complained that Asha's boons lack the stuntable awesomeness of some other PSPs despite their mechanical usefulness, so we're hoping to be able to do something to make them more of an eye-catching pantheon-specific candy that everybody wants. Which is what PSPs are supposed to be, after all.

That's really all there is to it. We want to go make it better. We're pretty embarrassed our first pass didn't do a better job of it, really.

Obviously there are fewer Yazata players out there than there are people interested in some other projects, and even those that do love their Persian Scions may have more at stake for an Ultimates or lesser gods project. But we hope we'll get to brush this little PSP up some day soon, so that the gods of the once-greatest empire in the world can be as awesome as they were clearly meant to be.

Give Me Some Direction

Question: Direction of Me. Read one way, you pick one of the two abilities and only gain the bonus for the ability you picked. Read another way, you gain the bonus whenever either ability is rolled. Which is the correct reading?

The boon doesn't mention anything about choosing an ability; you gain the bonus whenever you roll either of the abilities associated with your chosen purview, provided you actually have at least one dot.

In case anyone was wondering, you can get the bonus dice from Me if you get temporary dots in an ability with something like Jack of All Trades or Know-It-All, but not if you only have a dice-adder like Faunaphagia that grants a bonus but not any actual phantom dots.

Extracurricular Fate

Question: I know that players cannot get negative Fatebonds towards their PSPs, but can Dodekatheon Scions get negative fatebonds towards Abilities they have Arete in? Can Anunna Scions get negative fatebonds towards purviews they have Me in? What happens if the Abilities or purviews drop below the dots they have in the respective PSP? What happens if the Ability or purview hits 0?

Actually, yes, and this is a really great question!

Because Arete and Me are purviews that are attached to specific stats, they don't get negative Fatebonds themselves but they are affected by Fatebonds that affect the stats to which they're joined. No one will ever get a negative Fatebond to Arete, but unlike other PSPs, Arete dots can be bought off by negative Fatebonds.

If you have some dots of Arete (Athletics) and a negative Fatebond to Athletics, that Fatebond will buy the Arete dots off as well as the regular ones. This is largely because it simply doesn't make sense for you to have incredible mastery in something you actually don't have any of, and just like Epic Attributes can't exist without the attribute they depend on, so Arete dots can't exist without the ability they're supposed to be mastering. It's also a mechanical no-brainer, because otherwise people with Arete and Me would be cheating the entire Fatebond system by getting their stats bought to zero but still having a bunch of dice or powers surrounding them, effectively ignoring Fate's decrees through no effort on their part.

To use an example, let's say that Goze has seven dots of Fortitude and three dots of Arete (Fortitude), and he's just gotten a negative Fatebond to it (for purposes of this demonstration, we'll pretend he has no discounts and is rocking normal XP costs). Because the Fatebond buys off the highest-XP level, it buys off his seventh and sixth dots of Fortitude (14 and 12 XP, respectively) first. It then buys off his third dot of Arete (Fortitude) for 12 XP as well, as the next highest-cost Fortitude dot he has, and then moves on to buying off his fifth regular dot for 10 XP. It'll keep doing that until both Arete and the stat are reduced to zero, and due to the fact that Arete is more expensive than normal dots, Goze will run out of Arete before he runs out of normal dots.

(Actually, those costs are really 14 XP for the seventh dot, then 13 for the sixth dot, then 14 for the third Arete dot, then 13 for the fifth dot, and so on, because every time a dot of Fortitude is bought off the price of buying off the next goes up by one. But I figured you guys'd care more about the demonstration if it wasn't full of confusing math. The end result is the same.)

Now, this sucks, of course, and some players have staged theatrical fainting scenes at the realization that they happen to have one of the only two PSPs that Fatebonds can take away from them. Woe, cruel world! Even worse, where normally a Scion can max out an ability for his level to prevent Fatebonds from buying it off, those with Arete or Me have to also max those to cut off the Fatebond train. This is the worst PSP ever!

But actually, it's not, even if you ignore all the fabulous benefits of nine million dice/total purview domination. While you can't max out a stat to avoid Fatebonds as easily, it's also much more difficult for a Fatebond to buy a stat down to zero when you have Arete or Me; the Fatebond has to eat through alllll that extra XP to take those away, which gives the Scion in question way more time to fight back by spending XP on the stat or trying to find ways to change his Fatebonds so it's not an issue anymore. A god-level Pesedjet Scion suddenly afflicted with a negative Fatebond to Illusion, something she has eight levels in, would be looking at the daunting task of trying to buy two level nine boons before the Fatebond could take away one she already has, something that's almost certain to fail (at best, she'll end up getting some bought off, managing to rebuy them and maybe finally get the high-level ones while slowly seeing the XP cost increase, and that's only if she doesn't buy anything else). But the same Scion, if she were Anunna, could instead buy some lower-level Me for the purview; since it's cheaper, she'd stop the Fatebond for a while and give herself more time to deal with the problem, and she's only making herself better at the purview to boot.

So yes, Scions with Arete or Me are prey to Fatebonds more than Scions of other purviews, but they're also uniquely capable of fighting those Fatebonds more effectively than most others could.

Distinguished Heavenly Gods

Question: So, what gods would you be looking at, if the Amatsukami rewrite won? What direction is Tsukumo-gami going to take? Any changes in the virtues *cough Harmony cough*? Raiden, Izanami and Izanagi - Titans? What is Tsuki-yomi's relationship with his pantheon?

Oh, man, I meant to post this with the recent glut of Discussion of Things On the Poll! The Amatsukami rewrite isn't a frontrunner right now, but hey, maybe the wind will change.

The Amatsukami are a mess in the RAW, as you've no doubt heard us complain many times in the past. Gods that should be there aren't, gods that have no business being there are core members, their PSP is busted, their cosmology is weird, their Titans are nonsensical, and they spend most of their time in our games crying in the corner. We need to fix them ninety ways, and while we are totally excited about them finally getting to shine, the project's been backburnered for a while thanks to John's pantheon-fatigue and the fact that we currently don't have any Japanese-heavy elements in our games so it hasn't been a priority for our players.

Things that we want to tinker with include, in no particular order:

• Pantheon Roster. There are people on here who should never have been playable gods, with Raiden being the most obvious example; he's an ogre-monster who eats people and has never done anything positive in his loud and destructive life. He's most likely only there thanks to name recognition from the Mortal Kombat series, and you can probably guess how legit we think that should be as a justification. Conversely, several major Shinto figures, including Uzume, Inari and Sarutahiko, are mysteriously absent, which we can only assume is because they didn't fit the original pantheon "parameters" that most of the core six fall into or nobody wanted to bring in one of the Kunitsukami and confuse everyone by calling him Amatsukami instead. Regardless, the entire roster needs cleaning up to introduce those gods who deserve spots and get everyone else kicked back out into the Titanrealms where they belong.
• PSP. Tsukumo-gami has a very solidly Shinto idea behind it, but it's a pretty sorry mess of a purview that needs some love desperately. It's very underpowered, for one thing, and pretty blurry about what exactly it does and affects when compared to other powers (can you use it on "inanimate" objects that are still living, like trees? what about inanimate substances that aren't objects, like water or fire? does it infringe on other purviews? when you separate a kami from an item, what the heck are its stats?), neither of which is helping Amatsukami Scions do neat stuff with it. We're also currently questioning its core concept as well; the word "tsukumogami" refers specifically to items that have become old and powerful enough to gain awareness and personality of their own, but Scion allows the use of the purview on any inanimate object, which is a little bit mythically dissonant. Of course, we also wouldn't want the purview to only be usable on museum pieces... unless maybe it was really awesome? The idea of the eight million kami is a potent one, covering the Shinto concept of spirits in everything and the neat way that interacts with Scion's usual setup of things either being gods or mortal, and we'd love to let Scions play with it. But no matter what we do, the conceptual purpose of the purview needs clarification. More neat powers, less confusion, better Japanese-ness!
• Titans. Titans are their own separate project, so this won't be happening all at once, but a lot of the figures on the Amatsukami roster that we'll be removing will probably in turn become Titans. At the same time, their current Titans are something of a clusterfuck; we've already fixed poor Mikaboshi, so he can take his rightful place among the stars instead of being a weird primordial darkness monster from a comic book, but Kaminokaze could also stand to be restored to his actual persona as Fujin, Raiden's equally unpleasant brother.

We probably will also revisit the Virtues, but I'm not sure they need a lot of tweaking, to be honest. I actually love Harmony for them because it dovetails so beautifully with the Shinto ideal of purification and pollution, where rituals and behavior must be carefully observed to preserve the good balance and purity of things and any deviation causes horrible imbalances and problems. It's not the tree-hugging variety of Harmony, but I think it's a good representation of the idea nonetheless. Duty and Valor are probably in there in deference to the samurai ideals of Japan's bushido period, and the first at least I wholeheartedly agree with (jury's still out on Valor, pending more close examination).

As for Tsukiyomi, he'll certainly still be on the pantheon roster, making his surly way across the night skies. His banishment from Amaterasu's presence certainly chafes at him (especially if you happen to follow the version of court mythology in which she was his wife as well as sister), and it probably makes interacting with the entire pantheon difficult, but he's still one of the three August Siblings and deserves the respect that goes along with it. Some of his banishment may actually be ameliorated at the moment, since his skills and presence are probably needed in the fight against the Titans; but then again, maybe not, since his sister is not exactly known for being forgiving or tolerant.

The Amatsukami are not actually in as bad shape as many pantheons; they don't have the total-conceptual-overhaul problem that the Loa did, don't need an entirely new PSP invented like the Aesir and aren't plagued by the character assassination that laid the Aztlanti low. They're just underwhelming at the moment rather than really broken, and need a little spit, polish and loving care.

Revamping Itztli

If you were ever to revamp the Itztli how would you do that? It seems like many of the boons do the same thing, just better than the previous boon, and some of the boons don't seem to fit with the culture.

Yeah, Im not a big fan of how itztli is really. I tried to do some major changes early on, but got some pressback from anne about it. She was very happy with how it was. But I think shes come around to realizing that its a little too much of the same(especially in comparison with some of the other psps we've redone recently). I could also be totally wrong about that and she could think Itztli is fine.

I like the main theme of itztli. Sacrifice is huge for the aztecs people and their gods. Blood is the fuel the gods use to make their powers work and continue living. In game terms very literally blood is legend, so it makes a good fit. And its very nice to have a psp that is a very specific idea to its core. But at the same time, I dont think I can make 10 levels of "something to do with blood = something to do with legend". My first step in working on the psp would be to try though.

If I failed, which Im pretty sure we would. I would next try to incorporate nahualli. They are also an important part of the culture that isnt really covered by anything else. We've been doing it with relics before, but I think it can be expanded to be made both more fun and more interesting by incorporating it into the psp. Different levels, maybe rotating with levels of scarifice that see your connection to your nahualli slowly growing until at god you, maybe become two seperate entities that can work in tandem? Maybe that happens before god? Maybe it doesnt. Itd be a long process(one Im excited about doing), but thats probably where Id start.

So I hope that helps, any more then that, and Id be well on my way to spending hundreds of hours working on Itztli.

Thanks for the question, maybe itll bring the numbers up on a future poll to see what we do next.

Telling Things What to Do

Question: Speak Hu seems a little one-sided. As PSPs are something that everyone is supposed to have access to (and I suppose technically everyone does when it comes to knacks), shouldn't it be a little more universal? With it being limited to only using the Manipulation/Overt Order tree, it doesn't feel like it's truly something the entire pantheon can utilize. Would it not be more appropriate to allow players to use Charisma/Manipulation + appropriate ability to influence stubborn items?

No, but I think I see where you're coming from. Here's what's up with Speak Hu.

Firstly, we definitely don't want to expand the knack to be just "use your social stats on objects", because that's both way too enormously vague and difficult for Storytellers and way too overpowered. Speak Hu is a boon that already causes some games difficulty with being overpowered in its current form (there's a bunch of discussion of it back here if you missed it!); removing the restriction of actually using powers would make it much too broad and all-encompassing, especially for a level one boon (PSP though it may be). We also really want to preserve the flavor of using your actual powers and commands on objects in the world around you; Speak Hu is about harnessing the Egyptian ability to speak the words of power and creation and command those things that remember them to respond, and we'd like some actual words of power and creation to be happening instead of just, you know, conversations. Also, Speak Hu is already kind of problematically close to getting into Tsukumo-gami's space, and allowing general social stat usage on items would pretty much make all the Japanese Scions give up and go home.

However, there's good news, and that's that Speak Hu is in no way limited to the Overt Order knack tree in Manipulation! I can see where you might have gotten that impression - after all, saying, "Door, open the hell up" with Overt Order is certainly an effective and straightforward way to get things done, plus the boon uses Overt Order as an example - but that's far from the only thing that a Scion with Speak Hu can do. Speak Hu can be applied to any social knack from any of the three social Attributes, and that means it has a great deal of flexibility and breadth for different Scions to use in different ways.

Persuasion, for example, has always been popular in our games; knacks like God's Honest or Benefit of the Doubt have been successfully used to convince a fuse that its lever was actually in the off position, causing it to kill all the lights in the building to correct the "mistake", or to cajole a security lock into believing that the incorrect code just entered was actually the right one. A Scion with lots of Charisma might be able to Filibuster so that objects that would normally leave the area - like a baby carriage hurtling down a hill - instead turn to stay near him and listen, or cause every recording device within his range to suddenly start recording his words with a quick use of Attention Please. A Scion who prefers the manipulative arts might be able to use Not the Face to avoid an inanimate object that was about to roll into her, Total Recall to ensure that a videotape can never have a critical moment recorded over, or Obliteration to make herself completely immune to being recorded by any device. Even the Appearance folks can do neat things with Speak Hu, from using Aura of Dread to plow through a normally movement-penalty-inducing junkyard with nary an issue to instantly blacking out cameras and recorders with Blinding Visage to using Inescapable Vision to cause some seriously hilarious results on any security footage.

Of course, not every knack from any of those Attributes is useful with Speak Hu; not much point in giving a rock bonus Willpower or spreading a rumor to a bicycle stand. But there's a wide variety of options nonetheless, and Scions only have to get creative to try to take advantage of them.

Speak Hu is a Storyteller-intensive boon where a lot depends on their rulings on what does and doesn't happen to an object, so it's also a factor in how well the boon works. If your Storyteller doesn't allow anything but Overt Order, well, yeah, that seriously sucks and wasn't our intention, and the boon probably is deeply limited compared to other PSPs. But it never hurts to try a cool move - especially if it's couched in an awesome stunt and saves the day - so keep trying to be creative, and if the ST isn't having it, maybe sit down with him or her so you can discuss how Speak Hu works and what kinds of things they think you should be doing with it, so you know in no uncertain terms what you can and can't get up to. If you're the Storyteller, it might be useful for you to go through the social knacks and make a list of which ones you think are reasonable powers to use with Speak Hu, which will allow you to be ready for them when they happen in a game and also help encourage or offer suggestions to your players if they're stumped. But also stay on your toes, because no matter how great your list is, a player is probably going to do something you didn't think of at some point; just keep a cool head, decide whether it works and what it does when it happens, and don't panic ahead of time.

So go out there and command creation and have fun, you guys.