Anne's Fiction Corner

Fiction party time! Or not, really, because this was the Skeins of Fate group, and they don't have parties. They have wakes. In this particular case, they are being affected by the events of the recent The Fall of Tenochtitlan; Geoff's group saw what happened in Mexico, and Aurora's group will see what is now happening after.

Today's story is Wages of Sin, starring Aurora Dahl, Woody Anderson, Kettila Blomgren, Vivian Landry and Will Nordstrom. It is a tale of the wreckages left behind by the actions of the divine, the price of subjugation, and the very real and cosmic damage of a pantheon meddling where they should not be. Unfortunately, even the Norse Scions don't come out too great when Odin goes on a rampage.

Eastern Promises won the poll, so they will get the next story, followed by Strawberry Fields, who were the last place finisher in this particular race (but don't worry, Tuatha Scions, we still love you). That means it's time to reset the entire poll for new votes - go nuts, guys!

• If you vote for Better Next Time, you're voting for stories from the misfit bands of demigods hurtling toward their destiny in a mismatched group of cultural clash - Geoff Matheson of the Aesir, Sangria Tecuhtli of the Teotl, Sophia Archimedes and Mitchell Gozer of the Theoi and Marcus James of the Orisha. They're currently trying to bring together disparate pantheons who don't get along, support the people they're loyal to and still find a way to make their mark on a great wide world that is waiting for them.
• If you vote for Eastern Promises, you're voting for stories from the nineteenth-century band in a world of colonialism and industry - Leona Middleton, Samuel Vanderbilt and Paniwi Bayteru of the Netjer, Faruza Alinejad and Yadi of the Yazata, Mohini Misra and Padma Billingsworth of the Deva, James Howard and Alvin de Lafayette of the Anunna, and many more. They're currently fighting corruption among local authorities, learning what other cultures have to offer them and finding ways to survive no matter what the cost.
• If you vote for Gangs of New York, you're voting for stories from the modern-day miscreants of New York terrorist fame - Michael Chambers, Corey Holbrook and Winona Nelson of the Anunna, Russel Pride and Valentina Radic of the Pesedjet, Skylar Copperwithe and Zoe Vrontopoulos of the Theoi, and many more. They're currently struggling in an entropic world, breaking and making law where it suits them and attempting to find their way around a strange new supernatural landscape.
• If you vote for Skeins of Fate, you're voting for stories from our frozen northern band - Aurora Dahl, Woody Anderson and Will Nordstrom of the Aesir, Kettila Blomgren of the Teotl and Vivian Landry of the Orisha. They're currently handling the looming shadow of Ragnarok, the fallout of their parents' political decisions and their own personal desire to deviate from the paths Fate has set them.

Players Tell All

Guest vlogging continues! There's no intro this time because it's really just the second half of last week's epic one-hour marathon, but the players are back to tell you more of their opinions. And they're just enjoyable.

Question: A lot of Scions are going to be illegitimate children of their divine parents. Could you mention the social ramification for bastard children in the different cultures we have Pantheons for?

Question: In any of your games, have Scions ever been revealed to the public? If so, how did the public react - to both their existence, and their parents existence?

Question: My group constantly fights. Nothing much gets done. We're all good friends in real life, but when we sit down for a game everything goes to hell. Mostly it is the fault of Virtues, but not always. Any advice?

Question: It seems like Scion is full of great victories and horrible failures. What would you say are your best MVP Scions and worst screw-up Scions in your games?

Question: Is Vidar proud of Folkwardr? I'm curious as to Vidar's fatherly feelings towards his new son.

Question: Bring in the players for this one! If YOU were a Scion, which pantheon would you like to be a Scion of? Which pantheon (speaking strictly from their Virtues) do you think you'd be a part of by that metric? For bonus points, what purviews and Epics would you give yourself or see yourself getting? I've seen too many arguments from recent questions, hopefully this one is just pure fun. Right? Please?

Our players are some pretty great folks. A round of applause to them for doing this and being such sports about it!

Status Report: Still Flailing at the Unknown

Question: Can we get an update on what is happening in your three games?

We sure can - in fact, let's ring in the new year with one!

Things are rough in the god-level game, where our Legend 11 superstars are having serious trouble juggling their loyalties, their secret missions and their political obligations. They're still on a secret mission from their parents, who charged them with gathering the omphalus stones of each of the Titanrealms in order to use them in a ritual to reinforce Tartarus, which is in danger of breaking open again now that they've managed to get a bunch of Titans back into it but nobody really bothered to go and spackle up the cracks they got out of last time. Going to Titanrealms is dangerous and difficult and takes up a whole lot of time, and in the meantime Sowiljr's position as king of the Aesir is suffering because he's not around to do it. They recently also figured out that removing a realm's omphalus stone makes it more powerful, so they're just beginning to realize they may have royally screwed some of the other pantheons who were fighting those Titans and just got suddenly overwhelmed by extra power. And while they have a few friends among the gods, they know that their parents are still incognito after Ragnarok and they're not allowed to tell anyone they're alive, which means they can't ask for a lot of help with their mission without having to field uncomfortable questions. Already some of the Bogovi are angrily trying to stop them, because what they're doing is pretty much directly opposed to both Harmony and the usual Bogovi mindset of not touching things that aren't yours.

At this exact moment, Sowiljr and Jioni are in Gimli (the renamed Asgard, post-Ragnarok), trying to get it ready for the Kingsmoot, a meeting of all the pantheon heads that Sowiljr has called in an effort to get everyone to make some policies, alliances and plans that help the overall war, not to mention solidify his own tenuous position as king of like two people. Folkwardr has likewise called, or is trying to call, a Magemoot to deal with the problem of the Titanrealm of Fate having been severely screwed up by Theoi shenanigans, making the Fate purviews not work properly, but he's unable to get much going on that since he's currently trapped in the Titanrealm of Illusions with Eztli, who he's desperately trying to get out since he knows she's ill-equipped to do so herself. Eztli, in turn, almost got out once but refused to go when she realized that Tonatiuh, the sun god of her struggling pantheon, was trapped there, too; she refused to leave him, and all three are now fighting to survive and remember who they are before the Titan eats them whole. Sowiljr is miserable over Folkwardr and Eztli being stuck in there, but knows that he both can't really help them and that he doesn't dare not show up to this major political event he's throwing, so he's just doing the best he can and trying not to Loyalty extremity every day. Jioni's just tired. Of everyone.

In Eastern Promises, the current band consists of Alvin, James, Leona, Mrs. Young and Haji, the same misfits from the last adventure, who have just begun a new saga in order to fulfill requirements asked of them by Fate after James used Deus Ex Machina to save their lives in the last story. They've been sent to go to the Garden of the Hesperides and retrieve a box for Ishtar; they have no idea what's in the box, nor are they feeling great about going to the Garden of Hera Kicks Your Ass, but Fate wants what Fate wants. They've just begun to get some clues that not all of the gods may be around, although where they are and what happened to them is anybody's guess, and that they're largely on their own when it comes to dealing with their supernatural problems. Most recently, James attempted to get permission from Queen Victoria to marry Leona, only to be told in the politest terms possible that he wasn't about to get permission to marry anyone who's half brown and he has a duty to the Crown to marry someone more suitable in case his children come up to inherit the throne one day, which he's trying to combat by finding a way to prove that Leona is descended from the pharaohs and therefore appropriate marriage material; and Alvin, in order to save his drowning comrades from an angry Proteus, agreed to spend a night with the god as his eromenos and is exploring a strange but interesting new world of sexuality. Mrs. Young hates everyone and wants to go home. Haji's good, though.

Finally, the Gangs of New York game just brought their story, starring Zoe, Skylar, Russel, Isaac and Anton, to a thrilling conclusion where somehow most people survived. Isaac accidentally got himself dragged into a world where he exists as pure computer code, and there met the mistress of the giant technological web, who turned out to be Arachne; she offered him the chance to stay with her and influence the web (and thus the world) from within, which he accepted, bowing out before the final game session. Back on earth, where all the Scions of the current story are duly appointed superheroes (codenamed Containment Prime) in the employ of the United States government in charge of defending New York City from supernatural threats, Skylar fled a monster attack that destroyed an Army base and was subsequently sentenced to death for abandoning his duty; Zoe and Anton made a desperate helicopter trip from New York to Washington, D.C. in an hour and half in a stolen military jet, being attacked by monsters all the way, to barely make it in time to stop Congress from voting in his execution. Zoe made an incredible patriotic speech about Skylar's value to the country and the need for superheroes, successfully saving him from death and the group from disbandment, and Anton made sure it went viral so that the United States as a whole is now on the superhero bandwagon. Meanwhile, Russel and Skylar, defending New York on their own, teamed up with a surprisingly skilled human cop they ran into to take on the last of the fire demons that have been plaguing the city recently, in a fierce battle that nearly killed all of them but finally managed to take her down and save the day.

At the end of the story, Zoe was recalled to Washington to coordinate political concerns for the new group (and deal with the fact that Isaac has gone AWOL and, since he's a former terrorist, that's super not good), Anton went with her as bodyguard and chauffeur, Russel missed his opportunity to try to tell Zoe he has feelings for her because of Skylar's bionic interference, and all was well in the Big Apple. The next story will rotate characters again, so Zoe, Isaac and Anton will go out and Russel and Skylar will stay in, and we'll pick up with a new crisis and set of heroes next week.

So, you know, they're keeping busy.

It just occurred to me that this post is queued, so there might have been a game or two between when I wrote it and when it goes live, but that just adds to the mystery, I think.

Norse-World Problems

New art time! Hooray!

Just one today, this time for the Skeins of Fate band. I'm sure some of you remember that time Aurora threw herself into the Well of Mimir and then Woody leapt in to save her, and nobody came out with all their body parts intact. That moment of frenzied magical awfulness has now been immortalized in painting.

By talented artist Samantha Braithwaite!

That's something nice and cheerfully calming for everyone's Friday morning, isn't it?

Old Bear

Question: Who did the art for Folkwardr? It is the best of the character pictures that I've seen thus far.

This is going to make you laugh, probably. The piece is by French digital artist Benjamin Giletti, and is actually fanart for something completely different - it's meant to be an image of Old Bear Mormont, a character from the Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series.

We don't normally represent characters with art that is specifically of other characters (makes it hard for them to keep their individual flavor sometimes without getting bogged down in that other character's associated story and personality), but the symbolism was off the charts and the player really liked it. Not only is the picture of someone who is old, cranky and crotchety but obviously still a badass, all things one can definitely say about Woody, but he was also a big fan of having the bear in the background, representing Sowiljr, and the raven on his shoulder, representing Vala, who are the two most important figures in his very Norse-centric life.

Check out the rest of Giletti's gallery, if you have time - he does some very neat stuff!

Anne's Fiction Corner

It's that time!

Today's story is What Dreams May Come, starring Woody Anderson with appearances by Aurora Dahl, Vivian Landry, Kettila Blomgren and Will Nordstrom. It is a tale of dreams versus reality, familial loyalty and the enduring nature of consequences. And since I know this story took a long time to come out, here's a little bonus: Weregild, a secret look into some things Aurora's doing behind the scenes. Because any time Woody is in there busting his ass, it's a good bet Aurora's in the back sabotaging his efforts somehow.

As of the writing of this post, Seamus has eked out a mighty lead of 2 votes and will get the next story. I hope you're all ready for some Irish cross-country travel shenanigans, because that's what's about to happen. A new poll will go up to the right momentarily, and you can weigh in on whose story you'd like to see next.

At the write-in request of a few of you, I'm going to start providing teasers summaries of the stories you're voting on, so you'll know exactly what you might be signing up for. Ready? Here goes!

• If you vote for Alison Margaritas, you'll be getting a story about her response to Kane's betrayal and the theft of Colin by Geoff and company, and see exactly what lengths a truly vengeance-driven Scion can go to.
• If you vote for Darcy Jolie-Pitt, you'll be getting a story about two sisters trapped in a foreign underworld, trying to find their way back to the light.
• If you vote for Faruza Alinejad, you'll be getting a story about unlikely friendships and the sacrifices bandmates sometimes make for one another, physical or spiritual.
• If you vote for Mohini Misra, you'll be getting a story about her band undermining a corrupt raja and making difficult decisions about whether or not love can overcome evil.
• If you vote for Sangria Tecuhtli, you'll be getting a story about the consequences of recent Norse actions on the struggling Mexicans and what exactly it looks like when something pushes her over the edge.
• If you vote for Sophia Archimedes, you'll be getting a story about her stormy non-relationship with a certain notorious Scion.
• If you vote for Will Nordstrom, you'll be getting a story about his childhood and growth into one of the last Vanir Scions in the world.
• If you vote for Yadi, you'll be getting a story about her origins as a street rat in the back alleys of Tehran and her hopes for a better life as a child of the righteous gods.

Happy voting - I'm off to start wrangling Irishmen!

Sorry, Thomas

Question: Do negative Fatebonds ever start removing your PSP?

Ooh, a very good question. No, they do not.

When we first pioneered the Fatebond system, we allowed Fatebonds to apply to PSPs; if you happened to use them a lot you could get positively Fatebound to them, and if you didn't use them or were obviously bad at them, you could get negatively Fatebound away from them. We found, however, that it didn't work very well for a few reasons.

For one thing, PSPs don't often spend much Legend. Since it's Legend that triggers Fatebonds from mortals, that means PSPs almost never garner Fatebonds, and when they do they're very difficult to change or cancel out. In turn, that means if you get an unlucky negative Fatebond to your PSP, you could potentially get it bought off with a much lower chance than usual to be able to fix that problem, even if you were actively trying. We saw this happen firsthand when, very early in his career, Woody got a negative Fatebound to his Jotunblut and lost the entire purview. It sucked. We felt really bad about it.

The most important reason besides that is that at the basic idea of Fatebonds affecting PSPs doesn't really make any sense. It makes sense for a Fatebond to add or detract from other things; if it's your Fate to be a storm god and you thus get bonuses to Sky, that makes sense, and if it's your Fate to be flummoxed by illusions and you thus get penalties to Perception, that makes sense, too. Fatebonds model where your destiny lies very well that way. But a PSP isn't the same kind of a creature, and it represents your closeness to the ancestral and inborn powers of your pantheon. It is not the destiny of one Tuatha Scion to be more Irish than the other, nor of one Aztec Scion to be more Mexican than his fellow; except for the very, very rare case of a Scion that performs the theoretical jump from one pantheon to the other, all Scions are created with a destiny that includes being part of their pantheon. It doesn't make sense for one Hindu Scion to have a bonus to Samsara, another to have a penalty and still another to have no modification, because that implies that these Scions are not all equally destined to be Devas.

So we changed that ruling. PSPs are unaffected by Fatebonds and proceed - or don't - according to a Scion's wishes, allowing them to be direct measures of how much that character wants to invest in the powers and ideals of their pantheon. For Fatebond purposes, we consider them to conceptually have more in common with Virtues than with purviews.

Merry Mortality

Question: Is it possible in the Scion setting for gods to turn mortals into gods? There are many stories of gods taking lovers and raising them to godhood themselves - could Folkwardr do this for his wife? Another example would be Dionysus and bringing his mother to become a god, or at least an immortal. Thoughts?

The quick and easy answer is no. Within Scion, there is no way for a mortal to become a god; that's the sole province of Scions, who by virtue of their divine blood are able to climb the ranks of great heroes and become divinities themselves. That's what makes them so special and awesome, and makes them the stars of the setting. Mortals have no such power; the most they can hope for is becoming a Legendary Mortal who can be awesome and badass by human reckoning but who can never rise above Legend 1.

However, there are lots of ways to play with the concept in Scion (and we've actually talked about it before a few times!). For one thing, Scions are basically mortals before they receive their Visitation; they have no Legend rating and, unless a god has already interfered, no idea they aren't normal mortals, albeit probably unusually talented ones. Most tales of mortals ascending to godhood are probably just tales of Scions, people who started as humans, gained in Legend after coming into their divine heritage and eventually took their place among the pantheons. Dionysus' mother Semele is a perfect example; she's the daughter of Harmonia, Greek goddess of harmony and peace, and granddaughter of Aphrodite and Ares, so she's most likely a Scion of one of the three of them (or even of Dionysus himself, via the magic of the Scion Adoption Rite).

There are also plenty of other things you can do to safeguard true mortals that aren't candidates for Scionhood. Folkwardr long ago had Jioni use Control Aging on Ahouva to make her practically immortal, and other Health boons to cleanse her of all human illnesses and physical frailties she might have had. As long as no one kills her, she'll live for at least centuries longer. Famous magical relics and substances might also make mortals undying, including the Peaches of Immortality, Ambrosia of Olympus or Mead of Eternal Youth. Various boons, mostly in PSPs (Deuogdonio, Heku, Jotunblut), allow Scions to make mortals into Legendary beings - not gods, but still immortal and more than human. And then there are plenty of basic buffs you can bestow on humans, including granting immunities and Stamina knacks with the Guardian purview, that make them a cut above the average mortal.

Of course, they'll still be mortals at heart - they won't be able to gain Legend and will never be gods. But then again, I think Folkwardr prefers it that way; he's pretty glad, most of the time, that his wife doesn't have crazy magical agendas of her own.

We got a Solstice Present!!!

We are very grateful. Two very awesome guys that are taking my ST class(next week is the last week, ill do a wrap up post then and talk more about it) got us an awesome present! We are so excited we just had to share!

Its a painting of right after Ragnarok. Vivian, Woody, Geoff, and the ghost of Sangria. Totally a suprise, totally so awesome...Im just floored. HUGE HUGE thanks to Alex and Royce. SO SUPER AWESOME!

Playing Barry White in the Overworld

Question: Which god-level Scion currently has the most active libido? I know Sowiljr and Jioni played the field a lot as mortal heroes but have pruded up as gods, hence the question.

I cleaned up your question a bit, anonymous, because it was worded in a way that came off as less than respectful. No hard feelings, though.

I suspect this question is more for the players than for us; I mean, I know who tends to have the most active sex life (Jioni - sexytimes with Erebus are always on deck), but I wouldn't know if Folkwardr secretly struggles with unbridled passion or anything like that. There are only the four gods running currently, and all of them are faithfully married; Jioni and Erebus see each other fairly regularly, but Folkwardr hardly ever sees Ahouva, and Sowiljr tends to hold Eztli at arm's length (whether it's because he's afraid of having another giant basket of babies or hesitant because she's a bat-monster is unclear). Of the god-level PCs who only recently departed, Yoloxochitl had firmly regressed to childhood and entirely sworn off icky adult things like sex and romance, Terminus was married to Circe and reasonably afraid of suggesting much boudoir time considering their history (but even more afraid of even thinking about cheating on her), Aiona only remembered that sex existed when someone else having it was inconveniencing her, and Vala had never had a romantic relationship as far as anyone knows. The only other person you could really call libidinous was Zwazo, who definitely did try to woo the ladies when the opportunity presented itself and has a lot of little mini-Zwazos wandering around the world in various places, but was often too distracted by things like monsters and confusing African politics.

Just like most mythic figures, they run the spectrum from virginal and uninterested to passionate and excitable. It all depends on their personality and image as deities.

Incidentally, while Jioni quite enjoyed choosing her lovers as she went as a Hero and Demigod, Sowiljr's tomcatting days came to an abrupt end as soon as he married Eztli at around Legend 5 or so, so he really can't compete in that arena. (Not that that is having any effect on the seemingly endless parade of divinely attractive ladies bent on making him give it another try.)

Anne's Fiction Corner

Oh, snap, guys - it's fiction time again!

Today's story is Things Already Seen, starring Aurora Dahl with appearances by Woody Anderson, Vivian Landry and Kettila Blomgren. It is a tale of bad decisions made worse, the inevitable progress of Fate and the ill-advisedness of making magical bargains.

When Aurora decides she's going to go for something, she freaking goes for it.