The Wide, Wonderful World

It's vlog time! Today's subject is general cosmological goodness, including questions about Titans, god interactions and the general rules of the universe.

Question: Do Scions identify cross pantheon by role? Do all the creator gods hang out and compare notes (or one up each other or just try and make the best bear, whatever)? Do all the fire gods get together and talk about who has the best volcanoes? Do all the psychopomps get together and complain about all the ungrateful mortals? Do the prophetic deities get together at the foretold times and talk about the subjects that they foresaw themselves talking about?

Question: How does each pantheon view masculinity and femininity? If that's a bit too much ground to cover, I'm particularly interested in how the Aesir, the Tuatha De Dannan and the Bogovi view masculinity and femininity.

Question: What gods (or kinds of gods) do you think would be most proud (if at all) of their children breaking off for a new pantheon? What gods would be least ok with it?

Question: Why is Apep in the Titanrealm of darkness? Is it not more closely associated with Chaos?

Question: Does a Justice God have to believe in Character his own laws or can he just ignore it when it is convenient?

Question: How do you handle the gods no longer being worshiped? Fate? The Titans, not caring, something else? Or do you run with the idea that the world of Scion has major cults today with large and active temples/shrines?

Question: What does the process of binding a Titan look like? The corebook provided a specific example in the sample chronicle, but failed to give more general information.

Question: In your game, Do mortals know if a god died or did something new to their legend? Like somehow a myth about the death or event of the god suddenly is found or they retroactively just know it? I was asking because of the fiction where Athena dies and I wondered about that.

And that's the end of that four-installment vlog-filming marathon. We're internet athletes!

Ten Questions with Excited Waving Arms

On today's blog, project updates, future possibilities, a call to action for you guys, and a whole bunch of questions!

Question: How do you handle "secrets" in myth? Things that supposedly certain gods do not know (and would have extreme reactions if they found out) yet are an established part of the myths about them?

Question: How do you explain the story of King Midas? I mean, the guy's an ordinary mortal who gets the power to turn anything he touches into gold. What Scion powers can give such a power to a mortal?

Question: Can you kill a death god? Should you be able to kill a death god? Does killing a death god really accomplish anything?

Question: What do you think would happen if a Scion, who has not yet received a Visitation, were to simply stumble across a Birthright relic that doesn't belong to an active Scion? Could that result in a kind of "triggered activation" of the Scion's divine blood? Or would nothing happen since it isn't a true Visitation?

Question: How do you determine the damage from some of the more extreme attacks that Scion's power allows? If my Strength monster picks up the Empire State Building and hurls it at a Titan Avatar, or some other powerful foe, how do I determine how badly such an impact hurt the target? If I used Create Earth to conjure up a mess of diamonds, then threw the diamonds into a tornado conjured by Tornado Tamer and hurled the whole thing at a bad guy? How would I determine THAT damage?

Question: How far is too far for you guys at GothamByNight when it comes to PC morality? When do you take one of your Players to the side and ask them if their PC could still be considered "a good guy/aligned with the Gods" and not some Chaotic Evil Titan in waiting that is deserving of a Dark Virtue or two? For example, do you think that a God-level PC Band's active attempts to wipeout humanity or kill off their parents for their own ambitions justify them gaining Dark Virtues?

Question: Do you guys have anyway of setting apart gods and goddesses of hunting mechanically? I'm working on some homebrew and I feel like these hunt gods need some association to really drive the point home, but I don't know what. I almost find myself wanting to make a Hunt Purview, but that's a heck of a lot of work. But what else to use? Is War fitting? An attribute that most fits their hunting style? I'm really at a loss here.

Question: You said in an earlier vlog that the difference between Followers/Creatures and Guides were that Creatures and Followers were below you and Guides were beings above you. Now what if I have a character who's got contact to the Valkyries as a Guide from Hero - would it be possible at Demigod that they turned into more like an equal ally type of thing? That instead of them just giving you good advice, they help you out physically when you really need it.

Question: Nut is a Titan, Shu is a Titan, and Geb is probably going to be a Titan as well - but the most ancient of them, Ra, is not?

Question: So! If everyone on Earth, for whatever reason, suddenly got a point of Legend, and the Gods were then able to get up to their old tricks without having to worry about Fatebinding, would they? If they could without having to worry about Fatebinding, would the Gods return to Earth? Related question, is there anything you can think of from any mythology that would be capable of giving everyone on Earth a legend point? Some Uber Relic or ritual that, if done, would give everyone that kind of power?

To our sixth questioner, we now realize that while we talked about PC morality in answer to your question, we didn't really address Dark Virtues. Our rule of thumb is that Dark Virtues are something PCs gain by contact with Titans or otherwise through magical events, so for the most part we would not give them any Dark Virtues automatically just because they're being jerks. It is entirely possible for Scions (and gods, too!) to be sometimes or even often malicious without actually having Malice, just as it's possible to be interested in knowledge and learning without having Intellect or to bravely run into battle without having Courage. However, Scions who are consistently evil or often do things that are in line with the goals of the Titans are likely to attract their attention, in which case it is entirely possible they might end up corrupted by a Titan Virtue later on.

If you want to email us boons, do it here! Go nuts!

Fighting the Good Fight

Iiiiit's vlog time! Today we have those fancy new lights and I look less like a zombie, but I'm also on pain drugs so I sound a little bit more like a crazy person than usual. Trade-off. Next week I hope to be more functional, and of course John is here being a helpful rock of sanity.

Today's questions are on a bunch of topics including Titans, relics and politics, but they're all about the greater world of Scion at large. So here we go!

Question: In your games, I'm assuming that the gods are very much besieged on all sides by Titanrealms and Avatars aplenty, and the corebooks make a point of saying how Avatars have to stay in their realms most of the time to avoid being rebound. My question is, if the terrifying nature of the Titanrealms is what is preventing various pantheons from attacking them en masse, what is it that's preventing Avatars from doing the same to the gods? Do Overworlds (and Underworlds, I guess) have similar built-in defenses?

Question: Why do relics bite when not bound to you? There seem to be multiple myths where people take each others' weapons and use them, and I can't name any where that has actually damaged the person (without the involvement of a curse/geasa).

Question: How do you deal with gods that have unique powers that don't seem to fit in with any of the purviews? The best examples I can come up with are mostly from the Deva. For example, Shiva's "Destructo-Eye?" The guy opens his third eye and shit just blows up! How does one make that happen in Scion? For that matter, Shiva and Kali are both known for their destructive dances wherein they dance and the world just starts to fall apart. How do these things work in your system?

Question: How would you represent Diomedes in Scion, given how he's Mr. "I'm totally a mortal man but I'm so badass that I fuck up Scions and gods alike, and then Athena made me into a god when I died?" I mean, the dude got in a fight with *Ares* and kicked his ass!

Question: I've been doing some (admittedly small) amount of research into the Orisha. Is Courage really a valid Virtue for them? They certainly talk a big game, but most of their conflicts are tricks and pranks against each other rather than huge monsters (compare to the Theoi). At the same time, they seem to highly value Intellect. Particularly with Orunmila.

Question: Could the Olympic Games have been a Birthright? It may sound stupid, but you've discussed relic songs before, and your Birthright PDF has a Shinto shrine for the Kami. Could Zeus have gotten some cool bonuses when mortals dedicated their great victories in his honor?

Question: This might be a weird question, but what are the likely consequences (politically) when a Titan (and its Avatar) manages to overpower a pantheon?

Question: How do you guys feel about the idea of making Titanrealms a one-per-purview deal? Currently I'm having to choose between one realm per pantheon (where the realms don't match up to purviews, e.g. the Kami opposed by the realm of corruption) and one per purview (e.g. the kami are opposed by Izanami as a death titan but the realm itself is split between them and the K'uh), and I can't decide which I prefer. What do you think?

Question: So my game master is most likely planning to have my character's godly parent marry her away as part of inter-pantheon politics. I know how common a practice that has been through time; is that something you have dealt with before? I'd like to know more about how the gods use their children in the politics game now that it has expanded so much since the start of the war.

Question: So, among a handful of us, "Goddamnit, Stribog" has become a touch memetic. What the chuffing hell is he doing?

Oh, Stribog. I know the players hope you never change.

Constructing Antiquity

Question: As a Gaelic Polytheist(i.e., I worship the Tuatha), I am curious: how might Scions relate to religions that worship their parents? This can obviously go for all Scions of any pantheon.

We've got an old post on this very subject back here - go ye and read!

That post is mostly about how the pantheons and their gods might respond to reconstructionist or revivalist worship, but I think the question of how Scions might respond is also a neat side issue. Scions (in the default setting, at least) are modern people and are likely to have modern ideas, morals and interpretations, so how they might relate to reconstructed worship of their ancient parents could have as much variation as you can find in any pagan community.

Some of them might love it. People still want to worship my divine patron and her buddies? Awesome! They want to learn more about them and debate theology? Cool! They want to perform festivals, make sacrifices or find ways to bring the religion into the modern day so more and more people can get involved in it? Outstanding! Scions who were reconstructionists already before discovering their heritage are probably especially excited about this, since it was already something they strongly believed in that has now been given actual form and power by their own existence as a Scion. Others, who might not have had a strong religion but are excited by having suddenly gained one, may also be gung-ho about throwing themselves into this new way of venerating very old gods, and those who never had much religious leaning at all might now have a group they can feel good about supporting, especially since modern pagan religions tend to be marginalized in much of modern culture. People with Piety will probably be jumping for joy - wanting their pantheon to be worshiped is like mission one for them!

(We're only talking about the reconstructionist religions here, I should note - polytheistic Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto and Shenism, among others, are still massively practiced in their home territories. They do count as having new and modern worship practices, especially those that have radically evolved over the course of their existence, but something that has been ongoing and unbroken like Hinduism isn't really in the same boat with something like Canaanite Reconstructionism that died a long time ago and is being put back together via research and guesswork by people with modern agendas and not always a lot of great source material.)

On the other hand, some Scions may not react well to reconstructionist religions. Some, especially those who are superhumanly smart and therefore know more about these ancient religions than mortals can, may be offended or irritated by how inaccurate they are, or worse, how much they're actually borrowing from totally different theologies or traditions and putting them under the same umbrella with their own gods. Some may appreciate the effort but be unable to handle what they think of as "incorrect" performance of rituals or address of ancient deities (and Piety's a double-edged sword here, because while it totally wants people to worship its pantheon, it also feels the need to correct them any time they're wrong about said pantheon). You want to substitute canola oil for olive oil in this ritual? No, you can't do that! You want to worship the Teotl but you refuse to open a vein once in a while? Blasphemy, man up and learn to bleed! You want to worship both gods of the Netjer and gods of the Tuatha at the same time because you feel that both religions speak to you? Get out forever, you are an abomination.

And some Scions may not give a damn, and that's probably the likeliest scenario. If they're not directly involved with any neopagan cults associated with their parents, and mortals (as usual) can't affect the gods with their worship anyway, who cares what they're doing? Scions who like to think of themselves as above humanity probably definitely don't care, and even those who see themselves more as divine Everymen might easily ignore reconstructed religions as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. They've got adventures to go on and things to do, so they're probably not bothering to look up the local Kemetic chapter everywhere they go, or spend much time trolling the neopagan discussion boards to have conversations about stuff that they can go out and live instead. Scions who have little religious bent, before or after being Visited, may just go on not caring about religions of any stripe.

They do have a little more importance for Scions, though, because whereas gods are for the most part staying in their Overworlds and not getting involved in their cults for the past several centuries, Scions are on earth in the here and now and therefore that big bad bogeyman, Fatebonds, may come after them with a vengeance. Fatebonds come from mortal belief when supplemented by a Scion spending Legend nearby, so a Scion who discovers that a cult has grown up around himself as part of a pantheon may be very invested indeed in what they think of him and what they do in his name. It's all fun and games until you visit your personal church one day and find that someone declared that you're the modern god of ultimate racism or something, and you just didn't notice. Very awkward. And also potentially dangerous, since that might affect your Fatebonds.

As usual, mortal cults are both massively important and totally irrelevant to Scions. They can't do anything themselves and are made up of mortals who are mostly negligible when it comes to doing anything to a Scion or god... but the power of their beliefs and Fatebonds make them incredibly influential and either beneficial or dangerous to a Scion's health. Oh, the power these mortals wield, eh?

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!

Hubris

Question: In a lot of modern fiction, technology is the great equalizer between humanity and the supernatural forces of the world. Where do you stand on technology ever being able to allow humans to fight the gods? Can humans ever develop weapons capable of harming the a god with minimum Epic Stamina? What about maximum? Can future man ever muster an army great enough and well equipped enough to conquer a pantheon of gods? Now please answer again, but include Fatebinding into the equation!

Well, jeez, you don't want much, do you?

We've covered this in depth on a similar question a while ago, which you can check out here, but where we stand is that no, humans can't fight gods. Large numbers of peak-trained and equipped humans getting extraordinarily lucky and succeeding well above average makes it just possible to hurt a single god who is already bad at defending himself. Humanity trying to take on a pantheon is flat-out impossible.

You're right, modern fiction is currently very fond of that idea of technology providing the means for humanity to overcome the supernatural; it's part of a general trend in literature and media in the past century that portrays humanity as the scrappy underdogs who can still manage to win if they just work hard enough, and in a larger sense a cultural expression of the power of capitalism and other merit-based social systems at work in the modern world. Especially in the United States, where we're all told that if we follow the American Dream and just work really hard and have moxy we'll eventually succeed no matter how insanely the odds are stacked against us, it only makes sense for writers and creators to project that idea forward into their art. And when that collides with supernatural fiction, it's natural to say: okay, so if humanity can always win if they just try hard enough, how do they beat supernatural things that are more powerful? The answer takes a variety of forms - super science equipment that can detect or contain ghosts, genetic modifications to make humans faster or stronger to compete with zombies, invention of more efficient stake-o-matics to take the fight to vampires, or whatever - all geared toward suggesting that humanity can level the playing field against the supernatural if they put the force of their collective creativity and determination toward it.

And that's totally awesome, and there are many excellent stories and worlds built around it. But it doesn't work in Scion, and the most major reason is that Scion is not about the supernatural; Scion is about the divine.

Things like werewolves, ghosts, witches and other common supernatural nasties are fundamentally based at the human level. They're more powerful than humans, certainly, thanks to their suite of personalized supernatural abilities, but they're within the same general realm of power. They affect human society, prey on humans who are capable, even pre-technology, of fighting back against them, and in many cases are actually at least partially human themselves. The stories told about these kinds of supernatural things are all concerned with humans and human society, or at the furthest with the environment they inhabit that is near that of humans. These are things that are designed to compete with humans on a similar level, whether by being cast out of a possession by a mortal priest, being hunted down by vampire hunters bearing crosses and holy water or being warded off by travelers who know enough to carry a little bread, a shaker of salt and an iron bar when crossing the fairy moors at night.

Or to reduce it to quick and dirty Scion game terms, they're close in Legend rating. Mortals have no Legend, and creatures like this might have anywhere from 1 to 3 dots, making them definitely more powerful and dangerous but still within the realm where concerted human effort can and does overcome them. Traditionally, in both antiquated and modern literature, they are creatures meant to be capable of meaningfully antagonizing humans and vice versa.

But Scion is concerned with gods, and gods are not supernatural creatures. Gods are gods. They are deities believed to be the fundamental powers of the universe, the shapers and creators, owners and overseers, the foundations of religions and the sources of life. They come from ancient religions where there was absolutely no question whatsoever that humans could "compete" with them, and stories about those stupid enough to try almost invariably end in complete misery or death for the mortal who dared try to compare themselves to the divine. The people who believed in these beings understood that they were hopelessly insignificant next to them, that there was no possibility of ever even thinking about equalling them much less trying to overcome them, and that their world and very lives constantly depended on their goodwill. Gods can instantly deprive the whole planet of sustenance with the powers of Animal and Fertility, or suffocate the entire planet with the powers of Sky, or blanket it in Darkness and Chaos until humanity kills itself in panic, and those things would not be particularly hard for them, especially if several gods decided to do so at once. Ra or Shiva or Tezcatlipoca can literally blink and end the world - and everything humanity has built in it - in a second.

That's the difference here: gods are not and were never thought of as being anywhere near the level of humans. If they were, they wouldn't be gods, just powerful demons/spirits/whatevers that mortals could deal with enterprisingly instead of needing to pray to and appease. If gods are beings that humans have even the vaguest hope of conquering, they aren't gods, ancient religions make no sense, and Scion's entire setting collapses. Gods are by definition the powers of the universe. If you make them something else, you're no longer playing with gods; you're playing a game where demons or aliens or the spirits of ancestors pretend to be gods but can be defeated. Which is not what Scion is about.

This doesn't mean it's impossible to harm gods with mortal means, of course, just extraordinarily unlikely. It's technically possible for a god to have no Epic Stamina at all if that was their dump stat, although we have a hard time conceiving of a deity with only fourteen health boxes who could have survived this long anyway, and they'd be just as easy to hurt - provided you can bring yourself to attack them and actually hit them and they have no powers that could save them, which is a massively unlikely string of events - as any mortal would. Gods who don't have minimum Epic Stamina but who do have fairly low Stamina could also be hurt by mortal weapons even now; if you'd shot Vala with a nuke, she and her five Epic Stamina would have been in deep trouble. Except, of course, for the ten zillion powers from Guardian to Psychopomp to basic Stamina Knacks that she could have used - or that others around her could have used - to escape completely unscathed.

As for maximums, that is impossible. A god who has Ultimate Stamina is the utter expression of durability and physical hardiness. There is nothing in the universe that is less hurtable than that god. You can't scratch him with a nuke. You probably can't scratch him with several nukes. A god with Ultimate Dexterity is so incredibly fast and fluid that it is quite literally abjectly impossible to hit him if he doesn't want to be hit, and you will just end up raining nukes down on random points where he's no longer hanging out. And, of course, you can't even want to shoot the guy with Ultimate Charisma, because he's so fucking incredible you could never, ever, ever in a million years bring yourself to do anything that might hurt him. Gods can and do hurt each other, but that's because they're on equal or semi-equal planes of power, where their unfathomable Strength can be a match for their opponent's immovable Stamina or their incredible powers of resistance can get past the insidiously powerful Manipulation their enemy turns on them. Humans are not on that plane of power. By definition, they can't be.

We could probably go on all day with different ways that gods basically have no concerns whatsoever about humans hurting them, but here's a simple way of looking at it: the game is not a fixed continuum, where the gods are exactly as "powerful" in megatons or miles per hour as they have always been. The gods were beyond fathoming when humanity was in the Bronze Age, and they're beyond fathoming now, and in two thousand years when mortals have built the Death Star, they'll be beyond fathoming then, too. Gods, in order to be gods, must always be unspeakably powerful in relation to humanity; in terms of the great universal cosmic scope of the game, humans can invent whatever they want, but they'll never actually get any closer to the gods. If someone were writing Scion in that time period, they'd change the stats and numbers so that the gods were just as far above mortals as they are now; if mortals have the technology to go at the speed of light, gods have the ability to go faster. Because otherwise, as we said, they're not gods.

I'm glad you mentioned Fatebonds, however, because that is an area where we totally cheat in favor of mortals sometimes! Humans who have been Fatebound into a particular Role for a given Legendary creature have the backing of Fate, which wants them to succeed, and that may occasionally mean that they have much more of a shot at hurting someone than they otherwise should. A mortal who is a Nemesis to a Legend 8 Scion shouldn't normally be able to touch her, but with Fate guiding her hand, we often represent that with penalties to the Scion, who has trouble trying to buck the whims of Fate, or bonuses to the Fatebound mortal who needs them to boost her to supernatural abilities for the brief time it takes to fulfill her destined part in the story. Or both. A Traitor will be way better at hiding her intentions from a Scion's Epic Perception than a normal mortal, because Fate will give her bonuses no other mortal could have; a Lover will be way more alluring to a Scion because Fate wants her to be loved and thus boosts her lovability to greater-than-human heights.

But even these things are not guarantees, just helpful nudging from Fate that might or might not make the difference. And in our Fatebond system they don't apply to gods anyway, since upon reaching Legend 9, gods no longer have individuals Fatebound to them in roles but instead are supported by Fatebound cults with collective beliefs about them. But we do think it's important for Storytellers to play up the importance of Fatebound mortals, and to remember that Fate wants them to succeed and sometimes that should mean that at the critical moment they're better than they have any right to be.

Lunar Landing

Question: How would moon gods and goddesses feel about mankind colonizing the moon?

Well, humans aren't quite there yet... but with Scions in the mix, super-sciencing and super-magicing all over the place, anything could happen. We've had PCs jaunt off to the moon on a lark, and while no one's tried to move in yet, it's totally possible for settlement to happen in almost any Scion game.

I think this is a question with no clear-cut answer; a lot would depend on which god you're looking at and how exactly this moon-colonizing happened, as well as what its effects were. Moon gods have their Lunar Estates in what basically amounts to pocket Terrae Incognita, so they're not going to be feeling too crowded by mortals on the surface of the moon that orbits the Earth, but there are plenty of other considerations to take into account.

Some moon deities would probably actually really enjoy human colonization and inhabitation of the moon. For a set of gods who often wane (ha!) in importance when compared to the more perennially popular sun and storm gods, having a large portion of humanity literally move into their area of influence would probably give them a nice boost of importance and divine political badassness, giving them the opportunity to directly affect people much more closely than distantly directing the tides or causing full-moon madness. Depending on the god's temperament, some might see this as an opportunity to create brand-new, influential cults dedicated in their honor, because after all, aren't they the ones whose hands humanity is solely putting themselves into? Others, less benevolent or more afflicted by the lunacy that is their bailiwick, might savor the ability to directly meddle with and drive mad brand new sets of mortals, reshaping a population the way they never could with other competing gods on Earth. And just think about the awesome scope of the powers of the Moon purview when people are actually on the moon; sure, using Moonrise to cause a lunar eclipse on earth is intimidating, but how much more crazy badass is it when you can turn the entire planetoid that mortals are inhabiting and plunge them into darkness on your whim?

On the other hand, some moon gods probably wouldn't be huge fans of the idea of a lot of mortals cluttering up their space. Some might view it as a prideful intrusion of mankind into an arena they were never meant for, or even extend the blame to other gods who aren't providing them enough to do on Earth or preventing these sorts of shenanigans. Because mortals would be living day-to-day on the moon's surface, building and shaping its environment to suit them, it also might lose many of the qualities that moon deities would say make it the moon; for example, if too much terraforming and building happens and the surface of the moon becomes habitable and earthlike, what will happen to its famously shining silver light, now dimmed forever thanks to the new topography and buildings blotting it out? If mortals are actually living on the moon and treating it as generally subconsciously thoughtlessly as they tend to treat the Earth, moon gods might be mortally offended by upstarts littering, mining or otherwise defacing their heavenly body, not to mention the fact that much of the mystique and awe of the moon, which those gods depend upon, would undoubtedly be lost on mortals who were living on it all the time. Gods are slow to change, and the moon has been its coldly, symbolically beautiful self for a long time. Many of them are probably going to twig out if major changes occur without their approval.

An interesting side effect of moon colonization would be the probable rise of a new kind of moon god, thanks to the violently shifting symoblism and effects of having people living on the moon instead of looking up at it from the Earth. Most moon deities in ancient mythology are concerned with the moon's effects on distant earth, from its pull on the tides to its softly-glowing light in the darkness to its effects on a humanity who can't touch or experience it except as a subtle push toward madness or the relentless metronome that keeps the rhythm of the months. If the moon is instead colonized, Scions who become new moon gods will most likely need to take on new roles, finding ways to express themselves as gods of something that is tangible, solid and inhabited, a place instead of a faraway heavenly light. What that will mean exactly depends on those Scions, and whether or not the older moon gods adapt or become relics of a time before space travel will seriously impact the divine landscape.

Prevaricating Prognosticators

Question: One of my players has a Shen Scion with Prophecy (your version), specifically using the I Ching as his method of divination. How should I handle it when he wants to throw some yarrow stalks and give someone a reading without actually activating a boon? Are mortal methods of divination completely bunk (or rather, only effective when a god somewhere is using Voice of Fate)? Or in these cases should I just tell the player to make up whatever results the reading gives and roll with it?

Ah, mortal magics! In this case, we would tell the Scion that he is not actually performing a real divination and thus will be making up whatever he tells to the mortal, with no binding effects on Fate itself. If he wants to really grant that person a true prophecy, he'll need to spend for a boon.

One of the things the Prophecy purview is meant to do is illustrate all the ways prophecies are actually performed, received and used, hopefully in a multi-cultural enough sense to be equally awesome for all Scions from different pantheons. Because of that, its boons represent the powers in the universe that actually grant foreknowledge, from seeing visions of the future personally to granting them to others. If they don't have Prophecy, they won't be able to have prophecies; and therefore anyone performing a divination, no matter how elaborate, without the Prophecy purview is actually just shooting in the dark. It's the same story as most other "mortal magics"; sure, humans have legends of wizards who can shoot fire from their hands, but in Scion, that means they have the Fire purview, and you don't have to try to come up with an alternate system for non-Fire fire powers.

However, that doesn't mean all of your Scion's I-Ching divinations will be bullshit. For one thing, he can do what accomplished fortune-tellers around the world do and give readings that are uncannily accurate based on his own ability to read the person he's divining for. If mortal prognosticators can make reasonably good guesses about a person's future based on their behavior and personality, Scions should be that much better at it, equipped with more mental acumen than the canniest of palm-readers even on their bad days. Another option is the ever-popular self-fulfilling prophecy, and your Scion can easily go out and make his prophecies come true by personally ensuring that they do. He could do that any number of ways, from using powers to encourage or force the person he's reading for to do whatever he predicts they will, or by going out and personally setting up whatever situation he has predicted, and so on. He can also simply lie and go on his merry way if he really wants to, too; apart from meddling supernatural people who might be able to see through him, most recipients of such divinations will believe in his predication and, one way or the other, probably decide at some point that it's come true. "My god - he said I'd rise in power and become king one day and here I am leading the Mardi Gras parade!" "My god - he said I'd rise in power and become king one day and here I am winning at King of the Mountain!" "My god - he said I'd rise in power and become king one day and here I am wearing a Burger King crown!" "Damn you, Prophecy!"

For you as the Storyteller, a non-paid-for divination is also a pretty great time for you to spring good old Minor Visions on him; after all, if he's going to sit down and start acting like he's prophesying, Fate might very well decide to oblige him. As always, it's up to you what Fate most wants to grant him a vision of and whether or not it actually has anything to do with the person being given a reading, but it's the perfect moment for that boon (and, since it's sometimes challenging for STs to remember to use Minor Visions as often as they should, gives you a nice reminder that it's an option whenever he does it). It's just like Fate to take an invitation when it sees one, and if he didn't want the headache, well, he's chosen the wrong career.

Other than that, though, we'd say that non-magical divinations are just that: non-magical. A Tarot card reading or entrail spread performed by a mortal can't have much, if any, bearing on reality in Scion: it would suddenly be the only magical thing mortals could randomly do without having purviews in a world where they aren't supposed to have any magical powers at all, and it would severely undercut the Prophecy purview itself if it were a set of shiny expensive powers that could be duplicated by any yutz with a bag of chicken bones or censer of incense. If you allow a Scion to perform real prophecies without using Prophecy, why not allow all Scions everywhere to do it for free every time, provided they have a dot of Occult and know how to draw the cards or toss the coins? For that matter, why can't all mortals everywhere do it for free all the time, thus eliminating uncertainty from life?

It sets a poor precedent, is what we're saying; non-Prophecy prophecies make the setting not make sense, and we hate it when the setting doesn't make sense. If you're running a game, as I know a few Storytellers out there are, in which mortal magicians are A Real Thing apart from divine powers and you've imported in powers from Mage: The Ascension or something, you may want to explore how some select mortals might be able to perform divinations, but even if that's the case, it shouldn't be something Scions are doing. You wouldn't let a Scion who didn't have Sun randomly glow when it's convenient, so you also shouldn't let Scions who aren't using Prophecy accurately foretell the future for free. Use those sexy Prophecy boons - that's what they're there for!

Just Want You Guys to Know: John failed at blogging again. Is he the worst blogger or what?

The humans die

I pick up a skyscraper and use it as a club.  I have titanium tools so the building does not crumble.  Do the people inside get hurt or are they also protected?  

Im afraid those people are hella dead.  They're all inside bouncing against those titanium tool fueled walls.  Although I dont normally allow unseen shields to protect against  that type of damage, I might allow it in that particular instance if you really wanted to save those people.  Or you could aegis all the people.

But since you probably arent gonna bother doing those things when you need a sweet skyscraper weapon....they're probably gonna die.  I hope you dont have valor or order.  

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.

What Fools These Mortals Be

Question: What if humans were to learn about the battle between the gods and Titans, and the governments of the world mobilized all their resources to reach the Overworld to eliminate the gods and Titans threatining them, and did? Since virtually anything is possible in Scion, how would both the gods and the Titans deal with invading humans?

I hate to crush your dreams, because it sounds like you have a really cool scenario in mind that you want to play with, but that's not going to happen. Humanity is absolutely and completely incapable of pulling this off.

It's not the humans aren't cool, because they are. It's not even that they aren't important, because, thanks to Fatebonds and the enduring magic of storytelling, they're hella important. But they are so far below the power curve of gods that they don't have a single prayer of threatening them as a power in their own right, and even less of trying to do so to a Titan.

Mortals could maybe, maybe, theoretically kill a Legend 12 god if they managed to hit him directly in the face with an atomic bomb or something. But that assumes that whatever poor mortals are calibrating and aiming the missile can hit his divine DV, and that he doesn't see it coming and just leave using divine speed or teleportation before it ever hits where he's standing, and that he doesn't have the divine stamina to survive it, and that he has no boons, knacks or relics that will help mitigate its effects. And even then, even if they manage to kill him which is unlikely enough... he might just get right back up if he has Epic Stamina. Or Fertility. Or is a Deva. Or has friends with Death.

And that's a single god. Mortals have a teeny-tiny almost negligible chance of killing a single god provided he's on their home turf and bad at pretty much all forms of divine survival. There's no way they could possibly take out an entire pantheon of beings that are that incredibly powerful and durable. They're gods, and that's not just a nice title for powerful space aliens or impressive mutants; it means that they are completely and totally outside the realm of mankind's abilities.

And that's also assuming that that god must have exactly zero social powers, because mortals are literally incapable of trying to hurt, inconvenience or do anything to gods that have even middling levels of social Epics. It's unthinkable to hurt someone with Epic Charisma, who is so impressive, lovable or friendly that mortals are completely incapable of doing anything but loving and obeying them. It's impossible to disobey someone with Epic Manipulation, whose commands are completely ironclad and whose slightest suggestions sound to mortals like the best idea they've ever had in their lives. And gods with Epic Appearance are either so incredibly terrifying that mortals can't entertain any thought except fleeing or dying of a heart attack, or so unbelievably beautiful that their brains leak out of their ears.

Gods with Ultimate Perception can see all the way around the planet and hear what you're thinking. Gods with Ultimate Intelligence are not only impossible to outthink, you can't even conceive of a fraction of what it would take to do so. And gods with Ultimate Wits could take fifty coffee breaks in the middle of building themselves a bunker and still be easily out of the blast radius before your nuke ever got near them.

And those are the things gods are all the time, without even using any of the powers those Epic Attributes grant them. If you are a mortal, you cannot ever point a nuke at Baldur and pull the trigger. It will not happen. You are helpless.

It's even more impossible for mortals to invade the Overworlds and Titanrealms, even if they massed all their armies and technological know-how in order to try to do so. Mortals are literally incapable of entering Overworlds; most of them can't even get into the vast majority of Terrae Incognita, which often require Legend to be spent, and Axes Mundi are completely out of the question. Even Scions can't use Axes Mundi until they're Legend 9, and these mortals are not going to fare better sitting at Legend 0. It takes magic to cross over from the World to the Overworld or vice versa, and mortals by definition don't have any.

And god forbid they ever went into a Titanrealm, because they would all instantly and irrevocably die. Titanrealms are incredibly difficult to survive even for full-fledged Legend 12 gods; no mortal, however determined, would be anything but vapor the moment he or she set foot there. That's not exaggeration. In most Titanrealms, the mortals would die so hard that there wouldn't be anything left, in the very first fraction of a second they were there. They would never know what hit them - and that's without even getting near the Titan Avatars, who are actually more difficult to try to put down than even the gods.

The answer to your question is that no god or Titan is ever worried about an invasion of humans, because that would be like us worrying about an invasion of mayflies in our houses. Maybe slightly annoying, depending on whether or not you like mayflies, but completely incapable of hurting us and prone to just dropping dead constantly anyway. Mortals can't even get close to invading the homes of the gods and Titans, would not survive the attempt if they did, and have only the slimmest, most pathetic chance of hurting any gods that they can somehow miraculously find and hit in their own World.

Now, we often talk about how awesome it is that anything is possible in Scion, and we're not liars; but we're talking about for the PCs, not for mortals. The PCs are Scions, by definition extra-mortal and destined to become gods; they will rise to powers that the entire massed governments of the mortal world couldn't dream of and go places and do things that would be entirely impossible for humans. That's the draw of playing a Scion - you're going to be a god! You're going to be as powerful as a god, as durable as a god, and as important as a god! And you're going to be those things specifically because you aren't fully mortal, and the ichor of the gods runs in your veins.

Everything we've talked about above is based on the assumption that mortals are trying to fight the gods and Titans on their own, a completely impossible prospect. It is possible for some mortals to make some progress against gods, at least in a limited capacity; other gods could grant them powers and tools, use Psychopomp to take them places they couldn't go on their own, build them magical machines and otherwise champion them so that they had a better chance of trying to fight things on such a cosmic scale above them. But the key there is that they would need gods to have any hope of affecting gods, and that in itself wouldn't be mortals winning a victory over the divine. It would just be one set of gods fighting with another, using mortals as tools, something they've all been doing since time immemorial.

And that's the way mortals traditionally fight back against the gods and Titans - they pray to other gods for help. They call upon Set to save them from the depredations of Apep, beg Odin to take their souls to Valhalla instead of letting them fall into dreary Hel, and trust Huitzilopochtli to save them from all foreign armies and gods that might threaten them. Humanity has always recognized that gods are greater powers than themselves, and that's why they offer them prayers, sacrifices, offerings and praise. They know that the gods could support them or snuff them out, protect them or destroy them, with very little effort at all. For those gods who care about humanity, whether their own people or all mortals everywhere, the massed prayers of the faithful turning to them for help or salvation is a powerful motivator on its own, and in that way mortals can and do directly influence the behavior of some gods into helping them.

Mortals can make perfectly fine antagonists for Hero-level Scions, and in large groups - like, armies large - can also be a serious pickle for a Demigod. But they can't do anything to a god, not even just one, let alone all the gods and their terrifyingly powerful progenitors. Scion has a divine power curve that perfectly illustrates this, and you don't have to look any further than the numbers to realize it.

There are tons of ways to meaningfully and excitingly use mortals in and for Scion games, but setting them up as an antagonistic force capable of destroying the gods and Titans is not one of them. It's not just improbable but impossible, and it's not just weird but actually entirely counter to the premise of the game itself.

Humanity is Great, but Humans are a Pain

Question: Not every god has Scions, right? But what keeps them from having a favored mortal or special pet on earth that they care about, or is running the Titan war too costly for such pleasures?

Nothing is stopping them, but it's probably pretty rare, for a combination of reasons including time, energy, interest and investment.

For most gods, the amount of time and energy they'd need to invest in a purely mortal companion or pet is just not worth it. Going to the World is a pain for a god, who has to pay resources to get down there and who knows that, thanks to Fateful Aura, the odds are always that someone or something is going to jump him during his vacation. Gods that don't have the Avatar Birthright almost can't do that, since their overwhelming power level would blow up society around them and they'd be at the mercy of vicious Fatebinding from all sides; gods that do have Avatar have to spend for it, and while it helps reduce the issues of being divine in the World, it doesn't make them go away, so she's still looking at dodging Titanspawn attacks or major world events while having to watch every step to avoid accidentally Fatebinding herself into something that she'll regret. These are all the reasons gods have Scions in the first place, so they don't have to come to the World and deal with all its bullshit; coming down for literally no benefit other than a brief vacation with someone they like is, for most, going to be more stressful than anything else.

You're right, also, that the fact that the gods are currently embroiled in a massive war with the Titans means that they just don't have a lot of energy to spare. Gods who are blowing Legend and Willpower to shrink down, go hang out in the World and avoid rampaging around from their Virtues are gods who are not going to have those resources available when something big goes down in the Overworlds, and while they may not spend too much, if their enemies haven't been similarly frittering away their resources, the gods are going to come up at a disadvantage. Then, too, there's the issue of being in the World on holiday instead of on the front lines of the Overworld, potentially meaning that a Titan's assault might break further through or that a goddess won't be on hand to help save the day if a massive disaster occurs. Sure, she can run back to the Overworld as soon as she finds out - but precious minutes will be lost while she does so. Maybe she'll get there in time and everything will be fine, but maybe the Titan will gain ground and destroy more of the Overworld than it would have if she'd been there, or steal some important item she could have been helping to guard, or even kill another deity that didn't have her for backup. Going off to hang out as a Legend 4 in the World when Cronus might come rampaging through the front yard at any moment is a risk many gods simply aren't willing to take.

And that's assuming that this god who wants to hang out in the World isn't even doing anything else, which is almost never the case. There's a war on, there are Scions rising to power everywhere, and the global politics of the divine world have never been more active; there are precious few gods sitting around in their Sanctums wondering what to do today. They are busy as shit, which means most of them don't have time to go maintain some favorite mortal in the world.

And speaking of mortals, that's another issue: most gods simply aren't interested in maintaining a favorite mortal, and that's because mortals are boring. It's not their fault; they can't help it. Gods have Epic Attributes at levels that mortals can't even comprehend, much less deal with; a mortal can never have an interesting or stimulating conversation with a god that has three or more Epic Intelligence, for example, can't physically keep up with a god with even basic Epic Stamina and probably moves at the speed of an epileptic snail both physically and mentally when compared to divine beings, even if they're not very good at those things themselves. It's very hard for gods to have meaningful relationships with mortals; they can have empathy for them and care about them in broad strokes, but it's hard to really connect with someone who has the brains of an amoeba compared to you, or who's so fragile that you might accidentally sneeze and blow him up.

This doesn't mean that gods don't have mortal friends and lovers, of course; they often do. But they don't maintain them over long periods of time; their lovers generally tend to be abandoned as soon as they get them knocked up, or if they're really attached to someone they usually just drag them off to become Legendary in some way rather than deal with the annoyance of their mortality, thus removing them from the World entirely. Most often, the mortals simply die - not of old age, but because hanging out with gods is very hazardous to a mortal's health.

Which brings us down to the fact that most mortals can't survive being a god's favorite pet or lover for very long. That god's influence and Fate drag them in; they become tragic victims of it, whether because the inevitable Fatebound role they fall into demands it of them or just because the god's Fateful Aura always brings trouble and danger down on them just for being too close to him. Of course, the god could decide to really safeguard and defend this mortal from all comers, especially if he has Guardian or is willing to just be there in person to deal with it - but that goes back to the other problems of maintaining mortal pets, in that he's spending a bunch of resources, risking damaging Fatebonds and neglecting his other duties, goals and the war he's supposed to be fighting to do so. For a god, having a mortal pet is like owning a Faberge egg balanced on a three-foot-tall pin in the middle of a giant room full of cats; he almost can't do anything else but hover over it if he wants it to stay intact, and even then the odds are not with him.

What you'll most often see gods do in myth is remove the mortal from the World and try to turn them into something more interesting and durable. Most often, this involves making them immortal - an easy enough task for gods with Health and/or Magic - and putting them in a Terra Incognita where they'll be safer and easier to visit. Even this isn't common, though, for all the same reasons above - they have to spend resources and take time to go do it, so they probably won't bother unless this particular mortal is incredibly important to them. And even that doesn't always end well, as the myth of Eos and Tethonis attests.

You can, of course, totally use the idea of a god's mortal pet, companion or lover in a game; just because it doesn't happen often doesn't mean it doesn't happen ever, and for purposes of your plot you might happen to be involved in a situation during the brief window of time that a god tends to hang out with a favored mortal before moving on. Gods are out making Scions for this war, after all, so some of them probably have a current mortal lover that they have an interest in seeing survive to bear children, at least; others might be safeguarding untapped Scions, mortal for all intents and purposes, until such time they are needed. And once in a while you might have a god who just genuinely really loves a mortal and wants to hang onto him or her, and build your plot from there.

But these things are probably pretty rare. For most gods, mortals are useful for creating Scions and occasionally entertaining, but they just aren't worth the prolonged effort, irritation and resources to keep holding onto a particular one instead of working on shoring up their power and keeping the entire World intact by focusing on the war with the Titans.

It Feels Good to Be a Gangster

Question: What do you think of the idea that mortal worship gives legend back to gods? I've seen plenty of home brewed Cult Birthrights and am wondering what your opinion is on the idea that, when mortals worship gods, those gods get Legend back in exchange for the threat and consequence of being Fatebound.

If you were going to redesign Scion from the ground up, rewriting everything that currently conflicts with that idea so that it works... we wouldn't hate it. I see the idea you're going for - that Fatebonds are serious business and suck and should get some kind of positive kickback, and also that gods being worshiped by mortals feels like it should have some kind of concrete result.

However, in Scion as it stands now, we're not fans of the idea, and we wouldn't put it in game as either a Birthright or a system. There are a few reasons for this, and since I love bulleting, I'll bullet away:

• The Aztlanti. Gods already do get Legend back simply for having cults that worship them - provided that they are Aztec gods. The entire Aztlanti PSP is built around the concept that their cults, through their unique form of worship (Aztec blood sacrifice), feed their gods Legend. At the moment, they're the only ones who can do this because it's what their special culture-specific power is about; the Aztecs believed that blood sacrifice literally filled the gods with the energy they needed to run the cosmos, and mechanically that's very elegantly represented by having blood sacrifice give Aztec gods Legend. If you made Legend something that every god of every pantheon got for free without even needing sacrifice, you'd need to completely gut Itztli and rewrite the Aztecs a new PSP from the bottom up, something that would be significantly difficult to do thanks to having closed the door on their most major mythic concept. (You'd also have to rebalance against the parts of Enech that grant Legend, though that's less of a gigantic and probably misguided project.)
• Fatebond Reciprocation. Fatebonds are serious business, no joke about it, so it's easy to look at them and think that it would be really nice if they gave some positive benefit to go with all their inconvenience and heartbreak. After all, they're levying penalties on your rolls and leeching away powers you used to have that they don't agree with - that sucks! It's a no-brainer to think that they should do something nice for gods to make up for all their potential disadvantages. But the thing is that Fatebonds are already double-edged swords - they don't need an additional bonus because they already contain even bonuses and penalties within themselves. No god gets negative Fatebonds without also getting positive ones; you don't lose powers without also gaining them, and you don't get dice penalties without also getting dice bonuses (actually, mathematically, you always gain new powers faster than you lose old ones). It is absolutely irritating for Scions to have to argue with Fatebonds to try to keep them from buying off an important stat, but it is also awesome for them to get their other important stats more quickly than they would without a Fatebond to help them; it sucks that they can't make a decent Perception + Investigation roll anymore, but it's awesome that they're getting +10 successes to all their Strength rolls. While the idea of adding a Legend bonus all the time to "make up" for Fatebond shenanigans is well-meaning, it's ignoring the fact that Fatebonds themselves already give plenty of bonuses to plenty of powers; they're their own built-in reward, just as they're their own built-in penalty.
• Mythological Dissonance. We've touched on this occasionally in previous posts, but it bears repeating: in general, the idea that mortal worship actually does anything for gods is a very modern one. Most ancient religions view worshiping gods as something that mortals do because A) they fear them, B) they respect them, C) they want them to give them blessings, or D) some combination of all of the above. Most ancient cultures and religions don't have a concept of worship as something that gods want or need; it's something that mortals do because that's the only thing you can do when confronted with gods. The gods themselves may expect it, or get angry if you're forgetting to do it or doing it wrong, but it's never something that they need or that gives them any extra power or influence. The fact that mortal worship doesn't actually give you any bonuses or benefits in Scion isn't a weird mistake; it's accurately representing how these ancient religions and mythologies paint the relationship between mortals and gods.
• Legendary Action. One of Scion's awesome core mechanical ideas is that Scions and gods regain Legend by doing awesome and Legendary things; they don't get it back for just sitting around. That's what the stunting system does; it rewards those who do awesome mythic things by giving them back Legend, and therefore there's no other system in place for it. If, on the other hand, Legend was something that gods could get back automatically just for existing, it'd be rewarding gods who sat around in their houses watching reality television just as much as those who were out doing awesome stuff, and that's not something we want to encourage. Legend is, after all, literally the measure of how Legendary and awesome you are and how much power you have as a result; while it's cool that mortals know stories about you and you therefore have a cult, if all you do from that point on is eat grapes and veg out in front of VH1, you shouldn't be getting Legend back. Of course most PC gods won't be doing that, because it's lame - but it shouldn't be possible in the setting at all for anyone, PC or NPC, and if cults just automatically give back Legend, it would be very easy.
• Too Awesome. Finally, if there was a Birthright that gave you back free Legend all the time, how could any Scion not take it? It'd be too crazy powerful to pass up; it wouldn't be one of many Birthright options, it'd be practically mandatory. We're all for giving Scions awesome toys, but we don't want any one toy to be so wildly awesome that everyone has to take it regardless of concept or inclination because otherwise they're crippled compared to everyone else. We want Scions to have many options of different kinds of awesome bonuses, not a mandatory bonus and then some other stuff that can't hope to compete with it.

We know there are Storytellers out there who give back free Legend to Scions, whether through a custom Birthright, by just granting some back every day or by giving "middle of story" bumps or similar; it seems to work for some games, especially those in which the players are new to the stunting system and not quite sure how to use it, or more accustomed to other games in which resources always regenerate over time. We don't do that, because we are huge fans of Scion's system of PCs getting their Legend back for stunting and being awesome, therefore putting all of that power in their own hands, and for that reason - and all the other ones above - we are not big fans of the idea of mortal cults granting free Legend to gods. It just doesn't make sense in the game, both for the setting and for the mechanics; it would require a from-the-ground rewrite that we're not prepared to make just to shoehorn it in.

However, we do love the idea that being Fatebound to a cult has specific concrete effects on a god besides just their usual Fatebonds, and that they can activate those things through their own actions, so we do have a system in place by which gods can benefit a little bit from their cults by performing certain actions. It's not a Birthright; it's just a system in which, whenever a goddess gains an official cult (that is, one that applies Fatebonds to her), she also gains one action that she can perform at that cult (usually once per day or once per week) in order to get a little bit of Legend back. It's usually something that has to do with what that particular cult knows her for or past deeds she's performed there. For example, when Vala performs Prophecy at her cult in Delphi, which believes her to be the new oracle there, she gains five points of Legend; and since Jioni also has a cult there that believes her to be the messenger and mouth of said oracle, she gains five points of Legend if she brings Vala there and then interprets her prophecy for the people. Sowiljr's well-known in Argentina for creating life-giving ponds, so he gains bonuses whenever he magically creates a small body of water, while Eztli, known in Iceland as her husband's protector and resurrector, gains Legend whenever she heals him within the confines of his cult city.

This reward doesn't always have to come in the form of Legend, and might also be a regaining of Willpower, a Virtue Channel, or some other kind of short-term bonus; it doesn't really matter, as long as it's cool and thematic for the cult and the god in question. It also doesn't always translate to a straight benefit; if a Scion uses a power to perform the necessary action, obviously that cost cuts into the rewards reaped from it, but at the very least it makes going to your cult and doing the awesome stuff you're known for there basically free. If you can manage to do it with low investment of resources, you actually gain some Legend back - and you do it, not by sitting around existing, but by going out and being Legendary and awesome, which is what being a god is all about.

Growing Up Gods

Question: How do you guys treat people who were deified by mortals, such as Caesar and Augustus?

Now seems like a good time to plug that Search feature over on the right-hand side of the blog (it's below the polls, keep scrolling!); we blog a lot and on a wide variety of topics, so it's easy to miss something we might have talked about a long time ago. In the case of deifying mortals, there's a post discussing it already up over here for your perusal.

The quick redaction is that if you want them to actually become deities, then they were probably Scions who received Visitations and eventually hit apotheosis; if you don't want to use them as deities, they were probably humans who were making stories up or the product of mortal misinterpretation. Since Scions themselves are literally deified mortals, progressing from fragile normal mortality to becoming full-blown gods, they cover most of these cases admirably.

Tabula Rasa

Question: Through PHENOMENAL COSMIC CIRCUMSTANCE, you're forced to run a Scion game where the players have the opportunity to shape a developing society of humans through their inception. How would you manage this, would you think it a good idea, and what are you opinions in general?

Something that's really cool about Scion is that, especially by the time the players are playing gods but in smaller ways throught, they always have this opportunity. Humanity is sort of the lifeblood of mythology, as it's their beliefs, psychology and worship that shape the gods and other worlds, but Scions, as the defining actors in those myths and beliefs, always shape them in turn. It's a symbiosis of awesome proportions.

At a high level, Scions with the Health purview can very literally create their own new human societies. The Genesis boon allows any player of Legend 11 or higher to create new humans in any way, form and style she chooses, literally causing new societies to spring up with no knowledge of anything in the universe except their creator. That Scion, and her group if she wishes, have complete free carte blanche to teach, suggest, and set up these brand-new mortals any way they wish, starting new religions, political codes or customs entirely based on their own whims (until and unless some other god or society interferes and starts also adding input, of course).

As you can imagine, this is amazingly cool. While our Healthy Scions have mostly been planning on using Genesis to bolster existing populations - Eztli wants to bolster the incredibly pitiful numbers of Aztec mortals still surviving the world, while Jioni is on a mission to rebuild the mighty African tribes and their worship - they are fully capable of creating entirely new ones as well, as is anyone who decides to pick up Genesis. This kind of thing is one of the most awesome features of Scion as a game - PCs can become gods who have literally cosmic and incredible powers over humanity and the world they once lived in. They have those powers, and they should use those powers whenever and however they wish - far be it from us to tell a player they can't or shouldn't create their own new humans and set them up in whatever way they want, from creating a budding agrarian society to reinforcing the ranks of an already existing population to building up a nice stockpile of potential sacrifices and shock troops. It's not only a good idea, it's an awesome idea - players have worked hard to become gods with this kind of power, and they should get to use and express it.

Now, this is, of course, more work for the Storyteller, but that's the way it goes sometimes. As an ST, you'll need to work with that player on their society and what things they want it to do, be and develop into; you'll have to keep in mind their strengths and weaknesses and note where they'll probably succeed and where they might not have the expertise or touch to pull off their plan alone. You'll have to keep track of other influences that will also shape those developing humans - other cultures and societies that might find them, other gods who might want to get in on the worship ground floor, even the other PCs in the Scion's band, who, if gods themselves, can't help but influence things just by being around - and then you'll need to do work out of game to make sure that you always know what's going on in that developing culture and how things are progressing when the Scion's not there. You'll need to figure out how to integrate it into the world and stories already in progress, and you'll need to have a plan for when important things or changes might happen there that might catch some deity's attention (whether the Scion who created them or some other god who might seek to use them for his own ends).

But then again, by the time the PCs are gods, this is all work you're probably doing anyway as a Storyteller, for all the peoples and cults that know of them and fall under their protection. Gods usually don't exist in a vacuum, so this kind of setting work is already something Storytellers need to deal with from Legend 8 on up; getting to do it for a brand-new society is just an extra level of awesomeness in the Storyteller prep already in progress.

This is all stuff dealing with very high-level godly PCs, but what about Scions who aren't that high in Legend yet but still want to be involved in this kind of an endeavor? As a Storyteller, you can always bring in the idea that the PCs are going to be in charge of a new breed of humanity - scientific experiments, isolated feral mortals or other gods who have used Genesis to create humans but don't want to be in charge of their care and feeding are all good ways that a lower-Legend band of Scions might find themselves dealing with this kind of a project. And honestly, past the point of getting them to the new mortals in question, there's really not a lot else the Storyteller needs to manage; the PCs themselves, through their actions, words and behavior, will influence and shape that culture automatically whether they try to or not, simply by virtue of being divine and active in it. All a Storyteller needs to do at that point is react appropriately on behalf of the NPC humans and keep track of what things the Scions do that will have consequences and cause changes in these peoples' future.

Of course, Scions always influence any culture and people they're in by the time they're demigods; they can't help it. You can run them through all kinds of situations wherein they return to a city or people they once knew to find that they've been changed by their influence - we've had PCs discover that churches have sprung up after they left (both in their honor and dedicated to opposing them), new fashion trends have started, sites that they performed Legendary Deeds at have become considered sacredm or that their deeds are being emulated by vigiliante mortals. It's not the same as shaping a culture from a complete blank slate beginning, but the more you do this, the more the players will get a feel for how much they can really influence humanity (and be in turn influenced by the power of Fatebonds); they'll be that much more ready to deal with the grand scale of creating totally new societies when and if the time comes.

In short, for those who don't feel like reading my paragraphs full of overexcited text, we think it's an awesome idea and a fantastic way for both players and characters to realize their own power in the world and for the story to gain new ideas and players that will enrich the game overall. Creating and shaping an entirely new society of mortals is the ultimate expression of what most Scions have been doing the whole time - shaping and changing the world of mortals around them - and no Storyteller should shy away from its epicness if it's something that players and the story could benefit from.

Ye Mortal Men

Question: Which pantheon has moved the most mortals to their godrealm?

I'm not really sure if you're asking about the general behavior of pantheons around the world or events in our games specifically, or further if you're talking about living mortals or dead ones, but I'll give 'em all a shot and try to cover my bases.

In general, pantheons don't move mortals to the Overworlds. Overworlds are very specifically not for mortals - they're for gods and the immortal servants of the gods. Living mortals hang out in the World, or occasionally in Terrae Incognita; dead mortals hang out in the Underworlds. But they don't really hang out in the Overworlds at all, because that really isn't a concept that exists strongly in ancient myth.

There's a strong modern idea of humans dwelling with the gods after death, but it's almost exclusively the result of Judeo-Christian thought; while the most ancient roots of the Judeo-Christian religions also conceived of the dead as going to an Underworld, the strong emphasis on the joy of being near to God and the idea of an eventual, post-mortem reward for mortals who were appropriately pious eventually gave rise to the idea that mortals could enter a heavenly abode and live with God and the angels in their eternal paradise. This is a strong idea that has influenced a great deal of thought on the afterlife for the past few centuries. But for most ancient polytheistic societies, it doesn't really apply; they conceived of the world as in three basic parts (arranged vastly differently depending on the culture, but basically the same in theme) - the world of the gods (the Overworld), the world of men (the World) and the world of the dead (the Underworld), and there's no real overlap between them. When someone who doesn't belong there journeys from one world to the other - the dead come back to haunt the living, or a hero tries to go to the Underworld without dying first - it's a big deal and often has tragic or frightening consequences, because it goes against the very natural order of the universe.

So, in almost all cases, the answer is that none of the pantheons really ever make a practice of moving mortals to their realms, because it's simply not something you do. Depending on your point of view, you could theoretically argue that some gods do this; for example, you might say that slain warriors go to Valhalla and Valhalla is in Asgard, ergo mortals get to go to Asgard, but in cosmological terms Valhalla itself is just another kind of Underworld, not a secret backstage pass to the Overworld where the gods themselves dwell. You might also say that sometimes gods carry mortals off to the Overworld, but specific examples usually don't turn out to actually be mortals - Ganymede, the youth carried to Olympus by Zeus, for example, is colloquially referred to as a "mortal" that Zeus loved, but considering that his mother was a naiad, he'd be a lesser immortal, not a true mortal at all. Even Pizamar, a truly mortal maiden loved by the god Svarozhich, had to be ritually and cosmically transformed into a goddess before she was allowed to live in Dub with the rest of the gods.

As far as our games go, some of the god-level PCs have indeed moved mortals to their Sanctums and thus into the Overworld. Eztli and Sowiljr routinely keep their still-mortal but probably one day Scion children there to keep them out of harm's way in the World, and during Ragnarok several PCs moved humans who were particularly important to them into their divine houses, but it was all on a very small scale and most of them were summarily moved back out as soon as some un-scorched earth was found to put them on. Vivian actually encountered strong resistance and even Virtue Extremity when her pantheon found out what she'd done, because Harmony, concerned with the proper place and balance of all things in the universe, wigged the fuck out on a lot of the Loa when they realized she was keeping mortals in a decidedly immortal environment. There was an incident with the Baron and his cane. She and Woody, who got hit by the fallout in a big way, don't like to talk about it.

By Scion's rules, the only Overworld that really has mortal visitors much is probably the Slavic Thrice-Tenth Kingdom, which is technically accessible by any mortal who accidentally finds it and then manages to get past Baba Yaga. Even in that rare case, though, the mortals are getting in and out under their own power rather than because a god intentionally brought them there.

Incidentally, we'd consider any mortal that spent an appreciable amount of time in an Overworld to probably become Legendary anyway; it wouldn't really be possible for them to remain normal over a long period of time spent there.