Lord and Lady

Question: What does Zeus think of Hera? There's lots to work with on how to characterize how Hera views their marriage, but what does Zeus think of it? Does he love her but is the king of the gods so he can do whatever, or is it an empty marriage or... what?

Zeus, we assume, is extremely fond of Hera. There are several myths in which his love for his wife, from before he married her on throughout their stormy relationship, is very obvious and potent. It's easy for us to assume that he must not care about her very much since he's in a constant state of cheating on her and upsetting her, but his behavior isn't necessarily a good barometer for his feelings. Even dudes nowadays can tell you that they sometimes make bad choices without that meaning they don't love their significant others, and Zeus is from a time period and culture that wouldn't have thought a male being unfaithful was that big a deal.

Three myths spring immediately to mind as good indicators of Zeus being pretty over the moon for Hera, despite his habit of banging whomever he runs into on his morning stroll. The first is that of his courtship and marriage to her, during the ancient days of the war against the Titans; smitten by her beauty (because, you guys, Hera is seriously one of the most bootylicious ladies of the pantheon), he tried to convince her to marry him, but once she realized that the kisses and hugging were getting out of brotherly territory, she rejected him. Undaunted, he turned himself into a cuckoo and hung out outside her window until she noticed the bird and brought it inside to be her pet. He then resumed his normal form for sexytimes, as Zeus is generally wont to do, and Hera, being a goddess of marriage and feminine propriety, then married him to legitimize their union, which was said to be consummated with a three-hundred-year stretch of passionate lovemaking. Of course, Zeus pulls this kind of thing on a lot of ladies who are otherwise not interested in his constant botherment, but Hera is the only one that he married and brought to rule Olympus with him.

The interlude during the Trojan War in which Hera, seeking to distract Zeus from shenanigans going on down on the field, seduces him is another example of him being obviously all about his wife. She definitely has ulterior motives, but even so all she has to do is show up being her fabulous self and say she's going to go visit her foster mother and Zeus is immediately all, "Okay, yeah, but have you considered having sex before you go, you know, one for the road?" I've quoted his speech from The Iliad here before, but I'm doing it again because I love it and it's my blog:

"Then in answer spake to her Zeus, the cloud-gatherer: 'Hera, thither mayest thou go even hereafter. But for us twain, come, let us take our joy couched together in love; for never yet did desire for goddess or mortal woman so shed itself about me and overmaster the heart within my breast--nay, not when I was seized with love of the wife of Ixion, who bare Peirithous, the peer of the gods in counsel; nor of Danaë of the fair ankles, daughter of Acmsius, who bare Perseus, pre-eminent above all warriors; nor of the daughter of far-famed Phoenix, that bare me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthys; nor of Semele, nor of Alcmene in Thebes, and she brought forth Heracles, her son stout of heart, and Semele bare Dionysus, the joy of mortals; nor of Demeter, the fair-tressed queen; nor of glorious Leto; nay, nor yet of thine own self, as now I love thee, and sweet desire layeth hold of me."

It's not entirely smooth to try to flatter your wife by telling her that you want her even more than all the other people you've ever cheated on her with while listing them all by name, but we can see that he's trying. (And he wonders what she's always so annoyed about.)

The final and probably strongest myth that we usually bring up when discussing Zeus and Hera is the one of their near-divorce, because no other story so strongly illustrates Zeus' attachment to her. Having finally had all she could take of his infidelity, Hera officially left Zeus and moved away to live on her own mountain away from him. Were this an empty marriage that just gets in the way of Zeus' sex life, this would have been a good time for him to go see if he could start up a live episode of Olympus Gone Wild, but instead he was extremely upset over her departure and moped in his misery until finally begging Kithaeron (a mountain-god who is probably an alternative persona of Dionysus) to tell him how to get her back. Following his advice, he staged an elaborate mock wedding to a new bride (who was really just a wooden statue wearing bridal robes), and when Hera appeared, furious over this new insult, he convinced her to come home and founded a festival in honor of their reconciliation.

And it goes without saying that Zeus' response to other dudes with an interest in Hera is usually violent in the extreme. Ixion ended up lashed to a wheel for the rest of eternity for trying to hit on Hera, and when one of the Gigantes attempted to rape her, Zeus thunderbolted his skull in twain with no trial or appeal.

All this doesn't mean they don't have problems, of course; Zeus' philandering is a constant source of fighting and heartbreak, and both of them have occasionally turned their formidable tempers on one another, Zeus hanging Hera from the ceiling for defying him or Hera helping the other Olympians briefly imprison him for his misbehavior. Because they're both the highest authority in the pantheon and both Justice gods to boot, they're the only controls who can really affect and check one another.

But despite all their monumental disagreements and obvious issues, they also complement one another perfectly and clearly care about each other as husband and wife, not just gods who occupy neighboring space. Zeus is pretty much all about Hera (during the moments when she isn't mad at him, anyway), who is the only woman of equal power, majesty and beauty able to handle him.

Evil Eye

Question: Hey John and Anne, bit of a knit-picky question about "Evil Eye" (Magic 2 spell): Your system revamps fate-bonds hard, and changes most boons. Have you changed the duration of Evil Eye from the books (if so, to what?), and is there really no roll and no resistance? Thanks!

Hey, there! I just looked because I was like, "Doesn't it say?" and it turns out it doesn't (although it does imply it in the once-per-scene restriction). The effects of Evil Eye last for one scene, after which the target is only as afflicted by ill luck as they usually are.

And yes, there is really no roll and no resistance. While most of the time we are pretty hardline on people having the chance to resist boons or spells used on them, in the case of Evil Eye, it's simple and elegant enough that we felt it ws unnecessary. Because it doesn't really modify the target, just makes Fate (in the person of their dice) a little less friendly toward them, we're happy to keep it with no roll and no resistance (especially since there's no guarantee it will actually do anything for the Scion who used it if their target happens to just not roll very many twos).

Standard of Living

Question: Why do gods need to live in alternate dimensions (Overworlds)? Can't those awesome places just be in the World, hidden from mortal eyes by some shenanigans?

As usual, it's Fate's fault.

Gods certainly can hang out in the World. They can do pretty much anything they want, up to and including creating fabulous castles and crazy wonderlands, and nobody's going to be able to stop them very much. The problem with this, and the reason they don't do it very much, is that the mere fact that they are gods makes this impractical and dangerous for them as well as for everyone and everything that lives in the World with them.

To begin with, gods have Fateful Auras, which means that no matter where they are or what's happening, great events are drawn toward them. Prophecies happen around them, wars spring up under their feet, monsters gravitate straight in their direction, and anything that is heroic, dangerous or impressive is likely to spring up in their general vicinity. This is the same thing that makes it so that Scions are on a pretty much constant adventure, dealing with antagonists who seem to come from nowhere and bizarre situations that would never come up for most people, but the effect is multiplied to a massive level for gods, whose Fateful Auras are that much more powerful. In essence, Fate ensures that crazy shit happens to and around them, because as Legendary beings that's what's supposed to happen.

Unfortunately for everyone and everything else, that means that just being near them is incredibly hazardous. Most people who have played Scion have seen the collateral damage possible when Scions are around humans or doing things in the normal World; now multiply that times a bajillion for the power level of the gods. Gods living on earth means their problems will also live on earth, and neither the fragile normal World nor mortal humanity can survive them having battles with Apep or Riastrading out in the middle of a city, or even in the middle of a desert. The consequences aren't confined to the bad guys, either; a god who busts out some god-level boons or even Avatars in order to shape his environment or defeat an enemy also irrevocably changes the face of the earth and probably kills or permanently changes the fates of a massive number of people.

This is not good for the long-term survival of humans, normal animals or the environment itself, so most gods who aren't insane chaos-mongers stay away from the World partly because they're too big and dangerous for it and they don't want to be a shark tossed into a kiddie pool. As a corollary to this, the dangerous effects of the divine or Titanic on the World is one of the major things that totally wigs out people whoh ave the Harmony Virtue, which is concerned with keeping the natural balance of the universe and normal state of all its worlds constant and undamaged, so no god with Harmony is ever okay with spending too much time in the World. And that doesn't just mean that the six pantheons with Harmony stay out of the World; it means they have a very strong vested interest in keeping other pantheons from blowing it up, too. Wars have started over less.

But all altruistic motivations aside, the World is also dangerous for gods to be in, because it's the central focus of Fate's biggest danger to them: Fatebonds. Being in the World means that any Legend they spend is likely to result in Fatebonds, which may irrevocably tie them to places and people they don't want to be stuck with or reshape the very fabrics of their beings into new and unplanned-for shapes. Gods spend Legend - it's in their natures, after all - and that Legend turns into the iron bars of Fate, trapping them in new roles and situations that they may not want anything to do with. This danger of Fatebonds is why gods have Scions in the first place, so that they can send lower-Legend shock troops into the World to deal with its problems without having to go themselves and get weighted down by Fate.

So, really, living in the World is an extraordinarily bad idea for both gods and the World itself, and it's not worth it for most to even consider. They may occasionally visit, especially for festivals in their honor or at the cities most sacred to them, but living there would be dangerous and uncontrollable, and few gods want to risk Fatebonds and endanger the people that worship them at the same time. However, don't despair that only the Overworlds can be awesome and that no Scions get to do neat stuff in other worlds until they're gods themselves; that's what Terrae Incognita, the pocket worlds that branch off from all the others, are for, and those are usually accessible to Scions or even lucky humans who happen to find their doors.

Vlog

Today we have a special vlog. I explain it all in the video. But here is a more in depth look at some politics stuff going on in our game and how we organize it.

Maimed but Magical

Question: How important are Maimings in your Relic system? Could a character make a Maiming of a significant portion of himself (such as removing his spine to replace an Axis Mundi, removing his head/other body part to perform some great deed), or are Maimings more personal to the god that bears them?

Maimings are awesome and as important as any other kind of Birthright, and we encourage their use! Of course, part of the joy of maimings is that they also carry weighty downsides because not having functioning body parts is a pain in the ass, which means they aren't nearly as popular as things like relics or Followers, but that's what you're signing up for.

Maimings can theoretically come from any source. They can be self-inflicted by Scions who choose to eschew a particular ability, body part or personal comfort in order to gain power by doing so. They can be injuries suffered in the line of duty or during the most important of the Scion's mythic actions, sealing their deeds with permanent consequences. They can be performed ritually by another god or person important to the Scion as part of a religious ceremony or rite of passage, and they can simply be situations that happen when a Scion gains in Legend or crosses the line from demigodhood into full-blown divinity.

However, there's more to a Maiming than just getting a body part whacked off in some impressive manner. Just like every other Birthright, Magic is required to create your injury as a true Maiming, grant you magical powers from it and bind it to you as part of your Legend. Just like any old sword you pick up won't become a relic just because you happen to kill an enemy with it, so any old wound you sustain won't morph into a maiming just because it happened under cool circumstances. If that were true, all Scions would be paraplegic amputees.

Like Followers and Creatures, there is no specific Magic spell that allows a Scion to create a Maiming. That's intentional, because otherwise Magic-users become even more bananas-level overpowered than some feel they already are; they could just constantly create Followers and Creatures from all the beings that they meet, amassing an enormous army and not just defeating enemies but permanently forcing them to be devoted servants who can never escape them, bind all the gods they see into being forced to act as Guides for them and cut off their fingers one digit at a time, gaining fantastic bonuses all the way. Obviously, they can't all be running around doing that all the time. Gods can't even be doing that all the time, or everyone in the universe would just be the minions of a few all-powerful puppeteer magicians.

Figuring out how to allow Scions to create or gain Maimings and other specialty Birthrights on the fly is something of a sticky spot in Scion, one that we don't have a great solution for yet (nor does anyone else we've asked, alas). We would assume that The Wyrd can do it, of course, so that's always an option, and we're a big fan of very powerful (star-plus) Relics that can also create or enforce Maimings, the Well of Mimir being the most obvious mythological example. Injuries suffered while within the borders of Comprenion, the Titanrealm of Fate, might spontaneously become Maimings thanks to their coming into being under the auspices of destiny itself, or wounds carried during some scene in which Avatar-level powers are going off like firecrackers might spontaneously turn into a Maiming. If you really want Scions and gods to be able to do those things themselves as well, you could experiment with levying a hefty penalty for doing so - allowing them to create a Maiming with some variation on the Birthright Bond spell, but requiring them to drop one or even two or three permanent Willpower on doing so, and perhaps ruling that the result is irreversible by themselves and can only be removed by someone else of equal power.

But if you're just a baby Scion planning out what kind of Birthrights you want to have and contemplating a Maiming, none of that behind-the-scenes stuff matters too much. Work out what kind of Maiming you want with your Storyteller and what powers and disadvantages it brings with it, and they'll come up with whatever background events occurred that brought it into being.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Question: Do the Orisha have the same Overworld/Underworld as the Loa?

Question: What is the Overworld for the Orisha?

The short answer is no, and the long answer is in this previous post about the Orisha cosmos and how it doesn't want to conform to any of our silly European notions of Overworld and Underworld.

The modern ideas of the Loa Underworld and Overworld are heavily based on Christianity, but you can certainly use them for Scion's purposes if you want to; the Orisha are the Loa as well, so that new cosmology can be used to replace the haziness of the old if you need a neat solution. Syncretic religions are kind of pick and choose menu of things to include as necessary, so there's no reason to ignore them unless you're planning to play more purely African.

Mortal Aggravation

Question: Regarding the War boon Mortal Stroke, it strikes me as extremely cheap (1L + 1w) for a power that deals aggravated damage (and based on the damage of a weapon on top of that). Considering that most other powers that deal agg cost at least 5L, is this an oversight? Or was it intended? Is there something I'm not seeing?

It's not an oversight, just a different way of working with the aggravated damage system. Let's dive into it!

To start with, the Strength knacks that inflict aggravated damage - Divine Wrath for grappling, Disfiguring Attack for punching and Hurl to the Moon for throwing - are all available to a Scion from day one with no Legend restriction. Anyone of Legend 3 or above can use them with impunity (Scions of Legend 2 can also technically get them, but they aren't yet capable of paying the 5 Legend to use them), allowing them to start wrecking it up with agg early in their Hero careers. In contrast, Mortal Stroke is a level five boon, which means that no one has access to it until they're Legend 6, well established as Demigods. Unless your game is starting character creation at Legend 6 or higher, Mortal Stroke will never be a "replacement" for other methods of doing agg simply by virtue of being unavailable. That much higher Legend restriction is also one of the reasons it costs less, because Scions have to wait so long and invest in so much War to get it.

More importantly, however, it's a different kind of cost from the Strength knacks, which means that it raises different concerns. The fact that using Mortal Stroke requires an action makes it significantly slower to use in combat, as opposed to the Strength knacks which can all be reflexively activated every time a Scion hits her enemy and don't need a separate five ticks to arm beforehand. Depending on the length of the combat, the abilities of the enemies and what the Scions are trying to achieve, that five ticks (or ten or fifteen or twenty, depending on how many times a Scion needs to use the boon) may be the crucial deciding factor between different outcomes. Scions can get around this sometimes by using Mortal Stroke on a weapon before combat starts to have it ready, but this only saves the first five ticks, and still requires them to drop another action every time they want to re-agg their weapon. That's a pretty hefty restriction in comparison, which is why the Legend cost is so low.

Also, Mortal Stroke costs a point of Willpower, which is a different pool with different possibilities and consequences, which makes it more comparable to the cost of the knacks. While Willpower is easily refilled by Charisma knacks from helpful bandmates, it's a much smaller pool and needing people to refill it also ropes them into having to spend extra actions in combat, which may or may not torpedo other things they need to be doing. Other combat powers also use Willpower, putting it at more of a premium in those crunch situations when people may not have the time to refill it for you, and using large portions of your Willpower pool inevitably puts you at much higher risk of Virtue Extremity, which can rear its head at the worst possible times (especially in combat, when people, objects and environments are in danger of being damaged by the fallout and pissing off any number of Virtues).

	Pros	Cons
Strength Knacks	Reflexive Available to all Legend levels	Legend-expensive Usable only by self
Mortal Stroke	Legend-cheap Usable on others as well as self	Requires an action to activate Willpower-expensive

So this is all intended, actually. The two are meant to be balanced against one another, the abilities of those with great strength stacked up against those with the battle acumen to bolster themselves and allies so that both are valid ways of getting there but have different difficulties attached.