SCION: CHAOSIUM! Character Creation and House Rules

[Nina]

Scion: Chaosium Character Creation

 

Character Creation follows the guidelines in the Origin Book. All characters will start as pre visitation Mortals. Legendary Creatures are not allowed.

Changes to CC will be noted in the appropriate sections following.

 

Step one Concept

As written in RAW. Deeds should not be specific at this point and only a short term and long term are needed, band deed will come later.

 

Step two Paths

Choose an Origin path from the following or create one of your own design. If you create one yourself make sure it is grounded in reality, not divine or supernatural.

ADVENTURER

LIFE OF PRIVILEGE

MILITARY BRAT

CHILD OF THE STREETS

SUBURBIA

SURVIVALIST

WAR-TORN

 

Choose a Role Path from the following or create one of your own design. If you create one yourself make sure it is grounded in reality, not divine or supernatural.

 

CHARISMATIC LEADER

COMBAT SPECIALIST

DETECTIVE

MEDICAL PRACTITIONER

PILOT

SNEAK

TECHNOLOGY EXPERT

 

Supernatural/Pantheon Origin Paths

In ages past the gods walked among man, interfering in their activity, manipulating them, setting them against one another, and sleeping with them. Many if not all the gods have had intimate relations with mortals at some point and many have begat offspring. While this no longer occurs, it was common in the time before the gods retreated.

As such in the modern day while there are no longer ‘children’ of the gods walking among us, virtually all of the men and women alive today have some link to a god in their DNA. Some more than others.

It is these others whom the gods in their self-imposed exile will turn to, activating the divine gene in some of their descendants to bring about new champions to face the trials to come.

 

Your Supernatural Origin Path will consist of choosing  up to three pantheons who can have claim upon your divinity, pantheons are listed on Page 170. You do not need to pick three, but this is to give you options and for later RP purposes. Note that you will need to already have picked your calling from step five to proceed here so you may wish to skip this until after.

For each Pantheon you choose pick a god with whom you share Calling. Note that if you only pick  two Pantheons you still need to pick three gods, one from each and the third from either. If you only choose one Pantheon all three gods come from the same Pantheon.

Note; You must have three gods, if you choose one Pantheon and it does not have enough gods with your calling to pick three you must choose a second pantheon. You also need to Prioritize the three deities who can hold claim on you ; Primary, Secondary, Tertiary.

All divine calculations will use the Primary deity as the base.

See Errata below before proceeding.

 

Step Three Skills

RAW except for the following: you gain dots in each Asset skill associated with all three of your chosen pantheons at whatever priority they are at. Note that the skills given by the pantheons only receive dots once even if given by more than one of your chosen pantheons. The dots do still stack with the other priorities.

 

Step four Attributes

RAW

 

Step five Calling and Knacks

RAW except for the following after choosing your Calling and your base knack choose two additional callings at 1 dot each from those associated with any of your three chosen gods  and one knack from each of these callings.

 

Step six Finishing Touches

RAW with the following exceptions

Spend 50 xp to customize your character. You may save up to half of these XP for later use.

No Birthrights are available currently.

OBJECT CHANGE COST

Attribute Add one dot to a single Attribute                                                       10 Experience

Favored Approach Change a character’s Favored Approach                           15 Experience

Skill Add one dot in a new or existing Skill                                                          5 Experience

Knack Purchase a new Knack                                                                             10 Experience

Specialty Add a Specialty to a Skill                                                                      3 Experience

 

 

Errata

Appendix 2: Several of the Gods in Appendix 2 have a discrepancy with their Calling and Purview  associations as presented in Hero.

• Heimdall (p. 170): Callings should be Creator,

Guardian, Hunter.

• Freya (p. 170): Delete Death, Prosperity, and Fertility.

• Muzzu-Kumik-Quae (p. 171): Add Wild to her list of

Purviews.

• Artemis (p. 171): Add Wild to Purviews.

• Hera (p. 172): Add Beauty and Passion (Fidelity) to

Purviews.

• Persephone (p. 172): Delete Wild from Purviews.

• Ptah (p. 172): Add Prosperity to Purviews.

• Zeus (p. 172): Add Order to Purviews.

• Tsukiyomi (p. 173): Delete Stars from Purviews.

• Susano-o (p. 173): Delete (Metallurgy) from Forge

under Purviews.

• Sarutahiko (p. 173): He’s the husband of Ama-no-

Uzume, not Ama-no-Izume.

• Benzaiten (p. 173): Delete the reference to “Animal

(Snake)” and add “Beast (Snake)” to Purviews.

• Hotei (p. 173): Change “Passion” to “Passion (Joy)” in

Purviews.

• Goibniu (p. 174): Add Health to Purviews.

• Lugh (p. 174): His name is Lugh, not Health Lugh.

• Òsanyìn (p. 174): Òsanyìn, the God of Herbal Medicine

is missing. His Callings are Healer, Hunter, Sage, and

his Purviews: Beasts (Birds), Epic Stamina, Fertility,

Fortune, Health, and Wild.

• Lakshmi (p. 175): Delete Wild from Purviews.

• Vishnu (p. 175): Change “Passion (all)” to “Passion

(Hope)” in Purviews.

 

 

 

[Nina]

For those of you familiar with Storypath from the Trinity game Scion 2e uses the same system but there are some difference which I am finding. i will be going through the rule book with more care and will note those differences here. But until then if you have any questions please ask me and i will clarify if I know and find out if I don't.

 

Thank you

[Nina]

Made an edit to the CC rules above

 

Note; You must have three gods, if you choose one Pantheon and it does not have enough gods with your calling to pick three you must choose a second pantheon. You also need to Prioritize the three deities who can hold claim on you ; Primary, Secondary, Tertiary.

All divine calculations will use the Primary deity as the base.

[Nina]

MOMENTUM

The force of destiny gathers behind heroes and is rep­resented by Momentum. This is a resource that players can spend to affect the game on a dramatic level. The characters themselves aren’t normally aware of Momentum, but in­stead put its effects down to Fate or good luck.

 

Momentum in Scion: Chaosium is an individual character resource not a joint pool as it is in other Storypath games.

 

Each character begins each new scene with momentum equal to their legend score. Characters with 0 legend still start each scene with 1 Momentum. Whenever a player receives Momentum as a Consolation, she adds 1 Momentum to her own Momentum Pool. A character can have a maximum momentum pool equal to 2X her legend score. If a character’s legend is 0-1 her maximum Momentum is 3.  The momentum Pool is reset at the beginning of each scene.

 

Momentum can activate Knacks (cool, epic things characters can do that make other people drop their jaws), add dice equal to Momentum used to a dice pool, or enable additional attempts at complex actions (p. 69).

 

All players can spend Momentum in the following

ways:

• Add Dice. A player can spend 1 Momentum per die to add a single die to a dice pool, before it is rolled.

• Add Interval. A player can spend 3 Momentum to add another interval to a complex action, giving the characters more time in which to work.

• Activate Knacks. If a player has a Knack that requires spending Momentum, they may spend it.

 

Momentum expenditure does not need other player approval in Scion: Chaosium

 

I will Add a Momentum spot to the Character Template

[Nina]

Skill Specialization.

 

In RAW all skill specialization does is allow you to gain an enhancement on other skills that you use that can benefit from your knowledge of the specialized skill. while that is all and good it is also underwhelming in that RAW offers nothing for the use of the skill itself.

 

This has been the consensus of the various forum users in both Story Path systems (Scion, and Trinity) and there have been several 'suggestions' for how to make specializations more useful. Most are overly complicated and some are over powered.

 

I like the RAW rule as it is creative, but i also think that being specialized should aid the skill in questions use as well. Therefor in my games (both Scion and Trinity based) Specialization gives the benefit as found in RAW and in addition it adds one dice to your dice pool when using the actual skill that is specialized.

 

 

[Nina]

MOMENTUM REVISED

 

The force of destiny gathers behind heroes and is rep­resented by Momentum. This is a resource that players can spend to affect the game on a dramatic level. The characters themselves aren’t normally aware of Momentum, but in­stead put its effects down to Fate or good luck.

 

 

 

Momentum in Scion: Chaosium is an individual character resource not a joint pool as it is in normal tabletop Storypath games.

 

 

 

Each character begins each new scene with momentum equal to the number of players in the same scene. Characters who are alone in a scene start each scene with 1 Momentum + their legend score. Whenever a player receives Momentum as a Consolation, she adds 1 Momentum to her own Momentum Pool. A character can have a maximum momentum pool equal to 2X their beginning momentum score. If a character’s legend is 0-1 her maximum Momentum when solo is 3.  The momentum Pool is reset at the beginning of each scene as defined by the storyteller.

 

A character can only spend up to one half of her available Momentum on any given action.

 

 

 

Momentum can activate Knacks (cool, epic things characters can do that make other people drop their jaws), add dice equal to Momentum used to a dice pool, or enable additional attempts at complex actions (p. 69).

 

 

 

All players can spend Momentum in the following

 

ways:

 

• Add Dice. A player can spend 1 Momentum per die to add a single die to a dice pool, before it is rolled.

 

• Add Interval. A player can spend 3 Momentum to add another interval to a complex action, giving the characters more time in which to work.

 

• Activate Knacks. If a player has a Knack that requires spending Momentum, they may spend it.

 

 

 

Momentum expenditure does not need other player approval in Scion: Chaosium

[Nina]

Good morning students and acolytes

 

Today we are going to discuss one of the major components of the Story Path Combat.

 

Stunts

 

Stunts are the meat and potatoes of this systems combat. In case you hadn’t noticed, it is only possible to do one damage condition per hit without reverting to stunts and even then you can only do one additional if you have enough extra enhancements for the critical stunt. But damage is not the end all be all of the combat in Story Path, no siree, it is not.

 

Stunts which are bought with extra enhancements after establishing a hit, offer a huge variety of conditions and effects, that can be just as vital to winning as straight damage.

 

Blinding, Disarm, Grapple (both establish and Breakout) Feint (possible the most important Stunt for group play), knockdown/trip, seize, shove, sunder, and those are just from the close combat section of the core book.

 

You can buy as many stunts per turn as your enhancements allow but you can only buy each one once in a given turn.

 

You can even make up your own stunts like Asa did to use Seans Gravity to enhance Brigits upcoming attack. It was a clever use of the power which is mechanically like a feint but unique.

 

Use stunts to enhance your combat, yes, it is costly but as we move out of these beginning stages you will find that there are more enhancements available than the dice indicate. Always remember Momentum, always remember that you can push or max your powers. Don’t be afraid to do more than your sheet says you can do.

 

Everyone should have read the combat section and should be familiar with the stunts. Yes the system is similar to the old WW Storyteller system but this is one of the major difference and from observing the two combats in both Scion and DR. I think a bunch of you think in the back of your minds that your still playing the old system.

 

Anyway, enough soapbox

[Nina]

The rules in this section provide you with the tools you need to create a Hero-tier Scion for this game. Note these are house rules and not RAW.  To convert your character to a full-fledged Hero, apply the following steps:

• Choose two additional Callings at one dot each. This calling can be any calling appropriate for the character and do not have to be from your patrons. Assign three additional dots (total ) in any combination among your five callings. The character’s primary Calling, or highest-rated, does not have to be a Calling from your patron(s)

• Choose a total of five Heroic Knacks, these are in addition to the origin knacks you already possess. If you have a calling at 3 dots or more you may choose an Immortal Knack at the cost of two Heroics for that calling.

• Assign nine dots worth of Birthrights , as described in Step 6 in the Hero Book.

• Choose innate Purviews, as described in Step 7 in the Hero Book.

• Assign Boons, as described in Step 8 in the Hero Book.

• Note your character’s Legend rating of 1.

You have 15 xp to spend or save

 

Make sue you follow these instructions while similar to the book there are some differences. 

 

Once you have done your upgrade look here Hero page 191, for how to choose your Keywords and make your Legendary Title