Contribute to help us create and traditionally print Scion 2nd Edition Tabletop RPG's first two books and get them into stores!
Rose here again. ^_^
A lot of people are interested in dice, and we want to do them! But we're not sure which option will work best for the largest number of backers. To that end, we've created a poll covering different possible options.
Hi, folks, Rose here. ^_^
The hits keep on coming! Having hit $150,000, we can add a section on cults to the Scion Companion PDF.
Up next, at $155,000 we will work with a group of designers to create Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) Rules for Scion. A surprising number of companies have approached us about Scion LARPing, and this Stretch Goal will enable us to give one of them the go-ahead and for us to provide supervision on an in-house system for those LARP events.
After that, at $165,000 we will add a section containing Make Your Own Fictional Pantheon rules to the Scion Companion using the Atlantean Pantheon from Scion 1e as an example of how it can be done. The section will include guidance on creating gods, relics, and a Pantheon Signature Purview as well.
Thank you for your support!
Hi, Rose here, with another excerpt courtesy of Neall. :)
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Neall:
In Second Edition, we're expanding Scion's setting in terms of both scope and verisimilitude, while also emphasizing playability. We present a default setting that has gods moving behind the events of much of history (who’s to say they didn’t?) and prime ministers half-heartedly denying the existence of troll preserves, and we also present a lot of options for the Storyguide to perfectly tailor the sentiment and revelations of the World to their players. Scion can be presented many ways.
Here are some snippets from our setting chapter by Meghan Fitzgerald:
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Four and a half billion years ago, a ball of molten dust and raw, sun-forged elements coalesced into a planet. Yet the World is Tiamat, carved into shape and form by Marduk. It is Rangi and Papi, locked in their embrace while their children war within them. It was created by a wagtail swimming upon an infinite ocean, and by Q’uq’umatz and Tepeu speaking the word “earth” when floating upon a similar infinite ocean. Atum existed within a very similar ocean, containing all the World within himself, taking the definitions and limits of existence from the Primordial Deities and granting stewardship to the Ennead until he was named. The sons of Burr lifted the World out of another infinite sea, fashioned from the bones and flesh and maggots of long-dead Ymir.
For explorers of the World's vast reaches, its layers upon layers of paradoxical mythology and cycles of death and rebirth provide endless fragments of half-real places, things that both do and do not exist at once. Echoes of humanity's first flame burn in dozens of forgotten niches, each with its own story to tell about whose hand — or paw, or claw — carried it there. Axes Mundi that lead to nowhere flicker in and out of reality based on portents associated with long-dead pantheons. Powerful telescopes capture photographs of planets in deep space that change appearance periodically according to the tides of mutable creation histories. Intrepid pilgrims comb the World's every corner for hints to tales unspun and not yet spun alike.
In broad strokes, the history of the World is easily recognizable. All the major wars happened just as our world remembers them. All the geological and geographical shifts are familiar. Electricity still powers technology, Hollywood still produces multi-million dollar films, and people still commute back and forth to work on traffic-clogged roads. It's in the details where the World starts to look more varied and strange. It's in the motivations behind significant events and the heavier hand of Fate in all things. Some events had different outcomes, where the gods' more direct influence shifted a few pieces on the board here and there, and the dominoes fell in different patterns when the dust cleared. Far fewer people in the World believe in mere coincidence, and even randomness has meaning in a universe where Chaos is a demonstrable Purview of divine power.
With the gods' children wandering the World, it's easy to imagine that every luminary and revolutionary was a Scion. Some of them certainly were. Fate's influence reverberated throughout Europe during the Romantic period as Lord Byron built up and then shattered Fatebound connections one after the other, leading to whole new genres of literature and birthing the modern concept of “ celebrity.” Mongolian Scion Khutulun earned ten thousand horses from failed suitors who couldn't win a wrestling match against her and led her warriors in battle with unparalleled ferocity while simultaneously acting as her father's most valuable advisor. Imhotep, chancellor to the pharaoh and son of Ptah, was the World's first in an absurd number of constructive and artisanal fields. Then he built his own tomb and hid it so well that to this day, children of the Netjer seek its buried stones.
Because all myths are true and the ripples of Fate make them crash into one another on a regular basis, many violent upheavals in the World's history have divine motivations lurking behind their earthly facades. When Scions get involved, the facade is more of a clear glass window, but even then events remain more or less recognizable. These deity-driven wars and invasions more heavily impact Terra Incognita, shifting the balance of power across the Overworld or changing the nature of a god-realm depending on who wins.
Sometimes, they begin in the Overworld only to spill out into the World through worshipers, and other times a Scion sounds the battlecry first and the gods who would profit from her victory gather behind it. The American occupation of Haiti, for example, had dark overtones of warring against the Loa. The Knights Templar led Crusades in an attempt to wipe out pantheistic worship altogether. Caesar's campaign in Gaul wasn't a dubiously legal quasi-war, it was a one-Scion campaign of annihilation and deification by the self-professed Son of Venus against the Gods of the Sacred Shrines. The Theoi (known by a different name, then) killed most of the Nemetondevos while the Romans enslaved their worshipers, and Caesar finally attained the requisite deeds needed to complete Divus Iulius' apotheosis after mortal death.
Hi, Rose here. ^_^
We've passed $135,000, which lets us start the Scion Anthology, which will be given in PDF and mobi/epub to backers who pledged for a tier including an Origin PDF.
Up next, at $150,000, we'll add a section on Cults to the Scion Companion PDF. Heroes, in ancient Greece and Rome, were often venerated after death because their deeds in life had given them special power to protect and defend the living. Your Heroes don't have to die to be venerated or interact with groups of followers all their own, though. At this big stretch goal, we delve into Cults, and how to handle large groups of followers or religious worshippers dedicated to Gods and Scions at the Hero level. We'll cover how to create tutelary deities as well - specific gods with or without pantheons who are dedicated to an area. Lastly, we'll cover how to apply Purviews to a larger scale than in a normal Scion game.
Thanks for your support, and keep your eyes peeled for another preview of the World!
Hi, Rose here, with a preview from Neall. :)
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Neall:
As our first preview, we’re releasing one part of the chapter fiction for Scion: Origins, written by author Lauren Roy. She’s done a phenomenal job of capturing the feeling of the setting, and I’m happy to present it here as our very first update.
***
Morning came unbidden, which was how it ought to be. Now and again you saw clips go viral: the sun refusing to rise, or cruising across the sky in the wrong direction, but on this particular morning, everything was happening in more or less the expected order. Sunlight crept across the floor of Eileen's bedroom, making the pale honey floorboards glow golden. It inched its way up the bed itself, and onto the pillow, making strands of her girlfriend Maura's black hair shine blue, making Maura bury her face deeper into the crook of Eileen's elbow.
Much as Eileen might have liked sleeping in, she gently extracted herself from the tangle of limbs and sheets and padded into the kitchen.
The apartment was a disaster.
Her own head didn't hurt (much), but now she understood why Maura's groan had carried a note of pain. Bottles, everywhere. Whiskey and beer and something whose bottle was covered in a thin, tacky coat — mead? They'd clearly mixed their alcohols, and Eileen sent up a prayer of thanks that no one had tossed their cookies.
Or their pizza. How many boxes were there? She vaguely remembered what ought to have been a small gathering of friends growing as the night went on, until she'd been certain the walls would burst from all the people. The booze miraculously hadn't dried up, which meant a three a.m. call for delivery. The last thing she recalled was putting out her nightly dish of cream for the fair folk on the back step before stumbling into bed around four.
Eileen had never seen one of the fair folk, but her Gran swore it was better to be on their good side than risk pissing them off. Then again, Gran had lived in County Kilkenny; she might actually have had some of the aes sidhe drinking her offerings. Eileen suspected that the only creatures lapping at her dishes here in Cambridge were the campus strays.
She got ready quietly, tryng not to disturb Maura or the few stragglers who lay sprawled on the couch and floor. On the kitchen table, she left a bottle of aspirin and a roll of antacids, offerings in their own right.
Saturday mornings at the library were her favorite. Best were the moments before the doors opened to the public, when it was just her and the books and the dust motes swirling in the light from the high windows. Surrounded by the smell of old varnish and musty pages, Eileen felt as close to content as she ever got.
Which wasn't something she'd ever confess to Maura, because wasn't that a terrible thing to say to your girlfriend? "Hey, honey, I’m happier alone in the library than anywhere else."
***
It wasn't unusual to find students waiting on the library steps when she arrived, even on the weekend. What was odd was to see a woman sitting in the midst of a murder of crows, thumbing through a book Eileen was sure belonged in the rare books collection. When she found out who let this woman check it out in the first place, heads were going to roll.
Then the woman looked up, and whatever chastisement Eileen had planned died on her lips.
She was beautiful, raven-haired and battle-fierce. Her body, Eileen knew, bore the scars of skirmishes long past. Eileen had traced them often, years ago.
"Miss me?"
Yes. "Fuck you, Bev. You ghosted on me. I've moved on."
Bev snorted. "Sure you have. I've seen my replacement. Looks an awful lot like… oh yeah. Me." Eileen winced. Maura and Bev could have been cousins.
"So I have a type. What do you want?"
"Me? Nothing. I’m here on business. Your father's."
Eileen glanced around, looking to see if some jackass with a smartphone was filming them. As far as she could tell, it was just herself, Bev, and the crows. "That's impossible. I don't know who my father is. Hell, neither does my mother."
Bev laughed, though there was little humor in it. "That's never mattered. He remembers you. And now he wants to show you something. Will you at least come with me?"
"Where?"
Bev rose, and from all around them came the rustle of wings as the birds shifted and made a path to the library's heavy oak doors.
…the library's heavy, locked oak doors, which now swung open at Bev's gesture.
"C'mon, Red," she said. "Let's go for a walk."