Okay, so I finally started reading through the rules last night, which was a big relief indeed. Such simple elegance, I love it! But that aside, I began thinking about a character concept I have had in mind for some time. The short of it is a wizard-type bodyguard.

One of his defensive focus items would be a chainmail shirt, taking up 4 slots and providing +2 to power and control for defensive spirit evocations. So, a bigger shield bracelet, so to speak. That one was rather 'easy' to figure out (though I might have made it wrong anyway...), the next one wasn't.

While the character would focus on defensive magic, he needs something to put the scare on supernatural nasties. Not something to seriously hurt them, but to pierce their Catches enough to give them pause. The idea I had was inspired by Magneto in X-Men 2, where escapes his plexiglass prison with a small amount of liquid metal, and it boils down to this:
- the 'item' is a liquid, metal-like substance, not unlike quicksilver
- it would contain traces of cold iron, blessed/inherited silver, holy water
- as a weapon, it would take to form of small bullets, not unlike musket balls

At first I thought it would be cool, if it could harden to provide some defense in the form of a block, but it might be a better flavour if I used it for maneuvers to distract opponents, hamper aiming, etc. However it would be used, though, it would only work through an application of evocation magic, most logically the element of metal, or earth. If the character could harden the stuff for defense, it would be a stronger weapon to, perhaps rating 2, otherwise, I'd say 0 or 1, but satisfying the Catch of enemies. (Like the Sunburst in a Handkerchief).

So my question to you all would be: how would you stat this? If at all?

I just read through an older, now inactive, topic about Scions and what kinds people could come up with, which interested me, because I had something like that in mind myself. So I made this topic, because the forum suggested it in an oh so polite manner

Anyhoo, one of the things I noticed, was that few to none of the concepts of Scions had 'Marked by Power'. Now, I do not wish to suggest that all Scions should take that trait, but consider the following: you are the child of a powerful being (I've seen anything from Dragons, to (Demi-)Gods, to elemental beings), with quite a bit of oomph yourself. Most of the nasty would love such a (s)pawn to use in their games (which is probably best portrayed as an aspect or some such), but it also works the other way around: people see in you a way to get to your parent.

Of course, if you are the spawn of a capricious elemental, this wouldn't make sense. But the spawn of Ferrovax? Even if he isn't intent on (ab)using you, you might be of interest to a lot of others around you. For example: "He's the son of a Dragon, let's hide behind him, they wouldn't hurt him, would they?" or "He's the son of some god, imagine what we could do with his blood!" or "She's the daughter of Venus, if anyone can make him fall in love with me, it's her!"

Now, I realize some of these things could be compelled by the GM, but I feel that having the blood of something ancient within or its mark upon you, often warrants more than just an aspect on your part. Maybe you are a love-child of some almighty dragon, but you might take after your mom, or perhaps you were spawned from the metaphorical loins of Venus, but perhaps your powers lean towards sexual fertility instead of love/lust.

In short (otherwise I'll keep on rambling): I feel that 'Marked by Power' is something of a balancing factor, so you won't use your bloodline just to justify loads of powers. I am in no mean experienced with this game or system, so I am just spewing my thoughts on this matter

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Having said my piece, I was also thinking about types of Scions myself and I had to think about the spirits often seen in Native American and Western-African mythology. Think about the Coyote, Raven, or Anansi (spider), Papa Legba. My thoughts about these spirits that they are not represented as a single, unified being, such as Odin, or Zeus, but rather a collection of spirits with their aspect. For example, Coyote is a trickster, but in the stories, he varies from a cultural hero, to a darker prankster, to the creator, to a teacher through trickery and as such there would be many spirits of Coyote, representing his different face. (As opposed to, for example, Zeus, who is a pretty defined type of deity.) They might all be linked to some communal well of knowledge or conscious, but not always and not actively.

A Scion of such a spirit would most likely be 'Marked by Power', because it seems more legit to me that a spirit like that develops a passing interest in a human being, imparts some measure of power upon the mortal and then departs, only to check in every now and then. This means the powers of such a Scion could range from Sponsored Magic, to a non-Faerie variant of Glamour, or some shapeshifting powers. I would deem such spirits as too chaotic and whimsical to actually mate with a human being often, so they simply leave their imprint upon someone who impresses them sufficiently. This type of Scion could be relatively free the involvement of his/her 'parent', but, as befitting the trickster, he/she could be whisked away at any moment as well.

p.s. I haven't had the time to read up on a lot of what's on here, such as the Custom Power thingamajick... So if I seem ignorant... It's because I am