How Many Scions Can You Make?

[Myrddhin]

Not perfectly happy with her Aspect names and only gave her a bare bones history, but a fun exercise.

Persephone “Sephy” Anastos
Power Level: Up To Your Waist (7 refresh, 25 skill points, cap at Great)

High Concept: Descendent of Leucosia (Alternatively: Scion of a Siren)
Trouble: My Nature Calls In A Song So Sweet

Background Aspect: Home Is Where the Heart Is
-Persephone’s family moved around a lot when she was growing up, never calling anywhere home for more than a year or two. She has an older brother and younger sister, Alexis (goes by Alex) and Georgia respectively. Though she longs for a lasting sense of home, that deep sense of belonging tempered by time and love, she often fears that she has already inherited her parents’ wanderlust, as her nights are filled with dreams of rocky islands, serene shorelines, and beautiful fields.

Rising Conflict: A Voice To Make Angels Weep
-During one of their longest stays Persephone can remember, a whopping two and a half years so that she and Georgia could finish high school, her friends pushed her to sign-up for a local talent contest, encouraging her to sing. According to everyone there, she won, awing the audience and judges with a haunting melody sung in Greek, though she claims to have no recollection of her stellar performance. In truth what she recalls both terrifies and fascinates her, she heard a voice, inhumanly beautiful, in place of her own as she sang, smelled the salty air of the ocean on every movement of the air and felt as though she could take flight if she but willed it.

Adventure Aspect: Voices of the Past, Lives of the Present
-Only a year into college, and with just a rudimentary knowledge of what she is and what she can do, will she be able to defend herself from a mysterious and statuesque man who seems to be intently pursuing her, and may know far more about her heritage than she does?

Skills

Great: Performance
Good: Presence, Rapport, Scholarship
Fair: Alertness, Athletics, Empathy, Contacts
Average: Conviction, Discipline, Endurance, Lore

Stunts

Pointed Performance (Performance): Can create more focused effects when performing for an audience.

Powers

Incite Emotion (Awe; At Range) [-2]
-Uses Performance instead of Deceit

Human Form (Involuntary Change: Significant Duress/Fear) [+2]
-   Claws [-1]
-   Wings [-1]
-   Incite Emotion (Lasting Emotion) [-1]
-   Inhuman Speed [-2]

[toturi]

It seems that many of the scions created do not have Marked by Power. Some of the scions that have fae origins could possibly be put under the changeling templates, but shouldn't other scions be using the Emissary template?

[Deadmanwalking]

It seems that many of the scions created do not have Marked by Power. Some of the scions that have fae origins could possibly be put under the changeling templates, but shouldn't other scions be using the Emissary template?

Templates are suggestions, and Scions are basically their own...or more accurately their own set. They are also really NOT an Emissary of their parent, so they can rather easily have Marked By Power (or not) as is appropriate for them individually.

[CMEast]

A magical mark is upon you, placed by a creature or person of significant power. It’s not that the mark provides any actual protection, but magically aware people and creatures can perceive this mark upon you and word tends to get around that you’ve been “claimed.”

Not all scions are 'chosen', some are just fallout; left-overs of some power or force and so have very little standing or power. On the other hand, a changeling whose parent is particularly powerful or respected could be called an emissary of power and be marked as such, even though they are changelings.

[Crion]

Following up with what was mentioned by Deadmanwalking and CMEast:

Scions are different from those "Marked By Power." Scions are literally the descendants of an entity of power with mortal blood. Changelings can be considered as Scions if you chose to lump them as such, but in theory, anything that is a mix of a non-mortal supernatural entity and a mortal can be considered a Scion.

Some non-changeling examples from the series include Mouse, Glau, and Kincaid. Unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, or viewing them via the Sight, you would have no idea that they were non-mundane entities. Therefore, not marked by power.

If you are familiar with mythology, all of those children and descendants of gods are technically Scions. Hercules and Perseus are probably the two easiest to name and remember in Western cultures, and if you remember them, they appeared just like normal people, except they were "better" in some ways.



Which, again, brings me back to this thread, and why I'm thoroughly enjoying seeing what people are doing with Scions in their own games.

Speaking of, I'm working on some NPCs to have "on tap" for my party, and one of them using the idea of the Black Court Dhampir that was previously mentioned. So, Deadmanwalking, care to tell me what you think?

Black Court Dhampir "Template"
Requirements:  [-2 Refresh]
Vampiric Detection [-1] (Allows detection of Black Court Vampires)
Vampire Hunter [-1] : Any attack made by a Dhampir fulfills the Catch of a Black Court Vampire.
Wizard's Constitution [+0]
High Concept or Trouble Aspect to denote lineage

Optional:
Cloak of Shadows [-1]
Inhuman Speed [-2]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Inhuman Toughness [-2]; The Catch is Unknown [+0]


I think it's enough of a difference from the Red Court Infected to make it worthwhile to note. Thoughts?

[Thrythlind]

I was thinking about what sort of aspects to appy to show Aki's obsessive compulsive nature and her tendency to stop at doorways and gates and arches and other such things and bowing before passing through.

Then I realized that her low refresh hits the Obsessive Compulsive pretty hard and the existence of Threshold explains  why she'd stop and bow at every gate (though she does it in places there are no thresholds) or entry-way

[Quazar]

Sorry about necroing this thread, but I really like many of these Scion character idea.  Particularly the Dhampir template and the gay All-America Muslim with a dead priestess in his head.  Absolutely brilliant stuff.  It seems like these characters are where the DFRPG really branches out into the unknown.

Does anyone else have play-tested scions, now that the game has been out for awhile?

[Richard_Chilton]

I was thinking that Scions of Neil Gaimon's Endless would be pretty cool. Destiny, Death, Destruction, Dream, Desire, Despair, Delusion.

(click to show/hide)

Speaking of Gaimon, one of his books (American Gods) tells the story of scion of an aspect of a god who is recruited into the godly circles as an errand boy.

Richard

[Richard_Chilton]

In our game there's someone playing a scion "Son of the Trickster".  His main claim to fame is modular shapeshifting.  He doesn't have a lot of power but what he has gets switched around.  He needs to be tough? Inhuman Toughness.  He's been hurt? Inhuman recovery.  He needs to run fast? Inhuman speed.  He needs to be tough and run fast after he's been hurt? Then he's out of luck.

The theory is the trickster is always different and always has the trick he needs when he needs it - and that was the best way of showing that.

Other than that... http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22285.msg963632.html#msg963632 is the outline of a character who sought power, but it could easily be shifted to the son of a greek god discovering his potential.  Note that parts covered with the spoiler tags might not be work safe.

Richard

[sinker]

Reminds me of a (sort-of) Scion of Chaos that I played once in a different system. There weren't any modular abilities so I wound up taking a mimic power and just trying not to steal the same thing twice. It led to one of my favorite moments in a game:

GM(Paraphrased): Some big wolf beast jumps in and starts biting people and then those people start turning into more wolf beast things. What do you do?
Player 1: I attack.
Player 2: I use my powers to hurt them.
Me: I bite them!
GM:....No.

Anyway back to the topic one of my friends played a character concept of a person who was brought back from the dead using the blood of the world serpent and then trained by the Einjerhar and now works for Monoc. He had Inhuman recovery and some decent physical fighting skills, and then the ability to shapeshift into a snake form that had access to Loki's knowledge (I.E. thaumaturgy and all the skills that go along with it). It worked out pretty great once he figured out to use a non-magnetic axe (we had an earth mage).

[Buscadera]

I've got a few scion characters written up among my loads and loads of character sheets that I he written up. Rather than list out all the character sheets, I'll just mention the high concepts.

Among my ideas for scion characters are: the Storyteller Son of Anansi, the Boorish Son of Hercules, a Smooth-Talking Jann Lawyer, the Vernal Lord of the Pixies, a Half-Ankou Horror Mogul, a Meddlesome Jann Detective, a Sasquatch Jock, an Infernal Ex-Spy Troubleshooter, a Descendant of the Monkey King, a Dwarven Artisan, an Infernal Lawyer, a Nephilim Private Investigator, a Merfolk Mercenary and a Troll-Blooded Hard Man.

I really like scions as characters, since they can be whatever you want them to be without the restrictions of the templates in the books. I can make my jann quick and clawed while my dwarven character is hearty and stout, and both still fall under the "scion" domain.

[Peteman]

Voidborn.

The original idea is based on the Nephilim from Eden Studios Armageddon setting, but I think Angelic Scions would have different builds.

Nothing. That is what many who See the Voidborn describe. Not an all consuming emptiness, but simply not there.
What exactly a Void Born is, is not sure, but their magic consumption abilities place suspicion in the realm of those that consort with Outsiders.

Musts: High Concept Related to being Voidborn.
Inhuman Strength (-2)
Inhuman Recovery (-2)
The Catch: Fire (+1)
Physical Immunity +8 (Direct Supernatural Effects)
Stacked Catch +3 (Physical Harm: +2 not magic is easy to come by, and even indirect magical attacks like accelerating a rock at the Voidborn's head will work. Doesn't get the +2 from only affecting magic)

Optional: Upgrade to Mythic Recovery