Hey, Gail! I borrowed one of your lines last night!

[Vanguard01]

Okay, so my friends and I are big into pen-and-paper Role Playing Games and lately we've been obsessed with Scion.

I've talked about the game here on the board once or twice, but for those of you who don't remember, Scion is a game where you play a Scion, the children of the Gods. Yeah, you get to play a son or daughter of Zeus, Athena, Odin, Thor, you name it. Scions start mortal, but then they move up in power until they reach the ultimate goal of becoming Gods themselves. The setting of Scion is set in the modern World. The Titans have escaped from their imprisonment and have laid siege to the God's Overworld realms. The Scions of the Gods are tasked with fighting the Titan's minions in the World until they become Gods themselves.

So, anyway, my friends and I have started a new Scion game about a month back, and yesterday, I got a chance to use one of Gail's best lines from her Wonder Woman run. I'm the Storyteller of our group. So, I tell my friends what's going on.

So, we were fighting against a particularly nasty Titanspawn monster that was rampaging through a shopping mall (sound familiar?) At one point the monster grabbed a young woman and pulled a Genocide. I actually had the Titanspawn tell our Band (that's what you call a team of Scions) to get on their knees. The cool thing is that aside from myself, only one of my friends actually reads Wonder Woman.

That one friend of mine recognized exactly what I was going for. He actually shot me this silent look as I started setting this up. I could tell he was asking "Seriously? You're gonna do this?" I gave him a furtive nod, and he went for it. He asked the creature "is this supposed to give us a feeling of defeat, monster?" The creature responded "No, a better view," and then tore the woman in half.

It's a sign of what a great piece of writing that was, Gail, that all my friends absolutely jumped when I revealed that part of the story. None of them knew what to expect, and the horror of that statement from Genocide hit them full force.

Unlike in Rise of the Olympian, our Band then rushed the monster and we ended up killing it. But after the game, my friends just couldn't stop talking about that part of the story. Don't worry, Gail, I made sure they knew that I totally stole the idea from you. They were mightily impressed and they all wanted to borrow my issues of Rise of the Olympian after that.

Just thought I'd share that story of how to use Gail's awesome writing to such great effect. Cool, huh?

[nightforce]

Wow man that is awesome.

Damn it must be fun.

I remember playing D&D growing up. I miss those times

[Vanguard01]

Wow man that is awesome.

Damn it must be fun.

I remember playing D&D growing up. I miss those times

It is some serious fun. Especially Scion. I mean, what's cooler then going through the story and eventually being able to become an honest-to-goodness God? Scion is an addictive game, and it has some killer ideas for how to bring the ancient Gods into the modern world. I'd recommend reading the core books for any mythology fan. Even if you never play the game, the books are just chalk full of great ideas.

[nightforce]

Hmmm, that sounds like a great idea. Might be a good Idea for a writer to pick that up too when writing Thor or Wonder Woman

[Vanguard01]

Hmmm, that sounds like a great idea. Might be a good Idea for a writer to pick that up too when writing Thor or Wonder Woman

Oh, without a doubt! Those books are a gold mine for great story ideas. They've also given me so many more mythologies to look into. There are so many gods and goddesses that I would love to see Thor and/or Wonder Woman interact with.

[aegisbearer]

Sounds pretty cool, Vanguard. It makes me hearken back to my earlier days with AD&D. :)

[Vanguard01]

Sounds pretty cool, Vanguard. It makes me hearken back to my earlier days with AD&D. :)

It is cool. Scion is such an awesome game, and my experience with reading Wonder Woman and Thor always gives me plenty of good ideas. Hell, my personal character in our current game has an origin that has definite roots in Diana's own origin. With a little Superman thrown in just for fun.

My character's name is Donner. He's our representative of the Aesir pantheon. He was raised in a secluded community of Asatru (modern Norse heathenism) followers that live just as the Vikings did back in the day. Kinda like an Amish community? Anyway, Donner's mother is a priestess of Thor and Thor came to her and asked her to bear him a Scion to be used in the war against the Titans.

She agreed, and Donner would soon be born. That makes Donner kinda unique among Scions, since in this modern day and age, the Gods don't typically reveal who they are to their mortal paramours. But this woman was already one of Thor's own worshippers. So, unlike most Scions today, Donner was raised his whole life knowing that he was the son of a God and destined for greatness.

So, he's raised in a secluded pagan community and is pretty much a gift from the Gods to the world? Hmmmm. Sound familiar? Oh, did I mention that his main Birthright relics (the divine objects through which he channels his power) are a pair of gauntlets? Now, I've been working on this character for well over a year, and I swear, I had this concept worked out months before they appeared in Wonder Woman, but I also established that those gauntlets can shoot lightning bolts.

Anyway, the Superman elements come more as a result of his personality. When Donner first leaves his village and enters the modern world, I described him to my friends as "Clark Kent stepping off the bus from Smallville and into Metropolis for the first time." He's young (only sixteen) naive, and fiercely idealistic. He brings the real heroic element to the Band. Not all of our characters are as good intentioned as Donner. One of our number is actually a Mafia mistress and a criminal. But even she has been really charmed by Donner's old-world charm and earnest pursuit of right.

[brettc1]

Always glad to hear about another's roleplaying exploits.

Though I must admit, when I first read the thread title I thought you might have asked someone to shower with you. I'd love to know if that actually works LOL

[Vanguard01]

Always glad to hear about another's roleplaying exploits.

Though I must admit, when I first read the thread title I thought you might have asked someone to shower with you. I'd love to know if that actually works LOL

Well one of the beautiful things about Scion is, with the right Epic Social stats, you can get people to do anything. In Scion terms, Diana must have not been using her Epic Charisma during that talk with Tom, or he NEVER would've been able to refuse her. So, yeah, in the game, my character is already doing just fine on that end. He's building up high levels of Epic Charisma and Epic Appearance. If he asks someone to shower with him, she'll have to be some kind of epic to refuse, unless she plays for the other team. And once his Epic Appearance and Charisma get high enough, even THAT won't be an obstacle.

[brettc1]

Well one of the beautiful things about Scion is, with the right Epic Social stats, you can get people to do anything. In Scion terms, Diana must have not been using her Epic Charisma during that talk with Tom, or he NEVER would've been able to refuse her. So, yeah, in the game, my character is already doing just fine on that end. He's building up high levels of Epic Charisma and Epic Appearance. If he asks someone to shower with him, she'll have to be some kind of epic to refuse, unless she plays for the other team. And once his Epic Appearance and Charisma get high enough, even THAT won't be an obstacle.

Tom has an unbelievable will check to go along with this godlike "appearance without a shirt on" skill

[nightforce]

Oh, without a doubt! Those books are a gold mine for great story ideas. They've also given me so many more mythologies to look into. There are so many gods and goddesses that I would love to see Thor and/or Wonder Woman interact with.

Hey I am going to see if I can actually pick that up next week.

Thanks for the idea buddy

[Vanguard01]

Hey I am going to see if I can actually pick that up next week.

Thanks for the idea buddy

Yeah, you can find the Scion books at most major book stores. Lucky for me, my LCS also has a big gaming room and they also stock all the latest books, so I can get at them on the same day I get my comics. If your LCS does the same, that's probably your best bet. I've also seen them go for pretty cheap on Amazon.

There are three core books in the Scion line: Scion: Hero, Scion: Demigod, and Scion: God. In Hero, they introduce the various Gods and Goddesses. There are six major pantheons: The Pesedjet (Egyptian), the Dodekatheon (Greek), the Aesir (Norse), the Amatsukami (Japanese Shintoism), the Loa (Voodoo), and the Atzlanti (Aztec). In Demigod, they offer a fully-fictitious, but still awesome, Atlantean Pantheon that's pretty cool too.

These books take you on the journey of a Scion's development. Scions start as Heroes: fairly impressive, obviously superhuman, but still vulnerable to some of the World's woes. Then they become Demigods: at this stage, mortals pretty much stop being a problem for you and you begin to develop the really heavy-duty powers. A Demigod can tear apart a mortal army (modern weapons included) and bring a large city to it's knees. Then you move on to God, and when Scion says "God," they mean it. At God level, you can devastate countries, collect thousands of mortal worshippers, and you now have the power to begin to challenge the Titans directly.

If you like those, there have been two supplemental books as well. Scion: Ragnarok is all about the Aesir pantheon, and my personal favorite. In it you'll find incredibly in-depth study of the Aesir and how they work. It also contains a sample adventure story for bringing your Band through the Aesir Ragnarok cycle. My friends and I used this as our first exposure to Scion.

Then there's the Scion Companion. It contains some special new rules and expands the power sets a bit. It also introduces three new pantheons: the Tuatha de Danann (Irish), the Celestial Beauracracy (Chinese), and the Devas (Hindu). Also, there's about to be a new pdf book released soon that will showcase the Yazatas (the Persian Gods).

You can't go wrong with any of them.

[Gail Simone]

That is freaking awesome. :)

I miss playing pen and paper role-playing games. Some comics creators have a game going in Portland, I think, but I don't get up there that often.


Cool story!

[Wulfmir]

Nice to see others still playing pen and paper role playing games.

I kind of miss it.

White-wolf games tend to feature great characters.

But I find the Scion system unwieldly.

[Wulfmir]

Well one of the beautiful things about Scion is, with the right Epic Social stats, you can get people to do anything. In Scion terms, Diana must have not been using her Epic Charisma during that talk with Tom, or he NEVER would've been able to refuse her. So, yeah, in the game, my character is already doing just fine on that end. He's building up high levels of Epic Charisma and Epic Appearance. If he asks someone to shower with him, she'll have to be some kind of epic to refuse, unless she plays for the other team. And once his Epic Appearance and Charisma get high enough, even THAT won't be an obstacle.

Pshaw! I don't need epic social stats to get people to do anything! I'm actually tired of seeing "dominate" or "presence" type characters. Haven't played characters like that for a decade.