Through Monday, April 13 we present the Scion 2E Origin Bundle featuring Scion, the Onyx Path Publishing Storypath game about the children of gods discovering their birthright in the modern world. Here myths and legends exist in the shadows, interfering and manipulating. Humanity exists in an uneasy balance with these forces, but for you that veil has been rent, propelling you into a realm of rival gods, bound fate, and vast Titans, born even before the gods. Steal fire from the heavens, shatter the gates of the Underworld, and write your own legendary destiny.
The Scion setting, called simply the World, is like our own, except all gods and their myths exist simultaneously. The ancient powers never went away. People know of the divine, but speak of it quietly. Gods wander modern roads and cities, mingling with the teeming masses, but cautiously for fear of being changed and rewritten. The Scions descend from the gods – born of, adopted, or incarnated. Armed with mighty weapons, the Scions stand as humanity’s only defense against the savage Titans, dread forebears of the gods. Will you become more than just a pawn of the gods’ spiteful rivalries? What great events will mark your ascent to godhood?
Funded in a smash September 2016 Kickstarter campaign (US$334K from 4,085 backers), this new edition of Scion uses Onyx Path’s Storypath d10 dice pool system also seen in Trinity Continuum. The refined version here uses a “Scale” system that lets you play as an uncertain mortal, a newly awakened hero, or a demigod. To face a challenge, you build a pool of d10s based on the skill and attribute that fit the action. Roll, explode any 10s, and then count successes – rolls of 8+ by default, but as you ascend in Legend this becomes 7+. Spend successes as a currency to meet the base difficulty, deal with complications, and add extra effects called Stunts. Each roll has weight, and even failure generates future momentum for your hero.
If you start your story with Scion: Origin, your untested mortal character gains amazing gifts as a prelude to “Visitation,” the revelation of your divine heritage. Here you uncover the truth of your birth, take up your mantle as a Scion, and start to pursue your chosen mythic Deeds, short-term, long-term, and “band-term” (group-level campaign goals). These lead into your Paths (Origin, Role, and Society/Pantheon), Calling (archetype), and Knack. The Origin rulebook defines ten pantheons (Algonquian, Aztec, Chinese, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Irish, Japanese, Norse, South Asian, Yoruba), and later rulebooks and sourcebooks add many more.
Book Two: Hero lets you continue your Origin ascent or start fresh at this level of Legend. Steal lightning from the heavens and embrace the godly ichor in your veins. With higher Legend comes access to the purviews associated with your divine pantheon and parent: chaos, fortune, passion, war, and beyond. Now Scions can bind fates to them, take up mythic birthrights like beast companions and weapons forged in the heart of volcanos, and use Knacks that can shake the pillars of heaven. But these gifts bring pantheon rivalries and the enmity of the Titans.
In Book Three: Demigod you progress from celebrity to mythology. The golden ichor in your Scion’s heart burns away human frailties, and your journey to divinity begins in earnest. At the higher levels of Legend (Epic, Iconic, Integral, and Definitive), you’re formed more of divine ichor than mortal flesh, and will either succeed in becoming a God or die in failure. You gain a Sanctum (place of power) and can bind your Fate to any of multiple Underworlds. Your Deeds affect entire populations and societies. Your Immortal Knacks let you ignore local laws (legal and physical), escape all confinement, make characters fall in love, “pronounce the fate of a weapon’s blow,” sanctify oaths, and find forgotten relics. (Rise From Your Grave: “Once per story, you can choose to be killed in combat, returning from the grave unharmed at a dramatically appropriate moment.”) But your antagonists at Demigod level are ferocious, with qualities like Indestructible, Physiological Void, and “Immortal-ish.” You may face Goliath-level monsters like Lamashtu (Drive: Eat Babies); Simurgh, Queen of the Birds; Bushyasa, Daeva of Sloth; and mountain-sized centipedes called Omukade.
For its manifold inspirations Scion draws on the whole range of our world’s myths, legends, and folktales, and the text encourages players to do the same. Gods and Heroes, bound by Fate to live up to the personas created by their actions, reenact old tales in new ways – an idea reminiscent of RuneQuest, to say nothing of magickal doctrine throughout history. By bringing these mythic stories into their own lives, heroes make them meaningful in the modern World. Ideally, this is also what players do when they look at those myths: find the elements they feel are significant and try to answer the question, “What would it look like if it happened now?”
If you enjoy the media mythology of The Wicked + Divine, the awakening journey of Mage: The Hero Discovered, or the pantheon politics of Hades, the modern fantasy games in this all-new Scion 2E Origin Bundle are for you. Pay just US$14.95 to get all nine 2E titles in our Hero Collection (retail value $73) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Scion Second Edition Book One: Origin (along with the Scion Second Edition Origin Phone Version, the Scion Second Edition Storyguide Screen, and a slew of play aids), plus the Book Two: Hero rulebook and the Scion 2E Player’s Guide: Saints & Monsters rules expansion.
And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $29.95 to start, you’ll level up and also get our entire Demigod Collection with seven more Scion 2E titles worth an additional $72, including the Scion Book Three: Demigod rulebook and its Demigod Companion (plus the Demigod Storyguide Screen), the Mysteries of the World rules expansion, the adversary sourcebooks Titanomachy and Mythical Denizens, and the scenario collection Path to Apotheosis.
Get this Scion Origin offer before the horn of Ragnarok sounds Monday, April 13.
