Artistry

https://sites.google.com/site/scionoverhaul/purviews

This purview is currently being playtested. We present it here in an unfinished state so that you can see what direction we have been going with the purview, or test it in your own games if you want to.Creating Relics is a process with two steps: the Resource phase, and the Creation phase. The Resource phase is gathering either the physical materials needed for an object, or inspiration for something like a song. This can be done at any time, without the need for planning to create something. A poet may gather inspiration as they adventure, while a smith may gather dragon scales for a later project.Once per scene, someone with Artistry can claim Resources and make note of it on their Character Sheet, along with the value of this material or inspiration. This value is a number equal to the permanent Legend of the most powerful being or object that was a major participant in the scene, excluding The Band themselves, unless they are intentionally making effort to contribute towards your creation.

The Creation phase is a process that consumes Resources to create a finished Relic. You must work with the Storyteller to come up with an appropriate Relic, and then follow the steps below until you finish your project:

    1. Determine the Dot Value for the Relic you want to create.

    2. Work for one uninterrupted hour and roll (Artistry + Art).

    3. Spend 1 Resource for each success on your roll.

    4. Repeat Step 2-3 until cumulative successes = Relic Dots squared (5 Dot Relic = 25 Successes).

You may not create a Relic with a higher Dot Value than your own Permanent Legend. Additionally, you can take breaks to sleep or go adventuring between each hour of uninterrupted work, but a Storyteller might declare that some of your materials or inspiration are time sensitive (the cooling ember of the last flame, or the haunting memory of a goddess' song).

Artistry One

BREAKTHROUGH ●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

Chewing on your pencil while hovering over your plans, gazing off into the sunset, or pacing back and forth in your studio, you suddenly burst through everything that was holding you back on a creative level. You experience a moment of clarity. An epiphany based upon your impossible skill or sheer artistic genius. Once per session, a Scion may activate this boon to gain +6 successes on a mundane Art roll.

MAKER’S MARK ●

Cost: 1 Legend per use

Dice Pool: Artistry + Investigation (vs Conceal)

Type: Miscellaneous (Reveal)

Some artists leave hidden marks, others scrawl their names, both serving the purpose of claiming their work as their own, so that others may not claim it, or that they may be found from their work. There are some even subtler works, styles unique to different figures, hazel wood and boar hide points to one, while the twist of a letter points to another.

Make an (Artistry + Investigation) roll when examining something intentionally created by a craftsman or artist. You immediately learn who made it, and understand why the creation was made. This might be as simple as 'to inspire millions', 'because I wanted to', or more complex reasons like 'to blow up the museum', or 'to murder trespassers'. A Scion may also examine a Relic and understand what powers it possesses.

Artistry Two

CALIBRATION ●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent (Lesser Aura)

Where the craftsman goes, they tinker, and fiddle. Here and there, a bolt is tightened, a script is marked with red pen, a knife is absently sharpened, a computer is defragmented. Divine craftsmen are far more dramatic about this. Sometimes their creative presence is potent enough that things calibrate themselves: swords become sharper, poetry is edited, and oil is changed without even being touched.

Anyone close to the Scion discovers their equipment bonuses are increased by +1 success. This includes weapon damage, weapon defense, armor, super computers, recording equipment, hiking shoes, and more.

REFORGING ●●

Cost: 2 Legend per use

Dice Pool: Artistry + Art

Type: Miscellaneous

Blades can be shattered, walls blown apart, and sometimes even the sky can break and fall. Those who can create also know how to mend and piece together broken things into functional objects, mostly. As long as the Scion has at least half of the original item, over the course of about ten minutes of manual labor, they may repair 5 points of lethal damage per success on the activation roll. It should be noted, this Boon does not spontaneously repair something to the exact state it was before being damaged - for example, a half-burned sheet of paper would become a whole sheet of paper, but it would not restore the secret message that was written on the page.

TREACHEROUS STEEL ●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Miscellaneous (Curse)

When the Gods of Fire blessed humanity with light and warmth, and Goddesses of the Earth gave humanity fertile earth to grow their food, the Creators gave tools and inspiration to humanity. But they can take these blessing away as easily as they gave them.

With this Boon, the Scion may target a single piece of equipment within their sight and strip its capacity to grant equipment bonuses, armor, weapon dice, or the like. Swords dull, armor fails, electron microscopes fiddle and glitch. This power may not be resisted since it targets the equipment itself, but it does not interfere with any supernatural benefits that the item might grant. A magical sword would no longer grant +4 dice to attack, but would still channel the Sky purview, and could still force people to tell the truth.

Artistry Three

ARTISAN ●●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

Poets, smiths, and the architects are renown for improvising with new mediums or tools. A smith of divine skill could use two rocks as a hammer and anvil, and author would turn birch bark into paper, and hairs of a porcupine can be used as a brush. A Scion with this Boon gains +2 successes to all Art and Investigation rolls, and may always find makeshift tools for the creation of their art. These tool do not give an equipment bonus, but ensure no penalty from lacking appropriate tools when creating or repairing items or art. At Legend 9 this bonus increases to +4 successes.

INSPIRED CREATION ●●●

Cost: 3 Legend per use

Dice Pool: None

Type: Miscellaneous

In the heat of the moment you often need to patch together some kind of simple machine to get the job done, or serve as a tool to help build something even bigger and more complex. Activating this boon allows the Scion to create any mundane object or simple machine smaller than a house. This creation is a quick patch job and takes about ten minutes of construction time, but allows you to create chariots from scrapyards, mangonel from bone and hide, or patch a shattered hull with a couple pieces of metal. It should be mentioned that 'simple machines' might include something like a car, but not something like an M1 Abrams or a nuclear bomb. While final say should be left to a Storyteller, this Boon is intended to replicate common things from almost nothing.

SECRET SKILLS ●●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

Some artists have tricks, little rituals they perform. One may only write with a fountain pen, while another will only perform on a specific guitar, cooks have their secret ingredients, and a watch maker only fixes the complex innards of watches with their grandfather’s tools. Like all things, the divine can take this eccentricity to incredible levels. When a Scion purchases this boon, they choose a ritualistic behavior that makes the Creation phase take an additional hour of uninterrupted work for each (Artistry + Art) roll. This might involve quenching a blade in the still beating heart of an animal, composing poetry during a hedonistic orgy, slicking clay with fluids best not thought about, or more bizarre methods.

As long as they engage in this complex and inspiring ritual behavior, Scions can create Relics one dot higher than their Permanent Legend normally allows. Artisans may also share this secret method with others, teaching them this boon for free as long as they meet the necessary requirements (Artistry 3) for learning it. Artisans may learn this boon any number of additional times, and are encouraged to wander the land learning special and bizarre techniques from obscure masters.

Artistry Four

SHOEMAKER’S TRICK ●●●●

Cost: 4 Legend per use

Dice Pool: None

Type: Miscellaneous

Humanity is oft restrained by time. Rome wasn't built in a day, creating a suit of mail eats more time than fuel, writing a novel takes months, if not years of putting ideas into text, altering, and editing it. The Divine, however, are timeless for the most part. Tiny elves make hundreds of shoes in a night, while Apollo can write an entire epic in a single sitting. A Scion may activate this Boon to create one additional mundane item for each (Artistry Boon) they possess. This takes the same amount of time as creating a single item, but allows you to create enormous amounts of identical items at the same time.

DIVINE DRAUGHT ●●●●

Cost: None + Resource Dots

Dice Pool: Artistry + Resource Dots

Type: Miscellaneous

Not everything lasts forever. Most of the greatest creators are smiths, but many cultures tell of magical meads, foods, and other such things that wander in and out of their stories. A Scion with this Boon may create such a resource: something consumed, either literally in the case of mead, or figuratively such as shots of Sidhe blood. Once per story, normally at the beginning, a Scion may spend any number of Resource dots to create this substance, making one dose for each Resource dot spent. These Draughts each contain a single use of a Knack or Boon (successes determined by the activation roll) that particularly embodies the creature the material was retrieved from, or the scene the inspiration was drawn from, decided by the Storyteller. However, the ‘consumer’ of the draught must pay the cost of the Knack or Boon themselves, as if the user actually possessed the power.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE ●●●●

Cost: 8 Legend and 2 Willpower per use

Dice Pool: Artistry + Art

Type: Miscellaneous

When the Goddesses and Gods travel, they travel in golden chariots, and ships of mist. Vehicles greater than their human worshipers could muster, illustrating the power, or mysterious nature of their Gods. Like all of the tools of the Pantheons, these are created by the smiths, shipwrights, and chariot makers. The Demigods of the Pantheons too can forge such wonders, though, where chariots of fire once were forged by ancient Scions, motorcycles with thunder in their engines roar into the world.

When a Scion activates this Boon, they must declare the kind of vehicle they wish to create (a boat, a car, a chariot, or the like), and then gather a sufficient amount of materials to create it from. At base, this vehicle has 5 Soak DV, 5 Health, and 10 Speed. From there, the Scion may spend their successes from the activation roll to improve these values: one success adding either +1 Soak DV, +1 Health, or +3 Speed.

These vehicles are permanent unless physically destroyed, and they require no fuel to power themselves, though this boon does not create flesh-and-blood creatures to haul chariots.

Artistry Five

IMPOSSIBLE THINGS ●●●●●

Cost: 1 Legendary Deed

Dice Pool: None

Type: Reflexive

The greatest of myths often include less than physical materials in their incredible creations. Swords of sunlight, armor wrought of love, or ships woven of mist. Even the most skilled Demigods are unable to craft such fantastic things until they have mastered this impossible skill. Artisans may activate this boon reflexively when they claim materials or inspiration (Resources) during a scene, and these incorporeal materials are pulled into physicality, bottling the rage of Achilles after meeting him in Hades, or pouring a bowl of the deep darkness of the night sky. This gathered Resource counts as Legend 12 regardless of the highest permanent legend in the scene.

REPRODUCTION ●●●●●

Cost: 6 Legend per use

Dice Pool: Artistry + Larceny (vs Reveal)

Type: Miscellaneous (Conceal)

One calls it inspiration, another theft. Who is right is debatable, and in modernity, such questions increasingly become arcane and written in the shining steel words of law. Though, in times long past, you could get away with it without much difficulty as long as you didn’t also copy the maker’s mark. Activating this boon creates an exact duplicate of another piece of craftsmanship or art, down to the smallest flourish or most individual characteristic, unless you get fewer successes on the activation roll than the original creation.

Scions can also use this Boon to reproduce portions of art. This might include leaving out the original maker's mark and putting their own, painting the Mona Lisa into your family portrait, or forging someone's signature onto a message they did not write. The activation roll may be contested by supernatural effects that reveal information.

SALVAGE ●●●●●

Cost: 8 Legend per use

Dice Pool: Artistry + Art

Type: Miscellaneous

Anyone can tear apart an old engine or broken clock for parts, but smiths among the heavens are so skilled that they can remove each and every piece of the machine, unshape every curve of the pot, and draw the precious oils right off the canvas. Activating this boon destroys an object or piece of art that has been created by yourself or another artisan. Scions must follow the exact same steps as creating a Relic:

    1. Determine the Dot Value for the Relic you want to salvage

    2. Work for one uninterrupted hour and roll (Artistry + Art).

    3. Recover 1 Resource for each success on your roll.

    4. Repeat Step 2-3 until cumulative successes = Relic Dots squared (5 Dot Relic = 25 Successes).

Additional successes are lost. This cannot be used on objects or pieces of art that resist your attempts to salvage them: a supernaturally warded golden door, an ancient artifact important in the eyes of fate, or a living portrait that is trying to kill you.

Artistry Six

[NEEDS NAME] ●●●●● ●

Cost: 6 Legend per use

Dice Pool: Artistry + Presence (vs MDV)

Type: Reflexive (Blessing)

Creating art has always been about more than form and function, from great stories that bring tears to your eyes, to aching songs that haunt your memories, and even thunderous drums that get your heart racing. The Gods have always spoken to mankind through these mediums, and now you can share your divine muse with others as well. A Scion activates this boon during the creation or performance of art, and chooses one of the two blessings listed below:

Muse: A single person looking upon your art or listening to your music gains Art Dots equal to your own (unless theirs was higher). They may keep these phantom dots as long as they worship you in their own way: praising your name, loving your music, or leaving offerings.

Idol: Anyone who looks upon your art or listens to your music gains 1 Art Dot. They may keep this phantom dot as long as they worship you in their own way: praising your name, loving your music, or leaving offerings.

AUTONOMUM ●●●●● ●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

Talos, the great man of bronze, Gullinbursti, the golden boar, and Golems, guardians shaped of clay, are each examples of divine artisans capable of creating some measure of sentience in their art. A Demigod with this Boon may now create Retainers in addition to Relics, but these beings must be thematically appropriate to the materials used in their forging: Ocelomeh wrought of obsidian, a colossal elephant of eternal ice, whispering life into bronze swords, or pulling the Jabberwocky from page to flesh. This functions exactly like creating a Relic, and can benefit from all Boons that alter or improve upon this system.

Artistry Seven

INVENTOR ●●●●● ●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

Those who create often have great and terrible imaginations: they dream up new methods, new tools, new creations. Many Deities have done this, such as Ogun inventing tools, and Cairbre creating satire. These were completely new ideas that changed the world. A character who takes this Boon creates a new idea from the depths of their divine mind, be it functioning cold fusion, a new poetic meter, a new alloy as flexible as rubber but as strong as steel, or a haunting and melodic woodwind never seen before. This new invention does not spontaneously spring into existence, but they know the method to flawlessly create it, and have a perfect understanding of how it works.

In addition to the effects that this new creation may bring, the Demigod becomes inexorably bound to their invention. It becomes their specialty, and none may out-shine them in this area. She always requires 6 Resources less when creating something that directly involves this invention.

PEERLESS ●●●●● ●●

Cost: 5 Legend per use

Dice Pool: None

Type: Miscellaneous

At the cusp of Apotheosis, a Demigod with this Boon has come far since their earliest tinkerings. They may forge life from steel, smelt a sword from anger, create a thousand-thousand spears in a single night. As their experiences has grown, so has their skills, and from their practice, their earliest skills become honed and wielded in new ways. This boon must be activated as part of a multiple action with certain artistry boons, and enhances those boons in the following ways:

Maker’s Mark: Now reveals more personal information about a crafted item, such as where it was made, exactly when it was made, what special materials or inspiration (if any) were used in its creation, and what would happen if it was destroyed.

Treacherous Steel: Instead or removing a bonus from Equipment, Armor, and Weapons, the bonus becomes a success penalty.

Inspired Creation: Now allows the creation of complex machines, which can include tanks, nukes, and super computers.

Chariots of Fire: At base, this vehicle has 10 Soak DV, 10 Health, and 30 Speed.

Artistry Eight

GRAND WORKSHOP ●●●●● ●●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

A poet may have a favorite field in which to sit and write, a smith has their forge, and such for singers, dancers, clockmakers, and all the rest of the world’s Artisans. It is from this spot all of their greatest works may be done, and it becomes an intensely personal space. Perhaps the most famed is Vesuvius, one of Vulcan’s great forges, or Wayland’s smithy. When a character takes this Boon, they declare an area, sometimes natural, or sometimes created by their own two hands, as their center of creation. While within their grand workshop, the Artisan needs no materials or inspiration (Resources) to create Relics with a Dot Value of 1-5. All they require is time to create such simple things.

As the Deities expected to arm and armor their fellow’s Scions, or entertain their Pantheon with cunning words and lovely music, such a location is often a necessity. It also serves as a powerful political tool, since favors are often owed for such work.

SUBVERSION ●●●●● ●●●

Cost: 18 Legend and 2 Willpower

Dice Pool: Artistry + Empathy (vs MDV)

Type: Miscellaneous

Death of the Author. Subvert a Trope. Messages and meanings become lost in time, or intentionally twisted to mean something else entirely by those both unscrupulous or simply possessed of an agenda of their own. They value their new message more than the person who created it, for good or ill. Activating this boon twists the meaning behind divine creations: a famous knighta book about cruel leaders becomes dark inspiration, songs about a great king are transformed into dripping satire, and proposals about eating children are

GIFT FROM HEAVEN ●●●●● ●●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Type: Persistent

The inventors and creators of the Pantheons often share their secrets with humanity, teaching them poetry, how to forge iron, saddles, ships, and other things. An Artisan with this Boon may do the same, descending (or ascending, Overworld is not necessarily quite literal) to Earth to teach their gifts to the mortal world.

By taking this Boon, the Deity may share their personal Invention (from Inventor [Artistry 6]) with the world, or a select group. From then on, the restriction of creating this marvelous new invention is lifted, and even mortals can create the Deity’s invention, if they have the resources.

While seemingly simple, this can change the world on a monumental scale. In the past, iron tools allowed easier deforestation, opening larger areas for agrarian expansion, and changing cultures as well as the face of the planet. In modernity, these new inventors of the Pantheon can bring new artforms to revolutionize the cultural life of the planet, or show the secrets of cold fusion, nigh-infinite energy at the beck and call of humanity.

Artistry Nine

FATED CREATION ●●●●● ●●●●

Cost: None

Dice Pool: Artistry + Occult

Type: Miscellaneous

A beautiful necklace that will bring doom and death upon all who wear it, a sword doomed to be lost, a shield to bring immortality until one pivotal point. The great Smiths of the Pantheons can weave the power of Fate into their creations, though, no prophets, it is working within an unknown medium.

When creating a Relic (or Follower with Autonoma [Artistry 6]) of at least Eight Dots in value, the Character may chose to imbue their creation with a great Fate. Doing this doubles the required Inspiration or Resources needed, and the total number of Successes needed to craft. For this exorbitant price, the Character may attempt to write a Fate, as a Boon, or, more often, a curse into the creation.

However, working with Fate is always a difficult task, and just how this object’s fate comes to pass may be unexpected, even by the creator themselves. In the end, as all things of Fate, the result of this Fated Creation is in the hands of the Storyteller, though they should attempt to work within the Fate outlined by the creator.

Purview 10

Major Control - Furnace of Creation (Solve any problem for a great cost, including destroying a part of reality as a Material [see, Fenrir’s chain])

Major Attack - Sunder (Destroy a Relic, or, if resisted successfully, nullify it for the Story)