Projects +

While not a Birthright in and of it’s own right, it is often tied to birthrights. A project is a multi-step objective a Scion sets forth to accomplish. This can include Crafting or finding a Relic, building a temple, or establishing their own organization.

Project Tier

The first thing to do is decide the tier of project being worked on. Most characters unable to attempt projects of a higher tier without mystical assistance.

Tier 0 (mortal)

These are mundane items such as swords, cars or libraries. These usually grant +1 Enhancement to whatever use they were designed for. If this project is an item, weapon or tool, the gain tags accordingly. They may occasionally grant scale to a specific trait (such as Cars granting Speed Scale)

Tier 1

Lesser mystical tools such as Lucky charms or potions. These usually aren’t any more potent than Tier 1 items, but possess unnatural qualities.

Tier 2 (Hero)
Your character can rework existing relics or items into new forms, such as taking a shard from Mjolniir and using it as the hammer on a revolver. This can change how these relics are used, but not their fundamental nature. A Hero scion can also sometimes repair a broken relic, although this sometimes requires advanced skills, materials or guidance. A hero also may be able to modify a relics existing abilities, or bring out latent abilities in an existing Relic.

Tier 3 (Demigod)

Extraordinary objects equivalent to Relics with ratings of 1-3, like Fae-Shot or the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. These offer powerful magical effects, or benefits stronger than a +1 Enhancement.

OBJECT TIER

• Tier 1 (Mortal): Mundane items like swords, improvised explosives, or cars, which usually offer a +1 Enhancement to a specific challenge. Many mortal projects can be completed without offering a challenge, and those that do are usually basic challenges with a Difficulty of 1-3.
• Tier 2 (Hero): Lesser mystical tools, like lucky charms or sleep potions. These usually aren’t any more potent than Tier 1 items, but possess unnatural qualities. A blessed sword is no sharper than a combat knife, but it slices cleanly through rakshasa sorcery. An unrolled Milestone for Tier 2+ can be earned with a scene of play.
• Tier 3 (Demigod): Extraordinary objects equivalent to Relics with ratings of 1-3, like Fae-Shot or the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. These offer powerful magical effects, or benefits stronger than a +1 Enhancement. Their unrolled Milestones require about an episode’s worth of story.
• Tier 4 (Divine): Legendary wonders, such as Relics rated 4+. Creating or restoring such a masterpiece is a grand project that the entire band labors toward, and usually serves as the focus or drive for an entire season, with Milestones that occupy or represent an entire arc of achievements.

Crafting Your Own Relic

The minimum Difficulty to create an object with a crafting project is equal to its tier. Increase the difficulty per the following:

• Difficulty by 1 for projects that are especially precise or beautiful.
• Working with rare materials or new designs without guidance also increases the Difficulty by 1.

Common Consolations:

• Unlooked-For Advantage (Scion: Origin, p. 70)
• Items is created with flaws equalto the challenge’s Difficulty.

Complications in crafting impose a Flaw of equal rank if not overcome.

• Working twice as fast normally results in a Complication equal to the project’s Tier, while jury-rigging a Tier 1-2 object in moments inflicts automatic Flaws equal to twice the item’s Tier. Rushing work on a project can halve the length of its intervals but also imposes a Complication equal to its tier.
• Working with substandard or improvised tools or materials, an unskilled workforce, or a poor design creates a rank 1 Complication

Craft Stunts
Spare Parts (2-4s):
The character creates an additional, small tier 1 item from creates an additional, small tier 1 item from leftover materials, spending successes equal to the project’s Difficulty + 1.
Quick Build (2s):
The item reduces by one the total rank of any Flaws imposed by hasty work, total rank of any Flaws imposed by hasty work, such as makeshift construction or a Complication from rushing.

FLAWS:

The most common sources of Flaws are Complications on a crafting interval, usually caused by substandard or dangerous materials, improvised or cursed tools, or a lack of knowledge.

• These inflict Flaws of equal total value, chosen by the Storyguide and player. If a character wants to complete an interval more quickly, the Storyguide may choose to allow them to do so under the threat of a Flaw.
• cannot be removed without redesigning the relic to compensate.
• Faws must be relevant to the item being created or repaired
• Most Tier 3+ projects are demanding enough that at least one of their intervals will face a Flaw. A player can choose to reduce or remove Flaws from these creations by adding two points of Tension to the Tension Pool for every removed point of Flaws.

COMPLEX

The Tier is based on the goal’s scope, and determines how hard it is to achieve. Tier 2+ projects (and some large Tier 1 projects) are complex challenges that require a suit able Path, such as Student of Kagutsuchi. These projects have a number of Milestones equal to their Tier, plus one
for every key element (materials, tools, design) that is missing when the project starts.

• Acquire rare materials, such as mythical herbs, secret ores, or the hide of a titanic lion. Characters might do so through violence, bartering, exploration, or alchemy.
• Hard labor in a forge, laboratory, garage, kitchen, construction site, and so on.
• Uncover a recipe or secret technique, or gain inspiration from a similar item or phenomenon. Suitable methods include theft, apprenticeship, research, or trade.
• Earn the blessing, advice, or hands-on assistance of a God or other powerful creature suited to the Relic.
• Perform a ritual act, like blooding a blade in the heart of a giant, parading divine armor through a grand ceremony, or spiritually cleansing oneself before work begins.

These Milestones have a minimum Difficulty equal to the overall Tier of the project, but remember that intervals don’t need to be resolved with a roll. Milestones can be rewarded without a roll for story reasons

• When a character completes a craft project in which one of the milestones was completed as a significant part of a Deed, they regain a spent Legend point.
• A project normally takes a number of milestones equal to its tier. However, the Storyguide should modify that total if circumstances require extra steps.
  • Add one required milestone when the character lacks a key component, such as the basic materials, tools, design, or assistants she needs to begin the project in the first place; the extra milestone is intended to represent remedying whatever she’s missing through a challenge
  • If the project is large enough to have a Size Scale, like a car or a temple, add milestones equal to that Scale

MASSIVE PROJECTS

• When a character undertakes a massive project to create something outside the scope of personal use, like a temple to Shàngó or a giant animated Buddha statue, she needs to reach extra milestones as described above; as a result, massive projects are always complex challenges.
• Needs a Path that provides a team of assistants — even the most skilled artisan cannot raise a fortress alone without an impressive miracle.
• When determining the minimum interval of a massive project, use the higher of its tier or effective Size Scale (up to Size 4).

INTERVALS

• Even when an artisan spends time in her workshop, other characters in the band can get involved in achieving Milestones by exploiting their Paths, taking on suitable challenges themselves, or offering support using the teamwork rules. Those intervals that require nothing but long and solitary work should occupy the downtime between scenes, episodes, or even arcs; while others train, plan, or party, the crafter toils away.
• The time it takes to complete a craft challenge or in- terval depends on its nature. Fixing a busted engine might take a matter of minutes, while forging a sacred silver jian could take a solid day of hammering and grinding, followed by hours of ritual electroplating. Projects with a deadline or perishable ingredients should have a limited number of intervals.
• In some complex actions, intervals are a constant series, following one after another. These intervals are spaced out over the course of multiple adventures, and characters are assumed to be working on their projects during downtime, between sessions, or while other characters are playing out a scene without them.
• A crafting project does not force the story to a halt while one character sits at an anvil. Characters pick up inspiration, acquire reagents, and win favors through their stories, allowing Heracles to sew his Nemean Cloak from the spoils of adventure.

INSPIRATION

• When a character successfully studies an object as part of an information-gathering challenge, she can draw inspiration from it as an enhanced Stunt (Scion: Origin, p. 67), which helps her replicate, modify, or counteract that item (or a similar example).
• In addition to an Enhancement, inspiration can reveal or stand in for proprietary secrets that would normally require a specific Path to access, such as the runic tutelage of dwarves. A character cannot draw inspiration more than once from a single item, unless the Storyguide deems the process suitably distinct.
• A character can also draw inspiration from something other than direct study of an existing item, such as dissecting a mythological beast with suitable traits, or undertaking a psychological analysis of the subject for a painting. Divine tutelage or direct access to recipes and blueprints can also provide the benefits of inspiration, without a challenge.
• The difference between finding inspiration and achieving a milestone is largely one of intent (and Difficulty). A character who overcomes a challenge to understand the workings of a computer virus can gain inspiration for creating her own or counteracting the original.

MAKESHIFT PROJECTS

A character can complete a makeshift crafting challenge in a fraction of the normal time by jury rigging components and trimming corners, provided the Storyguide deems the challenge’s goal doable in the time available.

• A simple (tier 1) makeshift crafting challenge can be completed in just one round. A complex makeshift challenge instead occupies a full scene, with the character rolling throughout until the challenge is resolved; in action time, the challenge’s intervals take one round each. As with normal projects, the Storyguide can resolve tier 1 makeshift projects without a roll if no risk or tension is involved.

Makeshift items always come with Flaws, as though imposed by a Complication. The player and Storyguide work together to choose these Flaws, which have a total rank of no less than (milestones x 2). Most commonly, a makeshift item can only be used for a single challenge or scene — but a hastily built item might also be unreliable, fragile, or downright dangerous.

REPAIRING AND REFORGING

• An object that is completely destroyed, or so damaged as to be unusable, must instead be reforged. This is functionally the same as recreating it from scratch, but a character familiar with the item can gain the benefits of inspiration without a challenge, and the reforging project receives a single free milestone if the original object was tier 2+. The Storyguide decides whether an item is too far gone to be meaningfully reforged; a character can’t “rebuild” a letter from its ashes or salvage a rotten cake for a new baking project, unless she has powers that allow such miracles. She could, however, recreate a sword from its broken shards or a book with charred pages, as long as she knew enough about the original to reconstruct it.
• Reforging an item to remove a Flaw is a complex project with a Difficulty equal to the item’s tier and milestones equal to the Flaw’s rank (i.e. a rank 5 Flaw on a tier 1 item can be removed with five Difficulty 1 milestones). Reforging can remove Flaws brought about by Complications, story events, and so on, but not Flaws inherent to the item’s design, such as Flaws a relic carries to offset additional benefits.

AMPLIFICATION

Sometimes, even the treasures of Heaven fall short, and canny artisans must amplify their creations beyond normal limits. A character might need to keep her truck going despite running out of fuel, urge her rainbow sword to burn more fiercely than ever before, or stretch a tiny bottle of antidote across her entire band.

A character who needs a stronger tool can try to tempo rarily amplify it. This challenge works exactly like a makeshift project but improves an existing item instead of creating a new one, most commonly by allowing it to provide a new or increased Enhancement, ignore a Complication, or gain some entirely new feature. These amplified benefits last for a scene at most, and come with a commensurate drawback (Scion: Origin, p. 65).

Several examples are given below, but the gist is simple: First, the player asks the Storyguide if she can do something unusual but plausible with her tool, such as overclocking a computer to provide a bigger Enhancement for the entirety of her hackathon. The Storyguide sets a Difficulty based on how extreme or outlandish the improvement seems, then presents a drawback for pushing the item that far, such as
inflicting a new Flaw on the half-melted laptop after the scene is over.

MAKING REPAIRS

• If an object is reduced to scrap it can only be used as materials for a new project, but repairing a mostly-intact object works just like creating a new example, with one fewer Milestone. If the project already needed only one successful roll it can usually be resolved extremely quickly, or without facing the usual Complications.
• An object can also be altered to remove its Flaws. This requires a number of Milestones equal to the total rating of the removed Flaws. Alternatively, reforging a Relic to create a new version at a higher Tier provides an Enhancement to each roll equal to the old version’s dot rating.