Acquiring a Sanctum is a ritual process. If the Scion creates a new one for herself, she must sanctify the physical location as a complex action requiring one Milestone at Sanctum 1, with an interval of one hour and a Difficulty of 1, consisting of ceremonies, prayers, and ritual Marvels appropriate to her pantheon. Each time she increases her Sanctum rating, she must perform a similar ritual, requiring a number of Milestones equal to the new dot rating she wishes to acquire and a Difficulty of the same. You gain a cumulative +1 Enhancement to this roll per 4 Legend dots
your character possesses.
Like other Birthrights, Sanctum is rated from 1-5 dots. However, the Scion can add additional features to their Sanctum for additional XP (at the normal cost for Birthright Dots), even if it would increase their Sanctum beyond 5 dots.
Base Features
With 1 dot invested in your sanctump, pick a location to serve as your sanctum. The following features apply to all sanctums by default
- The first dot of Sanctum encompasses one physical location within the World, up to the size of a large building (like a temple) or a clearly delineated outdoor space (like a public park).
- Your Sanctum has enough supplies and equipment for you and a small group of people to live on for a week.
- The Sanctum gives you Defensive scale on attempts to infiltrate, invade, or destroy people within your Sanctum. This applies to all people inside the Sanctum to attacks from outside. This grants +1 Defensive Scale granting +1 difficulty against offensive actions, and +2 enhancement to Defensive actions.
TIER 1 (Origin Level)
At One Dot, Tier 1 Sanctums gain 1 Optional Tier 1 Feature. For each Dot in this Birthright past the first, they gain an additional Feature. Additional features can also be purchased for 5 XP each.
• Tools
• Tools
Your Sanctum counts as a tool towards a certain type of activity. Pick 2 tool tags that apply. You can purchase this multiple times. As a tool, this grants +1 Enhancement towards the purpose for which it was designed.
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• Library
• Library
You gain Scale when attempting to search for knowledge on a chosen subject.
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• Defensive Weaponry
• Defensive Weaponry
Create a weapon with 2 Weapon tags. Anyone you allow may use this weapon inside your Sanctum. If one of the tags is the Animated tag, it can function on its own.
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• Traps
• Traps
Anyone attempting to move into or out of your Sanctum without your permission suffers a Complication 2. The consequence of failure this consequence is usually, but not always an injury. Another possibility is that it is that you are alerted to any unwanted visitors. At tier 2, this Complication increases to 3
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• Compound
• Compound
Rather than being a single building, this Sanctum is multiple buildings nearby each other. Features may be contained to single buildings, or spread amongst all of them.
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• Black Box
• Black Box
Any attempts to spy on, scry, or intercept messages to/from your sanctum, increase in difficulty by 1 step and suffer Complication 3. If this complication is not bought off, you become aware that you’re being spied on.
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• Mobile
• Mobile
The Sanctum is mobile. At Tier 1 this is some kind of mundane terrestrial vehicle such as an RV. At tier 2 this can include mystical flying sanctums. Sanctums should be slow or difficult to move, and can only be moved once per arc. This may require a task by the player to get their Sanctum into place.
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• Market
• Market
Your sanctum is a place where business and trade are done. As a center of economic activity, you have easy access to mundane items. Once per session, you may use her Sanctum to aquire one item for a scene. At Tier 1, this is only a mundane item. At Tier 2, this includes minor magical items.
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• Sacrificial Altar
• Sacrificial Altar
Your sanctum includes a place for ritual sacrifices. You can gain legend by completing a Minor Sacrifice one additional time per arc.
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• Luxury
• Luxury
Your sanctum is lavishly appointed. While inside your sanctum, the attitude of Storyguide characters is treated as one higher for the purposes of influencing them.
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• Vault
• Vault
The difficulty for unwanted visitors to enter or leave Sanctum is increased by 1, at Tier 2 this increases to 2 and at Tier 3 it increases to 3.
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• Stocked
• Stocked
Your Sanctum has a large amount of food, ammo, and medical supplies, allowing it to supply a small group of people for a year, or a large group of people for a month. You may buy this multiple times to extend the duration.
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• Guards
• Guards
Your sanctum is staffed by guards who maintain the sanctum as well as protect it from outsiders. These count as Followers, except they use your dots in the Sanctum birthright rather than the Followers Birthright. You may not add tags to these followers. They are usually (but not always) the Heavy Archetype. These followers use the Defense of the Sanctum rather than their own Defense when defending (if removed from the Sanctum, they lose this benefit). Tier 2 characters may add 1 dot of follower features to the followers, tier 3 characters may add 3 dots. Note Alternatively, you can purchase followers as a separate birthright. If you do this, the followers in the Sanctum also gain the Defensive bonus of the Sanctum.
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TIER 2 (Hero Level)
In addition to the default Tier 0 options, Tier 2 characters may purchase the following features for their Sanctum. It also takes on more mystical cosmetic features.
All Tier 2 Sanctums have the following:
- 2 Tier 1 optional Features
- 1 Tier 2 optional Feature
For each Dot past the first in this Birthright, they gain an additional Feature. Additional features can also be purchased for 5 XP each.
With the GMs permission you may be able to attain Tier 2 optional features at increased cost and effort.
Tier 2 Optional Features:
• Alert
• Alert
The Scion chooses one type of threat or problem that could befall his Sanctum, such as “automated defenses have been breached” or “someone activated the powerful relic.” Whenever that event occurs, no matter where the Heir is, he knows about it (although he doesn’t know any details), and adds two Momentum to the pool.
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• Borrowed Power
• Borrowed Power
Once per scene, the Scion may use his powers at reduced cost within the Sanctum. Powers that require spending Legend only require imbuing it; powers that require imbuing Inheritance only require spending one Momentum; and powers that require spending Momentum cost one fewer point, to a minimum of 0.
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• Threshold
• Threshold
You may spend 1 Legend while passing through a thematically related portal to reappear immediately within your Sanctum. Entering a utility access hole to return to your Sanctum in the sewers, for example.
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•-•• Local Knack
•-•• Local Knack
You gain access to an appropriate Knack as long as you are within your Sanctum. This functions as other Knacks granted by Birthrights. This option may be repurchased multiple times. Heroic knacks use 1 Birthright dot and Immortal Knacks use 2 Birthright Dots.
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• Gateway
• Gateway
Your Sanctum also functions as a Gate to a Midrealm, Underworld, or Axis Mundi. Determine an appropriate key required to pass through your Sanctum and into the target destination. If you are Tier 3, this may include Overworlds. This only applies to 1 location, but may be purchased multiple times.
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• Strange Interior
• Strange Interior
The interior of this Sanctum is not normally inhabitable, such a field of fire, or the walls consist of grasping hands. Add a Specific Field effect to your Sanctum. This can be a Complication ranging 1-3, with an effect of the player’s choice.
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•• Guardian Creature
•• Guardian Creature
You are not the only resident in your Sanctum. You gain a Creature Birthright with dots equal to your dots in Sanctum that resides in your Sanctum. It will not leave willingly but will fight alongside you.
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• Font of Legend
• Font of Legend
Once per Arc, by spending a scene interacting with your Font of Legend, you can regain a point of Legend.
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• Healing Waters
• Healing Waters
Once per Arc, by spending a scene interacting with your Healing Waters, you may remove all injury boxes from a character.
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•• Traversing Sancta
•• Traversing Sancta
The character may spend 1 Legend to teleport directly between any two locations that count as part of her Sanctum, including a Midrealm, Otherworld, or symbolic situation (see options below). The departure and arrival each take one simple action. She may bring other characters with her by taking one additional simple action per additional character on both departure and arrival. Teleporting in action-adventure timing requires a successful disengage action (Scion: Origin, p. 72) first if you’re in close combat with an opponent.
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• Touchstone
• Touchstone
Include one pantheon-appropriate strange place or Touchstone (Scion: Origin, pp. 35-38) in the Sanctum’s Worldly location(s).
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• Remote Viewing
• Remote Viewing
The Heir may take a simple action and spend one Momentum to transport his senses back to his sanctum. He can see, hear, and smell everything within the Sanctum as though he were there, but can’t sense his own surroundings or defend himself while he does so. If he possesses supernatural senses, he can use them as normal to sense things in the Sanctum. This effect lasts until the end of the scene or until the Heir takes a simple action to end it, whichever comes first.
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• Haze
• Haze
Your sanctum interferes with the senses of people who enter it. When someone leaves your sanctum, you can decide what, if anything, they remember from their experience within your sanctum.
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• Divine Protection
• Divine Protection
Followers, Creatures and other Inhabitants who are inside the Sanctum gain 1 Armor when you are in your Sanctum. If you are outside of your Sanctum, this benefit is lost until you return. This does not apply to people who are not welcome by you.
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TIER 3 (Demigod)
All Sanctums of at least 1 dot have the following:
- 3 Tier 1 optional Features
- 3 Tier 2 optional Features
- 2 Tier 3 optional Features
For each Dot past the first in this Birthright, they gain an additional Feature. Additional features can also be purchased for 5 XP each.
Tier 3 Optional Features
In addition to the Tier 1 and Tier 2 features, a Demigod-level Scion may add the following features to their Sanctum:
• No Mortals Allowed
• No Mortals Allowed
The Sanctum is located in a place where ordinary mortals can’t go on their own, whether it’s in a Terra Incognita or has an entrance no mortal can find without magical help
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• Supplication
• Supplication
Once per session, whenever a lower-tier character offers an appropriate sacrifice (Scion: Hero, p. 188) or at least an hour’s worth of ritual prayer and devotion to the Demigod inside her Sanctum, she receives benefits as though she had performed a sacrifice to her pantheon herself, no matter where she is at the time. Likewise, if she’s inside her Sanctum and someone performs such a sacrifice or prayer to her elsewhere, she knows and may witness it from afar to receive the benefits, but doing so counts as her supplication benefit for the session
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• Dominion
• Dominion
Reduce the success cost of all of the character’s Dominion stunts within the Sanctum by one (to a minimum of 1); she can swap out one Dominion stunt in a Purview with another as a reflexive acion once per round. Performing a Dominion stunt against a non-trivial character inside her Sanctum earns the character a divinity die (p. 154).
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• Symbolic Location
• Symbolic Location
Increase the number of physical, Worldly loca tions that count as your character’s Sanctum to either (her Legend) specific places, or all of a narrow category of places, like “temples erected in my name,” “breweries in cold climates,” or “public parks containing oak groves.” Purchasable multiple times; if purchased as the fourth or fifth dot, the former option increases the number of specific places by (her Legend x 2) instead; the latter option expands the Sanctum to all of a broader category of places, like “temples erected to me, my pantheon as a whole, or my divine parent,” “any brewery,” or “any public park.”
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•• Godsrealm
•• Godsrealm
Extend your character’s Sanctum from its physical locations into a Midrealm that counts as her personal Godsrealm (Scion: Origin, p. 34). The Sanctum’s physical locations each contain a gate she may pass through without a key. You can allow others to enter your Godsrealm depending on your will.
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•• Thematic Extension
•• Thematic Extension
extend your character’s Sanctum to count a specific type of situation or event appropriate to her Purviews, Callings, Legendary Title, and pantheon as physical locations that are part of her Sanctum; these are known as acts of devotion to her Legend. For instance, if Hassan al-Hakim’s (Scion: Hero, pp. 76-77) Sanctum encompasses deathbeds and morgues, this extension might make any thoracic surgery in progress an act of devotion to him. Thus, any such surgery for which he’s present would count as being inside his Sanctum, and he could teleport to and from any such surgery as though it were a deathbed or morgue. If the character doesn’t know about any instance of her chosen act of devotion going on at a given time, she can simply teleport with the intent of finding one and the Storyguide determines where she ends up. Purchasable multiple times, for a different type of situation/event each time.
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• Inhabitants
• Inhabitants
Your Sanctum has become a home to a group of mortals or denizens. This may be a hamlet, a village, or even a small city. These are usually, but not always, worshippers of you, but in any case, they acknowledge your fealty. They may be helpful for a variety of tasks, granting you Scale on activities that benefit from many hands.
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Sanctums+
In addition to their use as a Birthright, Sanctums can be used as a Fatebinding. The strength of this Fatebinding is equal to dots of this Birthright. This does not count towards your normal amount of Fatebindings.
Compel
Gain one Legend, your Sanctum has come under threat. Your enemies have figured out a way into your Sanctum, or a god or Titan has taken offense to its existance. Your Sanctum gains the Imperiled condition, and will not function normally until the situation is resolved by the Scion. If this threat is not resolved by the end of the Arc, Resolve this fatebinding
Resolve
The player and the Storyguide choose one of the following options when resolving this fatebinding:
- The Scion has one last chance to make things right. The scion must complete some epic deed to protect their Sanctum.
- The Sanctum suffers damage of some sort. Remove one Feature of the Sanctum and decrease the Sanctum Birthright dots by 1. This can be rebuilt by the Scion by putting forward sufficient effort.
- The Sanctum must be abandoned or destroyed. You lose all Birthright dots for this Sanctum and a new Sanctum must be re-purchased from scratch. Your dots in this Birthright are returned to you after the end of the current arc. You can invest these in a new Birthright.