Antagonists

An Antagonist is any character that opposes the protagonist or protagonists, in this case the player characters. Scion uses a modular system to represent such characters (or any other characters that the Storyguide may require) with the goal of maintaining maximum effect for minimum effort: in other words, keeping it simple. Antagonists in Scion are much simpler, mechanically speaking, than a player character, but are more than capable of going toe to toe with them. All Antagonists consist of three elements: Archetypes, Qualities, and Flairs.

Archetypes are the fundamental building blocks of the Antagonist, broken down into a granular difficulty spectrum, that provide basic pools for actions. All Antagonists have a single Archetype, delineating the degree of challenge desired by the Storyguide. Most Archetypes also have Extras, built-in Flairs or Qualities that come standard, representing a certain level of narrative weight.

Qualities are extensions of Archetypes, providing permanent Enhancements or improvements to the Antagonist and synergizing with the Archetype and other Qualities, if any. Qualities serve to flesh out or distinguish different Antagonists who use the same Archetype — while they add a certain degree of challenge thanks to the additions they make mechanically, those additions are meant to make Antagonists distinct and interesting. Otherwise, it’s the same Archetype dice pools over and over again, which gets stale fast. Of note: Qualities can be either positive or negative — many foes have weak points that the discerning hero may take advantage of!

Flairs are discrete powers or Traits. Most Flairs are designed explicitly for Antagonist use, and are not suitable for player characters — however, player character Knacks and Boons may be used for Antagonists. Many Flairs can only be used once, and thereafter must wait for a Cooldown condition to occur before being used again. For example, the Villain Extra, Get Out Of Jail Free, allows an Antagonist with the Villain Archetype to cheat death (as long as no one sees him die), but once it is used, it cannot be used again until the end of the current arc.

REPRESENTATION VS. MECHANICS

The Antagonist system is designed to simplify complex beings (and stories about them) for the sake of ease and modularity for the Storyguide. An unfortunate side-effect of this is that we cannot give lengthy and detailed descriptions of each individual being. As a result, every example provided is both extremely short and mechanically interchangeable with similar (but ultimately very different) beings from other traditions. We encourage Storyguides and players alike to look beyond what little we’re able to provide in the space we have when designing characters, and not to take what we’ve written as unvarnished truth. What follows is a system suitable for behind-the-scenes use only: Players should never find themselves equating a troll with an oni, even if both are troublesome giants.