Callings

Human beings are vast, and contain multitudes. Not so the Gods, who by their very nature are archetypal beings: warriors and heralds, tricksters and psychopomps.From a certain point of view, a god is nothing but her Purviews reflected through these archetypes, refined by Legend. That may or may not be true, but the gods have difficulty thinking or acting out of “character.” Odin is a Leader, a Sage, and a Trickster, but without some fundamental shift in his nature he will never grow to encompass the role of Lover or Hunter. His role is defined, his dominions assigned by myth and the weight of his own Legend.

He is a god of sacrifice because he hung from an ash tree.
He is a Sage because this ordeal gave him wisdom.

Scions feel the pull of these mythic roles, the ichor in their veins pulled by Legend as the tides are pulled by the moon, but where the gods are defined by the myth cycles that give them form, Scions (at least, Hero- and Demi- god level Scions) are still very much human, capable of defying their own archetypes or even changing them altogether. A child of Ares might begin her heroic career as a brute warrior in the image of her father, but as she quests and builds her Legend she might grow into a clever tactician, a mistress of the chaos of the battlefield, or even a pacifist who only draws her weapon when there’s no other choice. The summation of a divine being’s Legend, God, Demigod, or Hero, is her collection of Titles. Each title reflects a Deed in her past, dedication to a task, an accomplishment, or authority over a subject. When a Hero acts in accordance with a Title, his ichor responds and grants his efforts Legendary weight. If, in time, he becomes a Demigod or God, his Titles will become the basis of his divine Mantle.

SYSTEMS

Divine characters — Scions and Gods — define their mythic archetypes by dot ratings in three of the 13 possible Callings. Every Divine character also has a Legendary Title, which defines the circumstances in which he may invoke a Feat of Scale.

CALLINGS

Callings are rated between one and five dots. A Legend 1 character has five dots of Callings, with each Calling having at least one dot.

One of your Callings must be one your divine parent’s three, but the other two are free choice.

Each Calling is associated with three Fatebindings roles (p. 197.)

At Legend 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 you gain an extra dot of Calling, which can be applied to any of your three chosen Callings as long as it does not take that Calling over five dots.

When buying Legend 3, 5, 7, and 9, you may reassign your character’s Calling dots, as long as the new ratings leave at least one dot in each Calling per keyword you’ve incorporated into your Legendary Title (see below). Even if you haven’t used any keywords from a particular Calling, you must retain at least one dot in each of her chosen three Callings.

You may exchange a Calling for one of the seven unused Callings by performing a pair of Deeds — a Failure Deed to shed the existing Calling by denying its nature, and an Adoption Deed to mark the character’s ichor with the new Calling. Once both Deeds have been completed, the dots in the old Calling move to the new one. A character cannot adopt a Calling she already has dots in. Both Deeds must take place within the same story.

Each Calling informs the character’s choice of Knacks. Your character can have one Knack active per dot of each Calling, and they must correspond to the specific Calling dots. They can buy additional Knacks, but may only have as many Knacks active as they have dots of Callings.

LEGENDARY TITLE

An old Parisian man, his legs and sanity lost in some far-off war, smiles at passerby for the first time in decades. Ask him why, and he says that he finally has a lord — “Le Roi des Thunes,” the King of Beggars. The neighborhood has been trending downward for decades and was a target for gentrification not six months ago. Now music booms from the rooftops, commingling with the scent of food and commerce. Hope has returned, and when you ask why, it’s because the Harlem River has a new Òrìshà. Legendary Titles are an accumulation of a character’s keywords from their Deeds, and also act as special Paths. They may be invoked as such — including activating Twists of Fate in an obviously supernatural manner. Each Calling has a list of associated keywords used to build a character’s Legendary Title. These lists are not exclusive; if the group is in agreement, a player may choose a keyword not on the list that nonetheless seems appropriate for a Calling.

Choose one keyword per dot in each Calling: These provide your particular Legendary focus within the Calling. For every Legend dot you have or gain, you may invent a new Title that incorporates one of her keywords. The collection of a character’s Titles forms her Legendary Title. The first Title (for Legend 1) is often related to a character’s Visitation. A character who reassigns a Calling used in her Titles through Failure and Adoption Deeds does not lose those Titles, though can’t use the former Calling’s keywords to build any further Titles. Loki is legendarily the parent of several monsters, and retains those dubious accomplishments among their Titles, but they haven’t been a Creator for centuries, exchanging the Calling for Lover after consuming their rival god Logi and taking his wife.

Feat of Scale: When a character attempts an action covered by one of her Titles, her player may spend one Legend to increase Scale by (Legend/2, round up) for that action as a Feat of Scale.192
Invoking the Calling: When you attempt an action covered by one of her keywords but not one of her Titles, you may spend one Legend and two Momentum to increase Scale by one for that action