Print document WELCOME TO THE STORYPATH SYSTEM Hello Onyx Path fans!
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The evolution of the Storypath system is tied to our work on Trinity: Continuum , a world of hope, heroism, and peril, and Scion, a world where the children of the old gods walk the earth. Early on, we found that both new editions games hadAnd similar system needs, because their characters Cancelof theseDownload Print are larger-than-life and fight in epic battles on a grand scale. We knew we needed a system that could accommodate everyday citizens on the street, superheroes soaring above skyscrapers, and gods of the sun and sky, but we also wanted rules to help facilitate the connection between the player-characters, their organizations (Allegiances for Trinity and Pantheons for Scion), and their values. To move forward, however, we needed to take a step back, because the first editions of Trinity: Continuum and Scion used custom variants of the Storyteller System which powered Vampire: The Masquerade and other classic White Wolf games. Despite the dif ferences between those variants, however, at its core the Storyteller System was designed chiefly as a horror game for creatures that could be effectively fought by human opponents. In other words, the Storyteller System is great for vampires, but it didn’t excel at portraying superheroes…or gods! To us, this meant that the stories of these action-adventure games were hindered by their original systems. The Storypath System was designed as a new set of rules, inspired by the legacy of the Storyteller and Storytelling Systems, in addition to other story-centric rules. The Storypath System keeps the focus on narrative, story-built play, and action-adventure. It also draws inspiration from a number of other influences that focus on a cinematic high-octane action and storytelling, as well, to create a streamlined experience for epic stories. Within these pages, you’ll find a preview of the rules and examples for both Scion and Trinity: Continuum . We hope you enjoy the new Storypath System and are inspired to roll the dice and tell great stories! Signed, The Design Team
STORYPATH SYSTEM OVERVIEW The Storypath System uses ten-sided dice, and is designed to be an action-heavy roleplaying game. The rules facilitate a number of playing styles and in game elements at the table including: • Action Gameplay: Storypath takes cues from action movies to keep scenes moving quickly and preventing them from getting bogged down. • Cinematic Pacing: Storypath divides sessions and scenes into different units of time that support a story moving at the speed of plot. Campaigns are modeled similarly to a long-running television series, using episodes, arcs, and seasons, to emphasize plot and characters over minutia or real time competency. • Scaling: Storypath uses a comparative chart to measure general degrees of power between opponents. Gods or superheroes can fight each other on mostly equal ground, while mere mortals can do the same to one another. It’s only when the psychic superhuman deals with your average beat cop that Scale comes into play!
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• Bonding: Though the rules are designed to portray individual characters, Storypath also uses group mechanics to create a collaborative storytelling role-playing experience. The Bonds formed during character creation and sessions bring new overarching mechanics and collaborative themes into play based on character milestones. • Competence: The player-characters are assumed to be competent in their area of specialization be it research, combat, persuasion, or any other field of human endeavor. Dice rolls aren’t always meant to assume success or failure: they’re meant to determine influence over the story and the degree to which the character succeeds. • Enhanced Combat: Storypath combat uses ranged bands, fields with terrain features, and the tools for both active and supporting characters to contribute to a fight. Combined, these techniques will keep fights interesting — even in extended conflicts and battles.
MODE S OF PLAY Storypath actions belong to three general modes that roughly map to Attributes, or ways characters interact with the setting. Modes are schemas inspired by traits instead of rigid
Print document categories, and are not meant to be internalized as hard and fast rules. By design, different settings will inspire new modes clustered around setting-specific specialIntraits systems. orderand to print this document from Scribd, you'll
STORYPATH SYSTEM BASICS first need to download it.
The following schemas apply to most games powered by the Storypath System, regardless of setting:
ACTION-ADVENTURE (PHYSICAL-INSPIRED MODE)
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ATT RIBU TES AN D ABI LITIES
Download And Print Attributes are divided into three Arenas: Mental, Physical, and Social — and three Functions: Force, Control, and Resistance — for nine total Attributes.
Physical peril, violence, and round-by-round action. This is the realm of punch-ups, car chases, and defusing Attributes reflect a character’s most basic qualities to define bombs with seconds to spare. These fast-paced scenes usu- who they are. They might be smart, strong, graceful, or self-asally take place in real-time, with specialist rules covering sured. If other characters were asked to describe that person in combat and dramatic movement. a few words, their responses would likely be a reflection of their Attributes: they might say they’re clever or clumsy, or that they’re a PROCEDURALS brusque but effective leader. When paired with Skills, these traits (MENTAL-INSPIRED MODE) determine the character’s ability to overcome specific obstacles. Deductions, careful research, and cunning preparation. Dice pools are formed from pairing a Skill with an The focus is on solving problems by using information Attribute. Skills describe a character’s capabilities, either gathered through clues and evidence or formulated plans. from formal training or refining raw talent. These scenes take place as montages, skipping through long stretches of work, and include specialist rules for in DI FFICU LTY vestigation and crafting. Any action that you actually roll for has a Difficulty, INTRIGUE (SOCIAL-INSPIRED MODE) even if it’s 0. This is the number of successes that you must Interpersonal ties, relationships, and social manipulation. meet — including any Enhancements — to see if you sucThese scenes include interrogations, infiltrating secret social cir- ceed. Any action that you actually roll for has a Difficulty, cles, and pursuing romantic ties. They blend real-time conver- even if it’s 0. This is the number of successes that you must sation with stretches of “skipped” time, and include specialist meet — including any Enhancements — to see if you sucrules for persuasion and representing different personalities. ceed. If you don’t meet the Diff iculty, you fail.
THE CORE MECHANIC You roll a dice pool of d10s: Attribute + Skill against a set Difficulty , which is the number of successes you must meet. Each die that rolls an 8 or above is a success. If your dice roll scores one or more successes, you add bonus successes from any Enhancements from equipment or powers. You succeed on your action if the successes meet or exceed the Difficulty, and fail if you don’t. More successes than you need allow benefits called Stunts, and failing gains you Consolation, a chance to affect the story anyway. If you score 0 successes rolling the dice and one or more of them show a 1, you botch and fail especially badly, but earn more Momentum (a kind of Consolation) than for a failure. Powerful entities, like demigods or superheroic novas, roll at a target number of 7 or above to get a success.
Example: You roll 6 dice as your pool against Difficulty 3
0 No Successes and if any die shows a 1, then a botch occurs.
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Insufficient Successes with Consolation
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Number of Successes needed. If you get this many, you succeed.
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Extra Successes that add Stunts
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at any one time, though their Momentum pool starts out empty, and empties out again at the end of each story Arc. Stunts are a way of rewarding success beyond the basics, alIn order to print this document You fromreceive Scribd,a you'll point of Momentum whenever your charlowing you to spend your extra successes to produce additional first need to download it. acter suffers a failure or setback as the result of a Challenge effects, like creating useful Enhancements or Complications (a long-term condition on the character that provides diffor other characters. They’re also used to narrate details to the ficulties in their narrative), or if your dice roll fails and scene that are beneficial to your characters and generated by Cancel Download And Print accept Momentum as your Consolation. your character’s action. Perhaps you successfully clamber over a wall and have time to create a handhold for the friend flee E D GE S ing directly behind you, or confuse pursuit with a false trail. Edges are unique quirks that offer a FAI LURE & CONSOLATION character a constant, passive benefit. They often provide an Enhancement to certain If a dice roll scores no successes, or the character actions, allow a character to bypass specannot muster enough successes to overcome the difcific disadvantages, or represent ficulty even with Enhancements, the action fails. access to abilities or resources Simply put, you don’t achieve wh atever you were the character would not otherhoping to. You swing and miss, your charm falls wise have. flat, you draw a blank.
STUNTS
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The specific results of failure depend on the context, but it never ends in nothing happening. Instead, the Storyguide (or GM) moves the story onward by offering a Consolation, a minor benefit that doesn’t exactly give them what they want, by advances the group’s interests somehow. If your character fails to earn enough successes to sneak into the white-collar criminal’s office after-hours, they might succeed at sneaking in, but accidentally trip the silent alarm…giving them only a few scant minutes to search. Consolations can’t substitute for actual success, but might include information leading the character to another avenue of assault or completely different aspect of the story, a minor Enhancement offering a success to a future action, or attracting a potentially-useful NPC.
MOME NT UM Perhaps the most common kind of Consolation is Momentum. This is a resource that players spend to control the story’s narrative pacing and help out their characters with direct dice-adders. By default, it is an “out of character” resource, though some settings may claim it’s the very real hand of destiny at work. Each character can have up to 12 Momentum
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SKILL TRICKS Skill Tricks are applications of human ability that verge on the superhuman — or, at least, the superhumanly reliable. It’s certainly possible to drive backwards at top speed through raging traffic without so much as denting a wing-mirror, but it’s not something even an expert can just accomplish on command…unless they’ve got a Skill Trick. Unlike Edges, Skill Tricks cost Momentum to activate, and cover specific feats or sequences — the sort of cool moments that make you go “wow” (or “bullshit”) when you see them pulled off in an action movie. As such, Skill Tricks don’t normally provide an Enhancement that can be spent on anything — instead, they offer a “free” Stunt when used, representing the specific trick in question.
place they came from, or even a concept or setting topic that SCALE relates to their character. Each Path is important not only to a single character, but are built to give substance and meanordertotodragon-riding print this document from Scribd, you'll Storypath games span back-alley In brawls ing to the entire chronicle, as well as a holistic sense to the first need to download dogfights, often in the same adventure. Scale exists to handle it. these extreme circumstances, representing entities or effects character’s history beyond Edges, Attributes, and Skills.
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on a different level than normal humans. A Might (Physical In some cases, these are setting specific groups and orCancel And Print can be a part of; in others, these are Force Attribute) 1 weakling can struggle against a Might 5Download ganizations a character bodybuilder, but they’re both ants in front of a T-Rex. specific to a certain chronicle or group. Characters relate However, they are also exciting adventures where he- to a Path through a short sentence or descriptive phrase, roes overcome impossible odds. Scale is therefore kind to which defines a fact and a relationship to the setting, like important characters; a raging giant easily crushes build- “Three-time Bare-Knuckle Boxing Champion” or “Reborn ings and faceless crowds, but our heroes can dart through God of Fire and Sacred Shrines”. the chaos and face him on more even ground.
I N IT IATIV E In action-adventure round-by-round conflicts, the action can get pretty chaotic. Storypath uses an initiative system that’s a mix of traditional and collaborative means to make sure everyone gets their chance in the spotlight. At the start of the scene, you roll a dice pool of d10s with the Attributes and Skills your character is using to react to the situation. Each roll generates a turn slot for either a player or Storyguide character, with the slots placed in order of which achieved the most successes — traits (and then Storyguide’s preference) break the tie if there’s a draw. This is the initiative order. The player character who achieved the most successes occupies the first player turn slot, and acts within it. Once the next slot comes up, the first player decides which of their group-mates takes their turn, out of those who have yet to act this round. And so on, with each player picking the next to go after his or her turn is finished. The Storyguide does the same with their characters. This cycle continues every round until no characters or turns remain, at which point it resets and the player character whose turn was last picks the next player to start the next round.
H EALT H Damage in the Storypath System is represented by two separate but related concepts: stress boxes, which measure accumulated strain from the conflict, and Injury Complications, which represent actual injuries. Once all a character’s stress boxes are filled by damage, they are Taken Out (maybe killed, maybe not), but a player can stop damage from affecting their stress boxes by accepting Injury Complications instead. These are effectively extra successes added to the Difficulty; without buying off these Injury Complications, the character can’t attempt the action.
PAT H S
Paths contain a number of standard elements: • Asset Skills/Specialties: When a character takes this Path at character creation, they receive Specialties of the player’s choice in the two listed Asset Skills. More specific Paths (such as Pantheons) grant listed Specialties particularly relevant to their groups. • Contacts, Mentors, and Allies: Characters on a Path will have other characters who are useful acquaintances, acquired over the course of her life and work: a colleague, a lover, or just someone to trade favors with. • Equipment: The character can gain access to any equipment relevant to the Pathway (normally restricted to common items; high-cost items or mean the character has to take a Challenge, as described below). • Access: Some locations in the setting might be restricted for most characters, but if the character’s Path would grant them access — such as someone with “A legacy New York’s Finest” as their Path — they’d be able to walk into the police station or a cop bar anywhere in NYC with no questions asked or alarms raised. Narrative Advantage/Disadvantage: On a Stunt or once per session, the player group can collaboratively bring in an advantage that relates to a character’s Path, or bring in a disadvantage that will challenge the group (but will provide Momentum and challenges to overcome).
EXAMPLE HEALTH TRACK
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Vitality: 3
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Paths represent pieces of a chronicle setting which characters can interact with and be a part of. Paths are the organizations characters belong to, the societies they join, the
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The Storyguide rolls for the horde — it’s fairly dangerous, so the pool is 8 dice. It’s a good roll, turning up 5 successes, which she splits you'll between the two player characters. They In order to print this document from Scribd, each compare their Defenses the higher of Close Combat or first need to download it. A pair of Scions (Rhiannon, daughter of Brigid, and Sigrun, Dodge Defenses, respectively. Rhiannon’s player has Defense a child of Loki), having been alerted that another Scion of Loki 3 — high enough to avoid being hit, while Sigrun’s player only hasAnd a Defense has gone rogue and loosed a frost giant into Washington, Cancel D.C., Download Print1, missing the Difficulty of 2 by 1. They arrive on the scene. They’ve tracked the giant to a construc- pile onto Rhiannon and try to pin her beneath the weight of ice and snow, but she punches her way out of the dogpile tion site and find it looming behind the skeleton of a would-be building. A wake of destroyed equipment, frosted-over infra- and leaps away from the attack cold and snowy but otherstructure, and frozen workers spread are behind it. Snow pelts wise unharmed. Hurled bolts of ice launch from the mass of creatures and freeze over Sigrun’s wings, slowing her rapid down hard and obscures the player-characters’ view. approach — but isn’t enough to stop it. (Minion enemies like From the frosted wreckage, humanoid shapes stir and this do not typically cause injury to Hero-tier player characters shamble towards the Band. They move without intelliunless they grossly exceed their Defense, instead causing gence, impelled by instinct and magic. Once they spot the a Complication. In this case, Sigrun is slowed presence of the Scions, they quicken and charge menacingdown by ice.) ly. Since none of the characters are using stealth to infiltrate the place, they don’t need to beat the perception rolls of the humanoid shapes.
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ACTION - ADVENTURE EXTENDED EXAMPLE
The Band exchanges looks, knowing they’ll have to get past these snowy constructs before they can reach the bigger foe. The Storyguide asks her players to roll for initiative. Rhiannon’s player gets four successes and Sigrun’s rolls three. The Storyguide rolls one pool for the horde of constructs and only gets one success. The players decide to go in the order the dice fell. Rhiannon wastes no time and charges in first. The mob is in Close Range already, so she moves to Engaged on her action without requiring a movement roll. She rolls Might + Close Combat (8 dice). She rolls 4 successes against the mob’s Defense (a type of Difficulty) of 1. Since the mob is treated as one single group, they Rhiannon’s player decides to put all of her successes into damage, since mobs have a much higher stress track than players but don’t take usually Injury Complications. Sigrun shouts that she will try to gain ground and uses one of her divine powers to shapeshift into the form of the eagle, then her player rolls her movement dice (a pool of Finesse + Athletics to move past the mob in a swoop. Her player rolls a Might + Close Combat to attack with a dice pool of 6. She rolls 3 successes; again the mob takes the damage directly as Sigrun slashes with her talons and soars past. The great horde of creatures surges forward and threatens to consume both Scions under its frigid, seething mass.
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Print The players decide that Rhiannon will godocument first again the Alma’s player makes a contested Presence + Persuasion next round. The Scions mount their second assault; Rhiannon roll beats the Storyguide’s Resolve + Empathy, and he lends recklessly rapid-fires her gun. She chooses to Empty an ear. SheScribd, scores 4you'll successes to his 1, and by spending extra In order to printthe thisClip document from while making an Aim attack action, first which adds 2 extra sucsuccesses equal to his Composure, she pulls off a Stunt to need to download it. cesses to her roll — giving her a total of 5 successes against the reduce the Scope of the task. The player describes the countDefense of 1. The hail of bullets tears through the creatures’ less other sacred items she’s been privileged to privately pray frost bodies and turns them into powder. before. Soon flattered into adding his relic to that list Cancel Download And he’s Print and leaves her alone to pray. Or so he thinks…! Meanwhile, Sigrun decides to snatch one of these snow-monsters in her claws and drops it on its remaining fellows. Sigrun’s player asks the Storyguide how heavy the snow I NTRIGU E creatures are, and together they determine that human-shaped Last night, Devon Emmitt fled his home with light snow creatures are light enough for an eagle to pick up. Her streaming from his mouth, possessed by a flesh-eating asiplayer rolls Might + Close Combat and turns up 2 successes, man. Fortunately he’s an old friend of Dakarai Sterre, Scion which gets +2 successes due to Scale — magnified by her magic of Damballa, who calls in a favor from Machado, a demigod to be enough to take out the mob facing her as well. It drops hitwoman. like a stone, and they all explode with the satisfying sound of This investigation is a Complex Action, which means shattering ice. For a moment all is silent but the gentle hiss of settling snow. The Storyguide tells the players the way is clear, that overall success depends on multiple rolls to represent different intervals of the investigation. The Storyguide and the Scions rush to face the giant. judges this a case requiring two core Clues (discrete information that drives story progress) to crack. The time limit leaves only two intervals before Devon chows down, so our heroes split up for the first interval.
INTRIGUE AN D PROCEDURAL EXAMPLES SOCIAL
Alma Choudry is an incarnation of Ganesha dedicated to salvaging the scattered components of a vimana, a mythological flying machine, from across the World. Unfortunately, the latest part can’t be bought at auction — it’s been claimed as a shintai (sacred body) of Kagu-tsuchi (the dead and dismembered Japanese God of Fire) by the fringe cult Moeru Kodomo. Resolved to steal it back, Alma arranges a meeting with the cult-leader, Kagari Noda, by masquerading as a rich patron. Some divine magic completes the illusion, and soon she’s sat right in front of the relic. Alma assesses Kagari over some small talk, so her player makes a Manipulation + Empathy roll. She hopes he’ll give her a moment alone, but if his Attitude (how he feels about her) toward her is lower than Scope of that task (how big a favor she’s asking), her suggestion will fail. The Storyguide decides that Kagari considers leaving the relic unguarded to be a Significant request, a Scope of 3 — which means it’s pretty difficult. Unfortunately, Alma’s Manipulation + Empathy roll assessment roll gets 2 successes, and since Kagari isn’t trying to hide his feelings there’s no contested roll. While he’s pleased with her recent donation, his Attitude (Trivial, or an Attitude of 1) isn’t quite good enough. Since it won’t be easy to improve his Attitude further, she decides to reduce the apparent Scope of the task, making it seem like not such a big deal that the priceless relic be left unguarded.
Machado uses her Path Contacts as a Career Criminal to declare she knows a guy in a local street gang who will talk, and interrogates him. He reveals the neighborhood’s abuzz about a glowing man stuffed into a car — the first Clue. Since she uses her Contacts for this, it doesn’t require a roll, but Machado’s player decides to roll Presence + Persuasion in the hopes of getting an extra success, against a Difficulty of 2. Her player scores three successes, and her player uses the last success to get an alternative clue — they know where a suspicious car is parked. Putting two and two together, she deducts it’s probably the same car. During the same interval — since multiple characters can split up to cover more ground — Sterre hits the books and his player makes a Reason + Occult roll. Unfortunately, his library is thin on glowing African vampire-spirits, so he lacks an Enhancement and 2 successes doesn’t beat the Difficulty of 3. He hasn’t found a Clue, but as a Consolation the Storyguide offers the asiman’s weaknesses from a Wikipedia article — this info won’t help catch it, but could provide an Enhancement later. On their second interval, they search the car. Machado’s player makes a Cunning + Subterfuge roll with a teamwork bonus. Four successes beats the Difficulty of 3, and discovers the owner’s address, the second Clue, which concludes the investigation. A spare success fuels a Stunt to notice another detail — there was no struggle. “Devon” was a willing passenger. The owner’s door bursts open before the two can knock on their approach, and Dakarai prepares to put that Enhancement he earned earlier to good use.
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FIN D YOUR DE STIN Y LIVE TH E MY TH E M BRACE YOUR FATE Scion is a game about gods, humanity, and everything in between. It’s a game about mythic deeds and the reasons why people talk about those mythic deeds. It’s also about modernity - the World today is a very different place than the anything our ancestors could’ve conceived.
The ancient powers never fully went away. They wander our roads and cities, mingling with the teeming masses of humanity. You are one of their children, born to the magic of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow. The Primordial deities and savage Titans, dread forebears of the gods, have escaped their eternal prisons to wage war with the gods once more. Those battles in the heavenly Overworlds of the gods have spilled over into our World. Armed with weapons possessed of mighty powers, the Scions, divine offspring of both god and man, stand as humanity’s only defense. But even the gods themselves cannot stand united, as ancient rivalries spring forth once more. Will you rise to the heights of power through your heroism? Will you become more than just a pawn in a spiteful divine game? What great events will mark your ascent to godhood? Scion Second Edition consists of four books which define and expand the game’s setting, called the World, and some of the godly pantheons defining that World. The Scions — children of the gods — are granted a spark of divinity from their parents, allowing them to climb in power until they take their seats at the right hand of their parents, the gods. The first two, Scion: Origin and Scion:
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Hero, are corebooks containing the Storypath System, the setting of the World, and how to make characters in the World of Scion. Scion Second Edition uses the Storypath System, and Hero contains a number of additional mechanical elements:
• Divine Pantheons: Ten global pantheons, cultural groupings of gods that act as parents and patrons for Scions: the gods of the Algonquian, Aztec, Chinese, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Hindu, Irish, Japanese, Norse, and Yoruba. • Supernatural Paths: Genesis, Calling, and Pantheon. Scions are born, are created, are chosen by the gods, and this Genesis act colors their entire life. They’ve also got Callings, or aspirations towards the kind of god they want to be — such as a Warrior, a Lover, a Healer — that determine the supernatural gifts they receive. Lastly, they’re born into or join a Pantheon, the grand collection of gods with their own rivalries and politics. • Purviews and Boons: Discrete elemental miracles tied into the powers of the World, granting Scions influence over their powers of their parents: fire, the sea, the forge, thunder and the sky, and many others. • Knacks: An upgrade to the Skill Tricks of Mortals, these allow Scions truly superhuman action hero moves or suave dramatic powers that defy belief.
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HOPE • SACRIFICE • UNITY Trinity: Continuum is an action-adventure game of heroes of all kinds and every time period. It’s a game about seeing something that needs doing and doing it. Because if you don’t, who will? The titular Continuum is a collection of timestreams and alternate universes stretching back into the barely-remembered past, and flowing far into the distant future.
• Allegiances: A heaping handful of modern-day organizations to which a Talent may belong, from the troubleshooters of 9, to the explorers of the Global Cartography Initiative, to the virtuous thieves of Les Fantômes. Æon’s Allegiances are headlined by seven Psi Orders, each specializing in a different Aptitude of psychic power.
Talents are daredevils of extraordinary luck or skill, the Indiana Jones or James Bonds of the world. Psions are those gifted with the psychic aptitude to manipulate the world to a precise degree. Novas are the stalwart few who can control the very fundamental forces of nature — a power which, if they’re not careful, will drive them mad with aberrant lusts. These Inspired individuals, and more, rise to the fore whenever heroes are in need. And the world is always in need of heroes.
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Every age has its heroes. Which will you be? The Trinity: Continuum consists of one central rulebook — which includes all the core rules, a modern day setting, and rules for Talents — and three main major era books detailing important flas hpoints in the Continuum. These aren’t the only eras that will be explored; other eras along the Continuum will be forthcoming. Trinity Continuum: Æon describes a science-fiction setting in 2120, where psions are on the rise to help lift humanity to the stars and protect them from the return of the Aberrants. Trinity Continuum: Aberrant contains a more immediate near future superpowers setting in 2028 where novas have begun to appear all over the world. Trinity Continuum: Adventure! uses low-powered versions of the three Inspired types to fulfill pulp archetypes in an action-packed 1924. Trinity: Continuum uses the Storypath System. Additionally, this game’s rul es will include:
Gifts: Can
you shoot a target from a mile away while skydiving? Does traffic always tend to work in your favor, but stymie your foes? Gifts are the inexplicable abilities possessed by Talents which manifest as extreme skill or incredible luck.
• Dramatic Editing: Sometimes, even when the odds are stacked to your advantage, things just refuse to go your way. Maybe the guards are doing their rounds early and are about to catch you breaking into a safe. Maybe you’ve just fumbled and fallen off a cliff. Dramatic Editing is what allows you, the player, to briefly grab the reins from the Storyguide to explain how you’re going to get out of a jam. Suddenly a convenient vent above the safe door lets you quickly hide from the guards, or an errant tree branch growing out of the cliff grants you the means to save yourself. • Aptitudes: One of eight fields of Psi ability possessed by psions, such as psychokinesis (remote movement), telepathy (remote communication), or biokinesis (reshaping your own body). electrokinesis (technology and the electromagnetic spectrum), vitakinesis (healing your body, or someone else’s), teleportation (remote movement, even across the galaxy), clairsentience (remote sight and vision), and quantakinesis (command of subtle quantum forces and probability).
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While Scion and Trinity: Continuum both use the Storypath System, they each have their own proprietary systems to interact with the setting. Featured here is a sneak preview of two systems, Relic Birthrights for Scion and the Dramatic Editing used by the Talents of Trinity: Continuum.
RELIC S OF SCIO N
ability to anticipate and seize opportunities that come their way. This is, in part, because they create these opportunities. This system is meant to replicate the contrivance of coincidence inherent to the heroic universe that lies at the heart of Trinity: Continuum. It allows for the editing of a scene in a dramatically relevant manner, so long as the result doesn’t contradict previously established details.
A revolver called Giantsbane, whose hammer is a small T H E TW IST fragment of Mjolnir. A classic GTO “goat” muscle car. A ring with the algiz rune on it. The tools of the gods that allow Dramatic editing allows for the retconning of events a Scion to access and channel their otherworldly abilities are that have already transpired in the chronicle, casting them called relics. They provide their own motifs, or methods of in a new light and revealing actions or preparations taken use, that allow a Scion to work miracles through them. in a brief descriptive flashback. Most often, this comes in the form of a twist or dramatic shift — an appropriate moRelics can: ment where the character reveals their gun hidden under • Channel a Purview for the Scion, allowing them to exthe table, the small cache of passports for when their budpress miracles through the relic’s motifs (see Purviews) dy needs a quick exit, or the fact that the drunk they just rather than their parent’s. It might also provide a small rolled for petty cash was in on the scam. bonus to doing so. Giantsbane, being a massive gun, can only use Sky in the form of shooting lightning, huge PARAMET E RS gusts of wind, and similarly forceful exhalations, but it Believability: Dramatic editing can be used to generate does these things especially well. a plausible advantage within the scene, but it can’t strain the suspension of disbelief (at least, not without sufficient • Provide special Boons all their own, based on the expenditure of Inspiration). It’s quite possible that the mamotifs of the relic. These Boons can be bought more fioso duct taped two guns to the bottom of his favorite cheaply than the Scion’s own Boons, but only work table in his favorite restaurant; it’s equally unlikely he did when they have the relic in their possession. the same to office desk of a CEO in Mumbai. • Remove the cost of an associated set of Knacks or Consistency: The edit can’t overrule facts that have Boons. Alternately, they might allow the use of a been previously established in the setting or override the Knack with a different Ability or Calling. effects of a dice roll that have already occurred. If the Storyguide states that a supply locker is empty, the char• Allow a special power, such as an enchanted gun acter can’t dramatically edit the scene to find a supply providing infinite ammunition, a pair of headof ammunition. Dramatic editing also can’t be used to phones allowing the Scion to remotely hear concontradict or override anyone else’s use of editing within versations, or a tuning fork allowing the Scion to the scene. effortlessly mimic any sound she hears. This might even be fairly mundane, such as doubling the range on a bow, but in the hands of a demigod they become even more mighty.
DR AMATIC E DITI NG I N T RI N ITY: CONTI N U UM Whether it’s uncanny planning, tremendous luck, or the hand of Fate, characters with Inspiration have the
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Timeframe: Some edits have time limits to them, according to the episodic nature of the series. These must be adhered to! Dramatic Shift: The edit must come at a moment of need or appropriately dramatic moment (the twist), as detailed above.
For more about the Storypath System, Scion, and Trinity: Continuum, please visit www.theonyxpath.com.
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