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The Idea? The Players take the roles of the children of the gods. The gods, in this case, being various pantheons from real-world myths. So, anyway, let's start with the book itself...
It's a fairly large hardcover tome. The cover features the logo, and one of the signature characters in a dramatic pose. The cover itself is done in the dull background/shiny foreground method that WW seems to be in love with these days. The back has a short blurb about the game, as well as three bullet points detailing contents. The inner covers feature pictures of the six signature characters.
The book itself opens with what I believe might be the longest piece of fiction to ever open a game book, with the possible exception of The Call of Cthulhu. I will admit that the opening fiction id usually the last thing I read in a book, but I decided this time to read the book in order. The story is interesting, if predictable. It does a decent job of setting the tone of the game.
The next section details the six pantheons featured in the game. This section is in color, as opposed to the rest of the book. The pantheons included are the Egyptian, the Greek, the Norse, the Aztec, The Japanese, and the Voodoo pantheons. They do a good job of hitting the major players of each pantheons, but the fact that Aphrodite lacks a Love purview is somewhat strange. Part of me was also hoping for in inclusion of Eris in the Greek pantheon, but I can see why she would be left out.
The next chapter is where we start in on character creation. It's a game powered by a stripped-down version of the Exalted iteration of the Storyteller System, so WW players will find the attributes and abilities part of the system familiar. It has short explanations of the Scion-specific parts of creation: Birthrights, Epic Attributes, Knacks, Boons and Virtues. Following that are the Finishing Touches (Willpower, Legend, Health Levels and Bonus Points), and the Spark of Life. The chapter is topped-off with the Character Creation Summary.
The Traits chapter goes into more detail about Attributes, Abilities, Nature, and Virtues. Each Attribute gets a short blurb on what it does, and how the characters use it. Same for abilities. White Wolf players will notice some differences in the abilities for this game: Linguistics has been folded into Academics, Performance and Expression now share a room in the Art ability, operation vehicles now falls under Control, and Marksmanship determines both archery and firearms. It's one example of the somewhat simplified nature of this game. Willpower and Nature explanations follow. The Virtues are a lot like Exalted, but there are more of them, of which each pantheon gets four. The chapter leaves us with an explanation of Scion's "Power Stat," which is Legend, a measure of a Scion's power, as well as the glory of her epic deeds.
Following the Traits chapter is a chapter on Mega...er, Epic Attributes and Knacks. Epic Attributes add bonus dice to their mundane counterparts. Knacks are little "enhancements" (heh) related to each Epic Attribute. The section is good, but I think it could have benefitted from the inclusion of more Knacks, for people that don't have a half-dozen Aberrant books to swipe them from. I am happy that they included a sidebar that explains what happens when a Scion uses the "I detect lies" Knack against someone using the "I'm a flawless liar" Knack. Kudos for nipping the argument in the bud.
Next Chapter: Boons and Birthrights. Let me just say this right now: Birthrights should have been before Boons. The Relic Birthright is directly tied to how many purviews you can get Boons from. It would have been nice to put them preceding Boons for those of us who like our character creation stuff to actually be in the order you should create your character in. Other than that, and the aformention absence of a Love purview, the Boons seem to be pretty good. The first level powers seems to universally deal with granting immunity to the purview in question (Breathing underwater is a given, but not being damaged by water of extreme temperature was something I hadn't considered for a water-related power. Good job.). The Hero book only gives levels 1-3 for the Boons, but to get those you need to be at the listed Legend maximum for a Heroic Scion, so that's cool. One thing that I'm looking forward to in the next book, Demigod. Moving out of Boons, there are four Birthrights: Creature (a familiar-type animal thing), Guide (a mentor), Followers (self-explanatory), and Relic, where I figure most players' Birthright points will be spent. A Relic is a gift from your divine parent. Like I stated earlier, a Relic determines how many purviews your Scion can access for Boons. If you lose your Relic, you can't use Boons from the purviews that said Relic allows you to access. That's not all a Relic is good for, though. Most Relics are also weapons, and points spent on Relic can also be used to beef up the stats of the weapon in question, at the expense of purview access. The chapter closes with sample Relics from each pantheon.
Now, here is where we move from making a character to playing the game. The basics of the rules are pretty simple, especially if you're familiar with the Storyteller System. For those that aren't, it's a Dice Pool mechanic, where the pool is governed by a combination of Attribute and Ability scores (usually). There's a sidebar detailing when not to roll (when the possibility of failure is not dramatically interesting), which shows off Scion's more cinematic nature (as opposed to the World of Darkness line). The simplicity of the system, however, begins to waver when you get into bonuses and penalties, as evidenced by a six-step Order of Modifiers sidebar. It is also complicated by different types of rolls (Contested, Extended, Contested and Extended, etc.). The rules explanation is followed by examples of how the rules apply to various situations. (Movement, Lifting, Working the Crowd, as well as a few others.)
Here we come to combat. Here's where the simplicity of the Storyteller System really starts to fall apart. Scion, like Exalted 2nd Edition, uses the Tick mechanic. This mechanic supposedly makes for more cinematic, flowing combats. Wrong. It makes for more bookmaking, which can be a pain. However, in Scion, there is a full-page sidebar giving various suggestions on how to keep track of Ticks, which I wish the would have put in the Exalted book. But, I'm reviewing Scion, not Exalted, so let's move on. The Combat Chapter then goes on to explain the various actions your scion can take in combat, as well as how to calculate the various Defense Values, and the seven-step method for resolving an attack. It then goes into the Damage system, where they stuck in the Extras sidebar. Various combat situations and special attacks nip at the heels of that, followed by the Weapons and Armor stats. Chain Mail armor is included in the blurbs, but absent from the stat block. The Chapter ends with a small stat block for various vehicles.
There is then a short chapter on Advancement. This details how to get and spend Experience, as well as a reminder of how Legends limits how high some Traits can go.
After this short Chapter, there is a division between the Player Section, and the Storyteller Section. This section begins with a chapter on Epic! Storytelling. It it explains how to heed the Epic! Tradition, such as cheating in the PC's favor (a somewhat novel idea), as well as how to break from it. It goes into the themes of the game, as well as a short bit saying that there could be other patheons, but it's up to the ST on how to deal with that.
An explanation on Fate follows. The two systems here are Fatebinding (other people get caught up as minor players in your Scion's story), and Fateful Aura (whereever your Scion is, Fate conspires to make things interesting, usually in the Chinese Curse tradition).
The next 47 pages of the book are dedicated to a story in which, the book assumes, the players will take the roles of the signature characters. "Urgh," was my first thought. "There's 47 pages I won't use." But, I read the story, anyway. Okay, it does a pretty good job of showcasing what a Scion story could be, and there are plenty of sidebars showing how it can be tailored to player-created characters. There are also some creatures statted up that can be used in other stories, and a write-up for a scion of a pantheon not featured in the book (the scion in question is the kid of the Monkey King of the Chinese pantheon). Still, the story goes on rather long for a corebook.
Next, is the traditional Antagonists chapter. We get stats for Mortals, as well as various mythological creatures. Then it gives full write-ups for the Rival Band, basically another group of signature characters. Then, it goes back to mythological creatures, and common animals.
The book closes with a dubious WW index, character sheet, and an ad for Scion: Demigod.
Now that the overview is done, an observation: The book seems to be written with an eye toward new gamers. The explanations are simple, to the point of saying "You need this book and dice that have ten sides on them." and going on to say "First, pick up a handful of your dice and roll them." It seems overly simplistic to me. Even my seven-year old knows that you have to pick up dice to roll them.
In closing, the book is definitely not "Exalted Modern," but it could be with some work. However, that's not the point. It's a game about Modern Epics, and it does it's job well. I plan to get quite a bit of mileage out of the game, and I'm looking forward to the other two books.
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