God-Blooded
It is the true God-Blooded — descendents of
gods and elementals — whom most savants indicate when they speak of magical
power passed on through the blood. They are the most common type by far, and
so, it is not simply an accident or misunderstanding that the very term
God-Blood has come to mean any being whose ancestry carries a mystical
birthright. In places such as Great Forks, easily 1 in 50 mortals can trace
their bloodline directly back to a divinity. The number drops to roughly one in
every few hundred for most parts of the Threshold, depending on local customs
and beliefs. The numbers sharply decline in places where the Immaculate Order
holds sway, and only the barest handful live anywhere
on the Blessed Isle.
The prevalence of God-Blooded in a region
is usually directly proportional to the strength of the Hundred Gods Heresy
among that region’s worshipers. Gods upholding their proper function in the
Celestial Bureaucracy remain invisible and do not dally among mortals. Yet,
fewer and fewer gods pay more than lip service to Celestial law in the
declining Age of Sorrows. Once, it was a mark of shame to father God-Kin and
nearly unthinkably scandalous to bear one. It was out of such social stigma
than the epithet Harvest of Sighs grew to warn against the dangers of loving
mortals. That Age is past, though, and many gods now regard their Sunset
Dalliances as privileges of their divine station. Among elementals, breeding
with mortals and animals is even more common, as they do not have to expend the
effort and Essence to materialize to enjoy the fruits of flesh.
The reasons for a God-Blood’s creation are
as varied as the spirits who spawn them. For gods lost in their own power and
decadence or too enamored of mortal affairs, progeny may result from love or
lust. Yet, even a God-Blood spawned of a meaningless tryst is too valuable a
resource for most spirits to ignore. For more calculating gods, the usefulness
of a God-Blood serves as their primary or even sole incentive. Such mercenary
spirits may gradually breed a small army of loyal God-Kin to attend their whims
or to kill their enemies in flagrant disregard of divine law. Generally, the
censors of the Celestial Bureaucracy will happily overlook a handful of
God-Blooded offspring for a relatively small bribe. As the severity of the
offense rises, the cost of bribes rises exponentially. Wise gods recognize when
the cost of bribes exceeds the benefit of more offspring and adjust their
habits accordingly.
However they come into being, most
God-Blooded grow up serving their divine parents. Such service ranges from
pleasant to brutal, depending on the nature and temperament of the spirit. Gods
are not men, and precious few can even love as men do. This is not to say that
most divine parents are cruel, but rather, that they do not understand
mortality. Flesh is transient and of little concern, so gods who take up the
sole duty of parenting must often learn about hunger and excrement the hard way
— and sometimes to the detriment of their wailing children. Most gods do not
trouble themselves with such mundane tasks, entrusting their children to the
mortal parent or a human caretaker. The god may even leave a child to her own
devices, dramatically recruiting her at some later year when she could prove
useful rather than a burden. God-Blooded raised among spirit courts learn the
proper inhuman etiquette of those societies and appropriate humility. Loyalty
is rewarded with scraps of power and perhaps even the dangling promise of
godhood after a century or more of exemplary work. Disobedience is harshly
punished, often by means beyond mortal ingenuity of suffering.
God-Blooded who escape their parents, earn
freedom or simply grow up without divine interference may live more as mortals
than Divinity’s Shadows. Free God-Kin have less power in most cases than their
enthralled brethren, but this is offset by an opportunity to carve their own
destiny. Some become petty despots whose dominions mirror the brutality they
suffered at the hands of their parents. Others become heroes, seeking a greatness even beyond themselves. Yet, none can ever quite
escape their strange inheritance.
Heritage Power: God-Blooded may attune their senses to the
spirit world as a basic dice action for a cost of 1 Willpower point or 3 motes
of Essence. This sixth sense allows a God-Blood to perceive all sanctum
entrances and immaterial spirits within the range of her normal senses for one
scene.
Associations: Determined by parentage. The children of
elementals resonate with that element directly, as well as the appropriate
color, season and direction. Those descended from gods claim the symbols of
their parents, as decided by the Storyteller. A daughter of a forest god will
certainly feel a connection with the element of wood, but she may also favor
the element of earth, the colors green and brown and hold a particular love of
flowers. Conversely, such a character might feel almost irrationally skittish
around fire.
Sobriquets: Divinity’s Shadows, God-Kin, Half-Spirits,
Harvest of Sighs, Sunset Dalliances
Concepts: Courtier among spirits, high priest,
messenger of the gods, right hand of divinity
I come
before you as the voice of the
lake and a
living warning of her wrath.
Restore her
temple by the fortnight, or
you shall
drown in a deluge such as your
scattered
descendants shall lament to the
end of
their days.