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(If there's an existing Legacy megathread, point me to it and I'll delete this)
It's a pretty massive write up because I have no idea how to explain things simply, so I'll just link my blog and talk about some of my design choices.
In looking over the Whipping Boys, I like their core concept, but ultimately I don't really think the Attainments from 1e fit with them. They were all about activating their Dream merit extra well and trying to achieve a higher state of consciousness through sub-space. A lot of the write up talks about how they use the Session and it's so important to them and how they're BDSM inspired.
Their actual powers are generic fightmagic that has nothing to do with The Session, and in the write up both safewords and aftercare are thrown out the window.
So I decided to rewrite it from scratch, keeping only the BDSM component and the use of Life and Mind, though I switched their importance. They want to use subspace to achieve the sublime, so I feel Mind fits a lot more than Life. If you want to be a fightmage, Perfected Adept are perfected for that.
For the history and origins, one thing to note is that I changed the founder's name to Stonewall. It fits with a gay founder, is a good play on words, and most importantly it's not the sobriquet for a completely different Path. Also of note is that I honestly can't tell how the Parentage works. It seems that there's no real reason why someone of any Order or Path can't join any Legacy. I mean, Marple is a Thyrsus. What happens if she decides to quit the Guardians of the Veil? And last, and probably least important, I'm not entirely sure what the requirements to join should be. Especially after hearing Chris give his thoughts on them, I'm not really fond of requirements in the first place.
For the First Attainment! The core concept is that it's all about making sure the submissive (or dominant--all of the Attainments could reasonably used on both participants) is comfortable and okay with what's happening. Currently, I just go with "spend a Mana to simulate the Reach ability", but if Attainment guidelines are loosened up, I might be able to change this. I'm once again not sure on how Attainment creation works, so I'm not 100% sure I can have the secondary effect as a ritual casting, but either way, the side effect is essentially for aftercare in the Session and also out of the Session for reading opponents.
The Second Attainment plays off of the concept of using the Session to make yourself stronger. The primary effect is straight up a better version of Mind Shield that protects against everything without needing to Reach for it all (a friend complained to me that to simulate Mind Shield as written, this attainment would need "like 72 Reaches"). As a sort of consolation, I made this specific Session ritual a little harsher. The Life effect is straight up Majesty, and meant to be a sort of sensual grace and pheromone thing. The closest actual spell is Lure and Repel, but I didn't want to flat out use that Spell. For this and other Attainments, I played around with the free secondary Spell Factors granted to make Duration as high as possible, and the Reach available by doing it as a ritual to bump it up to Advanced Duration and make it last for ages. I suppose it might be good if I give them a way to turn it off. Another aspect of "I'm not sure how to interpret this passage of text", I'm not actually sure whether the secondary effect counts towards using the lower Arcanum to determine spell factors, or if it being a completely separate effect means they're both on their own timer.
The Third Attainment expands on the Pain is Skill Attainment from the original Legacy write up. Here the idea is playing off of the "free your mind" aspects, and doing so literally makes them better at things. It's simply Enhance Skill. My guru suggested this level, though I think at 4, and suggested Perverts might use it to enhance Academics and unwind before a study session. I liked it, so I kept the idea. For more long term effects, they have a slightly better version of Body Control that lets them heal Lethal damage at an enhanced rate. It's a slight boost, but seems fitting for an Attainment of this level.
The Fourth Attainment was actually the fifth at one point. The original 4th Attainment allowed both submissive and dominant to travel into a shared Oneiros. It was treated as both of theirs in regards to Paradox (even if a Sleeper underwent the Session) and they shared the higher Amnion to defend against Goetia. It was essentially for hands on psychiatry. But my guru pointed out that it wasn't really that impressive. He also suggested a ritual cast Mend with Advanced Duration, which apparently means that every scene (the re-up time for Attainments) you'd heal [Life] lethal or aggravated damage. My version was actually that you'd be able to instant cast Mend whenever you took damage (leading to Perverts stabbing themselves to heal someone else for 5L). Either way, that felt a bit much, so I nixed that one as well and let the Body Control heal Lethal. The current Fourth Attainment is all about how BDSM is essentially about roleplay. During a scene, you become someone else. When you act as the submissive, you transfer power over to the dominant. So, "Roleplay Within Roleplay" allows you to alter your personality to better become that persona. Useful for therapy, or just shenanigans. The Life secondary effect is because I had to get shapeshifting in there somewhere. Transform Life is such a great spell. I added Many Face's Reach version as well, since the 11Q final Attainment is technically two opposite effects, I figure merging those two shouldn't hurt, and shifting Physical dots fits with being able to shift Mental ones.
There is no Fifth Attainment because I don't think any of the existing Mind spells fit, and I don't feel comfortable yet doing some heavy Creative Thaumaturgy. My guru's original suggestion was Amorality, but honestly that's lame.
The Session is probably the section that could be edited for length the most, and I really should mention the importance of Aftercare. I feel like the actual mechanics for the regular session might be a little boring, but I'm not sure how to handle tapping out halfway through while still taking some of the damage. Maybe an Extended roll requiring 5 successes or something, with each roll doing 2B. I am pretty interested to see what people think of the Initiation version. I like the idea of using the Social Maneuvering rules for non-standard stuff.
It's a pretty massive write up because I have no idea how to explain things simply, so I'll just link my blog and talk about some of my design choices.
In looking over the Whipping Boys, I like their core concept, but ultimately I don't really think the Attainments from 1e fit with them. They were all about activating their Dream merit extra well and trying to achieve a higher state of consciousness through sub-space. A lot of the write up talks about how they use the Session and it's so important to them and how they're BDSM inspired.
Their actual powers are generic fightmagic that has nothing to do with The Session, and in the write up both safewords and aftercare are thrown out the window.
So I decided to rewrite it from scratch, keeping only the BDSM component and the use of Life and Mind, though I switched their importance. They want to use subspace to achieve the sublime, so I feel Mind fits a lot more than Life. If you want to be a fightmage, Perfected Adept are perfected for that.
For the history and origins, one thing to note is that I changed the founder's name to Stonewall. It fits with a gay founder, is a good play on words, and most importantly it's not the sobriquet for a completely different Path. Also of note is that I honestly can't tell how the Parentage works. It seems that there's no real reason why someone of any Order or Path can't join any Legacy. I mean, Marple is a Thyrsus. What happens if she decides to quit the Guardians of the Veil? And last, and probably least important, I'm not entirely sure what the requirements to join should be. Especially after hearing Chris give his thoughts on them, I'm not really fond of requirements in the first place.
For the First Attainment! The core concept is that it's all about making sure the submissive (or dominant--all of the Attainments could reasonably used on both participants) is comfortable and okay with what's happening. Currently, I just go with "spend a Mana to simulate the Reach ability", but if Attainment guidelines are loosened up, I might be able to change this. I'm once again not sure on how Attainment creation works, so I'm not 100% sure I can have the secondary effect as a ritual casting, but either way, the side effect is essentially for aftercare in the Session and also out of the Session for reading opponents.
The Second Attainment plays off of the concept of using the Session to make yourself stronger. The primary effect is straight up a better version of Mind Shield that protects against everything without needing to Reach for it all (a friend complained to me that to simulate Mind Shield as written, this attainment would need "like 72 Reaches"). As a sort of consolation, I made this specific Session ritual a little harsher. The Life effect is straight up Majesty, and meant to be a sort of sensual grace and pheromone thing. The closest actual spell is Lure and Repel, but I didn't want to flat out use that Spell. For this and other Attainments, I played around with the free secondary Spell Factors granted to make Duration as high as possible, and the Reach available by doing it as a ritual to bump it up to Advanced Duration and make it last for ages. I suppose it might be good if I give them a way to turn it off. Another aspect of "I'm not sure how to interpret this passage of text", I'm not actually sure whether the secondary effect counts towards using the lower Arcanum to determine spell factors, or if it being a completely separate effect means they're both on their own timer.
The Third Attainment expands on the Pain is Skill Attainment from the original Legacy write up. Here the idea is playing off of the "free your mind" aspects, and doing so literally makes them better at things. It's simply Enhance Skill. My guru suggested this level, though I think at 4, and suggested Perverts might use it to enhance Academics and unwind before a study session. I liked it, so I kept the idea. For more long term effects, they have a slightly better version of Body Control that lets them heal Lethal damage at an enhanced rate. It's a slight boost, but seems fitting for an Attainment of this level.
The Fourth Attainment was actually the fifth at one point. The original 4th Attainment allowed both submissive and dominant to travel into a shared Oneiros. It was treated as both of theirs in regards to Paradox (even if a Sleeper underwent the Session) and they shared the higher Amnion to defend against Goetia. It was essentially for hands on psychiatry. But my guru pointed out that it wasn't really that impressive. He also suggested a ritual cast Mend with Advanced Duration, which apparently means that every scene (the re-up time for Attainments) you'd heal [Life] lethal or aggravated damage. My version was actually that you'd be able to instant cast Mend whenever you took damage (leading to Perverts stabbing themselves to heal someone else for 5L). Either way, that felt a bit much, so I nixed that one as well and let the Body Control heal Lethal. The current Fourth Attainment is all about how BDSM is essentially about roleplay. During a scene, you become someone else. When you act as the submissive, you transfer power over to the dominant. So, "Roleplay Within Roleplay" allows you to alter your personality to better become that persona. Useful for therapy, or just shenanigans. The Life secondary effect is because I had to get shapeshifting in there somewhere. Transform Life is such a great spell. I added Many Face's Reach version as well, since the 11Q final Attainment is technically two opposite effects, I figure merging those two shouldn't hurt, and shifting Physical dots fits with being able to shift Mental ones.
There is no Fifth Attainment because I don't think any of the existing Mind spells fit, and I don't feel comfortable yet doing some heavy Creative Thaumaturgy. My guru's original suggestion was Amorality, but honestly that's lame.
The Session is probably the section that could be edited for length the most, and I really should mention the importance of Aftercare. I feel like the actual mechanics for the regular session might be a little boring, but I'm not sure how to handle tapping out halfway through while still taking some of the damage. Maybe an Extended roll requiring 5 successes or something, with each roll doing 2B. I am pretty interested to see what people think of the Initiation version. I like the idea of using the Social Maneuvering rules for non-standard stuff.
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