# Character Creation Challenge 2025: Day 21 - Epigone - Edgar Loon, Myth-Touched Bookie-Assassin tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2025 #game/rpg/epigoni > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2025]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] ## Game of Choice ![[Epigone - Definition.webp]] Normally I don't have to start with a reference to an obscure literary term, but it's going to be one of those days. Today's game is one in which there is a delicate, detailed world which is literally steeped in modern and ancient myth. It's full of literary and mythological references which are a long way from mainstream. Some of which have been updated in ways which will be both familiar and disconcerting. Others reflect ancient grounding in things that you may never have been exposed to. Actually, while I'm at it, let's go with another definition of the term. > [!quote] Wikipedia > In [Greek mythology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology "Greek mythology"), the **Epigoni** or **Epigonoi** ([/ɪˈpɪɡənaɪ/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English "Help:IPA/English"); from [Ancient Greek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_language "Ancient Greek language"): [Ἐπίγονοι](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%98%CF%80%CE%AF%CE%B3%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%B9 "wikt:Ἐπίγονοι"), meaning "offspring") are the sons of the [Argive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argive "Argive") heroes, the [Seven against Thebes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_against_Thebes "Seven against Thebes"), who had fought and been killed in the first Theban war, the subject of the _Thebaid_, in which [Polynices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynices "Polynices") and his allies attacked [Thebes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thebes,_Greece "Thebes, Greece") because Polynices' brother, [Eteocles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eteocles "Eteocles"), refused to give up the throne as promised. The second Theban war, also called the war of the Epigoni, occurred ten years later, when the Epigoni, wishing to avenge the death of their fathers, attacked Thebes. Imitators of a philosopher, less distinguished followers, sons of great warriors — you can see it's going to be a _little bit_ complicated today. Luckily, the system isn't, but let's get to it… ![[Epigoni (cover).jpg|400]] It's **[[Epigoni]]**. Man, where do I even start? I suppose we start at the beginning. The world you know is not the world of truth. What you see is the World of Matter. It is exactly what you think it is. It's the place where you go to work, where you pay your taxes, where both wonders and atrocities come to pass, the stage on which human life occurs. It's the place in which stories are told, but it's not the place in which stories exist. That place is the World of Myth. The World of Myth is not a different place, but it is a different way of seeing what is real. It is the Veil of Maya which lies between the world of matter and the world of myth. It blinds the eyes of the mundanes from the place in which stories and beliefs live and breathe. Those stories, those archetypes, those things that lie behind stories which are created by stories and which give rise to more are Myth Entities. Behind the Veil of Maya in the world of myth, Myth Entities walk among the Mundanes and act in ways which are perfectly in line with their own understanding of the world - but which the Mundanes view as somewhere between ridiculous, theatrical, and terrifying. Stories live and have their own logic — narrative logic. Myth Entities themselves are creatures of pure narration which are effectively trapped within the roles that are _"written for them,"_ bound by Fate to never diverge from their Story nor their nature. Myth Entities are created by the stories of humanity and in turn affect the world at large. The more widespread their story, the more powerful and influential they are. When that story withers away and is no longer remembered, so do they. They do not interact with mundanes directly; they are background forces and influences. Humanity writes the history of mankind. Once in a while, someone tears a gash into the Veil of Maya and sees the World of Myth for what it really is. They also discover that they are the offspring of a Myth Entity. These people are _Epigoni_. (You knew the word had to show up sooner or later) They are half-breeds of Myth Entities and mortals, somehow having cut a hole in the veil and now peering through, unable to disentangle themselves from the will of Fate, the faceless disembodied engine that drives the World of Myth. Fate pushes Epigoni to engage with adventures like the invisible hand of the writer driving protagonists into new experiences, but it also pushes them into becoming their Stereotype and nothing else. I did mention that there is a lot of backstory and setup for this world; I'm only glossing it here. There is so much more and I haven't even touched on some relatively important issues, but that's not what you're here for. You're here for the character. I _will_ tell you what the ultimate goal for all Epigoni is: to be able to step out of being in Fate's story and return to their own, to no longer be manipulated by Fate's force and simply to choose their own way, now unblinded by the Veil of Maya. ## Acts of Creation Thankfully, character creation in Epigoni isn't as complicated as the setting. In fact, it's really quite straightforward. ### Rank and File Effectively, this is your level of effect which you can expect to have in the absence of anything else on your sheet that is applicable. The base rank of all the player characters is always **1**. By way of comparison, breaking down a rotten wooden door or dealing with a normal human mugger is rank 0. Rank 1 is picking a simple lock or dealing with a goblin. Rank 3 would be something of the order of picking a complex lock. Rank 5 would be picking several locks without making any noise. Rank 8, maybe my favorite description, would be picking multiple locks silently in the few seconds before the alarm starts blaring. ### Jingle in Your Pocket Characters can accumulate _oboli_, which are effectively the physical representation of fate's power. Other games would refer to them as Fate Points or Tokens, and they serve the same effect, allowing the player to influence game mechanical elements. Only the GM starts with some, so not a concern for us. ### The Key in the Lock Much of the rest of the character sheet is given over to keywords of one or the other type, either ones which describe your life or words which describe your prodigies. The latter being the mythic magical elements that you have inherited from your mythic entity parent. #### Key to the Mundane The Mundane words come in five categories. You can only use one word from each category in a given challenge. The categories are **Trade**, **Passion**, **Talents**, **Items**, and **Potential**. Since you don't actually determine what your Potential is until further into the game, that's not a concern for us. There is one more Mundane category to put on the sheet, and that is the Epigone's **Fear** category, but it is not considered a tool for the character's player to use. The GM gets to use that against you, of course. _Trade:_ **Bookie**. This implies a certain amount of facility with statistical mathematics, a bit of fast talk, knowing some of the right (wrong) people to know and an understanding of sports betting - and many other sorts. _Passion:_ **Close-up sleight of hand**. He can make cards dance, coins disappear, force a given pull, pocket a small item, and do it all while you're standing there looking straight in his eyes. _Talents:_ **Quick** (it helps to be able to leave in a hurry in this line of work), **Intimidation** (useful even outside of this line of work), **Gunman** (every once in a while you have a remnant of your previous line of work) One talent ends up being a double-edged sword, which can allow the GM to make a challenge harder. In our case, that talent is **Smartass**. I think we all know both edges of that particular double-edged sword. _Items:_ **Fancy Sports Car**, **Flashy Suit**, **Old but Well-Maintained Revolver**, **Watch on a Chain That Makes Me Feel Grounded** The items are objects which relate closely to the character and their personal history, so much so they've become part of their identity. This allows you to call on them in the course of working with the mechanics. You invoke them to increase your rank in order to meet challenges. All of these are fairly obvious in terms of how they might be employed except for the watch on a chain. In a situation in which things are often spiraling out of control, sometimes it's useful to have a trinket which can make you feel like your feet are back on the ground. _Fear:_ **Losing His Grip on "Reality"** This is actually a pretty potent one considering the character's just had his view of what reality is completely shattered. But what's a little life without vulnerability? ### Keys to Power Now we move on to the part of the character which reflects their mythic heritage. They are able to work prodigies, which, as we've discussed, are purely magical effects that reshape reality directly. I envision that our character is descended from the Myth Entity _"The Assassin."_ It's not that unusual for assassins in stories to fall in love with their charges, which leads to intimate steamy sex scenes. Cinemax has made a particular killing on this exact motif. As a result, we have two _Gifts_: - **Murder** - **Disappear** We also have our choice of verbs (mismarked on the character sheet as the second Gifts selection). We assign +1 to two of them and -1 to two others, working a Prodigy that involves a verb modifies our personal rank by the value of the verb. Our two strong verbs are going to be **Harm** and **Rule**, and our two weak verbs are going to be **Charm** and **Know**. #### The Stereo on the Arc Now we pick our **Archetype**, the kind of symbolic figure that we aspire to be and which guides us in our interaction with the world of myth. But each Archetype comes with a **Stereotype** which is the cliché we tread dangerously close to falling into along the way, and it is what Fate wants to force us into. There's a fairly short list of Archetypes available, which is a little bit sad. They are, of course, extremely broad as befits a narrative Archetype, but I certainly wouldn't complain about having more of them. I'm torn at this point because there are two strongly competing concepts in this character, which is great. It means there's inherent narrative tension, but choosing between the Destroyer and the Trickster is hard going. Fuck it, we're going with my intuitive first response: the Destroyer — which is the _positive_ archetype, > [!quote] Epigoni, p48 > **The Destroyer** > > _Verb: Harm_ > > The Destroyer knows that not all > evil comes to harm, and that the force- > ful use of violence is inherent to the Path. > Taking out the obstacles to one’s own per- > sonal growth, disposing of a threat and de- > molishing those who stand in the way are all > necessary actions— and not always wrong, if > they don’t involve hurting innocents. > > **Stereotype: The Fury** > > The Fury is nothing but violence without > purpose, slaughter calling for more slaugh- > ter, rage that feeds itself and just wants to > watch the world burn. There is no way to placate the > Fury, because it’s just looking excuses to lash out; there > is no forgiveness, no remedy, because in truth the Fury > is just a cataclysm waiting to wreck everything. It does, after all, suit me on so many levels, plus I like how it works with this character concept: a man who used to be a killer for hire who descends from the mythic archetype of a killer for hire but has worked to get out of that line of work and into something, if not more socially acceptable, more personally acceptable. However, he doesn't really have a choice because he literally descends from the original sin he's trying to escape. If he takes the easy path, then it's all too inevitable that he will turn into simply something that kills and waits and falls out of the story of the world simply because it's not even noteworthy. I'd say this is solid stuff. And that's it. ![[Epigone - CCC2025 - Edgar Loon, Myth-Touched Assassin Bookie.webp]] *(Yes, I know I could have spent the time to create a picture of this guy and put it here on the character sheet, but it's been a long day. I didn't really feel like wrestling with an AI like an unruly serpent tonight. You're just going to have to forgive me for that.)* ## Exunt Character creation is pretty straightforward though in order to make good decisions about the things on the mythic power side of things you need to be front-loaded with a _ridiculous_ amount of lore and understanding of the world before you can do it. I think it would be more elegant and perhaps better design to break character creation into two sections with an explicit narrative bit in the middle where you walk through the experience of the character having the Veil of Maya drawn away from them. As it stands, character creation feels a bit all over the place, especially given the organization of the character sheet. To be completely fair, that is not entirely the fault of the author, who is Italian, and the original version of this game was written in Italian. Unfortunately for _me_, and perhaps for everyone else, my Italian is 2,000 years out of date. Written in [Cicerian Latin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero), I might have a chance. As it is, I will take a very rarely ropey translation over not having the pleasure at all. As you may have guessed, we have just scratched the surface of this game and the setting. It runs 186 pages and includes a fairly extensive couple of setting environments within the _Mythical Nights_ appendix. You also get a rundown on the Gods of London as a subsection, as well as the mythic entities of Italy. This is pay what you want on Itch.io. I am just bringing you fantastic games that you can have your hands on in short order and be playing for absolutely no investment. All I ask is that if you enjoy it, if it's something that you think speaks to you, you throw a few dollars at the creators for a coffee or a car payment — whatever you think is the right thing to do. If you like this game, you will probably enjoy both **[[Nobilis]]** and **[[Unknown Armies]]**, which both touch on similar but not overlapping themes. Of course, you can't have either of _them_ for free, so you pays your money and you takes your chances. Tomorrow we are going super lightweight and super minimalist again. I don't think you're going to mind. If nothing else, it won't require a thousand words on the setting. I can guarantee that.