Extended Rules

Gaining Greater Weapons

Greater Weapons

A normal Weapon is one with only one type: Intrinsic, Relic, or Companion (described on page 129). A Greater Weapon has two of those types, granting that Weapon access to both rules. Because a Greater Weapon combines two types, its changes to reflect its dual nature. Most Greater Myths have such Weapons, hence the name Greater Weapons.

Intrinsic/Relic: a physical Weapon of great importance that’s bound into your soul and intertwined with your cunning or skill. It can appear and disappear at will, and cannot be taken from you via the Vicious Denial Gift.

Intrinsic/Companion: creatures or servants as Weapons that are bound into your core nature. You can summon or dispel them at will, and their number changes based on what you desire. This Weapon cannot be taken from you via the Vicious Denial Gift.

Relic/Companion: a physical Weapon of great importance that has fully intelligent and can sense the world around it as well as speak aloud. It has some small measure of will beyond normal Companions, but is still your servant and bids your will.

There are no Weapons that combine all three types.

Gaining Greater Weapons

Mythenders start with three normal Weapons, and may transform their Weapons into Greater Weapons as they End gods and survive.

After Ending a Greater Myth at the climax of an adventure,if your Mythender has survived— neither dying or falling into Myth—you may change one of the Weapons on your playsheet into a Greater Weapon. This involves two things: describing how you change or replace one of your existing Weapons with some element or essence of the Myth you just Ended, and embracing sweet, permanent Corruption and Fate.

Changing the Weapon

When you describe changing your Weapon, you must include taking some element of the Myth you Ended, as only the Greater Myths and those who blatantly steal their power may command Greater Weapons. Once you have, rename the Weapon on your sheet and mark the two types it now has.

This can involve changing one of your Weapons (and thus adding a second type to that Weapon), it or can involve throwing one Weapon aside for something new (and picking any two types you wish).

Example: “I take Thor’s dominion over lighting into me and mix it with my Mastery over the Elements Intrinsic Weapon, creating Dominion Over Mythic Nature. This is now an Intrinsic/Companion Greater Weapon.”

Example: “I cast aside My Father’s Sword and grab Mjölnir, taking it as a Relic/Companion Greater Weapon, for the horror voice of the dead Thor speaks from it.”

Example: “With My Mother’s Sickle in my left hand, I take Mjölnir in my right. Together, they fuse into me something deeper, my Hammer and Sickle that will Birth Freedom Intrinsic/Relic Greater Weapon.”

Once you have done this, the Weapon is now a permanent element of your Mythender. You can never charge or remove it. Only in death might it go away from the world.

Embracing Permanent Corruption & Fate

Once you take a new Greater Weapon, you must pay the price for imbuing yourself with a god’s nature. But hey, it’s no big deal! All you do is gain permanent Corruption and Fate! Increase the amount of permanent Corruption and permanent Fate you have by 1. See Permanent Corruption & Fate, page 197, for how to mark this.

Credit Where It’s Due

These rules started out as an idea from Christopher Lavery, after noticing that Greater Myths had Weapons with two types, which sparked conversation that lead to these rules. You have him to thank for this extra layer of temptation.

Mythender Moments & Mythic Wrath

Mythender Moments are part of what make the game work—they’re the opportunities the Mythenders have to show if they’re still mortal enough to care about and understand how the mortals around them are, or to show if they’re falling to the siren song of Mythic Power. But sometimes that can lead to Mythenders wanting to spend a long time dealing with mortals or terrorizing them, and the Mythic World waits for no Mythender.

Instead of just letting the Mythenders have one moment each, their time can take as long as they want with this extended rule. However, the more time they take, the longer the Mythic World has to prepare the next challenge for them, and may even become impatient and lash out at the Mythenders and the mortals around them.

Moments & Accumulating Wrath Points

After each Mythender Moment, the Mythmaster will roll a single die in secret, and use that to tell you what the Mythic World is doing during this time. This is represented by Wrath points, accumulating until either the Mythenders progress to their next challenge or that next challenge appears, ready to battle. The Wrath points are kept in secret, as the Mythenders are not wholly omniscient regarding the Mythic World’s machinations.

When the Mythenders’ being playing out their Moments, the Mythmaster has 0 Wrath points. After every Mythender Moment, roll a die. The number on that die adds to your Wrath points. There are a couple factors that will alter the result of the die:

• For the first Moment in a turn, subtract 3 from the result. Likewise, for the second Moment in a turn, subtract 2 from the result.
• If you think the Moment is particularly long, add 1 to the result.

If the result is zero or less, no Wrath points are gained from that Moment.

The Myth Attacks!

If the Wrath points reach the Wrath threshold (10 for three or fewer Mythenders, 13 for four), then the Mythic World has grown impatient and assaults the Mythenders. The Mythmaster will describe the next Mythic challenge appearing before or charging at the Mythenders, as well as carnage and calamity that the Myth causes. Then launch immediately into battle.

This Myth comes prepared for war: it starts with 2 more Might tokens and a number of additional Thunder dice equal to the total Wrath points minus 5. In lieu of the Might tokens, it may immediately create a Blight as part of narrating the carnage and calamity, which is usable on its first turn in battle.

When the Mythenders Proceed

If the Mythenders process to the next challenge before the Wrath points have hit the Wrath threshold, the Myth still had some time to embolden itself. If the Mythmaster has 5 Wrath points (regardless of number of players), the Myth gains 1 additional Might token. It also gains an additional amount of Thunder dice equal to the Wrath points minus 5.

Chaining Actions in Battles

On each round in battle, after the first Mythender has had an action, the other Mythenders may Chain Actions. When Describing Being Awesome, if your Mythender’s action incorporates what the Mythender immediately before you just did, then you gain 1 bonus Storm die on this roll.

This is only available if the person who went before you is a Mythender. The first Mythender to go on a round cannot use this, because the Myth just went. Likewise, if the Myth uses the Swiftness Gift, the following Mythender cannot use this option. And because you roll no Storm dice on a Titanic action, this option doesn’t do you any good then.

If you choose to use this option, the Mythmaster might add 1 to each Greater Myth’s Storm rating, to keep it interesting. Or not. The Mythic World is capricious.

Note: This rule is a small one that rewards players who pay attention and celebrate each other’s actions in battle, but it’s also one more thing to keep track of when gathering dice.

In addition, the following Gift involves Chaining Actions:

Barbed Chains

Mythenders only

When you Chain off another Mythender’s action, gain 2 bonus Storm dice instead of 1. A Mythender who Chain off your action also gain this benefit (which does not stack if she also has this Gift).

In addition, the Might cost to use the Swiftness Gift immediately after your action increases by 4.

Culling Reality

Ending gods is not enough for some Mythenders. Among those godslayers, there’s a philosophy: the Mythic World is merely a symptom of a greater problem—that existence itself is flawed and needs to be reforged. That concepts themselves must be culled if there is hope for a truly better Mortal World once all Myths are Ended.

Every Mythender has a different idea of what must be culled: grief, hunger, lust, sickness, fear, hope, the tyranny of kings, war, death, written language, and so on. Even the vaguest of notions, like the color yellow, may be destroyed.

And every Mythender has within herself the very power to unmake elements of creation. This is what we call Culling. And once something is Culled, all mortalkind forgets it had ever existed. Written records involving it are unmade. It can never again exist, and only the Mythenders who were there at the time of this Culling have memories of a time where this concept was alive in the world.

When You Can Cull

The moment you End a Greater Myth at the end of an adventure, provided you are neither dead nor fallen into Myth, you may attempt to Cull a concept. You each can only Cull one concept at this time, but the concept can be dangerously broad.

What You Can Cull

Anything that is a concept mortals understand or experience may be Culled. It can be something broadly philosophical or social (war, language, treachery, marriage), emotional (fear, hope, lust, rage), biological (hunger, death), or of the natural world (colors, gravity, wind, wolves, snow). If there’s a god that represents such a concept, that concept is fair game.

You cannot Cull concepts that are Mythic. That means not saying “I Cull Loki” or “I Cull the entire Mythic World.” (Though, see page 260…) What you Cull has no effect on the nature of Mythic beings. Nor can you Cull the “absence” of something mortals aren’t experiencing. Finally, you cannot Cull any of Mythender’s rules, including Culling itself.

How to Cull

First, the surviving Mythenders decide on what they wish to Cull, if anything. Then they roll dice to see if this time, the Cull succeeds. If anything is Culled, the Mythmaster describes the consequences in the world, whether immediate or what’s destined to happen in the future.

Deciding on What to Cull

Decide on what you’re going to attempt to Cull, if anything, as per above. The Mythmaster has the right to veto any ideas that don’t mesh with these rules, in which case talk it out and come to some other concept (or successfully justify your concept). Word your concept carefully, for it’s the letter, not the spirit, that matters.

If two or more Mythenders choose the exact same concept, word for word, they may poll their resources in the next part.

Mythenders always know what each other are about to attempt to Cull. This means that they might disagree! If you object to what another Mythender wishes to Cull, you have three options: do nothing and hope he won’t succeed, civilly talk it over and convince him to choose something else, or Murder him (which takes place before the following step).

Rolling to Cull

Each Mythender attempting to Cull gathers dice based on which of the following apply:

• 1 die if you were the one whose action Ended the Greater Myth.
• 1 die if you possess 20 or more Lightning tokens at the end of the battle (counting 2 Thunder dice for 1 Lightning); the Lightning spent to End this Myth doesn’t count.
• 1 die for every god you’ve Ended, including this one. (Only those Ended in play count, none that are part of a Mythender’s backstory.)
• 1 die for every time you’ve attempted to Cull this exact concept in the past and failed.

Then roll the dice. Discard any that don’t come up a . None of your Gifts allow you to modify this roll. For those attempting to Cull the same concept, now poll your dice together.

If the concept is directly related to the god you just Ended, then it’s Culled if you have at least two s. If the concept is not directly related, then it’s Culled if you have at least four s.

The Consequences of Culling

Once a concept has been Culled, it no longer exists and mortals neither remember it nor can conceive of it existing. The Mythmaster then describes any immediate effects that has on this scene, and the lasting effects it will have in the world—which the Mythenders instantly know of the moment the Cull happens. (Hint: expect the Mythmaster to interpret the loss of this concept as literally and as viciously as possible. That’s where the fun lies.)

That said, time itself isn’t undone; previous effects from the Culled concept existing in the world still happened. Unless you Cull time itself, I guess. Good luck figuring that one out.

Example: Beatrice Culls Lust

Beatrice’s backstory parallels Jeanne d’Arc, and she sees lust as the root of so many of the world’s evils. She seeks not to End gods because the gods are inherently wrong, but because in Ending them, she has the power to Cull lust.

As she Ends Freyja, she has her moment to “fix the world.” Her action Ended the god, she doesn’t have much Thunder or Lightning left, she’s Ended a god before this one (meaning she’s Ended two), and she failed to Cull lust last time. That means she has 4 dice to roll.

She rolls , succeeding in Culling lust! The Mythmaster then describes how in a generation, the human race will dwindle into extinction. But hey, no more lust in their hearts!

The History of this Rule

This rule existed, though in an ad hoc format, in my home campaign back in 2008. In that game, one of the Mythenders ended the concept of lust. That Mythenders could do that was part of character creation then, where you would write down the concept you most hated in the world.

The problem was that once I started playing this mostly at conventions, it was confusing. It made character creation take a bit longer, because it was so high-concept. Some people couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea. And it added a few awkward minutes to the end of a strong climatic moment. So I removed it.

For those who get it and can rock it, I salute you. Go forth and make a fucked-up reality.

Ending the Mythic World

Mythender is about adventures against individual gods with a Mythic World. It’s an episodic game, meant to be played not as a long campaign but as something fun to do here and there. So the Mythic World is implied to be full of gods and Greater Myths that are just waiting to be Ended next time you play.

Yet, the premise is that Mythenders want to End all the Myths. So, fuck it, let’s take this sucker off the chain and get really crazy. The rule is simple: when you End Mythic World’s last god, and none of the Mythenders Fall in that battle, the Mythic World itself is forever Ended.

There’s a catch: when a Mythender Falls, that creates a new god for the Mythic World... which is exactly what the Mythic World wants. At a certain point, the Mythic World wins, and curses the Mythic Hearts within the surviving Mythenders, lest they risk bringing the Mythic World to is doom.

Mythic Norden

Mythic Norden has the six Greater Myths detailed in that chapter: Thor, Odin, Freyja, Loki, Jörmungandr, and Fenrir. End them all, and Mythic Norden itself is Ended.

Should Norden ever have 12 gods, it wins. For all eternity. (Technically, if you look at all or Norse Myth, there are many gods. For the purposes of this rule, just consider six “main” gods, and the rest as less important Greater Myths—if you even bother to feature them in the campaign)

Naturally, you can play with those gods and numbers.

Ending the Mythender Curse

Does the curse of being a Mythender—of being fated to die in battle or Fall into Myth—still hold once there’s no longer a Mythic World? Do the Mythenders become mortal again, or are they damned to live out immortality, and always at risk of Falling and birthing a whole new Mythic World?

That’s a damn good question. No one yet knows the answer.

Other Mythic Worlds?

You could decide that the Mythic World that you’re playing in is the only Mythic World. Alternatively, you could have your Mythenders go to another place in reality when a different Mythic World holds sway.

(And yes, that totally means you can describe creating a character that came from another Mythic World, Ended it, and continues on.)