ROLEPLAYING MYTHIC ASCENSION

[Annika L]

After reading through the Mythic materials (Thank you Alleran for the suggestion to consider the Mythic options) for the last 2 days, I can actually see how this will sincerely benefit and empower my long term campaign. Since I won't be GMing the Wrath of the Righteous AP, I was curious to see if anyone else had role played ascension in their own campaign?

I'm not talking about the rules and game mechanics, those are pretty clear even after considering the amount of coffee I'm drinking to stay awake today :p

What I want to know is how, in your game and opinion, is ascension played out...is it purely a personal and internal thing? Is it something discussed between the pcs? Is it obvious to other people? Is it considered well or poorly by others? Is there a public display, ceremony or acknowledgement? Do the ascended look any different?

Just curious to see how anyone else has played it and what your takes on it are.

My concepts are somewhat bound to the manner and circumstances of ascension at the moment, but will likely evolve and change on further consideration as to how I'm going to be fitting it into my current campaign.

[Farastu]

Well, my players have had various sources of mythic ascension play out in game, though keep in mind this is not a game taking place in Golarion. Here's some examples though.

One character went nuclear (why and how this happened is a really really long story), which was epic because his going nuclear took out a battlefield of demons and other creatures, and left a crater stretching out for a few miles (he was the only thing left alive in the area).

Another gained mythic power by enacting a rather... disturbing ritual, though he managed to make it not nearly as nasty as the person whom went through it before him. If you want some idea of what this ritual was like, look up how dragons become dragons in Dark Sun, it was a ritual that was derived from that, and did result in the player character looking rather more draconic.

Another discovered a fragment of some artifact which looked like nothing significant, but upon picking it up it melted creepily into his skin thus merging with him. Ever since in his dreams he has heard strange whispers, and a sound, like the beating of the wings of some terrible creature getting closer, and closer.

[richard develyn]

In the module that I've just published (http://paizo.com/products/btpy93jm?Journey-to-Cathreay) - excuse the plug - I suggest you might wish to allow mythic ascension at the end when the PCs defeat a mythical beast.

This mythical beast has a myth which, to cut a long story short (well, 2 pages), describes how a human ruler (the Crimson Khan) tricked a semi-divine fey (the Emerald Queen) out of her prized possession (a tree called Sennacherib) which she then corrupted in order to spoil his victory and torment him. Since the Khan is pursuing a mythical (trickster) path himself he tricks the PCs into killing the creature.

The PCs ascension, which is optional, happens because their story arc crosses his. It's almost a side-effect, incidental to the main mythic story being told, but I quite like that as a plot device - PCs inadvertently gaining their mythic status but then being caught up in someone else's conflict. Since that encounter happens at the end the exact way that the Emerald Queen and the Crimson Khan further interfere with the PCs lives is up to you, but the point is that the ascension has a strong story element to it as well as mechanical.

Richard

[Lathiira]

In our playtest, the party ascended when we battled our way into the heart of an ancient forest, ran into a mythic monster and some VERY crazy cultists, and then had an ancient tree die. That tree dated back to that world's Cataclysm IIRC and the thing helped act as a seal against a critter from those days. The sap imbued us all with mythic power. We knew we were different, but we didn't get to see how non-mythic people interacted with us unfortunately. It's hard to miss things like the shadowdancer springing into battle, sneak attacking away. Or the cleric pulling spells out of thin air.