So, one of the aspects of mythic games is that, eventually you'll gain mythic power. Hopefully, for more than just "reasons". Until recently, in my game, that had been the case. But no more! I've managed to get an idea I find pretty interesting.
My current character (a magus named Willmagia, yes, not terribly original) is a “race builder” created race that’s supposed to be a conglomerated half-breed of several races (including at least humans, elves, and clockwork constructs). So I thought this would be fitting source of mythic power:
The curse of blending:
Long ago, in some place of which no-one is certain of, alien intelligences questioned themselves. How could one achieve the perfect being? Was it the psychic gestalt of the gods, sustained by the power of their petty followers? Was it the great elemental powers given form? Was it the dark minds sleeping in the depths of the void? They became convinced that the lesser creatures, the mere sentients that where found everywhere, could reveal previously unknown power. Each possessed surprising power, exceptional abilities. If only they could all be harnessed in one being…
Thus began the curse of blending, the longest-lasting genetic algorithm in existence. It started with several half-breeds, half-elves, half-orcs, planetouched & others. All were given the “curse of blending”, a mysterious command in the back of their minds. This command pushes them to explore the most unexpected partnerships when attempting to breed. They can only be attracted to a mate that presents traits completely foreign to them.
For example, a half-elf with the curse would never desire to mate with a vanilla human or elf. They might, however, want to mate with a half-human tiefling, since it has traits foreign to it.
This can lead to some odd pairings. In some cases, wish or miracle had to be used to create viable offspring. And yet, it seems to be working. Most creatures born from such pairings present much advantages over conventional races. There has even been observed the appearance of some “local maxima” of the merit function, as can be seen in the case of the magus Willmagia who spontaneously gained mythic power. Slowly but surely, the experiment is working. Someday in the future, a perfect being will be created.
No one currently knows much about the curse beyond its effects. The magus Willmagia has (will) studied the effects of the curse, realising that it’s more of a genetic trait than a curse. He has investigated it’s origin, to no avail. Too many suspects and too little evidence. Nonetheless, the curse does its job. One day, the hordes of sentients will birth the perfect being.
TLDR: Since my character was a weird custom mix of several races, I decided he should be one of several possible results of an ancient experiment attempting to create "perfect" beings. While he certainly isnt the final result, he has been able to gain mythic power because of his weird blend of races. While my character doesnt know about it, the GM liked it enough to accept it as the source of my power.
So I've been wondering: other than the "standards" proposed by the books, how have YOUR characters gained mythic power? What weirdness has the community thought of?
We don't play with mythic, but after skimming through the book I got an idea for a super mythic PC based on the standards Paizo provided. Behold!
So I figure, you find yourself the great war between two armies, use poison to hit the water supplies, weaken them up, then hit them with artillery before charging in cutting your way through all of them. You bring the banners from another nation, and make it look like they were responsible. This draws that nation into the war and makes sure that while you ended one war, you've started another. So now, you teach one side how to defend their nation from the other, then you help them win the war, but offer the other side a chance to survive by defending themselves through the use and mastery of devils, leading to the infernally binding contract. Now, you've earned the attention of the 4 gods, and have a reputation as a military powerhouse. Once the war is almost over because one side is nearly obliterated, you take those people aside and subject them to the Zon-Kuthon thing.
Ta da, you've now got 5 gods all very impressed at what you've accomplished. Now, actually doing it would probably be a campaign in and of itself.
I played a Lizardfolk Ranger who spelunked for a living. He found an ancient abolethic artifact where they attempted to make their own version of the Starstone and was zapped with mythic power in a ruin.
Cool character, shame I didn't get to play him much before the campaign tanked. He was supposed to be in a mythic Rise of the Runelords game. His backstory was his tribe got pushed from their homelands into the sea by giants and he washed up at Sandpoint after being swept out to sea.
Nice ideas. Hoping to hear form more folks.
For the mythic playtest I had a character that was part of an evil organization that had gotten hold of an artifact longbow that contained mythic power. She had been chosen to wield the artifact on behalf of the organization.
Empowered by the artifact she became an extremely lethal agent of the organization, but the power was a bit too much for her. She had the insanity mythic drawback as a result. She was essentially a non-mythic character with power beyond her control.
The playtest campaign was pretty short. By the campaign's end she had attempted to kill one other PC for their similar mythic artifact, who opted to destroy it instead, and ended up murdering another one after the campaign had ended.
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Current campaign my paladin got her mythic power after beating the 'hell' out of Satan's Butler a few times in the defense of an innocent soul contained in a soul gem. Her deity was directly involved in the victory, however, and the implication seems to be that the deity is slowly ascending her to Goddess of the Gnomes or something along those lines.
There may have been some other magical things involved, but my knowledge-less paladin hasn't found out what those things were.
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The campaign I'm DMing has mythic power, though no PC has claimed it. Mythic power is an ancient power thought to be similar to the power of the Divines that has existed for the longest time, but has been lost and forgotten. Only fairly recently has it been reawakened by the threat of apocalypse. If they want to get it, they'll have to find a way to claim it.
Age of Worms campaign I'm running my group through. There's only 3 of them, so I added mythic to the game to help balance it out. After the second book, they encounter an aspect of the overgod, a combination of Hextor, Vecna, and Eruthnal. It was a pretty nasty fight, and was almost a TPK, as I expected it would be. But at the moment when death was near immanent, I gave them each a flash card that had all their new bonuses and stats on them, they gained some extra hit points and a mass cure mod wounds was cast on the party. Giving them a chance against the beast whom they then toppled backward into the pit of mysterious black liquid.
I'm playing a Monk of the Four Winds and an Admixture Fireball Wizard in Legacy of Fire (we had a Sorcerer who was supposed to be the Arcane guy but he was unreliable and I played the Wizard during sessions he wasn't present and then he just stopped showing up entirely).
We were trapped in another dimension and trying to escape. To do so, we had to find 4 keys to open up an gate that happened to be the 'backdoor' to the dimension. The last key, and the gate, were being guarded by a Mythic Red Dragon that crystals all over his hide, on a volcanic island. Previous to this, we had found a giant wielding a +5 Club made out of crystals. When we defeated the dragon, the crystal club and the crystals imbedded in the dragons hide began resonating until they exploded in burst of millions of shards of crystals that killed everyone near by. After we died, the crystals were absorbed by our bodies and we were resurrected with our first Mythic Tier.
My Monk also happens to have a weird fungus growing on his arm that lets him wield a powerful relic. This makes the second time he's been attacked and empowered by an external force.
I play in a homebrew world. All of the PC's were born during a week when our plane briefly touches the edge of another (due to the actions of our party in a previous campaign), and that interaction gave us our mythic powers. The planes touch every ten years, which keeps the number of mythic heroes (and villains) relatively low.
I'm planning on DMing a homebrew game, revolving around destroying an ancient vampire-- one of the originals, from the plane of shadows. I don't have the Blood of the Night book on hand to get the exact name of these old ones. At some point, I plan on this vamp, using the Mythic Vampire template, infecting the players.
I hope to have them eventually find a way to cure themselves of the vampirism, and as a result of having been infected by one of the first vampires, then curing themselves, it unlocks their mythic potential. That's what I hope to happen, at least. We'll see if it happens.
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I'm gonna modify the Eureka Rib in Citadel of pain to grant Mythic powers as well as it's usual bonuses.
My monk achieved his Mythicness through dying and coming back: He went on a walkabout of the outer planes to come back to the Prime Material, giving him a deeper understanding of how the universe worked (Mythic Power Wisdom stat).
[Disclaimer: just my own opinion] I don't really see characters as gaining mythic power. I mean, I guess in certain situations they could. But I see the mythic abilities (much like many other abilities, such as hero points) as abilities of the player as much as the character. Your rogue doesn't conciously decide to spend a hero point, that's the player doing it on behalf of his character because he wants him to achieve something great in the story. In some cases merely plot devices. It's simply a rules way to explain how your character can do certain things. But, mostly, your character can do that stuff because he just is that badass. Merlin, Arthur, Gandalf, Raistlin. These guys were all just epic. The mythic abilities just gives a way in the rules for your characters to achieve the things that legends will be told of later.
I haven't heard of mythic drawbacks before, can you point me to some info on this?
Possibly because they're actually called Mythic Flaws. Insanity was renamed Mercurial Mind.
my group and I just started an evil campaign in which we were all brought back from the dead by an evil god in order to fulfill his nefarious ends. we were all pretty decent as whatever it was we did before we died (my character was a magic wielding assassin) and this god felt it prudent to "augment" these skill sets so that we may better fulfill he needs. Basically we're out on parole so long as we do what we're told.
Our players led a drunken Cayden Cailean through the Trial of the Starstone.
I am currently writing up a campaign in which the PCs go Mythic by gaining access to mecha suits, basically their mythic abilities are tied to their mecha, they also give them some nice ability score bonuses.
I am currently writing up a campaign in which the PCs go Mythic by gaining access to mecha suits, basically their mythic abilities are tied to their mecha, they also give them some nice ability score bonuses.
how will you make this work mechanically? Iron-man Suits? or more like Eidolons?