The other day we were going through some of the rules, and we got onto Twilight and Twilight Scars.
The SG pointed out that my character has Plagued by Supernatural Creature - Peryton, a chimeric Bjornaer Great Beast, with examples of Twilight Scars.
Specifically her Heartbeast was originally a reindeer, and later chimerically gained Eagle wings. I also stated that the maga had a couple of twilight scars, say the heartbeast had the jaws and appetite of a wolf, and in both forms casts the shadow of the maga as she was just prior to initiation into the Heartbeast mystery.
Then the SG pointed out that a maga who had reached Final Twilight should have far more Twilight Scars. Some of these would be affecting the Heartbeast, and would be carried into Great Beast form. I couldn't argue against that, once he pointed out that the two twilight scars I had specified would be the most obvious ones.
Then the SG gave the group an exercise, one by one we would each flip a coin to decide if it was a good or bad Twilight experience and then invent a likely sounding Twilight scar, and this would go on until there were 10 scars for the Beast. The SG would moderate and reject inappropriate scars (he rejected "the reflection of yourself you see in the Beast's eyes is what you look like in one year's time").
From my notes:
3) Everybody feels a little happier to each other when the Beast is around.
4) There is a large, fluorescent tattoo of Santa Claus smoking a cigar on the Beast's left butt/rump - SG declares no-one in 13th Century recognises Santa Claus or the cigar, and the tattoo is almost totally hidden underneath the fur.
5) Instead of going clicketty clack, the Beast's hoofbeats go jingle jangle like sleigh bells - SG declares that it is only as loud as the normal hoofbeat would have been.
6) The antlers are soft and spongey like Nerf.
7) Its voice has high pitched overtones, and when excited it causes the dog in the next yard to howl.
8 ) Nothing blue in colour can scratch the Beast.
9) The Beast is half invisible if you look at it with one eye closed. Unseen if both eyes closed.
10) Whenever the Beast stops moving, a bunch of flies congregate - SG specifies that it is always 12 flies and one whining mosquito.
Has anyone else's character picked up interesting Twilight Scars?
While I suspect that my character's dignity has been impugned by nerfing the antlers of my Plagued by Supernatural Creature, I am more worried by 10) - it could be interpreted that my SG is dissing my character's House.
But no-one has replied.
Which makes me wonder, has anyone else's character suffered a temporary Twilight incident?
If so, what scars did you get?
We have a maga who works as the village wise-woman. One of her twilight scars is that she can instantly tell the number and gender of any unborn children. The information basically slaps her in the face. Makes her a bit bad-tempered because it happens every time she sees the womans stomach area, even if she only looked away for a moment.
We had another magus who could tell the gold content of something when he touched it, and was compelled to mention it out loud.
We had a bjornaer magus whose heartbeast was a raven. He occasionally dropped feathers...
Other examples that I have heard of:
A man whose shadow was always behind him - even if he was facing away from the sun.
A lady who would have flames appear in her hair - a trick of the light, illusion, or read flames - no-one dared ask her.
A man who could never get drunk
A girl who was compelled to dance to every tune she heard
A woman whose hair always stood on end due to static electricity
A sort of reverse Touch of Midas, with nearly as many complications.
I presume he wears gloves to reduce the number of things he touches, though leafing through lab notes must be a pain.
The number of Concentration rolls.
Lets not forget eating, drinking, and maybe even licking the tip of your writing quill.
Thank goodness my group didn't have as much imagination as your full list.
I used some of the core rulebook (the tytalus is levitating at 1cm, the Flambeau one cannot be hit by rain) and some custom ones : the hands of a Criamon maga are followed by tiny shining spiderweb strands ; a Merinita maga has her hair inexpectedly switching to her favourite colour.
I meant to post this a while back, but issue 10 of Sub Rosa has a metric ton of Twilight Scars-- benign, malign, and quirky-- for a lot of spells in the core rules. I can't recall the exact number, but it's in the dozens.
Muto Corpus
Example Spell: Arm of the Infant Benign: The magus’ fingers, toes, ears, and nose are noticeably small and pudgy, but otherwise functional. Malign: One of the magus’ arms and legs is noticibly shorter than the other. Quirky: The maga’s appearance becomes slightly asymmetrical, but changes with each full moon. One eye or ear may be higher or larger than the other, fingers may be different lengths, and so forth.
It includes guidelines for when to make a Benign, Malign, or Quirky Twilight Scar. There are 3 for each Art combination, soooo, 150 total.