The X-COM-inspired Scion Idea
I’ll just dump the ideas that inspired this one, to get into it. First off, there’s this note I left myself, as a voice-to-text recording, after my cousin’s wedding, in Maine:
All right the party starts at a wedding. Unbeknownst to the party the wedding is infiltrated by cultists. The cultists worship some elder god one that lives deep beneath the ocean unknown to mankind. At the wedding the adventure begins with the party celebrating. After a few drinks suddenly the music shifts in tone and they start to notice odd glyphs glowing on the walls. As they glance around themselves they noticed that certain members of the wedding guests whom they had not been introduced to perhaps guests whom had previously not even been aware of draw ceremonial daggers. The party has an option they can stay and fight or they can escape into the Mist filled evening of the small town that the event is taking place in. The remainder of the adventure is the party trying to make their way back to their room to get their car keys to escape. The final boss so to speak of the adventure is a corrupted moose that the party encounters on a misty Road in the town.
A quick aside: the wedding took place in a small town called Belfast, and at night it got legit foggy. Like, I understand why you might think spooky shit is about to happen in these little towns along the coast in New England now.
Anyway, that’s part 1. Here’s part two, which is a journal entry of mine from 2023, December 23:
Table starts as a free-form RPG, no character sheets. Story is about a small town that the party is visiting for leisure. Nice town, welcoming, one-street-light type vibe. That evening, party gathers for dinner at the local restaurant (yes, the restaurant. And the bar.), when the town’s doctor runs in, frantic, babbling, white as a sheet. Folks try to calm him down, party hears something about Joan coming back from the dead. The sheriff, sitting at the bar with his deputy, overhears what’s going on, reassures the doctor that doesn’t happen, and offers to go take a look. Him and the deputy leave.
Unless party does something, dinner continues. Doctor is escorted to a table, given a drink, where he just stares at it. Folks start to loosen up a bit, jokes about the doc sniffing too many embalming vapors. Sheriff and deputy don’t return.
After dinner, party leaves the restaurant, and out on to the street. Inevitably they pass by the police station, and see the doors ajar, and lights on. They hear a gunshot, then silence. Perhaps something else to hook them into investigating.
Anyway, some other stuff happens, they find the zombie Joan, and the dead-but-infected sheriff, and the infected-but-not-dead-yet deputy. Deputy recounts what happens, Joan and the sheriff attack.
If the party manages to take them out, the building gets suddenly bathed in light, and a man in a suit approaches them. He tells them that they’ve encountered some strange stuff, and gives them a choice: they can known more, or they can know less. If they choose to know less, that’s the end of that character. If they choose to know more, that’s how the campaign continues. Then it becomes X-COM THE RPG BABEEE!
Here’s what I’m thinking:
- All characters start with baseline stats
- Between each session, characters can take one “training”, which improves some of their stats. Examples:
- Basic Training: +1 everything
- Combat Training: +1 combat stuff
- Special Operations Training: +1 sneaky stuff
- Officer Training: +1 combat stuff, +1 social stuff, requires Basic Training first.
- Each session is a mission, with a clear objective, that the group must accomplish. Can take inspiration from some of the Open X-COM missions I’ve seen:
- Crop circles appearing, and need to subdue crazed farmers
- Cults. Lots of cult stuff
- Zombies
- Strange life forms, cryptobiology stuff (big foot, yeti, chupacabra, etc.)
- Each success brings new technology, equipment, and training.
- Some kind of resource management tied to researching new technology, training, equipment, and such. Keep it simple, similar to training perhaps: between each session, group decides what research to pursue.
“Then it becomes X-COM THE RPG BABEEE!” Easy peasy. Thanks for reading.
The little extra bits in that list is part of what’s inspiring my own system, which maybe I’ll detail in a later entry. Also, this entry was most certainly inspired in part by Joan Crawford, by Blue Oyster Cult. What I want to talk about now is modifying these above ideas into the beginning of a Scion campaign.
The gist of it is similar: the PC’s will be initiates in a globe-spanning secret organization that tries to tackle dealing with that “strange stuff” that folks encounter. My current idea is that the PC’s start with a handler, and as the party progresses they get to meet higher-ups. The organization is run by a demi-god of Bast, the Egyptian cat-headed goddess, and employs both scions and mortals that have been gifted knowledge of this secret world.
Now, my campaigns tend to be a bit railroad-y because I really like telling stories. I don’t try to stop player characters from doing much, but I try to finish telling the story I want to tell. In this case, I think I can avoid some of that, due to the nature of the “adventures” being rather episodic. It’s a bit like The X-Files, or like X-COM: each adventure is mostly self-contained, with some themes running throughout. The strange life-forms appearing in a small town, the result of some Titan cultists getting up to no good. Damn kids.
The twist (always a twist; very essential) is that the organization might not be all good guys. Gods have their ambitions, and just because some of them are fighting against “evil” forces doesn’t mean they’re all friends. Heck, this isn’t even the only globe-spanning secret organization that tries to tackle dealing with that “strange stuff” that folks encounter. If the party doesn’t want to join, they might get approached by another organization. Maybe they’re not exactly given an option to join, but forced to. Maybe another organization breaks them out, and now the party has to figure out how to move forward. In any case, I want to tell my story. The story here is that Bast has joined the Titans, and thus this organization actually works for them. While it keeps up the facade of doing “good guy” stuff, that’s only to throw-off the newbies from the real missions.
What about those other organizations? I’m gonna say other organization. Singular. I don’t think we need too many more. There can be the Bast-based one, then a second one, and then an independent network of underground do-gooders that know what’s going on, obviously don’t trust the Bast one, but also don’t like the second one. Like the conspiracy guys from X-Files: they trust Moulder, kind-of, but they sure-as-heck don’t trust The Government.
Summarize
Here’s the gist thus far:
Party experiences some “strange stuff,” after which they are approached by a man in a suit, who invites them to a secret organization of other scions and demi-gods devoted to dealing with other “strange stuff” happenings.
At this point is a junction: the party can accept the invitation, or refuse. Refusal might mean being abducted and imprisioned. This would then prompt a rescue attempt by the other secret organization. This would then present another junction: the party can join with the other organization, or strike it out on their own.
Path 1: The OG Secret Organization
Accepting the invitation brings the PC’s into the Bast-based secret organization. They are quickly initiated into the goings-on, perhaps even given some nice gear, and are given a task.
Path 2: The Other Secret Organization
Joining their rescuers, the PC’s are immediately told the truth about the first organization, and are asked to help bring them down. They are given some nice gear, and are given a task.
Path 3: The Wildcard Option
The party either escapes on their own, avoids entirely the abduction from the OG Secret Organization, or refuses to join the Other Secret Organization. They now have a known antagonistic force (OG Secret Organization), and a shady uncertain second force (Other Secret Organization). They must fend for themselves, potentially against both.
Specifics
Here’s what remains; the details that need doing:
- The “strange stuff” initial encounter.
- Why is the party together for this “strange stuff” to happen? Is is happenstance? Scions are drawn to each-other, and to titan-spawn activities, so that’s an easy enough explanation.
- NPC Deets
- Man In A Suit probably should have stats
- Actual names for actual things
Then there’s the meta-game stuff. I need to remember how to play Scion, and also need to feel confident enough to run a game of Scion. I’ll likely stick to the First Edition of the game, since that’s what I know best, but I’ve heard the Second Edition introduces some nifty things.
And, of course, the game needs a party! And scions become scions when they get visited by their divine parent/guardian. That generally includes handing them their divine gifts, and some brief explanations of things, though not always. So either the party already had their visits, or that happens as part of this adventure.
Conclusion
I think it’s a fun start. It leaves things relatively open-ended for me as a storyteller to build some smaller missions, while still building an over-arching narrative to dip into when I wish. It does help with scheduling as well, since each “self-contained” mission won’t necessarily need all members there. That also means it could be a game with many party members, and once a threshold of players is met, we run a session.
This is a post in the 2026 Blaugust Series. You can find more details here. If I get my act together, I’ll include a link to an index, or a list of other posts related to Blaugust 2026 right here. Thanks for reading this ramble. Be good, do good, go Bills.