FOLLOWERS
Explanation
Many heroes of legend stood at the forefront of mighty armies, and the Followers Birthright reflects that heritage.
This trait represents the number and quality of sentient beings who are extremely loyal to the Avatar — making allowances for the variety of “sentient” beings found in classical legend, of course. Followers might consist of a small cadre of human warriors or servants, though they can also be recruited from the denizens of the realms of legend, including zombies, spartoi and even more exotic folk. As a rule of thumb, a being with intelligence and communication abilities roughly comparable to or surpassing humans are covered by the Followers Birthright, while creatures of animal intelligence (or those with limited communication abilities) fall under the auspices of the Creature Birthright. Given the breadth of human legend, this is a fuzzy line at best—the Storyteller gets the final say.
Though the trait effects listed here all assume five followers, a Avatar isn’t limited to this number. A player can opt for a greater number of weaker followers. In essence, doing so amounts to purchasing the trait multiple times. Using the listed examples, a player might allocate five dots to the Followers trait to represent 25 hoplites, four dots to represent 10 myrmidons, and so forth.
Although a Avatar’s player purchases this trait at character creation, having the dots does not imply that the character will always have access to that number of followers. If a follower dies in battle, note this on the Avatar’s character sheet in the Birthrights section. Barring a trip to the Underworld (not out of the question, considering the milieu), the follower is lost to the Avatar forever, or until other events arbitrated through roleplaying give the Avatar access to new followers.
Trait Effects
| ● | Five cops, hoplites or jaguar warriors. |
| ●● | Five zombies or berserks. |
| ●●● | Five spartoi, samurai or amazons. |
| ●●●● | Five myrmidons, einherjar or tengu. |
| ●●●●● | Five valkyries or shinobi. |
