But today, I want to fix something in Chariot.
OK, so Matt McFarland's recent review of Chariot had a lot of good things to say about my game (which you can still buy here) and a few pertinent criticisms, the two which are most in line with my own feelings being that the game provides few examples of play (which I'll write up in Cosmic Memory) and that the Lover's Boon is weak and fiddly. And it is.
And I fought with that one; the Lover was the Fate that had the Boon which changed between playtests and final form; it was the character who I had the most trouble visualising.
So. I'm going to include two alternative Boons for the Lover here. It's up to you which you choose. The first is the original one, from the draft; the second is new, and my opinion, better. The Lover still only gets one Boon. If you choose one of these it replaces the Boon in the Chariot rulebook.
Your Boon is this: You travel at will between the sexes, and you can live in two places.
Male, female, all gradations and variations between and none at all. You can do this at will, the transformation happening in no more than a blink of an eye. More, alone of all the humans on the planet, you can truly bilocate; you have the unique ability divide yourself into two complete and entirely independent beings, one male, the other female, and exist in two places at the same time.
Your Boon is this: You bring violence to an end.
Others begin the cycle of violence; you end it. With a word, a blow, a cry, the imposition of your body in the fray, you bring violent confrontations to a sudden end. It may not be the end you desire; your act may kill a person, or bring calamity to the wrong side (you deflect a sword and it cleaves the heart of an innocent, causing everyone to stop; you shout and the general of the army looks up and receives an arrow in her eye; you leap between the warring brothers and take the blow meant for the elder) but the fight is done.
