The Gods are by necessity distant parental figures, watching their Scions’ deeds and struggles from the Overworld except when circumstances demand an Incarnation’s intervention. Even then, such circumstances are usually too dire to include a few hours of quality time and advice over beers. Scions rely on other mentors in the day-to-day quest to find their destinies and learn a few tricks their parents never knew.
Guides can be Godly Incarnations, usually when another God has a particular fascination or liking for the character, or when Fate has insisted she play the role. They can be Legendary creatures like kitsune and dwarves, Titans and titanspawn, or arcane figures like oracles and witches. They can be other Scions with more or specialized experience, willing to play the part of older sibling for a time. Guides are usually characters, but they can be even stranger things: spirits of the dead, disembodied souls, sapient relics, the touch of prophetic dreams or visions, or even half-remembered hints and legacies left by the fingerprints of past lives.
The dot value of a guide is an indicator of its overall usefulness to the character, though that doesn’t necessarily translate into raw power. A guide with a low rating could be a mortal prophet, or it could be a potent imprisoned Titan who just can’t — or won’t — get much help to the Scion very often.
BENEFITS
A guide is both a character and a resource. The Storyguide may or may not give a guide real character traits, depending on whether he expects it to play a more active role in the story. Either way, a guide functions similarly to the way a Path does, granting an array of related benefits as the result of the Scion having earned or inherited its help. The player can invoke a guide like a Path, and can push its benefits to even greater limits in exchange for a Condition that makes the guide unavailable until it’s resolved.
The Path Condition for invoking a guide more than once is Paying Tribute.
The Scion may also call upon his guide for a deus ex machina once per arc. Only one deus ex machina may be in effect at a time. Whether by literal divine intervention, occult ritual, the fulfillment of a dire prophecy, or some other method within the guide’s power, the Scion gains the following for the rest of the scene: He acts in all ways as though he were one Tier higher than he is, and may use one boon he doesn’t know in a Purview to which he has access. In exchange, at the end of the scene, he gains the Tempted Fate Condition.