Multiple harmful epithets

The Lounge AGON
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I’ve been preparing to run an Agon game, and I’m a little fuzzy on how harmful epithets work for Strife-controlled characters. The book seems to suggest that a foe’s epithets, or even name, may be Epic/Mythic/Perilous/Sacred. But I am unable to find answers to the following:

  • Can a foe ever have Epic/Mythic/etc. on both their name and an epithet, or on multiple epithets?
  • If a foe has multiple Perilous (for example) epithets relevant in a contest, and a hero suffers, do they take multiple ticks of pathos? Only one? What about if they have an Epic epithet and a Perilous epithet?

My guess, if I understand the spirit of the design, is “yes” to the first question, but multiple instances of the same kind of harm (Perilous+Perilous) don’t stack, but one may introduce several distinct kinds of harm (Perilous+Epic+Sacred costs Pathos to contest, and costs another pathos and some divine favor if one suffers)? But it would be nice to know if there’s some clarification in the RAW that I’m missing.

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(I replied on reddit over here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/mqxi3t/agon_rpg_how_harm_works/ but I’ll say it again here for posterity)

First question: Yes
Second question(s): No. Only one. One for Epic and anther one for Perilous.

Identical harm tags don’t stack, but you can have multiple tags on a contest if they’re different. So a contest could be Epic, Mythic, Perilous, and Sacred – if all those harm tags are in play. (I think there’s only one foe like this among the islands, the Waves of Poseidon, with a special condition – see the first Battle example on p. 118)

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Thanks for the clarification! It’s reassuring to know my guesswork didn’t miss the mark.

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