Is Transcendent the limit?

[white33]

How physically beautiful can you really get? At the point in which one reaches ideal proportions, perfect symmetry, flawless mathematically perfect features and unblemished physique, raw physical beauty has reached it´s peak; Anything beyond is charisma, an appeal to personal/cultural tastes and/or some sort of supernatural addendum. I would guess "Transcendent" looks is supposed to represent just that physically perfect paragon, by definition unreachable to humans.

It should be noted as well that if translated into proper game terms, most real world celebrities/models hailed as "sexiest/hottest/most beautiful" should not qualify for anything beyond handsome/beautiful in terms of raw physical beauty, their lure is enhanced by charisma/status/wealth/fame/propaganda/etc. If you look at mythology Gods/Supernaturals should work in similar, though superior, manner.

If you want, you may ponder buying appearance in levels if you consider that it can be built as:

Charisma; Sense based: Vision - 4 points/level
and
Charisma; Sense based: Vision; Accessibility: Only those sexually attracted to the character's gender - 3 points/level

So, if you want, say, a male God with +3/+11 reaction bonus for men/women respectively based on looks, it would cost you 12+24(3 levels+8 levels of the above traits) points for a total of 36 points.

[Ragitsu]

I'd figure the limits of beauty are only conceived of by our limited (by universal standards in a setting where gods exist) human minds. After that, it's sensory overload.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

I'd figure the limits of beauty are only conceived of by our limited (by universal standards in a setting where gods exist) human minds. After that, it's sensory overload.

But that would make such beauty painful and therefore not pleasant to look at. Kind of a catch-22.
But as long as we realize that real beauty is in the interpretation by the beholder, rather than something real, it's all good.
My girlfriend is the most beautiful creature in the world. I know that with all my heart, but also know that it's just my biased viewpoint and everyone else will disagree.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by white33

How physically beautiful can you really get?

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

I'd figure the limits of beauty are only conceived of by our limited (by universal standards in a setting where gods exist) human minds. After that, it's sensory overload.

*nods*

Very Beautiful is as good as you can expect anyone to ever realistically get. Transcendent is sort of an impossible ideal of beauty: all the glamor of a Hollywood starlet without the need for make-up or airbrushing or surgical enhancement. She just wakes up in the morning, yawns, tosses her hair, and looks devastating.

Beyond that, people start getting discussing things like "Men cannot possibly resist her seduction attempts" or "people fall to their knees in worship before her," and that point, you're really talking a sort of Power set based on Beauty.

[David Johnston2]

Yeah, there's an example with the Minga Maids from the Northwest Smith universe. The ones they sell are Beautiful to Very Beautiful. But they keep the Transcendent ones back, and beyond them the result is no longer beauty but a Terror check for any human who looks at them.

[Ragitsu]

I can understand Awe, but Terror is a little difficult to comprehend.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

I can understand Awe, but Terror is a little difficult to comprehend.

Northwest has to make sanity checks, no matter what you call it.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

I can understand Awe, but Terror is a little difficult to comprehend.

In a general sense, it's something so perfect, so beautiful, that you have no choice but to see the imperfections and ugliness of your own body and soul - with a huge emphasis on the "soul" part. In a more mundane setting, the Crakers/Children of Crake in Oryx and Crake seem to have this - Snowman can't stand to be near them for long, as they seem so perfect that they show him his own ugliness.


On the subject of mythologies, however, I'll note that there doesn't seem to be a huge general divide between mortals and gods in terms of appearance. The gods are always (with some notable exceptions) clean and well-dressed, which is an improvement over typical humans, but humans who have a comparable level of appearance - Helen, Paris, Narcissus, etc - are not exceedingly uncommon. This implies that either the gods generally do not have Transcendant Appearance, or that it is possible for humans to reach this level. Note also that one of the points of the Paris myth wasn't that he thought one of the goddesses to be more beautiful than the others - or even that he actually had difficulty determining this - but rather that he had difficulty deciding amongst what each had offered him (power from Hera, military prowess from Athena, Helen from Aphrodite). I'd expect Aphrodite to have the highest appearance, with Hera and Athena approximately tied (Athena might have better "base appearance," but Hera knows better what to do with it - which is an important part of GURPS Appearance). In ranking them, I'd probably put Aphrodite and Artemis (and thus Apollo, for that matter) as Transcendent, with Athena and Hera as Very Beautiful. Under this scheme Helen is probably "merely" Very Beautiful - if you bump Athena and Hera up one, you'd probably have to boost Helen as well.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Two points about the Greek gods and myths in particular:

First, anytime you are discussing a TL1 society (the time in which most of the myths are set) or a TL2 society (for Classical Greece) you have to ask how many adults still had all their teeth, and how prematurely aged they were by sun, disease, battle, malnutrition, toil, or (for the women) nonstop pregnancy since they were barely old enough to menstruate. This of course begs the question of how truly generic or universal an Average appearance is: the person who doesn't stick out in a crowd in TL2 Athens would probably be short and unhealthy by our standards.

Compared to that, a god who would be Very Beautiful/Handsome by our standards might be even more amazing by ancient standards. Greek gods don't have to worry about malnutrition or disease or losing their teeth, let alone aging, and with some exceptions like Hephaistos most of them aren't born ugly.


The second thing to consider is whether mortals are even able to perceive, or survive seeing, a god in their true form. Semele died when Zeus showed her his true form. Since he's a god of lightning (among other things) she was burned to a crisp, but it's possible that mortals can't perceive the full effect of the greater gods' Appearance, either. Or else Terror comes into play. When they wish, they can appear to be ordinary mortal humans.

What book are Awe and Terror in? Are they in Basic or Powers? Are they Innate Attacks?

[Ragitsu]

The Terror Advantage is in the Characters book, and the rules for Awe are in the Powers book.