From a lore perspective, yes. You absolutely can have the Echo. The Path of the Twelve in 1.0 - the precursor to the modern Scions - was made up of near-exclusively people who used the Echo, and I recently was reminded of someone commenting that there were thousands of Path linkpearls in circulation. That puts the odds of just being in the Path of the Twelve about on par with living in a particular ward of the Goblet. Already not a super small pool, but add to that the Path was only made up of people who were identified as having the Echo - therefore possessing some strength with the ability - and those who elected to join a weird cult.Â
As for how it goes in RP, one of my characters possesses a limited form of the Echo. Generally speaking, it's only used to translate things and as a plot device only when the person GMing a storyline demands. Much like the actual story, I play it as something that's uncontrolled and only invoked to move a plot along by that plot's writer. I also have decided that, though not really grounded in lore, I would add some side-effects of her (quite rare) Echo visions - she goes into convulsions most of the time, sometimes she'll move around like she's sleepwalking, she gets terrible nightmares and often intense physical pain. I basically took the WoL's headaches and thought "Well, they're the freakin' Warrior of Light, what would happen to a poor random researcher if one of these hit her?"Â
Also, for Echo visions, consider the general portrayal of visions in fiction - it's quite common that those snapshots will lead the person viewing them to the wrong conclusion. This isn't played around much with in Echo visions nowadays, but a lot of visions in fiction will be a snapshot from which the person seeing it will draw the wrong conclusion.
I've had some RP groups hint to me that regardless of how well it's done, they would never RP with this character, but more than that have told me that the way it's handled and balanced is well enough that they would with her despite general discomfort with the idea. So, like most things you can do as an RPer, the Echo being more broadly acceptable is mostly in how you use it.
As for how it goes in RP, one of my characters possesses a limited form of the Echo. Generally speaking, it's only used to translate things and as a plot device only when the person GMing a storyline demands. Much like the actual story, I play it as something that's uncontrolled and only invoked to move a plot along by that plot's writer. I also have decided that, though not really grounded in lore, I would add some side-effects of her (quite rare) Echo visions - she goes into convulsions most of the time, sometimes she'll move around like she's sleepwalking, she gets terrible nightmares and often intense physical pain. I basically took the WoL's headaches and thought "Well, they're the freakin' Warrior of Light, what would happen to a poor random researcher if one of these hit her?"Â
Also, for Echo visions, consider the general portrayal of visions in fiction - it's quite common that those snapshots will lead the person viewing them to the wrong conclusion. This isn't played around much with in Echo visions nowadays, but a lot of visions in fiction will be a snapshot from which the person seeing it will draw the wrong conclusion.
I've had some RP groups hint to me that regardless of how well it's done, they would never RP with this character, but more than that have told me that the way it's handled and balanced is well enough that they would with her despite general discomfort with the idea. So, like most things you can do as an RPer, the Echo being more broadly acceptable is mostly in how you use it.
