Question: Why do you guys keep the World at War pantheons non-playable? I thought you used to have a Scion of Britannia on the site somewhere, but I can't find him now.
The short answer: because most of them aren't gods.
There are a lot of things we love about the Scion: Companion book, but the World at War chapter is way not one of them. I actually think the idea of time period settings for Scion is very cool - after all, it's a game that could literally take place at any time and in any place, and any major world uprising probably has divine interference on some level - but the Yankee, Allied and dregs of Soviet pantheons are just not exciting to either of us.
The first reason is that these are figures who, for the most part, just aren't gods. It's a noble effort to explore different avenues in Scion, but there's no way to compare members of the Yankee "pantheon" to those of other world religions. There are a number of key differences; the most major is that the figures in the World at War pantheons are not and never were worshiped as gods, which is sort of counter to the entire idea of Scion. The other major issue is that there's no way these dudes are Legend 12 gods with mad powers. It's just not happening.
Look at John Henry. John Henry is a guy whose sole claim to fame is outworking a machine at his chosen profession, only to die of exhaustion as soon as he did. Is that awesome? Yes! Is it heroic? Yes! Is it exactly the thing we want Scions to be doing? Double yes! But what it isn't is godly. I think John Henry would make a great example of a lesser immortal, low-level Titanspawn or (most appropriately) a Hero-level Scion in previous times, but I don't think he ever made it past Legend 3 or so. He just doesn't have, well, legends. He doesn't have any power or oomph. He's a cool symbol and a cool story, but he's not even close to comparable to figures like Vishnu or Thor or Horus.
It's the same story for almost all the World at War "gods" introduced in Companion. John Bull? A satirical cartoon representation of a country, never taken seriously even by the people who invented him. The Citizen? An abstract concept that was never considered an entity on its own, and that's furthermore more built on other societies' perceptions of Russia than on Russia's own. Betsy Ross? Dude, her claim to fame is that she was good at sewing.
There's nothing wrong with these guys as Scions. In fact, they make great Scions; they're people doing cool, heroic things, just beginning to build legends that could one day grow up and become gods. But as they are, there's no contest. They're beings of folklore (that is, traditions or folk beliefs of a culture), not mythology (that is, religions that were once worshiped by a culture). They certainly can have a place in Scion, but that place is not among the ranks of such figures as Amaterasu and Zeus.
There are actually a few exceptions to our uniform disapproval of the World at War pantheons. Britannia is a legitimate goddess; she might have originally been a mere personification of a territory the Romans were busy conquering, but she became a minor deity in her own right during their occupation of Britain (they're Romans, after all. If it sits still long enough for them to notice it, it's probably going to get deified). Art exists of her peering regally over the British Isles or (less regally) being crushed beneath the conquering heel of Mars. Baba Yaga is another possible exception; she may be a folkloric figure now, but many scholars believe that she was originally a goddess of magic and women and was only demoted to the status of witch by the relentless campaign of the Christian Church to replace indigenous Slavic beliefs with their own. Finally, Rodina Mat is an unlikely contender for legit goddesshood: her roots lie in the dearly-beloved Moist Mother Earth, a Slavic goddess worshiped under many names in many areas for her fertile bounty.
But even if you keep these three as deities, they probably aren't Legend 12. Britannia's legend is what - that she got her ass kicked by Mars? Join a vast and mostly not Legend 12 club. Baba Yaga may have once been important, but obviously not important enough to stand the test of time, and most people will just stare at you in confusion if you try to draw a connection between Rodina Mat/Mother Russia/Moist Mother Earth/any of the Slavic gods at the end of that road.
And that's okay. Not everybody has to be Legend 12. But there you have it: we don't use the World at War gods because, well, they aren't gods, and the few that are aren't up to snuff as divine parent material. You could (and should, if you want to) absolutely use them as lesser immortals, low-Legend gods or Scions in your games, but as people on an equal footing with Ra and Huang Di? Nope. Just a big nope.
(By the way, we did in fact at one time have a Scion of Britannia, an unfortunate young man by the name of Kent of Kentington. He was an early experiment; as one of the first characters in our Hong Kong game, we allowed it because we thought it would be interesting, as a large part of the setting involved dealing with the divine repercussions of Hong Kong reverting from British rule back to the Chinese. In the end, however, Kent was not a successful experiment and he disappeared from the site to make room for the legions of PCs with more developed and interesting stories.)
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