International Adoption Agency

Question: I understand the basics of Scion Adoptions, but I was hoping you could clear something up. All the examples I've found have been one god's child being adopted by another god from the same pantheon, but what about cross pantheon adoptions (such as a Scion of Hermes being adopted by Loki)? Would such an adoption be possible, and if so how?

Such an adoption is totally possible by the rules; all you need to adopt somebody else's kid is their consent and someone who can cast the Scion Adoption Rite spell. There's no restriction on whose child you can adopt; any parent or pantheon is fair game as long as all the rules of handing a Scion over are observed. Those rules can be tricky; both the original parent and the new parent have to be present (so if the old parent has gone Titan or is dead and stuck in an Underworld or something, that might be problematic), the Scion can't have been visited yet (because once a Scion has received a Visitation, his or her ichor is attuned permanently to the divine parent), and, most importantly, the original parent has to give consent for the new parent to take over the child. Loki could certainly adopt Hermes' child, but Hermes would have to okay the switch; there's no way to steal someone else's Scion short of busting out The Wyrd and hoping for the best.

Flavor and setting, however, play a big role in who's adopting whom and are probably a major reason you don't see too many cross-pantheon adoptions. Scions are the most effective soldiers and weapons of a pantheon; there needs to be a compelling reason (like an old debt or favor, for example) for one pantheon to want to give up that potential power to another. Why give away your supersoldier to the Aesir when you need more help right here on the Dodekatheon front lines? Gods are also probably wary of giving their kids to someone who might one day use them against them (and that goes for adoptions within a pantheon as well as outside of it).

These might be the reasons you don't see very many examples of cross-pantheon adoption, but that doesn't mean you can't do it for a PC! If you've got a great idea for why it happened, it can be a good way to make that character unique and give them ties to more than one set of gods, paving the way for stories to come. I wouldn't overuse the idea in a bunch of characters, but I'd say go for it otherwise.