Thursday, June 7, 2012

Eyes in the Sky

Question: What's up with the Sun Disk and Moon Disk of the Egyptians? Are they a just Relics the Pesedjet created or are they a more unique Birthright for the Egyptian gods? Most importantly, if they are a Birthright (and not just an affectation of the Gods), what the hell would they do?

The sun and moon disks of the Egyptian gods are, like most of their iconography, symbolic; when you see a god with the sun disk on his or her head, you know that's a god associated with the Sun, just as when you see Sobek's crocodilian face you know he's a god associated with crocodiles. It's an artistic device to show what various gods are associated with in one quick glance, just as Celtic gods might be shown with the wheel of the seasons turning behind them but not actually all own giant wheels that they tote around. Egyptian gods have such a vast array of artistic objects they wear on their heads that I'd only suggest making them actual relics when you have a really good reason to. Otherwise you're going to have to give Meskhenet a relic uterus with ovaries that she wears on her head, and things are going to get weird from there.

I would say, however, that if you really want to make the disks into actual relics, Ra is probably the one guy who legitimately owns a sun-disk style relic; it probably gives mad bonuses to Sun and mad resistances to Darkness, as well as giving buffs to Command, Presence, and other Ra-style behavior. It might also have the unique power of being lendable to other gods he trusts with it, so when Horus or Sekhmet is running around with the sun-disk, it's not that they're the preeminent sun god but rather that Ra is letting them use it for a while. Thoth would probably be the owner of the corresponding theoretical moon-disk relic, though I could also see keeping it with one of the really ancient moon personifications like Iah.

But in general, I'd keep actually relic-izing a lot of the Egyptian icons to a minimum. If it's something that makes sense, like a scepter or an ankh or a flail, by all means, relic away, but if it's something that's clearly artistic shorthand for the god's attributes itself, it probably doesn't need to be formalized that way. (And that way, your PCs can look forward to being drawn with the disk, too, even if they don't want to spend relic points on making it a Birthright!)

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