Master of the High Seas

Question: I'm playing a Scion of Tangaroa in a new game, and I was just curious as to what your write-up of him (or other Polynesian gods) might be?

Man, these poor Polynesians seems to be popping up everywhere; the players over here want writeups of them, too (in fact, they would like an entire pantheon posthaste, please, probably while I'm on my lunch break). While a full workup on them would take a lot of time and research, I can give you a quick-and-dirty on what I'd probably start with for Tangaroa!

Firstly, I'd syncretize like a motherfucker. Tangaroa, Takaroa, Tagaloa, Tagroa and Tangaloa are all clearly sprung from the same root god and are just regional island variations on the same theme, so I'd count them all for purposes of figuring out who Tangaroa is and what he does. (Possibly Hawaii's Kanaloa as well, though I need to do more research to decide if he's different enough to be his own thing at this point.)

As far as associations go, he clearly has all the Water in the universe as the ruler of the seas and opposition to the land. I would also give him Fire on the strength of the stories in which Maui must take it from him (as the sole owner) to distribute it to humanity, as well as descriptions of him appearing wreathed in flame. While for many gods I avoid it based on sketchiness, in Tangaroa's case I think it's legitimate to give him Animal (Fish) as well, since several of the island cultures view him as the progenitor of all fish (if you are syncretizing him with Kanaloa, Animal [Squid] is another possibility). Finally, several different islands give him connections to the dead, either as ruler of the Underworld or collector of ghosts, so Death and Psychopomp (I'm leaning toward Death more, though I need more research to be sure) are also possibilities. He has strong stories as a cosmic creator god, so if you use a Creation purview, he'd need that, too.

As for attributes, I'd be most inclined to give him Intelligence (for his creator and order-creating roles) and Wits (for his epic facility at escaping when situations get too nasty for him), and possibly Strength for his story of half-murdering his brother and nearly crushing Maui to death. For abilities, my quick first-round guess is Animal Ken, Awareness, Control, Craft, Melee and Survival.

Man, I really need more time for pantheon-building in my life. All this generalization and only-vaguely-researched stuff is giving me the scholarly heebie-jeebies.