Soul Menagerie

Question: How do the gods respond to their Scions taking non-native animals as totems? How do they feel about their children adopting such exotic animals as their symbols? And what about the Nahualli (loved the article on it)? How do the Aztecs feel about their kids taking such a culturally exclusive privilege and manifesting it in the form of such a foreign beast?

A neat question, and one that certainly comes up a lot in Scion, where the children of the gods are almost certainly usually more multicultural (or at least exposed to more cultures as a result of the melting pots of the world) than their ancient forefathers. I would say that it mostly depends on the personality of the god; extremely traditional gods may be disappointed in children who appear to be eschewing their time-honored symbols in favor of some newfangled thing like Animal (Seahorse), while others, who were globetrotters in their own youth or just don't have a strong investment in their childrens' iconography, may not care much unless the Scion has chosen an animal with specifically negative connotations in their home culture (e.g., don't choose an animal that represents womanly fertility if you're a warrior dude, unless you want to challenge the status quo or don't care that your pantheon will continually laugh at you). Some already established gods have foreign animals as their totems anyway; Dionysus is associated with the leopard, for example, partially because he's a god of foreignness and exoticism. There's a whole world of animals for Scions to explore, so if they're choosing something off-the-wall, the Storyteller should have a basic idea of how the pantheon (or specific gods, most importantly their parent) might view it and what the Scion can do to make it more accepted if necessary. We've also had godly parents in our games make a concerted effort to guide their children to animals they approved of, usually by giving them a relic with that Animal purview on it or a creature companion that they can't talk to or deal with until they do, which sometimes works and sometimes backfires because the Scion doesn't like being railroaded.

Nahualli are a bit of a different situation (and I'm glad you liked the previous post! Nahualli are one of my favorite things to talk about!). There's no concern over the idea of a Scion being disrespectful by choosing a foreign animal; Scions don't actually choose their nahualli, but are rather born already twinned to that creature (the player gets to choose it out of character, of course, but for the Scion it's merely the fact of life). Your nahualli is what your nahualli is; you can't choose or change it after the fact. With that being the case, it's unlikely that too many Aztec gods will be actively unhappy with their children for their nahualli animal, any more than they'd be actively unhappy with them for having blue eyes or long legs. (Though, being the violently ethnocentric dudes that they are, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they might actively blame some hapless kid for any of those things.)

No, it's more likely that, if you're an Aztlanti Scion and your nahualli happens to be something really weird and foreign to them like a walrus, they'll just think there's something wrong with you. The creature's the other half of your soul, after all - if it's something bizarre, chances are they'll see that as assurance that you yourself are bizarre, and most likely defective in some way as a result of your having a lot of non-Aztec ancestry (which is going to be the case for 99% of Aztlanti Scions, since there are very few Nahua people left that don't have at least some Caucasian ancestry at this point). They may not take direct action against you (though temperamental or prideful gods might be tempted to put you down lest your weirdness reflect poorly on them), but they're probably going to be some shade of confused, disappointed or suspicious. Dealing with that kind of situation would be a heavy but also interesting burden for an Aztlanti Scion, who might choose to live with the stigma, try to convince others it isn't a big deal, lash out against his pantheon or even try to introduce the critter to the Mexican area in a bid to make it "local", while his parents treat him as a sad disappointment, a potential traitor or just not quite one of the family.

Oddly enough, the issue hasn't really come up for us; Aztlanti Scions tend to choose native animals as their nahualli or totem, probably because they're playing an Aztec Scion because they're interested in Aztec iconography and flavor anyway and don't have a reason not to. (Well, except Geoff, who wants a bear nahualli and keeps trying to convince the Aztlanti to let him go on a spirit quest to find it, but considering that he is entirely a foreigner, that's not particularly weird from anyone's perspective.) I certainly wouldn't stop anyone from going for it, though (just steeple my fingers in glee for the tribulations to come).

Those wacky Aztecs. You can be a snake or a jaguar all day, but show up with your twin the giraffe and suddenly nobody wants to talk about you at parties anymore.