Question: Okay, after reading all your articles from people asking about Roman gods, I think I have a solution. In your article Vendidad and Veda you state that in your games, Scions of Vayu and Haoma can choose to have either Samsara or Asha as a PSP because while these two gods are listed as Yazata, they are also members of the Devas. Could the Dodekatheon have developed a second PSP in their Roman forms, and their Roman Scions get this PSP instead of Arete? What do you guys think? (Please, I need a critic.)
Well, the major problem with the Dodekatheon that we've been talking about lately is a problem of image and associated powers rather than PSP; whether the major Greek and Roman gods need to be considered separate because of those gods with major differences or whether they need to remain considered the same because of all the inseparable god-pairs. Some Roman gods are more obviously Latinized than others, and the result is that the pantheon can't really be split in two, and the question remaining is whether or not to assign its members associated powers based on both their incarnations or only one. It's a heady stew of implications!
However, when it comes to Roman gods who definitely aren't Greek (like our good friend Janus, for example), I'm sure they do have their own PSP; all pantheons do, after all. That's a fundamental part of Scion's setting. I'd say some of the Dodekatheon passing their more Roman genes on isn't inconceivable - certainly I'd encourage any player who wanted to build their concept around knowing Artemis as Diana or Poseidon as Neptune, because I encourage that in any pantheon - but I'm hesitant to open the door to letting them pass on extra PSPs, simply because I'm not sure how much we want those lines to blur. Vayu and Haoma were and are an experiment, and we're still kind of feeling the idea out; we're not quite ready to open the door to every god that dabbles in more than one culture being able to pass on multiple PSPs, because there are a lot (a lot) of them and we don't want to devalue one of the few key differentiators between pantheons the game has just yet.
But I think if we do continue testing our way down that slope, the Dodekatheon and their Roman equivalents are probably one of the best places to put that idea into effect. We don't currently have a distinct Roman PSP in place since it hasn't come up in our games yet, but I believe there are several out there in the Scion community, including one based on Civitas by our very own Source J.
I am not a huge fan of the idea of an expressly Roman Pantheon, being in the camp where the Dodekatheon as a whole are the Greek AND Roman Gods (and you can create a character more as "Son of Mars" instead of "Son of Ares" if you like) but I have to admit that Civitas is super cool and INCREDIBLY Roman!
ReplyDeleteThat's about how I feel about it. :)
DeleteI haven't seen anyone else working on a Roman PSP, but I'd love to! Civitas still needs poking at, but I'm at least 50% pleased with it. Hurray!
DeleteRegarding Gods that appear in multiple Pantheons or weird cases like the Roman/Etruscan/Greeks, I don't think I'd allow them to ever use two different PSP's at the SAME TIME. Rather, they'd be able to swap PSP's by assuming their alternate identity. So if Ares decides to go Roman, he gains Civitas (and Fertility?) but loses his Arete (and Chaos?).
So any Scion whose father was Mars gets Civitas, but any Scion of Ares gets Arete. There wouldn't be a case where you could get BOTH, but I can very easily see a few cases where you could get either one.
If, say, Freyr had a Scion who identified very heavily with the Vanir, he might pass along the Vanir PSP (whatever that is) instead of Jotunblut. After all, Freyr is not descended from a Giant. Cernunnos might be another one who could either have a child be a Nemetondevos or a Tuatha. Same for Lugh, Ogma and Gobhniu.
This is somewhat discussed in the latter Percy Jackson books (not Scion but the basic idea is the same) with the Greek demigods living in Camp Half-Blood on the East Coast and the Roman demigods living in Camp Jupiter with the two groups being kept firmly apart.
ReplyDeleteIf it came up in a game that I were running, and I had a Roman PSP, I would have the player choose at character creation: Roman or Greek. If they choose Roman, then they get the Roman PSP; if they choose Greek, they get the Greek. That's it. Once they choose they are locked in and cannot get points in the other one.