Smoke and Mirrors

Question: I read that Hinduism has a concept called Maya (the Illusion of Reality, I believe) that is represented by a goddess named Maya. What stats would this Maya have? Hell, what kind of personality would she have? Or, on a creepier note, is she a goddess, or really truly an Illusion crafted by Brahma at the birth of reality?

Considering that the imprisonment of pretty much everybody in the Hindu theological world in the clouding and befuddling illusions of maya is the major antagonistic force working again them, I'd instantly have to peg Maya (the concept) as a greater Titan, most likely with Maya the deity as its main avatar. This is not really a negotiable thing in Hindu mythology; illusions are what stop people from being enlightened enough to be one with divinity and cause all suffering and pain in the world. They ruin everything.

I've actually never seen anything suggesting Maya as a personified goddess in Hindu myth; I'm pretty sure that's a very modern interpolation, based on the concept of maya as illusion and a name that sounds female to those of us in the West. The only place I've seen her mentioned is on personal sites on the internet, though I'd love to be pointed elsewhere if there's something I'm missing.

There is, however, a male asura in Hindu mythology named Maya, who happens to be king of the rakshasa and has one of those on-again off-again antagonistic relationships with the Devas that asuras are so famous for. He's most famous for being the father of all the kind of antagonist races like the rakshasa, the faher-in-law of Ravana, and one of the greatest architects in Hindu mythology, able to create incredibly magical and wondrous things. So he's out there if you'd like to take a look at him; he's probably got Charisma, Illusion and Industry off the top of my head, as well as boatloads of Craft and Art.

Interestingly enough, in Hindu mythology the only thing that is utterly and truly real is divinity itself; if Maya is really a deity, then he's really real, though still probably too mired in the maya of the universe to realize his connection to the massive divinity that everyone is part of. Illusory people happen in Hindu myth now and then - the most famous example I can think of is Chhaya, the shadow illusion of Saranyu that she created so she could run away and recover from the burn wounds her husband kept inflicting on her, and that particular illusion was real enough to have several children and become a minor deity in her own right as a goddess of shadows. It's probably possible that Maya is a mere illusion created by Brahma, but I suspect that illusions take on a peculiar life of their own among the Hindu gods - after all, there's no other culture that views all real things as illusions, so it stands to reason that illusions might have a bit more reality there than elsewhere.