Question: I'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of relationships the Kings and Queens of the Underworld have with their kids. Could you give us a summary of how each one of the Underworld Gods treat their Scions?
Geez, you know there are a lot of Underworld gods? Just playable owners of an Underworld on our website alone measure nineteen deities strong, not to mention psychopomps like Hermes, residents like Anubis or adjuncts like Hecate. Death was (and is!) a great big deal in mythology, and there are scads of people in charge of the various holding pens, paradises, prisons and rehabilitation centers that the deceased are destined for.
Since you used the royal phrasing, I assume you're looking for just the ones who are actually in charge of an afterlife of their own, not all the various gods that work in and around it, but it's still a long list. I'm actually more intrigued by the question itself: what about death gods is making life harder for you than other gods?
Because they're not actually different, really. They all have individual personalities, just like every other god, and therefore their reactions and treatment of their kids is going to depend on their personality and relationship with them, just like every other god. Like most gods, they're probably nicer to their kids when obeyed and extremely nasty when sassed. And, like most gods, they're probably willing to extend some help and guidance to their children, but not past a certain point (because there is a war on, guys, and if they had time for that shit they wouldn't be bothering with Scions in the first place).
So instead of writing a nineteen-segment list on the various personality quirks of the various Underworld deities, instead I suggest figuring out their general attitude toward others like you would for any other god. What is their personality like? Are they generally crazy bastards who treat other people poorly (see: Nergal)? Great, they probably aren't very nice to their kids, either. Are they distant and disconnected from events and others (see: Izanami)? Then they probably aren't paying the most suffocatingly close attention to their kids. Are they considered royalty who demand respect and recognition of their authority (see: Hades)? Then they probably don't brook disrespect and expect their children to behave like the little royals they are, and so on and so forth. But then again, all those things might be the opposite of true as well, depending on the character's backstory and the god's purpose in creating them as a Scion.
Just like every other god, what kind of relationship they might have with their children depends on who they are, what they're doing, and on who the children are as well; there's no blanket solution or quick blurb that can possibly cover all those possibilities. Ereshkigal might love, dote on and savagely defend a child who treats her with love and helps brighten her dreary existence; on the other hand, she might routinely smite, humiliate or banish a child that gives her too much lip or tries to buck her authority. Osiris might consider one of his Scions the apple of his eye, and for completely different reasons despise and mistreat another (in fact, we've had several cases in our games of sibling Scions being treated quite differently by their shared parent). The personality and choices of the Scions themselves make the most difference to any relationship, and they should, since they're the stars of the story.
So look at them as if they were characters in a story, and act accordingly. Manannan mac Lir won't treat every child of his the same way, and in fact might treat them radically differently depending on what they do and who they are. Go with the otherworldly oceanic flow.
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