And, as promised, a day late but never lessened, we present the Titans. They've been a blast to work on despite being difficult and time-consuming, and we're simultaneously excited to play with them, excited to share and excited to plan ahead for what future Titanrealms will make their appearances next.
In the meantime, all of you who have been asking to discuss since you found the easter egg page for Danu (and also those of you who cheated like the cheating cheaters you are and saw some of the other pages while they were still under construction) last night, discuss away. We'd love to hear feedback, answer questions and talk about what's going to come next.
And now, on to Birthrights!
What are your plans for Gaia? I thought she was a shoe in for Ourea. Also, does Kaminokaze mean what I think it means (commences daydreaming about Japanese Sky Titans)?
ReplyDeleteJohn owes me a dollar - I told him someone was going to ask that in the first few comments. :)
DeleteGaia, being the original Mother Earth, is being saved for an Earth Titanrealm; she has plants growing on her, of course, but being the earth itself is really what she's all about, so we left the fertility to the more plant-oriented.
Yes, the Kaminokaze on the Muspelheim map refers to the Titanrealm of Sky (though it may be renamed if we decide a different culture is in charge of it). :) There will probably be more connections between the Titanrealms than are currently on their maps, but we're waiting until we have firmer decisions on who is in charge of what and opposing whom to include them all.
Damnt. I hate owing people dollars....
DeleteOn a different note, what are your thoughts on the Anunna being opposed by a Titan of Water? I know the Loa have the Drowned Road in the books, but I've never liked that interpretation. On the other hand, Tiamat seems perfect as a ruling Avatar for a Water Titan, as Avatar of salt water. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Emamu writeup, but the first things any myth resource I've looked up tells me about Tiamat is that she was personification of salt water.
ReplyDeleteTiamat's an odd one; she's certainly strongly connected to water as the principle of the ocean (opposed to Apsu, her husband, the principle of fresh water). But she's also the creator and mother of all monsters, which is what landed her a starring role in the Emamu writeup, and in a third dimension strongly represents the universal forces of chaos, meaning she could easily be a Titan Avatar over there, too. All Titans have overlap into other areas, but Tiamat is especially strong in several, which makes her tricky.
DeleteHonestly, we didn't set her up with Water because the Anunna and the ancient Mesopotamians, in general, don't care about water much. They do have a flood myth (but that's caused by Sky and Enlil's cranky temper), but in general water isn't their big worry or antagonist as a pantheon. They do, however, spend a lot of time asserting their control over the cosmos by smashing evil or chaotic monsters that threaten it, which is why we decided to make monsters their main problem to handle.
But we haven't made a firm decision yet on many of the other Titanrealms past these first four (and the PDF pantheon downloads are meant to be usable even for those who are playing Scion by the original rules, so our picks for the site may not always match them), so we'll definitely keep it under consideration. :)
Thanks for the clarification. Can't wait to see what you guys do for the Titanrealm opposed to the Devas (I remember some time ago in a post you said you were reconsidering Maya).
DeleteWe did, in fact. ;)
DeleteIt is literally taking all of my self control not to ask for a teaser right now. But I won't!
DeleteYeah, I think that one will be the biggest surprise. We wanted to do it in the first section of titan realms, but it was such a huge undertaking by itself(its gonna have lots of surprises as illusion should) that we had to get this other stuff out before we spent tons of time working on it.
DeleteBah, I glanced at Danu's page last night, decided she was just another god I hadn't heard of, and went back to searching. (I came back to her Scion's page several times, because I was pretty sure I remembered a Titan connection!)
ReplyDeleteI think what threw me off the most was that I was searching for a link to one of the realms, rather than a single Titan.
Also, I'm surprised there's no Niflheim write-up yet, considering all the time we've spent there.
True, you guys are weirdly enthusiastic about vacationing in the world of frozen misery. It'll definitely be included, but I'm not sure when.
DeleteWe're having a tough time figuring out who niflheim would "oppose." In the current cosmology of 1v1 vs god realms having trouble figuring out how it fits. But we'll get it in there somehow.
DeleteAre you really attached the to 1v1 thing? There are more potential Titans than there are (current) Pantheons, so some of the Titans may just be generally angry and attacking several at once. Especially a Titan like Niflheim which is wounded by the death of Ymir.
DeleteDeath of Ymir is certainly something that will not be keeping. Many cultures have their titan "die" and it'd cut out WAY too many by getting rid of all the titans that "died".
DeleteAs with just titans that attack many things and arent central to 1 culture. Im not sure. I may get less attached as we do more cultures, but I think its generally a good basis/jumping off point. You would need a VERY good cosmological reason why some are attached against one overworld and some are able to float around.
Could be as simple as some of the Dominant Avatars of the other Titanrealms simply not being as focused on smashing their associated Pantheon. Or a situation where several Avatars share control of a Titanrealm and can't decide who they hate most.
DeleteMaybe Ymir just hasn't got as much of a hate-on for the Aesir as Surtr does.
There is nothing "as simple as" when talking about multi-religion cosmology. Setting a precedent and changing cosmology on a scale like that should take deep thought and contain the cosmological rammifications and "where" of a titan realm that wasnt attached to anything.
DeleteAs much as we can personify individuals in the realm, the idea is that there is a realm, and it spreads its "concept" fully.
Itll take some thought, like I said I'll become less attached to the 1v1 thing as time goes on and it becomes more and more difficult to get stuff connected to a culture.
More so though, and the reason that this became so long is that calling anything simple when we've worked incredibly hard on taking the simplicity and generalness out of the titans is just plain insulting. I know that you dont mean it that way. I even understand why you think some things can be taken simply. But...we dont take anything simply here. The entire reason for the site is the antithesis of that. So yeah...you got my goat. But Im cool know and I know you didnt mean it that way.
I enjoy the elegance of the 1v1 situation, but in theory if a Titan Realm finally crushed a pantheon they would have to move on to the next pantheon to transform the entire world into their concept, wouldn't they?
DeleteSo in theory there has to be a method, however rarely used, for them to assault places that have little or no metaphysical connection to themselves.
Which reminds me, do you still keep the idea that titan realms are all metaphysically connected to each other?
I'm curious now (was this asked in a question ages back?) with Danu officially a Titan, who you're dealing with Scions of the more benevolent Titans, if even possible. Like you've got Dierdre, as an example. Just how does all that work?
ReplyDeleteFor purposes of Dierdre in our games, she would probably be the last Scion Danu created before absconding to the Titanrealms. It's a retcon, but that's what you gotta do sometimes when you go and change the whole setting in the middle. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
DeleteI can't think of too many other playable gods who are probably going Titan except for Raiden; we already actually had him break from the Amatsukami in-game in a pretty spectacular manner, and his Scions were given the choice to join him or become his enemies by siding with the gods.
Jeez, if we'd just had Prophecy three years ago none of this would be a problem.
So am I reading this right is all of Olympus in a titan realm?
DeleteJust its feet. Olympus is an Overworld unto itself, but its foothills fall down into Ourea, from whence Cronus is making a very determined nuisance of himself.
DeleteHow did you guys decide on the name Ourea for the Realm of Life? I hadn't heard of it and the internet says it's a collective term for some early offspring of Gaia. The other Titanrealms are concepts or places or personifications.
ReplyDeleteKami-no-kaze, would that be just an alternate spelling of Kamikaze, the divine wind that protects Japan from invaders, and the chief co-avatars would be Raijin and his brother Fujin?
Offspring of Gaia (and Ouranos it would sound) makes sense. I mean, what were the Greek Titans but children of Gaia and Ouranos.
DeleteOurea, which basically just means "the hills", are the children of Gaia that basically make up the livable world; she personifies the earth itself, while the ourea make up the habitable land of it. It seemed appropriate for a realm that was all about the life that comes from the earth, and let us give Gaia, who was getting pushed out of her role as the primary antagonist for the Dodekatheon but who is nevertheless one of our favorites, a little nod.
DeleteKami no Kaze is literally "wind of the gods" (kamikaze is a slightly corrupted contraction of it). We haven't yet decided for sure that it'll be the Amatsukami's official opposition, but if it is, it'll almost certainly be Raijin's and Fujin's playground.
Of course they're just troublesome ogres, wouldn't call them main antagonists. If not the Amatsu-Mikaboshi, I'd peg Izanami for their main antagonist (though a Titan of Death against the Amatsukami doesn't work perfectly I guess). I mean, sky would also give a realm for Izanagi, but while he's likely a Titan, he's not really an antagonist, he's just...there.
DeleteWell, when you're thinking about a titan realm that opposes a pantheon, you have to think of not only a titan that they would have a war with, but also a concept that is intrinsically opposed to the culture and the pantheon.
DeleteUnderstandable, that's the problem. I'm not too well versed, especially compared to others, on the Amatsukami, but all I can think that they're opposed to is Bad Manners. Bad Manners and filthy, impure things (blood being a good one). Actually opposed to? I mean I guess any upstart kami not satisfied with their lot are common antagonists, but actual Concept they face? Hell if I could guess.
DeleteI was actually thinking about Izanami because she does kind of symbolize impurity and decay and the kind of nastiness they have a cultural abhorrence of. It's something we'll have to work on for a while, though. :) Soon!
DeleteA question regarding Hestia, Prometheus, and Selene.
DeletePresumably they joined their respective Titanrealms after the end of the Titanomachy and the imprisonment of the Titans, since Zeus was in charge when each of them joined (at the very least, Selene was able to have enough influence on the world to interact with Endymion and to ask Zeus to grant him eternal youth)/was imprisoned. Then Hestia, at least, voluntarily chose imprisonment? It seems like in the core Scion setting, post-Titanomachy, the Titans were sealed off from the World, inaccessible until they broke free. Would this be accurate? A sort of they-could-go-in-but-not-come-out, at least until the recent Titanic jailbreak?
(I'm having an awful time putting my question into words, I apologize if the question isn't very clear.)
Bluh. Meant that to be a new comment chain. Sorry for mucking up your thread, Source J! :(
DeleteWho are the leaders of these four titan realms? Surtr for Muspelheim, Mixcoatl for Tamoanchan, Cronus for Ourea, and Apep for Keku?
DeleteAnonymous you guessed them all correctly.
DeleteBelltrap: Im not sure what you mean? We're under the assumption that they "joined" after the titans were re-released recently.
On the subject of a titan that opposes the Amatsukami, I think I have an idea for it.
DeleteThe term 'kegare' was coined for the spiritual impurity Izanagi washed himself of when he left Yomi, right?
So how about...
Kegare, titan of the taboo.
A titanrealm which embodies things that are forbidden and disgusting, and stuff.
While I must admit I cheated, This was quite awesome. I admire your dedication to this project. It certainly shows.
ReplyDeleteMixcoatl's picture is freaking awesome.
The one deity I wasn't expecting in the Titan lineup was Mayahuel. I suppose the Aztec disdain for drunkenness puts the goddess of pulque on the opposing side, but her role in myths has been generally positive.
So, is Coatlicue or Tlatecuhtli/Cipactli going to be the Aztec rep for a dedicated Earth Titan? And who would that oppose? Maybe the Loa, unless you made Babalu Aye a dedicated Health Titan instead of Earth? Or the Tuatha perhaps, if you gave their main antagonist role to Bres or Balor (Though that's grasping at straws a bit).
Earth may well oppose the Africans (Loa/Orisha), it pops up in a few different mythologies that I glossed over while learning about African Art History.
DeleteMixcoatl himself is freaking awesome in the original sense of the word, so we were pretty excited to make sure he was presented as such. :)
DeleteMayahuel ended up Titanic for us for a few reasons; for one, while her benefits are benevolent, she herself doesn't really ever do much in Aztec myth that suggests she's on the side of the angels other than canoodle with Quetzalcoatl - all her benefits are posthumous, in that the maguey plant that she grows into becomes the most useful plant of the Aztec world. But she was clearly connected to Titans via Tamoanchan and was pretty brutally left by the wayside when Quetzalcoatl stealthed out of danger instead of saving her, so that bitterness combined with her representation of concepts that are both beneficial but also injurious in Aztec culture made her look like a pretty good choice to us. She could have been used as a minor (probably dead) Aztec god instead, but we thought this was more interesting.
We briefly considered having Xochipilli take over as the Titan associated with hallucination and perception-altering substances, but decided he was more interesting and fun as a member of the pantheon proper. :)
We're leaning toward Coatlicue probably being the Earth Avatar representative for the Aztecs once we get to that Titanrealm; T/C may be in there as a creature and part of her realm, or it might get more of a spotlight over in the Titanrealm of Beasts (always a possibility for the giant monsters). Aztec mythology has a lot of versions of the "earth monster" running around, so we're still considering how to best represent it.
DeleteWe have indeed floated the idea of Babalu Aye as a Titan of disease/pestilence against the Yoruba gods. :) The Tuatha are possibly going to oppose Water in the form of Lir, but don't take either of those as absolutes, since they're still way on the drawing board at the moment.
Jacob aptly described this originally like being a kid on Christmas, but these recent comments make me feel like a kid overhearing their parents talk about next year's Christmas gifts.
DeleteA great way to describe it. I feel the same way.
DeleteKind of an odd thought, but...
ReplyDeleteHypothetically, since someone in Ourea could beget progeny by coupling with inanimate objects, would it be possible for a homosexual couple to enter Ourea and produce offspring with each other?
What about genderless being, or someone like Osiris who normally isn't capable of the genitive act any longer?
Yep, that is definitely possible. Of course, most homosexual couples probably aren't going to go to that kind of insane length to get there - Ourea is not exactly a fun and safe vacation destination. Just changing sex temporarily with Undeniable Resemblance or getting someone to cheat the system for you with The Savior would be a lot less risky.
DeleteSomeone who is legitimately incapable of the genitive act, like Osiris, who is totally unable to reproduce or correct the problem, would just be afflicted by miserable frustration; they'd end up fruitlessly trying to mate over and over again, an endless loop that someone else would probably have to save them from.
I assume by genderless you mean a being that normally doesn't mate or reproduce sexually. Ourea doesn't care about their default setting; they'd still be affected and the realm would cause them to reproduce unless, like Osiris, they were totally incapable.