Question: How would you writeup the four holy beasts (dragon, pheonix, turtle and tiger) that are central myths of Asian culture from Japan to China to Vietnam?
As usual, China is not going to make anything easy for anybody.
To start off, we'd have to make some hard decisions about who whether or not to treat the Four Benevolent Beasts as the same across all of Asia and who exactly they are. China's Four Beasts are indeed the dragon, turtle, tiger and bird, but that's the celestial setup - if you happen to be a fan of Campbell and many mythologists who follow in his footsteps, the tiger is considered a later addition that replaced the ki-lin (unicorn), which is the more ancient and symbolically appropriate fourth creature, and the Vermillion Bird of the constellation beasts is not the same as Fenghuang, the "Chinese phoenix" (but the Fenghuang is a member of the Four in Campbell's view and many ancient Chinese texts). Additionally, different dynasties messed around with the membership of the Four to use animal totems they preferred, and some substitute a snake for the bird, a bear for the dragon, a more different bird for the tortoise, and so on and so forth. And for bonus confusion, China is actually rocking five Beasts, not four; they invariably include the yellow imperial dragon as the fifth, an idea that other cultures around them do not import. So within China itself there are already several distinctly different setups over the long continuum of their mythology; expand that to nearby cultures who share the idea, like Vietnam (which prefers the dragon, unicorn, tortoise, phoenix setup) or Japan (which decides to throw caution to the winds and just combine the snake and tortoise into a bizarre hybrid creature), and you're looking at trying to decide which version of these beasties is "right" and which dynasties were just confused or lying for fun and profit.
Personally, I'd probably be more of a fan of an idea of rotating beasts rather than four stable ones, since Chinese mythology itself is not particularly stable on this point and other cultures obviously feel no need to correct this issue on their own. It might be interesting to treat the Imperial Dragon (distinguished from other, lesser dragons because he's yellow, the imperial color, and has five claws instead of the more common four or three) as the only actually firm member of the god-beast coalition, with the others waxing or waning in importance as they are worshiped or forgotten by humanity. I'd say that there are probably all of those beings in play, some of them simply a little more Legendary or a little better-known than the others.
As for actual treatment of them in a game, I'd definitely peg them as Typhonian Beasts at best, monstrous Titanspawn at worst. They don't have a place in the hierarchy of the Celestial Bureaucracy and belong to an era of Chinese myth that really doesn't mesh with the pantheon; they're considered benevolent, but they're also clearly not the kinds of things you call on casually. I'd probably consider them Legend 10-12 Typhonian beasts that generally do their own thing but can be harnessed or cooperated with by gods who have a good touch with animals. They're still an important part of Chinese (and other countries') mythic cosmology, but they don't really fulfill the same role as the more "human" gods.
As for whether the constellation Beasts are the same as the Four, that's something each Storyteller will probably have to determine depending on how complex they want to get with their setup and what their game's needs are. We're currently considering the constellation Beasts to be part of a celestial Titanrealm.
So they would not have scions
ReplyDeleteNo, I wouldn't think so. They're giant beasts who don't even have personalities, let alone personas as gods; they may be divine (or Titanic, depending on your interpretation), but they aren't gods in the sense of Scion's god-parents.
DeleteI would, however, assume that they could certainly have armies of their own spawn who were similar but less powerful copies of their parents, just as Norse myth's Fenrir has plenty of baby wolves to run around and irritate or help budding Scions. I could totally get behind a Chinese Scion who wanted, say, a low-Legend baby black tortoise or vermillion bird as a Creature or something.
It's that they are so popular in manga and anime as actual characters I thought it would be cool to give them scions.
ReplyDeleteeh, using pop culture as reason for making things gods goes against our core concept.
DeleteTheres just not enough to go on either. You could give them stars...but past that. What would you give them?
DeleteI know where you're coming from, because we actually just watched the Fushigi Yuugi OVAs recently. Your question was serendipitously timed.
DeleteBut the personalities given to those creatures in pop culture are just that - given to them in pop culture. The Beasts of Chinese mythology are not the same characters (and in fact have little to no character of their own at all, being largely symbolic instead of actual figures in myths). They really don't do anything but exist.
Anime's particularly bad about that - there are tons of animes based on various mythological tales and figures, but they are very seldom more than passingly related, usually chucking the original story and characterizations to invent their own. There's nothing wrong with that for entertainment, but it really doesn't apply to trying to figure out what the original mythic figures were about.
Well as typonian beasts that are legend 12, you can give them ultimate attributes based on there animal types. The dragon and tiger/quinlin and bird would get epic dexterity, The dragon with it's scales and turtle with it's shell would probably get stamina, the tiger and turtle would probably get strength, The bird would get perception and they would also possibly get appearance because when you have a primordial beast which is the archetype for all others of it's kind staring right at you probably want to run if you don't drop dead. As for boons the dragon and bird would have sky, the bird would have fire for it's connection with summer, the turtle would have water for winter, the tiger would have earth for it's connection with iron, the dragon would have fertility for it's connection with spring and wood. Well here is my rough outline. If it any good or am I bashing my head against a brick wall.
ReplyDeleteUnder that rationale all typhonian beasts could have scions.
DeleteI think you're hitting the wall, sadly. :( John's right - if you're going to just start giving animals Ultimates and Avatars, any sufficiently large animal would be a potential god-parent, and while some of them are legitimate sources for Scions, most are not. There's a big mythic difference between gods and really powerful beasts; the first are movers and shakers that have stories told about them and matter to the world, and the second usually only exist, sometimes as antagonists who are overcome by the gods, other times as symbolic beings who do very little. The Chinese Four fall into the second category.
DeleteAlso, while I totally get the intent, most of those Ultimates you're assigning to these creatures are being given to them for reasons we wouldn't consider for normal gods, so it feels a lot like shoehorning to try to hand them to these guys just so they'd have something. We'd never give a god Fire just for being associated with summer (otherwise all these Fertility gods would be Dragon's Breath fiends!) or give a goddess Appearance just for being Legend 12 (because sure, all gods are impressive, but being impressive doesn't mean you're Ultimate). (But, as Typhonian beasts, I'm sure they do have tons of those things! Just not necessarily the super pinnacle god amount of it!)
Basically, Typhonian beasts usually don't have Associations for good reason: because they don't have what we'd require of gods to be god-parents in the first place, and because if they did they'd all have them and it would be a crazy beastly free-for-all.
I could still see them having those things as Titan Avatars, though.
but! they could certainly have children...they'd just probably be titanspawn type children as opposed to "scions" in the sense the game uses that word.
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