You Get What You Need

Question: Which purviews do you think are the hardest to make new boons for? Which purviews do you think are the easiest to make new boons for? Which purviews do you think are the most important to have in a pantheon? Which purviews do you think a pantheon could drop if they had to?

Ah, necessity purviews versus luxury purviews.

It's true that there are some universal constants across different mythologies; humanity tends to believe that its gods control and provide for them in certain areas no matter where or when they are. These necessity purviews are some of the most common and easily recognizable of godly powers, because almost every pantheon has them in some form, from desert-dwelling nomads to sendentary European communities to the hardy enclaves of the frozen arctic wastes. Necessity purviews include:

Death - Death is one of the great mysteries and most terrible fears of humanity, and there is always a god in every pantheon in charge of it (sometimes many of them, depending on the culture's views). It's a human coping mechanism; if there's a god in charge of administering the afterlife and you know how it works, even if it's scary or it sucks, you know what's coming, which is always better than the black void of uncertainty.

Fertility - Fertility is probably the most important purview to humanity, because it governs whether or not they get to eat and survive in their environment. There is always at least one deity in charge of fertility and vegetation in a pantheon, often many more than one. They are necessary to keeping the world habitable for their people, and as a result they're one of the most common archetypes across all mythologies.

Health - Similarly, gods of health are the other half of humanity's immediate and basic needs; they're the ones who govern life, from controlling and affecting human fertility and childbirth to protecting from or inflicting diseases and sickness on the population. There is always at least one god in a given pantheon who takes on the role of making decisions about life and health.

Justice - No matter what form they take, a pantheon worshiped by a given culture generally represents the highest authority, and that means they provide and enforce rules. Every pantheon has a justice god in some form, whether it's punishing evildoers, arbiting disputes or creating unbreakable law to be handed down to the masses.

Moon - Perhaps one of the oddest choices on this list, but the moon, despite its sometimes overlooked status in Scion, is one of the most mythically important symbols in existence. Every culture has a moon god of some kind, representing light in the darkness and the turning of seasons, months and minds along with it; it may not be one of the purviews that a pantheon "needs" to survive and take care of its people, but it's a purview that is unfailingly present every time.

Psychopomp - This is probably the least essential of the necessary purviews simply because sometimes the death god or afterlife takes care of this function on its own, but it still merits inclusion. The transport of the dead from this life to the next is incredibly important to almost every culture out there, from making sure they don't remain to haunt their children to making sure they receive the correct afterlife and everything else in between. Psychopomps aren't always the most celebrated or the most powerful gods of their pantheons, but they are always necessary.

Sky - Not every pantheon has all the elemental purviews, or even many of them, but every single one of them has a dedicated sky god. This isn't surprising, since the sky is the greatest, most unfathomable thing that humanity sees every day, and is capable of awesome power, life-giving rain and destructive rampages at the same time. Pantheons without sky gods simply don't exist.

Sun - And, oddly enough, neither do pantheons without sun gods. The reasoning is similar; the sun is a massive and awesome symbol of life and order that no human culture has ever failed to notice and venerate, and there is always a god in charge of managing and supporting it. Some cultures care more about their sun gods than others, but they all have one.

Water - Water deities exist, revered in myriad different forms as keepers of lakes and streams, masters of the oceans, bringers of lifegiving moisture, purveyors of dew and drinking water and a thousand other ways, across pretty much every culture. There is no human society that doesn't require water to live, and while the hot, arid cultures may cling to their water gods the hardest, even those with plentiful water supplies hold their deities in high esteem.

Then there are what I like to think of as the luxury purviews; purviews that are awesome, amazing and powerful, and that make up large parts of the mythic landscape and have many gods associated with them, but that aren't always universal or necessary in every culture. They're purviews that have every right to belong on the APP scale of cosmic grandeur, but different cultures value them differently, to the point where they may be incredibly important to one mythology and almost entirely absent in another. Luxury purviews include:

Animal - While most pantheons have animal-associated gods in some form, they don't all have them and dominion over beasts isn't something that universally requires a god to take care of it, as some cultures view this as an area in which humanity is the major player, not the gods. Some cultures, like the Egyptians or Aztecs, are strongly animal-centric, while others, like the Norse or Babylonians, really could not give much of a damn if the purview as a whole vanished tomorrow.

Chaos - If there was ever a luxury purview, it's Chaos, which not only definitely isn't required for a pantheon to have but which is probably actively discouraged by a lot of them, as struggling against chaos is a major theme for a great number of mythologies. Those chaos gods that do exist represent important concepts about the balance of the universe and the benefits of randomness, but they are far from needed or even tolerated in every religion.

Darkness - Darkness is much the same story; while some cultures have gods who take control of this frightening concept to the betterment of mankind or as a deterrent against misbehavior, most view it as an antagonist that the gods fight against, not something that has power among their ranks. Darkness and fear go hand in hand, and they are not something every culture (or even most cultures) wants to see in the gods that control their lives.

Earth - A strange one, because for some cultures (like the Greeks, for example) the idea of an earth deity representing foundation and creation is central and extremely important, and for others (the Japanese come to mind) it is totally absent and unremarkable. A truly cosmic and enormous concept that is undeniably important in world mythology, but that has its foci of power in some areas while neglecting others.

Fire - Like many of the more destructive purviews, Fire is rare because many cultures don't need a god of fire; fire's scary, dangerous and ultimately causes them more problems than it solves, so they're unlikely to see it as the area of the benevolent gods they worship and much more likely to treat it as the province of the natural world or the forces of evil. Of course, fire gods do exist (even benevolent ones!), but they exist in much smaller numbers than many other kinds of deities.

Frost - Frost is crippled by the fact that it isn't a common element in at least half the world; desert-dwelling, rainforest-inhabiting and equator-hogging cultures are likely to see snow or ice very rarely if ever in their lives, meaning that it's a non-entity for them and there's no reason their gods would have anything to do with it. But there are many cultures that do experience winters or harshly cold conditions, so Frost is a very major power for those heading north and south to the colder extremes of the world.

Guardian - Guardian seems like something every culture would assign to their gods, but it really isn't; while cultures that believe the gods protect them probably will, cultures who fear and placate their gods or who believe the gods' affairs too far above them for the two to become involved seldom see their deities as taking personal care of them. It's undoubtedly a useful and excellent power for gods building pantheons, but many deities have built their followings without it.

Illusion - Illusion is one of the most luxurious of the luxury purviews, I think, because while it's a concept with important symbolism and significance, especially in cultures where it takes a center role such as India or Scandinavia, it's almost entirely absent in other parts of the world, where the idea of magical shenanigans is eschewed in favor of good old disguises and wordplay. There are a lot of forms of manipulation at work across the tricksters of the world's myths, and illusion is a specialty form that doesn't crop up that often.

Industry - Everybody loves a smith god, but not everybody needs one. Many cultures, especially those with more tribal, nomadic or naturalistic tendencies, have no need for a god of technology and civilization, while those that do sometimes call on a god to have Industry but also may leave that facet of life in the hands of humans themselves. It fits the definition of a luxury purview perfectly: it's great to have, but if it's not there, the pantheon can get by just fine without it.

Magic - The manipulation of Fate, familiar to us as it is, tends to be a very Indo-European concept, meaning that many cultures in the rest of the world don't view the idea of destiny and the gods' ability to change it in similar terms. There are cultures in which mages just aren't really a concept - or, more properly, in which the idea of "mages" simply applies to any magical power, meaning all purviews - and those have no need of a god devoted exclusively to a power that doesn't make sense in their worldview.

Mystery - Not every pantheon has someone capable of having all the answers (unfortunately for them). Some cultures love the idea of mystical knowledge from otherworldly sources; the characters of others muddle through only on the strength of their own chutzpah. Like Illusion, it's a very specialized way of looking at the idea of wisdom and knowledge and isn't broadly applicable to everybody.

Prophecy - Likewise, prophets and oracles are earth-shatteringly important in some parts of the world and practically nonexistent in others. In fact, if you combined the reasons that Magic and Mystery are luxury purviews, you'd basically have all the reasons that Prophecy is, too; it's a culture-specific idea that isn't widespread and isn't a necessity for a pantheon to function.

Stars - If anyone remembers the forum wars about whether Stars should even be a purview back when it comes out, you're well-equipped to see why it's a luxury purview; it's very important to some cultures, but in many familiar ones is at best a footnote and isn't necessarily governed by gods in every mythology's worldview. If you happen to be in one of the areas that finds stars incredibly important, like ancient Arabia or China, then of course there are gods attached to them, but if you happen to be grounded more in northern Europe, it looks much more like something that never happens.

War - Likewise, not every pantheon has a dedicated war god. Agrarian, agricultural and trade-based societies tend to have much less need for a deity dedicated specifically to causing strife, while conquest- and expansion-based cultures often treat a war god as one of the most important gods in the entire pantheon.

To answer your first question, there really are no "easy" purviews to write boons for; every boon needs to be rooted in mythic ideas and themes, related to extant deities and stories and unique within the scope of its purview, no easy combination of feats no matter what you're trying to write for. I've never met a purview that made me say, "Oh, I could write like six boons for this before lunch and they would all be useful and thematic," because it just isn't usually so. (Or maybe that's a defect in my boon-writing skills?) There are definitely some purviews that are harder to write for than others, however; we've complained here before about how hard Water is to diversify, and Animal, Chaos, Darkness, Frost, Prophecy and Sun are all perennial headache-causers as well.

...which hasn't stopped us from, at last count, having about seventy-four potential APP boons for various purviews including the problem ones above in our work file to consider for inclusion. They won't all make the cut, but we're feeling like there's probably still ground to cover when it comes to the all-encompassing, cosmic powers of the universe.