Antagonism in Ulster

Question: I see from your Bogeys and Boggles post that you really don't like Crom Cruach as the Titan antagonist for the Tuatha. And since I love the Tuatha and agree with you about Crom, I was wondering what Titan you use and if maybe we'll see those Avatars on the Titan page?

Sigh. Poor Crom.

You're right, we pretty much hate the writeup for Crom Cruach in the Scion books; it's messy, it's bizarre, it smashes a bunch of different Irish antagonists together who really have nothing to do with one another, and it relies heavily on modern fiction instead of ancient myth. It basically does everything wrong - or, at least, does everything in a way that's very counter to the way we play Scion, so we're probably not keeping any of it.

The Tuatha are in a slightly sorry state in our games right now thanks to various things that have happened over the course of the story and various PC actions (Folkwardr), so they've been having so many problems that their Titan hasn't even come into play for a while now as they try to handle all their shit before the next wave of war comes their way. But that doesn't mean they don't have one, and ignoring it for too long is probably only going to lead to heartbreak. We haven't made a firm decision on who their new Titan will be as we're still organizing the Titanic cosmology of the game alongside other projects, but our current frontrunner is a Titan of Sea or Storms, probably led by Lir; Ireland has a history of problematic relations with a sea that both leads to the faraway lands of adventure but is also trying to kill them most of the time, and various antagonists, including the Fomorians, have (sometimes solid, sometimes tenuous) links to the ocean. Lir himself is certainly ancient enough to be a Titan, being possibly the only Irish figure on an equal playing field with Danu, and if you consider him to be the same as the ill-fated king in the myth of the Children of Lir and/or as a cognate to the Welsh Llyr who was imprisoned by his children, he seems to have plenty of reasons to be cranky with the gods.

Another possibility, however, if you love Crom Cruach and just don't love his treatment in Scion: Companion, is to keep him as the major Titan Avatar of a Titanrealm aligned with death thanks to his reputation as an insatiable requirer of human sacrifice. Since the Tuatha de Danann traditionally weren't much for human sacrifice, and since Crom is clearly from an earlier religious tradition than they are, it's not too much of a stretch to call him an antagonist to the entire pantheon, which he might feel has usurped his rightful territory/offerings. Add to that the fact that the biggest problem the Tuatha seem to have is, well, getting dead all the time, and this might not be too crazy an idea.

Other than the two of them, there aren't many other options available in Irish mythology that really oppose the Tuatha strongly enough to be good Titanic options in our opinion. The only other one is Balor of the Evil Eye; while he's definitely one of their biggest oppositions ever and certainly ought to be somewhere in their cosmology, we've had trouble deciding where he would fit as his only defining characteristics appear to be warring and failing to prevent prophecies from coming true. We currently run his grandson, Bres, as an Avatar of the Titanrealm of Order representing tyranny; Balor could also take on that role instead of Bres, making him a Titan strongly opposed to the Tuatha but not their main worry most of the time.

We also love the Tuatha, so we're right there with you - they need some antagonistic love, but they're a little more difficult to pinpoint an antagonist for than easy sells like Apep or Cronus. We'll keep working on it (and I imagine new Titans will appear on the poll some time in the near future), and in the meantime, suggestions for figures we might have missed are always welcome.