Meshing the Modern

Question: Which pantheons would you think would be the most/least likely to make modern day items (i.e., smartphones, microchips) part of their Birthrights to their Scions?

As a very general rule, pantheons that are more concerned with shaping human culture and technology are more likely to do that in our games; Scions of the Dodekatheon, Pesedjet, Anunna and Celestial Bureaucracy are more likely to receive updated gadgets and gizmos than are Scions of more traditional, less humanity-improvement-oriented pantheons like the Aztlanti, Loa, Amatsukami or Elohim. Exceptions are, however, of course made for Scions who have specifically technology-oriented parents; the Nemetondevos as a whole may not be much on teaching humanity new skills and processes, but Gobnhios, as a creator-god himself, is more than likely perfectly capable of giving his Scions whatever new toys he thinks they might find useful.

We tend to be very fluid about this, though; most Hero-level Scions get Birthrights that are, if not totally modern like Goze's magical iPhone or Woody's relic dog-tags, at least not conspicuously un-modern, like Sophia's artist's smock or Max's giant mastiffs. Players tend to choose relics that they can easily carry around without being stopped or inconvenienced, and the gods who grant them are usually savvy enough to realize that they want their kids to succeed at their jobs, and forcing them to lug around a giant sword made of diamond is going to be a hindrance to them in mortal society rather than a boon. (Of course, particularly stupid, crazy or snooty gods may not know or care about mortal society, which leads to things like a Scion of Sekhmet having five lion cubs and nowhere to keep them that they don't keep trying to eat the help, but this is usually an exception, not the rule.)

Instead of stressing too much about the modernity of relics at character creation, we usually morph them into more ancient, culture- or character-appropriate forms at the Demigod and God jumps. Relics that are upgraded at these times usually become less overtly modern at Demigod, gaining more connotations of the ancient pantheon that granted them, and at God they often turn into completely traditional and/or mythic symbols or implements. The flexibility of being able to change them when they get upgraded (that is, because whatever god upgraded them did something to them that changed their form as well as their function) allows players to not only grow slowly from their human roots into their godly destinies, but also change their image to match their character's growth so that they aren't locked into the same symbolism at Legend 9 that they had at Legend 3.

After all, Sowiljr would look pretty silly still carrying around that relic rubber ducky keychain he had as a Hero, and Kettila hardly needed to keep her giant hiking boots when she'd stopped wearing clothes altogether a while ago. They moved on to bigger and better things, and their relics changed to move with them.