Question: What nasty effect on the World would come of destroying a star Titan Avatar? What effect would destroying a fertility Titan Avatar have?
Actually, that depends entirely on which Avatar it is that gets destroyed.
Titanrealms are the sources and powers behind the cosmic forces of the universe; all fire in the universe has its source in Muspelheim, all growing life owes its existence to Ourea, and so on and so forth. The Titanrealms themselves are necessary to the universe's very existence, which is why the gods don't try to just blow the places up or permanently destroy their Avatars; Titanrealms are the building blocks that the worlds are founded on, so while they need to be controlled and prevented from running rampant, they can't be entirely eradicated.
Titan Avatars, on the other hand, embody specific aspects of the Titanrealm; they are the representatives of a particular way that Titanrealm's powers manifest in the worlds. Aranyani represents the power of the deep, impenetrable jungles and forests, while Osanyin is the representative of the unbridled variety of plant life and herbs and Cronus is the figurehead who oversees plant life that is cultivated and useful to humanity. When you kill a Titan Avatar, you're literally killing that aspect of the Titanrealm, which means that you've caused that idea that it represented to cease to exist; if you killed Cronus, it would become difficult or even impossible to successfully farm or cultivate plants; plants would become something that only grew naturally and could not be tamed by the hand of man, because you had in a very concrete way removed that concept of cultivation from the universe itself.
Obviously, removing concepts from the universe is a very, very bad idea. It might sound like a great idea to kill off a Titan Avatar that is rampaging around destructively or that represents things that seem mostly negative, but doing so literally erases it from the universe, which invariably causes things to be damaged, badly and permanently, not only in the World but in the Overworlds and Underworlds as well. This is why the gods spend all their time and effort on binding the Titans to Tartarus rather than trying to kill them; killing them is one of the worst things they could possibly do. It's no fun at all, especially since the Titans have no such restriction against killing gods, but, unfortunately, having to be the ones responsible for not ruining everything forever is the burden of heroes everywhere.
So, to answer your question, it would depend on which Avatar you killed. For example, killing Amatsu-Mikaboshi, who represents the unmoving pole star, would cause the heavens to become without unmoving and constant attributes; astronomy would become nearly impossible, navigation by the stars would become unthinkable, and the stars themselves might become unstable and unable to keep their places in the heavens, constantly moving, destroying constellations or falling to earth as destructive comets. It's also possible that killing a Titan Avatar might adversely affect those who use purviews related to him; Amatsu-Mikaboshi's death might have unforeseen and unpleasant effects on the powers of the Stars purview, and the sudden removal of his power base in Tamoanchan might cause the other Avatars to become more powerful now that they were no longer sharing real estate and symbolism with him.
Some of the most intelligent gods, in our games, have discussed the possibility that one might be able to "replace" a fallen Titan Avatar by getting a new creature of suitable power and flavor - a high-level Titanspawn or a god - to take on his or her mantle and become the new Avatar representing that concept, potentially allowing it to exist in the worlds again. However, since no one is one hundred percent sure that will work and finding out would involve a terrible, probably heavy-fatalities battle to kill one Titan while then losing a god to become a new one (and thus a new enemy), this remains an untested hypothesis.
I guess my GM got a similar idea, for he used it in his game. He had an NPC, who was a Scion of the Atlanteans. He used the Black Shroud from the main story in the books and got the powers of a god, but it did not come from his parent. He made it work with a Titan, Mami Wata. So he drained her power and killed her, but he never gave an explanation of how things changed in the world and how it was better this way.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can help me out on this one, cause I always thought Mami Wata as a strange titan, but I see her as the interpretation of the beauty of the sea, how men wished to always travel on it and fell in love with it. It seemed like she embodied that for Water. So I always joked around in my head that for a time everyone thought the ocean was ugly and no man wished to be there, then after the change men were not as interested in the sea anymore, but women were starting to love the sea more and in turn less men join navies and more women do. Would you put it any other way?
Interesting. If a character was insane enough to Black Feather Shroud a Titan Avatar, I'd probably rule that they were volunteering to immediately take that Avatar's place, so there wouldn't really be a "death", just a switcheroo. But I can see where the idea comes from.
DeleteThe Scion books are weird about Mami Wata, who they set as a Titan representing lust but don't really explain how that relates too much too water (I assume it's some kind of idea of water can drown you and so can emotion, or similar). What she'd make happen when she died would depend on what she represented; with a strict book interpretation, she might cause all sexual desire in the world to immediately tank, leading to animals and mortals starting to die out (sort of like that time that Ishtar dies and then nobody in the world feels like having sex anymore and the gods have to go get her back). If you guys use her as a Titan representing the allure of the sea, I'd probably say that humanity as a whole stopped wanting anything to do with it - no more fishing, no more sailing, no more crossing. I wouldn't make it exclusive to men since the idea of lust and wanderlust aren't exclusive to men (and even Mami Wata's writeup mentions that she seduces women as well).
I think the basic ideas are good, though - you're thinking in the right directions. :) Mami Wata probably won't be the dominant Avatar of Water anymore when we get to rewriting it, but if you use her that way, there are lots of options.
The books do a strange thing with many Titanrealms by equating them with a pair of associations: one elemental, one psychological. The Drowned Road is associated with not only water but also covetousness, and some avatars make more sense with one half of a given realm's theme than with the other.
DeleteI sometimes like to be charitable and try to use this to explain odd choices of avatar placement. Sometimes it works better than others.
Yeah, there are times that I think it makes sense, and others that I can't quite follow it. Some combinations more successful than others, I guess. I like the idea that more metaphorical or spiritual applications of an idea might also be present in a Titanrealm, but the examples in the books are often hit or miss for me.
DeleteThe way you describe it, it almost sounds like Ishtar would make a better Titan Avatar than a goddess.
DeleteIshtar rides the skinny edge - she's insane and dangerous, but also beloved by humanity and an important granter of favors and culture to them. So while she often behaves a bit like a Titan, she's pretty firmly a goddess. Just a spoiled, chaotic one.
DeleteI'd assume any gods with the Death Avatar would be set on killing a Titan, the How of making something a new Titan Avatar is the true problem (of course who's to say that the realm won't create a new avatar itself?). Provided this is in place, if the gods can be at the ready for the moment of Titan-ization, so as to bind them immediately, and you had someone willing to be sacrificed (or was tricked into the whole ordeal), it's one way to deal with a Titan Avatar who proves too difficult to properly bind.
ReplyDeleteYes, definitely - while replacing the Avatar wouldn't make you down an Avatar, it might make you facing an Avatar you had better skills to deal with, or which was less of an immediate problem.
DeleteWe do have the realm seek out new replacements for the infrequent cases when a Titan Avatar chooses to abandon the realm and join the gods; it doesn't happen much, but when it does the Titanrealm automatically promotes something from within itself to fill the void. Since the figure embodying that idea wasn't destroyed, just swapped out, it doesn't have the nasty effects that killing one does.
So would killing Mikaboshi destroy the ability to create food? What effect would each avatars death from each titanrealm have on the world?
ReplyDeleteI assume you mean Uke Mochi? Killing her would certainly do something horrible to the production and consumption of food; it might prevent any plant from being suitable as food ever again, causing all herbivores and humans who depended on them to starve to death, or it might cause all natural food to lose its nourishing properties, forcing humanity to rely on scientifically-synthesized nutrients while most of them died off in droves. There's a lot of wiggle room with Uke Mochi, depending on how a game views her and what kinds of impact a Storyteller was looking for her death to have.
DeleteWe actually intentionally didn't include concrete effects for each Avatar's death because they should probably be fluid for the story and the Storyteller using them, and because even the gods (those who aren't blowing Mystery on it, anyway) don't really know exactly what would happen if they killed a given Avatar, other than a general outlines of how it would be bad and that they probably don't want to do it. It's something we've discussed adding to the Titan Avatar writeups in the future, but we kind of like being able to say, "This is what this Avatar represents - you decide what it means if that's removed from the universe."