Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Crystal Tongue in Crystal Cheek

Question: Seeing as Veles has a sense of humor in giving his scions a copy of the “Book of Veles,” do you think any Mesoamerican gods would have a similar humorous sense by giving there scions a crystal skull? What do you think something like that would do?

I don't see why not! Mesoamerican gods who are particularly well-known for being somewhat whimsical, like Tezcatlipoca or Quetzalcoatl, might find the little dig at modern fakeries amusing, or bestow the skulls on Scions as a sort of test to see if they know the difference between genuine myth and nineteenth-century enterprise. And even though the crystal skulls aren't historically related to any of the Mesoamerican cultures, skulls and bones are extremely important and potent symbolism for those ancient peoples, so creating them of any substance is fair game for a relic; earth gods like Tlaloc or Tlazolteotl might fashion skulls of any earthen substance including crystal, while gods more strongly associated with, say, obsidian might find a transluscent obsidian skull an appealing idea. Quetzalcoatl, who long ago liberated the bones of fledgling humanity from the Underworld, might be especially fond of giving some of them out - either symbolically, or by actually giving a Scion a crystalline piece of his or her Fourth World predecessors.

As for what it would do, I imagine it would be mostly up to the needs of the Scion; Death is an easy purview to attach to it, as would be Earth for the crystal, Health if it's related to the creation of humanity or perhaps Fertility since bones are often equated with seeds in Mesoamerican imagery. A god entertained by the in-joke might also give it Illusion, considering that such skulls being associated with the Aztec and Maya gods at all is pretty illusory.

As far as specialty powers go, you have a wide range of options from the many bogus powers attributed to the skulls; some supposedly allow the user to simply kill others with their willpower alone, so you might do something like allowing the owner to use Euthanasia on targets as long as they're within sight instead of requiring him to touch them. Crystal skulls are also by various new-age believers to have healing powers, so they might speed up natural healing or grant bonuses to resist disease or infection. And, of course, there's a great deal of silliness surrounding the idea that the crystal skulls, if reassembled by the end of the Long Count, will prevent the end of the world - but since the world isn't really scheduled to end at the end of the Long Count (unless, I suppose, one of the trickster twins is feeling very whimsical that day), I can't think of much of a specialty power to associate with that. Since this relic is kind of an entertainment piece for the god in question, it might also have hilarious drawbacks at Storyteller or player discretion; maybe it only works if you perform a ridiculous "authentic" ritual that never actually existed. If there's one thing we know about gods with senses of humor, it's that they're usually dicks about it.

I'm pretty much always in favor of trickster gods giving out prank relics; it seems like too good an opportunity for them to pass up, and hey, if the kid survives the pranking, they'll have proven their worth and probably transformed that originally slightly jokey relic into something resonant and powerful with the strength of their own Legend. If you really want to make sure this is something that entertains the god as well as being useful for the Scion, get together with your Storyteller to make sure it meshes with his or her idea of the god's personality, but past that point, the sky's really the limit.

But be careful with those things. I hear they can call up lost Atlantis or something.

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