Question: Do you have any advice for someone wishing to play a Scion of Ryujin? Specifically, what kind of parent would he be (from what I’ve gathered, not a good one)? I have already read your post about what kind of relics he might give, but do you have any more suggestions? And I don’t know if you’ve gotten to the Amatsukami rewrite, but if you haven’t, what associated powers would you give Ryujin (and why do you think he has Moon)?
That's a big old bucket of dragony questions! One thing at a time:
1) Ryujin, as a parent, is a multi-faceted ball of twine. Traditionally, he has a strong interest in his offspring - at least in the story of his daughter's marriage to Hoori - and is likely to be protective of them and cranky if anyone else messes with them without his permission. At the same time, he's notoriously temperamental - see why the jellyfish has no bones - and not overly bright, so while he'll be up in arms if anyone lays a finger on his Scions, said Scions may not be able to expect him to be very nice to them in spite of his protectiveness. Asian sea-dragons - not just Ryujin but other similar figures throughout Japan, Korea and China - tend to be the sorts of dudes who don't really think things through very well and have trouble with complicated concepts, but who have no problem rampaging around murdering people and flooding the countryside if irritated. In short, he acts about like you'd expect a dragon to act, which means he probably isn't going to win any awards for Father of the Year.
2) We did already do a post about Ryujin relics, but if you want specific ideas for stats, we happen to have just statted up a Tide Jewel in our new Reliquary, so feel free to check it out. The Impenetrable Approval of the Ministry of Waters in the same supplement, while intended for use by Chinese Scions, could also be reflavored and used by a Scion of Ryujin.
3) We have not actually done the Amatsukami rewrite yet, so there are still weird associations on his page that came from the original writeup in Scion: God. Moon is a good example; there's no reason whatsoever for Ryujin to have Moon and we're entirely baffled about why it's there, except maybe that whoever wrote him up was thinking that the moon controls the tides and so does Ryujin. But since every sea god is not also a moon god (in fact, very few are both), that's some pretty lame reasoning. Animal (Turtle) is probably similarly a wash - sea turtles are important in Japanese myth, but Ryujin himself seldom appears as one - but the dragon-god's powers of shapeshifting and appearing as various creatures might be best served by Epic Appearance instead. We usually don't like giving sea-gods Animal (Fish) just for living in the ocean, but since Ryujin uses fish as messengers and servants and has been known to do things like summoning every fish in the ocean, he might legitimately be said to have it (perhaps also Animal [Snake], as they're considered his emissaries on earth?). The book gives him all three physical Epic Attributes, doubtless because he's a dragon and dragons are huge, but considering that he was outrun by a human woman in one myth I'd have to say Epic Dexterity isn't his high point, and while he's probably more than formidable in Strength and Stamina, I can't think of any time that he really proves he's a God Of those things, so I'd probably leave them out as well. Of course, Water goes without saying.
This is all pretty conjecture-y, though. As I said, we haven't done our Japanese rewrite yet, and we'll want to do some immersive research on Ryujin and his fellow deities before we make any final calls on associations, so those suggestions above may not be the best possible ones out there. You can definitely make bank on the fact that he does have Water and does not have Moon, though.
4) Our advice to Scions of Ryujin is to be prepared for life to be large and in charge at all times. Your father is a dragon; sometimes that's going to be awesome, but at other times it's going to suck like everything that has ever sucked, and it's never, ever going away. Whether you follow in his toothy footsteps or decide to be the more human face of the seas, the shadow of the vast sea serpent will always be right behind you.
I think that the turtle association comes from the story of Urashima Tarō in which both his daughter and his messenger appear as sea turtles. And they are often depicted in art as being his servants.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think you're right. It's his daughter that's the turtle in that myth, though, not Ryujin himself, so I don't know if I'm convinced without other examples.
DeleteI find that I agree with you. I just did a quick search and the only references that I could find linking him to turtles is some small folkloric references to them being his messengers and the fact that almost every picture I could find of him (notably few) sea turtles were in there somewhere. There was a small reference to him being a sky god, but I think that might just be a conflation with the idea of the eastern dragon with rain and not something specifically connected to him.
DeleteCould we get a list of pantheons and how far you think they are from accurate? Maybe on a scale of 1-5 Something like Dodekatheon: *****, Amatsukami: **, Teotl: ****
ReplyDeleteThat question's already in our queue from the question box, actually! Look for it in its own blog post soon. :)
DeleteI love this kind of post. I think every god should have something like this (though it's a too-ambitious-project right now for most of us)
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing is great since it gives you more info on the god in question, tells you what you can expect being that god's Scion, and gives aspiring STs an idea of the god's personality. For those gods who the ST may not be too familiar with, that's a big plus.
Heh, I'm envisioning what a "So You Want To Be a Scion" primer would look like. It needs cartoonish illustrations.
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