Question: How would you deal with Chaac, whom many consider the Maya version of Tlaloc? Even though Tlaloc doesn't have Water associated, the concept of the Great Water Cycle makes a strong point for associating Chaac with Water.
I suspect we will be dealing with Chaac sooner rather than later, if the Maya gods continue their commanding lead on the poll.
We're keeping our minds open until we have a chance to do some really thorough Chaac research, but at the moment we're leaning toward keeping him (and Quetzalcoatl/Kulkulkan, while we're at it) on the Aztec rosters and focusing on the more uniquely Maya gods for their lineup instead. While there are some places where it's sort of ambiguous which gods might match up with which others, Tlaloc and Chaac share a lot of pretty clear similarities that make it difficult to break them apart as well as differences that give us pause - a lot like the Ares/Mars conundrum over in classical myth, really. On the one hand, Chaac does things Tlaloc doesn't; on the other hand, the two have so much overlap that we're not sure how useful it would be to break them down.
It'll really come down to whether or not, after sitting down and doing a really and truly thorough look at the Maya Chaac versus the Aztec Tlaloc, we end up feeling like they have enough differences to stand on their own feet instead of being the same deity interpreted by two different cultures. If they do, we'll happily separate them; if they don't, Tlaloc will keep on keepin' on and it'll be understood (the way it is for now, since we don't have the Maya gods in play yet) that he's the same person as Chaac.
As for Water, Chaac does have more water connotations than Tlaloc - but only by a little bit, honestly. The Great Water Cycle, in spite of its name, features Chaac mostly being a Sky god as usual, raining ceaselessly down on the landscape for half the year before withering during the dry season until he can return. Rain is indeed made up of water, which is why the name fits so well, but Scion makes a solid distinction between rain falling under Sky and other kinds of water falling under Water, and the vast majority of Chaac's functions are clearly those of a sky god.
As with other gods who show some signs of possessing a purview but aren't strongly associated enough with it to be gods of it, it may just be that Chaac (and/or Tlaloc) has some Water boons, illustrating that he does have some sway in the realm of water, but doesn't have the Avatar of it, making it clear that he isn't as powerful in that area as a true god of the waters would be.
2012 aside, I you do publish the Maya, how much will you focus on the Mayan calendar and what ties will it have with the stars purview?
ReplyDeleteCalendars are certainly a big deal for the ancient Maya, just as they are for pretty much all the Mesoamerican cultures, so I imagine some of that will be in there, but they probably won't be the major focus of the supplement. I imagine calendars will be involved peripherally as I think we're considering doing something involving mythic cycles for the PSP, but we really haven't done any work on it yet, so I couldn't say for sure. I'm sure there will be a calendar somewhere.
DeleteIt probably won't have anything to do with the Stars purview, though, since we've already established that Stars has nothing to do with time. ;)