God of Greens

Question: From a mechanics standpoint, how do you feel about reworking Fertility to be more like Animal (such as with a totem plant)?

We've actually talked about this occasionally, because mythology does have specialized fertility gods, from Idun with her apples to Mayahuel with her maguey. It's a tempting thought, because how cool is it to have Fertility (Venus Flytraps) instead of plain old Fertility? So cool!

But we've always decided it's not a viable route to pursue in Scion, and there are both mechanical and symbolic reasons for that. I know you only asked about the mechanics, but you're going to get the whole package (don't worry, you can always stop reading when I start talking about symbolism and association!).

Mechanically, while at first glance it seems like this would work about as well as Animal's specializations, the reality is that totem plants have a lot more problems than totem animals do. For one thing, they aren't easily portable; you can carry seeds around, or maybe a potted plant, but they can't move under their own power and you can't call them to you or have them handy as companions to use your boons on the way you can for animals. You can still go find them if they aren't around - but so can folks with Animal, and they then have the option to take their new friends with them and keep performing neat tricks with them, whereas the guy with Fertility (Redwoods) has no such luck. Plants also can't defend themselves or run away from danger, meaning that they're much more likely to get destroyed, stolen or otherwise rendered unusable for the Scion with Fertility than animals are for the Scion with Animal, simply because they have no ability to self-preserve at all. Unspecialized Fertility can handle this because there will probably be some kind of plant most places you go, but a totem-driven Fertility purview would be hamstrung.

Later Fertility boons that allow you to grow plants instantly, give plants limited mobility and defense or commune with large areas of plants of course mitigate a lot of these concerns - but those boons don't show up until a Scion is Legend 7+, and a purview in which half its powers are gimped until mid-Demigod is not a purview that is working very well (especially in comparison to Animal, which certainly doesn't have to wait for Legend 7 to be fun and useful).

Just as important as the mechanical issue is the conceptual one; Fertility and Animal are actually polar opposites when it comes to the ideas of specialization and totem associations. While the vast majority of animal gods are overwhelmingly tied to a single totem animal, with a handful who are generalists who affect all animals, the vast majority of fertility gods are nonspecialized, with the handful of odd men out being the ones with specific plants they stick to. Where most animal gods have one or two totem creatures that represent them and their power, most fertility gods are vastly generalized, affecting such gigantic ideas as the fertility of the fields and crops, of the forests and oases, of the bounty of the earth itself. There certainly are gods of fertility who have a single specialized plant they watch over, but they're greatly outnumbered by the hordes of fertility gods that are in charge of all plant life everywhere.

Which is not really surprising; animal gods have singular totems because they represent that god's personality and other powers, and most of the time different animals represent such different things that they don't need to have anything to do with them. Fertility gods, on the other hand, are humanity's providers of food, shelter and sustainable life, and therefore need to affect all the plants humanity relies on to survive. Ancient cultures needed to know that their fertility gods could preserve all the crops they needed to live, not just one plant, so there are far fewer major gods of a single plant than there are those with power over the whole plant kingdom.

So, much as we have occasionally entertained fantasies of Scions running around with Fertility (Eggplant) or Fertility (Pointsettia), we've kept the purview generalized; it doesn't make sense, mechanically or mythically, to break it down that way. Scions who do want to specialize in a single plant can, of course, always find ways to do so, using that plant conspicuously and frequently and making sure mortals know what plant is his special favorite. I'd also consider tailored Birthrights, as well, whether for Scions of gods with "totem" plants or Scions who are planning to specialize in a plant themselves; a budding god of lilypads getting a relic that allows him to get bonuses to his Fertility when using it specifically on lilypads is an elegant solution for those occasional cases.