Question: Could you tell me about Orgos? I've tried looking everywhere for some details about the guy but the closest I get is being redirected to Argus. As 'an ancient Titan of Sorcery and Darkness', he sounds like a pretty good fit for a ruling Avatar in a Fate Titanrealm, but I can't find a single reference to him anywhere that doesn't double back to the Nemetondevos supplement.
It's not you; it's the scarcity of Gaulish myth again.
Orgos' sole written source is Julius Caesar's account of his campaign against Gaul. In it, he mentions in a throwaway line discussing the religion of the Celts that the Gauls claim to be descended from Dis Pater, his interpretation of the figure the Gaulish people call Orgos. There are very few inscriptional attestations of Orgos' existence, and even those are sketchy; the Romans didn't leave much of the Gaulish culture behind during their campaign of conquest and assimilation, and the Gauls themselves, being no fools about the consequences of being the conquered, began referring to their own gods by Roman names pretty early on, thus preventing us from really knowing who or what they were talking about half the time. Even for a Gaulish god, though, Orgos is exceptionally sketchy; if it weren't for that line or two of Caesar's, we probably wouldn't even know he existed.
And, unfortunately, that means we don't know the slightest thing about him. Like much of Gaulish mythology, scholars have to reconstruct any idea of what Orgos was about from the Roman myths of Dis Pater, the theory being that, since Caesar conflated them as the same figure, the two gods must have been similar. Dis Pater was the founder and progenitor of much of the world, a god of beginnings and generation as well as of agriculture and wealth. Orgos, if he was indeed similar enough to Dis Pater to be conflated, might also have been associated with these things, but the fact is that we honestly have no idea if that hypothesis is true.
The writeup of Orgos in the Nemetondevos supplement is an example of the problem the whole book suffers from: there's no really solid information on him, so the writers basically had to make it up as they went. They clearly latched onto the idea of him as the progenitor of the Gauls and blew it up into an idea of him as the Titanic father of the Gaulish gods; it's not a bad idea, but it's also not one they got from any source because there are no sources on Orgos.
If you want to use Orgos and need to figure out what he'd be about, I'd suggest doing what most scholars do: go look up Dis Pater, pare away the later associations that came from his conflation with Hades, and use him as your template. It's probably where most of the associations the writers of the Nemetondevos supplement came from anyway, and while it won't necessarily be accurate, at least you know you won't be wrong, either. If you're going to keep Orgos in the game, then as the Storyteller you'll just have to invent him (from the ground up, so to speak).
There's also the problem of shoving every titan into the Greek mold as the savage forerunners and opressors of the gods. In the Irish and Egyptian Pantheons, many of the titans such as Danu and Tefnut, Geb and Shu are benign Why else would Shu go to the trouble of seperating Tefnut and Geb. Going into cultures like the Gauls I think you have to assume that what would be considered "titan" is a benevolent force worshipped along with the later gods. I know this question has been done to death, but could you explain again the difference between the titans and gods when it comes to being able to father scions, because from what I've come to understand, Shu is so benevolent to humanity it is hard to seperate him from the gods.
ReplyDeleteAs always, Titans don't have to be evil - it's entirely possible to be a Titan that is vaguely benevolent or at least not actively malevolent, and instead simply represents an ancient or cosmic power that is too great for the World to handle. Geb and Nut are perfect examples - not trying to ruin everything for everybody, but their very existence threatens everyone. They're both what you'd call benevolent in their myths, but they're still clearly Titans. (For our criteria for assigning Titanhood, see here!_
DeleteAlso as always, gods can have Scions; Titans can't. There's no ambiguity there.
So is Geb still a scion producing god in your game? Is Shu a god or titan?
ReplyDeleteNope, he's not a playable god in our games, which is why his name is no longer colored on the family tree. We haven't gotten to doing an Earth Titan yet, but when we do he's a strong contender for a possible Avatar.
DeleteAs a guy who grew up reading about magical Gauls shouting "By Toutatis" (and the questioner), I remember first finding this website and devouring the Gaulish pantheon section (I don't know a lick of French so this is where I first read about them). Which is what makes me sad to think that almost everything about them is made up. I remember you were considering breaking them up and keeping some of the more important ones in other pantheons. Have you guys taken a decision about what to do with these guys yet?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I pretty much felt exactly the same way, having (sort of) learned French as a kid with the promised reward of Asterix books whenever I succeeded.
DeleteWe haven't made a firm decision since we're up to our eyeballs in Slavs right now, but our general inclination is to move Gobnhios to the Tuatha, Epona to the Dodekatheon and do something with Cernunnos (too important to remove, too obviously his own thing to be Tuatha, we're still unsure). Everybody else is probably around but not Legend 12.
I guess you could treat them as a sort of small pantheon in which only Cernunnos is Legend 12 and everyone else is 9 or 10.
make cernuuno's a titan avatar. He's more of a modern pagan figure these days, but even we recognize the fact that he is the primal forest lord that the most ancient of peoples use do worship. Whether that in itself is historically accurate or not I've never been clear on, but if he does represent the primal forest lord, then he could probably go into the fertility titan or maybe the magic or mystery titan when you get to it.
ReplyDelete