Orphaned Annie

Question: What do you think about a scenario in which a messenger comes to a Scion in a rush, drops off his Birthrights, tells him nothing more but to get to work for the gods, and just leaves without even telling him who his divine parent is?

I think it sounds inconvenient for everyone involved. But it certainly could happen; it really depends on what you're trying to do with the character and the story.

Not telling a Scion what's going on usually results in an ineffective Scion; if they have no direction, they're going to revert to what they think someone with superpowers should be doing, which won't necessarily match up to what the gods might have in mind. Some Scions might decide to take it upon themselves to be superheroes, which may bring the local law enforcement down on them; others, if they happen to have darker personalities, might cause as much damage and confusion in the World as the Titanspawn that nobody told them they were supposed to be stopping. They have new Virtues that will push them to do things they never would have done before, and new powers that they're likely not to have great control over or knowledge of until something accidentally goes bang. In short, you're dropping a grenade into the World without knowing whether or not the pin's in.

This could certainly happen, though. Some gods may be incredibly busy with the war against the Titans and have no time to go visit the kid in person, and sending a messenger can often lead to said messenger not quite getting the message across as the parent might have hoped. They might forget something, not mention something because they assume the Scion already knows, intentionally give the Scion no help if they resent this duty being thrust upon them; whatever the reason, messengers always have the potential to mess things up. African myth, in particular, loves the motif of the messenger who fails at his job, showing up late, getting killed on the way or accidentally losing whatever information or item he was supposed to deliver, so I suspect this sort of thing probably happens to Scions of the Loa almost inevitably when their parents choose not to come in person.

Then, too, gods who tend more toward chaos and destruction might have no problem with unleashing a directionless Scion to see what kind of mess he makes. Gods who treat their offspring like interesting science projects might do it just to see what they do, possibly as part of a grand Scion-studying experiment. Gods who are particularly stupid might entirely forget they have children and pay no more attention to the matter, while gods who tend more toward wanting their children to prove themselves may view it as a necessary trial by fire. Some gods may even want to hide the fact that the Scion exists for a while, perhaps because he's a bastard child or they have a reputation to maintain. It's entirely possible for the Scion who has no clue what is going on to be the result of a god's intentional negligence.

Most gods probably don't do this, of course; if you don't tell your Scion what to do, well, he probably won't do what you want, and the last thing you need is some rambunctious kid busting up your worshipers, throwing in with Titanspawn or working as an unwitting catspaw for your enemies among the other gods. I'd imagine Scions with absolutely no knowledge or direction are a fairly rare occurrence for that reason; they exist to help the gods out, not to be a pain in the ass, so most gods will let them know the score so that they get some return on their investment.

But I'd say that if you think it's a fun option for your character's backstory, totally go for it. It's unlikely he'll stay in the dark for long; if he has decent Intelligence and/or Occult he's going to figure out who his pantheon and parent are unless his relics are totally clean of any reference to them and he never runs into anyone else from the pantheon's home turf, and if he's in a band with other Scions, the fact that their divine parents, relatives and powers are around is going to give him a lot of information pretty quickly. The Storyteller would pretty much have to be involved in intentionally keeping him from finding any of this out, or the natural course of being a Scion will do it. But how he discovers his heritage and what it means to him that he had to do it himself could be a fun layer of character development, so I'd say enjoy it and see where it leads you!