Perhaps a Middle-Aged Ogre?

Question: Why did you change Kagutsuchi from the middle-aged lord of arson to a ravening ogre fire-monster? I kind of liked the middle-aged man theme better.

Mostly because the idea of the middle-aged lord of arson was made up and we saw no reason to keep it. The entire description of Kagutsuchi in Scion: God is pretty much writer fabrication; the only accurate parts of it are his association with fire and the fact that he killed his mother at birth. We're not really mad about this one because it isn't the writers' fault; there's almost no information out there on Kagutsuchi, as the only things he does in Japanese myth are be born, burn his mother to death, and then get cut into various pieces that become new gods and volcanoes. Nobody describes his appearance, personality or habits, so it's up to Storyteller and writer interpretation to figure out how to do so.

While there is really no description of Kagutsuchi in Japanese myth at all other than lots of fire, we represented him as an ogre-monster because that's how the little traditional art we've been able to find on him appears to show him (though even this is kinda sketchy, since anthropologists aren't always sure exactly who a given piece of art is meant to represent and it's possible we're just looking at generic pictures of firey oni). That, combined with the fact that Kagutsuchi is generally referred to as terrible and frightening, made us decide to keep the ogre imagery.

You could, of course, have Kagutsuchi appear differently in your game, though; he's one of those Titans who really has no defining elements to force you one way or the other. You can invent pretty much any way of describing him that you want, as long as it remains within the realm of Japanese mythic imagery and possibility.