Question: Who would win in an arm-wrestling match between Amaterasu and Thor?
Probably nobody. Thor'd just want to sleep with her, and then it would be all shouting and terrible political repercussions.
However, in most straight-up contests of skill, Thor will usually win thanks to having an incredibly potent relic, the belt Megingjord, which is said in Norse myth to double his strength while he's wearing it. (Storytellers, use your judgment on what this actually does mechanically - I don't know what "double Ultimate Strength" would look like, but it sounds unnecessary.) Other gods with Ultimate Strength will probably not be able to beat him in an even match unless they also have a relic boosting their Strength; it's one of those cases where a god has specialized into something with relics in order to have a little bit of a leg up on everyone else.
But that's okay, because all Amaterasu or anyone else really has to do is hide behind a potted plant or something, and Thor's critical Perception botching will render her completely invisible until he gets bored and wanders off.
This seems like a good place to float a question about Godly Relics, but maybe that should be its own blog entry so no one goes insane trying to find it in your archives months later? Dunno! That is ever so much fun.
ReplyDeleteHow do you guys imagine dealing with Godly Relics when your players reach Legend 11-12 and start saying "hey, Thor has this double-his-strength belt and Zeus has that smite-anything thunderbolt and Tezcatlipoca has that do-whatever-the-plot-demands mirror. Why can't I get some of those?"
After all, mythology isn't balanced for a game. There are some seriously insane Relics out there in the hands of Legend 12 Gods that would be craaaazy in a game. But that's kind of the point of Scion, isn't it? That your PC's can equal the Gods of Old.
Yeah, it definitely is! They'll probably have the opportunity to get insane stuff like that - or for relics they currently have to "unlock" to more crazy bonuses - but they won't until they've been solidly established as Legend 12 for a while, so it's not coming any time soon. By that point, they're going to be dealing with gods who do have those relics, not to mention Titan Avatars, as their main antagonists; the scaling armament levels of Scion will make having them almost necessary.
DeleteYou recall that huge overly muscular dog who made the news a while back? Wendy?
ReplyDeleteThat is Thor while wearing the belt.
This is your Thunder God using Animal.
DeleteAre there any myths of Thor's promiscuity/womanizing? Obviously, Thor has his sons by Jarnsaxa, in addition to his daughter by Sif, but other than that I can't remember it coming up much in what I've read, which is, admittedly, not the most scholarly fare. Between this and Kettila, it just strikes me as those responses being more in line with, say, Zeus and his infamous womanizing than Thor.
ReplyDeleteNot at all; those are pretty common responses for Norse dudes in myth, and Thor's not immune to them more than anyone else. Of course he's not out Zeus-level tomcatting it up, but he comes from a time period when cheating on your wife is basically not a thing and the only reason to avoid it is so she doesn't get mad at you, not because you have a moral obligation to be faithful to her. He's got more kids not with Sif than he does with her, and nobody finds that particularly weird or objectionable (except maybe Sif herself, but she doesn't get lines in Norse myth, so who knows).
DeleteSo we assume Thor probably reacts like any other Norse dude divinity, and is probably interested in extremely sexy ladies that cross his path. Kettila rolled in with eight Epic Appearance; she was mind-meltingly hot, and since there was no reason for him not to want to sleep with her, he went for it and probably promptly forgot about the unimportant (to him) incident shortly thereafter. If Amaterasu's around with her Ultimate Appearance, that effect's multiplied by a lot.
It's not Thor being a jerk; it's just Thor being a Viking. He doesn't have modern ideas of what is and isn't morally okay in terms of sex and dating, so he's not being an ass for cheating on his wife, just being a normal dude for ancient Iceland. (And you're right - he definitely doesn't hold a candle to someone like Zeus, or Odin for that matter, who are serial rapists and womanizers and probably also all up in the poor sun-goddess's grill if she happens to show up when their wives aren't around to glare at them.)