The Way We Were

Question: Do any of your characters have or do anything that reminds them of their time before they became Scions?

Oh, definitely. Scions were all human once, after all, and often remain much more human than their peers even after they become gods. It comes with the territory; a god like Zeus can never really "get" mortals and their fragile, tiny lives, but a god who came up from that ground floor has intimate knowledge of what mortal life was like and who he or she was back then. It's part of what makes them able to connect more fully with the modern world and fight for the rights and needs of humanity that much more passionately.

Of our characters, some are more "human" than others and always have been, but most of them have things that remind them of their long-ago status as members of the human race.

For Eztli, her own face reminds her of her origins; while she recently used Health to cleanse all of the remaining mortal Aztecs of their European bloodlines and return them to pure Mexica stock, she was born mestizo and will always be mestizo, as will her children, an irony when she and the other Scions of her generation are now the only ones. Her mortal military training also continues to color her world, which is just as much about following the orders of her generals (Geoff, or the Tezcatlipocas) for the safety and betterment of her people now as it was when she carried an assault rifle to do it. She also still lives in Mexico City, where she lived as a human, now as its patron protector and goddess; her memory isn't always reliable enough to remember her days in the shantytowns on its outskirts, but their echo is always there.

Sowiljr may be de facto king of the Aesir now, but he still spent a lot of a recent game in the kitchen helping prepare for a wedding feast, traces of the five-star Vegas chef he was before Visitation lingering on. His entire status as god of marital fidelity and family has its roots in his mortal life, in which the absence of his father and the struggles he watched his mother endure made him swear that he would never let his own family be treated the same way; that long-ago memory of his own wish that his father had been there for him is behind a lot of his careful shepherding of his own sons and his determination to foster happy families.

Jioni's come a long way from mortal life to Queen of Erebus, but some things have never changed; her skills as a doctor and way with corpses were things she was good at long before her visitation, when she was a star med student and a county coroner. Her mortician's jacket stayed with her for many of those years, transformed into a relic that she didn't lose until godhood, and her relic flask of rum is just as much her friend now as it was when she was sneaking alcohol in Catholic school.

Terminus, oddly enough, might be the closest of all the Scions-become-gods to humanity; he's still carrying and using an iPhone (albeit a magic one), frequently uses Avatar to shrink himself down to become human in capabilities and powers, and actually went to his hometown to get his mortal mother and transplant her to his cult where he could be sure she would be taken better care of. Of all of our characters, he's probably the most fond of humanity and their hijinks, and most misses being one of their carefree number. Also, whenever he goes to his cult now, his mom nags him.

Not all of our characters are closely tied to their mortal roots; Vala's father nuked most of her mortal life to keep her from having anything to do but his errands, Aiona never liked humanity in the first place and never looks back on her humble origins, Marcus went mad around mid-Demigod and can barely remember who he is now much less who he was then, and Folkwardr hasn't been human in centuries and has little left of his mortal life. But they were all still human once, and even if they no longer carry much of it with them or don't think about where they came from, it had an inescapable effect on who they are now and what they grew into as deities.