Bres Votes Himself

Question: Who is the current king of the Tuatha?

Well, that depends on your game's decisions about what, exactly, is going on with those psychotic Celtic warmachines.

In the absolute technicality of Irish mythology, nobody's king of the Tuatha de Danann; they all died at one point or another, and in the strictest interpretation of the stories there's nobody left. Of course, that would make it hard to have any Tuatha to do anything with in Scion, so we'll have to ignore that little detail (as we so often do. Tuatha, why you so crazy?).

If we presume that all the Tuatha on the playable roster are as alive and active as one another, then we have a veritable menu to choose from. No fewer than three of the Tuatha have served as High King in the past.

Nuada Airgetlam was the first king of the Tuatha (well, during the time that their myths are active, anyway). Thanks to his incredible courage, physical perfection and prowess in battle he was among the most beloved of his pantheon, and he led his people to victory over the Fir Bolg and secured Ireland to become their homeland. He has served as High King twice; he lost the office when his hand was cut off in battle because it is required that all kings of the Tuatha be physically perfect, and once his hand was restored he took up ruling the pantheon again until the war against the Fomorians caused him to pass control over to a more capable warrior general.

The Dagda, the jolly old father god of many of the lesser Tuatha and renowned warrior and reveler, was also High King of the Tuatha for a short period of time. It's unclear exactly when his reign was - we know he was king while Aengus was seeking his wife Caer Ibormeith, but it's hard to know when exactly that tale falls on the continuum of Irish myth. The Dagda's sometimes considered the king of the Aes Sidhe as well, suggesting this is perhaps a very late development from the time that the Tuatha depart to go underhill and become the fairy folk.

Lugh, finally, is the wartime king of the Tuatha; though he was never in any official line of succession, his skills as a commander on the field of battle caused Nuada to hand the reins over to him during the war against the Fomorians. Since basically everybody else, including the other two High Kings, died during said war, he remained the de facto king until his own death some time later.

Technically, Lugh was the High King last, so depending on what you rule happened with the Tuatha, he might still be in power. Then again, he was granted that power by Nuada specifically for purposes of the war against the Fomorians, so once that ended it might have reverted back to the Silver Hand. But then again, the Fomorians are loose again now with the release of the Titans, so it's possible Nuada could have handed it right back for the same reasons. And if you decide that the Dagda was High King last, going off the fairy theory, then you could also say he might still be in power. A lot depends on what you decide the "deaths" of the various kings meant, how they avoided true death within Scion's setting and what political motivations might be at play between them.

Personally, we like to run Nuada as the High King; he was the original HK, after all, before it was cool. He's the archetypal perfect king, representing justice, order, beauty and perfection, and the fact that the Tuatha brought him back into power once suggests to us that they probably love him enough to do it again. He's the leader of the Tuatha for us (well... at least he was before Woody ruined everything. Now Manannan mac Lir's in charge. Shit got weird).

But there are other options if you don't want to keep Nuada at the helm, most notably Lugh as a possible wartime king, either on his own or under Nuada's aegis. Every Storyteller will probably want to make a different call based on the politics and feel they want for their individual games.