Actually, one does! Xiuhtecuhtli is the Aztec god of fire, flame, the hearth and the renewing power of the sacred burning. He covers both the destructive flame of out-of-control fires, volcanoes and burns and the benevolent flame that provides warmth, safety and light. He had a cult strongly associated with keeping a sacred flame lit except for when it was ceremonially renewed at the end of various sacred calendar periods, and his sacrifices were usually ritually burned to make sure they were handed off properly to him. His destructive and powerful forms usually accompany him looking youthful and vigorous, while his comforting and benevolent form is often of an old, shabby-toothed man.
See? Fire godding is totally covered.
Unfortunately, Xiuhtecuhtli has incredibly strong ties to fire... and just not much else, leaving him in a limbo where we weren't sure he really had enough juice to be a Legend 12 god. Our current assumption is that he's hanging out around Legend 11, important but not truly on the same level as the big Tezcatlipocas and their buddies. We talked about what to do with him in Scion games a bit in this old post; for our games, we assume he's around but not doing a lot, helping with the war effort but not important enough to be directly involved or making Scions unless the PCs decide to go bother him.
As for the rest of the Aztlanti, that answer's easy: they don't have Fire associated because none of them are fire gods. For most of them, there isn't even the vaguest hint of connection to the powers of the overly hot and cranky; the only one who has even a touch of fire association is Tezcatlipoca, who is occasionally said to have invented it, but since he never does anything with fire ever in any of his many myths and that story may apply to Mixcoatl (also not doing anything with fire) anyway, it wasn't strong enough to give it to him as an association for his Scions. Xiuhtecuhtli is so strongly associated with being in charge of all kinds of fire that there's no need for any other gods in the pantheon to mess around with it, so for the most part they don't.
Some pantheons simply don't do a lot with a given purview or set of powers; they all come from different religions and different cultures that view concepts with varying levels of importance, so there will usually be a purview or two that a pantheon doesn't have represented at Legend 12. Just as the Pesedjet, who live in the desert, are unlikely to be aligned with Frost or the Aesir, who are strongly tied to the ideas and concerns of humanity, don't have anyone carrying the Animal torch.
" who is occasionally said to have invented it, but since he never does anything with fire ever in any of his many myths"
ReplyDeleteIs the expemption fire from Loki's purviews in the same vain? He might credited as the *firebringer* but does nothing more with it?
Actually, I don't know of anywhere in Norse myth where Loki is called "firebringer" or otherwise connected with fire at all. We removed Fire from his associations long ago because he literally has nothing to do with it; the connection was made by scholars in the nineteenth century who posited a linguistic connection between his name and the word "logi", meaning fire. But as far as we can tell he has no connection to fire, never does anything with fire, displays no powers connected to fire and in fact actually straight-up loses to Fire as a personified concept when he tries to beat it in Utgarde-Loki's castle. There's occasional other really sketchy possible evidence - the possibility that the Snaptun stone's depiction of Loki might suggest an association with fire, or the idea that his father's name Farbauti might be reconstructed as "far-striker" which might suggest lightning which in turn might suggest that Loki is associated with fire since lightning can give birth to fire... but you can see we're going down the rabbithole now.
DeleteOther than being the guy who will eventually lead Surtr to the Bifrost at Ragnarok, Loki has as little to do with fire as any other members of the Aesir. So out the window with it.
I read in Aztec Templo Mayor: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks that Xiuhtecuhtli was associated with three hearthstones(Mixcoatl/Xihunel, Tozpan and Ihuitl). What does that mean?
ReplyDeleteIt's from a snippet of poetry in the retelling of the story of Mixcoatl hunting his mother Itzpapalotl in the Codex Chimalpopoca; the hunter claimis that after he has slain various animals, he will bring them to "lay them in the hands" of Xiuhtecuhtli, who is guarded by Mixcoatl, Tozpan and Ihuitl. "Laying" the slain animals in Xiuhtecuhtli's hands is almost certainly a poetic way of saying that he will burn them in a sacrificial ritual.
DeleteThe three names are a double-entendre, with a spiritual and prosaic meaning. On the surface, the line is saying that those three gods are the defenders of Xiuhtecuhtli, protecting the aged god from harm, which might mean in a literal sense and also might refer to providing him sacrifices (i.e., fuel for his fire) to keep him going. But it's also a symbolic play on words referring to the three large stones used to construct an Aztec hearth, which the fire in the middle of them; so you could consider the three named gods the "hearthstones" that protect Xiuhtecuhtli (that is, the fire).
The names of the three heathstone "gods" mean "cloud serpent" or "turquoise", "always maintaining" and "downy feathers". You could either decide that, since they're otherwise unattested, they're probably fairly unimportant other than being followers and supporters of Xiuhtecuhtli, the same way that the hearthstones are unimportant unless a fire is lit; or, alternatively, you could decide that all three are serious major gods going by epithets ("downy feathers" might refer to Huitzilopochtli, who was born from a ball of feathers, for example) and who make it a point to guard the old fire god from harm. Either option could work well for a game that wants to mess around with the old hearth-god. And, of course, you could also decide it's just poetics referring to the usual size and shape of a hearth and there are no such three guardians at all.
Aztec poetry is not kidding around when it comes to symbolism.
I should also mention that Ihuitl and Mixcoatl are both cloud serpents and members of the Centzonmimixcoa; Tozpan isn't mentioned anywhere, but if you want to run all three as part of the cloud serpent coalition, that'd also be an easy thing to do.
DeleteSo why isn't fire that important to the Aztec?
ReplyDeleteBut it is. That's why they have a whole major god, Xiuhtecuhtli, dedicated to it. Just because he doesn't have enough going on to be Legend 12 by our standards doesn't mean he didn't have his own booming cult and rituals in his heyday.
DeleteMore to the point, though, you'll find that most pantheons don't treat Fire as one of their most important associations or powers; most pantheons only have one god that handles it, or at most two, and a good percentage of those are just antagonists (like Kagutsuchi for the Japanese, for example). It's not that people didn't think it was important, but rather that for most cultures it's adequately covered by one person. Fire has uses that help humanity, but it's also one of the most dangerous and uncontrollable forces in the mortal world, so half the time a culture will just declare it controlled by The Enemy, while many of the rest just have one figure to keep it on lockdown but not a lot of others to do anything with it. You'll see a whole gaggle of gods that have to do with the forces humanity needs to survive - Fertility, Health and Sky/rain are perennially popular - but far fewer that do things that are dangerous or less essential, like Darkness or Fire.
That said, your go-to guys for Fire are totally the Yazata, with their concept of the sacred flame of ever-burning righteousness. They are on top of that. :)
I don't want John going on a rampage over this, so thankfully i'm an ocean away...
ReplyDeleteWould it be possible to give us some Legend 11 and 10 gods for the various Pantheons? At least a few examples, especially ones like Xiuhtecuhtli, who have a Purview that no one else in the pantheon seems to hold?
This will make it easier for some players, if their ST doesn't or can't do the research to find such obscure gods, who might not serve as a parent, but who can be a god within the pantheon that can grant your scion a Relic with access to the desired Purview. Some STs are a bit more strict on these matters than John...