Deva Decisions

Question: A few questions about the Devas: First, why does Lakshmi have Epic Intelligence? Second, have you ever considered rethinking the Deva Virtues? For a pantheon and a culture dedicated to the ideals of Dharma, Duty seems a much better fit than Order, since Dharma is much closer in meaning to duty than to any concept of mortal law. Also, it seems a bit strange that the most worshipped pantheon in the world doesn't have Piety.

Well, Lakshmi's easy, anyway. Her Epic Intelligence is included in an attempt to model her role as patron goddess of spiritual enlightenment - mental wealth, if you will, to go with her ability to grant material good luck and wealth through the Magic purview. We're not sure it's the best possible way to represent that idea, however, so if you decided to strip it from her, we wouldn't cry any tears. We often have this problem with the Devas, not to mention other eastern religions that heavily depend on ideas of enlightenment and trandscendence; there's no direct enlightenment stat, so we usually end up juggling around to see if Epic Intelligence or Mystery or Occult is a better fit, or some combination thereof. Lakshmi's connection to Intelligence is probably her weakest, and with Sarasvati already doing that for the Tridevi in spades, you may want to just ignore it.

Secondly... well, we've considered changing Virtues for everybody, although so far we've only done it in one case (giving the Yazata Order instead of Duty, because while Duty is not a bad fit for them, holy shit do those guys definitely have Order). We might at some point in the future do a serious examination of what Virtues everyone has and whether any of them need to change, but for the moment none of them are so heinously out of order that we're not getting that awesome religious flair in our games, so it's not a priority. As we talked about back when we were working on the Orisha, for most pantheons it's not really a question of finding the Virtues they espouse as much as it's one of whittling down most or all of the Virtues to find the ones they represent the most; most of the Virtues are prized by most of the pantheons to one degree or another, and that means that cutting it down to four can be challenging.

As far as dharma goes, yes, I think you're righ that Duty is a Virtue that the Devas would most definitely respect. But do they respect it more than Intellect, with their beeline focus on reaching for enlightenment and wisdom? More than Harmony, when the connection and spiritual foundation of all things in the universe is one of their religion's core tenets? More than Endurance, when marathon asceticism is their divine national sport? I think if you were going to replace anything it would probably be Order, which is in a similarly nebulous state of yes-they-like-it-but-do-they-like-it-the-most. I don't necessarily think you're wrong, actually - Duty would definitely be a good fit for them. We'll have to chew it around a bit.

Piety, however, naw. While having pious worshipers is great, it doesn't necessarily translate to the gods themselves having Piety, if you see what I mean. Pantheons like the Anunna have Piety because they genuinely believe they're the supreme powers of the universe and that all other gods owe their existence to them, while pantheons like the Tuatha de Danann have Piety because they're so supremely dedicated to the idea of their own importance that they have no moral problems whatsoever setting up divine shop in places that clearly don't belong to them, because obviously Ireland being Tuatha-controlled is way more awesome than it remaining with whatever second-stringers owned it previously. The Devas are certainly fans of themselves, especially the big triads, but they're lacking that fanatical devotion to the Devas above all other things; their religion actually suggests that all gods of all pantheons are really the same when you get down to the cosmic principles of things, and in their earliest stories they even acknowledge another pantheon, the asuras, as their equals.

Theoretically, every pantheon has at one time or another had an insanely pious core base of people who believed in them utterly, wholeheartedly and above other gods. But while the inclinations of a pantheon's home culture do help shape their Virtue setup, if we used that as our yardstick everybody would just have Piety.