Parents on the Loose

Question: Say Izanami and, hey, maybe Izanagi, too, decided to jump ship and follow the siren call of Titanhood. What would happen to the rest of the pantheon? Yomi? Their existing Scions?

Ah, the political panic and changing landscapes of gods that turn out to be traitors. The effects always depend on who the gods in question are and what's going on at the exact time they defect, but it's always a big deal!

In all technicality, nothing would happen to the rest of the pantheon. Izanagi and Izanami may be the creator gods who originally parented them, but they're not the rulers of the pantheon and their departure won't have any direct effects. Amaterasu will still be the queen of the gods, her siblings and lesser subjects will still remain in control of their normal areas of influence, and nobody's going to suddenly stop existing or lose their powers or anything.

After that point, however, things get interesting. If Izanami's out of the picture, nobody's running Yomi anymore, which leaves the mortals under the Amatsukami's care without anywhere to go once they've shuffled off their mortal coil. Yomi itself might or might not remain stable, and the pantheon might have to reroute them to Susanoo's Underworld, the mysterious and seldom-frequented island of Tokoyo; they also might have to allow Emma-O, the god of the Japanese Buddhist Underworld, to take on the largest burden of souls, which is further complicated if you consider Emma-O to be the same figure as Yama of the Devas (who is probably his basis). It's also possible that Izanami might retain her control over Yomi after she defected, meaning that not only was the place not doing its job but it might actually become a very present danger, turning the souls of the dead and the normal creatures living there into Titanspawn scourges.

Another question is what, exactly, they would go become Titans of. Izanami's association with death and determination to destroy more life than her husband can create make her obvious to be part of a Titanrealm of Death if you're using one, but Izanagi's more nebulous. As a creator god whose mission statement is to populate the world with people faster than his wife can kill them, he's aligned most closely with fertility and health concepts, but neither is super strong. The original Titanrealm Terra in the books might be a good fit, since it includes the ideas of birth and new life, but if you're using closer to our Titanrealm setup you may want something more closely aligned with Health or even Creation. Izanami's deathiness is easy as an antagonist behavior already - she's not a very pleasant lady - but Izanagi's destructive Titanhood is probably more like a loss of all moderation, overpopulating the earth with an unending flood of people and causing starvation, poverty and violence to skyrocket from the overcrowding.

As for their Scions, on the surface it's mostly the same story as the rest of the pantheon. Technically, nothing will change for them; a god becoming a Titan doesn't retroactively turn their children into Titanspawn or anything, and they would remain full-blooded Scions of the Amatsukami just as they'd always been. But they would have a lot of problems of loyalty; not only would they be in an uncomfortable situation with their pantheon, all of them scrutinizing them and wondering if they might follow their parents into the realm of evil jerkness (or even preemptively taking them out in case they're considering it), but the newly-minted Titans may also try to take their children with them, calling upon them to prove their loyalty to their divine parents by becoming minions of the Titans themselves. It's always uncomfortable being a Scion thanks to having to deal with different gods pulling you in ninety directions in their influence wars, but it's even worse when your parents are also the incarnation of world-destroying antagonism.

All this is barely scratching the surface of what can happen when a god (or two!) goes Titan, but so much depends on when they go, why and who supports them that it'll always vary for every game and situation. The consequences are always huge, long-lasting and far-ranging, though - if it seems like a major problem might occur, it probably will. Go nuts, because they will.