And That's How You Get Tidal Waves

Question: Hello. I was curious. Your page on Olokun mentions that Obatala bound him to his palace at the beginning of the world. Are there any myths explaining how he escaped for his other antics amongst the Orisha?

There are not; no myth exists in which Olokun breaks his chains, escapes from the ocean or otherwise gets away from the consequences of his misbehavior at the creation of the world. However, that doesn't mean you can't use him for all kinds of fun stuff, or that his other stories don't make sense! "Bound" might mean a lot of different things, in the context of mythology and the context of a Scion game.

Theoretically, not only has Olokun never been released from his palace, but he actually must still be chained there, because if he were loose he would probably be spitefully flooding everything again, as he is prone to doing. Divine Vengeance lasts a long time and is best served cold and very, very salty. But being chained to his palace doesn't necessarily mean he can't go do other things as well; it's all about what "chained" really means.

To start with, it's easiest for Scion to assume that the chains are metaphorical, magical or in some other way not literal, specific chains. The myth might mean that Olokun is unable to leave the ocean for long periods of time thanks to being chained there by his Fate, or that he's still chained but that those chains are flexible (perhaps allowing him to do things if he behaves himself but snapping him back if he tries to go on a rampage) and extend far enough for him to go hang out on the shore (the site of most of his other myths), leaving you all kinds of cool room to mess with what those chains look like and whether or not he tries to hide them. Or, for Scion's purposes, maybe he's temporarily off the chain, able to gallivant around in support of the war against the Titans but on a sort of probation; anything goes, really, since there's no right answer.

There are a lot of gods in various mythologies who are technically confined to their usual haunts, including Hel, Tecciztecatl, Izanami, the Vanir and others. But since kicking them out of the game would suck, Scion has a little wiggle room to figure out what they can do and how they can still be involved in stories despite their special circumstances. We'd say that Olokun can probably do almost anything other gods can for purposes of the game, but that there's always that possibility, in the back of everyone's minds, that he could be leashed back to the ocean if things got out of hand.