The Dead Walk

Question: I'm brainstorming ideas for reconciling a Titanic Izanami to the Amatsukami, ranging from getting her kids to visit more often to convincing Izanagi to pull a Belili. This is rather broad, but do you have any thoughts to share on attempting to resurrect big-name deities who have 'dead and not loving it' as a big part of their legend?

It is pretty broad, but hey, that doesn't mean we can't take a running tackle at it anyway.

Resurrecting a god, especially one that's been dead a long time, and especially one who's so strongly associated with the idea of death, is no small undertaking. You're looking at something that will need tons of magical mojo from multiple gods, the political sanction of important involved parties (or the political fallout if you don't talk to them first), and the inversion of the balance of the universe, replacing and rewriting who's in charge of life and death and how they interact with their pantheons. That shit is heavy all by itself, never mind that there will also be specific problems and obstacles for various different dead gods that differ and make your headache even worse.

Big-name dead gods fall into three basic categories: gods who died and are stuck being dead in the Underworld (your Baldur, Gugalanna and so forth), fertility gods who are on a revolving door in and out of the Underworld (Persephone, Tammuz, Baal and so on) and gods who died and ended up being in charge of running the place as a result (Yama, Izanami, Osiris, etc). They've all got different problems and challenges, so we'll hit some of the major highlights for each (although I know you're specifically looking at the last case).

Gods who have died and are sad denizens of a normal Underworld are probably the easiest case to handle, actually; they follow the usual Underworld rules for dead folks and can thusly potentially be "rescued" in the usual way ("usual" here meaning "fucking hard and rare", but that's Underworlds for you). Your main challenges are getting the ruler of whatever Underworld they're stuck in to allow them to leave, and, if that doesn't work, figuring out a way to jailbreak them if necessary. The most obvious way of approaching is the classic journey to the Underworld to beg the death god's indulgence to give you back your lost god, asking for them to allow the dead deity to go free. When you do so, you're looking at probably needing A) a really great reason that the death god will consider breaking the rules for you, and B) a really great bribe to make sure they get something out of it. If you're lacking either, most death gods will turn you down without blinking. Finally, you can also try to get some other god with power over death to come in and take control of the dead god's shade, but that's possibly the most explosively dangerous option - do you really want to see what happens when Osiris rolls into Hades' house and starts opposing his rule?

Dying fertility gods, which is the scholarly shorthand for "gods who die on a regular basis to illustrate the fertility of the earth in different seasons or periods of drought/abundance", are a much more difficult issue. The recurring cycle of their deaths is a major and important part of their Legend, and disrupting it might have serious consequences for both the World and the politics among the pantheon they belong to. If Persephone stops going to Hades every year, you're going to have a violently upset Hades on your hands, and if Tammuz stops going to Irkallu every year, that means Ereshkigal may rise up and try to reclaim Ishtar. There's also the problem of most of them dying for different reasons and because of different events in their past, so some may be easier to stop than others; Hades notwithstanding, it might not be hard to keep Persephone from going down to the Underworld if Demeter interferes or psychopomps refuse to take her, but Baal ends up down there because he's prone to getting in fights with his death-god rival Mot and dying, and stopping a thunder god on a rampage seldom goes well for anyone involved. Some of them may not want to be stopped from dying, which is a further layer of difficulty, and you may just not be able to convince Persephone she doesn't want to go be queen half the year or that Adonis should abandon his devotion to Aphrodite to avoid getting shivved this year. And, finally, if you do succeed in breaking that cycle, what happens to the World? Does winter never come again if Persephone never dies, and what does that do to the Greek lands and the people who live in them? Do Lebanon and Syria never experience drought again if Baal never goes to Nepesh, and if so, are their dry, sandy shores going to end up sliding into the sea because they were never meant to be constantly inundated with moisture? Even without the probable extreme ire of the death gods who aren't getting their perennial visitors, those myths have a direct effect on the World and Scions attempting to stop their normal course may need to figure out how to run some serious-scale damage control.

And, finally, there are the folks like Izanami, who died and ended up taking ownership of the deathrealms and the very concept of death itself. Some of these gods may be happy to be where they are (Yama, for example, would probably keep doing his job even if he was technically allowed to quit), but often they're stuck down there because of banishment or punishments levied on them. Hel, Izanami and Osiris are seriously not pleased about their lots in unlife, but thanks to the laws and barriers of their pantheons, they're unable to do anything about it but make the best of the situation by ruling where they can. The most major obstacle to getting them back is just convincing the rest of the pantheon to allow it, which is going to involve political shenanigans on a cosmic level; after that point, you also have the extremely difficult job of finding someone to replace them, because the last thing anyone wants is an Underworld with nobody at the wheel. And if you manage all that, what will the former death god be as a member of the pantheon proper, and what new roles and powers might they take on, and how will they be doing that, and what will it mean to the other gods who are now rubbing elbows with them?

This is a lot of stuff. And those are just the in-game, non-mechanical concerns, which are already more than enough to make most Scions go cross-eyed. There's also the extreme power required to mechanically pull this off.

In terms of what you actually do to resurrect a god, occasionally it can be as "easy" as journeying to the Underworld, finding them and giving them the power to escape themselves; gods with Ultimate Stamina, Samsara or Circle of Life may be able to resurrect under their own power if you can just give them the juice to do it, meaning that rituals or quests to help them out with that may eventually bear fruit. If they don't have a get-out-of-Hades-free card, then you're looking at needing, at bare minimum, a god who can blow The Reaper to resurrect them and a god who can bust off The Savior to help them form and inhabit a new body, and depending on who the god is and what circumstances surround their deaths, you may also need someone to blow The Wyrd to work on disentangling their Fate from its current dead-end path. It goes without saying that if you and your buddies aren't Legend 12, you're going to have to offer some serious incentives to get other gods in your corner here. There are also occasionally very powerful relics in various cultures' mythology that may be able to resurrect the dead, so you may end up going on quests to find and figure out how to use those if everything else is failing. And, finally, you may be able to perform an Underworld trade, letting one god return to life while another dies in his place, but finding willing victims for such things is probably not any easier than getting a cabal of gods willing to blow at least 30 Legend each on your problem.

This is a lot of work and it's very daunting, but don't despair; it's still possible, and in fact the PCs in our games have several times managed to resurrect dead gods through their efforts. Geoff's band managed to help Quetzalcoatl return to life by providing him enough rituals and sacrifices that he could resurrect himself after his ill-fated battle with Ryujin, and Aurora brokered an impressive trade-one-god-for-another deal that not only saved a dead goddess (sort of, after a lot of work) but had the interesting side effect of getting Hel to ban her from the Underworld permanently. It's totally doable, but, like most really important things in the Scion world, it's doable only through intense effort and acceptance of equally intense consequences.

Edit: Oh, hey, apparently your question was about Titans, not gods, and I totally ignored that because I'm competing with John for title of Worst Blogger Ever. In addition to all the jazz up there, you might want to check out this old post about converting Titans into gods.