Question: This is a question that has been bugging me for some time: shouldn't there be a better Avatar expression of Moon than The Mirror? I understand the symbolism behind it, but shouldn't it have more to do with the madness/lunacy or the influence of the tides than that?
Not necessarily, but I can see where you're going. The thing about the moon, in mythology, is that it's the heavenly body with he most different and unrelated associations and symbols, and it therefore isn't as easy to reduce down to One Idea the way others are. You know where you stand with Sun - the sun is all about light and brightness and warmth, so The Glory embodies those things and you're good to go - but Moon is more complex. In various myths and cultures, it might represent madness, comfort in the night, the action of the tides, guidance for the traveler, the mirror of the heavens, light, menstruation and other affairs that belong solely to women, death and rebirth and even more. Some cultures assign the moon to only one or two of those things, while others seem to have taken the orb out of the sky and rolled it in symbols until it looks like a feathered pinata.
Tides and lunacy are certainly important parts of the moon's imagery, but so too are all the other things listed above, including the idea of it as the shining silver mirror of the gods/universe/earth. Using just lunacy, for example, as the ultimate expression of Moon's Avatar would be very limited, and wouldn't make very much sense for all the moon gods who don't have anything to do with insanity (and they do exist - Sin, for example). The mirror's one of those concepts that is generally applicable to most moon gods in a way some of the others aren't, and you can see that we nodded to lunacy in the description as well. But it's also hard to have a showstopping representative concept when you're really trying to cover nine concepts at once, so we're not kidding when we say Moon's a difficult one.
However, take heart: the Avatars and Ultimates on the site right now are just the old holdovers from the books, and we're hoping to make overhauling them a major project in the very near future. It's our hope that we can rework the Avatars into powers that not only have more concrete and useful effects and explanations while retaining their awesome scope of power, but also make them more all-inclusive, so that everyone with The Beast doesn't have to be a ravening predator and everyone with The Mirror isn't necessarily just a reflective surface.
Everyone will be surprised to hear that I, who have long been the vocal champion of the Amatsukami rewrite, did not actually vote for them this time around.
ReplyDeleteI voted for the Lower-Legend God Profiles. :) I would love to see filled in family trees!
So many options for fun things to be doing!
Delete*still voting for the Amatsukami*
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to see all the basic pantheons done, thats all^^
Allthough Familiar-sacrifice should be scarificed to the WTF-gods and reincarnated as something good before.
That's true... I thought about putting Itztli up there right now, but I figured there were already two PSPs on there and there was no point in splitting the vote that much. Soon, though... soon. Sangria needs her a shiny new boon.
DeleteAre you going to add Nagual benefits into Itztli? It's too complex trying to shoehorn something that personal into the Creature rules.
DeleteDefinitely agreed that it's too complicated to be a Creature, but it's also too complex to be a boon, in my opinion. It needs vast amounts of customization and tailoring to the specific Scion in question, which is very hard to do within the normal mechanics of a boon. (Plus, it's kind of weird to restrict having a nahualli to a particular level of Legend? Or maybe that's just me.)
DeleteWe handle nahualli as special Birthrights right now; they don't use the Creature rules, but are still a Birthright with various specialty powers designed to complement their Scion.
As soon as I posted it, I was like... nah, restricting nahualli to a certain Legend level makes as much sense as anything else PSPs do.
DeleteStill think it works better as a Birthright than a boon, though. But we might work it into the purview somehow, or do something with the concept of ixiptla, another unfairly underrepresented Aztec religious practice.
As much as I have been eager for the Amatsukami rewrite, I went ahead and voted for Enech. There are just so many Tuatha across all the games I play in and get to watch. :D
ReplyDeleteAnd man, they need some love!
DeleteThanks for answering this. I'm now really REALLY excited to see the Avatar Expressions re-work. Moon is my favorite purview, but The Mirror just seemed to be(for me at least) vastly underwhelming, especially compared to some of the other purviews.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, the thing I want to do most is losing the poll.
DeletePretty Excited.Well, On The Bright Side, I Also Really Want To See Enech Get A Makeover. My Current Character Concept Is Like Mixing The Boondock Saints With Sheogorath FromThe Elder Scrolls. I'm Pretty Excited. Sorry About The Capitalization, But The Mobile Browser Is Making Me Do It.
DeleteHa, I was wondering what that was from!
DeleteI know that sun gods have sun chariots, but does the moon have any deities responsible for carrying around the bright shiny ball at night?
ReplyDeleteYes, quite a few! Selene and Artemis both drive the moon chariot among the Greeks, while Mani does it among the Norse and Chandra among the Devas. There are also several lunar gods who drive things that are not traditional chariots but nevertheless the same idea, including the Babylonian Sin who pilots a lunar boat across the sky each night and the Aztec Tecciztecatl, who carries the moon on his back as a snailshell.
Delete