Distinguished Heavenly Gods

Question: So, what gods would you be looking at, if the Amatsukami rewrite won? What direction is Tsukumo-gami going to take? Any changes in the virtues *cough Harmony cough*? Raiden, Izanami and Izanagi - Titans? What is Tsuki-yomi's relationship with his pantheon?

Oh, man, I meant to post this with the recent glut of Discussion of Things On the Poll! The Amatsukami rewrite isn't a frontrunner right now, but hey, maybe the wind will change.

The Amatsukami are a mess in the RAW, as you've no doubt heard us complain many times in the past. Gods that should be there aren't, gods that have no business being there are core members, their PSP is busted, their cosmology is weird, their Titans are nonsensical, and they spend most of their time in our games crying in the corner. We need to fix them ninety ways, and while we are totally excited about them finally getting to shine, the project's been backburnered for a while thanks to John's pantheon-fatigue and the fact that we currently don't have any Japanese-heavy elements in our games so it hasn't been a priority for our players.

Things that we want to tinker with include, in no particular order:

• Pantheon Roster. There are people on here who should never have been playable gods, with Raiden being the most obvious example; he's an ogre-monster who eats people and has never done anything positive in his loud and destructive life. He's most likely only there thanks to name recognition from the Mortal Kombat series, and you can probably guess how legit we think that should be as a justification. Conversely, several major Shinto figures, including Uzume, Inari and Sarutahiko, are mysteriously absent, which we can only assume is because they didn't fit the original pantheon "parameters" that most of the core six fall into or nobody wanted to bring in one of the Kunitsukami and confuse everyone by calling him Amatsukami instead. Regardless, the entire roster needs cleaning up to introduce those gods who deserve spots and get everyone else kicked back out into the Titanrealms where they belong.
• PSP. Tsukumo-gami has a very solidly Shinto idea behind it, but it's a pretty sorry mess of a purview that needs some love desperately. It's very underpowered, for one thing, and pretty blurry about what exactly it does and affects when compared to other powers (can you use it on "inanimate" objects that are still living, like trees? what about inanimate substances that aren't objects, like water or fire? does it infringe on other purviews? when you separate a kami from an item, what the heck are its stats?), neither of which is helping Amatsukami Scions do neat stuff with it. We're also currently questioning its core concept as well; the word "tsukumogami" refers specifically to items that have become old and powerful enough to gain awareness and personality of their own, but Scion allows the use of the purview on any inanimate object, which is a little bit mythically dissonant. Of course, we also wouldn't want the purview to only be usable on museum pieces... unless maybe it was really awesome? The idea of the eight million kami is a potent one, covering the Shinto concept of spirits in everything and the neat way that interacts with Scion's usual setup of things either being gods or mortal, and we'd love to let Scions play with it. But no matter what we do, the conceptual purpose of the purview needs clarification. More neat powers, less confusion, better Japanese-ness!
• Titans. Titans are their own separate project, so this won't be happening all at once, but a lot of the figures on the Amatsukami roster that we'll be removing will probably in turn become Titans. At the same time, their current Titans are something of a clusterfuck; we've already fixed poor Mikaboshi, so he can take his rightful place among the stars instead of being a weird primordial darkness monster from a comic book, but Kaminokaze could also stand to be restored to his actual persona as Fujin, Raiden's equally unpleasant brother.

We probably will also revisit the Virtues, but I'm not sure they need a lot of tweaking, to be honest. I actually love Harmony for them because it dovetails so beautifully with the Shinto ideal of purification and pollution, where rituals and behavior must be carefully observed to preserve the good balance and purity of things and any deviation causes horrible imbalances and problems. It's not the tree-hugging variety of Harmony, but I think it's a good representation of the idea nonetheless. Duty and Valor are probably in there in deference to the samurai ideals of Japan's bushido period, and the first at least I wholeheartedly agree with (jury's still out on Valor, pending more close examination).

As for Tsukiyomi, he'll certainly still be on the pantheon roster, making his surly way across the night skies. His banishment from Amaterasu's presence certainly chafes at him (especially if you happen to follow the version of court mythology in which she was his wife as well as sister), and it probably makes interacting with the entire pantheon difficult, but he's still one of the three August Siblings and deserves the respect that goes along with it. Some of his banishment may actually be ameliorated at the moment, since his skills and presence are probably needed in the fight against the Titans; but then again, maybe not, since his sister is not exactly known for being forgiving or tolerant.

The Amatsukami are not actually in as bad shape as many pantheons; they don't have the total-conceptual-overhaul problem that the Loa did, don't need an entirely new PSP invented like the Aesir and aren't plagued by the character assassination that laid the Aztlanti low. They're just underwhelming at the moment rather than really broken, and need a little spit, polish and loving care.