The Penthouse Suite

Question: What're your favorite Overworlds? Personally, I think the giant treehouse that the Bogovi have is pretty cool.

Oh, jeez, favorites? It's hard to pick favorites.

John, who is busy conquering the world in the name of Zeus right now in Civilization V, says his favorite is Olympus. It's not just that it's the home of the Theoi and he's their number-one fanboy, but also because he says it's one of the most clear and universally resonant Overworlds in Scion and strikes all the right chords. The idea of the sky god ruling from atop something so high up that it might as well be thought of as impossibly far away is a very old human belief, and he enjoys the blurring of lines between the top of Olympus itself, a mountain that actually exists in Greece, and the mythic Olympus where the gods dwell. To the ancient Greek, Olympus was too high and majestic and distant and awe-inspiring to ever climb to its summit; it might as well have been another world, one that mortal men could never hope to aspire to, where only the feet of gods could tread. And if some great hero did manage to scale its unfathomable heights, he would be rewarded by the sight of the home of those gods themselves, a fitting reward for his bravery and valor.

And he thinks that's cool, and it's hard to argue with that.

There's probably ar least a little bit of bias here because I wrote them, but I'm very fond of the lower middle eastern pantheons' Overworlds - Tagarit for the Elohim and Sharay for the Alihah. I love non-standard Overworlds, because in the grand sweep of cosmographies around the world, there are just as many religions that don't conform to Scion's usual setup as there are that do (maybe more, in fact), and they help reinforce the idea of different cultures and religions as their own distinct, marvelous entities. Tagarit's emphasis on the separate strongholds of the gods, who do not act in concert as a pantheon as much as they act as lords of their own domains, echoes the ancient Levant's emphasis on proudly independent city-states, and Sharay's concept of the gods eternally active and traveling, on as unending a journey as their nomadic people, moves outside Scion's usual concept of the gods just sitting around in their palaces vegetating and congratulaing themselves.

But then, you guys know I'm a sucker for middle eastern religions. I can't help myself.