Question: I saw that Geoff has a different name (Tlazohtlaloni) on the Teotl family tree. What does the name mean and how did he earn it?
Tlazohtlaloni means literally "beloved one", with the masculine ending so you know it's a dude who is being beloved here. It was given to him by the Teotl to describe his place in the pantheon as Eztli's consort; as far as they're concerned, his job is literally just to be her beloved. That's what he's allowed into Acopa for.
Geoff's in a strange situation on Acopa thanks to that really awful thing his pantheon did; they have to tolerate him because he's legally married to Eztli and she's important to them, but he doesn't really have a place among them and is always treated as something of a potentially disruptive outsider. From an Aztec point of view, he also fills all the traditionally "feminine" roles in his marriage to Eztli, including taking care of the children, making food, taking care of her day-to-day needs and being protected by her, while Eztli does most of the traditionally "masculine" things like going to war and ensuring the family's safety, all of which means that even when he's not doing anything, he doesn't look quite right to them.
He's working on trying to gain more acceptance in his adopted pantheon, ingratiating himself with the Tezcatlipocas and even trying to find a way to make contact with a nahualli of his own, but it's slow going since the Aztec gods are unwilling to change and unlikely to forget the tragic events of the recent past. So, until then, he's Eztli's "beloved one" to them, and will be until they decide he's distinguished himself in some other way.
(It's a pretty good name for a god of marriage, though, and they've been starting to let him kind of take that role on, so progress is being made!)
Yeah things make more sense now. She does do the man stuff. What would her role in the aseir be? Being the wife of the all father
ReplyDeleteWell if he can fix what his parents did (if he hasn't already) what would he be then?
The Aesir are kind of confused about Eztli, from the first day she showed up and they couldn't figure out why Sowiljr would want to marry someone small, unpleasant and dangerous instead of a big beautiful giantess. For a while they treated her like one of the valkyries and had some fairly pejorative nicknames for her, but eventually hanging out around Geoff so much gained her a cult in Iceland that believes her to be a goddess of life and death and adjunct to Sowiljr. In their eyes, he's the warrior who defends him, but when he falls in battle Eztli is the one with the power to resurrect him and return him to the fight. They call her Ristablodr, which means "blood eagle" and refers to the messy sacrificial rites they dedicate to her whenever they worry about Sowiljr's wellbeing.
DeleteAfter Ragnarok, when Sowiljr takes over as interim king of the Aesir, Eztli technically becomes their "queen", but I don't think anybody except Sowiljr himself ever calls her that or treats her like an authority in Asgard.
Ah, interesting way how cults work.
DeleteIf Geoff does gain some higher standing in the Tolei and a cult in Mexico would he also then have to do blood rites? All of the other Aztecs do ( by that I mean in story or role play terms, not the PSP)
If he wants to actually be accepted as one of the Teotl, then yes, probably; ignoring blood sacrifice, which is so centrally important to them, would be refusing to actually be part of their community. He actually is already dabbling in autosacrifice, but what his eventual cult might look like is a question for the future. He's never been a fan of killing people.
DeleteInteresting.
DeleteOh what would happen to him if Eztili does kill her dad or gets killed by him as some being predicted?
Great big bad stuff. No matter what happens there, every Teotl Virtue is going to be super upset, and the pantheon would have a massive uproar over it.
Deleteoh that is going to hurt.
DeleteAlso I noticed that on an earlier fiction that the Teotl find Ragnarok make believe (bet they changed their mind now that it happened) but I remember that Eztili said something about as long as the sun was around the world will not die, but in the myth it says "the sun and the moon shall be devoured". Now I don't know how that translated in your version but it sounds like the sun was gone if only for a bit. . . so did the 5th world die and the 6th was born or did that not happen in your Ragnarok?
Sorry, details on Ragnarok are confidential. :)
DeleteIn Aztec mythology, the destruction of the sun heralds the end of one world and the beginning of another, usually because the god overseeing the sun (currently Huitzilopochtli) destroys it or otherwise stops doing his job. In Norse mythology, the world is destroyed thanks to the invasion of the forces of Muspelheim, which includes the destruction of the sun along with everything else, but they're fundamentally different eschatological stories.
Remember that things can happen to "the world" but not affect all parts of The World. The sun and moon being swallowed could have a lot of different meanings, and the doom of the Aesir doesn't necessarily mean the doom of all other pantheons as well.
oops I forgot heheheh sorry
DeleteBut that answers my question anyway so no details are needed.
Thanks for answering my questions.
Um. Eztili is a he now? I guess she really did take that more masculine role.
ReplyDeleteShe's still biologically female, but the Teotl have been known to refer to her as Tlazohtlaloni's husband. ;)
DeleteOh, wait you misunderstood me. I was trying to draw attention to a spelling mistake you made.
Delete"In their eyes, "he's" (either this is supposed to be she, as in Eztli) the warrior who defends "him"(or this is supposed to to be them, as in the Icelandic cults, right?), but when he falls in battle Eztli is the one with the power to resurrect him and return him to the fight."
Ah, I see, and you misplaced the typo! It's the second one, and the line should read "In their eyes, he's the warrior who defends them," referring to Sowiljr defending the Icelandic people. :)
DeleteAlright, cool. Glad to be hopefully, I guess. I just read that comment you made and felt a disturbance in the Grammar Force.
DeleteAs if a milliion pronouns cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
DeleteI can't imagine any Aesir would actually want Eztli as their queen - doesn't she hate them all, to the last?
ReplyDeleteAnd she makes their king have to change his appearance to not hate him too?
Plus there was talk about her firmly believing that the all-father's children would all be Teotl rather than Aesir, in a previous post's commentary...
Yep, all of that is true. Eztli thinks Norsemen should be killed on sight and has no interest whatsoever in any of her children not being raised among the Teotl, and compromise isn't in her nature. But Sowiljr is very committed to his family and has made it clear to his people that she comes as part of his package deal whether they like her or not, so they'd better respect her and trust him to deal with her so everyone stays safe.
DeleteIt works most of the time, although there have been unfortunate incidents. They don't have to like her, but they have to at least pay lip-service to her position as queen when Sowiljr is around.
Can't Sowiljr just run circles around her, socially?
DeleteAppearance and Charisma seems like it should give him all kinds of boosts there.
Should be easy enough to hoodwink her into letting some kids be Aesir, so Sowiljr can keep his claim of being All-Father by actually having kids that turn out to be Aesir.
Oh, definitely, and he does, but the danger is always that she'll flip her shit on him. He can use Charmer, Engender Love, Compelling Presence to erase her memory and so on to get her to do what he wants; and half the time he doesn't even have to do that, because when he tells her to do something she just does it. The problem is that he often triggers her Virtues by doing so, and her Virtue Extremities are violent and ugly. He could absolutely just order her to let him take the kids and raise them in Asgard, but the odds of her not going bananas in the ensuing Conviction + Duty + Piety rolls are not good. (Also, she has crazysauce resist rolls against his powers, and that never helps.)
DeleteHe does, however, intend to have Aesir children - in fact, he's already tapped their oldest son, Aren, as a Norse Scion. He just has to be really careful about not letting her know what he's up to, or about redirecting her attention at crucial moments.
How does Eztli's traditionally 'stay in the kitchen' pantheon react to her position as warrior goddess?
ReplyDeleteThey're confused. Traditionally, they don't like it when a woman takes on the "male" warrior role of battle, but there she is, being the best person at it in the pantheon other than her father. But, her father seems to be sanctioning it, and she also does a great deal of traditionally "female" stuff, especially her quest to be constantly pregnant and taking care of babies. They've settled on grumbling about it for now but letting it slide - the Titan war is a desperate time, so desperate measures, including women on the front lines, are called for.
DeleteSome of them just blame Sowiljr. If he were better at being a dude, they reason, Eztli wouldn't have to be one instead.
Wow, I can see a Norse cult pressing some poor dude down, slitting him down the middle, pulling his ribs out in the name of Etzli/blood eagle. I hope it doesn't catch on as a fad for the Atzlanti. Finally wasn't it originally a punishment, not a sacrifice?
ReplyDeleteYep, that is what they do. Most often on the once-per-year festival when they do it in order to convince her to resurrect Sowiljr, who they now think is a dying god who needs to be brought back to life every year, but any other time they really need her mojo as well.
DeleteScholars are always arguing over how much the blood eagle rite was actually even performed by the ancient Norse, but while it does seem to be used as a method of execution for defeated royalty or warriors, it's also at least once explicitly stated to be part of a sacrifice to Odin.
Sowiljr actually set that up for her. He figured that if the people were going to end up stabbing each other for her anyway, he'd make sure it was in a controlled manner and with a Norse flavor.