Gods on the Sidelines

Question: What do you think about obscure pantheons like those in the Philippines, Burma or Melanesia? Are they great enough to be Scion pantheons or...?

Of course they are!

One of our absolute favorite things about Scion is the fact that it's completely global, and that any religions or mythologies that exist anywhere can and should be used in its gameworld whenever the Storyteller wishes. All myths are true in Scion, and that means all of them, not just the most widely known or popular or adapted-for-television. The mythologies of places like the Philippines were no less part of a vibrant ancient belief system, nor were their gods any less worshiped, feared or beloved, so why should they be automatically excluded from the game? Because they aren't very well-known outside their native land? Plenty of pantheons weren't once upon a time, and still aren't now, and for those intrepid Burmese players out there it would be super unfair for them not to be able to play games set among the gods of their own country just because people in other countries haven't heard of them.

However, that doesn't mean that every Storyteller is going to have the time or inclination to go out there and stat up every pantheon that has ever seen the light of day. Nobody's got the time - even we don't have the time, and we love doing that! - and if a particular game's stories don't involve those deities, it's not useful for the game anyway. Some games may have players or Storytellers who mostly want to interact with gods they already know and are interested in, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as everyone has fun. But if a given game's players or story do want to have Degei roll up and start dispensing some snaky Fijian god-justice, well, damn, they can do that exactly as much as they want to.

Of course, we can't expect the Scion universe to really be able to release all the gods everywhere, and there've been lots of in-game excuses for why that is - the lesser pantheons were destroyed by Titans, or conquered by other pantheons, or they don't have enough power to bother helping in the war, or they're just more famous gods slumming it in disguise, or whatever. We don't like those explanations and never have, but that doesn't mean your game can't use them if you need a plausible answer when your players go, "Hey, what are X pantheon that you weren't planning to get involved here doing right now?" We like to dream of the entire world's pantheons all being alive and ready to kick some ass in Scion, and we do our best to try to slowly but steadily write some of them up for use, but it's a long, long road and not one every game has the time or inclination to embark on.

But sure, never let anyone tell you that you can't have a certain pantheon in the game because they're "not important enough". Every pantheon is important to the people who believed in it, and can be important to your story if you want them to. The obscure ones just require a little more legwork when it comes to learning about their powers and stories, but they're out there waiting if you want them.