Question: Sooo... Titans of Light. I remember reading that Typhon, the greatest of the Titans (original Greek Titans) who fought Zeus twice was thought to possibly be associated with the sun. Would he be the primary Avatar for the Titan of Light? Also, how do you handle him in your games?
Hum. No, definitely not.
Typhon is indeed an important Titan, and sole holder of the title of Guy Who Kicked Zeus' Ass, but he is way not a Titan of Light. He is a major monster - the Father of Monsters, in fact, along with Echnidna as their mother - and in addition to being terrifyingly hideous himself is also renowned for his prodigious strength (with which he literally throws mountains), ability to cause devastating thunder and lightning storms (especially after defeating Zeus and stealing his thunderbolts) and power as a source of hot, miserable winds, from which the word typhoon describing windstorms is probably drawn. After he was finally defeated, he was also associated with volcanoes since he was imprisoned beneath Mount Etna (also associated with Hephaestus, the other Greek volcano figure).
What he's not, however, is anything having to do with the sun. I know of no passage anywhere in Greek mythology that mentions him in connection with the sun or any other light-related phenomena other than lightning or flame, nor have I ever heard of him being used that way in tangentially related mythology, either. The only tenuous sun-connection I can think of is in the fact that he was syncretized with Set late in Egyptian mythology and Set is the protector of the solar barque, but that was so late in Egyptian myth that Set was also being syncretized with his immortal enemy Apep in many Greek sources, making the combined hybrid Set-Apep-Typhon creature much more closely linked to darkness than to the light it opposed.
Even if he does have some minor sun-connotations somewhere that we've missed, they're obviously not powerful enough to earn him a spot as the preeminent Titan of Light, or even as any Titan of Light at all. A Titan Avatar needs to represent a concept; he or she has to in a very real way embody some aspect of that idea. That means they can't just have a little of that power, or be vaguely related to it, but rather that they have to be so strongly tied t it that they could be considered a part of it personified.
But Typhon is a Titan in our games! He's an Avatar of Emamu, the Titanrealm of Beasts, where he functions as both the father of countless monsters and the archetypal monster himself. We're working on a Titanrealm update right now that probably won't be live for a while, but if you'd like to see a writeup of Typhon for use in game, you can find it in our Anunna supplement, where he joins Tiamat, Echidna, Taweret and Flidais as the full complement of creature-oriented Titans trying to ruin the Mesopotamian gods' day.
Personally, my choice for ruling Light Titan would be the aboriginal Goddess Bila, who roasted people to create the light of the sun and ate them later. Not that I've found any evidence of Australians hating the sun, but because she and Vucub Cacuix are literally the only solar antagonistic solar figures I could find! (any new suggestions welcome). Plus, I could totally see her, Klugyalmo and Tiamat getting together for kitty parties after a day's rampaging against the Gods :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, +1 for the title reference. One of my favourite books of all time.
Ooh, Bila's not a bad choice at all. There aren't a lot of light antagonists out there, usually because humanity likes the sun so they tend to revere it instead of fear it, but you could also add some Titans of the old-and-remote variety. The Norse Dagr and Sol are both options, as primordial sun/day figures, and Svarog could easily move out of the Creation realm and into the Sun realm if you wanted to play up his connection to the solar egg.
DeleteAh, I totally want the lady Titans to have awesome hangout time. They can watch disaster movies and bake cookies together, and not share with the dude Titans.
I love that book. :) Also his Children of Light and Darkness, which was Egyptian-based.
Oh Dagr and Sol are there, as Avatars of the height of day and the Sun as keeper of time respectively (as Mani's counterpart) are already in. So are Hyperion and Amunet (Amun in my headcanon defected to become Ra during the first Titanomachy). I was actually asking for more antagonistic Light Titans, not Light Titans in general. Thanks anyway :)
DeleteAs for Svarog though, no, I LOVE him where he is right now. The antagonism between the Bogovi, who seek to keep Legendary and Mortal strictly separate, and the Titanrealm of Creation that seeks to remake all of the mortal world is possibly the most intriguing opposition model between any Pantheon and its Worthy Foe. It's just so...subtle, unlike the in your face relationship between the Teotl and Stars or the Aesir and Fire. I would never break that beautiful arrangement :)
Ah, my mistake, sorry. :)
DeleteI'm glad you enjoy Svarog's dynamics! I also love the ridiculous lengths the poor Bogovi have to go to in order to reconcile a lot of their sometimes-contradictory worldview.
Poor Bogovoi, the current Titan War is just screwing with them wholesale.
DeleteThe whole situation, and what needs to be done to combat it (Empowering/making Scions, intervening in the World, etc.) has been making Svarozhich and Prove very twitchy, irritable and a bit crazy acting on the occasions they have been interacted with. (Not too often as they are like ninjas, trying to avoid too much direct, obvious, intervention ^_^)
The players are finding it both hilarious and scary. :)
Our Bogovi Scions (all NPCs at the moment) are more concerned by the question of whether or not their pantheon is going to "get rid" of them if they actually succeed in winning the Titan war...
DeleteA legitimate concern to be sure, but at the same time it seems almost too treacherous for how the Bogvi normally operate. But only almost...
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