Question: If I wanted to have a Scion to become a god of black holes, how would I go about doing that?
Geez, you shoot big!
Well, to start with, here's an important question: what does your god of black holes do? Does he just create black holes, and if so, why does humanity care, since those are far away from them and don't really affect their lives much? Is there some representative concept attached to the black holes that does affect people, and if so, what is it and how does it relate to the pantheon your Scion's part of? Why do people worship this god, how do they worship him, and what role does he fill in the grand scheme of the divine world?
You don't have to know all of this the second you think about becoming a god, of course, because you'll grow and change over time, but the more of it you know, the more you'll be able to figure out what kind of powers and actions you might want to attach to her. Gods don't exist in a vacuum, and your Scion will need to do something with her divinity other than just sitting out in space not being interesting to anyone.
I would suggest maybe starting with the Darkness purview; since not even light can escape a black hole, using Darkness to blot out everything would fit your theme nicely, not to mention going along well with the name of the phenomenon. You could also possibly invest in Stars; true, mythology has no idea that black holes are the remnants of collapsed stars, or even that black holes exist at all, but as a modern Scion you do know that and can blaze new trails. Past that point, it'll depend on your take on black holes. If you think of them as entropic universe-breakdown causers, Chaos might fit your bill, or if you believe that matter sucked into a black hole is transported to some mysterious location, maybe Psychopomp would be a better choice. On more metaphorical levels, you might want to consider Epic Strength to represent the awesome crushing force of a black hole, or Epic Charisma to represent its ability to relentlessly draw everything around it in.
Stats aren't the only important thing here, however: you have to fit your Scion into a pantheon, which means she needs to have a place and purpose among them. Has mankind begun to foray into space in your games, making gods of astral phenomena more necessary, and if not, what does your pantheon need a god of black holes for? Do you work with any other gods or beings, and how do you do that? Why do people pray to you? What do they want from you? What do you do with your free time in the Overworld when you're not fighting Titans? Do the other gods think you're necessary or respect what you do?
You can generally make any cool concept work for a new young god, even heavy science ones - after all, you're playing a Scion in the modern day and you have tons of science at your myth-making disposal that our ancient ancestors didn't. But you'll still need to figure out what that concept does aside from being neat.
So go for it!
Not the questioner, but this gave me an idea: Could you stunt Oubliette to look like a black hole?
ReplyDeleteI don't see why not. Throwing someone away into darkness whence they never return sounds like something a god of black holes could totally do.
DeleteI feel like this dude is going to end up a Titan.
ReplyDeleteRahu is practically a sentient Black Hole anyway. I do not look forward to that turf war.
DeleteHow do you make an actual black hole? Multiple action Shaper + Void?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if Shaper would be appropriate, since earth is hardly involved much here, but I'd think the Void could do it.
DeleteWell, a black hole is a superheavy chunk of earth. And you would need actual gravity to get the right radiation and time dilation right. Assuming you're doing the science approach.
DeleteIt really depends on what theory of black holes you prefer, I guess. There could be some earth in that collapsed matter, but then again there might not, and at that point it's turned into something so alien to the usual elements that I'm not sure it counts anymore anyway.
DeleteNah, you don't need to get anything right once you start using purview Avatars, they just do things. Ultimate power, I just do it, bam. (Although you should feel free to stunt all the science you want to!)
I think I'd definitely also allow The Abyss on this one - places not even light can escape seem like things Darkness should be in on.
Throwing in my two cents that The Crown should also be able to get in on the Black Hole action. It almost seems too obvious - you could stunt The Abyss and The Void to create a "Black Hole" but since The Crown is absolute divine mastery over the Stars purview and a Black Hole is a collapsed star, then The Crown should be able to create literal black holes with ease instead of just stunting.
DeleteActually, I'd say "making a black hole" seems like it should be a God-level Stars boon, but I guess in effect it would just be an Oubliette that sucks you in and doesn't conveniently send you to a Titanrealm from which you can escape.
We wouldn't make it an official boon - remember that the purviews are based on mythology's take on the stars, and mythology has no idea black holes even exist and wouldn't know they were star-related anyway. Purviews are meant to illustrate all the ways a concept is used in world myth, not in modern science.
DeleteBut, Avatars can do all kinds of wacky things, so it wouldn't be out of the question for The Crown to do something like this.
So let's assume a hypothetical "black hole" titan exists. What kind of crazy consequences do you think it getting whacked would cause?
ReplyDeletebesides really depressing the nihilists.
DeleteDidn't Ymir getting kacked cause the Ice Age? I'd guess the black hole Titam dying might cause many stars to collapse...
DeleteAlso a cool idea: a Teotl god of black holes, using the star ripping power of singularities to fight the star demons of Tamochan
The opposite, actually - Ymir dying ended the ice age. Because he represented the deep freeze of the glaciers, his death erased that aspect of the universe from existence. It worked out okay for humans, but wiped many other species out completely and severely changed the topography of the earth.
DeleteA Titan aligned with gravitic phenomena dying is a little too scary to contemplate. I think we all like gravity working in a predictable manner so we don't fly off into space, thanks.
Ok... Opposite of what I thought.
DeleteIn that case we need a good physicist to tell us what would happen if the concept of black holes disappeared because I got nothing except creeping dread from contemplating the idea and my physics knowledge is very basic.
The underlying structure of the universe unraveling is a likely possibility if gravitation were damaged though. Its one of the fundamental forces.
Just from what little I do know it sounds like that could cause a chain reaction of problems with how the universe works, mass would stop effecting space, relativity might go next... I need a doctorate to figure this out.
I'm sure we'd all welcome the sweet vacuum of space rather than live in the broken universe created by that though... ;)
Sure am glad the Scion universe runs on God/Titan-magic rather than physics! ^_^
Modern Scions forming a "hard science pantheon" would be a wonderfully paradoxical idea though.
From what little I know, if black holes ceased to exist spiral galaxies as we know them wouldn't form. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a massive black hole in the middle acting like a drain in a bath tub with the plug pulled out.
DeleteBeyond that I have no idea
Geez. Ymir dying [i]ended[/i] the Ice Age? I went back and check and as usual, you're right.
ReplyDeleteI actually had set up an awesome bit of world building/ backstory in my current game with the tale of Odin, his brothers, and Loki convincing/tricking/magically forcing Odin's father Bor (titan avatar in this instance) to off himself in an act of sympathetic magic that wiped out Ymir (Bor's grandaddy). This caused the Ice Age as part of Ymir's death-spasm (Forst Avatar going nuts on grandiose scale and all) and things have been getting warmer ever since.
Eh, I'll have to remember that detail if it comes up in future games, canon for the current one being established and all.
Heh, Titans are the opposite of gods. When a god dies, their Avatars run around causing havoc - a frost-god dying might very well cause massive frost problems all over the World. The Titans are that thing itself embodied, though, so killing them also kills their concept, which is why the gods have to put them in Tartarus instead.
DeleteKeep running with it, though, the players don't have to know! You can always come up with an in-universe explanation later if it bugs you, and if not, no damage is done. :)
"Gods don't exist in a vacuum" Pun intended or unintended? Also, this question reminds me of the latest Thor Comic, where he traveled across the universe meeting dead space gods. I makes me think that as humanity advances, more and more scions will become gods of space and scientific topics. This is why I liked the original stars purview. It makes me think of what future gods humans will create through belief and the personalities of new Scions. I mean, look at Allison.
ReplyDeleteHa! That pun was somehow totally accidental. I'm secretly hilarious.
DeleteI definitely think that the new crop of Scions is an awesome place for new sciency gods! It just doesn't make sense for the ancient powers of the purviews to have those new concepts built in. But I can definitely see new awesome science relics and spacefaring stuff being things created by new Scions like Alison, and maybe (MAAAAAYBE, big maybe based on what exactly the player and game is doing) a new purview being someday created if Fate decides that a new real universal concept has been born.
Mostly, though, Artistry should be covering technology stuff powers, so go nuts, you artisan kids!
"It makes me think of what future gods humans will create through belief-"
DeleteWait. That's not a thing in Scion, is it? Humans creating the Gods through belief and not the other way around. I know that the beliefs of humans can seriously change how a God acts and what powers they have, but actually managing to create one through belief, I don't know.
I thought in the Scion canon proper in went, Titans create Gods, and Gods create humans. I'm I wrong or what?
That's correct - in Scion, gods do not spontaneously come into being via mortal belief, but are born, either from parents who are also gods or Titans or as half-human Scions who ascend to godhood.
DeleteHe might have meant it poetically, though?
This somehow got me thinking about Isidoros, The Black Boar That Twists the Skies, from Exalted. He's also kind of a Titan (though the exact terminology is Yozi Primordial, but I digress). He is essentially a cross between a sapient black hole and the Juggernaut. One scary dude. I think the question asker could look him up if he wants some hints and ideas of what he could do with the concept. ;)
ReplyDeleteJohannes: That's an awesome idea! I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I'm thinking of a space-oriented God. :)
ReplyDeleteQuestion Asker here, thanks for answering the question that came to me while reading the blog and listening to Symphony of Science (specifically Monsters of the Cosmos). First chance I get I am rolling up a Teotl scion out to become the ultimate star monster slayer!
ReplyDeleteGlad to help!
DeleteHeh, one of my players in my current game (Hero verging on Demigod) has decided, after reading this article, to make his Teotl Scion into a black hole god.
ReplyDeleteAny good ideas for the proper name for a Teotl god that basically means "Star Crusher"?
A neat name! Star Eater from our games approves.
DeleteThe root word for "star" in Nahuatl is citlalin/citlalli. There are a few different options for how to say "crush" depending on context; I would suggest either cuatlapana (which refers to crushing someone's head to kill them) if your new black hole god wants to be all about killing personified stars like tzitzimime, or patlachoa (which refers to collapsing or compressing something until it is crushed) if you want to get closer to the idea of a black hole's awesome gravity.
So I would roll with something like either Citlacuatlapaniztli ("crusher of star-people") or Patlachcitlali ("star collapser").
This language sometimes. I hope those compounds make sense.
Thank you very much! Both of those names are awesome. (and hard to pronounce ^_^)
Delete...wait, there's a character in your games named Star Eater?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThats sangria's nahualli's name
DeleteOne other stat is Epic Appearance that manifests itself as sheer, unadulterated terror. If the God of Black Holes ever gets the Theme Song knack, their song should be Monsters of the Cosmos from Symphony of Science.
ReplyDeleteMy player agrees, "Monsters of the Cosmos" is now his Theme Music!
Delete