Question: Odd question, but do you think the Sami gods will ever show up on your pantheon poll?
It's not odd at all. Fancy gods of various cultures are what we like to see here!
Sami deities are certainly a possibility for the poll someday! We try to keep the number of pantheons up for vote at any given time fairly small, since otherwise votes split all over the landscape and make a mess, so we normally keep it confined to either pantheons we know that lots of Storytellers and players have been hoping for, or pantheons we personally really want to work on. Of course, we want to work on everything, so you can guess how much that helps narrow it down.
The Sami definitely have their own unique culture and beliefs, including some very strong shamanistic traditions and deities that may have influenced or been influenced by several nearby pantheons so in our perfect Scion work of a million discrete pantheons, they would of course be included. I suspect that we'll probably have a long list of more prominent pantheons that various games could use to go through first, but we're always willing to hear suggestions for pantheons you guys need.
In fact, we can do that right now - what pantheons are you guys most interested in seeing? What would be most useful in your games? Where do you feel the most glaring holes in Scion's pantheon spread are? Lay it on us!
And speaking of pantheons, it's back to the salt mines for me!
I think the obvious holes are... the Americas in general, most of not-bordering-the-Mediterranean Africa, and large swathes of Asia, although Asia's mostly needing some Remix loving and fixes than new pantheons. The ones that bother me the most are North and South America, and the under appreciated regions of Africa. We need some Algonquin, Zulu, Bushmen, and Guarani stuff, man! After the Inuit and Hittites, I mean...
ReplyDeleteThe Finns and the Tibetans. And I know that Eurasia is overflowing with Pantheons at the moment, but there's something about the Finns' understated badassitude and love of magic music (which strongly reminds me of Hinduism's magic Ragas), and the Tibetan Gods' tendency to switch from vicious guard dog to adorable puppy means I'm always torn between these two guys on the voting polls (and thanks to terriblyuncreative for actually introducing me to these guys). Plus, both are opposed by badass ruling lady Titans (Louhi and Klugyalmo), and I am of the opinion that we need more badass ruling lady Titans :D
ReplyDeleteAm not running any Scion game, but the ones I'd be interested in seeing would be some native american pantheon (don't mean one for all native americans, just pick one of them.) and I would dearly love to see some from mid-africa. That continent holds a treasure trove of pantheons, and we only have the Egyptian and Orisha...
ReplyDeleteOh, and the Haida, mostly for Nanklil'slas!
ReplyDeleteI personally would love to see a Konkow or Nisenan write up, but given how small they were and the fact that the only reason I know of them is because I live in their old stoming grounds the odds are not in my favor.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how much information there is about them, but the Igbo people's Alusi are quite fascinating, and I think there's a fair bit of potential with their cultural concept of Chi (a sort of personal spirit that determines one's fate) to work with.
ReplyDeleteI'm super excited about the Inuit, and I'd love to see some more north american action. Besides that, I agree with Anon that the Shen/Kami could use some remix love to shore up the asian pantheons and make them usable again.
ReplyDeleteAlso as a point of interest, I just noticed that the Amatsukami rewrite is under the "project" poll, while the pantheon selection is its own poll. I understand the reasoning behind this (kami not being a "new" pantheon and all) but what if the stars aligned and Amatsukami won the project poll? Would you work on 2 pantheons simultaneously, or would you work 1 at a time and delay the next "project" as a result? (Right now it seems like you work on the projects simultaneously with the pantheon).
DeleteJust curious, because (though unlikely) that would be a silly amount of work for you guys.
The "new" pantheons are annes pet projects, and while I assist with them a little, she does the motherload of the work. And although I think they're excellent, she does her best to make the completely compatible with the original game and they're not what I considered "balanced" or our games or our rules.
DeleteThe project however, is something we work on together, and usually takes priority when we both have time(anne tends to have a lot more "work on projects" time then I do).
So, whenever a pantheon wins the "project spot" anne will still always be working on a new pantheon as well.
Mid Africa is good place, but I think the Southern Pacific is the most glaring issue. We only have the Polynesian pantheon and that was after Anne's work on them, which I'm glad to see, but I'd like to see more from this area.
ReplyDeleteThe Balkan Penninsula is another place I'd like to see, we have Greek mythology, but if I remember correctly, there was other religions in that area even during the hayday of the Greek.
Last, but not least, is the Native American Tribes like the Navajo. We need some more shamanistic type pantheons in the mix.