Constructing Antiquity

Question: As a Gaelic Polytheist(i.e., I worship the Tuatha), I am curious: how might Scions relate to religions that worship their parents? This can obviously go for all Scions of any pantheon.

We've got an old post on this very subject back here - go ye and read!

That post is mostly about how the pantheons and their gods might respond to reconstructionist or revivalist worship, but I think the question of how Scions might respond is also a neat side issue. Scions (in the default setting, at least) are modern people and are likely to have modern ideas, morals and interpretations, so how they might relate to reconstructed worship of their ancient parents could have as much variation as you can find in any pagan community.

Some of them might love it. People still want to worship my divine patron and her buddies? Awesome! They want to learn more about them and debate theology? Cool! They want to perform festivals, make sacrifices or find ways to bring the religion into the modern day so more and more people can get involved in it? Outstanding! Scions who were reconstructionists already before discovering their heritage are probably especially excited about this, since it was already something they strongly believed in that has now been given actual form and power by their own existence as a Scion. Others, who might not have had a strong religion but are excited by having suddenly gained one, may also be gung-ho about throwing themselves into this new way of venerating very old gods, and those who never had much religious leaning at all might now have a group they can feel good about supporting, especially since modern pagan religions tend to be marginalized in much of modern culture. People with Piety will probably be jumping for joy - wanting their pantheon to be worshiped is like mission one for them!

(We're only talking about the reconstructionist religions here, I should note - polytheistic Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto and Shenism, among others, are still massively practiced in their home territories. They do count as having new and modern worship practices, especially those that have radically evolved over the course of their existence, but something that has been ongoing and unbroken like Hinduism isn't really in the same boat with something like Canaanite Reconstructionism that died a long time ago and is being put back together via research and guesswork by people with modern agendas and not always a lot of great source material.)

On the other hand, some Scions may not react well to reconstructionist religions. Some, especially those who are superhumanly smart and therefore know more about these ancient religions than mortals can, may be offended or irritated by how inaccurate they are, or worse, how much they're actually borrowing from totally different theologies or traditions and putting them under the same umbrella with their own gods. Some may appreciate the effort but be unable to handle what they think of as "incorrect" performance of rituals or address of ancient deities (and Piety's a double-edged sword here, because while it totally wants people to worship its pantheon, it also feels the need to correct them any time they're wrong about said pantheon). You want to substitute canola oil for olive oil in this ritual? No, you can't do that! You want to worship the Teotl but you refuse to open a vein once in a while? Blasphemy, man up and learn to bleed! You want to worship both gods of the Netjer and gods of the Tuatha at the same time because you feel that both religions speak to you? Get out forever, you are an abomination.

And some Scions may not give a damn, and that's probably the likeliest scenario. If they're not directly involved with any neopagan cults associated with their parents, and mortals (as usual) can't affect the gods with their worship anyway, who cares what they're doing? Scions who like to think of themselves as above humanity probably definitely don't care, and even those who see themselves more as divine Everymen might easily ignore reconstructed religions as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. They've got adventures to go on and things to do, so they're probably not bothering to look up the local Kemetic chapter everywhere they go, or spend much time trolling the neopagan discussion boards to have conversations about stuff that they can go out and live instead. Scions who have little religious bent, before or after being Visited, may just go on not caring about religions of any stripe.

They do have a little more importance for Scions, though, because whereas gods are for the most part staying in their Overworlds and not getting involved in their cults for the past several centuries, Scions are on earth in the here and now and therefore that big bad bogeyman, Fatebonds, may come after them with a vengeance. Fatebonds come from mortal belief when supplemented by a Scion spending Legend nearby, so a Scion who discovers that a cult has grown up around himself as part of a pantheon may be very invested indeed in what they think of him and what they do in his name. It's all fun and games until you visit your personal church one day and find that someone declared that you're the modern god of ultimate racism or something, and you just didn't notice. Very awkward. And also potentially dangerous, since that might affect your Fatebonds.

As usual, mortal cults are both massively important and totally irrelevant to Scions. They can't do anything themselves and are made up of mortals who are mostly negligible when it comes to doing anything to a Scion or god... but the power of their beliefs and Fatebonds make them incredibly influential and either beneficial or dangerous to a Scion's health. Oh, the power these mortals wield, eh?