Today on the vlog, we answer questions, I pronounce the word "jotun" wrong a lot, John passionately explains how much he loves Marduk, and a good time is had by all.
Question: Question about Form of the Giant/Jotun: upon activation, should I also use Undeniable Resemblance to shrink my size, do the bonus successes given stay? (Other than the DV bonus from Form of the Jotun, I know that one goes out.)
Question: Why do gods sleep with mortals? Compared to other gods and creatures of Legend, even the most amazing mortals are droll, hideous, stupid, and slow. Wouldn't it be like having sex with a chimp?
Question: Sexytimes with certain gods is probably really dangerous. How do you determine how much damage gets inflicted when you sleep with gods like the Morrigan, Sekhmet, Kali, or the Dagda?
Question: Is it possible for a relic to be some sort of reverse Maiming? I mean, it's like a tattoo and instead of taking your body part for power, the gods give/replace one for the power.
Question: Suppose a Scion was bored/curious/mischievous enough to shout the secret name of Rome in public within hearing distance of thousands of people. What might that do? Furthermore, how might the Roman gods and goddesses react?
Question: A question about 'purview lasers', or using purviews offensively against Titans/Titanspawn: Some applications are pretty easy to imagine, but what would a Psychopomp purview laser look like? Animal? Mystery? Artistry? Prophecy?
Question: Of all the pantheon heads, who do you consider the most beneficent King?
Question: In your games, if it has come up, how do the Aesir view their Marvel Comics counterparts?
The previous vlog where all this "purview laser" nonsense is explained can be found here. And the Marvel pantheons that appear in the Thor universe can be found checked out here if you're interested!
that was a great Vlog, with great questions, (sliightly biased by the fact that most of them are very useful and relevant to the games i am running at the moment) thanks.
ReplyDeleteHappy to help!
DeleteI've always found it slightly odd when people insinuate that Gods would find people ugly. I mean, these are beings that interact with horrifically hideous entities like with tons of Negative Epic Appearance. No mortals going to seem ugly compared to that. Just...rather bland and nondescript.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point - for a lot of gods, humans probably aren't really ugly, just incredibly boring and not worth noticing. Some gods probably do think they're ugly - especially those who are heavily invested in physical appearance themselves and therefore look down on others, hi all of the Theoi - but for most others I doubt they'd find humans offensive to look at.
DeleteUsing Form of the Jotun and then turning human sized but still retaining your bonuses sounds kinda like getting Asha bonuses while lying. VERY counter to the spirit of the PSP.
ReplyDeleteAlso, HOW did the topic of dangerous divine sexytimes come up without anyone mentioning ISHTAR!!! I mean, forget mortals, Gods can't handle her!
I think one of Baal's biggest problems as king is the fact that every last member of his Pantheon also wants to be king. No other Pantheon head has to deal with that much animosity from his people.
Also, even if I disregard the fact that the guy should have checked into Alcoholics Anonymous yugas ago, Indra's not that great a king since he can't seem to go a week without losing his kingdom. Of course, he usually loses the kingdom to someone who's been beefed up by the Trimurti. And then it's the Trimurti that go off and save him again. Hmm...I smell a divine scam here somewhere.
Yeah, alas for Baal. They all have Malak, so they all are king, at least of someplace. There is a lot of attitude flying around in the Canaanite political scene.
DeleteAnd yeah, poor Indra. I was reading a paper the other day (behind a paywall, sadly, I can't link it) that was talking about how Indra is a majorly evil daeva for the Persians, and how it is probably not coincidental that even in Hindu mythology, where he's supposedly a good guy and a respected king, he suffers a lot of pranking and humiliation at the hands of the Trimurti and their followers that closely resembles what they tend to do to asura. Poor guy can't seem to play for either team and win.
In a paper you say? like a ''mythology times'' or so?
DeleteIf that exists, could you link their front-page?
I mean a paper like an academic paper written by a professor. :) Unfortunately, you have to pay to read it, so I can't link it even if I could dig it back up.
Deletei was sure i'd have to pay, it was more of a ''where to pay''
Deletewhich actually leads to another question, do you guys have some really good sources that you could recommend reading?
I guess this would mean that shrinking yourself would also negate the passive bonuses from the rest of the Jotunblut boon.
DeleteI'm not sure if we would take away health boxes (probably not), but depending on how small you got and whether or not you were abusing powers to avoid actually being a giant most of the time as your PSP is designed to make you do, we might start penalizing the Strength and/or Stamina bonuses.
DeletePersonally I would have Animal be opposed to Artistry, because Animal is about the natural and Artistry is about the artifial.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I see that we forgot Artistry on the list when we were talking. Damn.
DeleteI definitely would have Artistry and Chaos oppose one another - one's building things, the other is breaking things down. I'm not sure about Animal as the core representation of the natural - aren't most of the nature boons like that? Wouldn't Fertility make just as much sense, or Earth/Water/Sky?
Hmm, orrrr, maybe Artistry vs. War? The ability to create vs. the ability to violently destroy? (There's a line like that in "La vie boheme", isn't there - "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!")
I have seen several players portray Piety as a rigid adherence to bronze age rules and morality. They go out of their way to make sure the ancient way of doing things is the only way that things are done.
ReplyDeleteDo you think this is another viable way to express Piety, or should Piety generally be more accepting of modern interpretation like your Vlog suggests?
I think there's probably a mix of possibilities. Piety should be about revering and respecting your pantheon above other religions and ensuring that other people also respect it as well. So a lot depends on whether or not you think that a modern interpretation of the religion is respectful. If you think they're doing great, using appropriate rituals or modern versions thereof, and being genuinely praiseful and respectful, then your Piety probably loves a modern religion, even if it isn't doing things quite the way it the gods were originally worshiped. On the other hand, if you think the modern cult isn't taking things seriously, is intentionally borrowing or elevating things from other religions, is obviously trying to present the gods as something they're not (or worse, combining them with another religion's gods) or is being straight-up lazy when they could be better, your Piety probably hates them. They're not being respectful of the gods they claim to worship, and might even be being actively disrespectful by comparing them to others or putting others ahead of them (especially in modern Wiccan religions that pull gods from various pantheons into a sort of personal potpurri of figures to worship, or who claim that all gods are really just expressions of the Horned God and the Earth Lady, or what have you).
DeletePiety doesn't necessarily have to cleanse an offensive modern religion with fire, though. More often, we'd say that the person with Piety wants to educate them on what they're doing wrong and help them figure out how to start doing it right, tell them more about the gods and generally increase their understanding, and encourage the religion to turn into something that the gods would appreciate instead of what it is now. It'd always be better to encourage good and respectful worship of your gods than to just destroy a cult and not replace it with anything, although Piety will still take the latter in a pinch if there's nothing you can do about it right now.
Bronze Age morality is a sticky situation; modern morality isn't always free of it, so some modern religions may be compatible with it and others may not be. The moral continuum of Hinduism has changed a lot over the centuries, but the Deva are probably still fine with their worshipers' new interpretations; but one of the Elohim being worshiped by a new reconstructionist cult that claims that he was all about acceptance, sharing and peaceful protest instead of war is probably going to be pretty annoying for them. You don't always have to say "You did something that was bad two thousand years ago, hang him," but Piety still wants you to know the spirit behind the religion, not just the exact rules.
Those with Piety and Order (Anunna, Bogovi, Elohim and Netjer) actually probably can't go hanging anyone anyway - Piety will tell you what's happening isn't religiously okay, and Order will tell you you have to deal with that within the structures of the current society's laws, which may or may not match up with ancient morality.
So, tl;dr: Piety should always tolerate and want to encourage something that is respectful and trying to be accurate, even if it's not quite the same as it was in times gone by, but should always be moved to correct or stop something that is disrespectful, misinformed or intentionally syncretic.
Anne will come in with her interpretation, but I've always considered Piety to mean belief in the supreme ability and importance of the Gods of your Pantheon, not of the culture that worshipped said Pantheon.
DeleteIt is the Virtue that dictates that the Gods are divine and must be treated as such. Piety might require daily prayers or sacrifices, if that is how a Pantheon prefers its worship, but it should never require that a Scion throw away his gun and look for a bow. Certain Pantheons, like the Yazata, are very deeply involved in matters of morality, so in that specific case, their Piety might also include ancient codes of morality, but only because following those moral codes are a part of Yazata worship. By contrast the Alihah or the Tuatha probably could not care less about their Scion's behaviour so long as they made sure the pilgrimages and sacrifices happen on time. And none of those Pantheons would ever tell you to throw your calculator away because it's not traditional.
Consider Piety the Virtue of a missionary. A missionary should not expect people on the other side of the world to worship his Gods, but he needs must introduce them to his Gods should he ever visit there. Similarly, the first reaction of a missionary to seeing his Gods in comic form shouldn't be 'these must be purged in the flames', it should be 'Ah, nice to see they are interested. Now to correct their misconceptions.'