Today, we vlog about Turkey! Well, I vlog about Turkey, anyway. The place, not the bird.
Question: Anne, why do you personally love the Hittites so much? This is a shameless Hittite promotion phrased as a question, but a question regardless!
Question: Hey, so, about the Hittites. They are one of the top contenders for the original religion of the historical Troy, yes? Is there gunna be some cool stuff about the Trojan War when they come up? What about the Trojan side of that War and how to Theoi were all up in their business? Hittites, Troy, Trojan War, Greeks? So confuse. Messy mythohistroicology.
Question: We all know about Anne's love for the Hittites, but has she given any though to who their opposing Titanrealm would be?
You guys got me all excited about this. Now I have to go run around yelling Inuit things so I don't accidentally lose them in the sudden resurgance of interest in the Middle East.
Am super excited to see what you guys will do with the Hittites. While I do not know much about them, if you guys need info from some book, maybe i can get access to a copy here. Apparently There are some books here in Israel about Hittite mythology, in English.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, would love to see what you've created with the Inuit!
Someday soon, for the Inuit. Someday soon. :)
DeleteIt's not bizarre that the Hittites are winning. A couple people said "Let's vote Hittites as a gift to Anne." and a whooooole bunch more people thought that was a great idea!
ReplyDeleteOkay, yes, but it was quite a turnabout from the previous four-votes-per-poll they used to rock. ;)
DeleteYou absolutely deserve it. All this blogging is mostly selfless (even if you might be able to use some of it towards your Ph. D), so the least we can do to pay you back is make you slave on projects you like. =P
DeleteDefinitely even more interested in the Hittites now that I know the whole Troy connection. For some reason it never occurred to me that Troy wasn't a Greek city-state. Interesting to think that Aphrodite/Venus might have had a scion with a mortal Hittite who went on to found Rome. Kind of connects Aeneas to not only Greece and Rome but also to the Hittites :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, all those Mediterranean religions really have fingers in one anothers' pies. Which makes them a lot of fun, politically speaking. :)
DeleteGozer was totally a Hittite!
ReplyDeleteThat's just facts.
DeleteI'm pretty sure anyone who gets annoyed that stuff isn't done that isn't John, can buzz off..... (look i edited myself!) Also, I know what the secret project is and it's gunna well worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm normally more annoyed that things aren't done than he is! I fidget when things are unfinished. :)
DeleteI remember at one point in Guarani-related emailing between the two of us, I'd suggested that an Emamu-based Titan of Megafauna in general would have been a good candidate for a dead Titan in general. Iluyanka could fit the bill there. As for sea serpents... well, they're not as large as many whales are now, but I often pass by the bones of many huge, long-extinct marine reptiles at the museum of natural history...
ReplyDeleteI was totally thinking about that conversation while I was uploading this!
DeleteWhen I drafted a Hittite pantheon (the Siwana), I used Upellari, the Titan of Stone, Primary Avatar Ullikummi.
DeleteThey are definitely two of the neatest figures, like, ever. And Upelluri at least is definitely a Titan, Ullikummi possibly too. (And there's that story of Teshub being like "Oh, shit, I failed to kill the enemy, excuse me while I flee and the rest of the gods freak out for a minute" again.)
DeleteSome biblical historians think the solider Uriah the Hittite may have survived the first fall of his kingdom only to be murdered by king David because of his wife Bathsheba. Since this character might technically exist in both the Hittite and Israeli political spheres due to his heritage, might he appear in your Hittite write-up as example of a character that has been depicted differently in different religions/mythological stories?
ReplyDeleteAnything's possible, but as always, we won't know anything until we start doing research.
DeleteI already voted Hittite just to give you a gift for all the awesome you give us, but then you had to go and sell me with three simple words:
ReplyDeleteMagic. Homing. Bees.
This I have to see! :D
Hannahannah is just full of delightful surprises. That are bees.
DeleteHmm...lots of stuff to chew on in this vlog.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, you totally deserve to work on something for your own pleasure! I mean, don't get me wrong, we all know you would love working on whatever Pantheon wins, and you know very well that we would adore any Pantheon supplement you worked on, but after all the, frankly,divine work you guys put out for us last year, we can definitely do this for you :)
Secondly, I'm beginning to notice a certain trend: Aphrodite kidnaps Adonai, Scion of Anat. Theoi-Elohim relationships degenerate. Aphrodite sparks of Trojan War. Theoi-Whatever the Hittite Gods will be called (what are they called anyway?) relationships degenerate. Aphrodite sends Scion Aeneas to Etruria and basically wipes worship of the Etruscan Pantheon off the face of the Earth. Theoi-Aiser relationships degenerate. Is it just me, or is Aphrodite a one-Goddess anti-diplomacy device?
Perhaps a Titanrealm of Conflict or War? With Iluyanka as the all-pervading force of tension that breaks apart friends and family even as the seas wear away mountains. Also, I think he would make a damn good ruling Avatar for a Chaos Titanrealm, in a World where the pdfs didn't have to be RAW-compatible. You've often spoken of the problems of assigning Chaos to a particular Pantheon because of how ubiquitous it is as an opponent, but what better foe for a Pantheon that seems to be under a permanent case of Labyrinthine Lingering?
As for current projects, I can't wait to see the Opposition for the Inue (and everything else of course, but you guys know the Titan is my favourite part of any pdf).
And please take your time with the projects. The first four Titanrealms are amazing, and I know these ones will be too. Though the way you're saying 'first Titanrealm' and 'second Titanrealm' does make me wonder if it's still Maya and Emamu you're writing up.
Phew, that ended up being waaay longer than intended. Overall, this vlog gave me a lot to think about, so Thanks :D
The Theoi in general tend to be anti-diplomacy machines, too. There's also "Roman empire takes over Egyptian dynasties, three-thousand-year-old civilization collapses", too. For dudes who are all about civilization and art, they tend to kind of wreck up anybody else's that stands too close to theirs.
DeleteIt's still Maya and Emamu, I just didn't want to commit to which one was finished and which one wasn't. :)
What the Hittities called their gods... In state documents they are referred to as "the thousand gods of Hatti" or "seribu dewa dari Hatti". Which would indicate they might be called "the Dewa". (Really easy to see the Indo-European connection here - Dewa v. Devas v. Divis v. Theoi v etc.) Though I have also poured through a lot of translations of the tablets and I have seen the term "Siwanna" as the plural noun used for "gods" as well.
DeleteOr... you can call them "the Gods of the Hittites" as a nod to John.
DeleteCan't speak for anyone else, but I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for you two to polish up the titanrealms you work on.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, Hittites, hold onto that lead! I don't want to see how crushed Anne will be if they lose after coming so close! :(
I'll survive, but I do have to say that I hope they hold on to make it to their one shot at glory. :)
DeleteI had Upellari as a Greater Titan because he didn't DO much of anything except be stone and, somehow, be world or pantheon-ending threatening at the same time. Ullikummi actually threatens the whole pantheon successfully, leading to Teshub's not so a-typical situation mis-management.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't happen to have a link to the write-up would you?
DeleteLOL. No. It's one I did for my home game. "Did" is overstating the case considering this site (kudos to the site). More like "started and got enough done to manage a Hero". A LOT of research and a skeleton of gaming. (I feel like I learned Hittite. Mostly because I pretty much had to go through "So You Want to Learn Hittite?" online to get the vocab needed.
ReplyDeleteAs you can tell, I belong to the "I Love Hittites" club as well.
It's a good club.
DeleteSo which is coming out first, the Inuit pantheon or the next vlog? Your comment made it sound like your were pushing this week's vlog out of the way to make room for the PDF.
ReplyDeleteOh, sorry, that wasn't what we meant. :) The vlog is already filmed but is in editing right now; the Inuit PDF is in layout.
Delete