Scion AMA: Sophia Archimedes

Today, the short and probably not particularly sweet answers of Sophia Archimedes, better known as Aiona, goddess of the eternal flame. She is generally annoyed that people, who are stupid, are talking to her. God. People.

Her player let me know that if you have follow-up questions, I can field them over to her. :)

Scion AMA: Sangria Tecuhtli

Today's set of questions is for Sangria Tecuhtli, better known as Eztli, goddess of blood and warrior of the Teotl. Eztli is not particularly communicative, but luckily her nahualli, the great bat Cuacitlali, is a little more forthcoming and inclined to jump in and share her opinions.

Scion AMA: Geoff Matheson

The Scion AMA continues, this time with Sowiljr, better known to some as Geoff Matheson, a Las Vegas chef turned reluctant Allfather! He does not have time for autographs and would like everyone to stop trying to touch him, please, but is otherwise happy to answer a few questions.

Scion AMA: Mitchell Gozer

All right, folks, you asked some awesome AMA questions and the players delivered. We'll be doing posts like this over the next few weeks with various characters' answers, and some bonus playlists for their hilarious hijinks and soulful tragedies as well.

First up today is Mitchell Gozer, Scion of Hermes, now known as Terminus, the god of luck and last chances. Or, "that guy who dies all the time and swears at the Moirai a lot".

NPC Showcase!

Question: There was a character in the Scion books known as Thomas Blair/Blair Thomas. He/She is an Azlanti Scion who is a transsexual. How would he/she fit in your game?

Actually, Blair has appeared in our games!

Geoff's band encountered Blair several times when they were Demigods, first just when they had reached Legend 5, and again a few times at Legend 7. She was a member of another band of NPC Scions, along with a few other faces you might recognize from those character profiles in Demigod - Amelia Battelle, Niles Horne and Tyrone Norris. They were led by Bradley Dupree, a Scion of Poseidon who had a burning rivalry with Geoff, Goze and Marcus (which, by the way, was totally their fault - Goze punked the poor guy the first time they met and then he and Marcus made a point of demolishing whatever he was doing whenever they met him in the future, eventually culminating in Dupree calling down his father on them and all three of them ending up with a curse that required them to give all their wealth to Dupree and his marine biology foundation whenever they got near him), and although Geoff's band was never quite sure what they were up to, they turned up various times in the world, clearly running their own divine errands for their parents.

Tyrone didn't make it long; he was petrified by a basilisk the first time the band met them, and thereafter became a decorative piece for Dupree's research lab. Marcus was made somewhat disconcerted and uncomfortable to discover that he had a younger sister in Amelia; he had the feeling he should do something for her, but he wasn't sure what and had pretty poor interpersonal skills, and ended up vaguely alienating and then avoiding her (she didn't have much time for his shenanigans anyway; she had way more important things to do than try to make nice with her crazy estranged older brother). Poor Blair's experience with the band was something akin to being struck by a massive truck out of nowhere; the guys just drooled over her (for a while, she was their casual standard of hotness - "The water nymph is very lovely." "Yeah, but she's no Blair."), which she could have handled, but Sangria came down on her like a ton of massively Dutiful bricks. She saw in Blair another warrior for the Aztecs, who sorely needed help, and had zero tolerance for Blair's failure to help her struggling people in Mexico and tendency to be wallowing in semi-luxury at Dupree's house instead of out doing things. Eventually, Blair started pretending to go on missions just to get away from her fellow Teotl Scion, and was pretty relieved when Geoff finally moved his group on.

And Niles... well, he got around. Sora's Japanese Scion group also encountered him, when he was running with a different band of Scions (this set all original NPCs), and narrowly prevented him from stealing the relics they recovered for the Kami right before the Netjer, Aesir and Theoi staged their assault on Japan. Geoff's group didn't think much of him, since he didn't interact with them, and were totally unaware that he later became a pivotally important person in their story. You see, Niles is a Scion of Isis, and Geoff really, really upset Isis, and she decided she wanted an eye for an eye. So she sent Niles on an undercover mission, disguised, to take away what mattered most to Geoff: his family. That mysterious "Aztec" Scion who disappeared with Geoff's son?... that was totally him. Geoff and his group never even knew who it was, other than that it was an imposter.

Blair was never a major character, but she was - and is, as far as anyone knows - present in the world of our games, and one of the few Aztec Scions who managed to hang on and try to help their struggling people get back together. Her story was not followed closely; the PCs never knew if she encountered either of her siblings (Orlanda Elliott, who they also knew, or Carlos Jolie-Pitt, who died tragically young) or what she spent most of her time doing, although at one point they did know that Jay Ortiz was training her for some kind of mission.

Incidentally, while we absolutely love the books setting a transgender person as a Scion of Xipe Totec, allowing her to literally magically enact physical changes to herself to become comfortable in her own body, the writeup of her is pretty intensely problematic in a lot of its wording (like point-blank saying that she is "actually a man" and other similar grossness). But it's still a super neat character concept for the child of a god who changes his skin to renew both himself and the world around him, and we couldn't help but include her in our stories.

Chiropteran Heart

Question: How does Eztli react to high Manipulation or Appearance? She doesn't seem the type to be swayed by a pretty face or a clever argument, but surely she doesn't just get to ignore those stats when faced with them?

Indeed she does not. Nobody gets to ignore the power of high-level social Epics, at least in terms of how they affect normal interactions with their owner.

Eztli is definitely not "normal" in terms of psychology or social interaction; she's psychopathic and completely lacks empathy for other living things, and operates based on moral strictures imposed on her by her Virtues and the orders of her superiors, which are the only things she recognizes as having any weight or importance. But the fact that she doesn't understand or spontaneously have much in the way of emotions herself doesn't mean that the powers of others can't engender them in her, and the fact that she has very definite ideas of what is and isn't important doesn't mean that others who are skilful liars or manipulators can't fool her into thinking something else.

Actually, the easiest way to get Eztli to believe anything is just to tell her it's true. She has no Empathy and catastrophically low Perception, with heavy negative Fatebonds to both; she auto-botches any attempt to ascertain whether or not someone is lying to her, which means that she tends to believe anything she is told at face value. This is a fun party game for enemies or even other gods who know they can drive her around like a sawblade-covered bus, but it's also hard to predict, since it means that her grasp on any situation is only as permanent as the timespan until someone else tells her contradicting information.

So high Epic Manipulation users tend to be able to just tell her whatever they want without having to even bother making it believable; she's a complete idiot at reading other people, so anything anyone says sounds pretty legit to her. The only time you have to really work at it is if you tell her something that contradicts one of her personally deeply-held beliefs - like, say, telling her Huitzilopochtli never existed or something - at which point you might have to actually come up with a good reason for her to believe that. And also batten down the hatches for the ensuing Virtue Extremity storm, because challenging Eztli's fundamental beliefs about the universe seldom ends well for anyone.

As for Appearance, Eztli is in fact affected by it, but she seldom acts on any response she might have. She's not immune to recognizing that someone is attractive, but she also lives in a world where any kind of romance or sex that isn't with her husband is completely prohibited and punishable by execution, so she'll never decide to have a fling with someone just because they're hot, even if their presence is doing weird things to her internal organs. Similarly, she's not immune to recognizing that supernaturally hideous things are horrifying, but she has Courage and has spent her entire life fighting and killing things that look like that, so she probably won't ever run for the hills or recoil from something just because it's hideous. Those reactions are there, but without power usage to force her into action, they don't get a lot of concrete motion out of her. She might choose in favor of the hot person if an arbitrary choice is given to her that doesn't conflict with her Virtues (for example, she voted for the person she thought was most beautiful in a reenactment of the apple incident that kicked off the Trojan war), or she might be more inclined to murder a particularly nasty-looking enemy before a less scary one if they seem at a similar level of threat, but that's about all there is to that.

Often, Eztli doesn't even really understand what the reaction she's having to someone's high-level Appearance even means; she has little frame of reference for things like desire or revulsion, since she almost never experiences them on her own. She's more likely to think that she feels weird when a particular person is around but not know why, and she's even been known to get confused and think that she must be sick or something when trying to figure out why she's responding in a way that doesn't make sense to her.

So they do affect her, but because she's a very undemonstrative and uncomprehending kind of being, her responses to being affected aren't always expected or easy to notice. Sowiljr still isn't always sure she even notices that he's attractive because she so often doesn't show it, and he's one of the hottest gods in existence and has been married to her for years.

That's not all just Eztli, though; there's only so much you can do to anyone of near-equal Legend with just your vanilla stats (something we've talked about at length before). While Eztli does respond to the high Epic socials of gods and Titans she meets, she's Legend 11 and not utterly bowled over or forced to drop everything she's doing and drool the way she might have been when she was just a wee slip of a demigod. If you really want to actually make her do anything, instead of being generally inclined to like or dislike you or your ideas, you have to actually use powers on her.

And using powers on Eztli is ridiculously difficult, and most people are not successful at it. Eztli's stone-like imperviousness to injury extends to her mind, where she is extremely difficult to influence with mental meddling and epically resistant to anyone's outside interference (which, as Folkwardr has been known to opine, makes her brain a lot like a nuclear-proof superbunker with nothing inside it). She has maximum Epics to add to her resist roll from Wits, a Birthright that also aids her, bonuses from various boons, positive Fatebonds to Integrity a mile long and a willingness to always Deed and channel rather than let anyone - even people who are trying to help her! - be in the driver's seat other than herself. She is literally one of the gods best at resisting things in the entire universe. For the most part, the only person who has any success mind-whammying Eztli is Sowiljr, mostly because she lets him once in a while, but even he sometimes just decides that it's not worth the intense effort and just gets out of her way until whatever crisis she's about to start blows over.

But she is affected by social stats, and even she can't resist everything all the time. Sometimes she doesn't understand what's going on and lets someone else's social stats tell her what to do, which is the case when she accepts Goze's word on something even though he's a notorious liar. Sometimes she botches (don't we all?), which is pretty much automatic for her any time Illusion is in play, and proceeds into bad decision territory like the blind bat she is. Sometimes someone is just so incredible that they actually defeat her resist, such as when Marduk decided he was going to Charisma her face off to make her do his bidding and has been able to tell her what to do with almost total impunity for the past year or so.

Eztli is a rock, for all intents and purposes, but even rocks get moved by a particularly powerful wave once in a while.

King of the North, Queen of the South

Question: I loved your fanmix for Aurora and Wolf! (Even though it made me sad...) Do you have any more for other characters, and if you do could we see them? Pretty please?

Hey, your wish is our command. We actually have several of these, which is either a sign that we're awesome and full of creative love for our characters, or we need to get out more. Or both.

When we talk about romance in our Scion games, things almost always begin and end with the same two people: Sangria and Geoff. Here's a playlist for them, two heroes who were never meant to be together but who even death couldn't rip away from each other.

Cross-Universe Teotl!

New art time! This time, we have a really neat treat: GriffinGuy24, who many of you know and love from the Onyx Path forums and our own comment threads here has done some artwork of not only our own characters, but with his own Scion Alan Lord guest starring with them. Alan and our own Aztec PCs have obviously never actually met, since they're in different games, but he created some imagined scenes of what interacting with them might look like.

In this one, Alan tries to do some sciencing, but Maquicelotl is just as big a pain in his ass as he is in Geoff's. Jaguars are territorial creatures. There ain't room enough for them all on this pyramid.


In this one, Alan, who is all about being in touch with nature, tries to mediate between Yoloxochitl and her axolotl nahuatl, with whom she never gets along because she has no Animal Ken or Animal boons and is basically salamander kryptonite. It seems to like him way more than it likes her.


And in this one, Eztli has gone into Courage Extremity, so Alan, who is built to soak a lot of hits but doesn't have the hierarchical clout to try to pawn the job off on someone else, has been sent by the pantheon to let her knock him around until she gets it out of her system. In the back, their nahualli are similarly embroiled.

Basically, all of these are adorable, and we love the look into what it might be like if the characters of these games collided! And of course, you know I can never have enough Aztec deities running around here. Thanks for these, Griff!

They Have Opinions

Okay, you guys, today we're doing a vlog treat (one day late, but we needed to ambush the star-studded cast). Today's vlog is being performed totally unplanned and unscripted by three of our fabulous players, who took time out from their busy schedule of being screwed over by other king gods to answer some player-centric questions. In fact, they were so awesome at it that it was over an hour long when it was done, so we split it into two parts and you'll get to see the second half next week.

In the meantime, here are some questions!

Question: Does high positive/negative Appearance usually affect internal band interactions? Or is it often forgotten/shrugged off by players and their PCs? For instance, does Woody often find himself getting lost in Geoff's eyes, or is he just used to it?

Question: Have you used Gods in your games as NPCs, actually involved alongside the PCs, not just as observers/catalysts, and if so, which ones?

Question: Has your PCs been in a Avatar vs. Avatar fight?

Question: Sowiljr has a keycard for the handsome gods club. What is that? A cult for him or a mens' club for gods? Or what?

Question: Okay since every pantheon seems to be big messed up families I gotta ask: who is your "unfavorite" in each pantheon?

Awesome shout-out props to Alex Preston-Bosch for the fancy new opening credits - he is awesome!

Places, Everyone!

Today, we're having some fun with charts! One of our players, who happens to be a graphic design wizard, got to thinking after some of our recent posts about the different roles various characters play in games - who's the social mojo-mover, the physical ass-kicker, the mental note-taker, the magical occult-bender. We have a general awareness that various characters fall into various categories, but we've never really sat down and done the math to see exactly who and how much.

He came up with these super neat venn diagrams of what all the characters in our most prominent games (sorry, Hong Kong and Red Sun) do and how they stack up against each other, and we're sharing them with you because it's our blog and we can do that if we want to.

Wow. Apparently Gangs has way too much brains for its own good, which balances out with Strawberry Fields, which had none (I guess that's what happened to them). And that social/physical job must be pretty difficult to maintain, because Kebo stands stoically alone. It's also very neat to see very different characters that are still of the same "type" - there's a lot of range to be hand among different personalities!

And that's not all! Remember a while ago, when we made that ridiculously complicated flowchart of the relationships between all the Scions in our main game's universe? Well, the same intrepid player just put one together for Gangs of New York:

It's much smaller because they're just baby Scions, but they're already weaving themselves a tangled web, aren't they?

Dancing in the Streets

Oh, man, you guys, do we ever have some more art for you tonight! From two different artists and two different games, and both are fantastic.

First, we have one of our all-time favorite scenes from Better Next Time, starring everyone's favorite pain in the ass, Goze! After discovering that Raijin and Fujin had seized control of the skies over Japan and were pretty much drowning the entire area in a constant hurricane, Geoff's group went to try to stop them by infiltrating in an undercover mission. However, they were pretty sure that one or both of them would notice if a rogue band of Scions suddenly appeared in their territory, so Goze was split off to go on a solo distraction mission. Upon arriving at their base, Goze spent several minutes almost getting eaten, and finally hit upon the idea of keeping the none-too-bright ogres occupied with tricks and flim-flammery. Finally, in desperation, he started busting off tribal dance moves he had learned from an Australian goddess, and poured everything he had into a crazy high roll to succeed. And succeed he did - so well, in fact, that both Raijin and Fujin joined in. They then proceeded to dance so energetically and for so long that Goze was forced to create a doppelgaenger of himself to leave there, eternally dancing with them while he made his escape.

Which leads to this incredibly awesome picture of a giant Japanese monster dance party:

By Samantha Braithwaite!

But that's not all! Over in Eastern Promises, we also have a great new picture of James Howard, Duke of Norfolk, squiring the Lady Leona Middleton about town on the lovely streets of Charleston, before the many Great Irritations of America started harshing all over their courtship. Mrs. Young, acting as chaperone, really does look like she operates under a constant raincloud of dislike and crankiness.

By Steph!

Guys, I am just completely bowled over by how awesome these artists are, and how incredibly neat it is that they want to draw things for our games. If they lived close enough, I'd hug both of them, and everyone they know. Give them a round of applause!

Tea with the Queen

All right, folks - new art!

This here is some fantabulous lineart of Jioni and Eztli. Sowiljr sent Jioni, Queen of Erebus, off to a coffeeshop on a mission to help Eztli be better at politics. Basically, her job was to try to teach Eztli how to be a queen, which Eztli was failing at spectacularly due to a combined disinterest in politics and inability to take her husband's position as "king" of like five people seriously.

But, undaunted, Jioni took her to a coffeeshop and sat down and tried to explain politics, which was endlessly entertaining. Jioni would explain things in awesome, expressive, badass ways; Eztli would stare at her in noncomprehension or answer in monosyllables. After about two hours, the entire mortal population of the coffeeshop had cleared in terror, and Jioni had succeeded in teaching Eztli that when you go to the house of another ruler, it's polite to tell them they have many tables. Which is now all she knows how to say in political situations.

By the excellent Raven Saith!

The artist originally intended to do a full digital color picture here, but real life caught up to her and she had to set the project aside. But it's still super neat - how about Sangria's totally uninterested expression and badass muscles, or Vivian's sassy pinkie finger? - so we're posting it anyway, because we like it, darn it. I'm especially tickled by the suspiciously child-sized toothmarks on Sangria's arm. Battle scars of motherhood.

And, since it's lineart, how about this - anyone who feels like coloring it, go ahead and do so! Show it off to us later. :)

Status Report: Still Flailing at the Unknown

Question: Can we get an update on what is happening in your three games?

We sure can - in fact, let's ring in the new year with one!

Things are rough in the god-level game, where our Legend 11 superstars are having serious trouble juggling their loyalties, their secret missions and their political obligations. They're still on a secret mission from their parents, who charged them with gathering the omphalus stones of each of the Titanrealms in order to use them in a ritual to reinforce Tartarus, which is in danger of breaking open again now that they've managed to get a bunch of Titans back into it but nobody really bothered to go and spackle up the cracks they got out of last time. Going to Titanrealms is dangerous and difficult and takes up a whole lot of time, and in the meantime Sowiljr's position as king of the Aesir is suffering because he's not around to do it. They recently also figured out that removing a realm's omphalus stone makes it more powerful, so they're just beginning to realize they may have royally screwed some of the other pantheons who were fighting those Titans and just got suddenly overwhelmed by extra power. And while they have a few friends among the gods, they know that their parents are still incognito after Ragnarok and they're not allowed to tell anyone they're alive, which means they can't ask for a lot of help with their mission without having to field uncomfortable questions. Already some of the Bogovi are angrily trying to stop them, because what they're doing is pretty much directly opposed to both Harmony and the usual Bogovi mindset of not touching things that aren't yours.

At this exact moment, Sowiljr and Jioni are in Gimli (the renamed Asgard, post-Ragnarok), trying to get it ready for the Kingsmoot, a meeting of all the pantheon heads that Sowiljr has called in an effort to get everyone to make some policies, alliances and plans that help the overall war, not to mention solidify his own tenuous position as king of like two people. Folkwardr has likewise called, or is trying to call, a Magemoot to deal with the problem of the Titanrealm of Fate having been severely screwed up by Theoi shenanigans, making the Fate purviews not work properly, but he's unable to get much going on that since he's currently trapped in the Titanrealm of Illusions with Eztli, who he's desperately trying to get out since he knows she's ill-equipped to do so herself. Eztli, in turn, almost got out once but refused to go when she realized that Tonatiuh, the sun god of her struggling pantheon, was trapped there, too; she refused to leave him, and all three are now fighting to survive and remember who they are before the Titan eats them whole. Sowiljr is miserable over Folkwardr and Eztli being stuck in there, but knows that he both can't really help them and that he doesn't dare not show up to this major political event he's throwing, so he's just doing the best he can and trying not to Loyalty extremity every day. Jioni's just tired. Of everyone.

In Eastern Promises, the current band consists of Alvin, James, Leona, Mrs. Young and Haji, the same misfits from the last adventure, who have just begun a new saga in order to fulfill requirements asked of them by Fate after James used Deus Ex Machina to save their lives in the last story. They've been sent to go to the Garden of the Hesperides and retrieve a box for Ishtar; they have no idea what's in the box, nor are they feeling great about going to the Garden of Hera Kicks Your Ass, but Fate wants what Fate wants. They've just begun to get some clues that not all of the gods may be around, although where they are and what happened to them is anybody's guess, and that they're largely on their own when it comes to dealing with their supernatural problems. Most recently, James attempted to get permission from Queen Victoria to marry Leona, only to be told in the politest terms possible that he wasn't about to get permission to marry anyone who's half brown and he has a duty to the Crown to marry someone more suitable in case his children come up to inherit the throne one day, which he's trying to combat by finding a way to prove that Leona is descended from the pharaohs and therefore appropriate marriage material; and Alvin, in order to save his drowning comrades from an angry Proteus, agreed to spend a night with the god as his eromenos and is exploring a strange but interesting new world of sexuality. Mrs. Young hates everyone and wants to go home. Haji's good, though.

Finally, the Gangs of New York game just brought their story, starring Zoe, Skylar, Russel, Isaac and Anton, to a thrilling conclusion where somehow most people survived. Isaac accidentally got himself dragged into a world where he exists as pure computer code, and there met the mistress of the giant technological web, who turned out to be Arachne; she offered him the chance to stay with her and influence the web (and thus the world) from within, which he accepted, bowing out before the final game session. Back on earth, where all the Scions of the current story are duly appointed superheroes (codenamed Containment Prime) in the employ of the United States government in charge of defending New York City from supernatural threats, Skylar fled a monster attack that destroyed an Army base and was subsequently sentenced to death for abandoning his duty; Zoe and Anton made a desperate helicopter trip from New York to Washington, D.C. in an hour and half in a stolen military jet, being attacked by monsters all the way, to barely make it in time to stop Congress from voting in his execution. Zoe made an incredible patriotic speech about Skylar's value to the country and the need for superheroes, successfully saving him from death and the group from disbandment, and Anton made sure it went viral so that the United States as a whole is now on the superhero bandwagon. Meanwhile, Russel and Skylar, defending New York on their own, teamed up with a surprisingly skilled human cop they ran into to take on the last of the fire demons that have been plaguing the city recently, in a fierce battle that nearly killed all of them but finally managed to take her down and save the day.

At the end of the story, Zoe was recalled to Washington to coordinate political concerns for the new group (and deal with the fact that Isaac has gone AWOL and, since he's a former terrorist, that's super not good), Anton went with her as bodyguard and chauffeur, Russel missed his opportunity to try to tell Zoe he has feelings for her because of Skylar's bionic interference, and all was well in the Big Apple. The next story will rotate characters again, so Zoe, Isaac and Anton will go out and Russel and Skylar will stay in, and we'll pick up with a new crisis and set of heroes next week.

So, you know, they're keeping busy.

It just occurred to me that this post is queued, so there might have been a game or two between when I wrote it and when it goes live, but that just adds to the mystery, I think.

Blood Begets Strength

It's my favorite time - new art time!

From the artist who was our very first contributer, way back in the depths of a year or two ago, we have this fantastic portrait of a demigod-level Sangria with an incredibly adorable version of Chicahua hiding behind her. He is too cute for me to even stand it.

By the wonderful Zhantilniiraala!

Even more awesome, she came for a visit in person and gave us the originals of her Better Next Time-themed art, so now we have actual, solid art in our hands! We're going to frame these suckers, so they can look down on themselves in the future during game and despair.

Beloved Bear

Question: I saw that Geoff has a different name (Tlazohtlaloni) on the Teotl family tree. What does the name mean and how did he earn it?

Tlazohtlaloni means literally "beloved one", with the masculine ending so you know it's a dude who is being beloved here. It was given to him by the Teotl to describe his place in the pantheon as Eztli's consort; as far as they're concerned, his job is literally just to be her beloved. That's what he's allowed into Acopa for.

Geoff's in a strange situation on Acopa thanks to that really awful thing his pantheon did; they have to tolerate him because he's legally married to Eztli and she's important to them, but he doesn't really have a place among them and is always treated as something of a potentially disruptive outsider. From an Aztec point of view, he also fills all the traditionally "feminine" roles in his marriage to Eztli, including taking care of the children, making food, taking care of her day-to-day needs and being protected by her, while Eztli does most of the traditionally "masculine" things like going to war and ensuring the family's safety, all of which means that even when he's not doing anything, he doesn't look quite right to them.

He's working on trying to gain more acceptance in his adopted pantheon, ingratiating himself with the Tezcatlipocas and even trying to find a way to make contact with a nahualli of his own, but it's slow going since the Aztec gods are unwilling to change and unlikely to forget the tragic events of the recent past. So, until then, he's Eztli's "beloved one" to them, and will be until they decide he's distinguished himself in some other way.

(It's a pretty good name for a god of marriage, though, and they've been starting to let him kind of take that role on, so progress is being made!)

Next Time, Honest

Question: Which stories are for Geoff and Sangria's adventures and backstories?

For now, that would be Better Next Time, which includes both of them as well as Sophia, Goze and Marcus. As we get close to Ragnarok they'll run into the Skeins of Fate group and sort of blend, but I'll warn you when that happens.

The game's name comes from Geoff's tendency, once his group has completely ruined something, to promise various gods that he promises they'll do better next time. Honest.

Two Guys, a Girl and Rampant Bloodletting

Question: Hey, I was reading some of your fiction about Geoff lately (awesome job, by the way!) and it got me thinking about Jay Ortiz. It seems like he hates Geoff, but is that only because of the Norse thing? Is it possible that Sangria might have something to do with it? (wink, wink)

I see what you're doing with that winking there, questioner. It's hard to say, actually - Jay is a pretty mysterious guy.

He has plenty of reasons to dislike Geoff without anyone else needing to get involved; Geoff set in motion the violent takeover of Jay's homeland and people by foreign powers, which is not something anyone forgets easily. Of course, Geoff didn't mean to do that and was very upset about it when he found out about it, but that doesn't make it any better. In fact, it might make it worse - seriously, you got my family and home blown up not because you were trying to but just because you're stupid?

And of course Geoff doesn't really help the situation much, since he dislikes Jay right back (watching two high Charisma characters trying very hard not to like one another is pretty hilarious, by the way. Every few minutes they almost give each other the finger guns and then overcompensate with violent hatred). Geoff's angry with Jay for blaming him for crimes that he personally didn't commit even if his family did, and for his obvious opposition to Geoff wherever he can get away with it. Fiction hasn't caught up to the post-Ragnarok landscape yet, but Jay most recently caught Geoff at a really, really bad moment and implied that he didn't actually care about his family, so even though they're getting along a little better now that they're both gods, there's not a lot of love lost on either side.

But Sangria? Well... to tell you the truth, Jay's not a very tell-you-about-his-inner-struggle kind of a dude, so exactly what he thinks about her is still a mystery, even from the players in the game. She's not a particularly pleasant person to be around, nor is she fun to have a conversation with, so it's unlikely that he secretly fell in love with her and hates Geoff's guts for stealing her away or anything like that (although it is tempting to make an awesome Mexican telenovela out of the situation, isn't it?). But she is one of his people, and furthermore a daughter of one of the Tezcatlipocas, making her the only crown princess of the pantheon at the moment opposite his crown prince. It's entirely possible that he's offended as shit that she ended up married to some Norse dude, and the fact that that happened because said Norse dude knocked her up by accident probably doesn't help matters all that much. And now there are white people all up in his country all the time, imprisoning and using his countrymen, and if there's one thing Jay hates above all others, it's people who restrict the freedom of others. (And, even though he tries his best only to do it when it's for her own good or the good of others, Geoff restricts Sangria's freedom a whole lot, too.)

It's actually possible, although never confirmed, that Jay and Sangria might have been meant to be married at some point; it would be a very smart political alliance that solidified the supremacy of the Tezcatlipocas, and the two of them make a fantastic team, with Jay directing everything through his amazing social powers and Sangria carrying out his orders with wrecking-ball efficiency. Nobody was expecting Geoff to wander in and make a completely different alliance. We don't know that for sure, of course, but it's a solid bet that Huitzilopochtli and/or Tezcatlipoca had some plans for one or both of their kids' eventual matrimony, and the introduction of a surprise Aesir might very well have made them start over at square one. Jay still isn't married, although whether that's because he likes being single or for some other motive nobody has ever asked.

But yeah, Jay's probably not nursing a broken heart behind the scenes or anything. He just doesn't like the guy, and he's got lots of reasons for it.

Ironically, it's actually Geoff that occasionally gets jealous of Jay and Sangria, not the other way around. She tends to just do what Jay says instead of arguing with him the way she does with Geoff, and there have been times that the two of them connected on an Aztec-blood-bonding level Geoff couldn't that irritated him.

Also, Chicahua at one point told him he wanted Jay to be his dad instead of Geoff (although really, the kid does that all the time). Cue the angry, testosterone-laden glaring.

Scion Symphony

Question: In a previous vlog you had mentioned that many of the characters have a "theme song" without the knack itself. Could you share some tunes for your characters who are not rocking Theme Music?

I hope you guys are ready for this! We got all the players involved, went to our own giant playlists of character theme songs, and even after slimming it down (WAY down) we still have an awesome musical journey going on here. I'm not kidding when I say that John and I have songlists that are literally five or more hours long for each of our games, including songs for each character, for their relationships and for their great deeds. We love epic musical soundtracks!

Don't mind the videos for these. We're talking about the music, not the silly band dances.

Better Next Time:

There's a pretty neverending stream of music for these guys; you can sit through our iTunes list for them for about six hours without even being able to see the end of the tunnel. In addition to Geoff's official theme music - "How You Like Me Now" by The Heavy and "Lover of the Light" by Mumford & Sons, depending on his moon - we also like Natasha Marsh's "He Moves, Eyes Follow" and Rise Against's "Savior". The last one in particular is a great song for describing his relationships with his family members (mostly women) over the course of his life.

Sangria has a cocktail of songs about physical badassery and determination, but our top favorites would be "No Gringo" by Vienna Teng, "Indestructible" by Disturbed and "Titanium" by Sia/David Guetta.

Sophia's image song has always been Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger", which really captures her attitude (and lack of normal human-like function). At the point where she became (according to John) infatuated with a particular Scion who shall remain nameless, we also started playing Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" a lot.

Goze's playlist is as multiple-personality as he is, but Jim's Big Ego does both of his major songs, the frenetic "Stress" and the introspective "The Ballad of Barry Allen". When he impersonated Geoff, we also used to always play Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" to illustrate his hilarious impersonation of his more charismatic friend.

Marcus James' unofficial theme song was always "I'm On a Boat" by The Lonely Island, which covered his bombastic crazy-ass personality traits, but in his sadder moments we also associate him with "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc. His player has also been known to remark that any song by Jay-Z is relevant to Marcus' life.

Eastern Promises:

There are a ton of characters in this game, so we'll try to be brief and split them up by group.

Mohini is all about some high-energy dance music (if techno dance beats had existed in her time period, she'd have been all over them); she has a lot of similar songs on her list, but some of the most often-played are "Come and Get It" by Selena Gomez and "Turn Me On" by Nicki Minaj/David Guetta. Shadan, the ever-irrepressible, rocks out to "Crown on the Ground" by Sleigh Bells, while Kebo's easy-going nature lends itself to "Movin' Right Along" by The Muppets and Cassara of course has to be "Food Glorious Food" from the musical Oliver! Padma's player wasn't sure what song to use for her, but said that she and Shadan should totally be the subjects of "Something There" from Beauty and the Beast. Akhi's song is Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood", which handily contrasts with Faruza, who obviously has to go with Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire". Samuel, scourge of the skies on his ornithopter, is heralded by Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", while Darrius' secretive nature lends itself to the moody "Hideaway" by Passion Pit. Mshai's player suggests "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky for his brief run, and Alvin, the suave son of a bitch, gets "In the Air Tonight" covered by Nonpoint. Adorable Yadi is Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine", and old, crochety, adventurous Paniwi rolls along to "Muddy Water" from the musical Big River. Lionel's grossness is aptly represented by Radiohead's "Creep" and "Brand New Day" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and Mrs. Young's creepy personality makes everyone uncomfortable with "Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saens, rounding out our unpleasant team members. James' player suggests several upper-crust classical pieces for him, including "Dawn" by Dario Marianelli, and "Rule Britannia" by Thomas Arne; Leona of course gets Katy Perry's "Roar".

Terry's player totally did not okay it, but we play "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" by Big & Rich for him anyway.

Gangs of New York:

The first Gangs group, full of socialites with poor decision-making skills, was of course headlined by Michael, whose official theme song is Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" and whose unofficial followup is Franz Ferdinand's "Michael". Sexy mysterious Valentina gets "Die Another Day" by Madonna, poor displaced party boy Nic gets "All I Ever Wanted" by Airborne Toxic Event, and psychotically vengeful James gets "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley.

The second group, which was more of a moving demolition derby than a set of semi-human beings, has an accordingly sadder and more dystopian list of music. Poor Winona's song is "Grey Street" by Dave Matthews Band, with "Down" by Jason Walker/Molly Reed as a secondary choice. Alan's song is Great Big Sea's "Wave Over Wave" or "Nautical Disaster" by Tragically Hip, while Jake (and everyone else in the group, eventually) gets Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and Simon's player informs us that, now bereft of his only true love in death, his character will be represented by Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You".

Our current group (the... good group?) in that game is slightly less depressed about their lives. Anton's song is "Stickshifts and Safety Belts" by Cake, Isaac's is "The Future Soon" by Jonathon Coulton, Skylar's is "Hannah's Theme" by The Chemical Brothers, and Zoe's is "By the Sword" by Emilie Autumn.

Land of the Red Sun:

Alison and Colin have an entire album dedicated to them, but a few highlights for the fractious son of Dionysus include "Frontier Psychiatrist" by The Avalanches, "Magic" by B.o.B. and "Unwell" by Matchbox 20. Alison's official theme music is "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, but she's also partial to "I Am a Scientist" by The Dandy Warhols, "Control" by Poe and "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin.

Of the Japanese crew, only Saki ("Bumblebee" from DDR) and Hachiro ("This Is Halloween" covered by Marilyn Manson) have the Theme Music knack. The rest of the group wasn't played for long and didn't have a strong musical set yet, but the Japanese group was so consistently ice-cool that we enjoy playing Far East Movement's "Like a G6" for them as a unit.

Skeins of Fate:

Aurora has hours of music all by herself, but in addition to her official theme music (Kelly Sweet's cover of "Dream On"), I'm also fond of Sara Lov's cover of "My Body is a Cage" for her, while John loves Michael Card's "The Prophet". We actually made the saddest double CD of music about her and Wolf several months ago, but listening to it made us turn to drink.

Woody, the old soldier that he is, has always had "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas as his main song, but songs about war almost always suit him; some of our other favorites are Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son".

Vivian's official theme song is the 30 Rock Theme, which suits her awesomely, but she is a lady of many and mercurial moods. We also love Nightwish's "Slow Love Slow" for her, and of course "Lady Marmalade" from Moulin Rouge.

People often forget that Will actually has Theme Music - Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" - because he doesn't use it very often. Bonus: John Doe's unofficial theme song was "Going Down" by Sick Puppies... and he did.

Kettila's adorable theme song is "I Won't Grow Up" from Peter Pan, and her creepy childhood schtick dominates her playlist. We also recommend "In My Arms" by Plumb, "Fields of Innocence" by Evanescence and "I Want My Innocence Back" by Emilie Autumn.

Strawberry Fields:

Cheerful Dierdre is the frontrunner here, with either "The Elfin Knight" by Kate Rusby or "Turn Loose the Mermaids" by Nightwish. Seamus is gloomier with "Save Yourself" by Stabbing Westward or "Disarm" by Smashing Pumpkins. The other Irish kids were sort of cannon fodder in Seamus' ruthless quest, so they didn't end up with many songs of their own.

I'm serious, this could go on for a very long time, but that's not very surprising. Lots of players and games have theme songs for their characters, so our list is only impressive because of the sheer number of characters making it massive.

Call Once in a While!

Question: What happened to mortal parents of your God PCs?

Various fates. It's hard to be a human who has been touched by the divine; your life never goes smoothly or normally, and when it ends (which is often) it's usually in an unusual way.

Sowiljr's mortal mother, Marlene Matheson, was a Las Vegas showgirl and single mother who raised him on her own before dying of cancer when he was in his twenties. Her story, and Geoff's rise to Scionhood, are told in the story Close to the Sun.

Folkwardr's mortal parents, Benjamin and Margaret Anderson, are long dead of natural causes; they lived in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and while Woody had Eternal Youth and whiled away the centuries until today, they had no such option.

Jioni's mortal mother, Eugenia Landry, was a devout Catholic stay-at-home mother who was put into the care of a nunnery shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, right before Vivian was called away to go become a Scion. No one ever checked in on her again, so it's generally assumed that since she was in frail health anyway, she probably died during Fimbulwinter. If she didn't, she'd be somewhere in Africa right now with the rest of the population of New Orleans that Zwazo Fou Fou and Shango hijacked and relocated. The story of her interactions with Vivian is in her backstory, Godless.

Eztli's mortal mother (her name was Necahual but she went by Maria if anyone wonders, although Sangria never knew her and doesn't know her name herself) died in childbirth with Sangria, who came into the world bloody from the beginning. Since the Aztecs considered women who died in childbirth to have died in glorious combat, it is generally assumed she went to the House on the Left, although no one ever checked.

Vala's mortal mother, Hilda Dahl, died in a car accident the night of her Visitation. No one has any proof, but it seems like there might have been some kind of foul play involved. Read the story of Hilda and Aurora, Colors of Fate, and decide for yourself.

Kettila's mortal parents (her real ones, not any of the random ones she adopted), Oskar and Emma Blomgren, were never checked up on and probably also died during Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok. If they survived, they'd be among the meager few post-apocalypse people that live under Sowiljr's protection, although he would have no way of recognizing them.

Zwazo Fou Fou's mortal mother, Katherine James, died of natural causes somewhere during his Hero-to-Demigod career. He and his twin brother Mathias visited her grave once in a while, but not much once they got busy enough to make trips home impractical for them.

Aiona's mortal parents, Richard and Brenda Archimedes, were actually adoptive and she was aware of this from the start, consequently giving the poor couple little of her attention. Her real mother, Olivia, was seen several times in Hephaestus' company while he was posing as a mortal scientist, but her current whereabouts and what might have happened to her are unknown.

Sverrir's mortal mother, Amelia Nordstrom, was killed by a criminal during a holdup when he was a teenager, something that deeply affected his life and outlook thereafter. His stepfather, Michael Whitman, knew he wasn't Will's real father but was actually coopted to become his Guide by Njord, and helped his stepson as much as possible until he arrived at godhood, at which point he was lost to the furor of Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok.

Terminus' mortal mother, Claire Gozer, continued living in Wisconsin after his abrupt departure until he returned at Legend 9 to save her from Fimbulwinter, relocating her to his cult at Delphi. After Goze's death, Sowiljr took her in out of honor for his dead comrade, transplanting her to his Sanctum for a short period of time before resettling her in his cult lands in Iceland. She's one of the few parents of god-level Scions who is confirmed to still be alive and active, although she's pretty broken up over the loss of her son. Some of the story of their interaction is in his backstory, Wayward Son.

Elissa Margaritas, mother of both Alison and Colin, was left something of an emotional wreck after being left by both Apollo and Dionysus, but she was last seen still living quietly alone in her home in North Carolina. Alison saw her briefly just before her apotheosis and she seemed normal; no one has checked on her since, so it's unsure whether she survived Fimbulwinter to the end.

Saki's parents, Ichiro and Natsumi Kimura, are extremely not alive anymore. You can see why in her backstory, Little Fish.

And that's everybody that's a god right now! Many of the younger Scions of the Eastern Promises and Gangs of New York games are very much still part of their parents' lives; Zoe went to get nagged incessantly by her mother about getting married this weekend, while James sends telegrams home to the family when possible, Leona is deeply put out with her father for kicking her out of the house to go have adventures, and Skylar's poor mother is beside herself with worry trying to figure out what to do about her son being a mentally unstable superhero that the government won't let her see.

Any of you guys got any interesting stories about what mortal Scion parents are up to these days?

ART!

It's time for MORE ART! ART!

This one is something completely different, and we love it. From a master graphic artist of the great white north, here's an image of Goze, Sangria and Geoff as the young gods of the Teotl. Goze appears here as Iocolincolatl, the psychpomp god in charge of bringing whatever gods the Aztec people need most to their city; Sangria appears as Eztli, the bloodmother, warrior bat-monster and mother to her people; and Geoff appears as Tlazohtlaloni, god of marriages and life-giving ponds and beloved of Eztli.

In traditional Aztec art style, with bonus totally adorable evil baby. This is my new favorite thing of the moment.

ART!