Far Beyond the Sea

Question: Hey, I know Asia is a distant memory right now, but how would you deal with Susanoo being assigned to Yomi, especially with Izanami's dubious Titan-ness?

Ooh, Susanoo and his underworld connections is one of my favorite things to speculate about in Japanese mythology!

So, for those who aren't up on their Japanese shenanigans: in the Kojiki, when Izanagi assigns Susanoo as the divine ruler of the seas, he begins weeping and wailing with great sadness, so strongly that the rivers and lakes dry up and all the greenery on the mountains withers. When Izanagi asks him what's wrong, he cries that he wants to be with his mother, which makes Izanagi so furious (because remember, he just escaped from Izanami and walled her up in the underworld, and probably his conscience doesn't appreciate this kid bringing it up again) that he says the courtly Japanese equivalent of "Fine, fuck you, then," and banishes his son to the Underworld.

There are a lot of very interesting things going on in this myth. For one thing, it's an interesting issue that Susanoo knows about and misses Izanami at all; while she is said to be his mother in the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki where this myth is related claims that he was born from Izanagi alone as he purified himself after escaping Yomi. It seems odd that Susanoo, who was born only of his father and has never even met or seen his mother, should even know about her, let alone be so devastated by her absence; most likely this is because of various older traditions being mashed together during the historical period when Shinto was being institutionalized as the state religion, but in mythological terms it leaves a lot of room for Storytellers to play with Susanoo's exact origin and relationships. It's also interestingly touching; when the entire pantheon has rejected Izanami for being a representative of death, decay and impurity, it seems that Susanoo alone finds this unfair in some way, or at least feels for her situation. Since he's the representative of chaos and breakdown himself, his siding with her may be an example of him going against the normal order, symbolized by Izanagi, and aligning himself with powers that are ultimately detrimental to the universe.

But, anyway, Susanoo does in fact get exiled, and he thereafter retains a lot of death and Underworld imagery, despite not being said explicitly to rule a death realm or actually spend any time with his mother. He is often said to have centipedes, symbols of death and decay, in his hair and clothes in other myths, and to occasionally be said to dwell beneath the ground or to have a home in the Underworld (although not often explicitly Yomi). He's clearly related to death in some way, but he's also clearly not considered to be ruling Yomi, which continues to belong to Izanami; so what's he doing?

One of our favorite theories has to do with the mythic land of Tokoyo. Tokoyo (which means literally "the otherworld") is a mysterious magical location where the spirits of blessed ancestors and the dead live in eternal peace and plenty, along with various kami and magical creatures. It is generally considered a land of the dead, but also a place of happiness and mystical powers, with a lot in common with the faraway Irish concept of Mag Mell. Tokoyo is never explicitly said to have a ruler, but one theory is that this is the Underworld that Susanoo administers; not only does it contain the dead, but it is also usually conceived of as a mysterious island floating somewhere in the primordial sea, which is also Susanoo's traditional domain. Under this interpretation, Susanoo and Yomi would both be rulers of Underworlds but not of the exact same realm, with Izanami receiving the vast majority of the dead but Susanoo administering the disposition of particularly worthy, heroic or otherwise special souls after their deaths. And since there's already potential for multiple Underworlds in Japan if you bring in the imported but still influential Buddhist realm of Jigoku, ruled over by Emma-O, multiple destinations for the dead might fit together well in the greater world of Japanese cosmology.

If you don't want to bring another Underworld into it, or just don't like that theory or want to use Tokoyo for something else like a Terra Incognita, you could also consider Susanoo to live in Yomi somewhere, and simply not to be its ruler. He might be one of Izanami's few allies, which could make for some intense political issues, especially if you consider her to be a Titan, and might also be a motivation for his occasional outbursts and attacks on the gods in the Overworld who abandoned her so long ago. After the debacle with Amaterasu and the cave, he's probably not particularly welcome in Takamagahara anymore, and while he descended to earth at Izumo, it's not particularly practical for a god to actually live among mortals for any period of time so he's probably not there. Alternatively, he might not be friends with Izanami; she has a very bad attitude toward the living, and the fact that he stood up to his father might not be enough to overcome her ingrained resentment and misery, so he may be just as careful about going into Yomi as anyone else (albeit probably better at it since he probably has a good deal of Death boons).

Izanagi's banishment of Susanoo does not explicitly say that he is sending him to rule Yomi; in fact, all it says is that he's banished from the abode of the gods, although the implication is that he probably wanted to go see Izanami as a result. His immediate response is to go bother Amaterasu first, though, so where he eventually ends up living when he isn't in the Overworld is sort of up for interpretation.

The Firstborn Heirs

Question: In Japanese mythology, according to the origin myth, Izanagi and Izanami first have two kids when walking around the pillar the wrong way. The first one is Hiruko and the second Awashima. There is some mention of Hiruko eventually surfacing later as a minor god, but I was wondering if there was any other mention of Awashima.

Yep, the two original children of Izanagi and Izanami are all but stricken from the rolls of the Kami. It's not actually the direction that the two deities walked around the pillar that is incorrect, but the fact that Izanami spoke to her husband first. This, according to the Kojiki, was against the natural order of things, so their marriage was tainted and their children cursed. They had to repeat the ceremony, this time with Izanagi speaking first, to straighten it out and be able to be fruitful as deities. Alas for poor Izanami - all she said was, "Wow, you're so handsome!" to her new husband, but that's what happens in ancient mythology when women think they get to be in charge of their own actions.

Alas also for these poor kids, who didn't do anything wrong but were still eternally condemned by their mother's totally unacceptable desire to think she was allowed to talk before a dude gave her permission. Hiruko - whose name means "leech", and who is therefore usually referred to as the Leech Child - was born deformed, unable to stand on his own even when he was three years of age. Various traditions have interpreted this as meaning that he was born without bones, making him a gross, leech-like jelly creature, while others read his name as possibly suggesting that he has no arms or legs, making him even more of a wormy sort of being. When they realize that the kid is never going to be able to play soccer or administer the universe, his parents put him in a boat and shove him off like a tiny unwanted Moses leech into the celestial ocean.

Hiruko never comes back, and in earlier Shinto scriptures it doesn't seem that he was intended to; he's gone because he was impure and unnatural, which in the purity-focused Japanese religion means that he must be removed. However, he was much later syncretized with the figure of Ebisu, one of the Seven Lucky Gods; the boating gods of good times and fun parties likewise come from the sea, and while the rest of them are Chinese imports, Ebisu is the only one said to have originated in Japan. A weird-looking little god, deaf and physically handicapped, who came back from parts unknown in a boat - it's not hard to see why the idea that he might be Hiruko returned sprang up and became so powerful.

But you're really more interested in Awashima, the second child, who is also considered a failure but whose problems are not actually described in the Kojiki. "Awashima" literally means "island of Awa", or possibly "pale island" from the word awai, meaning "pale"; Izanami and Izanagi also created the islands of Japan after correcting their first marriage attempt, and there are a few small Japanese islands called Awa, so it may be that the myth refers to the pair giving birth to a landmass. If that's so, it's hard to tell why that island was a disappointment to everyone, since the real-world islands are pretty normal places.

There's also an Awashima Shrine in the Wakayama prefecture which has a resident protector deity commonly referred to as Awashima or the kami of Awashima; the kami is a female deity who is in a perpetual state of "womens' problems" that make her miserable, and therefore she is banished to the shrine to keep her away from the other kami (probably because things like menstruation are considered impure) and spends her time trying to help ease the suffering of other women when they have uniquely female problems. We don't have any indication that this is necessarily the same Awashima, but if it is, presumably the fact that she's afflicted with lady-issues would be the reason that she was kicked off the official god-roster by her disgusted parents, and her backstory of being banished by the other gods might be a later version of the old story of the original two children being considered failures to be done away with. This second Awashima isn't attested in either the Kojiki or the Nihon Shoki, but is rather a popular figure in shrine worship in that particular part of Japan.

For most Scion games, Awashima probably isn't going to come up very much, considering that s/he vanished immediately after being born in the Shinto scriptures and never comes up again. However, if you want to play with where the missing second child might be - not to mention doing what, and associating with whom - there are a couple of possibilities for folding the lost deity in to the rest of Japanese mythology.

Literally Star-Crossed

Question: Hi! I know the Amatsukami rewrite is some time away but I was curious about something. I've heard that Izanagi is a kami associated with the stars as well as the sky, and the myth of Tanabata is a retelling of his doomed affair with Izanami. Is there anything in your research that would indicate that's true?

Well, it is possible that some people might consider Izanagi a stellar deity. In Japanese myth, the stars were created by Izanagi when he drew the heavenly spear out of the earth at the creation of the world and flung the clots of mud clinging to it into space, so he has a connection to stars in that he created them. We wouldn't consider it a strong enough association to make him a star god, really, though, considering that Izanami also helped with the spear-creations and that Izanagi presumably created everything else that exists in Japan at the same time and we wouldn't think of him as a god of Fertility or Water or Earth, either.

As for the mythology surrounding Tanabata, that's actually imported from China, where it's the well-known tale of the Weaver's Daughter and Cowherd's Son, Zhi Nu and Niu Lang; in at least one version, Zhi Nu is the daughter of the Jade Emperor and the saga is played out as a conflict between celestial gods, although in other places it's a folktale of two mortal lovers kept apart by a Romeo & Juliet style family feud. Tanabata is the Japanese name for the goddess, who is patroness of weavers, while Hikoboshi is the Japanese name of her cattle-aligned counterpart. Kept apart by the decree of her father or whatever other outside forces a given retelling of the myth chooses, the two lovers can meet only once per year, when the stars Altair and Vega that represent them line up.

But we've never heard of Tanabata and Hikaboshi being cognates of Izanami and Izanagi, and we don't know of any reason they'd be connected. Izanagi and Izanami have no similar connotations to the two formerly Chinese gods other than the very tenuous stellar connection of being creator gods, and furthermore the mythology doesn't line up; nobody ever forbade them to get together and in fact their pantheon encouraged them, and once Izanami died and Izanagi failed to retrieve her, there was definitely no interest on either of their parts in having a romantic once-a-year tryst even if they could. You could definitely call their relationship a "doomed affair" if you want to, but it's in no way a similar one to that between Tanabata and Hikoboshi.

However, that doesn't mean the Tanabata myth can't do neat stuff in Japan. You might be able to do some cool stuff with what these Shen are doing being so prominent in Japanese myth and whether or not they're seeking some kind of asylum from their pantheon there, and it might also be interesting to remember that Amaterasu is also a goddess with weaving connotations. She isn't a star goddess, but she and her brother and former consort Tsuki-Yomi are both heavenly deities that inhabit the sky but never touch, and there might be something you could mess with in that parallel situation.

The Dead Walk

Question: I'm brainstorming ideas for reconciling a Titanic Izanami to the Amatsukami, ranging from getting her kids to visit more often to convincing Izanagi to pull a Belili. This is rather broad, but do you have any thoughts to share on attempting to resurrect big-name deities who have 'dead and not loving it' as a big part of their legend?

It is pretty broad, but hey, that doesn't mean we can't take a running tackle at it anyway.

Resurrecting a god, especially one that's been dead a long time, and especially one who's so strongly associated with the idea of death, is no small undertaking. You're looking at something that will need tons of magical mojo from multiple gods, the political sanction of important involved parties (or the political fallout if you don't talk to them first), and the inversion of the balance of the universe, replacing and rewriting who's in charge of life and death and how they interact with their pantheons. That shit is heavy all by itself, never mind that there will also be specific problems and obstacles for various different dead gods that differ and make your headache even worse.

Big-name dead gods fall into three basic categories: gods who died and are stuck being dead in the Underworld (your Baldur, Gugalanna and so forth), fertility gods who are on a revolving door in and out of the Underworld (Persephone, Tammuz, Baal and so on) and gods who died and ended up being in charge of running the place as a result (Yama, Izanami, Osiris, etc). They've all got different problems and challenges, so we'll hit some of the major highlights for each (although I know you're specifically looking at the last case).

Gods who have died and are sad denizens of a normal Underworld are probably the easiest case to handle, actually; they follow the usual Underworld rules for dead folks and can thusly potentially be "rescued" in the usual way ("usual" here meaning "fucking hard and rare", but that's Underworlds for you). Your main challenges are getting the ruler of whatever Underworld they're stuck in to allow them to leave, and, if that doesn't work, figuring out a way to jailbreak them if necessary. The most obvious way of approaching is the classic journey to the Underworld to beg the death god's indulgence to give you back your lost god, asking for them to allow the dead deity to go free. When you do so, you're looking at probably needing A) a really great reason that the death god will consider breaking the rules for you, and B) a really great bribe to make sure they get something out of it. If you're lacking either, most death gods will turn you down without blinking. Finally, you can also try to get some other god with power over death to come in and take control of the dead god's shade, but that's possibly the most explosively dangerous option - do you really want to see what happens when Osiris rolls into Hades' house and starts opposing his rule?

Dying fertility gods, which is the scholarly shorthand for "gods who die on a regular basis to illustrate the fertility of the earth in different seasons or periods of drought/abundance", are a much more difficult issue. The recurring cycle of their deaths is a major and important part of their Legend, and disrupting it might have serious consequences for both the World and the politics among the pantheon they belong to. If Persephone stops going to Hades every year, you're going to have a violently upset Hades on your hands, and if Tammuz stops going to Irkallu every year, that means Ereshkigal may rise up and try to reclaim Ishtar. There's also the problem of most of them dying for different reasons and because of different events in their past, so some may be easier to stop than others; Hades notwithstanding, it might not be hard to keep Persephone from going down to the Underworld if Demeter interferes or psychopomps refuse to take her, but Baal ends up down there because he's prone to getting in fights with his death-god rival Mot and dying, and stopping a thunder god on a rampage seldom goes well for anyone involved. Some of them may not want to be stopped from dying, which is a further layer of difficulty, and you may just not be able to convince Persephone she doesn't want to go be queen half the year or that Adonis should abandon his devotion to Aphrodite to avoid getting shivved this year. And, finally, if you do succeed in breaking that cycle, what happens to the World? Does winter never come again if Persephone never dies, and what does that do to the Greek lands and the people who live in them? Do Lebanon and Syria never experience drought again if Baal never goes to Nepesh, and if so, are their dry, sandy shores going to end up sliding into the sea because they were never meant to be constantly inundated with moisture? Even without the probable extreme ire of the death gods who aren't getting their perennial visitors, those myths have a direct effect on the World and Scions attempting to stop their normal course may need to figure out how to run some serious-scale damage control.

And, finally, there are the folks like Izanami, who died and ended up taking ownership of the deathrealms and the very concept of death itself. Some of these gods may be happy to be where they are (Yama, for example, would probably keep doing his job even if he was technically allowed to quit), but often they're stuck down there because of banishment or punishments levied on them. Hel, Izanami and Osiris are seriously not pleased about their lots in unlife, but thanks to the laws and barriers of their pantheons, they're unable to do anything about it but make the best of the situation by ruling where they can. The most major obstacle to getting them back is just convincing the rest of the pantheon to allow it, which is going to involve political shenanigans on a cosmic level; after that point, you also have the extremely difficult job of finding someone to replace them, because the last thing anyone wants is an Underworld with nobody at the wheel. And if you manage all that, what will the former death god be as a member of the pantheon proper, and what new roles and powers might they take on, and how will they be doing that, and what will it mean to the other gods who are now rubbing elbows with them?

This is a lot of stuff. And those are just the in-game, non-mechanical concerns, which are already more than enough to make most Scions go cross-eyed. There's also the extreme power required to mechanically pull this off.

In terms of what you actually do to resurrect a god, occasionally it can be as "easy" as journeying to the Underworld, finding them and giving them the power to escape themselves; gods with Ultimate Stamina, Samsara or Circle of Life may be able to resurrect under their own power if you can just give them the juice to do it, meaning that rituals or quests to help them out with that may eventually bear fruit. If they don't have a get-out-of-Hades-free card, then you're looking at needing, at bare minimum, a god who can blow The Reaper to resurrect them and a god who can bust off The Savior to help them form and inhabit a new body, and depending on who the god is and what circumstances surround their deaths, you may also need someone to blow The Wyrd to work on disentangling their Fate from its current dead-end path. It goes without saying that if you and your buddies aren't Legend 12, you're going to have to offer some serious incentives to get other gods in your corner here. There are also occasionally very powerful relics in various cultures' mythology that may be able to resurrect the dead, so you may end up going on quests to find and figure out how to use those if everything else is failing. And, finally, you may be able to perform an Underworld trade, letting one god return to life while another dies in his place, but finding willing victims for such things is probably not any easier than getting a cabal of gods willing to blow at least 30 Legend each on your problem.

This is a lot of work and it's very daunting, but don't despair; it's still possible, and in fact the PCs in our games have several times managed to resurrect dead gods through their efforts. Geoff's band managed to help Quetzalcoatl return to life by providing him enough rituals and sacrifices that he could resurrect himself after his ill-fated battle with Ryujin, and Aurora brokered an impressive trade-one-god-for-another deal that not only saved a dead goddess (sort of, after a lot of work) but had the interesting side effect of getting Hel to ban her from the Underworld permanently. It's totally doable, but, like most really important things in the Scion world, it's doable only through intense effort and acceptance of equally intense consequences.

Edit: Oh, hey, apparently your question was about Titans, not gods, and I totally ignored that because I'm competing with John for title of Worst Blogger Ever. In addition to all the jazz up there, you might want to check out this old post about converting Titans into gods.

Family Feud

Question: Hello. I'm curious. How would you deal with an Amatsukami Scion who tried in-game to reunite the pantheon? Such as getting Izanagi and Izanami back together or fixing the rift between Amaterasu and her brothers? How do you envision that going?

Well, in our games right now, that would be a pretty vast undertaking. Japan has sustained some serious damage, and I'm not sure where we would even advise them to start. When Ryujin and Susanoo are the major powers in charge of the pantheon, it becomes clear that everything has gone horribly wrong.

For those not stuck in our crazy post-Ragnarok hellscape, things are arguably easier! But definitely not easy. Trying to change a pantheon's political landscape is never easy, even for people who are rocking Ultimate social Attributes.

While this is one of those questions that's too big for a really thorough answer, we can still tell you some places to start. The most major thing to remember is that this is possible, but that there's no magical perfect solution that the Scions just have to find and then succeed with. There are probably many, many ways to go about doing this and just as many outcomes, both good and bad, and both what a Scion does and how she does it will influence the results.

The first step is probably just convincing some or all of these gods that they even want to be reconciled in the first place. If you perform the mother of all diplomatic apologies on Tsukuyomi's behalf and then he stands up and spits in his sister's face, well, that particular plan failed despite your awesomeness, simply because he wasn't on board with it. The Amatsukami are very structured and court-oriented, which means that there are multiple layers of politics, politeness, ritual and ceremony you have to go through just to talk to them meaningfully, and anyone trying to serve as a liaison between two gods will be doing double duty when it comes to perfecting their political clout. If you approach it the wrong way, one or both gods may be offended - at each other, at the idea, at you - or may get the wrong idea. You might end up widening the rift instead of closing it if you don't handle their delicate sensibilities just right.

A Scion will also need to figure out under what terms these reconciliations are happening; is Susanoo coming back to humbly beg Amaterasu's forgiveness? Is Izanagi coming to call upon his children for their aid against his estranged wife? Who's doing the reaching out and why make a massive difference to how things will probably go, so make sure you know whether you're trying to spin this as Izanami wanting to return to the children she loves so much, Susanoo wanting her brought home because he feels she's been treated unfairly, or Amaterasu decreeing she should be penned up on the Heavenly Reed Plain where she can keep an eye on her. The same outcome, but three very different ways of going about it.

Once you've figured out who you want to get talking and gotten at least one of the gods involved on board to help you out (or at least not actively sabotage the proceedings), it's time for the actual hard work: how do you get these people to like/tolerate/not scream at each other when they've been busy doing the opposite for centuries? Apologies and gifts are a good start and some favors or magical trinkets never hurt when it comes to getting a god to play nice, but in the case of these extremely volatile and entrenched relationships, just bringing candy and flowers clearly isn't going to cut it. Just finding out what a god wants most is a whole adventure on its own, possibly involving calling upon Prophecy or Mystery (or those who control them) and immersing yourself in the world of political intrigue and influence-brokering just to figure out what would make it worth it for these guys. There are a ton of ways that each relationship could go, but we suggest any of the following:

• If you want to get Izanagi and Izanami back together: finding a way to resurrect Izanami certainly wouldn't hurt, though doing so would no doubt be insanely difficult and leave you with the question of who's running things down below if she leaves. Convincing Izanami to stop murdering all of Izanagi's creations would probably make him more kindly inclined toward her, but what's in it for her? Izanagi making some kind of pledge to deal with Izanami's ugliness and/or respect her authority would be nice, but is that enough after their centuries of estrangement? Can you get their kids to stage a pantheon-wide intervention or something?
• If you want to get Amaterasu and Susanoo on speaking terms again: Susanoo will have to practically shit a mountain of gold for Amaterasu to be willing to deal with him, so your job is to figure out what that gold is and how to get him going. You could try appealing to reason for Amaterasu, pointing out that Susanoo's power is sorely needed by the pantheon and they'd do better cooperating, or you could go the other direction and try to convince Susanoo to get his grovel on, threatening him with Amaterasu's wrath. Justice that could enforce binding oaths of behavior on Susanoo would go a long way, but is he going to be willing to give those oaths under those terms, and is the risk that he'll break them and render himself useless at a critical moment worth it?
• If you want to get Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi to share the sky again: Not gonna lie, this one is practically impossible. You'll have to find a way to convince both of them to come down from their morally offended ivory towers (that or convince one of them to suck it up, but how likely do you think that is?) and make nice. If Tsukuyomi could help reform Uke Mochi, the original cause of his fall from favor, that might help, so is the long, hard road of trying to bring a Titan Avatar back into the pantheon the right call here? What about the old rumors of the siblings being consorts - do you want to bring that up, and will it help if you do? Since day and night are so incompatible, can one or both of these gods get a new role that allows them to play nice, and what would that look like?
• If you want Susanoo and Izanagi to make up: I'm pretty sure you have to accomplish the first bullet point to get this to happen. So... good luck, then.

Of course, even if you do convince some gods to kiss and make up, there's no guarantee that they'll stay that way; Amaterasu and Susanoo, in particular, have calmed down and dealt with one another in the past only to explode in fiery sibling offense again later. If you really want pantheon-wide harmony, you're going to have to do a lot more than just getting gods back together. You're going to have to give them reasons to stay together, and play nicely, you guys, which may be just as difficult (or, more probably, a lot more difficult). You'll also want to keep in mind that the battle lines in this or any other pantheon are more complicated than God A versus God B, and some of these gods' allies (or enemies) may not want to see them reconciled and may actively go out of their way to stop you, while others will remain angrily offended on their friends' behalf even if said friends decide to let it go. It's hard enough to fix one relationship schism among the divine, but the more of them you try, the more likely it is that things you do to help one group will just piss off another.

Not that any of this should stop a Scion who wants to go for it, of course. Epic diplomacy is a totally valid thing to pursue, and the rewards and legendary deeds that might come out of the attempt, even if it doesn't succeed, will no doubt be well worth the investment. As with almost everything in Scion, whatever you want to do might be incredibly difficult, but it's probably not literally impossible. If a PC can try to rewrite the destiny of an entire country or destroy a planet with her fury, she can probably give getting mom and dad to sit down with a marriage counselor a shot.

Parents on the Loose

Question: Say Izanami and, hey, maybe Izanagi, too, decided to jump ship and follow the siren call of Titanhood. What would happen to the rest of the pantheon? Yomi? Their existing Scions?

Ah, the political panic and changing landscapes of gods that turn out to be traitors. The effects always depend on who the gods in question are and what's going on at the exact time they defect, but it's always a big deal!

In all technicality, nothing would happen to the rest of the pantheon. Izanagi and Izanami may be the creator gods who originally parented them, but they're not the rulers of the pantheon and their departure won't have any direct effects. Amaterasu will still be the queen of the gods, her siblings and lesser subjects will still remain in control of their normal areas of influence, and nobody's going to suddenly stop existing or lose their powers or anything.

After that point, however, things get interesting. If Izanami's out of the picture, nobody's running Yomi anymore, which leaves the mortals under the Amatsukami's care without anywhere to go once they've shuffled off their mortal coil. Yomi itself might or might not remain stable, and the pantheon might have to reroute them to Susanoo's Underworld, the mysterious and seldom-frequented island of Tokoyo; they also might have to allow Emma-O, the god of the Japanese Buddhist Underworld, to take on the largest burden of souls, which is further complicated if you consider Emma-O to be the same figure as Yama of the Devas (who is probably his basis). It's also possible that Izanami might retain her control over Yomi after she defected, meaning that not only was the place not doing its job but it might actually become a very present danger, turning the souls of the dead and the normal creatures living there into Titanspawn scourges.

Another question is what, exactly, they would go become Titans of. Izanami's association with death and determination to destroy more life than her husband can create make her obvious to be part of a Titanrealm of Death if you're using one, but Izanagi's more nebulous. As a creator god whose mission statement is to populate the world with people faster than his wife can kill them, he's aligned most closely with fertility and health concepts, but neither is super strong. The original Titanrealm Terra in the books might be a good fit, since it includes the ideas of birth and new life, but if you're using closer to our Titanrealm setup you may want something more closely aligned with Health or even Creation. Izanami's deathiness is easy as an antagonist behavior already - she's not a very pleasant lady - but Izanagi's destructive Titanhood is probably more like a loss of all moderation, overpopulating the earth with an unending flood of people and causing starvation, poverty and violence to skyrocket from the overcrowding.

As for their Scions, on the surface it's mostly the same story as the rest of the pantheon. Technically, nothing will change for them; a god becoming a Titan doesn't retroactively turn their children into Titanspawn or anything, and they would remain full-blooded Scions of the Amatsukami just as they'd always been. But they would have a lot of problems of loyalty; not only would they be in an uncomfortable situation with their pantheon, all of them scrutinizing them and wondering if they might follow their parents into the realm of evil jerkness (or even preemptively taking them out in case they're considering it), but the newly-minted Titans may also try to take their children with them, calling upon them to prove their loyalty to their divine parents by becoming minions of the Titans themselves. It's always uncomfortable being a Scion thanks to having to deal with different gods pulling you in ninety directions in their influence wars, but it's even worse when your parents are also the incarnation of world-destroying antagonism.

All this is barely scratching the surface of what can happen when a god (or two!) goes Titan, but so much depends on when they go, why and who supports them that it'll always vary for every game and situation. The consequences are always huge, long-lasting and far-ranging, though - if it seems like a major problem might occur, it probably will. Go nuts, because they will.

Three Little Kami from School

Question: Are Amaterasu, Susanoo, and Tsukuyomi considered the children of Izanami, or is Izanagi their one and only parent?

That depends entirely on which version of the myth you prefer, because both are legit.

In the Kojiki, one of the primary sources for Japanese mythology, the three are considered the children of Izanagi alone; after his escape from Yomi, pursued by his grieving and terrible wife, he stopped to purify himself of the uncleanliness of the Underworld by washing in a stream. When he washed his face, Susanoo was born from the washing of his nose, Tsukuyomi from the washing of his right eye and Amaterasu from the washing of his left eye. They're the symbolic result of his act of cleansing himself; purifying himself is such a strong and resonant act that it causes the three most powerful deities of the pantheon to be born.

In the Nihon Shoki or Nihongi, however, one of the other primary sources for Japanese mythology, Izanagi and Izanami decide together before her death that they should create the most splendid of kami to rule the heavens, and together give birth to Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, one each to rule the day and night. In this version, Susanoo is not directly mentioned, but he's considered Amaterasu's brother, so it would be pretty safe to assume that he was also one of the natural-born children of the first divine couple.

And, to make matters even more confusing, the Nihongi also contains another version of the birth of the major gods, in which it is Izanagi alone who creates Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, but he does so by creating them from the reflections of two mirrors he holds in either hand. Susanoo goes unmentioned again; he may be one of the Three August Siblings, but he's also clearly not great rulership material, which is probably why he doesn't always turn up in accounts of how the divine rulers came to be appointed.

(Incidentally, it's also the Nihongi that suggests that Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi were created specifically for one another and are or were lovers and consorts as well as siblings. Ooh la la! Work that into your story!)

So the exact parentage of the three premier Japanese gods is up in the air somewhat, and really depends on what version of the myth you prefer. Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi are always born together, with Susanoo only sometimes included (but still their sibling). If you prefer the idea of them as sovereign rulers of the heavens, their parentage by Izanagi and Izanami is probably the version you want, whereas if you prefer the idea of them fundamentally opposed to Izanami and everything she stands for, you may want to instead use the version where they have nothing to do with her, even pre-death.

A particularly interesting setup might be to consider Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi Izanagi's parthenogenic children, but Susanoo a child of both parents, which would explain why he isn't mentioned in that myth and why he so strongly decries his father for leaving Izanami trapped in the Underworld. He would still be the other twos' sibling through their shared father, but the genetic divide would explain why he never gets along with them (and him being Izanami's son while the other two weren't would also explain his death connotations, which they decidedly don't share!).

Personally, I'm a fan of the idea that they're all the children of both ancient parents, but there are plenty of ways to go with it. The Kojiki myth of all three being created by Izanagi is the most well-known, but the alternate versions from the Nihongi are just as legitimate (and might be older, considering that the Nihongi preserves some older folklore as opposed to the Kojiki, which aimed to avoid extra versions in the name of creating an "official" document for the entire country).

Daddy and Mommy are Fighting Again

Question: Do Izanagi and Izanami really seem like gods? As distant Sky and mother of Earth, Fire, and Water, Izanagi and Izanami both seem kind of...Titan-y. What do you think?

Izanagi and Izanami are in a weird place; on the one hand, they have concrete emotional stories of their interactions with each other and their children, and they fulfill important roles in their cosmology, which makes them seem like they should be gods. On the other hand, they're some of the oldest beings in Japanese cosmology, created the world, and are the parents of some of the pantheon's major Titans, which makes them seem like they should be Titans themselves.

We haven't yet done our rewrite of the Amatsukami, so for the moment we just aren't sure where these two will fall. My gut response (and John may disagree) is that Izanami may get to stay, but Izanagi will probably end up having to go, consigned to Sad Sky Titan Land with folks like Ouranos and Anu.

Izanami is the culture's major death god, which is a big point toward her staying off the bat; she performs an extremely important function for humanity, even if humanity, who is not fond of getting murdered and stuffed in a dark hole for all of eternity, is not very happy about it. The story of her marriage to Izanagi, her death in childbirth, and her transformation into an Underworld goddess is a compelling one, and she has several identifiable associated powers, including Death, Darkness and negative Epic Appearance. While she doesn't leave her home (or, more accurately, apparently can't), she's still a pretty vibrant mythological figure despite her older origin.

Izanagi, on the other hand, lacks some of these qualities. While he shares the same myths with Izanami, at the end of them he fulfills his role as a creator deity again, giving birth to Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi and Susanoo, and promptly vanishes forevermore, completely absent from the rest of Japanese myth. While there's an acknowledgment that Izanami is down there in Yomi, doing her thing, there's no corresponding explanation of where Izanagi went or what he's doing. Furthermore, his associations are pretty much nonexistent; his connection to the sky is sketchy at best, and the only thing I can think of to reasonably assign to him is Health, which, as Dian Cecht will tell you, isn't enough to keep someone on the roster around here. He's certainly an important figure to the world's origins, probably too important to be relegated to minor godhood, but he doesn't seem to be doing much after that, and that smells like Titan to me.

So my preliminary guess is that Izanami will probably stay, but that her husband Izanagi will probably become a Titan. But I won't know for sure until we finally get to spend some quality time with the Amatsukami, so until then, their futures remain uncertain.