It's another vlog day, and this week, it's all about the Norse. Let's hit it!
Question: How much bigger, physically, are the Aesir Gods than the non-Aesir Gods? How much bigger physically are non-Aesir Gods than normal humans? How much bigger physically CAN the non-Aesir gods get than normal humans?
Question: Is Odin as colossal of a jerk to his brothers as he is to... everyone who does not meet the criteria 'NOT being a dick to this person will help prevent Ragnarok'?
Question: Is it ever explained what happened to Vili and Ve? After the creation myth, they seem to disappear.
Question: Why will Baldur go to Hel when he dies? Shouldn't he end up in Valhalla (or at least in Folkvangr)? Isn't he everyone's favorite person ever?
Question: After looking up seidr & learning men were considered effeminate if they used it, I'm curious about how the Aesir view the three fate purviews and male scions who use them. I'd imagine Magic has a bit of a stigma but what about Mystery & Prophecy?
Question: What is the difference between Helheim and Niflheim. I have seen both being used as Hel's house.
Question: What happens when a Titan with Ultimate Stamina dies and comes back? Does the concept they represent return to normal?
Question: How do you handle the Norse goddess Idun? She's technically not either Aesir, Vanir or giant but as the daughter of Ivaldi, a dwarf or svartalfar. My personal take on it is that she short and childlike looking. Half because she's a dwarf and half because she's the goddess of youth.
Next time, we're going to talk about characters and PCs and fun stuff related to playing and running them. See you then!
Showing posts with label Odin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Odin. Show all posts
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Doomed and Doleful
Question: Why does Odin not have Prophecy?
I was sure we had answered this before. In fact, I was so sure I spent about half an hour searching the blog archives trying to find it. But I failed, so I must be hallucinating from the pain medication, or maybe remembering talking about it on the old White Wolf forums or something.
Anyway, Odin doesn't have Prophecy because he does not perform, inspire or appear to be associated with prophecies in any myths. In fact, he clearly doesn't have prophecies, because while we see others around him have visions or be said to have prophetic foreknowledge, including Frigg and Baldur, Odin never does, and when he wants to know the future, he actually has to outsource that job to someone else who does it for him.
The most obvious example of this is the Voluspa, the major poem in which the prophecies of Ragnarok are related. The entire premise of the poem is that after being troubled by the idea that something bad is coming, Odin seeks out and disinters a dead voelva, a wise-woman and prophetess who can see the future. He demands that she perform divinations for him and tell him about events yet to come, which she does against her will because he compels her with his powers over magic and the dead; over and over throughout the poem, she relates some of the prophecies of Ragnarok and then begs him to let her go back to her rest, only to be told that she will not be released until she tells him everything. Only at the poem's end, when she has finally told him everything to come, is the voelva allowed to return to her grave.
This is a pretty major example of Odin clearly not having Prophecy; if he had the ability to see the future, why would he need to go hunt up an oracle elsewhere and bother her until she did it for him? Similarly, the prophecies of Baldur's doom are given to Baldur himself in a dream, but Odin never sees or expands on them, and it's Frigg - also said to have the gift of prophecy but to refuse to tell anyone about her visions - who must try to interpret it for him. Odin himself never experiences visions of the future, reads omens of things to come or manages to do more than get uncomfortable when these things are happening to others; he knows something is going on, but apparently lacks the ability to discover exactly what. Even the few times he does directly tell someone that they're doomed or something is about to happen to them, such as when he does so to King Geirrod, he's not really delivering a prophecy so much as declaring his intent to fuck that person up.
So, no Prophecy associated for Odin. Considering that he demonstrates an obvious inability to do prophecy by himself and that as a god his role is to be a manipulator of Fate and ultimately destroyed by it, we think he probably has few or even no boons in that purview. His hanging of himself from the World Tree in order to gain secret knowledge is better expressed as an association with Mystery, which represents his connection to hidden knowledge.
I was sure we had answered this before. In fact, I was so sure I spent about half an hour searching the blog archives trying to find it. But I failed, so I must be hallucinating from the pain medication, or maybe remembering talking about it on the old White Wolf forums or something.
Anyway, Odin doesn't have Prophecy because he does not perform, inspire or appear to be associated with prophecies in any myths. In fact, he clearly doesn't have prophecies, because while we see others around him have visions or be said to have prophetic foreknowledge, including Frigg and Baldur, Odin never does, and when he wants to know the future, he actually has to outsource that job to someone else who does it for him.
The most obvious example of this is the Voluspa, the major poem in which the prophecies of Ragnarok are related. The entire premise of the poem is that after being troubled by the idea that something bad is coming, Odin seeks out and disinters a dead voelva, a wise-woman and prophetess who can see the future. He demands that she perform divinations for him and tell him about events yet to come, which she does against her will because he compels her with his powers over magic and the dead; over and over throughout the poem, she relates some of the prophecies of Ragnarok and then begs him to let her go back to her rest, only to be told that she will not be released until she tells him everything. Only at the poem's end, when she has finally told him everything to come, is the voelva allowed to return to her grave.
This is a pretty major example of Odin clearly not having Prophecy; if he had the ability to see the future, why would he need to go hunt up an oracle elsewhere and bother her until she did it for him? Similarly, the prophecies of Baldur's doom are given to Baldur himself in a dream, but Odin never sees or expands on them, and it's Frigg - also said to have the gift of prophecy but to refuse to tell anyone about her visions - who must try to interpret it for him. Odin himself never experiences visions of the future, reads omens of things to come or manages to do more than get uncomfortable when these things are happening to others; he knows something is going on, but apparently lacks the ability to discover exactly what. Even the few times he does directly tell someone that they're doomed or something is about to happen to them, such as when he does so to King Geirrod, he's not really delivering a prophecy so much as declaring his intent to fuck that person up.
So, no Prophecy associated for Odin. Considering that he demonstrates an obvious inability to do prophecy by himself and that as a god his role is to be a manipulator of Fate and ultimately destroyed by it, we think he probably has few or even no boons in that purview. His hanging of himself from the World Tree in order to gain secret knowledge is better expressed as an association with Mystery, which represents his connection to hidden knowledge.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
A Wild Wind
Question: I'd like to know some more about the Wild Hunt. I know that each culture has its own version of it. In Scion, how do you handled it?
Well, rolling in first of all with the fact that each culture actually doesn't have a version of the Wild Hunt - far from it, really. The concept is a very northern European one, and you won't find it in the same form in the rest of the world. But there are several possibilities for handing the Hunt within the lands of the European gods, so let's check them out!
First of all, there are basically just buckets of different interpretations of the Hunt, who's on it, who's leading it, who it's chasing, and what it means all over the place, so Storytellers have a veritable smorgasbord of folklore to choose from. In Germany and the Celtic lands surrounding it as well as the British Isles, the Hunt was thought of as made up of the spirits of the dead and the demons that attended them, frightful and dangerous to an living soul unlucky enough to be caught out at night while they were riding; they chase the living in order to add them to their number, and are especially fond of prideful young men and beautiful young women, who should always be cautious to make it indoors before sunset. In other Celtic areas, however, particularly England and Ireland, the Hunt is instead made up for fairy riders who ride with wild and ecstatic abandon, hunting magical animals, mortals who will be taken back to Faerie with them or even unlucky members of their own kind; whether they're dangerous to people or merely frightening and supernatural depends on the area and how comfortable a particular village or shire is with their relationship with the faeries. Sometimes, helping the fairy Wild Hunt can gain you magical prizes or favors (although, as with all things that come from fairies, they are often double-edged swords), but in other areas in any way interacting with them dooms you to share their Hunt, either for the single night or for eternity, and hindering them in any way (even accidental) will surely bring down their supernatural wrath on your head. Some parts of Wales split the difference and claim that the hunt is the hounds and gods of the underworld, chasing down ghosts or spirits that have escaped their final destination, and in areas where Christianity has strongly colored the folklore this is often transformed into a tale of the hounds of Hell chasing down the souls of sinners.
The biggest question, though, is always this: who is the leader of the Wild Hunt? There we have many options as well, all of them interesting and rife with possible plot hooks. Odin himself is one of the most popular options, and indeed the idea of the Wild Hunt in Scandinavia was almost exclusively associated with him, a legend that set him as the wild-eyed leader of a hunt of belling supernatural hounds and the dead warriors of the einherjar; remote areas even today still retain folksayings surrounding Odin being out on particularly stormy or ominously silent nights. On the continent around Denmark and Germany, the Hunt is often said to be helmed by a woman, however - the goddess Holle, who might be either Hel or Freya, leading her own horde of the dead for her dark amusement. In Britain, the figure of Herne the Hunter is often said to be the leader of the Wild Hunt, comprised of both the dead and the beasts of the deep woods, and more than a few scholars have pointed out that his name is etymologically very similar to that of Cernunnos, not to mention that both figures are often represented as horned or antlered. In Wales, the terrifying god Gwyn ap Nudd (literally "Gwyn, son of Nudd", who is the Welsh version of Nuada) leads the hunt from the Underworld flanked by the demons of death, the better to catch the fleeing souls of those who have just died and take them home with him again; Nuada himself isn't associated with the hunt over in Ireland, but Manannan mac Lir, god of the galloping waves which are his horses, has been theorized by scholars to perhaps do the same, possibly in search of the souls of heroes who have died in the crossing to Mag Mell. In areas where the Wild Hunt is a fairy event, it is often said to be led by Auberon or whomever the local king or queen of the fairies is considered to be. And, one of the youngest but most interesting versions, it's also a matter of myth in some parts of Britain that the Wild Hunt is led by King Arthur himself, still searching for the Questing Beast with the shades of his loyal knights, spending the ages searching for it until, on the day he succeeds, he returns to lead England to glory again.
As for us, our games have actually seen the Skeins of Fate group participate in the Wild Hunt, which was held by the fairies of the Autumn Court with a hapless Gaulish Scion as their quarry. It was led by the Autumn King, who was a creature of indistinct nightmare that no one got a very good look at; it's still unsure if he's simply a fairy they had an encounter with, or if he might have been a god in disguise that they didn't recognize. Certainly, Aurora pulled off some very ballsy maneuvers there and largely got away with it, so one has to wonder whether or not there were two eyes under that dark crown. One of the Eastern Promises groups also heard tell of the Wild Hunt beginning soon somewhere nearby, but they ended up going somewhere else to solve their problems, and consequently still have not encountered whomever or whatever hunts at midnight.
We like to keep the Hunt ambiguous - who knows if they players will ever investigate enough to learn the real truth? But there are myriad possibilities for anyone who wants to use them in a game, and the plots practically write themselves.
P.S.: Do you guys know this song? It's on our playlist for the Strawberry Fields game thanks to Seamus, our Scion of Manannan mac Lir, and although not strictly about the Hunt, you can almost feel the hoofbeats shaking the ground as they go.
Well, rolling in first of all with the fact that each culture actually doesn't have a version of the Wild Hunt - far from it, really. The concept is a very northern European one, and you won't find it in the same form in the rest of the world. But there are several possibilities for handing the Hunt within the lands of the European gods, so let's check them out!
First of all, there are basically just buckets of different interpretations of the Hunt, who's on it, who's leading it, who it's chasing, and what it means all over the place, so Storytellers have a veritable smorgasbord of folklore to choose from. In Germany and the Celtic lands surrounding it as well as the British Isles, the Hunt was thought of as made up of the spirits of the dead and the demons that attended them, frightful and dangerous to an living soul unlucky enough to be caught out at night while they were riding; they chase the living in order to add them to their number, and are especially fond of prideful young men and beautiful young women, who should always be cautious to make it indoors before sunset. In other Celtic areas, however, particularly England and Ireland, the Hunt is instead made up for fairy riders who ride with wild and ecstatic abandon, hunting magical animals, mortals who will be taken back to Faerie with them or even unlucky members of their own kind; whether they're dangerous to people or merely frightening and supernatural depends on the area and how comfortable a particular village or shire is with their relationship with the faeries. Sometimes, helping the fairy Wild Hunt can gain you magical prizes or favors (although, as with all things that come from fairies, they are often double-edged swords), but in other areas in any way interacting with them dooms you to share their Hunt, either for the single night or for eternity, and hindering them in any way (even accidental) will surely bring down their supernatural wrath on your head. Some parts of Wales split the difference and claim that the hunt is the hounds and gods of the underworld, chasing down ghosts or spirits that have escaped their final destination, and in areas where Christianity has strongly colored the folklore this is often transformed into a tale of the hounds of Hell chasing down the souls of sinners.
The biggest question, though, is always this: who is the leader of the Wild Hunt? There we have many options as well, all of them interesting and rife with possible plot hooks. Odin himself is one of the most popular options, and indeed the idea of the Wild Hunt in Scandinavia was almost exclusively associated with him, a legend that set him as the wild-eyed leader of a hunt of belling supernatural hounds and the dead warriors of the einherjar; remote areas even today still retain folksayings surrounding Odin being out on particularly stormy or ominously silent nights. On the continent around Denmark and Germany, the Hunt is often said to be helmed by a woman, however - the goddess Holle, who might be either Hel or Freya, leading her own horde of the dead for her dark amusement. In Britain, the figure of Herne the Hunter is often said to be the leader of the Wild Hunt, comprised of both the dead and the beasts of the deep woods, and more than a few scholars have pointed out that his name is etymologically very similar to that of Cernunnos, not to mention that both figures are often represented as horned or antlered. In Wales, the terrifying god Gwyn ap Nudd (literally "Gwyn, son of Nudd", who is the Welsh version of Nuada) leads the hunt from the Underworld flanked by the demons of death, the better to catch the fleeing souls of those who have just died and take them home with him again; Nuada himself isn't associated with the hunt over in Ireland, but Manannan mac Lir, god of the galloping waves which are his horses, has been theorized by scholars to perhaps do the same, possibly in search of the souls of heroes who have died in the crossing to Mag Mell. In areas where the Wild Hunt is a fairy event, it is often said to be led by Auberon or whomever the local king or queen of the fairies is considered to be. And, one of the youngest but most interesting versions, it's also a matter of myth in some parts of Britain that the Wild Hunt is led by King Arthur himself, still searching for the Questing Beast with the shades of his loyal knights, spending the ages searching for it until, on the day he succeeds, he returns to lead England to glory again.
As for us, our games have actually seen the Skeins of Fate group participate in the Wild Hunt, which was held by the fairies of the Autumn Court with a hapless Gaulish Scion as their quarry. It was led by the Autumn King, who was a creature of indistinct nightmare that no one got a very good look at; it's still unsure if he's simply a fairy they had an encounter with, or if he might have been a god in disguise that they didn't recognize. Certainly, Aurora pulled off some very ballsy maneuvers there and largely got away with it, so one has to wonder whether or not there were two eyes under that dark crown. One of the Eastern Promises groups also heard tell of the Wild Hunt beginning soon somewhere nearby, but they ended up going somewhere else to solve their problems, and consequently still have not encountered whomever or whatever hunts at midnight.
We like to keep the Hunt ambiguous - who knows if they players will ever investigate enough to learn the real truth? But there are myriad possibilities for anyone who wants to use them in a game, and the plots practically write themselves.
P.S.: Do you guys know this song? It's on our playlist for the Strawberry Fields game thanks to Seamus, our Scion of Manannan mac Lir, and although not strictly about the Hunt, you can almost feel the hoofbeats shaking the ground as they go.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Our PCs Hate These People
Question: How do you handle Hod in your games? Does he come up? Is he the'elephant in the room no one talks about or what? Does he hate Baldur? Also, how does Odin get along with his various children? Does he have a soft spot for them, or is he a king first and a father second?
Aww, Hod! Hod has actually appeared as a major character in our games, thanks to both Geoff Matheson's and Aurora Dahl's bands being heavily involved in Ragnarok and the events leading up to it. If you're interested in reading some of our interactions with Hod "live", so to speak, there are stories involving Geoff's interactions with him here and here, and detailing Aurora's relationship with him here and here.
But if you're not into our stories, that's cool, we'll talk about Hod here, too! The Scion books do a really weird number on Hod, from trying to suggest that he wants to kill Baldur to demanding that Aesir Scions who don't try to kill him roll Loyalty (what? that's the exact opposite of Loyalty, dudes!). We have many opinions, because when do we not?
First of all, prior to Ragnarok, Hod is certainly around, though in what dimension is entirely up to the Storyteller. He may know he's destined to kill his brother, but until that time he hasn't actually done anything and can't be punished for a crime he has yet to commit, so just like Loki is still given free run of Asgard until such time as he starts misbehaving, so is Hod still allowed to live in his homeland. In fact, he's probably more welcomed and better-treated than Loki, considering that he's a native son of Odin and Frigg, although his blindness would make him an object of pity and/or scorn for a culture that values fighting ability above most other things. In our games, once Fimbulwinter started, Hod took to hiding in the Mirkwood in the hopes that he would be trapped there and unable to kill his brother; you might decide he does something similar, or else is still in Asgard hoping to overturn his Fate or fatalistically awaiting the day it comes for him.
As for Hod's relationship with Baldur, it's a complicated one, but hatred is probably not in the cards there. It's almost literally impossible to hate Baldur, who is the epitome of lovableness and whose Ultimate Charisma and Ultimate Appearance make him impossible to ignore or dislike even a little. Even without the strong bonds of brotherhood and family, Hod would have trouble thinking nasty thoughts about Baldur, let alone actually nursing hatred of him. On the other hand, Baldur has very concretely Done Him Wrong in taking Nanna from him to be his wife; according to the story of their awesome rivalry over the goddess, she loved Hod and he successfully fought for her and defeated Baldur, but she's now married to Baldur anyway. The Norse sagas don't explain where that switcheroo happened, so you're free to draw your own conclusions; we think it's most likely that Baldur just up and used his Ultimate Mojo on her, possibly in some kind of permanent Engender Love that left Hod utterly unable to compete with him, but it's also possible that some outside agency (Loki, is that you again?) engineered it or that Nanna has motives of her own that we don't know about. Whatever happened, the fact remains that the love of Hod's life is now his brother's wife, and that's bound to put some sour raisins into the bread pudding of his emotional state. That still doesn't override either Baldur's social mastery or Hod's own Loyalty to him, but it surely makes for a confusing and upsetting relationship between them sometimes.
It's pretty well-established in Norse myth that Hod does not kill Baldur on purpose; he's tricked into doing so by Loki, for mysterious reasons that are never fully explained (theories range from "attempting to prevent Ragnarok" to "giving Odin a big fuck you" or even "matchmakng Baldur to marry his daughter"). We don't see any reason to assume Hod would want to kill him, and although he's almost certainly extremely sad and even angry over the loss of Nanna, it's not enough of a motivation to explain him suddenly deciding to take vengeance on his brother after centuries of playing nice. What Hod is doing and feeling up to Ragnarok depends on the Storyteller, but our Hod was always pretty despondent over the idea that he was going to kill Baldur and there was nothing he could do about it, and would have loved to find a way to avoid it, just like most of the Aesir are not enthused about their eventual fates.
As for Odin... well, as you all know, Odin is more than a little bit of a humongous dick. This extends to his children as well as to everyone else; you only have to look at the stories of him cheerfully punking Thor's face off in disguise or nodding sagely as Tyr gets his hand bitten off to know that. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about them, of course, but he's always been very much about his own schemes first and foremost, and everybody's welfare somewhere a distant second. He would undoubtedly want to help his kids when they need it, provided he can do so without some kind of heinous penalty, but if there's something else he needs to be doing or helping them out would be just too much of a pain in the ass, he's likely to let them figure it out themselves rather than stepping in. He's trying to simultaneously avert Ragnarok, hold onto his own power and still have time for prankship along the way; he ain't got time for your problems right now, Bragi.
Of course, if you asked him, I'm sure he would tell you that averting Ragnarok is in everyone's best interests and he is therefore constantly working to safeguard his people. It just happens to come with the delicious side benefit of himself not getting eaten by a giant wolf. He's an altruist!
Aww, Hod! Hod has actually appeared as a major character in our games, thanks to both Geoff Matheson's and Aurora Dahl's bands being heavily involved in Ragnarok and the events leading up to it. If you're interested in reading some of our interactions with Hod "live", so to speak, there are stories involving Geoff's interactions with him here and here, and detailing Aurora's relationship with him here and here.
But if you're not into our stories, that's cool, we'll talk about Hod here, too! The Scion books do a really weird number on Hod, from trying to suggest that he wants to kill Baldur to demanding that Aesir Scions who don't try to kill him roll Loyalty (what? that's the exact opposite of Loyalty, dudes!). We have many opinions, because when do we not?
First of all, prior to Ragnarok, Hod is certainly around, though in what dimension is entirely up to the Storyteller. He may know he's destined to kill his brother, but until that time he hasn't actually done anything and can't be punished for a crime he has yet to commit, so just like Loki is still given free run of Asgard until such time as he starts misbehaving, so is Hod still allowed to live in his homeland. In fact, he's probably more welcomed and better-treated than Loki, considering that he's a native son of Odin and Frigg, although his blindness would make him an object of pity and/or scorn for a culture that values fighting ability above most other things. In our games, once Fimbulwinter started, Hod took to hiding in the Mirkwood in the hopes that he would be trapped there and unable to kill his brother; you might decide he does something similar, or else is still in Asgard hoping to overturn his Fate or fatalistically awaiting the day it comes for him.
As for Hod's relationship with Baldur, it's a complicated one, but hatred is probably not in the cards there. It's almost literally impossible to hate Baldur, who is the epitome of lovableness and whose Ultimate Charisma and Ultimate Appearance make him impossible to ignore or dislike even a little. Even without the strong bonds of brotherhood and family, Hod would have trouble thinking nasty thoughts about Baldur, let alone actually nursing hatred of him. On the other hand, Baldur has very concretely Done Him Wrong in taking Nanna from him to be his wife; according to the story of their awesome rivalry over the goddess, she loved Hod and he successfully fought for her and defeated Baldur, but she's now married to Baldur anyway. The Norse sagas don't explain where that switcheroo happened, so you're free to draw your own conclusions; we think it's most likely that Baldur just up and used his Ultimate Mojo on her, possibly in some kind of permanent Engender Love that left Hod utterly unable to compete with him, but it's also possible that some outside agency (Loki, is that you again?) engineered it or that Nanna has motives of her own that we don't know about. Whatever happened, the fact remains that the love of Hod's life is now his brother's wife, and that's bound to put some sour raisins into the bread pudding of his emotional state. That still doesn't override either Baldur's social mastery or Hod's own Loyalty to him, but it surely makes for a confusing and upsetting relationship between them sometimes.
It's pretty well-established in Norse myth that Hod does not kill Baldur on purpose; he's tricked into doing so by Loki, for mysterious reasons that are never fully explained (theories range from "attempting to prevent Ragnarok" to "giving Odin a big fuck you" or even "matchmakng Baldur to marry his daughter"). We don't see any reason to assume Hod would want to kill him, and although he's almost certainly extremely sad and even angry over the loss of Nanna, it's not enough of a motivation to explain him suddenly deciding to take vengeance on his brother after centuries of playing nice. What Hod is doing and feeling up to Ragnarok depends on the Storyteller, but our Hod was always pretty despondent over the idea that he was going to kill Baldur and there was nothing he could do about it, and would have loved to find a way to avoid it, just like most of the Aesir are not enthused about their eventual fates.
As for Odin... well, as you all know, Odin is more than a little bit of a humongous dick. This extends to his children as well as to everyone else; you only have to look at the stories of him cheerfully punking Thor's face off in disguise or nodding sagely as Tyr gets his hand bitten off to know that. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about them, of course, but he's always been very much about his own schemes first and foremost, and everybody's welfare somewhere a distant second. He would undoubtedly want to help his kids when they need it, provided he can do so without some kind of heinous penalty, but if there's something else he needs to be doing or helping them out would be just too much of a pain in the ass, he's likely to let them figure it out themselves rather than stepping in. He's trying to simultaneously avert Ragnarok, hold onto his own power and still have time for prankship along the way; he ain't got time for your problems right now, Bragi.
Of course, if you asked him, I'm sure he would tell you that averting Ragnarok is in everyone's best interests and he is therefore constantly working to safeguard his people. It just happens to come with the delicious side benefit of himself not getting eaten by a giant wolf. He's an altruist!
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Odin Grudges
How long does Odin hold a grudge? Cause he seems like a pretty angry dude.
Are there people in the world that dont hold grudges? That seems impossible. Im from a big Italian family. Every single one of my aunts/uncles has been disowned. After a rather heated political debate(screaming match) two years ago, Ive been disowned as well. So, its hard for me to imagine people that dont hold grudges.
I'm pretty sure he holds grudges, however I dont think Odin holds a grudge much more then any other king-type in-charge god. And he can control himself much better then those with actual vengeance. Odin can easily ignore his grudge if his panties are in a bunch towards someone but hes gotta get his manipulate on. People with vengeance have a much harder time with controlling themselves.
On a mythological note though, we dont really have any evidence of odin holding a grudge, we just have conjecture(lots of evidence of odin being a liar and backstabber though....odin).
Are there people in the world that dont hold grudges? That seems impossible. Im from a big Italian family. Every single one of my aunts/uncles has been disowned. After a rather heated political debate(screaming match) two years ago, Ive been disowned as well. So, its hard for me to imagine people that dont hold grudges.
I'm pretty sure he holds grudges, however I dont think Odin holds a grudge much more then any other king-type in-charge god. And he can control himself much better then those with actual vengeance. Odin can easily ignore his grudge if his panties are in a bunch towards someone but hes gotta get his manipulate on. People with vengeance have a much harder time with controlling themselves.
On a mythological note though, we dont really have any evidence of odin holding a grudge, we just have conjecture(lots of evidence of odin being a liar and backstabber though....odin).
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Man in the Woods
Today, John goes out into the woods and vlogs alone, like the man of nature he obviously is, to answer a bunch of questions like some kind of crochety forest troll. I hope you're ready for his manly beard and masculine robe and hat combo.
Question: In Follower Upgrade, you mention having a list of adjusted templates for Creatures and Followers. Would you please post it? It doesn't need to be a beautiful PDF, I would gladly take a Google Doc or .txt!
Question: Just how is marriage structured in the Orisha pantheon, and by extension the Yoruba? It seems that everyone is married to everyone else, both male and female, and that the women are pretty much equal to the men unless Shango is wailing on them.
Question: Did you ever see the History Channel's "Clash of the Gods"? And if so, what did you think?
Question: Do all dogs go to heaven? Do animals have souls? And most of all, how do I get spectral wolves to do my bidding?
Question: Have you ever considered scaling the Legend point gains from Raise Your Glass, making it usable more than once per day or in the presence of people who have seen you use it already? I understand why the limits are what they are, but I think the knack would still be balanced (maybe even a little fairer, since one Legend doesn't seem like much of a reward at late Demigod or God) if any of those were removed.
Question: Mictlantecuhtli is presented in the Scion RAW as a completely evil misanthrope, that apparently only exists to torture his own Scions and everyone else for that matter. Since you guys deal with a lot of Aztec politics in games, I just wanted to ask how you characterize him?
Question: Any players thinking of creating a new Orisha PC for your next game?
Question: We know a lot about your god game, but what can you tell us about your other two games? Still hush-hush?
Question: Is stunting pretty much limited by your own imagination (in conjunction with the rules)?
Question: In your game, what did Odin do to make Amaterasu his enemy? Was it because of the Aesir assault on Japan, and what's up with that?
Question: Does your PSP count as a Birthright that takes up one of your five Birthright points?
Question: In a game that's all about smashing monsters, what good way is there to play a character with the Pacifist Nature?
Question: Could a character use high levels of Epic Manipulation to convince mortals that he is really great at a purview and gain Fatebonds from those mortals (assuming he spent Legend around them)? Like, if he tells great tales (lies) of destroying entire cities and civilizations with Fire when he has actually never used the Fire purview? If this does not work, how is it different from mortals misconstruing an event they see a PC perform from one purview to another and Fatebinding based on that?
Question: What kind of asks do you reject or refuse to answer?
That was delightful. I don't have much extra to add except that if you're the question-asker who wanted to know about Epic Manipulation and Fatebonds, there are also a couple of old posts here and here that might also help.
Question: In Follower Upgrade, you mention having a list of adjusted templates for Creatures and Followers. Would you please post it? It doesn't need to be a beautiful PDF, I would gladly take a Google Doc or .txt!
Question: Just how is marriage structured in the Orisha pantheon, and by extension the Yoruba? It seems that everyone is married to everyone else, both male and female, and that the women are pretty much equal to the men unless Shango is wailing on them.
Question: Did you ever see the History Channel's "Clash of the Gods"? And if so, what did you think?
Question: Do all dogs go to heaven? Do animals have souls? And most of all, how do I get spectral wolves to do my bidding?
Question: Have you ever considered scaling the Legend point gains from Raise Your Glass, making it usable more than once per day or in the presence of people who have seen you use it already? I understand why the limits are what they are, but I think the knack would still be balanced (maybe even a little fairer, since one Legend doesn't seem like much of a reward at late Demigod or God) if any of those were removed.
Question: Mictlantecuhtli is presented in the Scion RAW as a completely evil misanthrope, that apparently only exists to torture his own Scions and everyone else for that matter. Since you guys deal with a lot of Aztec politics in games, I just wanted to ask how you characterize him?
Question: Any players thinking of creating a new Orisha PC for your next game?
Question: We know a lot about your god game, but what can you tell us about your other two games? Still hush-hush?
Question: Is stunting pretty much limited by your own imagination (in conjunction with the rules)?
Question: In your game, what did Odin do to make Amaterasu his enemy? Was it because of the Aesir assault on Japan, and what's up with that?
Question: Does your PSP count as a Birthright that takes up one of your five Birthright points?
Question: In a game that's all about smashing monsters, what good way is there to play a character with the Pacifist Nature?
Question: Could a character use high levels of Epic Manipulation to convince mortals that he is really great at a purview and gain Fatebonds from those mortals (assuming he spent Legend around them)? Like, if he tells great tales (lies) of destroying entire cities and civilizations with Fire when he has actually never used the Fire purview? If this does not work, how is it different from mortals misconstruing an event they see a PC perform from one purview to another and Fatebinding based on that?
Question: What kind of asks do you reject or refuse to answer?
That was delightful. I don't have much extra to add except that if you're the question-asker who wanted to know about Epic Manipulation and Fatebonds, there are also a couple of old posts here and here that might also help.
Monday, April 15, 2013
No, We Can't All Just Get Along
Question: In your game, what transpired to make the Trimurti, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca the enemies of Odin?
Two separate events, actually.
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca join the rest of their pantheon in hating most of Odin's guts. While the two pantheons were supposedly allies, working together and sealed as neighbors by the marriage of their children Geoff and Sangria, Odin was behind the scenes attempting to annex as much of Mexico as he could get away with, partly out of his usual Odin-esque desire for conquest and expansion and partly because he was hoping that entangling his Fate with that of the Aztlanti might help him get out of Ragnarok. The Mexican gods, embroiled as they were in fighting several Titans at the time, didn't notice what he was doing until serious damage had been done, and things eventually came to a cataclysmic and destructive head when they confronted each other. I won't say exactly what happened because it's going to be the subject of some of the upcoming stories about Geoff's band, but the rift between the two pantheons was massive and the vast majority of the Aztlanti now view Odin as a traitor to their alliance.
As for the Trimurti, in their case they were the aggressors. After having serious problems on the home front with a certain one of their members deciding to go batshit and try to uncreate a lot of stuff, they shanghaied Aurora's band into helping them defeat him and clean up the mess. Unfortunately, they didn't ask first, and being that they tend to have a somewhat lofty opinion of themselves, they really didn't feel like they needed to. When Aurora expressed some concern that their divine parents were likely to kick their asses for haring off on a trans-continental Indian adventure instead of doing what they'd been told to do, the Trimurti rolled up into Asgard and Odin's feasting hall while he was having dinner, dropped off the kids and declared in front of most of the Aesir that nobody was to punish them or they would have to answer to them. Then they went home, blissfully uncaring of the epic insult they had just delivered to the king of the Aesir, and the band had to deal with the unpleasant fallout.
While the shenanigans with the Trimurti are not ready to make it to fiction for a while yet, you can see some of the ramp-up of the problems between the Aesir and Aztlanti in some of the stories. In Foundations, the first evidence of problems in Mexico appears and the first accusations of Norse involvement are leveled; in Drums of War the Norse confirm what they're up to but have not yet erupted into actual conflict; in Bone, Muscle, Heart and Sinew Sangria and her fellow Aztlanti Scions begin dealing with the problem and attempting to safeguard their people, and in What Dreams May Come Woody's band sees the Aesir contingent hard at work in Mexico and is warned about the fighting that has begun to break out.
Two separate events, actually.
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca join the rest of their pantheon in hating most of Odin's guts. While the two pantheons were supposedly allies, working together and sealed as neighbors by the marriage of their children Geoff and Sangria, Odin was behind the scenes attempting to annex as much of Mexico as he could get away with, partly out of his usual Odin-esque desire for conquest and expansion and partly because he was hoping that entangling his Fate with that of the Aztlanti might help him get out of Ragnarok. The Mexican gods, embroiled as they were in fighting several Titans at the time, didn't notice what he was doing until serious damage had been done, and things eventually came to a cataclysmic and destructive head when they confronted each other. I won't say exactly what happened because it's going to be the subject of some of the upcoming stories about Geoff's band, but the rift between the two pantheons was massive and the vast majority of the Aztlanti now view Odin as a traitor to their alliance.
As for the Trimurti, in their case they were the aggressors. After having serious problems on the home front with a certain one of their members deciding to go batshit and try to uncreate a lot of stuff, they shanghaied Aurora's band into helping them defeat him and clean up the mess. Unfortunately, they didn't ask first, and being that they tend to have a somewhat lofty opinion of themselves, they really didn't feel like they needed to. When Aurora expressed some concern that their divine parents were likely to kick their asses for haring off on a trans-continental Indian adventure instead of doing what they'd been told to do, the Trimurti rolled up into Asgard and Odin's feasting hall while he was having dinner, dropped off the kids and declared in front of most of the Aesir that nobody was to punish them or they would have to answer to them. Then they went home, blissfully uncaring of the epic insult they had just delivered to the king of the Aesir, and the band had to deal with the unpleasant fallout.
While the shenanigans with the Trimurti are not ready to make it to fiction for a while yet, you can see some of the ramp-up of the problems between the Aesir and Aztlanti in some of the stories. In Foundations, the first evidence of problems in Mexico appears and the first accusations of Norse involvement are leveled; in Drums of War the Norse confirm what they're up to but have not yet erupted into actual conflict; in Bone, Muscle, Heart and Sinew Sangria and her fellow Aztlanti Scions begin dealing with the problem and attempting to safeguard their people, and in What Dreams May Come Woody's band sees the Aesir contingent hard at work in Mexico and is warned about the fighting that has begun to break out.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Frigg the Fabulous
Question: Can you spare some time to discuss Frigg, Odin's wife? What do you think of her being a suggested Titan Avatar? Do you feel like she is definitely a goddess, particularly a Legend 12 goddess? What is it about her that makes her the "power behind Odin's throne"? How would you handle a Scion of Frigg?
At JSR, we can always spare time to talk about Frigg!
We definitely view Frigg as a goddess, and she's equally definitely Legend 12. Of all the Norse ladies excepting Freya (who, depending on the scholar you like, may actually have once just been part of a composite Frigg-Freya figure with her anyway), Frigg is the only one who has concrete stories of her awesomeness, in which she does things that matter to the world and demonstrates the ability to overcome even other gods. It's Frigg who appears at the creation of the world with Odin and his brothers, Frigg who gets the entire world to swear its oath to grant invulnerability to Baldur (and inadvertently gives up the secret of mistletoe to Loki), and Frigg who is the only living being besides Odin allowed to sit in Hlidskjalf and see the entire cosmos. Frigg's the queen of the gods, the mother of the heroes and the seer that even Odin respects. She's more than enough of a big deal, in others words, to be Legend 12.
As for her relationship with Odin, Frigg is pretty epic as the only person who consistently punks and conquers Odin at his own game. She's practically a wizard of manipulation; Odin gets cranky, gets tricksy and eventually punishes everybody else involved, but Frigg still always wins when they go head to head, and he never so much as threatens her with retaliation. When the two of them championed separate tribes to win a war, she argued him into declaring he would give victory to the first tribe he saw and then tricked him into seeing the people she wanted to win, forcing him to follow through. When the two of them decide to compete over whose foster-child is more successful, Frigg not only wins, she wins by tricking Odin into getting pissed off and murdering his own foster-child in the process. And if you believe Saxo's account (heavily euhemerized, so take him with the usual grain of salt), she routinely plundered offerings to Odin to make herself jewelry and gain allies, and he pretty much was so embarrassed by the entire ordeal that he went into self-imposed exile for several years.
So while Odin is certainly an extraordinarily powerful figure, Frigg is a match for him in her own way, which is extremely rare in Norse mythology (and by "extremely rare" I mean "Frigg is the only example"). Odin is the king, most certainly, and he calls the shots, but Frigg is always there at his side, and it's pretty clear that if she wants a shot called, he's probably going to accommodate her. Luckily for him, most of the time she conforms to the usual Norse goddess-role of faithful wife and loving mother, and never interferes in the politics of ruling the Aesir. (Or does she? Man, that Ultimate Manipulation is impossible to plan for.)
I think Frigg could be a Titan Avatar theoretically, but I'm not sure why anyone would want her to be. She's more than vibrant and involved enough in her pantheon to be one of its prime members, and I don't know what Titanrealm she would slot into easily. Fate, maybe, but the Norns are, like, right over there; I could see someone trying to draw a connection to Earth as her father is Fjorgynn (literally "earth"), but Frigg has no real connection to that realm other than the lineage, and anyway there are more effective Earth Titans, like Jord, already in play. There's just no reason to consign her to Titanhood (though a plot in which she made that choice during play as a result of Ragnarok or events leading up to it? Could be totally boss).
Incidentally, we have mentioned here before that we're big fans of the theory that most of the Asgardian ladies (with notable exceptions Thrud, who's Aesir, Idun, who's alfar, and Gerd & Skadi who are giantesses) are Vanir, married into the Aesir after the end of the war between their people. Frigg is a great example of that theory at work; her connection to an earthy father figure makes more sense, in her case, as a connection to the Vanir rather than to a Titan, and how much fun is the idea that Odin may have gotten a little more than he bargained for when he took a conquered Vanir bride?
We have not had any PC Scions of Frigg in play, though we have had one guest-star as an NPC, the ill-fated Michael Freeson, leader of Saki's original band (and Geoff Matheson by proxy, I guess, who really loves visiting his grandma). If we had any, though, we'd treat them just like any other Scion; their relationship with their mother would probably depend mostly on their personality and how they interacted with her, but she's likely to be extremely protective of her "good" children, and there's more than a chance Odin will screw with that kid's head just on principle. In fact, Scions of either Frigg or Odin usually run the risk of possibly being the newest bone of contention in one of their famous Manipulation wars... which is not an exciting place to be, I imagine, but hey, they probably won't even know about it most of the time.
At JSR, we can always spare time to talk about Frigg!
We definitely view Frigg as a goddess, and she's equally definitely Legend 12. Of all the Norse ladies excepting Freya (who, depending on the scholar you like, may actually have once just been part of a composite Frigg-Freya figure with her anyway), Frigg is the only one who has concrete stories of her awesomeness, in which she does things that matter to the world and demonstrates the ability to overcome even other gods. It's Frigg who appears at the creation of the world with Odin and his brothers, Frigg who gets the entire world to swear its oath to grant invulnerability to Baldur (and inadvertently gives up the secret of mistletoe to Loki), and Frigg who is the only living being besides Odin allowed to sit in Hlidskjalf and see the entire cosmos. Frigg's the queen of the gods, the mother of the heroes and the seer that even Odin respects. She's more than enough of a big deal, in others words, to be Legend 12.
As for her relationship with Odin, Frigg is pretty epic as the only person who consistently punks and conquers Odin at his own game. She's practically a wizard of manipulation; Odin gets cranky, gets tricksy and eventually punishes everybody else involved, but Frigg still always wins when they go head to head, and he never so much as threatens her with retaliation. When the two of them championed separate tribes to win a war, she argued him into declaring he would give victory to the first tribe he saw and then tricked him into seeing the people she wanted to win, forcing him to follow through. When the two of them decide to compete over whose foster-child is more successful, Frigg not only wins, she wins by tricking Odin into getting pissed off and murdering his own foster-child in the process. And if you believe Saxo's account (heavily euhemerized, so take him with the usual grain of salt), she routinely plundered offerings to Odin to make herself jewelry and gain allies, and he pretty much was so embarrassed by the entire ordeal that he went into self-imposed exile for several years.
So while Odin is certainly an extraordinarily powerful figure, Frigg is a match for him in her own way, which is extremely rare in Norse mythology (and by "extremely rare" I mean "Frigg is the only example"). Odin is the king, most certainly, and he calls the shots, but Frigg is always there at his side, and it's pretty clear that if she wants a shot called, he's probably going to accommodate her. Luckily for him, most of the time she conforms to the usual Norse goddess-role of faithful wife and loving mother, and never interferes in the politics of ruling the Aesir. (Or does she? Man, that Ultimate Manipulation is impossible to plan for.)
I think Frigg could be a Titan Avatar theoretically, but I'm not sure why anyone would want her to be. She's more than vibrant and involved enough in her pantheon to be one of its prime members, and I don't know what Titanrealm she would slot into easily. Fate, maybe, but the Norns are, like, right over there; I could see someone trying to draw a connection to Earth as her father is Fjorgynn (literally "earth"), but Frigg has no real connection to that realm other than the lineage, and anyway there are more effective Earth Titans, like Jord, already in play. There's just no reason to consign her to Titanhood (though a plot in which she made that choice during play as a result of Ragnarok or events leading up to it? Could be totally boss).
Incidentally, we have mentioned here before that we're big fans of the theory that most of the Asgardian ladies (with notable exceptions Thrud, who's Aesir, Idun, who's alfar, and Gerd & Skadi who are giantesses) are Vanir, married into the Aesir after the end of the war between their people. Frigg is a great example of that theory at work; her connection to an earthy father figure makes more sense, in her case, as a connection to the Vanir rather than to a Titan, and how much fun is the idea that Odin may have gotten a little more than he bargained for when he took a conquered Vanir bride?
We have not had any PC Scions of Frigg in play, though we have had one guest-star as an NPC, the ill-fated Michael Freeson, leader of Saki's original band (and Geoff Matheson by proxy, I guess, who really loves visiting his grandma). If we had any, though, we'd treat them just like any other Scion; their relationship with their mother would probably depend mostly on their personality and how they interacted with her, but she's likely to be extremely protective of her "good" children, and there's more than a chance Odin will screw with that kid's head just on principle. In fact, Scions of either Frigg or Odin usually run the risk of possibly being the newest bone of contention in one of their famous Manipulation wars... which is not an exciting place to be, I imagine, but hey, they probably won't even know about it most of the time.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Big Love
Question: I have a question about Heimdall. I've read that he is the son of nine mothers, the daughters of the sea god Aegir, but in the Aesir family tree he is a son of Frigg and Odin. Are you going to change that as you go through the site updating the gods associated powers?
Oh, tricky Heimdall. He is indeed described as the son of nine mothers, a group of giantesses named in the Prose Edda; some scholars do connect them with the nine daughters of Aegir, though the sea-daughters in fact have different names and turn up in different places in both the Poetic and Prose Edda, so it's really a question of whether you want to assume that nine ladies in a group must always be the same nine ladies. Heimdall does have some seemingly ocean-y connotations, particularly in the myth in which he chases Loki into the ocean and the two wrestle as seals for days on end; however, the giantesses named as his mothers all appear elsewhere doing other things in the Eddas, usually fucking with Thor in some way (especially Jarnsaxa, who is with Thor also the mother of Magni and Modi).
However, elsewhere in the Prose Edda, right before the aforementioned tussle with Loki, in fact, he is also described as a son of Odin during a long passage lauding his attributes, relics and deeds. So, as in many things in Scion, the ST gets to make a choice as to what's going on with his parentage exactly.
It's entirely possible that the Edda calls him the son of Odin poetically, meaning only that he's beloved by Odin or works for Odin; then again, it's just as possible that it calls him the son of the nine giantesses poetically (especially if you do connect them to the seafoam daughters of Aegir, it might be a poetic device to suggest he has a link with the ocean). If Heimdall's lineage is important to your game (because you have a Scion of Heimdall, you plan to use his relations in some way or other, or what have you), you can choose to play it a few ways; you can make him a son of Odin, a son of the giantesses, or a son of both (since his father/mother is never named in either case).
We chose to keep Heimdall under Odin because he would actually be a giant rather than Aesir if he were from Aegir's line instead; we were looking for a more unambiguous set of Norse gods to throw the ones who are already outsiders - the Vanir and Loki's line - into more sharp contrast. While he is listed in our family tree under Frigg as well, we're actually more fans of the idea that Odin is his father with the nine giantesses (but you try figuring out how to represent that on a family tree!). However, I think you could also do really interesting things with Heimdall as the son of giantesses alone; not only would that make him half-brother to Thor's kids, but I think there's some fun mythic ground to cover with him, as a giant himself, being the only person at Ragnarok capable of taking on Loki, the other giant in play.
It's just one of those places where myths give you a couple of options, so pick the one you like for the White God and run with it.
Oh, tricky Heimdall. He is indeed described as the son of nine mothers, a group of giantesses named in the Prose Edda; some scholars do connect them with the nine daughters of Aegir, though the sea-daughters in fact have different names and turn up in different places in both the Poetic and Prose Edda, so it's really a question of whether you want to assume that nine ladies in a group must always be the same nine ladies. Heimdall does have some seemingly ocean-y connotations, particularly in the myth in which he chases Loki into the ocean and the two wrestle as seals for days on end; however, the giantesses named as his mothers all appear elsewhere doing other things in the Eddas, usually fucking with Thor in some way (especially Jarnsaxa, who is with Thor also the mother of Magni and Modi).
However, elsewhere in the Prose Edda, right before the aforementioned tussle with Loki, in fact, he is also described as a son of Odin during a long passage lauding his attributes, relics and deeds. So, as in many things in Scion, the ST gets to make a choice as to what's going on with his parentage exactly.
It's entirely possible that the Edda calls him the son of Odin poetically, meaning only that he's beloved by Odin or works for Odin; then again, it's just as possible that it calls him the son of the nine giantesses poetically (especially if you do connect them to the seafoam daughters of Aegir, it might be a poetic device to suggest he has a link with the ocean). If Heimdall's lineage is important to your game (because you have a Scion of Heimdall, you plan to use his relations in some way or other, or what have you), you can choose to play it a few ways; you can make him a son of Odin, a son of the giantesses, or a son of both (since his father/mother is never named in either case).
We chose to keep Heimdall under Odin because he would actually be a giant rather than Aesir if he were from Aegir's line instead; we were looking for a more unambiguous set of Norse gods to throw the ones who are already outsiders - the Vanir and Loki's line - into more sharp contrast. While he is listed in our family tree under Frigg as well, we're actually more fans of the idea that Odin is his father with the nine giantesses (but you try figuring out how to represent that on a family tree!). However, I think you could also do really interesting things with Heimdall as the son of giantesses alone; not only would that make him half-brother to Thor's kids, but I think there's some fun mythic ground to cover with him, as a giant himself, being the only person at Ragnarok capable of taking on Loki, the other giant in play.
It's just one of those places where myths give you a couple of options, so pick the one you like for the White God and run with it.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Oh, What a Tangled Web
Question: I know it's just a myth, but is Odin arrogant, stupid, or both? He is called all wise and all knowing but the whole Norse cycle seems to be him constantly shooting himself in the foot, especially when it comes to the children of Loki, Hel especially, putting her in a place where she will be able to keep Baldur for herself and keep Ragnarok on track. Also, does Hel truly love Baldur, or is she just being mean and spiteful?
Arrogant? Probably. Stupid? No. What Odin mostly is is desperate.
The children of Loki can look like a huge blind spot for Odin; imprisoning them instead of destroying them ensures that all three will get a chance to play a role in Ragnarok, Hel by keeping Baldur, Jormungandr by killing Thor and Fenrir by killing Odin himself. Certainly the fact that they're alive and well and just waiting for their chance to demolish him and everything he owns is probably not helping him sleep nights.
But a major problem for Odin at the time that he binds the three children is that he doesn't know any of that yet. Binding them at all is in reaction to a prophecy, but it's not that prophecy; all the Aesir manage to come up with is that the three are going to be incredibly dangerous and destructive if they're allowed to continue roaming free. Add this to the gods already being very uncomfortable about things like the volume of flesh Fenrir is consuming per day, and Odin has very compelling reasons to get rid of them; but he doesn't know, at this time, that they're slated to be part of the final destruction. That information comes from the dead voelva that he visits after Baldur's dream, and it probably comes as a huge blow; learning that the creatures you just imprisoned instead of killing are going to one day break free and wreak havoc on your person has to be one of the worst things to discover via any means, let alone incontrovertible prophecy.
But why not just kill them anyway? "Going to be horribly dangerous and cause lots of trouble" seems like a good justification, right? Unfortunately for Odin, he pretty much can't. Hel, Jormungandr and Fenrir are the children of Loki, and Loki is Odin's best buddy and blood-brother; not only is killing your best friend's children kind of the king of all dick moves, but thanks to the blood-brother tag it's almost tantamount to kin-slaying, something the Norse are not okay with at all (see: Hod, Baldur, Vali). Odin can't just walk up to Loki over a pint of mead and be like, "Hey, my wife had a vision that your daughter's going to be problematic if she lives here, so I'm going to murder her." It's really not an option, especially since none of Loki's children have actually done anything yet other than make people uncomfortable.
So imprisonment is really the only safe middle ground he can go to for the three of them; Hel goes to the Underworld, Jormungandr to the bottom of the ocean and Fenrir to the depths of his cave. The later discovery that they're going to be his doom is probably horrible, but it's too late to go kill them now (especially since they still haven't done anything other than Fenrir biting Tyr's arm off, and nobody really blames him for that under the circumstances, not even Tyr, who kind of knew that was coming). For an extra dollop of fist-shaking at the sky, the whole situation is very much a self-fulfilling prophecy; had he not tossed all three of them into eternal jail, they might not be so eager to wreck his shit when released, but it's too late for that now, too. In addition, by Scion's rules, he can't kill Jormungandr and Fenrir anyway; both are Titans (albeit without ever being mentioned as belonging to a specific Titanrealm), and killing Titans, as Odin knows from firsthand experience, is a terrible, terrible idea.
As in many other dimensions, it sucks to be Odin sometimes.
As for Hel, well, there really isn't much to go on in the Eddas to tell us what her real feelings are about Baldur; she might love him, might be enforcing the laws of death, or might just be hanging on to him out of spite at the Aesir who dumped her in Helheim in the first place. There's no evidence to say that she ever met him when she was briefly in Asgard or had any kind of pre-existing relationship with him; as far as we know, she has no idea he exists except by hearsay until he ends up in her hall.
But then again, this is Baldur we're talking about; is it even possible for a lady to see Baldur and not immediately fall head-over-heels? Being loved is what Baldur is good at, and there's no reason to suppose that Hel is any less likely to cherish him than everybody back at home in Asgard. If she wasn't in love with him before he shows up, she almost certainly is afterward, and while there may be spite or adherence to rules also involved in her refusal to part with him, I'd assume some of it is a genuine desire to keep him with her. When a dude with Ultimate Charisma and Appearance waltzes into your house, of course you want him to live with you forever.
If you want to get extremely romantic about the whole situation, I've even seen some scholars theorize that Loki's slaying of Baldur (which appears otherwise unmotivated and is strangely out of place in his normally non-lethal prank repertoire) and refusal to help resurrect him later is directly intended to give him to Hel as a companion, sort of a father providing for his daughter in defiance of Odin's rulings.
It's an area with no clear answer in myth, so individual games of Scion may take many different directions when approaching it, all depending on how you want Odin, Loki, Hel and Baldur to come off as individuals.
Arrogant? Probably. Stupid? No. What Odin mostly is is desperate.
The children of Loki can look like a huge blind spot for Odin; imprisoning them instead of destroying them ensures that all three will get a chance to play a role in Ragnarok, Hel by keeping Baldur, Jormungandr by killing Thor and Fenrir by killing Odin himself. Certainly the fact that they're alive and well and just waiting for their chance to demolish him and everything he owns is probably not helping him sleep nights.
But a major problem for Odin at the time that he binds the three children is that he doesn't know any of that yet. Binding them at all is in reaction to a prophecy, but it's not that prophecy; all the Aesir manage to come up with is that the three are going to be incredibly dangerous and destructive if they're allowed to continue roaming free. Add this to the gods already being very uncomfortable about things like the volume of flesh Fenrir is consuming per day, and Odin has very compelling reasons to get rid of them; but he doesn't know, at this time, that they're slated to be part of the final destruction. That information comes from the dead voelva that he visits after Baldur's dream, and it probably comes as a huge blow; learning that the creatures you just imprisoned instead of killing are going to one day break free and wreak havoc on your person has to be one of the worst things to discover via any means, let alone incontrovertible prophecy.
But why not just kill them anyway? "Going to be horribly dangerous and cause lots of trouble" seems like a good justification, right? Unfortunately for Odin, he pretty much can't. Hel, Jormungandr and Fenrir are the children of Loki, and Loki is Odin's best buddy and blood-brother; not only is killing your best friend's children kind of the king of all dick moves, but thanks to the blood-brother tag it's almost tantamount to kin-slaying, something the Norse are not okay with at all (see: Hod, Baldur, Vali). Odin can't just walk up to Loki over a pint of mead and be like, "Hey, my wife had a vision that your daughter's going to be problematic if she lives here, so I'm going to murder her." It's really not an option, especially since none of Loki's children have actually done anything yet other than make people uncomfortable.
So imprisonment is really the only safe middle ground he can go to for the three of them; Hel goes to the Underworld, Jormungandr to the bottom of the ocean and Fenrir to the depths of his cave. The later discovery that they're going to be his doom is probably horrible, but it's too late to go kill them now (especially since they still haven't done anything other than Fenrir biting Tyr's arm off, and nobody really blames him for that under the circumstances, not even Tyr, who kind of knew that was coming). For an extra dollop of fist-shaking at the sky, the whole situation is very much a self-fulfilling prophecy; had he not tossed all three of them into eternal jail, they might not be so eager to wreck his shit when released, but it's too late for that now, too. In addition, by Scion's rules, he can't kill Jormungandr and Fenrir anyway; both are Titans (albeit without ever being mentioned as belonging to a specific Titanrealm), and killing Titans, as Odin knows from firsthand experience, is a terrible, terrible idea.
As in many other dimensions, it sucks to be Odin sometimes.
As for Hel, well, there really isn't much to go on in the Eddas to tell us what her real feelings are about Baldur; she might love him, might be enforcing the laws of death, or might just be hanging on to him out of spite at the Aesir who dumped her in Helheim in the first place. There's no evidence to say that she ever met him when she was briefly in Asgard or had any kind of pre-existing relationship with him; as far as we know, she has no idea he exists except by hearsay until he ends up in her hall.
But then again, this is Baldur we're talking about; is it even possible for a lady to see Baldur and not immediately fall head-over-heels? Being loved is what Baldur is good at, and there's no reason to suppose that Hel is any less likely to cherish him than everybody back at home in Asgard. If she wasn't in love with him before he shows up, she almost certainly is afterward, and while there may be spite or adherence to rules also involved in her refusal to part with him, I'd assume some of it is a genuine desire to keep him with her. When a dude with Ultimate Charisma and Appearance waltzes into your house, of course you want him to live with you forever.
If you want to get extremely romantic about the whole situation, I've even seen some scholars theorize that Loki's slaying of Baldur (which appears otherwise unmotivated and is strangely out of place in his normally non-lethal prank repertoire) and refusal to help resurrect him later is directly intended to give him to Hel as a companion, sort of a father providing for his daughter in defiance of Odin's rulings.
It's an area with no clear answer in myth, so individual games of Scion may take many different directions when approaching it, all depending on how you want Odin, Loki, Hel and Baldur to come off as individuals.
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