Fox in the Henhouse

Question: Recently I've been trying to stat up Inari-no-okami for the Kami and I've run into a problem. The three associations needed for Legend 12 are easy (Animal (Fox), Magic and Fertility), but beyond that I'm having trouble distinguishing between things Inari itself does and things its kitsune messengers do, such as shapeshifting or power over fire and lightning. What do you think? Should Inari have Illusion, Fire or Sky, or do its kitsune have a wider variety of powers than it does?

Well, to start with, we agree: Animal (Fox), Fertility and Magic are totally in Inari's wheelhouse. Let's go from there!

First of all, because you bring it up a lot in your question obliquely, it's always worthwhile to talk about Inari's gender, because there is a whole ton of confusion and misinformation and interpretation that goes into how that particular deity is presented in Japanese mythology and whether or not it can be called male, female, or gender-fluid or changeable. English-language studies on Inari, especially older ones, tend to refer to the god as male most of the time; most likely this is because those writing those studies were European outsiders who were inclined to apply a fixed gender to all deities they studied, and who gravitated naturally toward males unless a god was specifically said to be female. Many - in fact most - of the other gods of Shinto are specific and unchanging in their gender, which is often a major part of their stories, but Inari is frequently referred to as either masculine or feminine, indeterminate, or capable of changing between those options at will. Inari's not one of the oldest gods of Shinto (our first confirmed dates are in the early eighth century), but old enough that modern, heavily Buddhist ideas of gender roles probably weren't strongly in effect yet. Inari's modern form is probably a composite figure composed of several different fertility deities, all of them originally separate local gods but later considered aspects of one - most notably, some scholars conflate Inari with Uke Mochi, although obviously we have her off on her own in Ourea as a Titan Avatar.

But anyway, Inari is a truly gender-fluid deity. Some Scions (and other gods, and mortals) might experience the god as male, others as female, others as having no idea one way or the other or seeing elements of both. Regardless of how your game represents Inari, though, you should probably never use "it" to refer to the god. That suggests no gender at all, which is not applicable here, and while some crusty old scholars use the word because English doesn't have good gender-fluid pronouns, in practice it's probably pretty insulting and Inari probably wouldn't appreciate it. Nobody likes being called by a word that implies they have more in common with objects than people; doing so to refer to a god will probably land you on a divine retribution list pretty quickly, especially if you do it to the god's face.

But, back to Inari's associations! Fire and lightning are tangential associations, even for kitsune; even foxfire isn't really fire but more of an optical illusion, so we wouldn't apply either to Inari. However, the god does do a lot of shapeshifting - in addition to appearing as various genders, Inari also turns up as various animals, monsters and even plants, suggesting that there's no confining the deity to a single shape for long. The eternal problem of how to handle shapeshifting in Scion rears its head again; Appearance probably isn't a great fit, since there aren't very many stories suggesting Inari is more visually crazy than other gods, so we would probably tentatively go with Illusion, since that's not only a kitsune feature but also one that Inari's myths often rely on. Inari also has several shrines dedicated to worshiping the god as a curer of disease and giver of children, which could point to Health, although that seems like an outgrowth of the general prosperity idea and we're not sure it's strong enough for a full association.

That leaves us without any firm Epic Attributes to assign to the god, and without more research than we have time for right now (alas, Japan is still not updated on our site!), we can't give you super firm recommendations. Inari is insanely popular, especially with modern businesses, so you might want to go with Charisma, which might also be supported by the god's association with performance and pleasure; Manipulation might be supported by the stories of Inari intentionally pulling capers and tricks in order to teach people lessons or enjoy their bewilderment. Wits is a general fox characteristic, so while we don't have any good support for it from stories, it might be a stopgap option if you need to take the god live for players before you have time to do a ton of work on it.

Kitsune, as a general magical race of creatures, are very common in folkloric stories and therefore do have an expanded powers thanks to the wide range of stories about them. But Inari is a little more specific and has tales that are all the god's own, so we wouldn't assume that the deity necessarily needs associations for everything the little messengers who serve the god might do.

Like Every Goddamn Question, Our Inbox Is So Full You Guys

It's time for another big fat post full of quickly-answered questions! Just know we love each and every one of you, question-askers, honest, and you can always ask for clarification in the comments if you didn't get what you were looking for.

Question: is there any mythological basis for Thor's greatest fear being a warm bed? (Just something I read in a novel).

Not that we know of, but we would hazard a guess that your book might be referring to the idea that Norse warriors aspired to die gloriously in battle, and would therefore be very unhappy with the idea of dying in bed.

Question: Sorry if this has already been covered, but doesn't Aengus have Artistry associated with him?

Nope, sure doesn't. While Aengus is theorized to be possibly associated with music and the arts, we don't have any real evidence of this and no stories of him being particularly artistic, so we did not give him the Avatar of Artistry. However, if your game likes a more artsy interpretation of Aengus, you can always assume he has some Artistry boons at his disposal.

Question: Months ago I asked why Cernunnos was so powerful because he had nine purviews. Rather than allude to his purviews this time, I'm just asking, why is he so powerful in general? Like, I know that he's the Horned God of Wicca, and I know he's a heavily occultic fertility deity, but based on his description in the Nemetondevos description, he seems like he should have intelligence and/or maybe wits as Associated as his attributes.

Cernunnos is undeniably the most recognizable (and therefore Legendary) of the Gaulish gods whose legends survive into the modern day, but unfortunately we don't really know all that much about him, nor do we have anything but piecemeal information about his associations and exploits. Cernunnos on our site is presented as an Odin-like patriarch because that's how he's written in the Scion Storyteller Screen, but honestly most of that is conjecture. You might want to check out this post about the problems of reconstructing Gaulish mythology.

Question: I want a sentient, witty, wise-cracking animal sidekick. Which would be better: creating a Follower or using Create Nemean/Typhonian? Thanks guys, love you guys and all your work!

Nemean and Typhonian creatures are generally not very bright or socially graceful, so you would probably want something smarter than that if you wanted a wise-cracking sidekick who you could actually have conversations with and hurl witty insults at enemies alongside. Birthright Creatures give you more opportunity to tailor your animal's stats to what you want it to do, and you can also use Epic Enhancement on them if you want to bolster any of their stats, so that's probably more what you're looking for.

Question: Was Anshar really evil? He kinda looks like a really senile sky god to me.

Anshar's clearly a Titan, so that really depends on whether or not you think all Titans are evil (we don't think so, although they are all pretty dangerous even if they aren't actively malicious). Like other ancient sky-father Titans, you could certainly play him as simply distant from and uninvolved in his pantheon.

Question: Are Dwarves and Svartalfar the same creature? Norse mythology is confusing.

No, but they do both live in Svartalfheim and some named svartalfar are occasionally also referred to or alluded to as dwarves, so the confusion is understandable. The Norse word for dwarves is dvergr, and is used to refer to creepy little short creatures that are crafty, morally questionable, and really awesome at making magical items like Mjolnir and Brisingamen. Svartalfar means "black elves" and is confusing because it's equated to both dverger and dokkalfar ("dark elves") in various places, which are fairly clearly attested as two different races, with the dark elves described as dwelling underground and being black of skin, and different in appearance from their light elf cousins.

Basically, some scholars think the svartalfar must be the same as the dvergr since they seem to live in the same or similar places and share some traits, but others point out that there are different terms and associations at work and that there's no reason to make that leap. So really, Storyteller's call on that one. We play them as different.

Question: Would it be possible for Artistry Gods to design relics that could enable Gods and Scions to better navigate the Titan Realms? Like relic goggles to give people temporary Epic Perception rankings to see around Keku? Or some kind of Fire-resistant suits to allow survival in Muspelheim?

Yep, sure is! Hephaestus actually made some flame-retardant armor for one of our groups to go to Muspelheim at one point. Artistry can make all kinds of neat stuff, although it's probably difficult and time-consuming to do so.

Question: When you have the Animal purview, you choose an animal to specialize in. We, in my game have been in minor fights about how specific you have to be. For example, the guy with Animal (Jackal) complaining over how he has less utility as the guy with Animal (Dog). Should one be penalized for being more general, or should I allow the more specialized guy to go outside the limits of his animal from time to time?

You might find this post helpful when trying to determine how specific an animal should be! Animals that are less commonly available do often have less utility than your Animal (Housefly) or Animal (Cow) people who can be fairly assured of their animals being around a lot, but Scions can always go seek out their animals at zoos, parks or in natural areas where they might occur, and of course at later levels they can summon or even create them at will. We do occasionally allow Scions with animals that are kind of close to try to use their boons on something that isn't technically their creature, but always at a disadvantage; for example, if your guy with Animal (Jackal) wanted to use his boons on a coyote, we would have him only understand some of what it was saying since the message would be garbled, or increase the difficulty of using other powers on it significantly to illustrate that he was trying to affect something that he isn't really aligned with.

Question: I know shape-shifting Appearance knacks makes this somewhat of a mote point, but for those Scion who don't invest in them, I was wondering what rolls would you make for disguise. And when say disguise, I'm taking about everything from putting on a wig and Groucho Marx glasses to applying Hollywood SFX prosthetics to change your race or sex.

It would depend on exactly what you were doing, but most of the time we would have you roll something along the lines of Appearance + Stealth or Manipulation + Stealth to actually sell the disguise itself, and probably a side order of Manipulation + Empathy and/or Wits + Empathy to not look suspicious while doing it. Tailor to individual Storyteller tastes.

Question: Can a scion with Animal Communication use social knacks on animals he can communicate with, or does he have to use Animal Obediance?

He has to use Animal Obedience, or else just be able to convince it to do what he wants through good old-fashioned charm. His refined powers of pulling a fast one on humanoids are lost on their animal brains.

Question: Have you ever considered a more free-form system for boons (e.g. Mage spheres or Dark Ages fae magic)? If you have, what worked? If you haven't, what would you imagine succeeding?

Nope, sorry. Spheres work pretty well in Mage, but we have no desire whatsoever to import them into Scion. You might want to check out the official forums, though, since we know there are a few games out there that do that sort of thing.

Question: What does the Darkness Virtue which Reverses Virtue due to the Inue? Nothing? Fire becoming Water? etc.

It reverses exactly; someone affected by Heart of Darkness with the Fire Virtue would abruptly have Anti-Fire. They would hate Fire in all its forms, attempt to stamp it out and campaign against its use and existence, and generally do everything that they could to destroy it with exactly as much fervor as they would normally want to protect and encourage it.

Question: What do you think the Godrealm and Underworld of the Orisha are?

You're looking for this post!

Question: How are Fatebonds handled with the Doppleganger boon from the Illusion tree? For example, say someone created a doppleganger of a fellow Scion and had the doppleganger interact with mortals--utilizing the boons it would have such as subtle knife and stolen face--would it be possible to incur a Fatebond in that way to the person being 'doppleganged'?

Question: Hello, John and Anne! Hope you guys are well. My group uses your resources and revisions on Scion (love 'em!) and I just recently started looking at the blog. You've answered a lot of questions that I've been curious about, and many that haven't even occurred to me. Now, I was wondering if you could answer another question, or if perhaps it's already been addressed. How exactly does a Fatebond work if you've stolen someone's face and then committed the acts that would Fatebond?

Fate is not fooled by your piddly doppelgaenger, nor your attempts to pretend you're someone else. It knows that the person being impersonated is not the one spending Legend, and therefore will not attach any Fatebonds to her; it also knows that you are the one spending Legend, so you're going to get the Fatebonds from doing so no matter what you look like. And before you ask, the same goes for any other way of impersonating someone or meddling with the free will of other people.

As always, jump into the comments if you're so moved.

Do What You Do

Since we've gotten a bunch of these lately, here's a quick big-bang-style post with several questions about associations. Let's go at it!

Question: Why does Hera have Health associated?

Hera is strongly associated with childbirth and the health of children and pregnant women alike, which is covered by the Health purview. Not only is she one of the few gods to create children completely parthenogenically with no males involved (both Hephaestus and Typhon are said to be her children alone, although both also have alternative genealogies), but she was called upon to protect mothers and infants during pregnancy and birth and to prevent complications and diseases that might harm them, especially in her Roman guise as Juno. This is one of those places where an association comes more from cult associations than from a specific myth in which the association is demonstrated.

John would like to note that we're considering lately whether issues of childbirth and human fertility should contribute toward a Health association and how strongly, so if you have opinions, lay them on us.

Question: Does Epic Appearance really suit Tlaloc?

Have you seen him?

Tlaloc is famously crazy-looking, even among the Mexican gods, where curlicue-faces and bizarre giant clothing styles are a way of life. He combines parts of a bunch of animals related to his elements, especially the crocodile teeth and giant frog eyes, and is so visually striking that he's one of the few gods we can pick out across various different levels of Mesoamerican myth in different cultures and time periods. The Googly-Eyed Rain Monster - that's a real term, I didn't make it up! - is a mainstay of wacky Mesoamerican religious art, and Tlaloc, representative of both the devouring earth that must be fed blood to be appeased and the terrible storm that devastates the landscape and brings disease and damage, is pretty clearly intended to be terrifying in a way that many others among the Teotl are not.

Question: why does Hel have Epic Stamina associated?

We'll admit to this one being more of a stretch. Hel lives in an area that is famously inhospitable, so much so that even the gods avoid it - freezing cold and filled with debilitating disease - seemingly without any problems, and also survived being "cast" or "thrown" from Yggdrasil into Helheim by Odin (it went better for her than the similar fall did for Hephaestus, at least!). We were at the time trying to make sure all Legend 12 deities had at least four associations, which we later relaxed to three, so this one is by far her least solid.

Question: Why does Hermes have Magic associated?

Because, as Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice-great Hermes" or "thrice-wise Hermes"), he is the inventer of sorcery and patron of the Hermetic order of magaicians, who of course named their organization after him. Hilariously, Hermes T is probably a combination of Hermes and Thoth, but at this point they're almost inseparable in that role, so we found that it made more sense to extend the association to both of them than to try to split them into separate parts. It's likely that Hermes/Mercury's association with magic originally comes from his association with luck, a necessary part of his function as god of shenanigans, thievery and other things you need good fortune to pull off, but it eventually evolved into a full-blown magic association that survives to this day. Not every branch of Greek or Roman religion accepted Hermes T as being the same as Hermes, so you could set him up as a completely different god if you wanted to, but we figured in this case simplicity was better.

Question: Where do you guys get Animal (Swan) and Fertility for Aphrodite? I mean, I know it's hard to figure out powers that she might have other than "being really hot" but I can't recall a single myth of her doing anything with swans or plant life. I could see the Health Purview, since it has powers that affect sex and HUMAN fertility, not to mention Human Clay would be a useful power for the Goddess of Beauty (she can give you beauty or take it away) but Fertility and Animal don't make much sense.

Aphrodite is actually associated with the swan all the time! The bird represented light and beauty to the ancient Greeks, which made it an easy one to associate with her. Take a gander (ha!) at all these ancient images of Aphrodite hanging out with swans:

And many more. Some scholars think that these might be supposed to be geese instead of swans, in which case you could alternatively give her Animal (Goose), but we figured Swan fit with her aesthetic more. While we don't always give everyone an Animal association just because they appear with an animal in art a lot - sometimes the animal is just symbolic, or they have a myth that suggests it's not a good idea - Aphrodite is slim on associations like most Greek deities, and we figured she could use the help.

As for Fertility vs. Health, we're totally with you on the weirdness of that, but after doing as thorough a run through ancient Greek stories and descriptions of Aphrodite, that's where we ended up. Aphrodite is indeed associated with sex, but while Health does affect baby-making, it doesn't have a lot to do with the sex act itself beyond that, and so Aphrodite's strong connections to bangin' didn't really give her much of a connection there (although her Roman persona, Venus, is a little bit more linkable to Health as a concept). But the ancient Greeks connected human fertility and the fertility of the earth symbolically and even literally in many of their writings, so that Aphrodite is often praised as a bringer of earthly fertility despite not being a more classical plant-shaper. From Stasinus describing Aphrodite as eternally clothed in "crocus and hyacinth and flourishing violet and the rose's lovely bloom, so sweet and delicious, and heavenly buds, the flowers of the narcissus and lily; in such perfumed garments is Aphrodite clothed at all seasons," to the Homeric hymns stating that flowers spring up beneath her feet wherever she walks, plants turn up surprisingly frequently with Aphrodite. The reason is probably best summed up in Aeschylus' Danaides, in which Aphrodite herself describes the births of all the plants and trees and flowers of the world, and then claims, "Of all these things I am the cause," suggesting that because she is the motivator for sex which causes procreation, she is the root cause of all procreation of all life, even though she does not participate in the actual childbearing or mothering process.

Question: Shouldn't Hermes have Epic Dexterity and Illusion? Apologies if this has been answered already.

While Hermes certainly has decent amounts of both, neither was strong enough for us to want to give him the Ultimate expression of it. He does use Illusion occasionally, most notably in the tale where he makes himself a doppelgaenger of a man in order to drive him insane, but he doesn't do it all that often or all that impressively, so for the most part his trickery is probably the result of awesome Manipulation and Wits, and some low- to mid-level Illusion boons now and then. Dexterity doesn't really fit him, either; he does have the epithet "quick-footed", which helps, but for the most part the modern idea of him as super-fast comes from his role as messenger of the gods rather than any actual mythological association with speed of travel.

Question: Why does Njord have Fire associated?

Because of this passage in the Prose Edda:

The third among the Aesir is he that is called Njörd: he dwells in heaven, in the abode called Nóatún. He rules the course of the wind, and stills sea and fire; on him shall men call for voyages and for hunting.

Even more than Hel above, Njord suffers from the dearth of mythological information on the Aesir and Vanir. While his Water association as the god of the ocean is pretty solid, everything else tends to be like that - single statements that are clear, but don't have any other examples to back them up. Njord is supposed to be one of the most important and powerful of the Vanir, which is why he was traded to the Aesir in the first place, so we decided to give him Sky and Fire in spite of the lack of extra stories attached to them... but we feel like it's likely he may get demoted to a lot fewer associations in the future workup of lower-Legend gods. The Edda's very clear that he does those things, so we like them, but we also usually want more than one example, so thus is our quandary.

That's all our association questions for today - phew!

Sky vs. Storm

Question: I'm curious as to why you and Anne decided to eliminate the electricity based boons from the Sky purview. Given the number of sky gods that rely on such powers as a mode of attack, electricity/lightning based boons seem pretty fundamental. Just curious, thanks!

Sounds like you might not have been following the blog much and missed out on a lot of what we're doing.

We haven't erased lightning powers from Sky; rather, we've split the old Sky purview into two new ones, Sky and Thunder, with the former containing all the wind and air and cloud boons and the latter all the storm and thunder and lightning boons. While there are some gods who do both things (although very few who have the Avatar of both purviews), for the most part they are very separate creatures; sky gods are normally in charge of the vault of the skies, the shapers of the clouds and rulers of the winds, as opposed to thunder gods who are the ones in charge of destructive storms and life-giving rains. Since the old Sky purview lumped them together, we've all gotten pretty used to referring to both as powers of a "sky god", but we're really looking at two different kinds of deities, which is why we decided on the split. It's the difference between Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc, or Vayu and Indra.

So if you want to be primarily a Sky god, your offensive powers will be Sky powers: knocking your enemies far afield with blasts of wind, denying them breath with your suffocation powers, and so on. If you want to use thunder and lightning instead, you're going to want the forthcoming Thunder purview, which we hope will be released fairly soon. (Or maybe you want to buy both! Chase your dreams!)

You may want to check out this recent post from the release of Sky for more details and suggestions about how to convert to the two split purviews.

Fair and Just

Question: Is there a place for a Justice god in the Inue, or are they too far away from humanity?

It depends on how far you're willing to stretch your definition of "justice god", really. For our part, we would definitely say yes.

The Inuit religion is primarily based on the idea of the Inue as the embodiments - in fact, the very souls - of natural phenomena. They represent things like the wind, the water, the plants that grow from the earth or the animals that are hunted by humanity, and they generally do not represent abstract humanity-based concepts like Justice or Guardian, as those are not the same kind of nature-based elements. The function of the gods in most Inuit myths is to govern and empower the natural world, so most of the time there's little reason for them to have powers that aren't associated with nature in some way. In that particular religion, gods are about nature, and humanity interacts with them but is not championed by them, at least not primarily.

However, many among the Inue do occasionally interact with humanity in ways that might qualify as being justice-related, so you may still be able to peg a few of them as having some powers in that area. The most major is actually the Titan Sila; traditional Inuit practices include a wide range of important rituals, ceremonies and taboos that must be observed in order to make sure they don't offend the Inue, and when weather-related disaster strikes it is often assumed that Sila is punishing the community as a result of someone failing to correctly observe those practices. This makes him a sort of enforcer of law, or at least religious custom, which is one thing that Justice traditionally does. The other option is probably Tornarssuk, the bear god; he doesn't do too much with human laws or customs in a broad sense, but he's the special patron and tester of Inuit shaman, and decides whether or not they're worthy for the post or deserve to be eaten by bears. (Literally, eaten by bears, that's what you get if you're bad. Also if you're good. Bears are hungry creatures.)

So there are a couple of examples, but they don't look a whole lot like the Sraoshas and Proves of other pantheons. Different cultures, different conceptions of what gods do and how society interacts with them.

However, that doesn't mean that if you're an Inue Scion, you can't be all about Justice. Areas that are not already being covered by the old gods are perfect for new Scions to pick up as their own specialties - no matter how you think of the general idea of Justice, if it's not being handled already, you can make it your own without having to compete with anyone else. Maybe you think the Inue should get more involved with helping humanity out and you want to be the first to start doing so, or maybe you think the gods themselves need policing that you might be able to provide. Maybe you want to be a god associated with some other interpretation of Justice! Go wild! They might be a little resistant to it since it's not something they're used to, but every new Scion has to struggle to find their new place in the world. Choose what you want and go for it, my friend.

The Power of One

Question: Sorry to add to the questionado maelstrom, but I have a query about Artemis. In your family trees, she only has Moon as an associated purview. Is this right? It just seems a bit skimpy for the Goddess of the Hunt of the best-known Pantheon out there.

Yep, that's right.

This is kind of a perennial issue for the Theoi in general. The Greek religion, rather than having a smaller selection of deities who just do a ton of things (like the Aesir, for example), leaned heavily toward having an insane number of deities who all do only one or two things, making them far more specialized than gods in some other pantheons. Few of the Theoi rock more than a couple of associated purviews (though of course there are exceptions), because for the most part they're all very deliberately attached to only a couple of major ideas.

Artemis is like that. Moon is really the only purview she's associated with, although she clearly has that one in spades. She likely has some Health powers thanks to her associations with childbirth and pregnancy, and probably a little Animal from her wildlife associations and the times she turns people into beasts, but that's the extent of her other powers, and they're clearly not important enough to be Avatar-level. Artemis is indeed the goddess of the hunt, which is a large part of the reason she has Epic Perception associated. Perception is the hunting stat and set of powers; any time you are hunting, tracking, or otherwise looking for someone or something, you're using Perception, and Artemis is not only the preeminent hunter in her pantheon and famous for her skill, but she is also often mentioned as having incredible perceptive powers, described as "far-sighted" especially frequently (an epithet her brother Apollo also shares). Add to that Dexterity for her continuing descriptions of swiftness, uncanny aim and incredible ability to run down any prey, and she's got her three most important associations neatly sewed up. She doesn't have or demonstrate any other major powers.

But, as we have talked about in regards to Theoi gods before, that doesn't mean she's not powerful, important or is somehow "less" than other deities. All it means is that she's specialized more than some other gods. Some deities - Manannan mac Lir, for example - are all over the map, doing a thousand things dabbling-style, and some deities like Artemis are laser-focused on being the absolute best at the one or two specific things they and only they do in their pantheon. The Theoi are even supported in their specialization by Scion's mechanics, in that you can always assume that while they don't have a ton of purview or Epic associations, they most likely have a ton Arete maxed out for various abilities, the equivalent of having several purviews that are simply "invisible" on a list of associated powers.

We never give gods powers just to "round them out"; we're pretty committed to gods only having associations that are truly the most major concepts and abilities that they represent and demonstrate, and therefore we try not to give anyone extra associations just so we can feel like they have "enough". And really, they don't need more anyway. More purviews certainly means more options, but it doesn't mean a difference in power level - a god with just one purview Avatar to call up is just as powerful as one with five when both pop their ultimate power and go head to head. Particularly for the Theoi, who are usually associated with very strictly defined subject areas and rocking out insane rolls on them thanks to their innate Arete excellence, granting extra associations wouldn't fit for them, and would end up muddying what they're really all about.

Second Noble Son

Question: Can you think of any associations Tsukuyomi deserves to have beside Moon?

Poor Tsukuyomi. Not only is he sort of stuck out in the cold away from the rest of the pantheon (literally, and permanently), but he also doesn't get very many stories or myths to give him associations, thanks to the fact that he's persona non grata with his ruler/sister/wife and therefore not allowed to do things anymore. That's what he gets for getting himself voted off the island.

Moon, at least, is easy; as Amaterasu is the face of the sun, so her brother Tsukuyomi is the face of the moon. Past that point, we have to get a little more creative if we want him to have any associations, but there are a few we would probably accept. We're actually tentatively cool with him having Darkness; his role as given to him by Izanagi is described in Japanese texts as the ruler of not just the moon but also the night in general, as opposed to Amaterasu as ruler of the day, which would therefore naturally lend itself to giving him the purview of night's darkness and silence. The Nihon Shoki also claims that Izanagi entrusted the sky as a joint domain to both Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, but since neither of them does much with sky-like powers or symbols, I'm not sure if we should give them both that association; the line may just mean in a symbolic sense, since the sun and moon are themselves in the sky. There are also some sketchy scholarly interpolations based on the myth of him killing Uke Mochi, including the idea that perhaps he did so because he was a rival agricultural deity, backed up by the fact that the lunar calendar was used in ancient Japan to calculate harvest and fertility times, that could point toward Fertility, although it's not very firm.

Perhaps my favorite possibility is also from the Nihon Shoki, in which it is mentioned that mortal priest-oracles received an oracular revelation from Tsukuyomi indicating that they should support granting some land to Takamimusubi. Not only is this myth a barrel of fun if you pursue the idea that Takamimusubi is Amaterasu's replacement consort after Tsukuyomi leaves (does he know? is he accidentally supporting his ex-wife's new lover without realizing it? is he supporting him because he's with Amaterasu now and he wants to help take care of her even though she banished him? is this a soap opera?), but it also opens a door that points toward Tsukuyomi being one of those rare Japanese Prophecy or Mystery gods, granting wisdom via moonlight to his constituents. Unfortunately, there's no second myth to go with this first one, but it's still some food for thought.

We haven't restatted the Japanese gods yet, so unfortunately for Tsukuyomi, he remains a mess until we do. But there are a few purview possibilities to pursue for him, if no strong Attribute ones (Charisma for "ruling the night"? What's the "throwing a huge tantrum" Attribute?), so that's something to start on!

Ten Questions with Excited Waving Arms

On today's blog, project updates, future possibilities, a call to action for you guys, and a whole bunch of questions!

Question: How do you handle "secrets" in myth? Things that supposedly certain gods do not know (and would have extreme reactions if they found out) yet are an established part of the myths about them?

Question: How do you explain the story of King Midas? I mean, the guy's an ordinary mortal who gets the power to turn anything he touches into gold. What Scion powers can give such a power to a mortal?

Question: Can you kill a death god? Should you be able to kill a death god? Does killing a death god really accomplish anything?

Question: What do you think would happen if a Scion, who has not yet received a Visitation, were to simply stumble across a Birthright relic that doesn't belong to an active Scion? Could that result in a kind of "triggered activation" of the Scion's divine blood? Or would nothing happen since it isn't a true Visitation?

Question: How do you determine the damage from some of the more extreme attacks that Scion's power allows? If my Strength monster picks up the Empire State Building and hurls it at a Titan Avatar, or some other powerful foe, how do I determine how badly such an impact hurt the target? If I used Create Earth to conjure up a mess of diamonds, then threw the diamonds into a tornado conjured by Tornado Tamer and hurled the whole thing at a bad guy? How would I determine THAT damage?

Question: How far is too far for you guys at GothamByNight when it comes to PC morality? When do you take one of your Players to the side and ask them if their PC could still be considered "a good guy/aligned with the Gods" and not some Chaotic Evil Titan in waiting that is deserving of a Dark Virtue or two? For example, do you think that a God-level PC Band's active attempts to wipeout humanity or kill off their parents for their own ambitions justify them gaining Dark Virtues?

Question: Do you guys have anyway of setting apart gods and goddesses of hunting mechanically? I'm working on some homebrew and I feel like these hunt gods need some association to really drive the point home, but I don't know what. I almost find myself wanting to make a Hunt Purview, but that's a heck of a lot of work. But what else to use? Is War fitting? An attribute that most fits their hunting style? I'm really at a loss here.

Question: You said in an earlier vlog that the difference between Followers/Creatures and Guides were that Creatures and Followers were below you and Guides were beings above you. Now what if I have a character who's got contact to the Valkyries as a Guide from Hero - would it be possible at Demigod that they turned into more like an equal ally type of thing? That instead of them just giving you good advice, they help you out physically when you really need it.

Question: Nut is a Titan, Shu is a Titan, and Geb is probably going to be a Titan as well - but the most ancient of them, Ra, is not?

Question: So! If everyone on Earth, for whatever reason, suddenly got a point of Legend, and the Gods were then able to get up to their old tricks without having to worry about Fatebinding, would they? If they could without having to worry about Fatebinding, would the Gods return to Earth? Related question, is there anything you can think of from any mythology that would be capable of giving everyone on Earth a legend point? Some Uber Relic or ritual that, if done, would give everyone that kind of power?

To our sixth questioner, we now realize that while we talked about PC morality in answer to your question, we didn't really address Dark Virtues. Our rule of thumb is that Dark Virtues are something PCs gain by contact with Titans or otherwise through magical events, so for the most part we would not give them any Dark Virtues automatically just because they're being jerks. It is entirely possible for Scions (and gods, too!) to be sometimes or even often malicious without actually having Malice, just as it's possible to be interested in knowledge and learning without having Intellect or to bravely run into battle without having Courage. However, Scions who are consistently evil or often do things that are in line with the goals of the Titans are likely to attract their attention, in which case it is entirely possible they might end up corrupted by a Titan Virtue later on.

If you want to email us boons, do it here! Go nuts!

Civil War

Question: Are there any myths about Baldr that aren't about him, you know, dying? Also, do we know if the Norse people thought Baldr was dead, or if his death had yet to happen?

Question: Why does Baldur have War associated?

Okay, this epic journey got deleted once, but never fear, it's back. Gather around, everyone, for Norse Storytime!

There are indeed myths about Baldur that are not about his death! However, they require a little bit more legwork to find. The major source for most of Norse mythology, the Edda preserved by Snorri Sturluson, only describe Baldur's prophetic dream of his coming death, his mother's attempts to prevent it and his eventual downfall at the hands of his blind brother Hod (with a little help from Loki). He then subsequently can't be rescued from Hel, and only returns to life after Ragnarok has wiped the slate clean for the entire universe. That's all the Edda really has to say about Baldur, and it probably is mostly designed to be prophetic stories of things that will happen, rather than that have already happened; certainly Ragnarok was still considered to be in the future, so Baldur's death, which kicks the whole thing off, is likewise probably in the future as well. You could decide that maybe Baldur is already dead and Loki imprisoned at this point, and the actual Ragnarok events past that haven't yet happened, but there's really no evidence one way or the other.

But Baldur is in fact doing other things in Norse and Germanic mythology besides just dying, so we are here to tell you all about them! First of all, there's a snippet of mythology preserved in a ninth-century German manuscript commonly called the Merseburg Charms; it contains several small mentions of various mythological figures and ideas, including Baldur, who appears (under his later Germanic name Phol) in a tale in which he is riding through the woods with Odin when his horse sprains its leg and halts the company. Frigg, Odin and the sun-goddess Sol all sing healing charms over the horse to help put it back together, and then they go on their merry way. There's no real context for this story, since it was being related mostly as an example of the kind of charm the manuscript was recording, and Baldur doesn't do much in it but look anxiously on, but he is in fact there and doing things with other gods.

However, the real showstopper is the story of Baldur, Hod and Nanna from the Gesta Danorum. The work (which means "History of the Danes") is by Saxo Grammaticus, a crusty old Danish historian from the twelfth century, who despite being Christian himself collected a great deal of indigenous European mythology and folklore for purposes of history and storytelling (incidentally, he's also one of our major sources for Slavic myth, too!). Saxo's stories are even more heavily euhemerized than Snorri's, and he's prone to frequently reminding the reader that gods aren't real and the ancient pagans were stupid, and he theorizes that figures like Odin were probably magicians who simply fooled the populace into thinking they were gods and later passed into legend; but he also preserves some great stories about the continental Germanic interpretations of the Norse gods that aren't included in Snorri's purely Icelandic Edda. Baldur gets an entire chapter in the Gesta Danorum, one full of interesting mythological ideas and alternative interpretations of themes we also see in the Edda and oh man, is he a busy dude.

The hero of the story actually isn't Baldur (here Latinized as Balderus) at all; it's his half-brother Hod (Hotherus), who is not blind at all in this tale but rather a mortal warrior and prince who has been fostering with King Gevar of Norway. He is described as athletic, strong, skilled in all sorts of sports and kinds of combat, and also an accomplished musician and orator. While living with King Gewar, he falls in love with Nanna, Gewar's daughter and a fan of all his awesome skills (in fact, they make a point of saying she falls in love with him because he's awesome even though he isn't very handsome, probably because he can't compete with Baldur in handsomeness later), and the two of them become lovers and make plans to marry.

Unfortunately, at this point Baldur arrives to utterly screw everything up for everyone. Baldur - handsome and awesome at war, as he is generally depicted in Norse mythology - happens to be passing by one day and catches a glimpse of Nanna bathing, and also falls hopelessy in love with her. He decides that nothing and no one, including Hod, is going to stand in his way when it comes to getting her hand in marriage, and sets off to go present himself to her father and ask for her. Hod, who is out hunting at the time, runs into some mysterious "wood-maidens" (probably valkyries, since they identify themselves as magical ladies in charge of warfare), who warn him about what Baldur is up to and caution him not to attack him, since Hod is a mere mortal man while Baldur (as the son of Odin) is a demigod and therefore out of his league. (Of course, Saxo doesn't believe anybody here is a god and will continue telling you so, but he explains it by saying that since Odin and Thor are great magicians, they have taught their art to Baldur and Hod is still outclassed.)

Hod doesn't believe his brother would do that, however, and suspects that the valkyries are a hallucination, so he ignores them and goes about his day; but he's in for a rude shock when he goes home to Norway, formally requests permission from Gewar to marry Nanna, and is told that Baldur already beat him to the punch. King Gewar, who thinks of Hod as a son, explains that he's very sorry, but Baldur's a demigod and he can't defeat him or afford to piss him off, so there was really nothing he could do except agree to the match. However, he does tell Hod that while Baldur is completely invulnerable to harm (Saxo doesn't say why, but it's most likely a reference to the familiar myth of Frigg weaving spells to prevent anything from hurting him), he's heard that there's a magic sword called Mistletoe (aha!) that is the only thing in the world that can hurt him, so Hod could conceivably defeat him if he found that. The sword is in the keeping of a "wood spirit" (described by different translators as a satyr, troll or other beastie) named Miming (probably referring to Mimir the giant in Norse myth), who also possesses a ring that always multiplies its owners wealth and sounds suspiciously similar to Odin's Draupnir.

So Hod sets off on a giant cross-country quest via reindeer-sled because of course Miming lives in the frozen northern reaches, and after camping out outside the cave where the creature lives for a few days, finally manages to jump him when he comes out, knock him down and tie him up, and proceed to threaten him until he gives up the treasures. He then heads home to confront his brother, although he is somewhat hampered by several local kings continually attacking his fleet when they realize he has awesome relics they would like to steal, and having to make a detour to go help an ally of his who is under attack by another kingdom.

But Baldur has not been just sitting around waiting for Hod to get back all this time; having gotten tired of Gewar's bullshitting and stalling for time, he girds up for war and rolls his whole army up to Gewar's castle to demand that he give Nanna up already. Gewar, still trying to play for time in the hopes that Hod will show up, tells him that he'll have to get consent from Nanna herself first, so Baldur spends a few days wooing her and trying to convince her that he's awesome and she'll love being married to him and that Hod dude wasn't all that great anyway. Nanna, however, is having none of his shenanigans, and refuses to marry him, giving the excuse that he's a demigod and she's a mortal, so she doesn't think this marriage would work out anyway. She, too, plays for more time by spending a few days coming up with creative ways to turn Baldur down while he gets more and more frustrated.

At about the point where Norway is about to have to either hold a wedding or get conquered, Hod finally makes it back into town, and attacks Baldur's forces with his own, touching off a massive naval battle in the royal harbor. Baldur's not about to take this lying down, and he calls in the cavalry - Odin and Thor, who arrive to start laying waste to Hod's forces and generally enjoying their Courage Virtue all over the landscape. Hod's army is in danger of being routed, since Thor alone is taking out entire regiments with every swing, but Hod saves the day by diving into the fray, managing to get up close to Thor, and cutting off part of Mjolnir's handle, which upsets the other god so much that he withdraws and the battle ends in stalemate. (This is in contrast to the Icelandic story in which Mjolnir's handle is shorter than it should be because of problems in the crafting process, but it's clearly the same idea being presented, even though Saxo refers to the weapon as a club instead of a hammer.) Baldur has to retreat with Odin and Thor, so Hod takes advantage of this opportunity to finally go home and marry Nanna, who is very happy to see him, and the two of them move to Sweden where the local rulers have invited him to become king.

Baldur is not done throwing a raging tantrum over this, however, so he marshals together his army and marches on Sweden, where he decimates Hod's armies and forces his brother and Nanna to flee back to her father's castle in Norway. Baldur chases them with his army, creating magical springs for his men to drink from all along the way, but he is tormented by terrible nightmares of Nanna in his brother's arms and visions of how much she doesn't love him, which cause him to become crazier and crazier as well as taking a physical toll on him.

Hod, correctly assuming that he's going to get his ass kicked and his wife kidnapped if he doesn't get an army together quickly, runs to Denmark, where the previous king has recently died, and makes himself king there. His stability is short-lived, however, because while he's out visiting his Swedish lands, Baldur also arrives in Denmark, where the people realize that he's so awesome that they want to elect him king instead; Hod gets back in time to try to fight him for the crown, but is losing badly again in short order and once again has to run for it to avoid being captured or killed by Baldur's forces.

At this point, things are going so badly for Hod that he spends a while just wandering sadly in the wilderness, wondering how his life got to this point and what he could possibly do to try to fix things. While doing so, he runs into some mysterious magical women who live in a cave deep in the forest (Saxo says it's valkyries again, but their behavior makes them more similar to the Norns), who tell him to get his shit together because he is currently doing a piss-poor job of achieving his destiny. They remind him that he has magical Baldur-killing relics, and furthermore tell him that Baldur eats a magical food every day to keep him divinely strong (possibly a related myth to the idea of the Aesir eating the apples of Idun), and that if he can get hold of some of it, he can be on an even playing field with his enemy.

So Baldur and Hod go to war again, causing massive slaughter and destruction all over the Danish landscape, while Hod quietly spies on Baldur's camp and tries to figure out how to get some of this magical foodstuff that can help him win. He eventually successfully disguises himself as an unremarkable soldier and manages to sneak his way in, where he woos the three maidens (again, possibly the Norns?) in charge of Baldur's food with his skills as a musician and convinces them that they should help him. They still refuse to give him any of Baldur's food, since that would break their vows to help Baldur, but they do give him a belt and girdle that ensure that the wearer will be victorious (they aren't aware that they're actually talking to Hod, and think they're just helping some good-hearted soldier survive the daily bloodbath out there).

Finally sure of success and covered in magical relics and prizes, Hod manages to waylay Baldur on his way back to camp and stabs him fatally with Mistletoe before returning to his army. Baldur, who knows he is dying but still refuses to back down or admit defeat, continues to command his troops and forces them to carry him out into battle when he can't walk anymore, until finally he has a vision of Hel (Saxo calls her Proserpina, using the Roman goddess of death as a stand-in for the Norse one) telling him that he will be with her on the morrow (very similar to his prophetic vision of his death in the Edda). He dies the next morning after three days of misery from his wound, still feverishly dreaming of Nanna, and Hod is able to finally win the battle now that Baldur's forces are leaderless and in disarray. Denmark holds a massive nation-wide mourning period for their fallen leader, and after that the story continues on with the familiar tale of Odin raping Rind in order to give birth to Vali so that he can kill Hod and avenge Baldur's death.

So, to answer the second question up there, Baldur has War associated because he is the most warringest warrior ever to war. Baldur's answer to everything is to get an army and go administer a military beatdown upon whomever is upsetting him, and with the exception of the single battle in which he is forced to withdraw with Thor and Odin, he also always wins. Even when he was dying of his wounds, he continued commanding his forces to victory from a litter in the middle of the battlefield. He's hardcore.

While there are a lot of details in Saxo's account that are close to those in Snorri's (Thor wielding a mighty weapon with a shortened handle, "mistletoe" being the only thing that can hurt Baldur and so on), there are also various issues that definitely don't match up, leaving the field open for different Storytellers to have a lot of different interpretations of what happened here. Scion: Ragnarok takes the approach that all three of these Norse gods involved - Baldur, Hod and Nanna - were Scions, and that this battle over the woman both brothers loved took place while they were demigods and still active in the World. That interpretation then leaves everyone free to go on to Snorri's prophecies of doom without too much story conflict.

But it doesn't solve everything. The most glaring inconsistency is Nanna herself; in Saxo's account, she is in love with Hod and marries him, but in the Edda, she is described as Baldur's wife and there is no mention anywhere of any conflict over that arrangement. If they were all demigods when this happened, what changed between then and now to make her leave one brother for the other? Was it just that Baldur became irresistibly hot and charismatic and she couldn't help herself, leaving Hod destitute and unable to compete? Did Odin come in and lay down the law on behalf of his favorite son? What about Hod's blindness - when and how did he become blind, and is that involved at all? Was it a punishment for his acts against Baldur, or was it the result of some accident we don't know about, or even self-inflicted in despair after losing his wife? If Baldur did steal Nanna away from Hod at some point, does she still have feelings for her former husband, and how do they interact socially and politically? If Hod resents Baldur for taking his wife, how does he reconcile that with Baldur's incredible beauty and charm, and is he really totally innocent when it comes to killing Baldur with the mistletoe spear? Was Loki involved in Baldur's death at all, or was this finally Hod's revenge - or, if he didn't mean to kill his brother, what kind of effect would this second accidental murder that echoes the first have on him and Nanna? Is one story true and the other completely made up by someone else, and if so, which one is the true one? And if we believe Saxo and Hod truly killed Baldur when they were only demigods, how is he even alive again in the first place?

These myths do not fit neatly together, so the answers to those questions lie primarily with the Storyteller. We have definitely enjoyed exploring the relationship between Baldur, Nanna and Hod in our games and fiction, but even so there are still unanswered questions out there for any game to make a call on.

But Baldur himself is definitely doing more in Norse/Germanic myth than just dying. Even if he does do that spectacularly and with more frequency than pretty much anyone else.

From the Heart of the Vortex!

Today, we're clearing out a bunch of quick and easy answers! Blog attack, go!

Question: Would you use Larceny or Art/Science: Computer/Hacking for hacking?

Art (Computer), or, if you happen to have the Polymath boon, it would fall under Art (Modern). It's too specialized a skill to be done with plain old Larceny.

Question: Do improvements to relics always have to come from a crafter god, or can certain relics gain power through mythical events like their Scion owners gaining legend? For example, if a Scion defeated a powerful monster and gained a Legend dot, would her magic axe gain new abilities?

Relic improvements always need to come from Artistry within the game itself; you won't spontaneously gain new relic points from things you do, because that would be overpowered and difficult for a Storyteller to adjudicate (not to mention making people with Artistry have a purview that was way less useful). However, you gain new Birthright points when you become a Demigod and when you become a God, so you could have relics spontaneously gain dots at those jumps if you wanted to.

Question: Why doesn't Ra have Animal (Scarab)?

Because it's really Khepri, the scarab god, who has that association. Ra was syncretized with Khepri sometimes, where the beetle god was seen as Ra's aspect as the rising sun, but if we gave Ra associations for everyone he was ever syncretized with, he'd be Voltron.

Question: According to your posts, Hecate is still a titan (or at least very, very titanic). Does this mean she can't sire scions, or is she goddess enough to do so? Do her hypothetical kids have any side effects (showing up when scenting the titanic, gaining dark virtues etc) or are they just normal scions who might have to put up with some prejudice due to their heritage?

Hecate is a goddess for purposes of our games, and creates Scions normally as part of the Theoi. She is of Titanic lineage and occasionally called such in Greek mythology, but she's the same generation as Zeus' children and had a strong cult worship that made her close enough to humanity to be considered a god.

Question: What do Pakiy, Emamu and Stvaranje mean?

Etymological roots for all the Titanrealms can be found in this old post.

Question: Aura of Dread doesn't specify that it's only for Scions with Negative Epic Appearance, yet it is clearly the starting point for the Negative Knacks. Since it doesn't say "Negative only" does that mean an attractive Scion can still take that Knack? If I wanted my good-looking warrior Scion to still project a terrifying image on the battlefield, would that work?

No. Aura of Dread, like all the other knacks in the terrorizing tree, us usable by negative Epic Appearance only. It should say that, so we'll fix it, but it should also be pretty obvious, y'all.

Question: Are the Avatars going to get worked over with the boon revamp? Or is that a separate project?

It's a separate project, but one that we hope to work on soon, and we're talking about basic ideas for it while we work on the APP project.

Question: I was looking for how Sanctums worked, and found that your post from April 1, 2012 that said you were working on definite rules. Is that something thats progressing without a bar? has the project been demolished? up for vote? finished but not released?

It isn't being worked on at this particular moment, but we could certainly add it to the voting block if it's something you guys would like to happen sooner rather than later!

Question: Creatures are always lower legend than the scion. Does this also apply to Nahualli? I mean, they're YOU?

No. Nahualli are not Creature Birthrights and are not bound by that rule. They are a unique kind of Birthright all their own.

Question: Hello! If a Scion has a child as a Hero or Demigod, I know that the ichor would still flow from the grandparent and the grandparent will be able to activate the child, but what happens if the Demigod becomes a god - could they THEN activate their own child?

Yep, sure can.

Question: I was looking at your Perceptive Capacity table. Does it mean that the furthest any mortal can see is 12 yards (5 on the table)? That seems a little harsh to me, am I misunderstanding the rules?

You are, but that's okay, we explain it in this old post back here.

Question: Do the Aztecs have a legendary smith like Vølund or Hephaestus?

They do not; most of their armor and weapons were made of non-metal materials like obsidian and stiffened paper or cloth. They had artisans that performed goldsmithing (mostly for jewelry and ritual objects) and occasionally traded with their neighbors for bronze, but it wasn't an important enough style of crafting to merit its own deity.

Question: Do Fatebonds get the XP discount if the player has the appropriate Me PSP associated with a purview?

Yes, both the player and their Fatebonds get to buy (or unbuy) that purview at the lower rate thanks to Me.

Question: Do Empath auto-successes apply to Manipulation + Empathy rolls for lying?

Yes, they apply to anything that you roll Empathy for.

And that'll be it for now! Don't worry, we won't be doing a lot of these (we prefer the big in-depth posts!), but since the questionado has grown to a current maelstrom of 203, we figured we'd get a few of the quick ones out of the way.

Back into the fray!

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.

The Lord of Dodona

Question: Why does Zeus have Prophecy associated?

Because Zeus is a god with a giant prophetic cult in his honor! Check this out:

This is the theatre of the Oracle of Dodona, once one of the most famous oracles in Greece, second only to the Oracle of Delphi in importance to the ancient Greeks. Where Apollo was the oracular power behind Delphi, dispensing visions of the future to its famous prophetess, Zeus was the power of Dodona, and granted to his priests visions and portents of the future through visions, the movement of his sacred oak trees, and the practice of augury based on the flight of birds. His oracle was the oldest in Greece, said by several Greek writers to be the first place prophecies were ever given in the land, and was visited by people from all over the ancient world, who came for the god's revelations of the future and predictions about what they should do next. The oracle is most famously mentioned in Greek myth in the Argonautica, where the prophetic powers of the Argo itself are attributed to the fact that it was built with a splinter of wood from the prophetic tree of Dodona.

Basically, he has Prophecy for the same reason that Apollo does. Several Greek gods had prophetic cults, but few as powerful and iconic as the oracles of Dodona and Delphi. Those oracles' powers were believed to come straight from their patron gods themselves, who were sometimes said to actually physically go to the seat of their oracle and at other times merely to send them the visions they dispensed to their seekers. The words of the oracle are directly the words of the god who inspired them, so it is Zeus who gives the prophecies at Dodona, from his own oracular powers. Dodona wasn't his only oracle, either, although it was by far his most famous one.

We don't always give a god an association based purely on cult worship, but in this case, the cult was so strong and influential, and it was so firmly based on the idea of the god himself having that power, that it was totally an easy choice for us. Zeus is a prophetic god with one of the most famous and influential oracles of the ancient world, and strongly associated with other prophecies besides, and that's good enough for us!

All Abilities, All the Time

Okay, so this is last week's vlog, finally freed from the prison of John's video processing software. Please ignore all the business about the Secret Scion gift exchange, because obviously that was meant to mostly remind people to send us pictures last week. Also please ignore all the empty space above our heads in this video - I don't know what's up lately with all our vlogs being just the tops of our heads, but we promise we'll fix it.

As promised, this vlog is about abilities in a bunch of dimensions - so here we go!

Question: So, Arete. Massive lifting, dodge DV...you'd figure a hellacious Arete: Athletics would help these derived stats, but as written, seems not?

Question: So we know you'd pick Epic Strength and MAYBE Mystery as associated for Herakles. What would you choose for his six associated abilities?

Question: Could you explain the uses of Politics and Integrity (aside from your resistance roll)? I've always had trouble defining those.

Question: Scion is the only WW system not to have Subterfuge. Does this bug y'all? Do you use Empathy for lying to people? I hate that so.

Question: Would art restoration fall under Art, Craft or Science?

Question: Why does Hel have Medicine?

Question: I'm making an NPC scion who as a mortal practiced the martial art capoeira. In this instance, is it justifiable to use either Art (Dancing) or Brawl when making an attack? Or even combining them?

The other post about the Politics ability can be found here!

Apparently, a weird video cut (John was in charge of editing this, I would like to note) accidentally cut off our discussion of how Hel is not actually one of the Aesir and there are a lot of questions about who she is and what she represents, since she's both classified with the monsters but also treated as a goddess or at least an equal to the gods of Asgard, as well as being Loki's daughter. We're sorry about that, but it can always be a topic for another day!

Look Back

Question: Why does Hades have Epic Stamina associated?

We answered this one! It was in a vlog, though, so that may be why you didn't notice it. Check it out back here. :)

Socializing in the Sky

Are you guys ready for another session of marathon vlogs? Here they come! Today's is about politics and insanity among the gods, who never seem to have getting along near the top of their to-do lists.

Question: From a social perspective, what does it mean to the gods when one god has more associated purviews and/or Epics than another god?

Question: Would it be possible for a god, through either Fate-dickery or Magic or just sheer force of will, to change their modus operandi? I have a game idea that partially revolves around the idea of Odin abandoning his normal methods to try the novel approach of honesty and good faith in order to avert Ragnarok. Is this plausible?

Question: Can you elaborate on the relationship between the Yazata and the Deva? Why do they see each other as enemies?

Question: You always talk about gods leaving the World because of Fatebonds. Why did they stay in the first place? They would have known about Fatebonds during that time. Was the risk just worth the reward?

Question: Would it be accurate to say that pantheons that have more Virtues in common (such as the Aesir and Nemetondevos) would be on better terms with each other than those that have few in common (like the Anunna and Theoi)?

Question: Every god has a rivals and enemies listing on their page, but what does that MEAN to them? To be specific, Odin has enemies - does he hate them, or are they merely names on his "to kill list"? When you say a god has enemies, does that mean hatred and active attempts at murder and sabotage, or something less intense and more passive?

Question: I've got a Scion game coming up where all the PCs are either Kami or Teotl. I was wondering if you had any ideas for ways in which those two pantheons would interact, as I'm currently drawing a blank.

Just be nice, everyone. Is that so hard?!

Fortunate Sons

Question: What kinds of evidence suggest that a god has Magic associated for you guys? I think it's up there with Illusion as one of the hardest associations to pin down.

Magic can be hard. I wouldn't say it's quite as hard as Illusion - you do get a lot more myths that will outright say someone is a magician than will label someone an illusionist - but it's definitely one of the trickier ones.

One of the problems with Magic is that its name is used for a shitload of things in mythology and folklore, not all of which actually match up to what Magic, as a purview, really does in Scion. In Scion, Magic is the purview that involves manipulation of, controlling or interacting with Fate, that great and awesome web of predetermination and destiny that all Scions and gods are inextricably linked to. In the rest of the world, however, magic is used as a casual term for anything supernatural, from lycanthropy to love potions to fireballs to mind-reading and everything else you can possibly think of. In general terms, every purview and set of knacks in Scion is actually some form of magic, which can make it very difficult to untangle what's just magic and what's actually Magic.

So one of the first things to do is to ignore use of the word magic in myths and legends, because it doesn't mean the same thing there that it does in Scion. If a myth says someone is a magician because he can throw fireballs, that means he has Fire, not Magic. This confusion over terminology is one of the reasons that Magic is associated with seemingly random gods all over the landscape of the original books, because some writers gave it only to gods that actually needed to have it because they fuck around with Fate on a regular basis (Odin, for example) while others gave it to gods that were called "magician" a few times in their literature but didn't actually have any Fate connotations (Huitzilopochtli comes to mind here).

The easiest people to give Magic to as an association are always the luck gods. Gods who are heavily associated with luck, fortune or chance - usually either bestowing it or withholding it - are obvious users of Magic, because they directly control the Fate of a person by changing their fortunes for better or for worse. Gods like Lakshmi, Supay or the Norns obviously have Magic associated, because one of their most important roles as deities is the control and administration of the fates of others. It's not 100% foolproof, since once in a while there'll be a god of good fortune who is actually a Fertility god who just gets called that because he keeps the fields green or what have you, but most of the time the gods of luck are also gods of Magic.

When it comes to those who use Fate in less direct ways, however, things are trickier. Since we can't rely on the idea of magic in a swords-and-sorcery manner because that's everything in Scion's toolset, we have to look at what those gods are doing and how it relates to Fate in a less obvious but still meaningful sense. Gods who levy curses are often good candidates for Magic, because again they're directly affecting the fate of the person they turn their powers against; these are people like Tezcatlipoca, who can flick their fingers and change not just your life but your Fate forever. Gods who perform complex ritual spells (Baba Yaga, for example, or Isis) are another possibility since such rituals have long been mythological shorthand for magical powers that affect the fates of others, although as always you have to keep a sharp eye on what the results of those spells are and whether or not they might actually just be stunts in other purviews. Occasionally there will be a few gods who were said to directly participate in the creation of Fate or to oversee its administration in a cosmic sense, like the Arab fate-goddess Manat, and those are the easiest to spot but also the rarest creatures among Magic-users worldwide, since not every culture thinks about Fate the same way or conceives of a god needing to (or being able to) control it.

Like all association decisions, it's done on a case-by-case basis for each god who has it, and we have to use all those guidelines as well as our own judgment to make the final call. If we were rewriting the game, we'd probably name the purview something else to help avoid all this confusion; Magic's many extra connotations make it hard for people to conceptualize the purview, so we'd rather call it something more centered on the idea it represents. Calling it simply Fate would probably work, although it might cause confusion between Fate-the-purview and Fate-the-concept and be a bit simplistic since Prophecy and Mystery both involve Fate as well; Fortune would be my personal favorite vote for a purview renaming.

Extra! Extra!

Question: Let's say that tomorrow, some archaeologists came across some legitimate but crazy game changing evidence about a particular pantheon. For example, texts that suggest Sobek should have Illusion, or that Tezcatlipoca is a squirrel deity, or that Shamash was the true king of the Anunna. Would you try to implement these changes to the gods and pantheons involved, or would you deem them too ridiculous or upsetting to your current order and ignore them?

Well, first of all, "legitimate" is in the eye of the beholder. We'd have to really believe in whatever new piece of evidence's authenticity and religious importance; if there are questions about whether or not it's the genuine article or serious arguments over its translation, we'd probably hold off. We would, however, read everything we could get our hands on about it in the hopes of being able to make that judgment ourselves. We do have healthy egos about this kind of thing, after all.

But if it was a real and true archaeological source that made a strong case for Sobek to have Illusion, then yeah, absolutely, Sobek would gain Illusion. Part of the fun of Scion is of course in playing with the familiar figures of the gods, so it might be a little bit jarring for a while, but we'd also have a great time telling our players the new story of Sobek's illusionary antics and figuring out how he might now interact with his pantheon differently. Goodness knows we've made culturally jarring association decisions before (Loki not having Fire, for example), but the more stories, evidence and details we have about a god, the more meaty a portrait of them we can draw in game, which is always fun.

We tend to make this kind of change as a going-forward thing, so we probably wouldn't retcon Sobek into having done Illusion stuff in our games that he really didn't, but it would be added to his arsenal for the future; likewise, we wouldn't change his Scions' associations if they were already in play, because that wouldn't be particularly fair to them.

Power changes are easy, but your last example, Shamash being suddenly king of the Anunna, would be more of a thorny issue. Changes like that that would be seriously opposed to events and politics already in play would affect the players and the plot a lot more, so while we wouldn't necessarily ignore them, how we'd handle them would depend a lot on what exactly the new myth said and how we could work it into our current narrative. Maybe we'd need to say that Shamash is normally king of the Anunna but is letting Marduk take the reins right now while they're fighting the Titans, or that Shamash has been in charge the whole time but using Marduk as his proxy unbeknownst to the PCs (or Marduk himself, even), or that Shamash is king of a specific area or idea but not necessarily the whole pantheon and all its operations, or that Shamash was king once but was overthrown at some point during the events of our games, or whatever else makes sense.

What we don't want to do is tell our players, "Hey, everything you thought you knew/worked toward/politically accomplished was wrong, start over," because we learned something we didn't already know. It's the Storyteller's responsibility to make sure the story flows smoothly and draws on the appropriate sources to be a good ride, and that doesn't go out the window just because we realize we've made a mistake behind the scenes (and we do make those, even without new archaeological evidence, from time to time). No Storyteller can ever anticipate or remember everything, especially if nobody in the world even knows about it yet, but that just means that you have to be quick on your feet to figure out how to make that work within the game you already have. Tweaking, changing or anything else is always fine, but make sure your players don't suffer because of it.

Political Pantheon Party!

Aha! I bet you thought we forgot to vlog today, didn't you? Shows what you know! Not only did we remember, we actually did a whole pile of vlogs in one day, so that if we end up in a scheduling crunch in the weeks to come, you won't go without answered questions and our cheerful faces.

Question: What would you guys think of a game where Scions deal with a number of NPCs in the world bringing their pantheons back to prominance, all the while secretly guarding Zeus's "successor"?

Question: Why does Hades have Epic Stamina associated?

Question: I'm a little bit intrigued by the Orisha. It's crazy how everyone is married to everyone. How does that really work? Are they a big happy family or what?

Question: I'm STing a game and my scions (of Hel, Hades and Odin) are getting to God soon, and I need some ideas on how to make their rise to God memorable.

Question: My scion of Izanagi is finding himself being attracted to Amaterasu. He blames his attraction on being named the god of the moon (Tsuki-Yomi died), so is this argument valid? Also, should he be disgusted with himself since he is attracted to his sister? Would she be his full or half sister, since Izanagi created her and her brothers?

Question: Hey, I noticed that in your Eastern Promises and Gangs of New York games you only allow your PCs to pick four pantheons that actually had some level of cultural interaction. Just wondering if any other major pantheons on your site that could have that kind of thing going on, like say the Celtic pantheons, for instance?

Question: In your games, when and how did the gods learn that the Titans had escaped? Was there some big explosion in the Underworld? Did they simply slip out unnoticed until someone actually checked and saw that they had flown the coop?

Question: The Aztecs have a god of homosexuality despite their obvious dislike of the concept. How does the rest of the pantheon treat him?

Question: Norse vs. Borgovi? SWEET! But, say Loki tricked Thor and Perun into a room together - what would happen? A SPECTACULAR light show, or lots of drinking? OR something else?

Question: Power and responsibility go hand in hand. And with every great decision comes regret. Regret for what could have been, should have been, and what ultimately was. What do the gods regret?

Today's vlog is about gods, pantheons and related issues of their politics and powers. Happy viewing!

Remember Me

Question: The Bogovi pantheon tree in your site says Pereplut (Perpelut?) is the god of memories. All I found was the dude as the goddess of wine.

Poor Slavic mythology! Finding anything out about it is like trying to get through a carnival funhouse. There are so many conflicting sources, confused pieces of scholarship and downright up-front wrong modern ideas about it that getting anything you can solidly say is legitimate is a long and frustrating road. Believe you me, we went nuts trying to get solid soucing for Slavic mythology when we were working on the Bogovi; they have no written records from the time of their worship, there was heavy syncretization with Christianity once writing did come to the area, and modern Slavic neopaganism has, not to put too fine a point on it, made up a lot of shit.

But luckily for us, Pereplut actually wasn't one we were concerned about being too inaccurate (although we did not have a lot of information on him, which is why we're not considering him Legend 12). The portrayal of Pereplut as god of memory comes from Ivan Hudec's Tales from Slavic Myths, an unfortunately expensive and hard-to-get resource published in Slovakia by their former Minister of Culture. It relates that Pereplut is the god of memory, has a "loud and irrepressible laugh", and is the brother of Chernobog and Byelobog, whose antics he regards with some amusement. (Chernobog and Byelobog aren't up with the other sons of Svarozhich on the tree because of space constraints, but as a general rule, most Slavic gods that don't have other parentage mentioned somewhere were probably created by Svarozhich.)

I see a few internet sites out there that are talking about a Slavic goddess of drinking named Pereplut, but frankly I don't know of any sourcing for that (and none of them try to give any). Other possibilities I have seen about Pereplut - usually theoretical ones, but sometimes we have to take what we can get with Slavic myth! - include some scholars who theorize that he might be another form of Perun (because of the similar names) or the Simargl (because of his name sometimes appearing with hers), some who think he might have some agricultural connections based on the other gods he's invoked with but who have no actual proof of that, and one Bulgarian folk source that suggests he might have been a god of soil and the fertility of the earth. But these are largely conjecture, and whether or not any of them are appropriate is entirely up to a given game's preferences.

By the way, Charles Graves does relate a folk tradition of drinking from a horn during worship of Pereplut, which is probably where someone got the idea that he must be a god of wine. Considering that the Slavs didn't really do much wine, however (they were a mead people most of the time) and that drinking horns are featured in the worship of several of the other Bogovi, most notably Svantovit, I wouldn't jump to any crazy conclusions based only on that.

It's worth noting here that, when you're out there trying to figure out what the hell the ancient Slavs were doing, that they were spread out over a wide range in ancient Europe and were not always doing the same thing in all areas. Chors is a good example; in western Slavic lands (southern Germany, Slovakia, Croatia and so on), she was firmly viewed as the gentle and beautiful moon goddess, victim of Stribog's cruel mistreatment, but in eastern Slavic lands (especially Russia), she was much more strongly connected to the sun and the dawn, racing Slavic heroes in myths where they need to beat the morning to succeed. Slavic gods covered a lot of territory and, as Dvoeverie would suggest, often borrowed things from neighboring cultures and made them their own, so it's seldom that you have a god who isn't at least a little different from place to place. It's theoretically totally possible for a Bogovi god to be revered as the female patron of one idea in one part of the Slavic lands, and the male patron of a totally different idea in another, and nobody would get too bent out of shape about that.

Personally, we would not recommend going with the female-wine-fertility version of Pereplut, simply because we don't see any reputable sources to back it up and it's therefore probably part of the vast soup of messy modern pagan nonsense that surrounds the Bogovi on a daily basis. But then again, this is Scion, so you can always play with the possibilities when it comes to Fatebonds, Dvoeverie and the gods themselves trying out new things.

The Ladies' Gallery

Question: Sigyn, Sága, Snotra, Sjöfn, Fulla, Lofn. If you had to give these nice ladies a couple of associated powers, what would they be?

Poor lesser Norse deities. In another pantheon that had more major gods or more stories and material, they probably wouldn't be noticed all that much, fading into the background, but thanks to the combination of fairly small amount of mythology and centuries of intense mythological scrutiny, they've been analyzed half to death. There are more scholarly theories about what's going on with Fulla than there are for entire other religions. Them Germans and their Enlightenment.

Your list of goddesses is pretty much entirely Legend 9, and in some cases it's a struggle even to come up with the one association they probably have, but we can still take a crack at it!

Sigyn is Loki's wife; we know she's a goddess because the Edda tell us so a couple of times, but we have no evidence of cult worship for her or stories that involve her actions, so it's hard to assign her an association. Literally her only action ever in Norse mythology is to attempt to save her husband by catching the venom that drips into his eyes and burns him, which she does from the time he is imprisoned until he is released at Ragnarok. In light of that, we would say she probably has Guardian, not to mention a massively active Loyalty Virtue.

Frankly, I've always thought it was a pretty good bet that Saga is just a different epithet of Frigg's, based on the fact that her only appearances are in connection with Odin and there are parallels between her and things already described about Frigg, but if you want to play her as separate, I'd probably go with Perception as her one association. Her name means "seer", after all, although you could also interpret that as having Mystery or Prophecy, depending on the spin you want to put on her.

Like Sigyn, the only reason we know Snotra is a goddess is because she's listed as one; she doesn't do anything in Norse mythology and is mentioned a stunning total of twice ever, neither time taking any actions. Her name means "clever", so we would probably go with Intelligence as her association.

Sjofn and Lofn are even less distinct; they also appear only in lists of goddesses and kennings using their names seem to refer generally to women with no other firm connotations. Sjofn is described as "turning the minds of men and women to love", while Lofn is said to have permission to make marriages, even if they're forbidden or the dowries aren't working out right. There's still no love purview in Scion, but from those descriptions, we'd say Manipulation for Sjofn and Charisma for Lofn are probably the best fits.

Finally, Fulla, who is the only goddess on your list who actually goes out and does stuff! She works for Frigg (and is called her sister at least once, so if you consider Frigg a Vanir goddess, Fulla would be, too), carrying messages, sharing confidences, healing animals and so on. She's not up to the level of the real heavy hitters like Frigg or Freya, but she clearly has some mysterious importance here that makes her worthy of constant inclusion and notice from the other gods, and we actually think she might even be up to Legend 10 since she's clearly a cut above the other ladies on this list. Manipulation seems like a natural fit for her thanks to her ability to convince others on Frigg's behalf and to keep Frigg's secrets, and if you need a second, Psychopomp for her traveling and message-bearing roles or Appearance for the description of her golden face in Skaldskaparmal might work.

By the way, Scion: Ragnarok suggests that most of the handmaidens of Frigg are not real goddesses at all but merely other aspects of herself, including Sjofn, Snotra and Lofn, and suggests that she has the Co-Location boon in order to pull it off. This is one of those places where Scion decided that a mythological idea was too obscure and instead came up with a game spin on it. Sometimes we hate that, especially when it's a spin that doesn't make a lot of sense, but in this case we think it's a fine approach - Frigg's notoriously crafty, and since those other goddesses don't have a lot in the way of personalities themselves, nothing's really being lost and the added idea of Frigg running a shell game is pretty fun. But they can also be run as goddesses in their own right, albeit obscure ones, who are awaiting interaction from your band of Scions to become important and gain myths of their own.