Hearts and Flowers

Hey, everyone! Here's a special Valentine's Day-themed vlog, because we are, as always, totally in love with love.

Question: Have you ever had a virgin goddess break her chastity in your games? If so, how did it happen and were there any consequences for the goddess and/or her lover?

Question: Which gods and goddesses do you "ship" as in having a likely romantic relationship that was not particularly seen in their texts?

Question: In honor of Valentine's Day, can you tell us about some of your favorite romantic relationships in the games that you've played/run?

For those who were watching this space eagerly hoping for site updates instead, don't despair - I believe we will have something ready for release next week (although if we fall off a cliff before then, please don't hate me). See you then!

Fighting the Good Fight

Iiiiit's vlog time! Today we have those fancy new lights and I look less like a zombie, but I'm also on pain drugs so I sound a little bit more like a crazy person than usual. Trade-off. Next week I hope to be more functional, and of course John is here being a helpful rock of sanity.

Today's questions are on a bunch of topics including Titans, relics and politics, but they're all about the greater world of Scion at large. So here we go!

Question: In your games, I'm assuming that the gods are very much besieged on all sides by Titanrealms and Avatars aplenty, and the corebooks make a point of saying how Avatars have to stay in their realms most of the time to avoid being rebound. My question is, if the terrifying nature of the Titanrealms is what is preventing various pantheons from attacking them en masse, what is it that's preventing Avatars from doing the same to the gods? Do Overworlds (and Underworlds, I guess) have similar built-in defenses?

Question: Why do relics bite when not bound to you? There seem to be multiple myths where people take each others' weapons and use them, and I can't name any where that has actually damaged the person (without the involvement of a curse/geasa).

Question: How do you deal with gods that have unique powers that don't seem to fit in with any of the purviews? The best examples I can come up with are mostly from the Deva. For example, Shiva's "Destructo-Eye?" The guy opens his third eye and shit just blows up! How does one make that happen in Scion? For that matter, Shiva and Kali are both known for their destructive dances wherein they dance and the world just starts to fall apart. How do these things work in your system?

Question: How would you represent Diomedes in Scion, given how he's Mr. "I'm totally a mortal man but I'm so badass that I fuck up Scions and gods alike, and then Athena made me into a god when I died?" I mean, the dude got in a fight with *Ares* and kicked his ass!

Question: I've been doing some (admittedly small) amount of research into the Orisha. Is Courage really a valid Virtue for them? They certainly talk a big game, but most of their conflicts are tricks and pranks against each other rather than huge monsters (compare to the Theoi). At the same time, they seem to highly value Intellect. Particularly with Orunmila.

Question: Could the Olympic Games have been a Birthright? It may sound stupid, but you've discussed relic songs before, and your Birthright PDF has a Shinto shrine for the Kami. Could Zeus have gotten some cool bonuses when mortals dedicated their great victories in his honor?

Question: This might be a weird question, but what are the likely consequences (politically) when a Titan (and its Avatar) manages to overpower a pantheon?

Question: How do you guys feel about the idea of making Titanrealms a one-per-purview deal? Currently I'm having to choose between one realm per pantheon (where the realms don't match up to purviews, e.g. the Kami opposed by the realm of corruption) and one per purview (e.g. the kami are opposed by Izanami as a death titan but the realm itself is split between them and the K'uh), and I can't decide which I prefer. What do you think?

Question: So my game master is most likely planning to have my character's godly parent marry her away as part of inter-pantheon politics. I know how common a practice that has been through time; is that something you have dealt with before? I'd like to know more about how the gods use their children in the politics game now that it has expanded so much since the start of the war.

Question: So, among a handful of us, "Goddamnit, Stribog" has become a touch memetic. What the chuffing hell is he doing?

Oh, Stribog. I know the players hope you never change.

Lines of Love

Question: Given that sources identify both Tsuki-yomi and Takamimusubi as Amaterasu's consort, how reasonable an explanation is "she was married to both of them, but at separate times?" Or is there some factor that makes that too easy an answer for mythology? (Every time I try to slog through the Nihon Shoki, I pass out and wake up with my cat chewing on my hair...)

But wait, it gets better! Some scholars also believe that Amaterasu's consort may have originally been her other brother, Susanoo, in pre-Kojiki myth, but that this connection fell out of favor and was later replaced by her more famous consort relations. This is mostly based on their joint relation to the later important imperial bloodlines of Japan and their close relationship before his banishment, but it's also more than a little conjecture, so feel free to ignore it if it's giving you even more of a headache than usual.

If you want to go strictly by the texts, Tsukuyomi is the only one officially named as Amaterasu's consort; no one ever outright says she has a formal relationship with Takamimusubi. Takakmimusubi is definitely around, though, and constantly involved with Amaterasu; he calls councils for her, acts as her advisor during them, jointly bestows gifts upon her grandson Ninigi when he goes forth into the World, negotiates with Okuninushi for the disposition of the earth at her side, and generally seems attached to her hip whenever matters of state are at hand. Of course, he could just be a really awesome vizier/seneschal who knocks it out of the park on advising her, but there are moments when he seems almost on an equal level of power with her, or at least able to speak on her behalf. There are also several textual clues that suggest their closeness, including the fact that Amaterasu's son and Takamimusubi's daughter marry in order to give birth to Ninigi; neither's extra parent is ever mentioned, and the Kojiki already has an established pattern of sibling marriage among gods that could be continued here. The emperors of Japan are therefore also descended from both Amaterasu and Takamimusubi, although it's more often the sun goddess who is remembered as their imperial patron in modern times.

Much of the theory of the two being consorts comes from ancient cultural evidence, which is by necessity not very exact because a lot of it involves anthropologists drawing conclusions from scarce evidence or trying to reconstruct ancient thought patterns. Amaterasu's position as the ruler of the cosmos in an otherwise strongly male-dominated pantheon and culture has been debated for centuries; nobody denies that she's in charge, but there's a healthy debate over how that happened, what it means and why her image as a female who is the greatest among powers doesn't translate to a more even-handed treatment of women in the rest of her culture's myths. One of the leading theories is that Amaterasu is a holdover from very ancient religion, before Shinto was codified, written down and officially instated as the country's dominant religion; in such ancient times, communities were co-ruled by a priestess who wielded all the religious power and a politician-consort who wielded all the temporal power. The priestess was the major figurehead, spokesperson and charismatic power, making proclamations backed up by the clout of the gods, while the politician was in charge of advising her on decisions and supporting her to present a unified front to any malcontents. It's not hard to see why some scholars of Japanese history think this is where Amaterasu's power over the pantheon comes from: she may be a vestige of a time when that priestess-politician dual rulership was the norm, and therefore she is the driving power of the pantheon while her politician spouse, Takamimusubi, supports and enhances her.

If you want to consider her to have been married to both of them - and I don't see why you wouldn't, since despite the lack of direct evidence of Takamimusubi we think it's a neat theory and a reasonable mythological choice - you could certainly claim that she married the one after divorcing the other. Timelines in the Nihon Shoki are hard to really pin down, but her spectacular falling-out with Tsukuyomi over the death of Uke Mochi might have marked the end of her first marriage (also to a male consort who perhaps acted in that political capacity for her), whereupon she instead took on Takamimusubi as her consort instead. If you want to throw Susanoo in there, too, you could say that she went from Tsukuyomi, who she banished for angering her, to Susanoo, who she banished for angering her, to Takamimusubi, who presumably tries pretty hard not to anger her if he can help it.

It's not a strong theory (i.e., there's really not much evidence aside from theoretical comparisons to other nearby peoples in Asia, most notably the Ainu), but a few scholars also believe that the ancient matriarchal Japanese culture might have allowed polyandry, the marriage of more than one man to the same woman, in the same way that much later Japanese culture allowed men to have multiple wives. If you like that theory, Amaterasu could have more than one consort at a time without breaking a sweat, just as later Japanese emperors kept multiple concubines.

Double Vlog! Two Times Vlog!

Don't get too used to two vlogs in one week - as you can see from the bag under our eyes, we're some tired people. But not too tired for some awesome questions from the mailbag!

Question: I love the Axiom Intelligence knack, but I hardly ever see anyone else use it. It got me thinking: what are some of your favorite underused or underrated powers?

Question: Outside of your games - what with one killing the other and all - how would you describe the relationship between Ra and Horus?

Question: In regards to the Anunna PSP of Me, I noticed that the second-level boon, Direction of Me, lists all the abilities but Brawl is the only one not represented. Is this intentional?

Question: An Aztec Scion marries an Egyptian Scion. How would this affect both pantheons? This is based on my own Quetzalcoatl Scion and his marriage to a Scion of Bastet.

Question: What Aztec gods might have Virtues other than the plain old Aztec ones?

Question: Have you guys ever considered adding a third level of power above the Divine and the Titanic, like the Protogenoi of Greece? This would be a category for vast comic deities like Olodumare or Ophion. It seems dissonant to me that a being like Olodumare and one like Uke Mochi or Hestia are on the same power level.

Hopefully someday soon we'll be slightly caught up, and you guys won't have to wait a month to see your questions make it to the blog in some form.

Lord and Lady

Question: What does Zeus think of Hera? There's lots to work with on how to characterize how Hera views their marriage, but what does Zeus think of it? Does he love her but is the king of the gods so he can do whatever, or is it an empty marriage or... what?

Zeus, we assume, is extremely fond of Hera. There are several myths in which his love for his wife, from before he married her on throughout their stormy relationship, is very obvious and potent. It's easy for us to assume that he must not care about her very much since he's in a constant state of cheating on her and upsetting her, but his behavior isn't necessarily a good barometer for his feelings. Even dudes nowadays can tell you that they sometimes make bad choices without that meaning they don't love their significant others, and Zeus is from a time period and culture that wouldn't have thought a male being unfaithful was that big a deal.

Three myths spring immediately to mind as good indicators of Zeus being pretty over the moon for Hera, despite his habit of banging whomever he runs into on his morning stroll. The first is that of his courtship and marriage to her, during the ancient days of the war against the Titans; smitten by her beauty (because, you guys, Hera is seriously one of the most bootylicious ladies of the pantheon), he tried to convince her to marry him, but once she realized that the kisses and hugging were getting out of brotherly territory, she rejected him. Undaunted, he turned himself into a cuckoo and hung out outside her window until she noticed the bird and brought it inside to be her pet. He then resumed his normal form for sexytimes, as Zeus is generally wont to do, and Hera, being a goddess of marriage and feminine propriety, then married him to legitimize their union, which was said to be consummated with a three-hundred-year stretch of passionate lovemaking. Of course, Zeus pulls this kind of thing on a lot of ladies who are otherwise not interested in his constant botherment, but Hera is the only one that he married and brought to rule Olympus with him.

The interlude during the Trojan War in which Hera, seeking to distract Zeus from shenanigans going on down on the field, seduces him is another example of him being obviously all about his wife. She definitely has ulterior motives, but even so all she has to do is show up being her fabulous self and say she's going to go visit her foster mother and Zeus is immediately all, "Okay, yeah, but have you considered having sex before you go, you know, one for the road?" I've quoted his speech from The Iliad here before, but I'm doing it again because I love it and it's my blog:

"Then in answer spake to her Zeus, the cloud-gatherer: 'Hera, thither mayest thou go even hereafter. But for us twain, come, let us take our joy couched together in love; for never yet did desire for goddess or mortal woman so shed itself about me and overmaster the heart within my breast--nay, not when I was seized with love of the wife of Ixion, who bare Peirithous, the peer of the gods in counsel; nor of Danaë of the fair ankles, daughter of Acmsius, who bare Perseus, pre-eminent above all warriors; nor of the daughter of far-famed Phoenix, that bare me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthys; nor of Semele, nor of Alcmene in Thebes, and she brought forth Heracles, her son stout of heart, and Semele bare Dionysus, the joy of mortals; nor of Demeter, the fair-tressed queen; nor of glorious Leto; nay, nor yet of thine own self, as now I love thee, and sweet desire layeth hold of me."

It's not entirely smooth to try to flatter your wife by telling her that you want her even more than all the other people you've ever cheated on her with while listing them all by name, but we can see that he's trying. (And he wonders what she's always so annoyed about.)

The final and probably strongest myth that we usually bring up when discussing Zeus and Hera is the one of their near-divorce, because no other story so strongly illustrates Zeus' attachment to her. Having finally had all she could take of his infidelity, Hera officially left Zeus and moved away to live on her own mountain away from him. Were this an empty marriage that just gets in the way of Zeus' sex life, this would have been a good time for him to go see if he could start up a live episode of Olympus Gone Wild, but instead he was extremely upset over her departure and moped in his misery until finally begging Kithaeron (a mountain-god who is probably an alternative persona of Dionysus) to tell him how to get her back. Following his advice, he staged an elaborate mock wedding to a new bride (who was really just a wooden statue wearing bridal robes), and when Hera appeared, furious over this new insult, he convinced her to come home and founded a festival in honor of their reconciliation.

And it goes without saying that Zeus' response to other dudes with an interest in Hera is usually violent in the extreme. Ixion ended up lashed to a wheel for the rest of eternity for trying to hit on Hera, and when one of the Gigantes attempted to rape her, Zeus thunderbolted his skull in twain with no trial or appeal.

All this doesn't mean they don't have problems, of course; Zeus' philandering is a constant source of fighting and heartbreak, and both of them have occasionally turned their formidable tempers on one another, Zeus hanging Hera from the ceiling for defying him or Hera helping the other Olympians briefly imprison him for his misbehavior. Because they're both the highest authority in the pantheon and both Justice gods to boot, they're the only controls who can really affect and check one another.

But despite all their monumental disagreements and obvious issues, they also complement one another perfectly and clearly care about each other as husband and wife, not just gods who occupy neighboring space. Zeus is pretty much all about Hera (during the moments when she isn't mad at him, anyway), who is the only woman of equal power, majesty and beauty able to handle him.

Ptah and Sekhmet: marrital bliss

So, Ptah and Sekmeht. Whats up with them? They a happy couple or is it merely a duty to him or...what?

They might be pretty happy. I mean, they both have positive aspects about themselves. Id say they're probably as happy as most ancient couples. Ptah gets a hot sexy lady who is probably a lion in the sack, and sekhmet gets...you know a dude that marries her and....ancient cultures suck, Im sorry. But ptah seems like a pretty cool dude, like she isnt married to set or worse....khepri.

Goin' to the Chapel

Question: Did Ishtar ask Gilgamesh to be her husband before or after she was married to Tammuz? Because going off the story order as written in your write-up, it was after she was married to Tammuz.

Yep, it sure was. In fact, Gilgamesh refers to her love affair with Tammuz while he's turning her down, telling her that marrying her is a bad idea for everyone and citing the example of how she's condemned Tammuz, the husband of her youth, to being stuck in the Underworld for half the year. In fact, check out his brutal assessment of her treatment of Tammuz on the sixth tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh:

Of the beautiful shoulder and hand,
Tammuz, the lover of your earliest youth,
for him you have ordained lamentations year upon year!
You loved the colorful 'Little Shepherd' bird
and then hit him, breaking his wing, so
now he stands in the forest crying "My Wing"!...
You loved the Shepherd, the Master Herder,
who continually presented you with bread baked in embers,
and who daily slaughtered for you a kid.
Yet you struck him, and turned him into a wolf,
so his own shepherds now chase him
and his own dogs snap at his shins.

Dude is having none of it.

However, Ishtar being previously married to Tammuz doesn't necessarily mean that she couldn't marry Gilgamesh here as she suggests. For one thing, it's entirely possible that her marriage to Tammuz may not "count" during the winter months; he's dead, after all, and she therefore a widow and eligible to bang whomever she wants until he comes back and their marital connection is restored. In fact, despite the highly popular story of her romance with and marriage to Tammuz, Ishtar is also often said to be married to Anu, the great sky-god of the Anunna pantheon, apparently without there being any conflict (although in the Epic of Gilgamesh she's called Anu's daughter... but then again, that may be poetic, as her status as daughter of Sin is fairly well-established elsewhere in the mythology).

Perhaps most importantly, Ishtar is the goddess of love and sexytimes and fucking things up, so she probably has no problem whatsoever breaking rules about those things when it suits her. After all, the people who would try to stop her are fucking terrified of pissing her off, to the point where they actively enable her crusade against Gilgamesh; she's probably right to believe that nobody's going to stop her from marrying as many dudes as she wants.

It may also be worth noticing that when Ishtar says "marry me", she may also be speaking symbolically. She might not mean marry in the usual sense but rather be suggesting a sexytimes union of an impermanent nature, or even the priest-goddess sacred marriage that some Mesopotamian cults occasionally practiced, with Gilgamesh standing in as the priest thanks to his mortal blood. Or she might just mean "I want to bang". She's a mysterious lady.

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.

Affairs of the Heart (of the Forest)

Question: So did Sverrir ever end up marrying anyone?

Not yet. And he'd better get on that shit, because he promised to hand over his first daughters of a legitimate marriage to the Pesedjet, and they are not going to wait forever for him to start busting those out.

Sverrir actually technically had the opportunity to marry the Morrigan on the eve of Ragnarok. He was descended upon by emissaries from the Amatsukami, Pesedjet and Tuatha de Danann, all looking to turn his kingly bachelor status to their advantage, and the Pesedjet made the deal to get his first legitimate daughters while the Tuatha demanded that he immediately father some sons on the Morrigan (they're pretty pissed off at the Aesir and Vanir right now, for reasons which are too lengthy to go into but are mostly Woody's fault, and they were demanding a little compensation for their heartbreak). It was suggested that if he just went ahead and married the Morrigan, he'd be able to kill two birds with one stone, but for some reason he just wasn't down with marrying the psychotic murdertrain of a goddess that rolled in and raped him into unconsciousness in the middle of diplomatic talks. Go figure.

So he dodged that bullet, but no special lady has stepped forward to seize the heart of the king of Vanaheim since. This isn't very surprising, since he's spending almost all his time fighting off enroaching armies from Ourea who threaten his realm, and there are pretty much no living Vanir women left so he's unlikely to meet anybody unless he leaves home now and then. The Norse divine population is severely depleted after Ragnarok, so it seems likely that he will end up making a political alliance with some other pantheon, but Will isn't exactly Mr. Congeniality so there are no volunteers stepping up to the plate right now.

It's been pointed out to Sowiljr that, as god of marriage, he really ought to fix Will up with somebody advantageous to everyone, but so far he's procrastinating. In the meantime, who do you guys think would be the best match for everyone's favorite cranky Vanir pain in the ass? Go wild!

Wives and Lovers

Question: What is the current situation between Jioni, Erebus, and Nyx?

There is no situation, actually. Jioni and Nyx have never met one another, and it's extremely likely that Nyx isn't even aware that Jioni exists.

Some time ago, near the end of their Demigod career, Geoff's band visited Erebus and were told by him that Nyx had gone rogue. He claimed that she had reacted badly to his decision to side with the gods and was attempting to defect to become an Avatar of Comprenion in order to consider opposing them; when the band went out into Erebus to find her, they discovered her opening a massive portal into what did indeed appear to be the Titanrealm of Fate. On Erebus' orders (with the sanction of the Dodekatheon to obey him), the band attacked Nyx and managed to overcome her through a combination of the element of surprise, Geoff's overwhelming and mind-confusing appearance, Goze's massively epic Mighty Curse shutting off some of her powers and Sangria's and Marcus' bone-pounding brawn. After knocking Nyx out and binding her with relic bindings, the band turned her over to Erebus, who informed them gravely that due to her uncontrollable insistence on fighting the gods, he would be personally consigning her to Tartarus. No one saw her again.

Fast forward about a year, and Erebus, brooding and on the rebound, happened to notice Jioni while she was Psychopomp-blasting through Antarctica on her way to go pick up the rest of her band and deliver them to their next mission. He was smitten, stalked her for a little while, and eventually proposed to her, which came as something of a shock to her since she had never met him before he turned up with a darkness ring. But he was persuasive and she decided to give him a shot, and the rest is history (or mythology, eh?).

Nyx was long gone before Jioni came on the scene, so the two have never crossed paths and know pretty much nothing about one another (although I'm sure Jioni and her piles of Academics and Occult knows that she had a predecessor, if not what happened to her). It's unlikely that Nyx will ever come into contact with Jioni unless she somehow escapes her prison, but if her fearsome reputation is anything to go by, she'd probably have a predictably nasty Greek temper about it if she did. Some of Nyx's many Titanic children, including Hypnos, Thanatos and Charon, have met Jioni but seem cool at best toward their much younger stepmother.

Alas, the course of true love never did run smooth.

Prince and Princess of Darkness

Question: So how is the marriage between Erebus and Jioni going, nowadays? Can we maybe get any snippets?

Since it went so well when we had Sowiljr's player come in last time to answer questions about his marriage to Eztli, we figured we'd continue the trend by asking Jioni's player to guest-blog us an answer to this question about the bonds of holy matrimony between New Orleans' most eligible former bachelorette and the king of primordial darkness. Hit it!

Jioni and Erebus have a pretty great relationship based on mutual support, affection, and lots of banging.

Vivian fell into the traditional wife role relatively easily, which was sort of surprising even to me. Part of this may be due to the perks and security that come from being the queen of a titanrealm. She's got quite the likable personality, so Erebus often gives her her own way. His subjects help her out when she asks. People call her "Your Highness" and "Queen of Darkness" and other appropriate honorifics, and she really enjoys that, though she's still not used to throwing her queenly weight around outside of Keku (except for that one time that accidentally led to the onset of Ragnarök...)

She is honest with those close to her - sometimes brutally so - and she makes no apologies, but as a wife to a Greek titan she has learned that sometimes it's best to play dumb or be optimistic in the face of doom for the good of her husband. She's no wet noodle, but she cares enough about Erebus to put his feelings before her own when he needs a "yes, dear."

The success of their relationship is important to Vivian on a political level as well as a personal one. There are a lot of problems within the Loa right now, and she certainly hasn't made any friends since Ragnarök. She's rightfully worried about her place within her own pantheon, but as Erebus' wife, she has a backup. She's doing her best to work herself into Hera's good graces (does Hera even have those?) and to make friends within the Dodekatheon. Erebus is currently trying to do the same with Zeus in an attempt to become a legit god, so it's a journey they are taking together, in a way. It's slow going at the moment, since her band always seems to NEED her, but it's coming along.

I feel I should also mention that their relationship is still quite physical, and that Vivian has been pregnant for a very long time. I am sort of scared to see what kind of wretched titanspawn she will come to bear, but I'm sure horrifically creepy darkness babies won't be enough to shake the strong foundations of Jioni and Erebus' marriage.

There you go. Marriages to other Scions, gods or mortals are fraught with emotional peril, but apparently tying the knot with a Titan is a one-way ticket to bliss.

An Innocent Man

Question: I was wondering - what would happen if Nemesis met someone who she couldn't say has committed a sin? And an additional question, if that's alright: from what I've read, there's been marriages between Titans and gods, in the games you've run - could something like this open up that possibility, for a PC interested in Nemesis?

Keep in mind here that it is not me being an inflexible and crazy bitch; it's Nemesis. Because the answer to that is "It wouldn't happen, because no one exists who hasn't committed a sin."

Remember that this is a sin by Nemesis' standards, which are broad and dangerously accepting, and that the degree of the sin doesn't matter. Jaywalked? Exceeded the speed limit by one mile? Stole a cookie from your sister when you were three years old? Were part of any religion other than worship of the ancient Greek gods? Congratulations, you have committed a punishable crime and all the fury of her Justice boons can rain down upon you, regardless of how severe the original infraction was or whether or not anyone was hurt by it. The lives of even normal, non-heroic humans are built of a multitude of tiny sins, petty crimes and overlooked mistakes; Scions, who have to make tough decisions and often break the law in the name of the greater good, are that much dirtier by Order Titans' standards. Nemesis doesn't care if it hurt anybody, or if it was an accident, or if it wasn't a big deal. That's why she's a Titan, because she cares about the letter of the law to a shocking, violent degree, not the spirit behind whatever you might have done.

The only saving grace anybody has when dealing with Nemesis is that it might take a little while for her to figure out what exactly it is that you're guilty of, so she can dump Judgment on you and then pull the pain train out of the station. If, somehow, you manage to live a Jesus-like life free of any and all misbehavior (okay, Jesus is not a great example, what with the throwing tables on the floor and all, but you get the idea), you're still living on miserably borrowed time, because you'll inevitably do something that she can slam you for, and Nemesis is always watching if you're near her. Always. She wants to punish the shit out of you, because that's what she does. The minute you accidentally drop a sandwich receipt in a public place, your ass is in Psychic Prison for the next fifty years.

Remember, also, that Nemesis has Code of Heaven, which means that she doesn't really have to care too much about getting you for breaking any of your local laws or the laws of wherever the two of you are standing right now. Hubris means that any time she thinks you've been uppity to anyone above your station (which probably includes her, so good luck with that), she's got you. Disrespect toward the gods is also punishable, which means that almost everyone who either A) believes in a monotheistic religion or B) doesn't believe the Dodekatheon exist is guilty, even if they've since realized their error. And god forbid you cross from one area into another that has different laws while in the company of Nemesis; I hope you know every possible tiny detail of the local penal code to the letter, because I guarantee she does.

And all of that is assuming she's going to be nice enough to stick with Justice instead of just, you know, torturing you the good old-fashioned way that doesn't require Judgment to confirm her suspicions. Nemesis is fucking crazy, and the best way to deal with her is just to stay far, far away from her as often as possible (which is what most of the Dodekatheon and others in her immediate orbit strive to do).

However, if you somehow had managed to live an entirely mistake- and sin-free life because you were raised in a bubble of intravenous piety, then yes, theoretically Nemesis would not be able to slam you for any crimes. It's most likely that she would keep trying until she succeeded, but since she's easily distracted by evildoers in need of smiting, just walking past pretty much anybody else might be enough to get her off your back and onto theirs.

And yes, in theory, you could even marry Nemesis if you happened to be this insane beacon of purity; she's thoroughly single (for obvious reasons) and either Erebus or Zeus, depending on your myth preference, could approve a union for you (fun fact: since ancient Greek law is about the father approving a marriage, not the daughter, you could probably get married to her totally legally even if she hated you, though I really, really wouldn't recommend it). I don't know why anyone would want to - you'd have to either somehow maintain that perfect lack of guilt forever and ever, which really isn't possible as a PC, or else be so amazingly good at manipulation and smokescreening that you could prevent her from ever finding out what you have done, which is possible but exceptionally difficult (especially with Judgment in the mix). It doesn't sound like a particularly blissful arrangement.

But hey, one of our PCs married Circe and that... happened, so who knows?

(Please note: we're talking about Nemesis as used in our games, in which she is a daughter of Erebus, a Titan Avatar of Sedeq and thoroughly Titanic. If you want anyone to be able to have any real relations with her, I suggest following the Cyprian Fragment theory of her as a fractious daughter of Zeus and making her a Legend 11 goddess; it's not as mythically accurate and it's not much to go on, but it'll up the odds of people surviving and functioning around her considerably.)

Wives and Lovers

Question: Has a case of polygamy/poligyny ever happened in your game?

Actually, among the players, no. For the most part, they're children of western civilization and the modern United States, so they come into the game with their basic cultural setting on polygamy at No. Later, several of them got married, but they mostly did so in cultures that were not strong supporters of polygamous marriage, so they remained with their single spouse and have never thought much about it. The most notorious multi-spouse pantheons, like the Shen or the Yazata, don't boast any PCs in serious relationships at the moment, so polygamy really hasn't been an issue or an option.

Folkwardr's the only guy who could probably get away with it, since his wife is Inuit and multiple wives are traditionally allowed, but he barely managed to get married once, let alone doom a bunch of other poor ladies to having to deal with him for eternity. Sowiljr has no prayer of ever having another lady in his life thanks to the stringent Aztec rules against philandery and the fact that, thanks to his standing as a non-Aztec, he can't hope to aspire to the noble class that was the only one allowed to occasionally take multiple spouses (and, of course, Eztli has no interest in multiple husbands and comes from a culture where that isn't okay anyhow). Terminus technically probably could have tried to set something up, but he had no other lovers he was interested in and frankly wasn't about to piss off his scary, scary wife by suggesting it; Jioni's in basically the same boat, but with the added bonus that ancient Greece only really considers polygamy okay, not polyandry. Nobody else is married and they're probably likely to stay that way.

For the most part, our PCs are all pretty used to the idea of monogamy and haven't had any real reason to try to step outside of that comfort zone, so none of them have given it much thought (except for Sowiljr, fielding constant offers from all the divine ladies, but his life is hard). I'm interested to see if that'll change when some of the more strongly polygamous cultures of the eastern pantheons get involved, but so far our PCs are happy to say I do to only one partner. As Jioni or Sowiljr would probably tell you, dealing with just one is probably more than enough all on its own.

X-Rated for a Reason

Question: Considering how (ahem) "passionate" Sekhmet is, how wild can her sexy times with Ptah get?

Usually (and, in this case, probably thankfully), most of us mere mortals do not have windows directly into the boudoirs of the divine. PCs could if they wanted them and were willing to risk the consequences, but I don't believe any of ours are interested in that particularly violent brand of voyeurism (not even Terminus, and he's a voyeur par excellence).

The only time anyone's seen into their private life in-game was when Geoff's band went to Sekhmet's savannah sanctum with Ptah to ask for her help, and while they're pretty sure the terrible lion-beast that charged him had amorous intentions, they've never been entirely sure if she wasn't just planning to actually eat him. He subdued her and nobody has ever had the courage (or any real reason) to ask.

A mystery, then. I would assume it's energetic.

Politics!

Question: What's the deal with marriage in your Scion games? Is cross-pantheon marriage frowned upon by the gods or is it cultivated as the cement which holds together alliances? Since Pantheons seem to function as royal families or dynasties unto themselves, what's your take on godly marriage in a many-pantheon world?

This question is well-timed, since Sverrir just spent an especially harrowing couple of hours trying to deal with a few different pantheons' demands and offers of marriage alliances with him thanks to Vanaheim's resurgence. It's tough to be the king.

Whether or not cross-pantheon marriage is frowned upon generally depends on the pantheon in question, the gods in question and how everything went down. More insular and less foreigner-tolerant pantheons like the Aztlanti or Amatsukami are probably more likely to frown on it as a rule (though of course that doesn't mean they won't do it if it seems like it will benefit them, just that they won't like it), while those more concerned with political savvy or with a history of combining bloodlines through marriage like the Pesedjet or Aesir may have much less of a problem with it. Then, too, there are specific cases where pantheons are not getting along and are probably going to go all Montague and Capulet if their members try to cross-marry; few Nemetondevos/Dodekatheon or Deva/Yazata marriages are going to have smooth roads ahead of them. And finally, specific gods may have their own opinions on what is and isn't a good match - Ares may be fine with a Dodekatheon Scion marrying a Tuatha berserker, but those not interested in their territory being regularly blown up may be less than pleased.

It's certain, though, that marriage in Scion never comes without political ramifications; at best, you can marry a mortal or lesser immortal who has no strong affiliation, which will mean that you've basically removed yourself from that specific political arena (which will be helpful sometimes and crippling at others). This is what Folkwardr did by marrying Ahouva; she has no political ramifications so he there are no real consequences, and he doesn't have to be part of the marriage alliance conversation anymore unless somebody kills her, which he's very vigilant about making sure doesn't happen. Yoloxochitl went for this option in an even purer form by just making herself permanently underage, but it's anyone's guess whether or not the Aztlanti are going to let her stay that way or inform her later that she'd better age a decade because there's an important alliance that needs sealing right now.

Everybody else's lives are more complicated. Sverrir spent his last game dealing with emissaries from the Pesedjet, Tuatha and Dodekatheon asking for his line to be married into one of theirs, as well as possibly something similar with the Amatsukami (but since they wouldn't tell him what they wanted unless he went to a private conference with them before he talked to everyone else, and he didn't do that, it's probably just as likely that they wanted to bribe him not to make a marriage alliance with anybody). The marriage between Sowiljr and Eztli is of course now legendary in itself, having spawned a war and several extremely ugly political incidents (but it was also unavoidable, thanks to him knocking her up at Legend 4, so everybody is kind of stuck with it). Jioni's marriage to Erebus has given her a great deal of power among the Dodekatheon but has also made her a figure of some resentment, while at home nobody cares because most of the Loa don't view Erebus as particularly special or something they should be concerned about, and of course she also got him to start a war that ended up dragging the Aesir into the fray as well. And, of course, Odin's been spending the last couple of years hunting up what he considers the best marriage prospects for Vala, something she is not at all pleased about but which will eventually have to be handled in some way.

Alas, even marrying within your own pantheon isn't politically a "safe zone" - just ask Terminus, who ended up having to get hitched to Circe to stop a pretty epic intra-pantheon feud from continuing.

Marriages between pantheons almost always mean some kind of alliance, especially if they're intentional, for the same reason they usually do among human families that intermarry; Family A's son/daughter/sister/brother/whatever is now living with Family B, so they have a vested interest in helping defend Family B if they get attacked or in making sure that they're prosperous so they can in turn send some of that wealth back home. Occasionally, as is the case with Terminus, they also happen to smooth over an incident or an insult to restore the status quo - that is, sorry we did whatever you're super pissed off about, here's one of us to live with you as a peace offering and guarantee that we'll behave in the future.

And then there are the kids like Sowiljr and Eztli that just spring a surprise marriage on everyone... and when that happens, everybody gets to scramble to see what advantage they can make out of it.