The Blood is the Life

Question: I have a slight problem with the Aztecs. A little thing called "playing alongside a blood-crazed mass murderer". It's hard to play the goody two-shoes hero when my bandmate thrives upon the blood of virgins and the tears of children. I know that you can make an Aztec that's a pretty good guy, I just haven't seen it been proven. Aztecs are all crazy.

Hummm. Well, there's a lot going on here.

First of all, back your train up: Aztecs are not all crazy. You just got through saying you know that there can be Aztecs who are good people, so you clearly know this. Like everyone else on the planet, the Aztecs are a race of human beings, and they have all the good, bad and ugly in them that every other race has. It's no more fair to call them all crazy than to call all Chinese people crazy, or all French people, or all of any other race or nationality or ethnic group. Chill out with the name-calling of an entire civilization.

I know we've talked about the Aztec religion and the importance of blood sacrifice in it before, but our blog is a deep quagmire of many things, so we don't blame you for not digging through it all. We could write an entire book on what blood sacrifice is about and why it's centrally important to Aztec religion (in fact, other people have - if you have a chance, check out David Carrasco's City of Sacrifice for a very thorough look at the subject), and furthermore why this is not a moral question as much as a religious one, but the basics are these: the Aztecs believed, as the central conviction of their religion, that the gods lent all their power to making sure the world was maintained and supported so that it did not collapse. They believed that it had collapsed before, and would again if the gods didn't keep it running the way they were supposed to. And they believed that the power that the gods used - indeed, the most potent power in the universe - was chalchihuatl, "sacred water", which was contained only in the blood of living things. Blood was conceived of as literally being life and power, and therefore the sacrifice of blood to the gods was directly sending them the power needed to run the universe. Human sacrifice - which certainly could and did sometimes take the form of the murder of human beings, but was more often a semi-frequent ritual of letting a little of one's own blood, a practice called autosacrifice - was intended to lend the power of the blood spilled to the gods, who would then use it to keep the universe running. In effect, the religion was designed as a massive community works project, in which everyone did their part and shed their blood to ensure that the entire world continued on.

Of course, that doesn't mean people didn't abuse the system. There are sadists, opportunists and heartless bastards in every culture, and there were definitely priests who took advantage of the sacrifice system to extort goods and services from people, nobles who abused it to get rid of people they didn't like and people from every walk of life who tried to weasel out of it by getting someone else to go under the knife instead of themselves. But this isn't specific to the Aztecs; every other pantheon's religion has examples of behavior just as bad. And considering that the vast majority of them also practiced human sacrifice at some point in their history, they don't all have a lot of moral high ground to stand on for this one.

But, at any rate, the point here is that Aztec religion is not about murdering people for fun, or drinking the tears of babies, or bathing in blood just because they like blood. It is about doing what needs to be done, even when it's painful, for the good of the entire community and the entire world. The Teotl don't kill people because they're sociopaths; they kill people because they know if they don't, everyone's going to die anyway. In fact, murder for murder's sake is just plain wasteful, as far as they're concerned, and was illegal among the Aztecs.

It sounds to me like you're having a problem with a specific Aztec - your bandmate the blood-crazed mass-murderer. We don't know anything about him or her, but let's assume that they really are a crazed murderer who skins children for giggles. You know what? It is totally 100% okay for your character to hate, fear or despise them. That shit isn't okay. Your character doesn't necessarily know why they're doing those things, nor do they know if they have any reason beyond "I haven't seen blood in the last ten minutes". Your character is presumably a fairly normal person with a fairly normal moral compass (or so I assume from you saying you're playing "a pretty good guy"), so murder should bother him, and ritualized or fetishized murder probably even more so.

It is totally possible that your bandmate is a crazy person who should be put down for the good of everyone who encounters them. Like we said, we don't know who they are or what their motivations are, or even what exactly they do, so it could be anywhere along the spectrum from "I have to perform sacrifices or my parents are going to die and lose the Titan war" to "I just like torturing people with needles", or anywhere in between. It is totally possible to create and play characters who are evil serial killers - we've certainly had one or two - so that may be what you're dealing with here. If so, you're responding pretty much the way anyone could be expected to. I don't know what reasons you have for putting up with this person in character, but even if you have to be around them, nobody can make you approve of what they do or stop trying to prevent them from hurting the innocent.

However, it's also possible that you're approaching this from a position of ignorance when it comes to what Aztec sacrifice is about, and that you might want to take a closer look at this character and their behavior. Has your character ever asked them about what they do, what it means to them, or why they do it? Do you have enough Occult or Academics for your character to know what Aztec sacrifice is about and to be able to tell if that's what's going on here? Has your character ever encountered any other Aztecs, possibly NPCs, and did they seem to behave the same way? Have you spoken to your divine parent or other people in your pantheon and asked them why they would put you with this crazy-ass murderer, to see if they know something you don't? If you feel like you're stuck with this person, have you taken any steps to try to learn more about their motivations, and to see if there's any way you can try to lessen their violent tendencies or convince them to try something different?

And hey, maybe you have and it came up fruitless, and that's cool. Maybe you're just running in a band with someone who really does keep peoples' faces in a box under their bed, and there's just nothing you can do about it. But your question sounds a lot like you're blaming Aztec society and religion in general for the behavior of one individual, so it might be worth your time to investigate whether or not they're actually acting on behalf of their pantheon or just happen to be a crazy person. No society can be made up entirely of serial killers; it couldn't function. You may just be with a person who happens to be a psychopath, rather than a typical Aztec Scion.

As for our games, we have a wide variety of Aztec Scions, each with their own way of handling (and often struggling with) the problems and morality of their religion's need for human sacrifice. Sangria, the oldest of them, is in fact a psychopathic murderer who has no compassion or concern for the lives she takes whatsoever, but she's also only interested in killing people for sacrificial purposes, never for fun or because she doesn't like them; and the others run as much of a moral and emotional range as any other pantheon's Scions might, including Kettila, who kills only children because she was an abused child herself and wants to save them from anyone being able to hurt them anymore, Carlos, who kills only animals because he isn't willing to hurt other human beings, or Jay, who performs only autosacrifice and actively crusades to save people from harm and try to convince his pantheon to change their views on human sacrifice and outlaw the practice.

The bottom line is that Aztec Scions are no more automatically crazy or evil than any other pantheon's children. Their parents simply come from a different culture and religion, one that can seem very alien to European-oriented minds, and it is often difficult for Scions of other pantheons (and even the Aztec Scions themselves, who are often perfectly normal modern people) to understand and reconcile their radically different views on how the universe works and what their place in its support system needs to be.

I Sacrifice, Therefore I Am (Was)

Question: From what I understand, sacrifice to the Aztecs is an important part of maintaining and powering the universe. How do they react to pantheons like the Celtic ones, for whom sacrifice is a matter of simple veneration? Do they see it as needless luxury, or out-and-out blasphemy (since the other pantheons aren't actually being powered up by sacrifice)? A betrayal of their people? Or would they be fine with it?

A lot of this will probably depend on the specific Aztec god in question, so we're going to give you a few different approaches and let individual Storytellers figure out which one would make the most sense to any given god of the Teotl.

If you're talking about a Teotl god who isn't particularly bright, who hasn't had much interaction with other pantheons before, or who just has a poor grasp of the occult or a healthy opinion of how important and universal his own pantheon's practices are, there may be no conflict at all. Gods are, at their hearts, pretty much all egomaniacs, and those who are community-focused like the Teotl tend to extend that to their entire culture - i.e., Mexicans are best, everyone else probably does exactly what we do, because why would they ever do anything else? Under such an interpretatio mexicana, some Teotl may simply assume that other pantheons are getting power from their peoples' sacrifices. That would look normal to them, and if they're not particularly good at understanding how magic works, it may not occur to them that those other pantheons have different powers instead or that the entire universe doesn't run the same way that it does for them at home. Those gods probably totally approve of bog-body sacrifices or mummified mountain sacrifices; to them, those are the only other pantheons who are being even vaguely responsible. In fact, they probably severely dislike, or at least look down upon, pantheons who don't practice human sacrifice, because to them it looks like those jokers are just a bunch of gods being assholes and refusing to help prevent the entire universe from falling apart. What dicks.

On the other hand, those who have interacted with other pantheons a decent amount and understand that they don't get any power from their worshipers' sacrifices may have mixed feelings. Mortals giving up their very lives in sacrifice to their gods seems like it's right and familiar - after all, to the Aztecs, that's what they're supposed to be doing and it's hard to not automatically accept that. But at the same time, the Teotl are deeply invested in and loyal to their people, divine and mortal alike, and wouldn't dream of hurting them if they could help it (certain shining malcontents like Tezcatlipoca aside). It's the fact that the community of the Aztec world is so loyal to one another and the greater good of all that makes the deaths of its members a sacrifice at all. So from that perspective, some gods might see it as a rather unforgivable abuse of worshipers. Killing off some of one's worshipers to make sure everyone in the universe doesn't die is a noble sacrifice, putting the needs of the many before the needs of the few, but killing them off for no reason at all is being straight-up disloyal to the very people you're supposed to be taking care of. Gods coming from this point of view might be shocked, appalled or even furious with deities of other sacrificing pantheons, who they might see as being massively irresponsible or oppressive to their own people.

Of course, it's also a pretty entrenched idea among the Teotl (or at least the mortals that worshiped them) that the Aztecs are in fact the best humans in existence and every other people is lesser and therefore existing only to be conquered and/or sacrificed for the good of the world, so they may not be that upset about it. I mean, it's unfortunate that those other pantheons are jerks to their constituents, but their constituents are clearly not as important as the Teotl's constituents, so it can only be so much of a tragedy.

And finally, there may be some Aztec gods who simply don't care at all what other pantheons are doing. Especially if they realize that other pantheons can't get power out of sacrifices, they may just shrug and go on their way, probably with a side order of shaking their heads and talking among themselves about how only they are really doing anything to help the world not slide into destruction and it would be nice if those other, obviously lesser gods someday learned to do the same. They might see mortals practicing sacrifice anyway as being well-meaning but ultimately pointless and not really care about it much; it might also be a popular opinion that those other pantheons are obviously crippled or sub-powerful in some way, because their worshipers are doing it right but for some reason their gods just can't seem to benefit from it the way they're supposed to, which probably means something is wrong with them. Or, perhaps some might hold the theory that other races of mortals lack sufficient amounts of chalchiuatl, the precious water and source of energy carried in blood, and so killing them just isn't as helpful as killing an obviously much more important Aztec person would be (although this theory is probably held more by homebody gods, as any Teotl who go jaunting abroad will find it just as easy to murder and Australian or Tibetan person for Legend as they would performing a sacrifice at home; and ancient Aztecs definitely did sacrifice members of other ethnic groups they encountered, so maybe this is more of a people-who-aren't-Mesoamerican-are-inferior kind of thing instead of specifically Mexica-only). I mean, if you kill someone who isn't Aztec and therefore doesn't matter to your Loyalty- and Duty-bound view of the world at all, was it really a sacrifice?

The one thing in your question I would say probably nobody thinks is that those other pantheons are indulging in a "luxury". If the sacrifice literally doesn't do anything, it's not really a luxury at all - that would be like buying a box of literally nothing, and then claiming that this was a "luxury" that you kept in your house. One possible approach might be that other pantheons are just so powerful that they don't need sacrifice to keep the universe going and therefore sacrifice could be considered an unnecessary luxury... but I doubt very much you're going to find many Teotl who are all about deciding that everyone in the world is more powerful than they are. No pantheon is in ever in favor of that kind of interpretation.

So really, it depends on a particular god, how much your story has them gallivanting around the world and what sort of personality and idea of the powers of various pantheons they already have. Someone like Quetzalcoatl, who probably understands other pantheons' practices pretty well and doesn't like killing people to begin with, might be horrified by such blatant destruction of people for no reason at all; someone like Tezcatlipoca, who is completely happy with murdering people if he thinks it's funny, probably has no problem with it at all or is amused by how stupid those other pantheons and their inability to get power out of such actions are; and someone like Huitzilopochtli, who is likely none too bright and fully invested in how important and powerful he and his people are, probably assumes that everyone else also does it his way and would have no concept of gods who were receiving sacrifice without also receiving power. Mix and match as necessary.

The Power in the Blood

Question: How do you handle the non-blood sacrifices (precious stones, flowers, etc.) made by the various Mesoamerican civilizations in regards to Itztli?

Though the blood sacrifice is what everyone always remembers, there were various non-human sacrifices throughout ancient Mesoamerica as well, from foodstuffs to flowers to precious metals and stones to artwork. Like the cults of gods in other parts of the world, the worshipers of the Aztec gods knew various little gifts that their deities appreciated, and they were offered up regularly to the gods who were most identified with them. Sometimes this involved burning them; sometimes it just involved donating them to the temple. Echoes of these practices live on even in the modern-day, where distinctly Mesoamerican-flavored Catholic shrines may see many, many offerings of small trinkets or flowers at the feet of various saints and martyrs over the course of a year.

But, aside from the obviously more spectacular nature of blood sacrifice, there's a second reason that the non-human sacrifices are usually less important, and that's the existence of something called chalchiuatl. Loosely translated as "precious water", chalchiuatl is the substance that animates life and it flows through each person's veins; it is literally the power of life, and in the Aztec religion it was believed to only exist in blood (which they understood to be the substance that directly kept living things alive). When the ancient Aztecs engaged in blood sacrifice, they did so in order to offer up the chalchiuatl of that person's blood to the gods, literally giving them some (or all) of that person's power to use for their eternal duties as the sustainers of the universe. Essentially, it's not the act of making any old sacrifice that's most important to the Aztecs, though the concept of sacrifice is certainly deeply ingrained in the culture; it's the act of sacrificing to the gods to give them the power to support their people and the universe, and that power comes only from sacrifices of blood.

So, while there are certainly non-blood sacrifices to the Aztec gods happening, they serve a different purpose from the blood offerings. Like the sacrifices made by many other ancient cultures, non-blood sacrifices are given to gods to please them; they're offered up as a request for blessings, as a way of giving thanks for blessings already granted, or just as a nice measure to tell a god or goddess that they're awesome. Flowers might be offered to Xochiquetzal simply because she likes flowers and the gesture would be appreciated; jade might be given to Tlaloc because he's a rain-god and jade, being strongly associated with rain and water, is sort of "his" anyway. But blood sacrifice is all serious business. It's the sacrifice that powers the world; it's the thing that feeds the gods their power.

So, to answer your question: we don't. Non-blood sacrifices cannot be used with Itztli, because the purview is specifically about drawing on the inherent power of blood sacrifice. It is literally converting chalchiuatl to Legend for Aztlanti gods and Scions, and since non-blood sacrifices have none of that divine energy in them, they can't be used with it. Other sacrifices can still be made by Scions who want to impress their parents or make friends with their pantheon, however, and might be a good opportunity for stunting and fun Mesoamerican flavor.