Question: What are your thoughts on sub-pantheons being differentiated from the larger pantheons? Like the Vanir having some substantive difference from the Aesir, or bringing the Dei and Aisar into some kind of light as 'cousins' or maybe more like divine satrapies of the Dodekatheon?
First of all, +10 points for use of the word "satrapies". Secondly, I have to answer this question as me, because John's at home right now and I actually don't know if he shares my opinion. I'm sure he'll weigh in below if necessary.
If I can digress for a moment, I actually wish that people would stop using the Vanir and the Aesir as an example for sub-pantheons (not that I'm yelling at you, question-asker, you're just not the first to do so lately). The Vanir and Aesir are in a completely unique situation; they're not really two different pantheons. They are one pantheon with two distinct ethnic groups within it. The Vanir are not a separate "pantheon" in the sense of any other group in Scion; they were not worshiped by different people, based in a different geographic area, or in any way from a different culture. They're just as Norse as the Aesir; it just so happens that Norse myth includes two warring factions of rival gods rather than a singly united pantheon. This isn't unique in the world; in fact, it's almost exactly the same as the differentiation between the Greek gods and the Greek Titans. You wouldn't call the one a sub-pantheon of the other. The Vanir aren't a sub-pantheon of the Aesir; they're just a different flavor of Norse god. The only difference is that Scion leaves them playable instead of setting them up as Titans.
But anyway: I'm honestly torn on the idea of sub-pantheons. I'm really not sure that I like them. I completely understand and agree with their intent - to get important gods of pantheons that maybe don't have a full enough roster to be statted on their own into the limelight and available for play - but in practice, I find that I've almost never looked at one and even vaguely entertained the idea of using it. There are a few reasons for this:
A) The lack of differentiation is obnoxious. I understand wanting to play somebody who isn't represented in the major pantheons, but if they're just going to have the exact same cultural stuff as the major pantheons anyway, might as well just declare that you're a son or daughter of the god you like who was adopted by a bigger pantheon's god. Just as much interaction with your real parent if you want it and the Storyteller's on board, but the same mechanical effect - you can even swap out your Virtues at character creation if you feel like it. If a sub-pantheon is sharing the same real estate and PSP as the major pantheon, you might as well call a spade a spade. Which leads me to:
B) I don't like making everybody spades. Invariably, generalizations happen that I'm uncomfortable with, thanks to religious overlap. To use your example, there's no way I'd ever set the Aisar up as a sub-pantheon of the Dodekatheon - they may share some stories from cross-cultural pollination, but they're definitely not close to being the same people. The Etruscan religion was rising at the same time as much of the Greek ones, and no matter what bad restaurants in the United States might try to tell you, Italian and Greek are not the same. They are extremely different in values, morals, cultural roots and worship. Saying the one is just an offshoot of the other isn't just generalizing; it's actively wrong. There are pantheons where you could make that claim legitimately, but in most cases there just isn't enough overlap to make me comfortable with it.
C) It also plays favorites about who's the most "important". I know that Scion kind of does this by nature, because its power scale is based on Legend and there are a lot of tricky questions about how well-known a pantheon has to be before it's fair game for play as a result. But when you designate a group of gods as a "sub-pantheon", you're making a direct call that says "These people are less important/culturally relevant than the main pantheon." It says, not only that they're just an offshoot of the larger pantheon, but that they're somehow less relevant. And while I think that can work on a case by case basis, it's something that each group, game and Storyteller has to decide for themselves. I recall first reading in Scion: God that the Anunna had called upon their sub-pantheons, including the Ugaritic gods, in their fight against Aten, and I remember being almost offended, because not only was it ludicrous to say that the Canaanite gods were somehow the same as the Mesopotamian ones, but it very clearly dismissed them as not important enough to be considered a pantheon in their own right.
Yet, at the same time, I still get the allure of sub-pantheons. I really do. There are deities out there who don't have enough support to be playable on their own who I would love to see running around enriching Scion's landscape. I'm just as opposed to declaring that everybody not in the playable pantheons is less than Legend 12 - clearly, dudes like Anansi or Maui are not the kind of small fry that nobody knows anything about, and claiming they aren't Legend 12 just because they don't currently have a whole playable pantheon beside them doesn't wash. Sub-pantheons solve that dilemma, at least in the short-term. But they don't solve it satisfactorily for me, so I continue to not be a fan of them until I figure out how to make them work for me.
I'm pretty sure my crazy brain just wants to stat everyone as full pantheons anyway. Which is crazy, but there you go - solves all my problems.
I agree with anne here on everything(especially the meaty part of the question) except:
ReplyDelete1) I thought we talked about using the word "spades"?
2) We have pretty significant archaeological evidence that at the very least, in certain parts of the north, sweden especially, that the vanir were worshiped separately. At the very least the Freyr. He was king big dick all in his lonesome(with his family getting appropriate veneration).
However I dont think that changes how pantheons within pantheons should be handled. For most of recorded history, they are one pantheon as anne listed.
Hey, I'm just using a time-honored Greek mistranslation.
DeleteThe Vanir were worshiped separately, but it's more that they were local gods, I think, than a separate pantheon, right? People worshiping Freyr in Sweden weren't also worshiping a bunch of other mythic Vanir we don't know about - they were just all about being excited about Freyr (and usually paying only a small amount of lip service to people like Odin and Thor).
Kind of. We are pretty sure freyr(and by extent his family, in lip service at least) were worshiped without norse gods originally. Then as the humans intermingled/warred/conquered/etc they started paying lip service to odin/thor etc, and then eventually full on worshipped aesir/vanir pantheon on masse like everyone else up there.
DeleteBut you're right, at no point were the rest of the vanir worshipped like a pantheon. It was more ....lets say jesus-esque?
Mmm, that makes sense. Similar situation with Nerthus over in Denmark.
DeleteIt also mirrors the shift in world culture from earth based to sky based religions.
ReplyDeleteYes, something I enjoy greatly watching in different cultures around the world.
DeleteWhat about Pantheons that legitimately should share a PSP but not say a hierarchy(like the Amatsukami and the kamuii)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I think there are any pantheons that should share a PSP; if they're that similar, they're just members of the same pantheon. I probably wouldn't give the Kamui the same PSP as the Kami because the Japanese and Ainu people really aren't the same and, while they share some real estate and common themes, don't really have the same religious or social patterns. (Not that I have a plan for a Kamui PSP. I totally don't. But I wouldn't consider them Kami, so I wouldn't give them Tsukumo-gami.)
DeleteWhile the Ainu and the Japanese have serious differences, their religious practices are very close to Shinto in practices(and the whole animism thing). Its very hard to see why the kamuii wouldn't(and shouldn't) be capable of doing what the Kami can.
DeleteThey probably have a lot of overlap, as many animistic cultures do, but I wouldn't call them the same. In particular, as the Kamui are more nature-oriented than the Kami, the idea of inanimate object control doesn't seem as appropriate to me. Something more tied to natural forces, on the other hand, might be up their alley.
DeleteI would think making a TG with more focus on nature would cut away from the shinto idea(abit like if Arete suddenly didn't work on half the abilities because another group also wanted them)
ReplyDeleteWell, obviously it'd have to be able to do things that Tsukumo-gami can't. :) It'd be a different PSP, is what I'm saying.
DeleteTG being unable to do "natural" things would be a really weird area(Same if they played up the Purification thing while the Kami were left out cold) Its not so much that you couldn't make something based on their shared beliefs that does things other than TG its just the fact that they DO share alot of Metaphysical frame work if completely different pantheons.
DeleteOh, I agree, making it so that Japanese Scions couldn't interact with treestumps and whatnot would be silly. I'm just pointing out that they do have quite a few philosophical differences, not to mention being a completely different ethnic group, and that I wouldn't put them together under the same PSP umbrella. The South American pantheons are also all heavily animistic, but you wouldn't automatically give them Tsukumo-gami - I think the Kamui get that kind of shoved on them just because they happen to be geographically close to the Japanese (and later conquered by them).
Deleteits more to it than that, Both the Kami and Kamuii grow out of Jomon religious beliefs. AT the bottom layers of both mythologies its very similar(Sacred natural places, important people, concepts as kamuii/Kami), they share purification, sacred symbols etc.
DeleteOn the issue of Animism do you think it would hurt the Kami's specialness if one started adding "communicate with Domain" to various things(like fertility can talk to plants etc?)
Sure, but since we're not going to be able to construct a coherent Jomon pantheon any more than we'd be able to come up with an Olmec pantheon that made sense, we have to work from the Ainu and Japanese cultures respectively, not their mostly-unknown base root. There's a certain point in Scion where you have to draw the line when it comes to origins; technically, many scholars believe that almost all European religions come from the same proto-Indo-European root, but we don't want them all to be the same pantheon, after all.
DeleteWe do actually have a Fertility boon that sort of does that (Gaia's Touch), though it's vague communication, not direct speech with the plant's spirit. I think the idea of communicating with a purview is pretty rare when it comes to what it makes sense for - most purviews really don't need it. Talking to fire or having a discussion with water isn't the sort of thing fire or water gods ever do, so I wouldn't bother with it for an APP, and that keeps Tsukumo-gami special and unique. I'm cool with talking to living things like plants and animals, but if it's something that normally has no equipment whatsoever to communicate and is basically inanimate, I'd leave that in the domain of the Japanese.
Thanks for the 10 points! I do enjoy getting to use exciting words in appropriate contexts. It comes up so much more often thanks to Scion and other games.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I'm a fan of sub-Pantheons is that they allow, as you say, the cultures that don't have enough purely unique background to still be used in the game. I get your objection about lumping the cultures together, but I think there's plenty of room for cultural diversity.
Using the Greeks, the Romans and the Etruscans as an example, this is how I approach the idea. At one point in time, the Etruscans, Greeks and Romans were distinct Pantheons, with the Greeks being the oldest. The Deii and Aisar were, for a small time, rivals, but eventually the Deii essentially absorbed the Aisar, likely with a great deal of resentment and anger. When the Romans started to adopt Greek religion, the Deii themselves were merged forcefully into the Dodekatheon, again probably resenting it.
So now, the Dodekatheon has these smaller groups inside it, neither of whom is happy at all about being there. They don't have much of a choice, because they haven't got the Legendary Gumption to get back out their on their own, especially in the middle of a war.
They still have their own culture and probably their own Virtues and their own PSP, but politically and socially, they can't stand on their own any more. They have to work as part of the larger group. And I think that sets up a lot of very interesting stories. How does an Aisar Scion deal with being identified as a Theos when his dad is an Ais? Does he care? Does he prefer to be thought of as a Scion of the Dodekatheon? I can see lots of fun there.
As for the Orishas and the Loa, while the Orishas are the older Pantheon, the Loa have the bigger Legendary Clout at this point in history. So they absorbed their ancestors, displaced them and took primacy.
I fully acknowledge the points you make, but I think they can be overcome by approaching the idea of sub-pantheons from a different point of view.
On a different note, I've come across the theory that the Vanir actually represent an earlier culture's religion being displaced by the Norse as they moved into the area. They might have, at one point, been their own Pantheon from a much earlier society, one that we no longer have records of.
Good points all around.
DeleteEh, I'd debate the orisha versus loa supremacy thing; it depends entirely on what part of the world you happen to be in. But since so many are recognizably the same, I'd probably actually not even make either a sub-pantheon, and just use other gods of the African/Cuban/Brazilian/whatever area as members of a pantheon that is pretty amazing at globe-trotting and adapting.
I've seen that theory on the Vanir, too! I like it, though I tend to personally lean more towards the sister theory that the Vanir weren't gods of a culture that was displaced, but that were rather the earlier gods of the Norse themselves, and that the shift is due to their culture moving from being a more local and agricultural one to becoming the invading warrior archetype. There's a lot of room to play with the two of them.