Tremble, Ye Mortals

Question: Where do humans find themselves in your games? Are people that are not family or friends of the PCs important? Further, what is your stance on gods influencing humanity's growth? Is it like the stance in the books where the gods seem to be the ones making the great scientific and architectural advancements (minimally pointing humans in the correct direction)? Are humans anything more than fatebinding cattle for the gods? Perhaps a step up from cattle, but not more than small children?

Humanity is in a unique and interesting position in Scion: it's both the most and least important group of people in existence. Humanity as a whole is a force capable of reshaping the planet and weighing down the most hardy of gods with the force of their belief and expectations; they can literally change the divine just by believing that it should change, thanks to the power of Fatebonds. Yet, humans on their own, especially individually or in small groups, are negligible to gods and have no hope of affecting or influencing them unless they are specifically allowed to do so. It's a fascinating conundrum for a Storyteller to play with.

Humans that are not directly related to the PCs in some way usually aren't particularly important, but that's not necessarily because they're human; it's because the story is about the PCs, so of course people they don't know aren't as important as people they do (this goes for gods and immortal beings as well). It's true that PCs can have trouble relating to mortals, particularly once they become higher level Demigods and Gods; it's very difficult to form a close attachment to someone you know you could (in some cases literally) reshape into anything you wanted them to be in the blink of an eye. If you can just make them love you, why bother with all the time wasted on courting? If you can make them look like whatever you want, what's the point in choosing one mortal over another? If they can't summon up even a fraction of your brainpower, what on earth could you have to talk to them about? Gods don't interact with humans well because they are by nature too overwhelming and awe-inspiring for a human to handle.

But that doesn't mean mortals can't be important; in fact, they often are. They certainly aren't "cattle", which isn't a label that's particularly appropriate for Scion anyway (though it would be for a game like Vampire), though the idea of "children" probably applies to many gods' perception of them. It entirely depends on the character how they treat mortals and what matters to them when it comes to such underpowered beings. Some, like Aiona, pay about as much attention to them as they would to gnats; as long as they keep doing what she told them to do, they can be totally ignored, and if they fuck up, well, light a few on fire until they stop. Others, like Sowiljr or Vala, care about individual mortals as the people they are, safeguarding them against the vast powers that might wipe them out like the helpless creatures they are. Still others make distinctions between what kinds of mortals they care about (such as Eztli, who would die to save any mortal of Aztec descent but who really couldn't give even the tiniest of damns about anybody else) or what specific people matter to them (Folkwardr actually married a mortal when he was Legend 8; she and her son matter a great deal for him, even though they're not actually involved in his story most of the time). In a sense, it's a lot like people treat other people in real life, just on a larger scale; those who are likely to be sympathetic are still sympathetic, those who never liked other people anyway are free to ignore them, and those who were very selective about who they love can continue to do so without too much of a shift in perspective. Scions, especially, often have close ties to at least a few mortals each; they were recently mortal themselves, after all, and just because they've learned to throw thunderbolts doesn't mean they don't love their mothers anymore.

As far as your Zeuses and Odins go, they may not normally be able to care too much about humanity, but Avatars are a glorious invention that let them power down and live as almost as weak as the humans themselves. For them, it's sort of like replaying a favorite video game; you start over at level 1, and even though you know how the story ends and that you've beaten it before, it's still a fun challenge to go through the motions with your starting equipment. You might find humans incomprehensibly stupid when you have Ultimate Intelligence, but if you drop down to a Legend 3 Avatar, suddenly they're not so bad, and in turn they will treat you refreshingly like another human, since they aren't overloaded by your Ultimate social attributes, either.

Like most things in Scion, it depends on the god or PC in question. Every one has a different personality, which means that some are genocide-prone sociopaths who really couldn't care less if the entire planet were depopulated, and some are crusaders for equality and mercy who would happily trade their own lives to save those of humans. It all depends on who the mortals are, what's happening, and how that particular divine person happens to feel about them.