Question: What exactly happened between Sverrir and Ryujin?
As usual, it's mostly Odin's fault.
To sum up a long story in a relatively short period of time, quite a while ago, Odin (along with some cronies from other pantheons) invaded Japan in an attempt to steal a very potent relic that the Japanese were trying to use for their own ends. He blew up a lot of the landscape and several gods were badly injured in the assault, including Ryujin. Fast forward to a couple of years later, when Will Nordstrom accidentally drops into the Sea of Japan thanks to Heimdall's notoriously poor Rainbow Bridge aim. Ryujin, recognizing that there was a Norseman in Japanese waters, immediately came roaring out of the depths to destroy him. Poor Will was only Legend 8 at the time and stood no chance against the dragon-god, though he gave it his valorous best (and, indeed, did not realize he was fighting a god at all; he thought it was just some hostile Titanic beast attacking him for no apparent reason), and eventually ended up crushed to death in its jaws. He tried to hurl a prayer to Odin and the few members of his own family left, knowing he was about to go down; Odin didn't respond, but Freya, his much older sister, did.
And because Freya is a badass, she brought the entire complement of her valkyrie hosts along with her, and they managed to rescue Will out of the dragon's mouth while she harried it. Unfortunately for Will, while Freya used her awesome powers over Death to resurrect him, she was not able to physically overcome Ryujin (who was now quite sure that this was obviously some kind of Norse invasion) and eventually the dragon dragged her down into the depths to her doom, leaving Sverrir in mourning and the Vanir down one more member.
Sverrir and Ryujin have not crossed paths since, as most of that band scrupulously avoids Japan whenever possible, but it seems inevitable that there will one day be a showdown, with Sverrir determined to avenge his sister and Ryujin determined to avenge his pantheon.
(See, cool stories like these are happening all the time, but it's slow going to get them all written down. Sorry!)
so you killed Freya and axed one of the most powerful Aiser before Ragnarok. Even if Odin ignored Sverir's prayer old one eye has got to be pissed about that.
ReplyDeleteHe currently believes Ragnarok has successfully been averted. And he has been slowly murdering vanir for about a year leading up to this. It was probably all in his plan.
DeleteOh, no, Odin is all about this development. Not only does he now have one fewer Vanir to worry about (and John's right, he's been not-so-subtly murdering them off for the past year or two anyway), but now he gets to take over her deathrealm and einherjar; he no longer has to share that spotlight with her.
DeleteOdin generally ignores Sverrir unless he's there in person or he fucks up.
what prevented Freya from going immaterial?
ReplyDeleteJohn and Anne don't use the original rules that say that gods can go immaterial. So Freya couldn't just go ghost (I apologize for the awful punny Nick show reference, my son is currently watching Nicktoons reruns next to me). Although that leads me to wonder--Dynamic Duo, could you shed some light on how your house rules work for the Loa? Aren't they supposed to be immaterial for the most part?
DeleteYes, we do not use that rule. Because it is ludicrous, has little to no backing in mythology, and pretty much makes the game at god horrible.
DeleteI dont have a good answer for you about the Loa. I think anne might in the morning.
However, my bad answer, is that most of the "loa" concepts in the Loa will get the ax during the rewrite. We're taking it back to its African roots.
The Loa in their New World form do have a sort of flavor of being spirits rather than bodies, I agree, but they also have a reputation for being themselves in the World as well - the Baron can show up riding a horse, but just as often he's his own bony self, scaring tourists on the streets. I think that's definitely a cool aspect of their pantheon that can be a lot of fun to play up, but using Cheval basically does that for them - they don't need a who other mechanic about not being solid beings that the other pantheons don't have.
DeleteAs John notes, we're probably going to focus more on the African roots of the loa/orisha anyway, and let the New World religions be outgrowths and character options rather than the only pantheon setup as they are now.
Wait.. there's a god with "notoriously poor Rainbow Bridge aim," and you're telling me that's Heimdall?
ReplyDeleteOne would think that of all gods, he'd have a little more direct familiarity with Bifrost.
Unfortunately named boon is unfortunately named.
DeleteI agree that it seems silly. He "probably" should have a relic that fixes it for him...it could possibly be bridge shaped.
However, the bridge is just a bridge. It doesnt really teleport you anywhere. It connects to the world tree, which connects to everywhere. But when the gods have to use it...they usually just walk across it. Except thor, he is too fat.
Norse cosmology is really mind boggling. I studied a whole book on it that was just really dense. Like the tree connects the places, but the places also connect to each other. But N and S are opposites when talking about the tree...
Also, Im not 100% sure it was heimdall that got him there. Anne thinks it was, but I cant think of a good reason for him to send anyone that way. The game happened quite a while ago.
...but yes, heimdall is bad at rainbow bridge in our game. He probably should get better at it. But I guess bad is a relative term. He gets like a 50ish on the roll when hes not trying.
Yeah, it's not that he doesn't understand Bifrost, more that Intelligence isn't his greatest skill so his activation roll could usually be better.
DeleteAnd also that he generally doesn't care much - what, I got you kids to Midgard, didn't I? Stop whining and walk a few blocks.
It was Heimdall. I asked him to send me to Hawaii... he missed...
Deleteit was possible that it was one of his Mini-me's though...
Japan, Hawaii... look, he got you to an archipelago of islands full of gods that hate you. That's basically what you asked for, right?
DeleteWhy were you up there alone and wanting to go to hawaii? And were you at some point bad at wits survival? I forget, cause I kinda remember you landing somewhere, and then swimming to japan for some reason cause you didnt know which way hawaii was? My memory of how you got there is so foggy.
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