Question: Are the Tuatha the only gods to not have a direct link to a Titan, being 8 generations removed from whoever their parents were?
Not at all, actually! Danu may be so many generations removed that you might as well not even try to trace that geneaological chart, but the Tuatha de Danann have Titans much closer to home.
The Fomorians, those fantastic examples of scary malformation and conquest that they are, traditionally interbreed with the Tuatha all the time. While he may not be included in Scion: Companion for reasons that escape me, I don't think anyone could argue that Balor of the Evil Eye was not a Titan - and most of the Tuatha are directly related to him. Lugh, Ogma and the Dagda are all Balor's grandchildren through their shared mother Ethniu, a full Fomorian and Balor's daughter; they're exactly as close to the Titan as folks like Apollo or Ares are over in the Dodekatheon. If you consider the ancient primordial sea-god Lir to be a Titan (and I would; he's definitely got that flavor to him, not to mention being imprisoned and pretty pissed about it in the myths of nearby Wales), Manannan mac Lir's on an equal footing with anyone else who's the son of a Titan. The only "pure" Tuatha who have no Titan parentage to speak of closer than Danu are Nuada and Dian Cecht, as they're the only ones of pure Tuatha ancestry with no Fomorian blood involved.
The Tuatha may not be related to Crom Cruach (in fact, there's no reason that they would be, as he really isn't even part of the same religion), but that doesn't mean they don't have the same titanic origins other gods do. It's pretty much inescapable for a pantheon to have Titans fairly close to home; if you trace the family tree past the currently active ones, odds are mommy, daddy or the grandparents were probably Titans. That's just what happens with really old, really cosmic gods.
So, do you guys stick with Crom Cruach as the enemy of the Tuatha de, or set them up with another enemy?
ReplyDeleteI've always felt they should be fighting against the Drowned Road, possibly under another name. It's just that the traditional enemy of the irish gods are the Fomorians, who are water-demons.
We're almost certainly not going to stick with Crom Cruach; while he's certainly an interesting figure, he's not a Titan of death and decay (he'd be a member of Terra, if anything) and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Tuatha de Danann. So off he goes.
DeleteWe haven't decided yet exactly who will be the Tuatha's biggest headache instead, but an ocean Titan is definitely up there, most likely led by Lir.
so who do you think is the Tuatha's titan parent? Every pantheon has to have one. So are you using Crom Cruach as a fertility titan?
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above, we're probably leaning toward Lir, but we aren't working on the Tuatha situation yet so it's a bit fluid. Crom Cruach, while he could certainly be a Titan Avatar, is a fertility-aligned figure so he'd need to go hang out with the likes of Gaia and will probably not be a greater Titan on his own.
DeleteI dont think everyone has to have one either. Titan does not mean parent.
DeleteEgypt, Japan, India, many others do not use titan parents.
That's a good point, actually. It's not like Apep is in anybody's family tree, but he's definitely a Titan witha capital T for the Pesedjet.
DeleteYou guys want to burn the scion companion don't you?
ReplyDeleteOnly if I could somehow make sure that every single copy was burned. Anne says not to cause of devas. Even though we kept next to nothing from their part of the book in our game.
DeleteI think there are a lot of good ideas in Companion - I just tend to hate a lot of the implementation. And a lot of people really love it, so I couldn't justify burning the lot of them.
DeleteBut seriously, there are a lot of messes in that book. It suffers from too many different writers not communicating with one another.
The Companion is also one of the biggest examples of Scion trying to force a specific set up (Pantheon vs Titan for example) onto mythology that just does not cooperate.
DeleteCrom and Vritra are probably the worst Titans published.
And of course you have the World of War Pantheons which contain many awesome ideas for Scions and Legendary Creatures, but not many at all for Gods. Betsy Ross was a Legend 2-3 Hero? Cool. A Legend 12 Goddess? No.
Completely agree Source J.
DeleteAgreed here, too. I understand the desire to involve Vritra, but the execution didn't work for me at all, and that Titanrealm in particular is so vague about what it does and doesn't do and represent that it's a headache to try to use it.
DeleteWe do not speak of the World at War pantheons anymore.
At one point I went through the World at War Pantheons and figured out an appropriate Legend rating and nature for everything. Stuff like the Betsy Ross example above where she's like a 3-dot Guide because she's a Legend 3 Scion who happens to be fairly old. Not all Heroes become Demigods, after all.
DeleteRosie the Riveter? She's the daughter of Nike and Hephaestus, a Legend 9 Goddess. She just likes to appear as different personalities. Rosie is the most recent Avatar she's taken on.
Etc.
Isn't Alot of Good ideas with some that have really bad executions.. rather par for the course with the Line? I mean with the books taking up half of each on an Adventure I can't say the Companion is really much worse off than any of the other books with the exception of Ragnarok and even that has issues.
ReplyDeletehttps://images.nonexiste.net/popular/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/A-girl-s-profile-listed-her-interests-as-alot-of-things-.png
DeleteNo. My problem with companion is that it is full of bad ideas. The execution on the bad ideas is mediocre, but the problem is the ideas. The psps are horrible, the ww2 stuff is horrible. The titans for all of the pantheons are bad. The relics are bad. I seriously cannot think of anything good in those books.
DeleteWhat's wrong with Hundun?
ReplyDeleteWhat isnt wrong with hundun? Its fucking clown shoes.
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