Question: What other Titans have you designed that you use but haven't posted to the site? Care to give us a quick rundown?
Well, I can give you a vague rundown, if you want that.
Most of our Titanrealms are in what I think of as Storytelling Nebula State right now. That means that the Storyteller knows how they work, who's in them and what general stuff to watch out for there, but we haven't sat down and put in the days of work required to do a full writeup that would be useful to other people; most of them don't have maps in even roughed-out form, may have slightly fluid rosters and follow rules and mechanics that live in the epically indexed rolodex of John's mind. It's not that they don't work, or that they're not usable for us, but they're probably pretty incomprehensible to everyone else until we get around to cleaning them up. They're the Protogenoi of game mechanics.
For example, the Titanrealm of Frost is certainly a thing that our PCs have even been to a few times, but it's not really tied together to a pantheon it opposes yet, which means that everyone still refers to it as Niflheim thanks to our Norse-centric roster and, while we know some avatars that reside there (Boreas, the Cailleach, Itzlacoliuhqui before Geoff dragged him out to Acopa and caused all sorts of problems), those could still change or be firmed up/added to for final publication. Comprenion, the Titanrealm of Fate, has a very complex system of things that it does to the unwary who enter (usually involving automatic Fatebonds and prophetic brainsplosions) and a slightly different system of Avatars thanks to the prevalence of triadic Fate ladies, but we don't have mechanics written down that we could show you yet (unless you can read John's appalling chickenscratch, which would be a feat since half the time he can't even read it himself).
If we were adding new ones tomorrow, we'd probably lean heavily toward Maya, the Titanrealm of Illusion which opposes the Devas and Emamu, the Titanrealm of Beasts which opposes the Anunna, but those could still be subject to change. Emamu actually does already have some easy mechanics since we wrote it up for our Anunna supplement, though we'll probably expand it when we put it on the site. We're currently using Sedeq from the Elohim supplement as the Titanrealm of Order with few changes, and tentatively replacing the hogwash of Hundun with Pakiy from the Inca supplement.
Our PCs are on a sort of universe-wide visiting campaign to all of the Titanrealms at the moment, actually, so they have a list of all of them and a vague idea what might happen there but haven't actually been to many of them yet. Titanrealms are a lot (a lot) of work to lay out for the website, so while we definitely plan on doing so in the future, at the moment we don't have too much that we can do more than tease you with.
Sorry!
Not the question poster, but just a curious person. In creating the titan realms, did it just happen that when you created them, certain pantheons seemed more opposed to that realm than others or did you make an effort to keep some less tied down?
ReplyDeleteLike, I know Stars is mostly an Aztec titan area and Fire has been for a while a Norse area, but it seems like Ourea is more loosely with that definition, while Darkness(thankfully) was changed, though changed to be more of an Egyptian enemy.
In the new Titan realms, do you plan on keeping this type of definition of where it seems a pantheon deals more with those realms than others or are you trying to diversify them to have it where most of the pantheons are trying to defeat them?
All the Titanrealms are a problem for all the pantheons; no pantheon can afford to have any of them active, no matter who they're primarily mad at, and every Titanrealm probably contains an antagonist or two that are directly opposed to each of the pantheons. They may be primarily focusing on one or another pantheon, but really, they're everybody's problem.
DeleteBut it's still useful to have a Titanrealm be a pantheon's "primary" antagonist; a realm's dominant Avatar doesn't necessarily control the others, but they may be able to bend the majority of the realm toward a single pantheon, which allows the game to have more of a multi-front, culturally rife war instead of a giant chaotic mess. It also gives you more to work with in terms of symbolic and core values for the pantheons - they're usually most strongly opposed to "their" particular Titan, which gives the war more fanatic and emotional weight.
So we're not divorcing the Titanrealms from having a specific pantheon they oppose. They have one that is their most hated enemy and will probably spend a good amount of their energy on it. But they have enemies among most if not all the pantheons and they're still prone to hating everybody else, so nobody is ever safe from a Titanrealm in spite of not being its "primary" antagonist.
Well, that makes better sense now. lol. I'm just glad that it being worked on and makes more sense in the long run. I mean, from the books I can understand that the Titan of Light is Aten, who opposes the Egyptians heavily, but I hope that titan realm gets worked on cause I know there has to be other Light Titan Avatars that could hold their own against Aten.
DeleteI just hope my GM does not come on the site and look at the Titans. Heh, my band has enough trouble working together as it is and we are only Demi-god. Start throwing some of those Darkness associated Avatars our way and most people are toast when we hit God. That and my scion who is Egyptian is going to get even more scorn and ostracized by his pantheon cause he is specializing in Darkness and Moon, than he already is by being punished cause he is in a group that causes problems, not cause he makes problems. Egyptians are hard to keep on their good side.
The Titanrealm of Fate sounds like the most fascinating by far. Mainly on account of how Fate is the dominant force in Scion. Everyone bows to Fate, whether they want to or not. Fatebonds, Prophecies, etc. So having a whole malevolent extension of that just seems...tough to balance, I suppose? Among other things.
ReplyDeleteAnd a Frost Titanrealm opposing a pantheon. When most pantheons haven't even a concept of it in myth, it's a trial to find one who directly opposes it.
Isn't Fate supposed to be the one thing in Scion that is older even than the Titanrealms and above them in power? I mean, I can see Magic being a Titanrealm, since the manipulation of Fate and fate are different things, but Fate itself. How do you guys explain that dichotomy in game?
DeleteAs for Frost, the only real use of a Frost Titan that's not Niflheim that I've seen out there is as an opponent for the Finnish Pantheon, in which writeup it was called Pohjola and ruled by the witch Louhi. I was actually really interested to see what take you two would take on the Finns, but from the looks of it that won't be happening any time soon.
The Titanrealm of Beasts - would this be a place that could serve as a placce of origin for the White Tiger of the West?
ReplyDelete(Pretty sure the White Tiger of the West would have been siding with the pantheons, but still, seems like the sort of place that would have those kind of epic, mythical animals)