Losing My Religion

Question: First of all, thank you for all the work you've done on the Scion blog. I'm curious to know - how do I deal with Scions that are devoutly religious to a monotheistic pantheon? I realise Scion has tangentially touched on that with one of their adventures, but is it possible to still be in their original faith (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) whilst retaining power as a Scion? Especially given the Alihah's situation with Islam.

Well... there's a lot going on here. First of all, you're welcome - we love writing the blog and getting to talk about cool stuff like this. :) Secondly, the phrase "monotheistic pantheon" is an oxymoron, but I know what you meant anyway. I'll keep the angry frothing John-bear away.

Scions are mortals who are often coming from fairly normal mortal lives, and that means that inevitably some of them will already be part of a religion before discovering their divine heritage. Some players (in my experience, a surprisingly large number of players, actually) will easily handwave this aside; either they'll make their Scion an atheist from the beginning to avoid dealing with it, or they'll convert to believing in their home pantheon's religion with lightning quickness, the better to grease the wheels and save time. This can give people a little roleplaying whiplash sometimes, but there's nothing wrong with it; after all, if a player is more interested in going on adventures and talking to magical people than in playing R.E.M. sadly to himself, why, on to the adventuring!

But some players do play Scions who have religious affiliations before becoming the representatives of the gods, and sometimes they do want to explore what that means to them and how to reconcile their newfound powers and parents with what they've believed their entire lives. As a Storyteller, you actually don't have to do too much outside of letting the player figure out how to roleplay their internal struggles or reconciliations. Belief in a religion doesn't have any mechanical effect in Scion, positively or negatively, so a Scion who remains a staunch member of the Jewish faith can still increase in Legend and do the same things other Scions do; the issue is one for his character to figure out how to deal with, not one you have to manage on the Storytelling end.

We've seen all kinds of choices from Scions who were trying to reconcile their religions with their newfound status as children of gods they didn't believe in or in many cases have never even heard of before. Some have chosen to embrace the idea that their monotheistic faith must just be above this new information - that is, that these gods and immortals exist, but Yahweh/Allah/whomever is still more powerful and ultimate an authority above them, allowing them to continue believing in their religion while accepting the existence of these strange new parts of their world. Some find a way to work the confusing new divine world into their religion as part of it; one Scion believed that her mother was a prophet from Allah sent to guide her in his holy ways, while another decided that his father was Saint Peter, making him a new soldier for the Lord. Still others sometimes have violent reactions, discarding and violently hating an old religion that they feel they have just learned to be a sham (or even worse, the tool of the Titans). And some try to turn to scientific explanations, believing that the gods and monsters around them are the result of mad science, space aliens or hallucination.

When you're Storytelling for a character who's having trouble reconciling their old religion with new things happening to and around them, the most important thing is to provide them with the information and knowledge the character should have, and let them use that to sort things out. The more dots of Occult a Scion has, for example, the more likely it is that she will start to accept at least that gods, monsters and so forth really do exist; it won't be a matter of belief anymore, because she'll know for a fact that they do. Scions with a lot of Intelligence will be much better at figuring out what's happening accurately instead of wildly theorizing based on their previous religion, and so on. And the gods themselves, of course, are perfectly aware of the religious and political situations, and if a player is struggling and you think they would benefit from a god helping explain things to them, that's always an option.

I'm glad you mentioned the Alihah and Islam, because it brings up the one very important exception to the no-need-for-mechanics rule: the Piety Virtue. Scions with Piety have an ingrained, inescapable desire to respect, honor and promote the gods of their pantheon and the religion that worships them, which makes trying to be part of any other religion difficult indeed. Scions who perform religious rites for other religions, who attempt to refuse the works of their pantheon or who deny or insult their pantheon's gods and servants are going to trigger Piety rolls on themselves, as their very divine blood objects to their failure to put the pantheon above all others. Scions could theoretically have a very small amount of Piety or get very lucky in dealing with it and go on that way for a while, but for most, remaining a faithful member of a separate religion is going to be nearly impossible. Everything in their divine being is fighting against it, and even if they can keep it under control, everyone else in their pantheon also has Piety and is going to react similarly unpleasantly if the Scion shows such disrespect around them.

I'm not going to lie to you - trying to Storytell for someone who's really enthused about roleplaying the transition or reconciliation of religions is pretty hard. You don't want to make them feel like they're not allowed to make their own roleplaying decisions, but at the same time you need to enforce the consequences of their actions and make sure they understand what realities and things around them mean. Make sure they have all the information the character would have, and try to give them a little fair warning about the probably disadvantages if they persist in following another religion instead of those of the gods they're dealing with. And if they go for it anyway, you'll know it's because they really want to roleplay that set of challenges, and that you springing Aten looking for converts or Piety-irritated Tuatha dropping geasa on them is for a reason and not random persecution against them.

In our experience, most players figure this out themselves over time, and it's seldom a problem that needs to be handled for much longer than the first part of a Hero-level chronicle. We've never had a character that didn't eventually figure out how to reconcile and manage their original religion, whether by abandoning it, turning against it or finding a way to reinterpret it within the new framework of a Scion's life. As long as you keep an eye on the situation, enforce Piety if applicable and remind them if they're forgetting something they should know as a character, it's most likely that the player will eventually resolve it him- or herself.

Just remember that a Scion clinging to a pre-Scion religion will not translate to other gods, Scions or creatures enabling or tolerating that belief; a few close friends might be sensitive to his desire to remain a practicing Christian, but almost everyone else he meets in the magical universe will not care at best or be irritated at worst. Keep yourself available for help if the player feels like she's getting stuck, and most of the time things will sort themselves out over the natural course of roleplaying and interaction.