Cosmic Scheduling Mastery

Question: My friends and I are about to start doing a Scion campaign. One of my players is wanting to set a goal for their character to become, "Goddess of Administrative Efficiency" or something similar. I trust her ability to pull this off and make it fun, but neither of us are quite sure which pantheon such a god would work in best. Furthermore, I'm very tempted to tell her to hold off on godhood plans while she's still basically mortal because so much can change through play. Should I have them wait? Lastly, would there be any load out of boons/epics you'd particularly suggest for such? We've got ideas but would love your input!

Neat! Being an administrator myself during my dreary professional daylight hours, I definitely love the idea of an awesome goddess of efficiency and excellence. You go, girl.

So, I realize that this question came in a long time ago and got lost in the questionado, so you guys have probably already started and we totally missed the boat on helping you choose a pantheon. But, we'll still give you some suggestions, and maybe they'll help someone else in a similar situation.

As far as pantheons that value administrative efficiency go, you probably can't do better than the Shen. The Celestial Bureaucracy has a massive administrative machine supporting its myriad different courts, bureaus, departments and divisions, and there are many, many lesser gods who already perform basic administrative functions in order to support them. There are gods in charge of keeping track of mortal actions (the Kitchen God is the most famous, who reports up to heaven on the sins and good deeds of humans each year), gods in charge of watching the flow of humans between the Underworld and the World via death and reincarnation, gods in charge of communication between various divisions of unrelated deities and gods in charge of recording events among the divine in minute detail. Because the pantheon is set up as a kind of gigantic, byzantine governmental morass, based on the imperial governing bodies of ancient China's ruling dynasties, there's always room for an administrator among the gods. In fact, they're probably in desperate need of more of them.

But, if China's not your cup of tea, you may want to range a little farther afield. The Anunna also have a long history of records-keeping and complex political administration - they practically have several pantheons worth of gods to manage, and a lot of rules about how to avoid stepping on toes and who can do what when without breaching protocol. As the ancient creators of things like civilization, politics and records, they would probably respect and welcome a new young goddess who wanted to make that her bread and butter. And while they aren't famous for their paperwork or data connections necessarily, pantheons that have very large rosters like the Theoi, Kami or Netjer may also benefit from a deity who specializes in greasing wheels, scheduling important things and making sure information gets where it needs to go.

As for individual gods, there are a few with administrative bents scattered here and there throughout the pantheons. Sarasvati, as goddess of learning, knowledge and information and patron of students and scholars, might be a good parent for a Scion who wants to grow up and specialize in the efficient sharing of information, and Thoth is the lord of writing, knowledge and academics and might be a great parental resource and encouragement to a Scion who wanted to follow in his footsteps. And while Ogma isn't quite the same as the others, he did invent a language and is a patron of some more esoteric, occult styles of learning, so he might be an interesting parent choice for a kid who wanted to reach for the administrative stars.

Administrative-friendly powers abound, and you have plenty of options to choose from. You can't go wrong with Intelligence knacks - Applied Academics, Cipher, Math Genius and Speed Reader are great just to name a few, and Intelligence itself is the stat you'll probably find yourself rolling most often to solve academic problems or figure out the best way to put things in order. She'll also probably want some Epic Wits for making quick calls and responding to administrative emergencies in a decisive and efficient manner. I'm not sure if she wants to be all about being the patron of awesome administrative efficiency herself, or if she wants to try to enforce it on others as well, and if it's the second she'll probably want some socials (Manipulation strikes me as the best call for subtly encouraging and enforcing things like protocols and processes).

However, we think it's your other question that's most important, and while we wouldn't tell your players they can't have a plan for what they want to be gods of, we would caution them that the road from Hero to God brings massive changes. It's fine for players to come in with a vague idea of what they want to be god of; after all, getting to be a god someday is a big draw for the game, and most people have a cool image in their heads of what kinds of cosmic beings they want to be. But things change over the long journey from Legend 2 to Legend 9; your Scions will probably see their personalities evolve, their goals and desires change and shift, and their ambitions change wildly depending upon what happens to them and what parts of their own destinies they shape in ways they never expected. We've never seen a Scion still be - or even want to be - the same person or have the same set of powers as newly minted gods that they were when they first began.

So while we would never tell players they can't come in with goals for godhood or ideas for what they want to be, we would always tell them that it's very likely that those will change over time, and furthermore that that's okay. Changing what you do or who you are as your character grows doesn't mean that you've failed; on the contrary, it means you're opening to new possibilities and growing as a character, and that's usually a good thing for the game as a whole and your character's story arc in particular. So let them have ambitions, as long as they know that those might change. No god is what they were as a mortal.

We hope your player is rocking her new Scion and well on her way, and that anyone else who wants to do similar jumps on the bandwagon, too!