Dereliction of Duty

Question: Is Duty really a valid Virtue for most pantheons, particularly the Aztecs? I've done a little research into them, and it seems as if worlds 1 through 4 were destroyed more from the gods being petty and spiteful and neglecting their duties than anything else.

Well, in answer to your first question, yes, Duty is hella a valid Virtue for some pantheons to have. It represents a cultural drive to put the needs of the culture itself – its people, values, customs, and your job within it – above your own selfish needs, and to support the whole because you know that your value comes from being part of it. Not every culture espouses Duty, but when they do, they do it hardcore: it’s where things like the samurai code of honor in Japan come from, or the Polynesian insistence on incredibly complex social and aristocratic roles. And the Aztecs, who embody Duty like it’s motherfucking going out of style.

You’re right; the destruction of the first four worlds represents four different failures of Duty. But that’s important and intentional. These are cases of a myth that proves the rule by showing its exceptions: when people do not do their Duty, everything is horrible and awful, forever, it’s the worst. A culture that did not give a shit about duty would not write a story about how people failing at duty equals the literal failure of the universe. That’s something you’re only going to get with people who want you to know that duty is so important that if you break it everyone might die and you’re the worst person who ever lived.

The thing about the Teotl is that they embody Duty, constantly, their entire lives, all the time. They are gods who literally have to hold up the universe all the time, or it’ll break – they have to make sure the rain falls, the sun rises, the earth stays solid, the crops grow, and the second one of them drops a ball or gets distracted or just isn’t up to it that day, there are disastrous consequences in the world. The Aztec gods were conceived of by their people as being ceaselessly dedicated to maintaining the world, very literally performing that awe-inspiring Duty every minute of every day, and if they ever stopped or thought their Duty wasn’t important, the world would collapse and everyone would die. And that leads to the Aztec culture itself, which decided that they also had a duty to support and uphold the universe for everyone’s sake, and therefore offered regular blood sacrifices to their gods. They made it their duty to empower the gods to keep doing their duty – in essence, a massive chain of Duty all the way from mortal to god, with anyone who proved to be a weak link severely looked down upon or even punished.

The myth of the four suns illustrates this in a big way. Just like the World now, those Worlds were doing fine – until one god failed in his Duty. In the first and second, it was because someone attacked him; in the third, because he went into a jealous rage; and in the fourth, because she became hysterical and couldn’t keep it together. And each time that Duty was failed, the world literally ended. That’s how important duty is to these guys; if you don’t do it, you failed the entire universe.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that they don’t fail at their Duty once in a while – every god and Scion does, at some point. And they also have other Virtues that may sometimes conflict with Duty, and if Duty loses out, that’s a problem for everyone. But on the whole, their entire religion is built around the idea of the gods dutifully supporting and protecting the universe, humanity dutifully supporting and appreciating them, and everything continuing to exist only because they do that. They are massively Dutiful. Duty is everybody’s cosmic job.

We are fans of you asking questions about Virtue appropriateness, by the way, because there are definitely some in the game right now that we think bear consideration, or maybe don’t fit as well as another one would. But this is definitely not one of them.