Question: There was a character in the Scion books known as Thomas Blair/Blair Thomas. He/She is an Azlanti Scion who is a transsexual. How would he/she fit in your game?
Actually, Blair has appeared in our games!
Geoff's band encountered Blair several times when they were Demigods, first just when they had reached Legend 5, and again a few times at Legend 7. She was a member of another band of NPC Scions, along with a few other faces you might recognize from those character profiles in Demigod - Amelia Battelle, Niles Horne and Tyrone Norris. They were led by Bradley Dupree, a Scion of Poseidon who had a burning rivalry with Geoff, Goze and Marcus (which, by the way, was totally their fault - Goze punked the poor guy the first time they met and then he and Marcus made a point of demolishing whatever he was doing whenever they met him in the future, eventually culminating in Dupree calling down his father on them and all three of them ending up with a curse that required them to give all their wealth to Dupree and his marine biology foundation whenever they got near him), and although Geoff's band was never quite sure what they were up to, they turned up various times in the world, clearly running their own divine errands for their parents.
Tyrone didn't make it long; he was petrified by a basilisk the first time the band met them, and thereafter became a decorative piece for Dupree's research lab. Marcus was made somewhat disconcerted and uncomfortable to discover that he had a younger sister in Amelia; he had the feeling he should do something for her, but he wasn't sure what and had pretty poor interpersonal skills, and ended up vaguely alienating and then avoiding her (she didn't have much time for his shenanigans anyway; she had way more important things to do than try to make nice with her crazy estranged older brother). Poor Blair's experience with the band was something akin to being struck by a massive truck out of nowhere; the guys just drooled over her (for a while, she was their casual standard of hotness - "The water nymph is very lovely." "Yeah, but she's no Blair."), which she could have handled, but Sangria came down on her like a ton of massively Dutiful bricks. She saw in Blair another warrior for the Aztecs, who sorely needed help, and had zero tolerance for Blair's failure to help her struggling people in Mexico and tendency to be wallowing in semi-luxury at Dupree's house instead of out doing things. Eventually, Blair started pretending to go on missions just to get away from her fellow Teotl Scion, and was pretty relieved when Geoff finally moved his group on.
And Niles... well, he got around. Sora's Japanese Scion group also encountered him, when he was running with a different band of Scions (this set all original NPCs), and narrowly prevented him from stealing the relics they recovered for the Kami right before the Netjer, Aesir and Theoi staged their assault on Japan. Geoff's group didn't think much of him, since he didn't interact with them, and were totally unaware that he later became a pivotally important person in their story. You see, Niles is a Scion of Isis, and Geoff really, really upset Isis, and she decided she wanted an eye for an eye. So she sent Niles on an undercover mission, disguised, to take away what mattered most to Geoff: his family. That mysterious "Aztec" Scion who disappeared with Geoff's son?... that was totally him. Geoff and his group never even knew who it was, other than that it was an imposter.
Blair was never a major character, but she was - and is, as far as anyone knows - present in the world of our games, and one of the few Aztec Scions who managed to hang on and try to help their struggling people get back together. Her story was not followed closely; the PCs never knew if she encountered either of her siblings (Orlanda Elliott, who they also knew, or Carlos Jolie-Pitt, who died tragically young) or what she spent most of her time doing, although at one point they did know that Jay Ortiz was training her for some kind of mission.
Incidentally, while we absolutely love the books setting a transgender person as a Scion of Xipe Totec, allowing her to literally magically enact physical changes to herself to become comfortable in her own body, the writeup of her is pretty intensely problematic in a lot of its wording (like point-blank saying that she is "actually a man" and other similar grossness). But it's still a super neat character concept for the child of a god who changes his skin to renew both himself and the world around him, and we couldn't help but include her in our stories.
How would the Teotl respond to someone who was transgender? I do not mean someone who is homosexual, but someone who actually changes sex frequently and adheres to the appropriate gender roles?
ReplyDeleteIn other words, they do what a man "should" do while a man, and they do what a woman "should" do while a woman (from the Teotl perspective).
This sounds like something that perhaps would be better represented by Tal'ich, perhaps?
DeleteAlso, transgender is usually just from one gender to another, one-way, and once only, and not so much back-and-forth, like Anon describes it. It does sound like Tal'ich, though, and the K'uh would most likely be very OK with that setup, as they all do it from time to time...
The Teotl, on the other hand, I don't know. Anne? Griff? Any thoughts?
It is something that could happen to any Aztec with appearance knacks, if they desired to do so.
Delete*whistles* never make 'em easy, do you?
DeleteSo, while shapeshifting is something done a lot in Aztec myth, I can't think of any examples of switching from male to female. Though, they did enjoy a lot of crossover with the Maya, who did have myths featuring this, and some of their own deities have dualistic aspects that mirror Tal'ich based alternate forms (female Xochiquetzal and male Xochipilli, celestial Quetzalcoatl and earthly Tezcatlipoca, just off the top of my head). However, they treat those as separate gods, often divine twins.
I suspect the Teotl would be weirded out by the idea of a transgendered Scion, but would overall be cool with it as far as Blair's method is concerned, using Relics/Knacks to biologically become the sex to match their gender.... as long as they were attracted to the opposite sex.
See, the issue the Aztecs had with homosexuality was the perceived drain on resources. Sex was for procreation, and any sex that didn't result in procreation (or procreative sex that resulted in illegitimate children) was selfish and damaging to the community. It's an interpretation of Duty. So, once Blair becomes female, her duty is to be a wife and mother. If the change was made permanent, most Teotl would just think it was a weird origin story, The Girl Who Was Born A Boy or somesuch. If she was a trans lesbian, then that would make everyone's Duty flare up something bad. You mean to say that we wasted the resources to make you the woman you wanted to be and you then took that investment and paid us back with lesbian sex?! You damned freeloader!
... This makes me wonder if a trans-lesbian who WAS biologically male could get away with that... then again, we're already stretching the concept to the breaking point.
Niles Horne, sadsack lapdog of Isis in the books and devious master of disguise in your games. Nice work guys.
ReplyDeleteWe saw no reason he could not be both. :)
Delete