In among all the flailing, several people requested that, since we weren't going to be able to finish all the Scion projects we had begun, they would like to see whatever we did have completed, just in case it was usable. So, as we get a little time here and there, we're going to see if we can't give you guys what's left in our work file. All use at your own risk, of course, since none of it is what we'd normally call a "finished product", but hey, you can all houserule away, right? We know you're not afraid to!
So, to kick this off, here's my personal baby: a tiny little proto-supplement on the Hittite pantheon, the Siwannes. It contains a pantheon roster, complete with Virtues and associations, and a PSP based on the Hittite religious idea of the cyclically raging and calming gods.
This day is not without a pang for me. Those of you who have been around a while know that I have a ridiculous fixation on the Hittite pantheon; they're my favorite obscure gods to get excited and yell about, and I was genuinely touched and excited (like, unicorns flying over the moon outside my bedroom excited) when you guys banded together en masse to vote them in as the next project and let me get to finally work on them. It was their bad luck that they were halfway through processing when it came time to move on to other things, but I'm still glad I got to work on them at all.
So, take ye and enjoy in my name. The larger-than-life personalities of the gods of the ancient Anatolian empire are here to rampage across your games if you want them, with a PSP that pretty much looks exactly like this:
Also, shout-out from us to the awesome Stephen Oppelt, who has helped out with copy-editing and drawing the awesome logos for all our fan pantheons over the years. You rock!
Oh honey, I can scarcely beelieve this day has come. It stings, sure, but hive got a feeling that the buzz surrounding the new game will ensure that it's the bees knees.
ReplyDeleteYessssssssssssssss punnnnnnnnnnnnns!
DeleteSiwannes?
ReplyDeleteHow do you pronounce that?
It's hard to communicate over text - a close approximation might be "see-wun-ehs", but with more schwas than hard vowels. An alternative scholar transliteration is "siunes", although it's less common.
DeleteOh I love these guys! Anne, I'm so sad that you never got to finish your dream pantheon, especially when they really ARE as awesome as you've always said.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a blast over at the Journey forums, but watching JSR slowly wither and fade away is heartbreaking :(
Ha, I'm glad you liked them! They really are neat. But I'm sure we'll see them again someday. :)
DeleteSo I take it the hittites didn't view their underworld with the same dread other cultures did? Also, the Hitttites seem to have a lot more goddesses than gods.
ReplyDeleteOh, they're pretty afraid of the underworld, Dankui Deganzipa (literally "the dark earth"). Its lady is a beautiful and protective figure, but the underworld itself has a lot in common with Irkallu (and Allani and Ereshkigal have a bit in common, too!). A fun fact: the Hittite state religion was a massive network of temples that were all concerned with performing appropriate sacrifices, rituals and prayers to calm gods who were raged out on Kalpi down and convince them to go back to being positive and un-dangerous. Most of these prayers were concerned with trying to draw the fury out of whatever god is freaking out and sending it down into the Dark Earth, where Allani would hide it in bronze vats with lead lids so that the god it came from could calm down.
DeleteYep, this roster is six goddesses to three gods, and the only pantheon with more females on the main roster than males. Considering that tons of other pantheons have had that exact ratio but reversed, though, I'm not going to feel too sorry for the boys on this one. :)
Awesome work, as always. For all the work left unfinished, this is surprisingly well done, good enough to use in a game, in fact.
DeleteThat sounds like an awesome cosmology. Shame we don't get to see more of it for quite a while, but hey, at least I have enough material on the Siwannes to use them as antagonists in my campaign, so I'm happy. :)
Can you tell us anything about their Godrealm, though? I'm just curious. Also, if it ever comes up, I need at least a little information to go on. Pretty please? ;)
Honestly, while the Hittite gods clearly don't live with humans and they "go away" to places now and then, what surviving information we have on them doesn't mention a godrealm or overworld. This might mean that, like the Egyptians, they could have been conceived of as "living" in their temples, or there might have been a concept of a land of the gods and it just wasn't in the few fragmentary tablets we have on these guys.
DeleteThere's a mention or two of gods going to their "kuntarra", which is a particular kind of sacred shrine dedicated to a god. Our plan for an Overworld for these guys involved laying out the details of several of their individual divine kuntarra, a bit like the interconnected gates of Tagarit in the Elohim supplement.
Kuntarra would have contents including golden statues of the gods adorned with precious stones and metals, representative stone stelae with their symbols (called huwasi) that sacrifices would be offered to, the Hazgara ("entertainers of the god", mainly temple dancers and priestesses), and perhaps the ritual bathhouses called tarnu.
Thanks a lot for forking all this over. I am glad I actually asked instead of just ranting and raving about not getting them. Haven't looked through it all yet in detail, but it looks like there is enough overlap to make what you've done and what I've done already.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it. :)
DeleteThanks a lot !
ReplyDeleteIf I may ask a question, what Titan did you plan to oppose to this pantheon ?
Honestly, we weren't sold yet. There are several obvious Titan figures in their mythology, including the underworld giant Ubelluri and the oceanic dragon Illuyanka, but none that seemed to be representing a Titanrealm that wasn't already in the game. We were thinking about perhaps coming up with a Titan related to their issue with uncontrollable emotions and outbursts, but ended up not getting that far before it was canceled.
DeleteI've been working with trying to work with Upellari/Ubelluri as the Titanrealm and Ullikummi as the Primary Avatar. Representing "Stone" or "Stasis". (Or Stone as Stasis). Upellari & Ullikummi sure almost did for the whole pantheon at one point.
DeleteIs there a Hittite word for Chaos? I use Water as the Shen Opposition and War for the Tuatha, so Chaos is open in my personal setting...and we really don't need to worry about RAW compatibility now after all.
DeleteThank you for your advices ! The Hittite pantheon is clearly not my speciality, but I found the information in the proto-supplement quite interesting !
DeleteI like the idea a Titan of stasis, stillness and immobility. Maybe I'll dig the subject a little more.
I looked Samudra, and I can't suss out a Hittite word for chaos. Not in any of the translation sources I have tracked down. Upellari/Ullikummi are definitely not guys who would work for chaos archetypes. I guess you could try Ilyanka. Another dragon, Though he does come across as surprisingly human in having a house, a daughter, etc. He's a little more social than, say, Tiamat. (Who, to my mind, works as a fine example of a Chaos figure.) There doesn't seem to be much backing for chaos being the big bad in Hittite religion. It's all the usual inter-generational conflict with some off-color twists. Enough previous generations to get a lot of folks to shove off into other Titans as Avatars though.
DeleteAw! I just saw this (glad I decided to stop by the "old apartment" to look around!) - thanks for the shout-out :)
ReplyDeleteYou are always welcome. :)
DeleteAny chance we can get a list of your reference material.
ReplyDeleteOh, hey, totally! Here's what we were mostly working with:
DeleteDe Vries, Bert. The Style of Hittite Epic and Mythology. Ann Arbor: Brandeis University Department of Mediterannean Studies, 1967.
Deighton, Hilary J. The 'Weather-God' in Hittite Anatolia: an Examination of the Archaeological and Textual Sources. Oxford: B.A.R., 1982.
Gaster, Theodor H. The Oldest Stories in the World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.
Gurney, O.R. Some Aspects of Hittite Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Hoffner, Jr., Harry A. Hittite Myths. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
Kassian, Alexei, Andrej Korolev & Andrej Sidel'tsev. Hittite Funerary Ritual. Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2002.
McMahon, John Gregory. The Hittite State Cult of the Tutelary Deities. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1991.
Singer, Itamar. Hittite Prayers. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.
Taggar-Cohen, Ada. Hittite Priesthood. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2006.
We were also waiting on the three-volume crochety old set of Ben van Gessel's Onomasticon of the Hittite Pantheon, but ILL didn't manage to hunt it up until we realized we were canceling the project for now anyway.
Aha! Just what I was going to ask! And several I had not perused. I got a little bogged down going through tablet translations and sussing through Hittite dictionaries and learning grammar/syntax, etc.
DeleteA lot of really good stuff is in German and not translated. My German is not as good as it once was and I don't have my grad student buddies to hand to help out. A lot more in Turkish. And I can basically barter in the Grand Bazaar in Turkish and keep beggars away. That's it. I think there is some good stuff in French I have been trying to track down. But no real university in shouting distance. You get spoiled.
Yeah, the middle eastern cultures have a ton of interesting stuff in German/French from the 40s or so that is hard to parse without language skills. I'm in the same boat as you - my German and French are okay, but trying to translate a whole book, for research purposes yet, is a chore I may not be up to.
DeleteOh Lord.
ReplyDeleteLooking at Karpi, I'm imagining a mixed Bogovi - Siwannes band and the best-worst disasters that would ensue from having as many as SIX virtues you have to roll against EVERY TIME.
... To speak nothing of what might happen if a Siwannes Scion became infected with a Dark Virtue...
Tarhun seems like he's very firmly on the Thunder side of the Sky-Thunder divide.
Telipinu is a little more ambiguous. Help, please?
Gears are turning...
DeleteI put Telipinu down as having both, as a precaution, until I can get confirmation.
Ha, the Bogovi really bring out the Siwannes' potential, don't you think?
DeleteTarhun and Telipinu should both have Thunder under JSR rules, not Sky. Telipinu has his father's eyes, and also his propensity for causing massive thunderstorms when angered by something. (Which is often, because Siwannes.)
Anyone have an archive of this?
ReplyDelete