Question: I was reading through your Elohim PDF and saw that there were two war goddesses (Anat and Astarte) and I was wondering if there any other pantheons with two or more gods who covered the same 'area'.
Yeah. That would be... all of them.
While there are occasionally gods who are the only one doing a particular cosmic thing in their pantheon, I can't think of a single pantheon in Scion's geography that doesn't have people who overlap. Ancient cultures didn't put gods in strict boxes where they couldn't branch out, and as a result plenty of gods share associations with other gods in their same pantheon.
Seriously, overlaps are epidemic. The Dodekatheon also have two war gods, with both Ares and Athena rocking the battle-ravaged casbah all over town. The Pesedjet have nine kajillion jillion death-oriented gods, the Anunna can't get enough gods with thunder on their minds, there are literally more than double as many Tuatha gods of battle as there are non-war-aligned Irish deities, the Yazata are like some kind of plant-growing commune and half the Aesir are getting their rune-magic in everyone else's soup.
And all of that's okay, because having overlapping areas of influence doesn't necessarily mean that one god is redundant. Often, two gods may share the same conceptual space but represent different aspects of it, such as Ares representing bloodlust and strength on the battlefield while Athena represents tactical strategy. Both are war gods of the highest caliber, but they don't do the same things and they're not making each other any less relevant or important by existing. Susanoo being the god of ocean storms doesn't make Ryujin any less important as lord of the depths of the sea, and Tonatiuh being the ascendant and personified sun does not diminish Huitzilopochtli's importance as the defender and supporter of the fiery daystar. The fact that there's more than one god with the same associations actually tells you straight out that they do different things; no culture's religion randomly invents a god who has no purpose or doesn't in some important way represent an idea, so if the ancients thought there were two gods of the fertile earth sharing space, you can usually bet that they had different symbolism, purpose or personality.
Some kinds of gods are rarer and therefore more likely to be singular; few pantheons have more than one god of darkness, for example, or more than one love goddess. But some do, and there ain't nothing wrong with that. And for young Scions who are up and coming, the fact that there's room for more than one deity in a given area is very good news indeed.
Showing posts with label Anat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anat. Show all posts
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Storytime!
Question: Your post "Old Man Winter" where you told the story of Stribog got me thinking - another reason why not having family trees for some of your Anne-created Pantheons on the site is an inconvenience is they don't come with a few myths and legends. Could you perhaps share a myth of the Elohim? Baal and Moloch appear as false Gods and nemeses to the Hebrew God in The Bible, but what about through the eyes of their own people?
I love storytime, so yes!
Unfortunately, Moloch doesn't have much going on; he's one of those gods with a ridiculously strong cult presence but very few myths of his actual exploits, similar to other strong-cult gods like Cernunnos. He was especially popular in the areas in close proximity to the Hebrews, which is why he turns up so often and with such censure in the Bible, and that probably contributed to the lack of remaining written record of him, as the Israelites were hardly about to preserve his filthy, filthy behavior for future generations.
Baal, on the other hand, has super fun tales, usually having to do with him electrocuting people he's related to. The most famous sets up the delicious continuing rivalry between him and his brothers, Yam and Mot, which scholars are often impressed by because they really want to relate the Baal-Mot-Yam triad to the Zeus-Hades-Poseidon one but then they realize that there is nowhere near this level of animosity among the gods of Olympus.
El led the Elohim, his innumerable children, for many millennia, but his son Baal was ambitious and chafed against his rule, wanting to seize power for himself. Worried that he might rise up against him and angry that anyone would dare defy him, El turned to one of his other sons, the sea-god Yam, and crowned him king of the Elohim, informing him that if he wanted to rule securely he would have to kill Baal, who was plotting treachery. Yam and Baal waged a massive battle that destroyed large parts of the local countryside, and Baal was beginning to lose badly when Kothar, the smith-god and an ally of Baal's, saw what was happening, crafted two incredibly powerful clubs, and ran into battle to help him. He passed the clubs on to Baal, and Baal was then able to finish the fight, defeating Yam (and, though his excitable sister Astarte called on him to kill him, he left him alive because he was pretty sure his mother would kick his ass if he didn't).
El, having been watching all this go down, immediately claimed that he had always liked Baal best and crowned him king of the Elohim; at the urging of his wife Asherah and Baal's sister/wife Anat, he allowed that Baal should build a new palace for himself and invite all the Elohim to a celebratory feast. Baal called on Kothar to build his palace, but insisted that it have no windows (the myth does not discuss why, but it was a common belief in Canaanite myth that death always enters via a window, and additionally it's implied that without windows Baal won't be able to let out the rain the world needs to survive); Kother in turn insisted that it had to have windows, and eventually Baal gave in rather than have Kothar not finish the project. The palace was excellent, the feast was splendid, and he invited everyone over.
Unfortunately, Baal does not know how to not be an insulting dick to people, so his invitation to his oldest brother Mot, the god of death, offended him by not providing appropriate food and drink. Mot sent a messenger back, refusing to attend and taunting Baal that even though he had defeated Yam, Mot would eventually defeat him as death defeats all living things. Baal, having a storm-god temper, immediately abandoned his feast and marched into the Underworld to fight his brother, where he was summarily murdered because it is a bad idea to fight death gods on their own turf (see also: Ishtar, Ereshkigal).
His wives, Astarte and Anat, mourned him, but Anat is an angry war goddess and swore vengeance, and in turn marched into Mot's realm while he was still weak from battle, killed him, and cut his body into little pieces in retaliation before going home. Mot did not remain permanently dead (it's his underworld, after all), but it took him seven years to recover, and due to his weakened power Baal was able to return to the gods, where he was hailed and beloved by everyone. Furious at this further insult and interference in the realm of death, Mot challenged Baal to fight, and the two were so evenly matched that their battle shook the world and they fought until they both collapsed. At that point, Shapshu, the sun-goddess and messenger of El, arrived and informed Mot that El was officially going to back Baal now, so fighting him would be fruitless. Mot conceded that Baal would be king with extraordinarily bad grace and went home.
The entire story is extremely fascinating from an interpretive point of view, because there's so much going on in it; there's the idea of Death as the final conqueror, Baal as a death/rebirth deity like Tammuz or Persephone (the seven-year time period is about the usual length of time between droughts in the area; lacking as much of a fixed seasonal change, the Canaanites needed their rebirth god to show up when they were having droughts, rather than every winter), the father-god playing his sons off each other, Sky, Water and Death as the preeminent triad of powers, a female war-goddess being the final conqueror rather than the male sky-god, possibly suggesting the female's ability to give birth to new life, the shenanigans with the window and Baal's reluctance to invite danger to himself so that he could nurture the world, the suggestion that Baal's death is a symbolic requirement because of his destruction of the natural order in harming/killing Yam, and so on and so forth.
Seriously, these guys are batshit insane, but they are one of my favorite pantheons ever. We've only had the one Scion of Baal show up in-game, as an NPC, but even that was enough to completely foxtrot what the PCs were trying to do thanks to unscheduled flame/lightning battles.
The Baal Cycle was found on tablets unearthed in the ruins of Ugarit in modern-day Syria, and there are a lot of good translations and annotated interpretations floating around out there. For a really simple and fun to read one, I'd recommend Michael Coogan's Stories from Ancient Canaan (which also includes the tale of Anat murdering some poor Scion over a relic, Asherah ruining some poor king because he failed to honor her properly, and other tales of godly misconduct).
I love storytime, so yes!
Unfortunately, Moloch doesn't have much going on; he's one of those gods with a ridiculously strong cult presence but very few myths of his actual exploits, similar to other strong-cult gods like Cernunnos. He was especially popular in the areas in close proximity to the Hebrews, which is why he turns up so often and with such censure in the Bible, and that probably contributed to the lack of remaining written record of him, as the Israelites were hardly about to preserve his filthy, filthy behavior for future generations.
Baal, on the other hand, has super fun tales, usually having to do with him electrocuting people he's related to. The most famous sets up the delicious continuing rivalry between him and his brothers, Yam and Mot, which scholars are often impressed by because they really want to relate the Baal-Mot-Yam triad to the Zeus-Hades-Poseidon one but then they realize that there is nowhere near this level of animosity among the gods of Olympus.
El led the Elohim, his innumerable children, for many millennia, but his son Baal was ambitious and chafed against his rule, wanting to seize power for himself. Worried that he might rise up against him and angry that anyone would dare defy him, El turned to one of his other sons, the sea-god Yam, and crowned him king of the Elohim, informing him that if he wanted to rule securely he would have to kill Baal, who was plotting treachery. Yam and Baal waged a massive battle that destroyed large parts of the local countryside, and Baal was beginning to lose badly when Kothar, the smith-god and an ally of Baal's, saw what was happening, crafted two incredibly powerful clubs, and ran into battle to help him. He passed the clubs on to Baal, and Baal was then able to finish the fight, defeating Yam (and, though his excitable sister Astarte called on him to kill him, he left him alive because he was pretty sure his mother would kick his ass if he didn't).
El, having been watching all this go down, immediately claimed that he had always liked Baal best and crowned him king of the Elohim; at the urging of his wife Asherah and Baal's sister/wife Anat, he allowed that Baal should build a new palace for himself and invite all the Elohim to a celebratory feast. Baal called on Kothar to build his palace, but insisted that it have no windows (the myth does not discuss why, but it was a common belief in Canaanite myth that death always enters via a window, and additionally it's implied that without windows Baal won't be able to let out the rain the world needs to survive); Kother in turn insisted that it had to have windows, and eventually Baal gave in rather than have Kothar not finish the project. The palace was excellent, the feast was splendid, and he invited everyone over.
Unfortunately, Baal does not know how to not be an insulting dick to people, so his invitation to his oldest brother Mot, the god of death, offended him by not providing appropriate food and drink. Mot sent a messenger back, refusing to attend and taunting Baal that even though he had defeated Yam, Mot would eventually defeat him as death defeats all living things. Baal, having a storm-god temper, immediately abandoned his feast and marched into the Underworld to fight his brother, where he was summarily murdered because it is a bad idea to fight death gods on their own turf (see also: Ishtar, Ereshkigal).
His wives, Astarte and Anat, mourned him, but Anat is an angry war goddess and swore vengeance, and in turn marched into Mot's realm while he was still weak from battle, killed him, and cut his body into little pieces in retaliation before going home. Mot did not remain permanently dead (it's his underworld, after all), but it took him seven years to recover, and due to his weakened power Baal was able to return to the gods, where he was hailed and beloved by everyone. Furious at this further insult and interference in the realm of death, Mot challenged Baal to fight, and the two were so evenly matched that their battle shook the world and they fought until they both collapsed. At that point, Shapshu, the sun-goddess and messenger of El, arrived and informed Mot that El was officially going to back Baal now, so fighting him would be fruitless. Mot conceded that Baal would be king with extraordinarily bad grace and went home.
The entire story is extremely fascinating from an interpretive point of view, because there's so much going on in it; there's the idea of Death as the final conqueror, Baal as a death/rebirth deity like Tammuz or Persephone (the seven-year time period is about the usual length of time between droughts in the area; lacking as much of a fixed seasonal change, the Canaanites needed their rebirth god to show up when they were having droughts, rather than every winter), the father-god playing his sons off each other, Sky, Water and Death as the preeminent triad of powers, a female war-goddess being the final conqueror rather than the male sky-god, possibly suggesting the female's ability to give birth to new life, the shenanigans with the window and Baal's reluctance to invite danger to himself so that he could nurture the world, the suggestion that Baal's death is a symbolic requirement because of his destruction of the natural order in harming/killing Yam, and so on and so forth.
Seriously, these guys are batshit insane, but they are one of my favorite pantheons ever. We've only had the one Scion of Baal show up in-game, as an NPC, but even that was enough to completely foxtrot what the PCs were trying to do thanks to unscheduled flame/lightning battles.
The Baal Cycle was found on tablets unearthed in the ruins of Ugarit in modern-day Syria, and there are a lot of good translations and annotated interpretations floating around out there. For a really simple and fun to read one, I'd recommend Michael Coogan's Stories from Ancient Canaan (which also includes the tale of Anat murdering some poor Scion over a relic, Asherah ruining some poor king because he failed to honor her properly, and other tales of godly misconduct).
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