Better Late Than Never: Maya

All right, folks, by popular demand, here's what we've got left over from our work on Maya, the Titanrealm of Illusion. As all of you know, we're no longer working on Scion so this project was never completed, but several people have asked to see what we've got, so here's a list of the Avatars and the rough maps we had already completed by the end of our run.

The Titanrealm of Illusion is Maya, which represents not only illusions in the classical magical sense but also other forms of deception or unreality, including lies, hallucination, dreams and optical befuddlement. Maya is dually run by Mayasura, lord of illusions and opponent of the Deva, and Angra Mainyu, lord of lies and opponent of the Yazata. Together they have succeeded at keeping the two pantheons pitted against one another for time immemorial, deluding each into believing that the other pantheon of gods are the true enemy. There is some confusion between the father of all evil in Persian mythology and the master of deception in Hindu; some have even theorized that maybe they're the same person, although of course it would be almost impossible to prove that one way or the other.

Angra Mainyu, Avatar of Maya
Associations: Manipulation, Chaos, Illusion

Also known as Ahriman to his later worshipers, Angra Mainyu is the source of all discord, evil and especially falsehood in the universe. Created by the doubt of the great Titan Zrvan at the beginning of time as the opposite counterpart to the great god Ahura Mazda, he corrupts and influences for the worse all the creations of his benevolent brother. It is through lies, the most natural and undetectable form of illusion, that he constantly works for the downfall of the world; all lies come from him or his minions, who tempt humanity into telling them every day of their lives, and he waits for the day that the accumulated weight of his untruths will finally bring the world crashing down, destroying righteousness and beginning the Frashokereti, when he will fight to assert dominance over the universe and obliterate truth from it once and for all.

Hypnos, Avatar of Maya
Associations: Health, Illusion

Hypnos is the Greek lord of sleep and dreams, the bringer of the silent night who captures and holds humanity as easily as does his brother, deadly Thanatos. From him come all fantasies of the mind and the middle of the dark night, carried around the worlds by his children, the Oneroi, and their hosts of minor daimones of terror, sleep, dreams and visions. His symbol is the poppy flower, which brings sleep and strange visions to those who suffer from its effects (or those of its modern derivatives, like opium or morphine). He has not left the center of his domain in time immemorial; Hypnos is always sleeping and dreaming himself, and those dreams swallow and rewrite the smaller dreams of any others that come in contact with them. Eventually, if he cannot be stopped, all living things will fall unconscious under his spell, and all of reality will be replaced by Hypnos' dream, subject to the whims of his ancient mind.

Mayasura, Avatar of Maya
Associations: Charisma, Artistry, Illusion

Mayasura is a complex individual; he has at various times throughout history supported and even paid homage to some of the Deva but then turned upon them as an enemy, given them wondrous works of art but then also filled them with traps and pitfalls. He is the undisputed master of optical illusions, bending the maya that makes up the world of mortals and gods so that it deceives even as it seems innocent. A master architect, he can and has created incredible palaces, cities and works of art, and designed them so cunningly that visitors to them can easily fall into dead-ends from which there is no escape or find themselves lost forever in seemingly endless halls and pools. Through the rakshasa and daitya, the latter some of his most ardent followers and the former his children and creations, he releases other workers of illusions into the world to trouble humanity with their powers of deception, exacting vengeance against followers of the Deva who have over the centuries destroyed his works and thwarted his power.

Utgard-Loki, Avatar of Maya
Associations: Manipulation, Frost, Illusion

Although Utgard-Loki is one of the great frost jotun of Norse myth, he is a far cry from the typically brawny but brainless warriors that make up much of his species. Old, crafty and full of the desire to entertain himself at others' expense, Utgard-Loki is a trickster with no equal, spending his time creating illusions to flummox and trap others, luring travelers into his hall to play with like a cat plays with a mouse, or creating incredible and complex illusions just to see if anyone can tell the difference between them and reality. He has no greater agenda except to amuse himself, but in pursuit of that goal, he spares no expense. Just as when he famously tricked Thor and Loki into performing impossible tasks in his hall until he had grown bored with them, he intends to continue to do anything and everything that suits his fancy now that he is free from Tartarus - even if it results in calamity, destruction or death for someone else. These things are, as far as he's concerned, acceptable casualties in the name of fun.

Xochipilli, Avatar of Maya
Associations: Fertility, Illusion

Xochipilli is the Aztec god of divine hallucination, lord of all mushrooms, flowers and fungus that cause mortal minds to go haywire and bringer of the strangest and most bizarre perversions of reality, the intensity of which have been known to drive his victims mad or convince them that things unbelievably far outside the realm of possibility are utter truth. All dangerous drugs, spores and substances that come from the earth and wreak havoc on the mind are his domain, and he is capable of sending sweet and pleasant hallucinations of good things or creating the horrific ultimate in a bad drug trip. Capricious and unconcerned about the problems that his dubious gifts cause those around him, Xochipilli is convinced that only through such freedom from the restraints of boring "reality" can anyone become truly enlightened and freed, and to that end he seeks to spread his brand of chaotic influence to any and all living things. That most of them would self-destruct in short order is not a problem for him; as far as he's concerned, that would be just another part of the natural cycle of life.

As for the realm of Maya itself, we never quite reached what we would consider a finished set of maps, but we can give you what we've got in all its crazy glory! Here's the combined map of the realm, forty-five layers of transparent illusion deep:

Tripura is the realm of Mayasura, Xochitlan the domain of Xochipilli, Viasha the realm of Angra Mainyu, Somnia the dreary home of Hypnos and Utgardr the kingdom of Utgard-Loki. The map gives you a little taste of what's going on here: illusionary landscapes overlaying the real truth of each place. Of course, which layers are "true" and which ones aren't is almost impossible to figure out.

Obviously, we had a lot of work to do signposting and writing up how STs could distinguish between illusions of various levels and the potential of reality in Maya (if there even is such a thing), but alas, this project is over for us now. If any of this is useful for you all out there, however, we wish you luck with it!

Look Closely, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Question: Which figures are probable candidates for Maya (the Titanrealm, not the culture)? I don't quite see how the concept of Illusion is so relevant too the other cultures (excluding what you said about the Yazata in your previous post). Or would it also include more far-fetched forms of illusions - for example, dreams (Hypnos/Morpheus)?

Well, to tell you the truth we haven't done a full finished roster for the Avatars of Maya that we're prepared to share yet (especially since our players are going there soon and have no idea what's in story). But the idea of illusions is one that certainly isn't confined to India and Persia, so here's a list of some of the possible candidates you might use in your own games:

• Ahriman/Angra Mainyu, Persian Titan of lies, deception and confusion. Lies are after all merely a specialized form of illusion, and they perform the same function - the obfuscation of the truth and the creation of something that is unreal but still believed in.
• Apate, Greek Titan of deception and concealment, who is said to be so wily Hermes himself could not compete with her, and who gave Hera the ability to trick Zeus into killing Semele.
• Mayasura, Hindu Titan of optical illusion, most often seen in his architectural wonders, which were so dizzying to look at that one could not distinguish floor from ceiling, glass from water and so on.
• Morpheus, Greek Titan of dreams. He's most definitely a Titan, the grandson of Erebus himself, and illusions are after all basically just dreams that one sees while awake. His brothers, Icelus and Phantasus, are also Titanic dream-weavers.
• Proteus, Greek Titan of transformation. Although also aligned with the sea and therefore a candidate for a watery Titanrealm, he's the archetypal shape-changer and form-obscurer, so much so that his name was repurposed for the adjective protean.
• Utgarde-Loki, Norse Titan, giant and master of illusiory shenanigans. He was so powerful that he easily punked Loki and Thor and they still made no move against him, and his illusions - the cat that was really the Midgard serpent, the drinking horn that was really the ocean, and the man who was really fire itself - are some of the most famous in Norse mythology.

I wouldn't suggest Hypnos, who doesn't seem to have anything to do with illusions or even dreams and merely governs unconsciousness; sleep doesn't necessarily translate to dreaming, and anyway that's what his sons are there for. You might also explore this with Pasithea, though - she isn't explicitly said to be a goddess of hallucination, but her strong ties to Hypnos and Dionysus, the uncertain etymology of her name and so on have led to her being suggested as such by more than one scholar. There are also tons of other illusionists, tricksters, shape-shifters and deceivers throughout mythology that you could put into this Titanrealm - many of them are favorites for god-parents, but if you're not using them as playable gods, figures like Anansi, Coyote or Xochipilli could easily fit in here, all of them embodying some form of lies, trickery or clouding of the senses.

In the end, it's important to remember that Titanrealms, like the rest of Scion, have to cover the concepts and ideas of all the cultures of the world, not just the ones we're most familiar with. The word "illusion" conjures up images for most of us of projected visual images like the armada of phantom ships Manannan mac Lir caused to appear around Ireland, but that's only one interpretation of the idea, and a strongly northern European one at that. Illusion is at its basis the idea of deception and confusion, of one thing masquerading as or hiding another, so across other cultures it might also include figures attached to things like lying, hallucinations, dreams, disguises or other forms of trickery. Don't feel like you have to interpret the idea narrowly - Titanrealms are anything but narrow!