Dreamweaver

Question: I've seen Anansi mentioned often in connection with the Loa; is he actually considered a member of their pantheon? If so, why? I mean, I can see him under related African pantheons, but specifically Loa Voduon? Also if he is a Loa, why isn't he on the Loa page?

Anansi is currently allied with and a nominal member of the Loa in our games, which is probably why you're hearing them mentioned together. The PCs made that happen with a blend of fancy political shenanigans, good old-fashioned African travel tales and blind screaming spider-fueled panic, but it's not something that the game came with out of the box. The Loa were attempting to move most of their worshipers and religion back to their African roots, and put Vala's band on getting the support of some of the other African gods to help smooth the transition.

Anansi himself is not one of the Loa; he's from the Ashanti religion, while the Loa have their roots in the Yoruba religion, two distinctly different sets of African myths. He's only about as related to the Loa as the Tuatha are to the Bogovi; they share real estate on the same continent and some common themes, but in general they're separate people with separate ideas that shouldn't be lumped together.

We hope to one day figure out what to do with Anansi, who is clearly god-parent material but who also comes from a pantheon of like four people; until that day, however, he serves as a free agent and adjunct when things in Africa are going down. Just as in North America, Africa really just needs like twenty statted pantheons of its own, but most of them are so obscure for players that they're not priorities.

But old Talespinner certainly does keep on spinning.