Fighting the Good Fight

Iiiiit's vlog time! Today we have those fancy new lights and I look less like a zombie, but I'm also on pain drugs so I sound a little bit more like a crazy person than usual. Trade-off. Next week I hope to be more functional, and of course John is here being a helpful rock of sanity.

Today's questions are on a bunch of topics including Titans, relics and politics, but they're all about the greater world of Scion at large. So here we go!

Question: In your games, I'm assuming that the gods are very much besieged on all sides by Titanrealms and Avatars aplenty, and the corebooks make a point of saying how Avatars have to stay in their realms most of the time to avoid being rebound. My question is, if the terrifying nature of the Titanrealms is what is preventing various pantheons from attacking them en masse, what is it that's preventing Avatars from doing the same to the gods? Do Overworlds (and Underworlds, I guess) have similar built-in defenses?

Question: Why do relics bite when not bound to you? There seem to be multiple myths where people take each others' weapons and use them, and I can't name any where that has actually damaged the person (without the involvement of a curse/geasa).

Question: How do you deal with gods that have unique powers that don't seem to fit in with any of the purviews? The best examples I can come up with are mostly from the Deva. For example, Shiva's "Destructo-Eye?" The guy opens his third eye and shit just blows up! How does one make that happen in Scion? For that matter, Shiva and Kali are both known for their destructive dances wherein they dance and the world just starts to fall apart. How do these things work in your system?

Question: How would you represent Diomedes in Scion, given how he's Mr. "I'm totally a mortal man but I'm so badass that I fuck up Scions and gods alike, and then Athena made me into a god when I died?" I mean, the dude got in a fight with *Ares* and kicked his ass!

Question: I've been doing some (admittedly small) amount of research into the Orisha. Is Courage really a valid Virtue for them? They certainly talk a big game, but most of their conflicts are tricks and pranks against each other rather than huge monsters (compare to the Theoi). At the same time, they seem to highly value Intellect. Particularly with Orunmila.

Question: Could the Olympic Games have been a Birthright? It may sound stupid, but you've discussed relic songs before, and your Birthright PDF has a Shinto shrine for the Kami. Could Zeus have gotten some cool bonuses when mortals dedicated their great victories in his honor?

Question: This might be a weird question, but what are the likely consequences (politically) when a Titan (and its Avatar) manages to overpower a pantheon?

Question: How do you guys feel about the idea of making Titanrealms a one-per-purview deal? Currently I'm having to choose between one realm per pantheon (where the realms don't match up to purviews, e.g. the Kami opposed by the realm of corruption) and one per purview (e.g. the kami are opposed by Izanami as a death titan but the realm itself is split between them and the K'uh), and I can't decide which I prefer. What do you think?

Question: So my game master is most likely planning to have my character's godly parent marry her away as part of inter-pantheon politics. I know how common a practice that has been through time; is that something you have dealt with before? I'd like to know more about how the gods use their children in the politics game now that it has expanded so much since the start of the war.

Question: So, among a handful of us, "Goddamnit, Stribog" has become a touch memetic. What the chuffing hell is he doing?

Oh, Stribog. I know the players hope you never change.

Political Pantheon Party!

Aha! I bet you thought we forgot to vlog today, didn't you? Shows what you know! Not only did we remember, we actually did a whole pile of vlogs in one day, so that if we end up in a scheduling crunch in the weeks to come, you won't go without answered questions and our cheerful faces.

Question: What would you guys think of a game where Scions deal with a number of NPCs in the world bringing their pantheons back to prominance, all the while secretly guarding Zeus's "successor"?

Question: Why does Hades have Epic Stamina associated?

Question: I'm a little bit intrigued by the Orisha. It's crazy how everyone is married to everyone. How does that really work? Are they a big happy family or what?

Question: I'm STing a game and my scions (of Hel, Hades and Odin) are getting to God soon, and I need some ideas on how to make their rise to God memorable.

Question: My scion of Izanagi is finding himself being attracted to Amaterasu. He blames his attraction on being named the god of the moon (Tsuki-Yomi died), so is this argument valid? Also, should he be disgusted with himself since he is attracted to his sister? Would she be his full or half sister, since Izanagi created her and her brothers?

Question: Hey, I noticed that in your Eastern Promises and Gangs of New York games you only allow your PCs to pick four pantheons that actually had some level of cultural interaction. Just wondering if any other major pantheons on your site that could have that kind of thing going on, like say the Celtic pantheons, for instance?

Question: In your games, when and how did the gods learn that the Titans had escaped? Was there some big explosion in the Underworld? Did they simply slip out unnoticed until someone actually checked and saw that they had flown the coop?

Question: The Aztecs have a god of homosexuality despite their obvious dislike of the concept. How does the rest of the pantheon treat him?

Question: Norse vs. Borgovi? SWEET! But, say Loki tricked Thor and Perun into a room together - what would happen? A SPECTACULAR light show, or lots of drinking? OR something else?

Question: Power and responsibility go hand in hand. And with every great decision comes regret. Regret for what could have been, should have been, and what ultimately was. What do the gods regret?

Today's vlog is about gods, pantheons and related issues of their politics and powers. Happy viewing!

Remember Me

Question: The Bogovi pantheon tree in your site says Pereplut (Perpelut?) is the god of memories. All I found was the dude as the goddess of wine.

Poor Slavic mythology! Finding anything out about it is like trying to get through a carnival funhouse. There are so many conflicting sources, confused pieces of scholarship and downright up-front wrong modern ideas about it that getting anything you can solidly say is legitimate is a long and frustrating road. Believe you me, we went nuts trying to get solid soucing for Slavic mythology when we were working on the Bogovi; they have no written records from the time of their worship, there was heavy syncretization with Christianity once writing did come to the area, and modern Slavic neopaganism has, not to put too fine a point on it, made up a lot of shit.

But luckily for us, Pereplut actually wasn't one we were concerned about being too inaccurate (although we did not have a lot of information on him, which is why we're not considering him Legend 12). The portrayal of Pereplut as god of memory comes from Ivan Hudec's Tales from Slavic Myths, an unfortunately expensive and hard-to-get resource published in Slovakia by their former Minister of Culture. It relates that Pereplut is the god of memory, has a "loud and irrepressible laugh", and is the brother of Chernobog and Byelobog, whose antics he regards with some amusement. (Chernobog and Byelobog aren't up with the other sons of Svarozhich on the tree because of space constraints, but as a general rule, most Slavic gods that don't have other parentage mentioned somewhere were probably created by Svarozhich.)

I see a few internet sites out there that are talking about a Slavic goddess of drinking named Pereplut, but frankly I don't know of any sourcing for that (and none of them try to give any). Other possibilities I have seen about Pereplut - usually theoretical ones, but sometimes we have to take what we can get with Slavic myth! - include some scholars who theorize that he might be another form of Perun (because of the similar names) or the Simargl (because of his name sometimes appearing with hers), some who think he might have some agricultural connections based on the other gods he's invoked with but who have no actual proof of that, and one Bulgarian folk source that suggests he might have been a god of soil and the fertility of the earth. But these are largely conjecture, and whether or not any of them are appropriate is entirely up to a given game's preferences.

By the way, Charles Graves does relate a folk tradition of drinking from a horn during worship of Pereplut, which is probably where someone got the idea that he must be a god of wine. Considering that the Slavs didn't really do much wine, however (they were a mead people most of the time) and that drinking horns are featured in the worship of several of the other Bogovi, most notably Svantovit, I wouldn't jump to any crazy conclusions based only on that.

It's worth noting here that, when you're out there trying to figure out what the hell the ancient Slavs were doing, that they were spread out over a wide range in ancient Europe and were not always doing the same thing in all areas. Chors is a good example; in western Slavic lands (southern Germany, Slovakia, Croatia and so on), she was firmly viewed as the gentle and beautiful moon goddess, victim of Stribog's cruel mistreatment, but in eastern Slavic lands (especially Russia), she was much more strongly connected to the sun and the dawn, racing Slavic heroes in myths where they need to beat the morning to succeed. Slavic gods covered a lot of territory and, as Dvoeverie would suggest, often borrowed things from neighboring cultures and made them their own, so it's seldom that you have a god who isn't at least a little different from place to place. It's theoretically totally possible for a Bogovi god to be revered as the female patron of one idea in one part of the Slavic lands, and the male patron of a totally different idea in another, and nobody would get too bent out of shape about that.

Personally, we would not recommend going with the female-wine-fertility version of Pereplut, simply because we don't see any reputable sources to back it up and it's therefore probably part of the vast soup of messy modern pagan nonsense that surrounds the Bogovi on a daily basis. But then again, this is Scion, so you can always play with the possibilities when it comes to Fatebonds, Dvoeverie and the gods themselves trying out new things.

Borrowed Feelings, Real Attachment

Question: Each of the Legend 12 Bogovi presumably has Dvoeverie at max for at least one Virtue. Could you give any examples from your own game table or from mythology of a Bogovi god/dess' fifth virtue? Stribog, perhaps, given how large a part he's played in your Bogovi adventures?

John grumbled that this was an unfair question, because it depends so much on how a given Storyteller plays a god's personality and might vary completely depending on how many extra Dvoeverie Virtues you think they actually have. It might be only five, but then again it might be all twelve. Probably not, because that god would be batshit crazy and off the rails and probably dead, but technically possible.

But hey, we can take a few stabs at them anyway! We'd guess that Svarozhich probably has Courage, linked possibly to his Duty, thanks to the tales of his ceaseless near-death battles with Chmarnik. He probably uses it to pick up either Jotunblut from the Aesir, granting him extra badassery in his desperate combats, or maybe Me from the Anunna, bolstering his power over his elemental creation powers. Stribog, John tells me, absolutely has Conviction, which enables him to do whatever he wants if he really wants it enough, even when it breaks rules; he's not very good at truthfulness so despite the history of cooperation between Bogovi and Yazata he probably doesn't use it for Asha, but he, too, might get some use out of Me boons that increase his powers over wind and frost. Perun's a shoe-in for Courage with a healthy side helping of Jotunblut, while on the flip side Veles' love of illusionary shenanigans that teach lessons might manifest itself as Expression, probably giving him some sweet Arete with which to pull off ever bigger and nastier feats. Morena, who murders her husband for his infidelity and makes him live in the underworld in a house made of his own bones half the year, sounds like a lady with Vengeance to us, again probably dipping into the Greek pool.

Of course, while the Virtues are forever, the different PSPs can be swapped out per story, so whatever your Bogovi gods are doing in a given story or plot will affect what they might take on as their extra suite of powers. Which pantheon's powers they align with also always has neat political ramifications - Norse, Greek and Persian are old standbys, but how did a Bogovi goddess get Itztli when she's half the world away from the Aztec lands, and what did that entail? The boon doesn't require swapping fluids with a god of that pantheon or anything, but it's still a great place for Storytellers to nonkey around with politics and cultural crossover.

See You Next Fall

Question: The autumn season seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes having gods representing it. Think you could come up with a list of a couple that do exclusively deal with that season?

Man, this question just begs for me to retell a Slavic myth that expressly explains why there is no deity for Autumn. The Slavic goddesses include Morena for winter, Vesna for spring and Zhiva for summer, but autumn is unrepresented.

As those of you who are interested in Stribog already know from this old post, that god once fell in love with Chors, the beautiful goddess of the moon. He was too clumsy and socially inept to court her, however, and in addition she was in turn in love with Radegast, the god of the stars and protector of the night skies. Radegast never noticed Chors' interest, but she in turn never noticed Stribog, and eventually the wind god decided to win her through trickery and sneaked into Radegast's palace by day in order to steal his star-spangled cloak. Swathed in the cloak, he waited until nightfall and stole into Chors' bedroom; believing that it was Radegast returning her love at last, she welcomed him with open arms.

Radegast, however, was severely displeased when his cloak detailing the proper positions of the stars was missing when he needed to make his nightly rounds, and after thrashing all his servants and scouring his palace, he eventually discovered what Stribog had done. He went to Svarozhich and Prove to demand that Stribog be punished for his crime, and they ruled that since the child Chors was now carrying was conceived by trickery and rape, it would be taken away from Stribog so that he would not reap the reward of offspring from his behavior. Chors, humiliated and horrified, tried to plead with the gods to save the baby's life, and when they said that they didn't know what they would need another goddess for anyway, passionately begged that the unborn girl be given the post of the goddess of autumn, the in-between time that none of the other seasonal goddesses oversaw. After deliberation, however, the gods decided that autumn wasn't important enough to need a totem goddess, being merely an uncomfortable transition zone between summer and winter rather than a real season, and that there was no reason to appoint anyone its guardian.

As a result of this ruling, the baby was taken from Chors by Svarozhich, who dissolved her into nothingness and decreed that she had only ever been a dream. The proto-Slavic word for dream is yesen, and thereafter the season of autumn was called sen in honor of the girl who would have been its goddess had she lived.

So there's one mythology that straight-up tells you that there's nobody in charge of autumn, and furthermore why it's so. Svarozhich is downright dismissive of the idea, in fact - he says basically that if he makes an exception and declares autumn a real thing, soon everybody is going to just decide to assign a name and totem to random period of time throughout the year and everything will be chaos.

But for the non-Slavs, there are two major reasons you don't see a lot of autumn gods. One is differences in climate across the world, and the other is the fact that that role is usually overseen by the harvest goddess.

For plenty of cultures, and thus their mythologies and religions, the familiar European/North American Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter cycle is not mirrored in their local environment. In places where autumn doesn't really exist, or at least doesn't exist in a way that differentiates it much from the climate at other times, there's no point to an autumn god existing. The Alihah, for example, are the gods of a region that not only doesn't really have autumn, it barely has seasons at all, with an average deviation of barely 20 degrees celsius between the coldest and hottest times of the year. Since the most marked climate difference in their environment is that between day and night - the latter usually significantly colder than the former - they instead have various gods in charge of the sunlit day hours and celestial night hours. India is another good example, with some regions of the subcontinent substituting monsoon season and its aftermath where more northwesterly peoples would expect to experience autumn (they don't really have spring, either, or at least not in the protracted couple-of-months way Europe does). Nigeria, homeland of the Yoruba, is basically 27 degrees celsius year-round, and its ancient peoples wouldn't know what autumn was if it wandered up and bit them (but let them tell you about the rainy season versus the dry season!).

So autumn doesn't get a lot of help in various parts of the world simply because, well, it doesn't exist there. It's the same reason that you don't get very many frost or snow gods near the equator, or see as many gods of fish in landlocked cultures. (Spring is occasionally in the same boat, but because the idea of "drought/flooding/winter's over, the world is returning to life again" is closer to universal, you'll see more gods of springtime.)

The other major reason you don't see very many autumn gods is that their role is usually totally taken up by the harvest gods. The major aspect of the autumn season, in those cultures that have one, is that it's the end of summer and the time that food is harvested and laid in for the coming winter. But since harvest - and by extension all kinds of ideas of fertility and support of humanity - is such a massively important idea for most mythologies, it naturally usually has its own totem gods already, and an autumn god wouldn't be doing or representing much that they weren't already. The Slavs not only think autumn is silly, but they also don't need an autumn goddess because Mokosh, Moist Mother Earth, is already fulfilling most of that role by being the most important deity of the season as her crops are reaped and her offerings given in thanks for her bounty. When people are already going to be spending most of autumn celebrating Cronus, Demeter, Mokosh and Osiris, do they really need another person who's there because of the time of year but not doing anything new?

So I can't give you much of a list of autumn-oriented gods, because they're frankly very rare beasts. The most major is probably Sarasvati of the Devas, who is sometimes referred to as the alternative name Sharada ("autumnal") and associated with the season thanks to many of her major festivals taking place before the onset of winter (or is it the other way around?). The Greek Anemoi, the four winds, are assigned to a season each as well as a direction, so you can look to Euros, the east wind, for a representative of the declining months of the year. The Roman god Vertumnus is usually considered a fertility god as well as a representative of all the changing seasons, which includes the autumnal months. Various other gods are often theorized to be in charge of autumn, including Veles among the Slavs, Cernunnos and the Matrones among the Celts and even Sif thanks to a possible connection between her golden hair and golden fields of wheat, but these are mostly guesses based on their associations with the harvest (and in the case of Veles, at least, pretty obviously contradictory to the rest of Slavic myth).

But, as always with things that there aren't many gods of - more room for new Scions to take those spots!

Laws of the Russian Frontier

Question: Hey! The Bogovi have no Justice gods... what's up with that?

Actually, they do! He's just not Legend 12. His name is Prove, and he is the justice-y badass who presides over the legal affairs of a pantheon that is totally obsessed with law and order.

Prove is, like many of the Bogovi, a son of Svarozhich, created from the primordial stuff of creation at the beginning of the universe. As the god of law and justice, he always sits in judgment whenever an issue or dispute arises among the ranks of the Bogovi; it was he who ruled that Mokosh be punished for creating the first Scion, that Chors' unborn child had to be sacrificed to properly punish Stribog and that the Simargl had to face judgment for attacking Veles' children.

Prove's generally characterized as a pretty nice guy; he obviously has a full five dots of Order and never contravenes it, but the stories in which he sits in judgment often make a point of mentioning that he's not happy when someone is judged harshly or wishes he could have ruled differently but has his hands tied by the law. As the god of justice, his children are also related to legal matters; the Simargl is actually a composite being made up of his twin sons Sim and Rygl, who are conjoined twins who share a spine that forces them to look in opposite directions, allowing them to see both sides of every legal issue. His triple daughters, the Sudice, are the Slavic version of the Fates or Norns, and they both control the fates of humanity and ensure that their necessary punishments are meted out.

We actually had a hefty debate, when we were statting the Bogovi, over whether or not Svarozhich should also have Justice. As you can probably guess from the fact that he has it in the PDF but not in the website version, I was a fan of him getting it to illustrate the fact that he makes most of the divine laws the pantheon lives by and occasionally levies judgments himself, but John felt that Prove's supremacy in the area of law made it unlikely that Svarozhich, who occasionally submits to his rulings himself, is rocking the Avatar. Either way, Svarozhich certainly has a hefty number of Justice boons to his name.

Maya-World Relations

Question: How do the K'uh get along with your 'homebrew' (I use the word sparingly because I don't believe it really is, given the amount of research put into it) pantheons?

The first of several Homebrew Pantheon Posts! Whoever you are, thank you for being so kind about the work we put into these - it's nice to know you guys like 'em. :)

Okay, round one: the K'uh and making nice with everybody else. Of the other downloadable pantheons, they probably have the most trouble interacting with the Elohim; these are two pantheons who really just don't get each other and probably never will. The K'uh think the Elohim are crazy and reactionary, psychotic and overly vengeful, too complacent in their city-states when things like cities never stand for long, and they would have no particular interest in fighting over who has the most layers of divine kingship. On the flip side, the utter changeability of the K'uh would drive the Elohim out of their minds trying to figure out what they were doing, and they would not only not understand the idea of the many-gods-in-one, they would be likely to think of the whole Harmony-obsessed pantheon as misty-eyed hippies with no ability to get anything done. There'd no doubt they could probably both impress one another in battle... but it's hard to bond over Courage alone. Mostly you just both get covered in entrails and then go home.

The Anunna are similarly foreign to the K'uh, though less volatile and therefore less worrisome. The Anunna are very old and very sure of their superiority, so they'd be likely to treat the K'uh as strange upstart children who have developed some very weird customs indeed, and conversely the K'uh probably wouldn't think the Anunna had a lot to offer that was relevant or useful to the modern world (especially since they're so rigidly rules-focused and unchanging). They wouldn't dislike each other, but there's not a lot of respect on either side.

But the Apu, there are some people the K'uh can relate to. Although their empires never met in antiquity (I'm serious, don't make me start yelling about the Inca and the Maya being nowhere near each other again), they share many common goals and ideals, including territorial expansion, human sacrifice, strong emphasis on noble lineage and the idea of the gods as awesome cosmic forces of nature, not just really powerful people who run around in heaven. Their most major difference is in the K'uh emphasis on the fluid nature of the divine, contrasted against the Apu as the unchanging forces of the elements themselves, but they would probably both allow that there's room for both interpretations.

The Alihah... well, they understand things that don't stay the same, and while the K'uh turning into various versions of themselves isn't quite the same as the Alihah embarking on their eternal travels, in the end there's a common philosophical idea of a journey that changes oneself that they could probably get together on. The K'uh, like many other pantheons, are probably a little disdainful of the Alihah, whose people never had any true military or imperial might and who were worshiped in a very disorganized and piecemeal manner by their standards, but the Alihah are chill enough that they probably don't care. In fact, the two pantheons find each other intriguing: each sees the other as a group of deities with an enticingly different way of changing and moving, and would probably be very interested in experiencing a little of that.

And, finally, the Bogovi, who are probably inclined to be best friends with the K'uh. Both pantheons are prone to changing their selves without losing the core of who they are - the K'uh through their different aspects, the Bogovi through their many faces and names - and they share a love of the proper natural balance and a drive to preserve and support it. The K'uh are not a very hands-on pantheon when it comes to their mortal worshipers, which never hurts when trying to make friends with the Bogovi, and the two probably have a great time trading war stories, planning escapades against the Titans and playing exotic sports.

Orisha Housekeeping

Question: So, love the site, and truly appreciate all the work you guys do in researching the mythologies and pantheons. What I wondered was this: is there any way I can get an easier to read version of the Oruba? The downloadable pantheons you have are great for ease of reasing, but the family tree format is a bit tougher when you just want to look the entire pantheon up at one time. Thanks!

Question: Which Ori boons can a Bogovi Scion use with Dva Dukhom and Dvoinobog?

A little Orisha housekeeping! As the only pantheon that we've done in quite that format - written directly for the site instead of for PDF - it has a few weird wrinkles that others don't.

To start with, there is indeed no PDF version of the Orisha. They weren't the same kind of pantheon project we normally do, like the K'uh or Elohim; instead of writing a new pantheon from scratch, we were in a sense updating one that already existed in the game line, much as we'd edited and updated the Aesir or Pesedjet. It was just on a much more ambitious scale than usual, being as it was an update from the modern Loa to the ancient Orisha and an addition and serious overhaul of the entire pantheon and PSP. But that does mean there's a lot of new stuff in all kinds of different places on the site and it's not centralized conveniently anywhere. Bummer.

We weren't planning on doing a full PDF for the Orisha, partly because it's a lot of extra work and partly because it would lack a lot of the things we normally include in PDFs, such as a Titanrealm, Birthrights and extra non-Legend-12 gods. But we can definitely see that having it all in one document would be helpful. Quick experiment: how many of you would find that useful? I'm happy to whip something up, but it'll be higher on the priority scale if more people would be using it.

As for the second question... holy crap, it's definitive proof that we're the worst RPG game tinkerers ever. Way back when we released the Orisha (which was in March, for god's sake), we said, "Oh, hey, we have to figure out how the Slavic PSP interacts with the Yoruba one, we'll have that done as soon as possible!" Then we didn't do it, because we're terrible. And then we forgot we were even supposed to be doing it, because we're awful. Way to fail, us.

So I'm putting it on the Do It Now, Dummy list to make sure we do it soon, and our profound apologies to everybody. Sorry for sucking.

Anybody got any other Orisha issues, while we're at it?

Two Hearts

Question: A simple (if specific) question: how would you see a combination like Harmony and Expression working together in your Bogovi PSP?

Ah, a neat question! Since the powers of Dvoeverie involve Scions gaining new and foreign Virtues which influence their native ones, different combinations are bound to result in new and interesting personality quirks. Of course, Virtues are very subjective and a lot will depend on how a particular player plays them and a particular Storyteller enforces them, but we can give you our take on them.

Expression-flavored Harmony (or Harmony-flavored Expression) would involve both Virtues enhancing the others, creating basically a new fusion Virtue with elements of both. We would suggest that, since Expression is all about being heard and expressing your most important moments, it would encourage your Harmony to become more vocal and elaborate than it might have been before. Where Harmony encourages a Scion to preserve the balance of the universe at all costs, Harmony colored by Expression also wants you to tell others about that balance, loudly educating them or extolling the most wonderful qualities of a world in perfect balance. Your Expression will most likely guide you toward creating works of art based on the opposing forces of the universe and their natural order, or toward making the natural world itself your canvas and mode of expression.

When you have two linked Virtues with Dvoeverie, we would suggest that the higher dot-rating one is probably more influential on the other, but both are going to have their say. And god help you if someone goes out and sets a natural tree sculpture on fire in front of you or something... those double Extremity rolls are brutal.

Thief of Hearts

Question: Hi! I have a question. I was rereading the Bogovi on the Pantheons page and I noticed Chors has Larceny. Why is that? She doesn't seem the sneaky type.

Ah, Chors! Poor Chors. She does indeed have Larceny, thanks to a story in which she helps a fellow goddess in need with her mad larcenous skills. You're right that she isn't the "sneaky type" - at least, she's not a criminal nor is she particularly given to sneaking around hiding from people - but she's a perfect example of the kind of character that has a high Larceny score but uses it for other purposes.

As some of you may know from the stories on his page, the great king-god Svarozhich once fell in love with a mortal maiden named Pizamar, the most beautiful mortal ever to have been born. Because he himself had banned the consorting of gods with mortals, however, he was forced to hide his passion even from her, and instead visited her in various forms so that she had no idea what was happening to her. The creation of demigods was also illegal, so he caused her to miscarry whenever he impregnated her, and after a few rounds of this she was so miserable that she started trying to commit suicide on a regular basis. Svarozhich prevented her from succeeding, however, by putting several lesser gods and demons on suicide watch and outright forbidding Smert, the psychopomp, to take her to the Underworld.

It's at this point in the myth that Chors enters; she notices what Svarozhich has been up to and, since she has a little experience with gods being absolute douchebagels to defenseless women (see: Stribog), she goes to him and asks him to stop tormenting the poor girl. When he refuses to give Pizamar up, Chors then suggests that he should turn her into a goddess so it won't be illegal to date her and all this unpleasantness can be avoided in the future. When Svarozhich protests that this is impossible because Pizamar is only a human, Chors convinces him that she'll be able to steal immortality for the girl - provided, of course, that he backs her up by granting her a pardon if she gets caught for the crime.

Svarozhich eventually decides that he's being a little too much of a horrible person for even him to put up with, so he agrees. He and Chors then go to see Podaga, the goddess of weather (mother of Perun, for the interested) who listens to the many winds and guards the fabled mead of immortality so that it cannot be stolen. Svarozhich gets his mack on with Podaga to distract her, and while he's distracting her, Chors ninjas her way into Podaga's home and steals the mead, which she then delivers to Pizamar by sneaking up on her and pouring it into her while she sleeps. Pizamar is summarily rendered immortal, Chors escapes judgment because no one but Svarozhich ever knows what she's done, Podaga gets angry and rejects everyone who comes to court her for the rest of her life in case they're secretly thieves, and Svarozhich is able to bring Pizamar to live with him while pretending that everything is totally fine.

So while Chors is not any kind of a secret agent or safe-cracker on most days, she demonstrates some seriously larcenous chops in her bid to steal the most precious substance in the universe from under its guardian's nose and somehow get off scot-free. And, touchingly, she does it not for her own personal gain or amusement, but to help out a sister in need. You couldn't ask for a nicer burglar.

Ol' Frosty

Question: "God damn it, Stribog," huh?

You can be dead or in an entirely different century and he can still find a way to ruin your day.

In Soviet Russia, Gods Play You

Okay, so our estimates on completion were way too optimistic - we forgot about that little thing called the holidays, and also didn't anticipate that this project would be so thorny and difficult. Remember when we converted the Anunna for the site, and that was relatively easy and painless and quick, and we all felt satisfied with our work and didn't have towering fights about mechanics rewrites? Those were good times.

But we're dauntless, and now, to ring in the new year, we finally have the Bogovi ready for action as a playable pantheon on the site. Woohoo!

As always when we convert one of the PDF pantheons for actual play in our games, there have been changes; their Virtue setup has been tweaked, their PSP of Dvoeverie is very different from its original incarnation, although it keeps several key ideas, and a couple of gods didn't make it from the PDF onto the site's playable roster (sorry, Jarilo and Zhiva!). If you're using closer to Scion's original rules, you may want to stick with what you see in the PDF on the downloads page; if you're running closer to our systems, feel free to dive into the new posted material with us!

We want to really quick point out, before anyone asks, that we know that some pantheons are missing from the Dvoeverie boons that list them off. Since Dvoeverie is all about the most iconic powers and ideas from various pantheons, we really couldn't be comfortable with trying to assign those for the pantheons and PSPs we haven't completed overhauling yet. So they're missing from the table for now, but we'll hopefully be adding them back over time, and in the meantime Storytellers should feel free to fill in the blanks as necessary with whatever they deem most appropriate.

And speaking of pantheons who aren't yet overhauled, we've made a minor change to the pantheons page to hide them for the time being. They're still accessible to anyone who wants to use them, but this way they aren't taking up space for those who are waiting for the rewrites, and we can restore them to the page proper as we work through them.

So, now that the Slavs are done, where to next? The answer is Africa, because you fine people voted for the long overdue overhaul of the Loa. We're super excited about this and can't wait to get started; books on the Yoruba pantheons and their diaspora versions are scattered around our house like confetti. It's been a long time coming, but hopefully we'll be able to give them a good hard look and come back with a brushed-up roster, a new set of (better, more awesome) powers and a fresh outlook. Watch out, orisha, we're coming for you.

And while we're doing that, there's a snazzy new poll over on the right for you guys to vote on what we move on to next! We made it fancy by removing some of the old voting options that weren't doing very well (but don't worry if they were your favorites - they may make another appearance someday!) and adding some new projects that we're excited to work on. Let us know what you're interested in, because we are, as always, nothing if not jazzed to come up with something new and fun to add to the game.

And if you have questions about the Slavs, hit us up here, we're ready for 'em!

Yezhibaba Rides Tonight

Question: You mention in the Slav sidebar that STs can use the Scion: Companion if they did decide to create a Scion of Baba Yaga, but a lot of the purviews & associated Attributes still seem to contradict the actual myths of Baba Yaga. Seriously, Animal (Chicken)?

We're not going to lie here. We really hate the Slavic material in Scion: Companion.

It's not really the fault of the writers. Slavic mythology is very difficult to find good material on in English; there's a ton of misinformation and modern pagan invention out there muddying up the waters, and since most of the Slavic material was written as example fluff for pantheon-building rather than as a proper pantheon, it probably wasn't a project that had a lot of deep research go into it. There's also the issue of the writers being forced to follow the previously released god-awful adventure in Scion: Demigod, and of the restrictions of the Soviet pantheon in the same supplement forcing a lot of modern imagery and ideas onto the Slavic gods. In short, it's a hot mess that we're not sure anyone could have done a lot better with.

But, like most of the inaccurate writeups, odd fringe god-choices and PSP-clearly-based-on-a-Neil-Gaiman-novel stuff surrounding Scion's "official" treatment of the Slavs, Baba Yaga's writeup and stats in Companion (page 243) really don't make a lot of sense. A lot of her fluff is actually great stuff pulled straight from folklore, but she's been shoehorned into the miserable mess of the Soviet pantheon with a bunch of other figures that she doesn't really belong with, and whomever statted her was clearly just on a mission to give her as many associated powers as possible. Animal (Chicken) is perhaps the most ludicrous choice, and is probably there solely because her hut has chicken feet, but since Baba Yaga herself is horrible but not distinctly poultry-esque, the association is wildly sketchy. Similarly, the association of her with Sky is probably because of her habit of flying about in a mortar and pestle, but since she has little to nothing to do with weather, storms or the air itself, that looks like a pretty clear case of a magical flying relic, not a purview. Baba Yaga's name might be obscurely etymologically connected to a term for illness, but while she does occasionally seem to have connotations of disease, the association is much too light to hand her The Scourge. And while we get the Epic Appearance for her horrible visage, what's with giving the hag who can be outsmarted by normal mortals Ultimate Intelligence?

Basically, we suggested that Storytellers could use the writeup for Baba Yaga in Companion if they wanted to because we strive to keep our new pantheon supplements as compatible with the official material in the books as possible, so that players who don't use our crazy sprawling set of custom rules and powers can get as much use out of them as those who do. We didn't want to do a whole new writeup of Baba Yaga as a playable goddess because the official books already include one, and it seemed most fair to direct people there if they wanted to use it.

But yeah, our recommendation would be to not use it, or at the least to edit it until it makes enough sense to be used.

The Bogovi supplement's writeup on Baba Yaga (on page 30, for those interested) sets her as a Legend 11 goddess and therefore not a traditional choice for a divine parent; her Legend was certainly strong enough to survive to the present day, but she's remembered as a folkloric witch figure and has lost her once-divine background whereas the other Slavic gods are at least still considered deities, so it seemed appropriate to set her slightly below them. You could make the argument, however, that while the other Bogovi are remembered as gods, they have far fewer tales spun about their deeds than does Baba Yaga, so we could definitely see a Storyteller deciding to run with her as Legend 12.

If you did decide to run Baba Yaga as a divine parent, try this associated setup on for size: Manipulation for her powers of bewitchery, Appearance for her terrible visage, Magic for her skill with curses and enchantments and Psychopomp for her role as keeper of the borders between worlds. You might also consider Wits, which she sometimes demonstrates in her ability to snare her prey through quick thinking despite being demonstrably not overly bright, or Strength, for the stories of her ironclad grip and terrible physical prowess. Companion also suggests Chaos, which, while not one we would have chosen out of the hat, probably makes more sense than everything else it suggests. For abilities, I'd suggest Animal Ken, Athletics, Fortitude, Occult, Presence Survival. Or, if you're feeling particularly whimsical, Control (Mortar & Pestle).

Distant Cousins, Twice Removed

Question: Which of the Bogovi are related to which? Specifically, is Veles related in any way to Perun, and are they children or brothers of Svarog?

Man, this is why I love to make family trees, because gods' familial relations are always important to the game, but they can be a real pain to try to remember on the fly. Also, trying to trace a family tree without a visual is really difficult. Stay with me while I try to make this work.

...nope. On further reflection, trying to explain geneaology verbally is a royal mess, so instead, here's a quick and dirty family tree for the Slavic gods. It's ugly, but it'll get the job done until that beautiful day that we can put the Slavs up on the site in all their glory (they're an option on the poll to the right, by the way, for those interested in seeing that happen sooner rather than later).

As with any mythological tree, some choices are being made here between different versions of geneaologies that are out there. Clicking on names that have dotted lines to or from them will open up other parts of the tree that are hidden. The tree's software is limiting - you can't marry siblings, so be aware that Vesna, Chors et. al. are also children of Svarozhich - but it gets you the general picture.

So, to answer your question, Perun and Veles are brothers, both children/creations of Svarozhich (who is kind of the massive pater familius of the Slavic gods); they're also connected through Mokosh, who is Perun's wife but Veles' lover, and through Jarilo, who is Perun's son but Veles' foster-son. Svarog's only children are Svarozhich and Dazhbog, and he has no brothers, being the first thing that existed and hogging all the spotlight as creation Titans tend to do.

Whew. John, I promise I did not spend more than an hour on this.

A Huge Drag

Question: I’ve noticed that you have links to the stories that you use to make your justifications on the pantheon pages. Could you perhaps do so on the blog for the pantheons you have in PDF? Specifically the Bogovi, to which I can find no reference in which Veles isn’t described as a dragon/snake fighting Perun.

Actually, we provide the stories on gods' individual pages to give our players a chance to read a little bit about the gods they're considering playing Scions of without having to wander around lost in their local libraries or internet searches; it's nice to know what god-parents do in their myths and to read about their exploits prior to a game's campaign. But they do also sometimes serve the double purpose of illustrating the associated powers and abilities of the gods through their actions, which never hurts.

At the moment, while the Anunna are active in our games, the Bogovi, Apu and Elohim are not, so we've been bending the sweat of our brows to working on other projects instead (additionally, John doesn't want to muddy the waters too much for our players by introducing a bunch of pantheons that may not be open for play yet). Considering that you're definitely not the first person to ask about them recently, though, the idea's still on the table. (Look, John, all I'm saying is that the people clearly want it.)

I'm totally all about discussing Veles, though, in the meantime! The characterization of Veles as a dragon that battles Perun is the result of comparative mythological reconstructionism, which is a long, complex-looking phrase that basically means it's made up based on other nearby cultures' myths. The theory was popularized by a pair of linguist-folklorists named Ivanov and Toporov; their reasoning basically boils down as follows.

1) Perun is clearly the storm god.
2) In most nearby cultures' myths, the storm god battles a dragon. (Indra versus Vritra, Teshub versus Illuyanka, Thor versus Jormungandr, Zeus versus Typhon, and so on and so forth.)
3) Therefore, Perun must fight a dragon.
4) Fragmentary sources indicate that Perun and Veles have an antagonistic relationship.
5) Therefore, Veles must be a dragon.

There's more to it, mostly linguistic connections from folktales, but that's the gist of the idea. However, we really didn't like it very much at all and chose not to include it in our Scion treatment because its basis is so very sketchy. There's no epigraphical, artistic or story evidence anywhere of Veles as a dragon; the closest you can get are some images of snakes, but snakes are a classic underworld symbol in many cultures and may not indicate that Veles himself is one as much as they're just indicating the presence of death. Other scholars, equally (or, in my ever-humble opinion, more) as reputable as Ivanov and Toporov, have reconstructed very different tales for Veles, including the root of his quarrel with Perun being the fact that he is occasionally lovers with Perun's wife and kidnapped one of his sons to raise as his own, all of which is understandably irritating but again none of which involves any hint of dragonhood. In fact, many of the widely-accepted bits of lore about Veles - the fact that oaths were sworn on him as well as on Perun, for example, or his syncretization after Christianization with the benevolent and protective Saint Nicholas - don't really seem to match up to the theory at all.

And in case you've run across the also-popular idea of Perun as the eagle atop the Slavic world tree, opposed to Veles as the dragon at its roots, that's yet another separate layer of theory that didn't come from Ivanov and Toporov, and which we haven't been able to find any reliable sourcing for at all. I suspect it's someone making a connection based on the idea of the opposed eagle and dragon Nidhoggr in Norse mythology, but there's no reason to suppose that Slavic mythology is going to be the same without proof.

Veles and Perun definitely don't get along all the time, but it's our pretty firm opinion that there's no reason to assume that the underworld god is a dragon, nor to assume that he represents a cosmic evil kept at bay by Perun. There's no evidence of these things in what little we still have of Slavic mythology, and we're not about to go assuming that all cultures must have the same myths, even when they may have similar roots at one point or another; there are similar facets and tales across Indo-European mythology, certainly, but there are also a startling array of diversions.

Sources on Veles that aren't based on the Ivanov/Toporov theory can be hard to find, and most of them aren't available in English (why is it that English-speaking academia isn't interested in this subject? Come on, guys!). The best English source for non-dragonish Slavic lore is Hudec's Tales from Slavic Myth, which contains narrative stories of his connections to the underworld and fertility rites. (And if you're fluent in Croatian or have a really good translator, the works of Radoslav Katicic and Vitomir Belaj are very interesting indeed.)

It would be a pretty large undertaking to post up stories here for every god of every one of our custom pantheons, so forgive me for not doing so in this post. I hope we can get the Bogovi some web space of their own soon, but until then, we're always happy to share if you have specific questions or want to know about a specific deity, either here (preferably as single posts, the way we've recently discussed Stribog and Baal) or if you email us.

Grigori Rides Again

Question: "We're always willing to talk about more Slavic creatures! If there are specific ones you're interested in, hit us anytime." Quoting what you just said, I'd like to know your take on to these critters (I know, it's a 3x1 question!): Baba Yaga, Koschei the Deathless,and Rasputin. I can find very little about Koschei, but some decent stories which involve Baba Yaga. As for Rasputin, most people know him and his story. What do you think they are in the Scionverse?

Well, good news! Two of those fine figures already have writeups from us floating around on the internet, though since they aren't consolidated it's no wonder you didn't find them on first look. Baba Yaga appears in our Slavic pantheon supplement as a goddess antagonist, with a full writeup on page 30 and a description of her home, Domkura, on page 19. Koschei the Deathless does not appear in the supplement proper, but since you're not the first to ask about him, there's actually a writeup of him in an old blog post over here.

As for Rasputin, he doesn't really fit in the same category as the other two; he's an extremely modern figure compared to the old folklore of Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless, and his legends, such as they are, are very minor. The most popular of these, the idea that he cursed or otherwise contributed to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, is a mostly western story that doesn't match up to the generally benevolent view of him in Russia as a holy man or a mystic (blame Don Bluth for that one - Anastasia is a fun movie for kids, but it's about as accurately Russian as my sock drawer).

If you're interested in using Rasputin as a personage in Scion, I'd suggest that his powers of sight and healing suggest that he was probably a Scion, though it's unlikely that he was higher than Legend 4 at the most since most of his fabled powers (identifying thieves, healing wounds, being immune to poison, etc.) are distinctly low-level. If he was a Scion, his origin is a very interesting question to ponder, considering that the Slavic gods' ban on any interaction with humanity, including creating Scions, would have been in effect at this time; why someone would have flouted the rule and how much of it they got away with is an intriguing question. It's also possible that he could have been a lesser immortal with a vested interest in the Russian rulership, possibly a small spirit or demon of the land that escaped the Bogovi's notice. In either case, one wonders about his strong espousement of the Russian Orthodox Church - hardly something someone with Piety would be doing, you'd think.

He's quite dead, of course, so unless you have a really great reason for someone to have resurrected him for your plot, he's more of a curious footnote than someone I'd seriously consider in play. But hey, depending on your plot, he certainly could still be around if his death was faked or a death god took a liking to him. My favorite idea for Rasputin involves using him as a ghostly guide for a Slavic Scion - all the fun of his murky urban legends and questionable background in one convenient place!

Old Man Winter

Question: I dearly love your Bogovi write-up. I've been wanting to play a Slavic Scion for ages. Thing is, this Scion's a child of Stribog, and there's a huge dearth of information (legends etc.) about him! Tell me you good people have dug up something more?

Ask and ye shall receive, my friend. I have a soft spot for Stribog, who is sort of a curmudgeonly old recluse that nobody loves and who has no social skills to deal with this situation, and there are indeed interesting stories involving him in Slavic myth.

Probably the most poignant involves the moon-goddess Chors; Stribog had fallen in love with her, but she was only interested in the star-god Radegast and ignored his clumsy overtures. Knowing that Radegast wasn't really interested in Chors, Stribog sneaked into his hall during daylight one day and stole his cloak of stars. He covered himself in it and went to Chors' house, where, thinking it was Radegast finally deciding to return her love, she welcomed him and they made love, conceiving a child. Radegast, however, noticed his cloak missing when he went to do his nightly rounds, and when he found it mysteriously returned later and his servants who had spied Stribog told him what had happened, he complained to Svarozhich. Chors was miserable, Radegast was vengeful, and Svarozhich ruled that Stribog was to be punished by having the still-unborn child taken from him; Svarozhich used magic to draw it from Chors' womb and then dissipate it into nothingness, declaring that the child was now and forever only a dream. The baby would have been the goddess of autumn, which is why there are Slavic goddesses of spring (Lada), summer (Zhiva) and winter (Morena), but not the other season. (According to the myth, it's also the reason that the proto-Slavic word for autumn is yesen, from sen, to dream.)

Nobody addresses how those particular gods' relationships go down after that, but I have to assume that Stribog is probably not popular with either Radegast or his lady-love, and it's the only myth I know of that involves him making any attempt at romance.

The other major story I know of involving Stribog starts with Perun randomly deciding he wants humanity to love him one day, deciding to accomplish this by trying to give them the gift of fire by using lightning bolts to set trees aflame (thunder gods tend to not be very smart). Stribog, as the master of the winds, had been charged by Svarozhich with making sure that fire didn't spread over the earth too much, so every time Perun did this he blew it out. Eventually, after the humans stopped panicking that Perun was going to kill them and realized that fire was pretty neat, Perun went to Stribog and begged him to turn a blind eye to this last fire, saying that it was just a little one providing some comfort and nobody would notice. Stribog agreed, thinking that the fire would eventually die like the others, but humanity figured out torches and then the secret was out. Perun got dragged up before Svarozhich and thoroughly screamed at for breaking the law regarding not interfering with mortals; his excuse was "there are holes in my quiver, some of my thunderbolts must have accidentally fallen out". Stribog was the only person who could prove this wasn't true, but since he didn't want to get in trouble for being an accomplice, he stayed silent and Perun got off with a slap on the wrist.

There are a few other small mentions of him here and there, usually having to do with wind, rain or snow. I believe he's the one that blew the whistle on Mokosh having made the first Scion, leading to the unilateral ban on them that was in effect before the Titans broke out, and while a lot of gods are noted as having secretly given gifts of knowledge or power to humanity, he's one of the few who never does, so he's probably one of the most hardline gods on the stance of not interfering with humanity.

These myths, incidentally, are mostly drawn from Ivan Hudec's excellent Tales from Slavic Myths, which I recommend to anyone who's interested in the subject (they're a lot more poetic there than in my condensed retelling, plus there's some seriously gorgeous art). It's super expensive thanks to only being in print in Slovakia, but I was able to find a copy at a local university library, so there's a chance you might be able to find one without having to shell out a zillion dollars for it.

Chasing Scholars

Question: So, I'm really happy about your Bogovi pantheon--I'm really interested in Slavic folklore, so I just wanted you guys to know that you rock! That being said, I noticed in your write up of Veles that he doesn't have Earth or Water as associated, and I was just sort of curious. I always thought that Veles was sort of a cthonic deity, as the opposite of Perun. What's the reasoning behind that? Thanks!

Ooh, Veles. Batten down the hatches, because I love talking about Veles.

Doing anything with Slavic mythology is sort of a journey through the corridors of reconstructionism; there's so little information left on them, due to conquering, lack of written record, heavy Christianization and the fact that they're spread over a huge geographical area and had a lot of local variations on the same themes, that you have to sift a great deal of third- and fourth-hand information and read a lot of theories, and then try to piece something coherent together from all the rubble. Since they're popular with modern pagan religious practitioners, you also have to dodge the many modern myths of those practices as they often have no basis in Slavic folklore at all. Some gods are easier to pin down than others, but Veles, being one of the most popular, is also one of the craziest to try to figure out.

He definitely is cthonic, in the sense that he is an underworld god and has little to do with most of the celestial Bogovi who swan about in their world tree. I've never been a fan, however, of giving all underworld gods Earth just because they're hanging out under it; true, some, like Hades, clearly need to have it as they are actually linked with the earth in some way, but for most the earth is the domain of a different figure, usually an earth or mother goddess (for the Slavs, Mokosh, beloved old Moist Mother Earth, or the less well-known Pripalega). Veles is definitely a down-there kind of a god, but he doesn't have much to do with the soil itself in any story or rite except to help make it fruitful, so he gets Fertility instead. Water's mostly the same story; the Slavic underworld is described frequently as "moist" or "damp", but this refers to the fact that it's fertile and lush and growing, rather than to any real connection with the waters.

Veles' supposed earth connotations come largely from the very popular theory of scholars Ivanov and Toporov, who are responsible for the idea that Veles and Perun are locked in an eternal rivalry or battle, as well as for the description of Veles as a dragon and much of the popularity of the idea of Perun as king of the Bogovi. With Perun as representative of the heavens and Sky, Ivanov and Toporov set Veles as representative of the underworld and Earth. You've probably noticed that not much of this is present in the Bogovi supplement (though it does definitely show up in White Wolf's half-treatment of the Slavs in Companion), and the reason for that is that, after reading it and the counterarguments of other scholars, I don't think it has enough evidence to support it.

The vast majority of the theory is based, not on Slavic myth or records of worship, but on other religions that are near the lands where Slavic religion was practiced; Ivanov and Toporov reason that since the Hindu myths have a sky god fighting a dragon (Indra vs. Vritra) and the Hittite myths have a sky god fighting a dragon (Teshub vs. Illuyanka) and the Norse myths have a sky god fighting a dragon (Thor vs. Jormungandr) and the Greek myths have a sky god fighting a dragon (Zeus vs. Typhon), the Slavs must also have a myth in which a sky god fights a dragon. Perun is obviously the sky god, and Veles, thanks to his underworld connotations, was nominated to become the dragon. The problem with this is that it is a reconstruction that almost completely ignores Slavic folklore itself; Veles is never anywhere described as a dragon. He does occasionally seem to be associated with snakes, but never in a zoomorphic way, and snakes are a pretty common symbol of the underworld. He doesn't seem to have any truly sinister connotations, being called upon to encourage fertility and witness oaths, but never particularly feared as far as we can tell. His rivalry with Perun has been corroborated by other reconstructionists (Belaj and Katicic in particular), but in those cases the reconstructed myths offer reasons for their spats - the two gods sharing Mokosh, the earth goddess who separates the heavens and the underworld, as her husband and lover respectively, and the reconstructed myth in which a jealous Veles steals Perun's newborn son Jarilo and raises him as his own. But these are the sorts of fights gods get into all the time, not the sort of cosmic good vs. evil battles that Ivanov and Toporov are pointing to in other cultures.

I should note that Ivanov and Toporov do, in fact, use material from Slavic folklore to back up their theory, mostly fragments of folk songs. I obviously don't feel that they make enough of a case to make the theory valid, but if you're interested, by all means look them up and decide for yourself.

So, instead of vague connotations borrowed from other cultures, I went with the things that Veles is actually known for: being propitiated to help crops grow, particularly the wheat that he is patron of, and being called upon as a patron god of cattle, and using magic and illusions to confound others, usually with the goal of teaching them a lesson, as in the myth of his pranking of his three sons. He actually reminds me quite a lot of the Irish Manannan mac Lir; not that the two of them are probably related closely in any way, but they'd probably really enjoy having a drink together.

The Sights, the Sounds, the Smells

Question: I love the write ups you've done so far but I was wondering, if a character used the Scent The Divine knack on a Scion of the Anunna, Elohim, or Bogovi, what scent or sound would you get? I ask because I read all three write ups and I couldn't find their scents listed.

You didn't miss it - the scents aren't in there. I originally didn't include them because I intended to just add them to the table for the Scent the Divine knack, but then didn't get them up on the website and somehow managed to forget all about it. Sorry!

The Anunna are the most elemental and ancient of gods; I would suggest the sound of a sudden crack of thunder accompanied by the scent of cedar wood.

The Elohim, on the other hand, demand harsher sacrifices and are more temperamental than their northern neighbors. For them, the scent is most likely the reek of cooling ash, and the brief sound of clashing weapons.

The less volatile Bogovi are much more connected to the natural cycles of the world and the rhythm of its harmonies, so I'd suggest something like a smell of rain and the sound of a turning wheel.

Dirty Old Man

Question: Why don't the Slavs have a write up for Kotzchei? He seems a perfect midlevel antagonist or potential guide.

I actually did consider adding Koschei as an antagonist; like many other Slavic figures that were super cool, he ended up just getting cut for space (there are a LOT of Slavic antagonist options - Rugievit, Porenut, Porevit, Pripalega, Podaga and the Simargl all ended up on the chopping block, too). But you're right - Koschei the Deathless, in all his ugly old-man glory, is a great mid-demigod antagonist and could be a fun guide as well, particularly if you like saddling your PCs with hilariously antagonistic guides (god knows we do). So, ask and ye shall receive: here was my writeup for Koschei, still hiding on my hard drive.

Koschei the Deathless
AKA: Kaschey, Kosciej, Kostej, Tzar Koschei
        The terror of countless generations of Russian storytellers, Koschei the Deathless is an ancient sorcerer, a lesser immortal nearly on par with the least powerful of the Bogovi themselves. Unpleasant and tyrannical, he terrorizes the lands of the Midnight Kingdom whenever Perun is not on hand to frighten him into submission, stealing livestock, livelihoods and loved ones as the whim takes him. Though he has been known in the past to occasionally foray into the World to seek treasure or particularly tempting maidens (for which he has a weakness), such trips are infrequent; he has a historically rocky relationship with Baba Yaga and the two are seldom getting along well enough for her to allow him through Domkura.
        Koschei usually appears as an old man, extremely bony and angular with a hideous deathly grin and wild, unkempt black hair. He seldom bothers to wear clothing, enjoying the shocking effect his ugly naked form has on others, and is most often found riding through the countryside on stolen horses, which he urges to ever greater speeds until they collapse. When he chooses to set up a semi-permanent residence, he usually favors caves or dank, stony castles, most often in poor repair thanks to his lack of interest in them and the dearth of servants willing to serve him. Such hideaways never last long by the reckoning of the gods, as Perun has a habit of flattening them when he happens to notice them, but even so some have endured for centuries before crumbling into the ground from neglect.
        Aside from his formidable magical powers and renowned bad attitude, Koschei is most famous for the veracity of his epithet, the Deathless: he cannot be killed by any means. Weapons may injure him but never render him unconscious or at death’s doorstep; starvation and lack of sleep can weaken and disorient him, but he never fully succumbs to them. The only way to successfully destroy Koschei is to locate his soul, cunningly hidden on the isle of Buyan, and damage it irreparably. Koschei’s soul takes the form of a small egg, about the size of a robin’s; this egg is inside a large duck, which in turn is miraculously inside a swift hare, which is kept in locked chest buried beneath a wizened, scraggly tree in the center of the island. Capturing the soul requires first a Dexterity + Larceny roll of at least 25 successes to open its lock, or a Strength + Athletics roll of the same to break it. Once it has been opened, a Dexterity + Brawl roll that gains at least 30 successes is needed to catch the swiftly-fleeing hare, and as soon as it dies, the would-be conqueror must roll Dexterity + Brawl again and gain 35 successes to catch the fleeing duck that springs from its corpse (those without the Wind’s Freedom boon or the Holy Bound knack may also find it difficult to catch the duck, which instantly leaves the ground in its attempts to escape). Upon killing the duck, the egg housing Koschei’s soul is finally free; anyone who destroys it by physically striking Koschei with it will finally cause him to meet his demise. It is possible to break the egg without employing it against Koschei, but doing so requires a 50 on a Strength + Brawl roll, and merely incapacitates Koschei for one day before his soul returns to him and he is free to hide it once more.
        Koschei has a Legend rating of 7.
        Attributes: Strength 6, Dexterity 5, Stamina 7; Charisma 1, Manipulation 5, Appearance 6; Perception 4, Intelligence 4, Wits 6
        Virtues: Ambition 4, Conviction 3, Endurance 5, Piety 1
        Abilities: Academics 1, Animal Ken 1, Athletics 3, Awareness, 2, Brawl 4, Command 3, Control (Horse) 3, Fortitude 5, Integrity 2, Larceny 5, Melee 2, Presence 4, Stealth 2, Survival 3
        Supernatural Powers:
        Boons: Koschei has all boons 1-6 in the Chaos and Magic purviews.
        Epic Attributes: Epic Strength 6, Epic Dexterity 4, Epic Stamina 6; Epic Manipulation 3, Epic Appearance 5; Epic Perception 3, Epic Intelligence 3, Epic Wits 6
        Other: Koschei can never be incapacitated, knocked out or killed by any means except for the destruction of his soul; no matter how heinous the injury or total the devastation of his body, he will slowly regenerate and rise again despite all attempts to end him.