The Blood is the Life

Question: I have a slight problem with the Aztecs. A little thing called "playing alongside a blood-crazed mass murderer". It's hard to play the goody two-shoes hero when my bandmate thrives upon the blood of virgins and the tears of children. I know that you can make an Aztec that's a pretty good guy, I just haven't seen it been proven. Aztecs are all crazy.

Hummm. Well, there's a lot going on here.

First of all, back your train up: Aztecs are not all crazy. You just got through saying you know that there can be Aztecs who are good people, so you clearly know this. Like everyone else on the planet, the Aztecs are a race of human beings, and they have all the good, bad and ugly in them that every other race has. It's no more fair to call them all crazy than to call all Chinese people crazy, or all French people, or all of any other race or nationality or ethnic group. Chill out with the name-calling of an entire civilization.

I know we've talked about the Aztec religion and the importance of blood sacrifice in it before, but our blog is a deep quagmire of many things, so we don't blame you for not digging through it all. We could write an entire book on what blood sacrifice is about and why it's centrally important to Aztec religion (in fact, other people have - if you have a chance, check out David Carrasco's City of Sacrifice for a very thorough look at the subject), and furthermore why this is not a moral question as much as a religious one, but the basics are these: the Aztecs believed, as the central conviction of their religion, that the gods lent all their power to making sure the world was maintained and supported so that it did not collapse. They believed that it had collapsed before, and would again if the gods didn't keep it running the way they were supposed to. And they believed that the power that the gods used - indeed, the most potent power in the universe - was chalchihuatl, "sacred water", which was contained only in the blood of living things. Blood was conceived of as literally being life and power, and therefore the sacrifice of blood to the gods was directly sending them the power needed to run the universe. Human sacrifice - which certainly could and did sometimes take the form of the murder of human beings, but was more often a semi-frequent ritual of letting a little of one's own blood, a practice called autosacrifice - was intended to lend the power of the blood spilled to the gods, who would then use it to keep the universe running. In effect, the religion was designed as a massive community works project, in which everyone did their part and shed their blood to ensure that the entire world continued on.

Of course, that doesn't mean people didn't abuse the system. There are sadists, opportunists and heartless bastards in every culture, and there were definitely priests who took advantage of the sacrifice system to extort goods and services from people, nobles who abused it to get rid of people they didn't like and people from every walk of life who tried to weasel out of it by getting someone else to go under the knife instead of themselves. But this isn't specific to the Aztecs; every other pantheon's religion has examples of behavior just as bad. And considering that the vast majority of them also practiced human sacrifice at some point in their history, they don't all have a lot of moral high ground to stand on for this one.

But, at any rate, the point here is that Aztec religion is not about murdering people for fun, or drinking the tears of babies, or bathing in blood just because they like blood. It is about doing what needs to be done, even when it's painful, for the good of the entire community and the entire world. The Teotl don't kill people because they're sociopaths; they kill people because they know if they don't, everyone's going to die anyway. In fact, murder for murder's sake is just plain wasteful, as far as they're concerned, and was illegal among the Aztecs.

It sounds to me like you're having a problem with a specific Aztec - your bandmate the blood-crazed mass-murderer. We don't know anything about him or her, but let's assume that they really are a crazed murderer who skins children for giggles. You know what? It is totally 100% okay for your character to hate, fear or despise them. That shit isn't okay. Your character doesn't necessarily know why they're doing those things, nor do they know if they have any reason beyond "I haven't seen blood in the last ten minutes". Your character is presumably a fairly normal person with a fairly normal moral compass (or so I assume from you saying you're playing "a pretty good guy"), so murder should bother him, and ritualized or fetishized murder probably even more so.

It is totally possible that your bandmate is a crazy person who should be put down for the good of everyone who encounters them. Like we said, we don't know who they are or what their motivations are, or even what exactly they do, so it could be anywhere along the spectrum from "I have to perform sacrifices or my parents are going to die and lose the Titan war" to "I just like torturing people with needles", or anywhere in between. It is totally possible to create and play characters who are evil serial killers - we've certainly had one or two - so that may be what you're dealing with here. If so, you're responding pretty much the way anyone could be expected to. I don't know what reasons you have for putting up with this person in character, but even if you have to be around them, nobody can make you approve of what they do or stop trying to prevent them from hurting the innocent.

However, it's also possible that you're approaching this from a position of ignorance when it comes to what Aztec sacrifice is about, and that you might want to take a closer look at this character and their behavior. Has your character ever asked them about what they do, what it means to them, or why they do it? Do you have enough Occult or Academics for your character to know what Aztec sacrifice is about and to be able to tell if that's what's going on here? Has your character ever encountered any other Aztecs, possibly NPCs, and did they seem to behave the same way? Have you spoken to your divine parent or other people in your pantheon and asked them why they would put you with this crazy-ass murderer, to see if they know something you don't? If you feel like you're stuck with this person, have you taken any steps to try to learn more about their motivations, and to see if there's any way you can try to lessen their violent tendencies or convince them to try something different?

And hey, maybe you have and it came up fruitless, and that's cool. Maybe you're just running in a band with someone who really does keep peoples' faces in a box under their bed, and there's just nothing you can do about it. But your question sounds a lot like you're blaming Aztec society and religion in general for the behavior of one individual, so it might be worth your time to investigate whether or not they're actually acting on behalf of their pantheon or just happen to be a crazy person. No society can be made up entirely of serial killers; it couldn't function. You may just be with a person who happens to be a psychopath, rather than a typical Aztec Scion.

As for our games, we have a wide variety of Aztec Scions, each with their own way of handling (and often struggling with) the problems and morality of their religion's need for human sacrifice. Sangria, the oldest of them, is in fact a psychopathic murderer who has no compassion or concern for the lives she takes whatsoever, but she's also only interested in killing people for sacrificial purposes, never for fun or because she doesn't like them; and the others run as much of a moral and emotional range as any other pantheon's Scions might, including Kettila, who kills only children because she was an abused child herself and wants to save them from anyone being able to hurt them anymore, Carlos, who kills only animals because he isn't willing to hurt other human beings, or Jay, who performs only autosacrifice and actively crusades to save people from harm and try to convince his pantheon to change their views on human sacrifice and outlaw the practice.

The bottom line is that Aztec Scions are no more automatically crazy or evil than any other pantheon's children. Their parents simply come from a different culture and religion, one that can seem very alien to European-oriented minds, and it is often difficult for Scions of other pantheons (and even the Aztec Scions themselves, who are often perfectly normal modern people) to understand and reconcile their radically different views on how the universe works and what their place in its support system needs to be.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Question: Itztli seems to work just fine except for the last level, which is just an invitation to squick and/or getting murdered by your divine parent for a Legend fix. How would you change it? Maybe something involving the sacrifice of Legendary beings that aren't family?

We've said it before, but we'll say it again: Familial Sacrifice is stupid. We get the underlying concept - the boon is trying to say that the ultimate sacrifice reaps the ultimate reward, and family members are probably among the most precious people you could ever sacrifice - but it falls flat on a number of levels. For one thing, the Loyalty-ridden Teotl would have severe difficulty killing their family members even if it was necessary, and this boon is just an invitation for someone to have to roll their Duty vs. their Loyalty and go bananas in one direction or the other; a boon contradicting a pantheon's Virtues isn't always grounds for dismissal, but PSP boons, which are supposed to be the core powers and rituals of a given pantheon, should work with their native Virtues, not against them. Also, the boon is weirdly thematically disconnected from actual Aztec practices, which the vast majority of the time did not involve killing one's family members and would generally have been pretty severely against it if anyone else at all was available. Aztec theology believes that blood begets power, period, but your family's blood (while certainly more precious to you) does not actually have any more power in it for the gods than anyone else's. Finally, the boon is just tragically easy to cheat, making it lose what thematic resonance it has; all you need is a family member you don't care about or dislike, and suddenly you can happily boost yourself to insanity levels of power without giving much of a shit about killing that person. Which is hardly much of a sacrifice, is it? (Worse, the book actually encourages this undercutting of the boon's point by suggesting that some of the Teotl keep stables of untapped children around so they can murder them at will. Because of course the Teotl are all murder-motivated soulless evil people who just love killin' folks.)

So, yes, it's a wreck of a boon, and we do not recommend using it. However, we have not yet replaced it with anything, much as we'd like to. Eztli continues to sit at level 9 Itztli because, like most Teotl, she'd vastly prefer to kill herself painfully with a blunt splintery rock than hurt a family member, and we've sort of waffled around the fact that the rest of the Teotl only have nine PSP boons right now and tried not to look embarrassed about it. We desperately need something to give them the option of being awesome in a more appropriately Aztec way.

We're still debating exactly what to replace Familial Sacrifice with, though. We have a few potential ideas; John is a fan of constructing a boon based around the idea of the nahualli, the animalistic Aztec spirit-twin, and we've also floated the idea of building something around the ixiptla cults, an ancient Aztec practice of "impersonators" taking on roles related to the gods in order to honor them before sacrifice. Our current problem is that while these are both very excellently Aztec ideas, they also don't quite fit the theme - either mechanically or spiritually - of the rest of the Itztli purview. Nahualli are deeply connected to Aztec spirituality but have little to do with sacrifice or empowerment of the universe, and we're also still debating whether they work better as a Birthright anyway (current score: Anne yes, John no, fights continuing). Ixiptla cults are likewise super neat and something we'd love to see more of happening around our Teotl PCs and gods, but they may not be quite widespread enough across the pantheon's worship (Tezcatlipoca and Mictlantecuhtli definitely have them, but some others don't have any records of ixiptla practices) to be something they all universally have available via PSP.

Ideally, we need a top-of-the-line showstopping Legend-granting boon that involves sacrifice on a cosmic level - something akin to what Quetzalcoatl did when he pierced his own penis to help create mankind, or when Tezcatlipoca lost his foot to lure Cipactli, or Xipe Totec is flayed alive over and over to renew the earth. But we don't yet know what that should look like exactly, and ideally we may need to work on overhauling the whole Itztli scale at the same time to make sure it progresses smoothly.

Yeah, basically we have no good excuse for not having done this yet. Sorry. :(

Revamping Itztli

If you were ever to revamp the Itztli how would you do that? It seems like many of the boons do the same thing, just better than the previous boon, and some of the boons don't seem to fit with the culture.

Yeah, Im not a big fan of how itztli is really. I tried to do some major changes early on, but got some pressback from anne about it. She was very happy with how it was. But I think shes come around to realizing that its a little too much of the same(especially in comparison with some of the other psps we've redone recently). I could also be totally wrong about that and she could think Itztli is fine.

I like the main theme of itztli. Sacrifice is huge for the aztecs people and their gods. Blood is the fuel the gods use to make their powers work and continue living. In game terms very literally blood is legend, so it makes a good fit. And its very nice to have a psp that is a very specific idea to its core. But at the same time, I dont think I can make 10 levels of "something to do with blood = something to do with legend". My first step in working on the psp would be to try though.

If I failed, which Im pretty sure we would. I would next try to incorporate nahualli. They are also an important part of the culture that isnt really covered by anything else. We've been doing it with relics before, but I think it can be expanded to be made both more fun and more interesting by incorporating it into the psp. Different levels, maybe rotating with levels of scarifice that see your connection to your nahualli slowly growing until at god you, maybe become two seperate entities that can work in tandem? Maybe that happens before god? Maybe it doesnt. Itd be a long process(one Im excited about doing), but thats probably where Id start.

So I hope that helps, any more then that, and Id be well on my way to spending hundreds of hours working on Itztli.

Thanks for the question, maybe itll bring the numbers up on a future poll to see what we do next.

Between Two Worlds

Question: How would you handle someone wanting to be a Scion of a Mesoamerican god that was neither Aztec nor Maya? For instance: I want to play a Scion of Cocijo, but I’m not sure whether I should use Itztli or the PSP in your upcoming Maya pantheon (which sounds like it will be awesome, by the way), or if, perhaps, I should just write a new PSP? The problem with that would be that I have no idea what that PSP would be about. Any suggestions?

Oof. And then there were Zapotecs.

Well, speaking as someone suffering through writing two different PSPs right now, I would not suggest writing a new one. While in a perfect world every pantheon on the planet would have their own full roster and developed PSP, in the practical world of Scion that would require an army of genius mythology and game-design savants working around the clock, and we do not have that. Writing PSPs is super difficult and takes forever, and requires very careful work and balance between you and your Storyteller to make sure the end product is both fun and balanced for the game; I would suggest that you go for that option only if you're deeply committed to making the Zapotec pantheon a major part of your game. If you're just writing it for one guy who won't be doing much in Oaxaca and whose pantheon will have next to no presence in the game, it probably isn't worth it.

Just using Itztli is probably the easiest solution to your dilemma. Like most Mesoamerican civilizations, the Zapotecs had a strong blood sacrifice component to their religion and believed that such offerings were the conduit through which they were able to communicate with their gods. The concept of communion through sacrifice appears to be stronger for the Zapotecs than the Aztec idea of sacrifice as fuel source, but both are present, and you could reflavor individual Itztli boons as necessary. It might also be a good tie-in if you're planning to explore any of the ties between the Aztecs and the Zapotec gods they imported into their own pantheon; Cocijo isn't one of them (unless you consider him a cognate with Tlaloc), but there are several others and the two pantheons clearly have a close connection of some sort.

If you're not liking the idea of picking up a PSP that doesn't strictly belong to the Zapotec - which would be reasonable, because PSPs are very culture-specific - you might also talk to your ST about what kind of provision s/he might be willing to make for a character who doesn't have a PSP. We talked about the issue of what to do for gods from pantheons that don't have PSPs a bit in these old comments, and I think there are a lot of good suggestions there; your ST might be willing to let you play a Scion from a pantheon without a PSP and just give you some other kind of advantage instead, though what exactly would be up to the two of you to work out together.

A final option would be to simply consider your Scion a son of Cocijo, but to consider Cocijo himself an aspect of Tlaloc, making you technically an Aztlanti Scion with Itztli despite always interacting with your Zapotec dad. If your Scion happens to be from the Oaxaca area and Tlaloc decides to turn up as Cocijo, you could ride that Zapotec-flavored train all the way into the station without having to sweat the small mechanical stuff, and even set yourself such lofty goals as trying to rebuild the Zapotec pantheon and people. Shoot for the sky. As long as your ST is cool with the god appearing as Cocijo instead of his more famous Aztec incarnation and has some idea for why he would do that, and you yourself are cool with the syncretism, it'll solve your problems pretty neatly.

I'm flattered by your faith in my Maya-writing abilities! I wish I had more to give you guys, but unfortunately I'm only through the roster and PSP, so it'll be a while yet before I have the rest of their cosmology sorted out and ready to PDF up. So don't wait around for that PSP to come out if you want to play your character now! But if you're really keen on it, maybe talk to your ST about the possibility of swapping if it turns out to suit you better when it's finished.

Personally, I'm totally psyched that you're interested in playing a Zapotec PC, because they're pretty neat and often overlooked, and people tend to assume that since the Aztlanti made off with so many of them there aren't any purely Zapotec gods left to play with (not true! Cocobi and Cozaana beg to differ!). Whatever approach you take to the PSP, I hope you have an absolutely awesome ride with them.

The Power in the Blood

Question: How do you handle the non-blood sacrifices (precious stones, flowers, etc.) made by the various Mesoamerican civilizations in regards to Itztli?

Though the blood sacrifice is what everyone always remembers, there were various non-human sacrifices throughout ancient Mesoamerica as well, from foodstuffs to flowers to precious metals and stones to artwork. Like the cults of gods in other parts of the world, the worshipers of the Aztec gods knew various little gifts that their deities appreciated, and they were offered up regularly to the gods who were most identified with them. Sometimes this involved burning them; sometimes it just involved donating them to the temple. Echoes of these practices live on even in the modern-day, where distinctly Mesoamerican-flavored Catholic shrines may see many, many offerings of small trinkets or flowers at the feet of various saints and martyrs over the course of a year.

But, aside from the obviously more spectacular nature of blood sacrifice, there's a second reason that the non-human sacrifices are usually less important, and that's the existence of something called chalchiuatl. Loosely translated as "precious water", chalchiuatl is the substance that animates life and it flows through each person's veins; it is literally the power of life, and in the Aztec religion it was believed to only exist in blood (which they understood to be the substance that directly kept living things alive). When the ancient Aztecs engaged in blood sacrifice, they did so in order to offer up the chalchiuatl of that person's blood to the gods, literally giving them some (or all) of that person's power to use for their eternal duties as the sustainers of the universe. Essentially, it's not the act of making any old sacrifice that's most important to the Aztecs, though the concept of sacrifice is certainly deeply ingrained in the culture; it's the act of sacrificing to the gods to give them the power to support their people and the universe, and that power comes only from sacrifices of blood.

So, while there are certainly non-blood sacrifices to the Aztec gods happening, they serve a different purpose from the blood offerings. Like the sacrifices made by many other ancient cultures, non-blood sacrifices are given to gods to please them; they're offered up as a request for blessings, as a way of giving thanks for blessings already granted, or just as a nice measure to tell a god or goddess that they're awesome. Flowers might be offered to Xochiquetzal simply because she likes flowers and the gesture would be appreciated; jade might be given to Tlaloc because he's a rain-god and jade, being strongly associated with rain and water, is sort of "his" anyway. But blood sacrifice is all serious business. It's the sacrifice that powers the world; it's the thing that feeds the gods their power.

So, to answer your question: we don't. Non-blood sacrifices cannot be used with Itztli, because the purview is specifically about drawing on the inherent power of blood sacrifice. It is literally converting chalchiuatl to Legend for Aztlanti gods and Scions, and since non-blood sacrifices have none of that divine energy in them, they can't be used with it. Other sacrifices can still be made by Scions who want to impress their parents or make friends with their pantheon, however, and might be a good opportunity for stunting and fun Mesoamerican flavor.