The Great Canoe Voyage

Question: Is there a rough outline of which gods will be included in your Polynesian Pantheon already? On which island group will it probably centre?

There's more than a rough outline; the pantheon roster itself is pretty much complete, and we also have a pretty good list of lower-Legend auxiliary gods that will get writeups within it, too. I don't want to ruin the suspense, though, so I won't be giving you a full and detailed list; just like every other pantheon before them, you'll have to wait for release day to know exactly what's up with the Atua. By the time this post goes live, I hope we're starting to get close to the end of our several-month journey on this project, but anything is possible.

However, if you're thinking of any particularly famous Polynesian gods - Pele is always a fan favorite, isn't she? - they will almost certainly be included in some form. Polynesia is also rife with stories of the exploits of demigods, some of whom become deified and some of whom do not, so you may get to hear about a few of them as well. I will spoiler just enough to tell you that the main roster of Legend 12 gods is currently eight members strong, so feel free to guess who those eight deities might be.

As for the island groups, working with Polynesia is a journey into comparative culture, so there's a lot going on. In a lot of ways, we're technically covering the entire Polynesian triangle; because the Polynesian islands were settled in a sort of wave effect, with people moving from one island to settle on the next and so on for thousands of years, the end effect is of many different, distinct cultures that happen to share the same gods, although they often worship them differently or tell different stories about them based on where they are. Many gods are worshiped all over the triangle despite the fact that it's in different rituals and languages; Tangaroa, for example, is worshiped under only slightly different names (Tana'oa, Tagaloa, Kanaloa and about a million others) all over the place, from New Zealand to Tahiti to Hawaii to Samoa. He's of differing levels of importance in these different places, and each has a few local touches that are unique to their treatment of him, but in the end he's obviously the same deity.

That's happening pretty much all over Polynesia, so we're in an interesting (but weird) situation where we have to try to do right by many different religions' takes on the same gods, and leave room for Scions to do whatever they want, to boot. It's very similar to the Orisha project, in which the goal was to both capture the original root deities but also allow plenty of room to play with their later diaspora religions and figures; and also similar to the Alihah, come to think of it, who were similarly gods known by a lot of peoples in one area but worshiped with differences from one community to the next.

Basically, as usual, world religion and mythology don't care about Scion's approach or problems, so we're doing our best to provide an awesome resource that is accurate but broad enough in scope for players to do things in whatever their island culture of choice might be. Let's hope we do an okay job.

Reptilian Classification

Question: What would you with the tuatara? Would it be under Animal (Lizard), being similar in appearance? Or would it be under its own heading?

If anyone reading this doesn't know what tuatara are because you don't like knowing about awesome things, here's a picture of one:

Pretty cute for a lizard, eh? Except not: tuatara, according to science, are not actually lizards. They're also not snakes, crocodiles or anything except tuatara, being the only surviving examples of their distinct type of creature. They figure prominently in Maori mythology as little messengers of the gods or markers of magical borders, have a mysterious third eye, and are generally a super cool option for any Scion's totem animal.

I could see it going either way, but for the most part, I'd allow tuatara to be affected by the use of Animal (Lizard) boons. Science may know they're not the same as lizards, but it's a very small, very specific classification that nobody would have realized without modern studies in fossils and scientific evolutionary descent, so it's hardly something that makes a mythic difference. They look like lizards; they act like lizards. Animal (Lizard) should probably work on them.

But if a Polynesian Scion wanted to take Animal (Tuatara) as a more specific choice, that would be awesome; not only is that much cooler, it's much more in tune with the mythology of their pantheon. Like Komodo dragons or Gila monsters, tuatara are specialty reptiles that deserve their own place in the sun thanks to their mythic awesomeness. I'd let a Scion use Animal (Lizard) on them, but I'd reward a Scion with Animal (Tuatara) for it more.

Island-God Shenanigans

Question: Do you think that the Maori god Tu, through his creation of nets, snares and other tools, should have the Industry purview associated? Or is this not a good enough reason? Also, I saw how you stated out Tangaroa a while back. How would you stat out Tu?

Hmm, that's actually a bit of a stumper. While we usually ignore gods who perform a single one-time action of invention, Tu actually goes on something of an invention rampage at one point, coming up with a bunch of new tools that humanity then uses to survive and prosper. He is sort of the creator of technology in the sense that the Polynesian islanders used it, which certainly seems Industry-like in some senses.

On the other hand, though it's not really part of Tu's character to make things; he does it once, with the express aim of capturing his fleeing siblings. He's not a god associated with making things as far as his personality and character go - quite the opposite, in fact, considering his very heavy connections to war and destruction. This looks a bit more to me like a situation similar to Sobek's, who created fishing nets in order to fish for and find Horus' hands, but who is obviously not a major crafting god himself. In Sobek's case, we gave him Craft as an associated ability but did not give him Industry, as he really wasn't an embodiment of The Creator; I think the same is probably true of Tu.

It's definitely a place where it could go either way, though; we'd probably rule that Tu has several Industry boons and certainly plenty of Craft, but that he isn't a crafting god on the same level with people like Hephaestus or Kothar. Your mileage may vary, especially depending on which version of Polynesian myth you prefer (because lord knows there are plenty of them).

If you were going to stat him as a god, I'd say that he definitely needs War associated, and probably either Intelligence or Wits for his ability to outmaneuver and capture his brothers (I'd lean toward Wits for the descriptions of him as cunning, as he probably doesn't have Manipulation considering that Tane got him outvoted on what to do about Rangi and Papa). You might also consider giving him Water, as some islands consider him the lord of fresh water in the form of springs and rivers (as opposed to salt water, which falls under Tangaroa's area). His strong role in protecting warriors in battle might also give him Guardian associated, though it's not as strong as some of his other connotations.

Man, we need more Polynesians up in here. There are just not enough island-god shenanigans going on.