The Wide, Wonderful World

It's vlog time! Today's subject is general cosmological goodness, including questions about Titans, god interactions and the general rules of the universe.

Question: Do Scions identify cross pantheon by role? Do all the creator gods hang out and compare notes (or one up each other or just try and make the best bear, whatever)? Do all the fire gods get together and talk about who has the best volcanoes? Do all the psychopomps get together and complain about all the ungrateful mortals? Do the prophetic deities get together at the foretold times and talk about the subjects that they foresaw themselves talking about?

Question: How does each pantheon view masculinity and femininity? If that's a bit too much ground to cover, I'm particularly interested in how the Aesir, the Tuatha De Dannan and the Bogovi view masculinity and femininity.

Question: What gods (or kinds of gods) do you think would be most proud (if at all) of their children breaking off for a new pantheon? What gods would be least ok with it?

Question: Why is Apep in the Titanrealm of darkness? Is it not more closely associated with Chaos?

Question: Does a Justice God have to believe in Character his own laws or can he just ignore it when it is convenient?

Question: How do you handle the gods no longer being worshiped? Fate? The Titans, not caring, something else? Or do you run with the idea that the world of Scion has major cults today with large and active temples/shrines?

Question: What does the process of binding a Titan look like? The corebook provided a specific example in the sample chronicle, but failed to give more general information.

Question: In your game, Do mortals know if a god died or did something new to their legend? Like somehow a myth about the death or event of the god suddenly is found or they retroactively just know it? I was asking because of the fiction where Athena dies and I wondered about that.

And that's the end of that four-installment vlog-filming marathon. We're internet athletes!

Hazardous Material

Question: Many months ago I asked about Xipe Totec being the odd man out in the Teotl, that he was the only member of the pantheon not family to any of the others; but the death god, Mich-can't spell the rest, is ALSO unrelated to the rest of the pantheon. Does the gods of death being separate from the other gods have some special cosmic significance to the Aztecs, or is he unrelated to the rest of the pantheon for a different reason, like it shows that the other gods just don't like him or hes different?

Mictlantecuhtli is the guy you're looking for. If it would help to break it down, the word "Mictlan" means literally "place of death" and is the underworld (from mict-, to die, and -lan, a place suffix), and "Tecuhtli" means literally "lord" or "noble" (from tec-, a stem used for words such as "grandfather" indicating respect). So his name is really just literally "Lord of the Underworld", which makes sense because being boss of Mictlan is what he's all about.

But it is still a handful to spell for non-Nahuatl-speakers, so don't sweat it too much. It'll come with practice!

Mictlantecuhtli is definitely treated somewhat differently in Aztec mythology, you're right; he has a few myths, but generally even in those he is the figure someone else comes to or interacts with, and seldom goes out to do so on his own for any reason. He spends the entirety of his time in Mictlan, lording over the dead in their silent hall with his similarly depressing wife, and does not go on adventures with his people like Huitzilopochtli, get involved in other gods' business like Tezcatlipoca or make sweeping changes to the Aztec cosmology like Tlaloc or Chalchiuhtlicue.

The reason for this is actually far-reaching across a lot of Mesoamerican civilizations, not just the Aztecs: Mictlantecuhtli is about death, and death has a special place in both the cosmology and outlook of many ancient Mesoamerican cultures. Death, as a general concept, was an idea of especial fear and loathing, containing all the terrible ideas of fear, decay and opposition to life itself, which should not be surprising for a culture that believed that the divine power for anyone to do anything was contained in their living blood and therefore lost irrevocably upon death. This is why death gods among the Aztecs (and the Maya, who are even more violently opposed to it and therefore fear the massive terror of an entire realm dedicated to it, Xibalba) are almost always extremely horrifying to look at and be around. Skeletons, rotting flesh, scary teeth and so on are visual markers that clue us in that death gods are not only associated with the hereafter, but also that that is a terrible and distressing place, one that the living should avoid at all costs for as long as possible.

Mictlantecuhtli isn't related to the other gods primarily because he is Of Death, and the other gods are Of Life; the two things don't go together, and when they interact it's usually with disgusting or tragic consequences, such as Quetzalcoatl almost dying in the attempt to retrieve the bones of humanity from the underworld or Xochiquetzal being injured and disfigured by the bat stealing parts of her very body to deliver to the dead king. This is probably also why he needed to have a wife essentially made for him rather than chosen from among the other gods, none of whom would be in any way up for that kind of horror becoming their everyday existence. The worlds of the living and the dead are not supposed to interact in Aztec myth, and that means that despite his obvious existence and importance, Mictlantecuhtli himself doesn't interact with the other gods much, either. He's not supposed to; he's supposed to stay in the underworld and handle all the dead stuff so everyone else doesn't have to.

This doesn't mean that Mictlantecuhtli is necessarily bad or evil. On the contrary, he performs a vital function: keeping the underworld separate and inviolate, so that the dead can never escape from it and threaten the world of the living. He is in a sense the defender of humanity, in that without his stewardship it is possible that the horrifying creatures of the great below would leak out and threaten all life on earth. Like many death gods in cultures that have a healthy fear of the dead, he has to exist in order to make sure that life is separated from death and thus protected. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it (and summarily be deeply, deeply disliked and avoided by everyone else).

He's still terrifying, however, and horrible, and no one living wants to be around him, and everyone is generally hoping to die in some way that doesn't involve ending up in Mictlan with him if at all possible. But, to paraphrase what someone else once said... sometimes it's better to reign in the underworld than to be a nobody among the other gods.

The Faceless Woman

Question: Who's Rohe?

There's no context with this, but I'm going to go ahead and assume you mean the Polynesian figure Rohe, who is mentioned as one of the denizens of their Underworld, Rarohenga, in our Atua supplement. We had originally intended to include Rohe under the Antagonists section of the supplement, but there were so many possible choices for that section that we eventually ended up cutting her since we already had Miru as an option for all kinds of unpleasant Underworld tales.

However, Rohe is a neat (and tragic, alas!) goddess, so we are happy to talk about her here!

Rohe is actually the wife of the infamous demigod Maui, and the sister of the sun god Ra (the Polynesian one, not the Egyptian one); like her brother, she was exceptionally bright and beautiful, making her a fine match for Maui and well-liked among the rest of the Atua. However, Maui became jealous of her great beauty since he was himself rather ugly and off-putting, and he demanded that she trade faces with him. Appalled, she refused; Maui then waited until she was asleep one day and stole her face with a spell, applying it to his own head so that he would become beautiful and there would be nothing she could do about it. Rohe was furious and mortified when she awoke, but she could not reverse the spell, so she divorced Maui and fled to the Underworld, vowing to have nothing to do with the treacherous world of the living (and light, which illuminated her loss) any longer.

Now, she lives alone in the portion of the Underworld known as Urangi-o-te-ra, or "sun's arrival", which is the portion that her brother Ra (also grievously mistreated by Maui) limps through each night on his eternal solar journeys. He is the only visitor she's likely to receive warmly; her anger over her treatment has never abated, and she is said to attack, beat and maliciously torment any traveler, living or dead, who comes too close to her domain or bothers her in her solitary home.

We don't know a whole lot about Rohe other than this story; some have theorized that she was a sun goddess thanks to the description of her shining face and similarity to her brother, while others have pointed out that her self-imposed exile and residence in the Underworld echoes the story of Hine, who is up a few levels from her, and that together with Hine and Miru she helps form a triad of dangerous and not necessarily friendly Underworld ladies who are more likely to eat you than make friends with you. There's also some debate about what exactly she looks like now; some retellings of the tale suggest that Maui simply stole her face, leaving her without one, while others say that he exchanged his ugly face for hers or even took her entire head off her shoulders to replace with his own.

Rohe is a great choice of antagonist for Demigod-level Scions who dare to make a foray into Rarohenga to bother her, although what they might need from her and how they would go about getting it without being beaten to within an inch of their lives is up to the individual Storyteller. But kindness, which she's had in very short supply since her ill-fated marriage to Maui, would probably be a good place to start.

Ten Questions with Excited Waving Arms

On today's blog, project updates, future possibilities, a call to action for you guys, and a whole bunch of questions!

Question: How do you handle "secrets" in myth? Things that supposedly certain gods do not know (and would have extreme reactions if they found out) yet are an established part of the myths about them?

Question: How do you explain the story of King Midas? I mean, the guy's an ordinary mortal who gets the power to turn anything he touches into gold. What Scion powers can give such a power to a mortal?

Question: Can you kill a death god? Should you be able to kill a death god? Does killing a death god really accomplish anything?

Question: What do you think would happen if a Scion, who has not yet received a Visitation, were to simply stumble across a Birthright relic that doesn't belong to an active Scion? Could that result in a kind of "triggered activation" of the Scion's divine blood? Or would nothing happen since it isn't a true Visitation?

Question: How do you determine the damage from some of the more extreme attacks that Scion's power allows? If my Strength monster picks up the Empire State Building and hurls it at a Titan Avatar, or some other powerful foe, how do I determine how badly such an impact hurt the target? If I used Create Earth to conjure up a mess of diamonds, then threw the diamonds into a tornado conjured by Tornado Tamer and hurled the whole thing at a bad guy? How would I determine THAT damage?

Question: How far is too far for you guys at GothamByNight when it comes to PC morality? When do you take one of your Players to the side and ask them if their PC could still be considered "a good guy/aligned with the Gods" and not some Chaotic Evil Titan in waiting that is deserving of a Dark Virtue or two? For example, do you think that a God-level PC Band's active attempts to wipeout humanity or kill off their parents for their own ambitions justify them gaining Dark Virtues?

Question: Do you guys have anyway of setting apart gods and goddesses of hunting mechanically? I'm working on some homebrew and I feel like these hunt gods need some association to really drive the point home, but I don't know what. I almost find myself wanting to make a Hunt Purview, but that's a heck of a lot of work. But what else to use? Is War fitting? An attribute that most fits their hunting style? I'm really at a loss here.

Question: You said in an earlier vlog that the difference between Followers/Creatures and Guides were that Creatures and Followers were below you and Guides were beings above you. Now what if I have a character who's got contact to the Valkyries as a Guide from Hero - would it be possible at Demigod that they turned into more like an equal ally type of thing? That instead of them just giving you good advice, they help you out physically when you really need it.

Question: Nut is a Titan, Shu is a Titan, and Geb is probably going to be a Titan as well - but the most ancient of them, Ra, is not?

Question: So! If everyone on Earth, for whatever reason, suddenly got a point of Legend, and the Gods were then able to get up to their old tricks without having to worry about Fatebinding, would they? If they could without having to worry about Fatebinding, would the Gods return to Earth? Related question, is there anything you can think of from any mythology that would be capable of giving everyone on Earth a legend point? Some Uber Relic or ritual that, if done, would give everyone that kind of power?

To our sixth questioner, we now realize that while we talked about PC morality in answer to your question, we didn't really address Dark Virtues. Our rule of thumb is that Dark Virtues are something PCs gain by contact with Titans or otherwise through magical events, so for the most part we would not give them any Dark Virtues automatically just because they're being jerks. It is entirely possible for Scions (and gods, too!) to be sometimes or even often malicious without actually having Malice, just as it's possible to be interested in knowledge and learning without having Intellect or to bravely run into battle without having Courage. However, Scions who are consistently evil or often do things that are in line with the goals of the Titans are likely to attract their attention, in which case it is entirely possible they might end up corrupted by a Titan Virtue later on.

If you want to email us boons, do it here! Go nuts!

The Royal Cults

Question: How would you treat the various syncretised composite gods of the New Kingdom in Egypt in the Scion setting? The likes of Re-Horakhty and Amun-Ee are pretty major figures in writings from the time, not to mention the occasional cross-cultural Greek or Canaanite combo god. Do such beings exist in Scion or is it always a case of silly mortals getting their gods confused?

It's generally mortals being confused. Which is understandable when they're dealing with millennia of accumulated religious knowledge, influxes from other cultures over that entire time, and the inventional revisionism of various rulers and cult centers that wanted to make themselves the seat of religious power or associate themselves firmly with particular deities. When people like Re-Horakhty are discussed, in Scion's terms that means that you're probably talking about either Ra or Horus, and which it is depends on the Storyteller's ruling on which is more appropriate depending on the current situation and the godly attributes in play. There's an old post talking about the same issue back here.

Since Ra and Horus already exist, creating separate deities for each of the many composite forms of them would be a nightmare, and it wouldn't really do the game all that much good anyway. Instead, we just treat it as a case of human cults not always mirroring divine reality perfectly, especially when changed by human motivations like politics, and make calls on a case-by-case basis.

Lady of the Brightest Star

Question: Are there any significant stories around about Astarte? My player is gonna be a Scion of hers, but I can't seem to find much of her doing anything besides being a cheerleader for Baal.

Ooh, one of the terrifying ladies of the Canaanite lands! There are indeed stories about her exploits, although not quite as many as someone like Baal who has an entire surviving myth cycle to his name.

Astarte is interesting because she is one of Baal's two wives along with Anat, and without a lot of material on the two of them, it sometimes seems like they're fairly identical or interchangeable, with Astarte the less well-defined of the two. Both are goddesses of love and sexuality, goddesses of war, and unflinchingly dedicated to the well-being of their husband Baal; but where Anat has separate stories of wading in the blood of her enemies, marching forth to defeat Mot and bearing Baal's child as a heifer, Astarte lacks these extra myths in the main body of Canaanite religion. We have to look a little harder to find stories of her actions, moving out to the wider world of Phoenician myth and her syncretizations with other cultures. We can start with Philo of Byblos, who in his description of Phoenician religion tells us that Baal and Astarte are the rulers of the universe; Anat may be the war-leader who destroys Baal's enemies, but Astarte is the queen who rules alongside him politically.

The most famous of Astarte's appearances are indeed in Baal's set of myths, which are overall the most well-known Canaanite myths we have. When Yam is declared king of the gods and Baal almost attacks the messenger in a fury, Astarte and Anat both restrain him, one on each arm, and remind him that murdering the messenger is not the wisest of all political moves. And when Baal defeats Yam, Astarte rebukes him for his unnecessary cruelty, telling him that Yam was already his prisoner and that killing him would be inappropriate, before moving on to declare before all the gods that since Baal has won, he should now be hailed as king of the gods without question. Different interpreters of the text have different ideas of what's going on here; Astarte may be telling Baal to back off of Yam because he's their sibling, or because since he was invested with power by El himself it would be politically foolish to outright kill him. But her call to the other gods to accept Baal is also a political power play, and a pretty ballsy one since El, who has previously been in charge of choosing who will rule after him, has not yet authorized that shift in power. Calling for Baal's rulership is in a way directly challenging El, who placed Yam above him, and calling the other gods to support Baal is something of a power coup away from the old father of the pantheon.

But these are pretty small mentions of Astarte, and clearly part of Baal's story rather than her own. However, the story of Astarte and Eshmun is all about her, with no whisper of Baal in sight. In that story - related by Photios, a Greek writer, who in usual Greek style uses Greek names for those involved and calls Eshmun "Asclepius of Beirut" since he is associated with healing like the Greek figure of that name - Astarte (here called Astronoe, "the heavenly" or "the starry", referring to her position as the morning star) falls in love with Eshmun, whose youthful beauty so impresses her that she begins purusing him relentlessly. Eshmun is afraid of her, since she is clearly a powerful and dangerous goddess (and possibly because he doesn't want to be on the receiving end of any jealous retribution from Baal) so he flees from her, and when he realizes he can't escape her completely, finally castrates himself so that she'll have no further interest in him. She catches up to him a moment too late, and he dies in her arms; full of grief, Astarte heals his wounds "with her body's warmth" and he becomes a god of healing, whose shrines were visited by those ill or injured. Eshmun does not appear in other myths besides this one, but is probably a Scion; Greek writers in the area claim he was the son of Apollo, which likely means the god Resheph, who is likewise a plague-associated archer who was often glossed as Apollo by Greek and Roman writers. In Syria, male cultists dedicated to her sometimes ritually castrated themselves in honor of her, echoing Eshmun's sacrifice.

The story of Astarte and Eshmun is more than a little bit similar to the story of Aphrodite and Adonis; in both cases, the love goddess falls in love with a beautiful young semi-mortal, who eventually dies because of her infatuation with him but becomes a resurrected divine figure in his own right. The ancient cults of Anat and Astarte (and Ishtar, over in Babylon) probably influenced Aphrodite and her stories considerably, and since Adonis is likewise a Canaanite import, it's very possible that the story of Aphrodite and Adonis was borrowed from this one about Astarte and Eshmun. Originally, anyway, although by the time Adonis' cult became important with its own mystery religion, they had become firmly separate figures.

The other place Astarte turns up in a major myth is, surprisingly, in Egypt. Thanks to being geographically close to one another, several figures from the Canaanite religion were imported into Egyptian cults in the northeast; gods with similar associations were often syncretized, so that some myths became attributed to Egyptian gods despite being originally of Canaanite origin. This led to the rise of a few areas in which Set and Baal were syncretized, since they were both temperamental storm gods with delusions of kingship, and in some of those areas the idea arose that Set was married to Anat and Astarte, who were given to him as consolation prizes when he lost the rulership of the gods to Horus. In those cults, it is Astarte who is the major figure in the myth of the sea falling in love with her and demanding her as tribute lest it overflow and flood the countryside, and it is for her sake that Set must go out and conquer the sea. It's an interesting syncretized myth, since the sea as the antagonist might have some roots in the Canaanite myth of Baal fighting Yam, with Set standing in for his fellow storm god. Further south in Egypt, Nephthys becomes the lady of the myth instead of Astarte since she is Set's traditional wife, but it's still a neat place to mess around with if you're looking for stuff to do with the Canaanite goddesses.

Astarte may not be the no-holds-barred bloodbath runner and war-monger that her conquering sister Anat is, but she's still an improtant goddess with a lot of neat stories and imagery. Good luck to that Scion of yours - they're about to head out into a the wonderful world of the few intrepid children of the war goddesses, and it's a dangerous place.

They Have Opinions

Okay, you guys, today we're doing a vlog treat (one day late, but we needed to ambush the star-studded cast). Today's vlog is being performed totally unplanned and unscripted by three of our fabulous players, who took time out from their busy schedule of being screwed over by other king gods to answer some player-centric questions. In fact, they were so awesome at it that it was over an hour long when it was done, so we split it into two parts and you'll get to see the second half next week.

In the meantime, here are some questions!

Question: Does high positive/negative Appearance usually affect internal band interactions? Or is it often forgotten/shrugged off by players and their PCs? For instance, does Woody often find himself getting lost in Geoff's eyes, or is he just used to it?

Question: Have you used Gods in your games as NPCs, actually involved alongside the PCs, not just as observers/catalysts, and if so, which ones?

Question: Has your PCs been in a Avatar vs. Avatar fight?

Question: Sowiljr has a keycard for the handsome gods club. What is that? A cult for him or a mens' club for gods? Or what?

Question: Okay since every pantheon seems to be big messed up families I gotta ask: who is your "unfavorite" in each pantheon?

Awesome shout-out props to Alex Preston-Bosch for the fancy new opening credits - he is awesome!

In the Name of Rome

Today on the vlog, we answer questions, I pronounce the word "jotun" wrong a lot, John passionately explains how much he loves Marduk, and a good time is had by all.

Question: Question about Form of the Giant/Jotun: upon activation, should I also use Undeniable Resemblance to shrink my size, do the bonus successes given stay? (Other than the DV bonus from Form of the Jotun, I know that one goes out.)

Question: Why do gods sleep with mortals? Compared to other gods and creatures of Legend, even the most amazing mortals are droll, hideous, stupid, and slow. Wouldn't it be like having sex with a chimp?

Question: Sexytimes with certain gods is probably really dangerous. How do you determine how much damage gets inflicted when you sleep with gods like the Morrigan, Sekhmet, Kali, or the Dagda?

Question: Is it possible for a relic to be some sort of reverse Maiming? I mean, it's like a tattoo and instead of taking your body part for power, the gods give/replace one for the power.

Question: Suppose a Scion was bored/curious/mischievous enough to shout the secret name of Rome in public within hearing distance of thousands of people. What might that do? Furthermore, how might the Roman gods and goddesses react?

Question: A question about 'purview lasers', or using purviews offensively against Titans/Titanspawn: Some applications are pretty easy to imagine, but what would a Psychopomp purview laser look like? Animal? Mystery? Artistry? Prophecy?

Question: Of all the pantheon heads, who do you consider the most beneficent King?

Question: In your games, if it has come up, how do the Aesir view their Marvel Comics counterparts?

The previous vlog where all this "purview laser" nonsense is explained can be found here. And the Marvel pantheons that appear in the Thor universe can be found checked out here if you're interested!

The Firstborn Heirs

Question: In Japanese mythology, according to the origin myth, Izanagi and Izanami first have two kids when walking around the pillar the wrong way. The first one is Hiruko and the second Awashima. There is some mention of Hiruko eventually surfacing later as a minor god, but I was wondering if there was any other mention of Awashima.

Yep, the two original children of Izanagi and Izanami are all but stricken from the rolls of the Kami. It's not actually the direction that the two deities walked around the pillar that is incorrect, but the fact that Izanami spoke to her husband first. This, according to the Kojiki, was against the natural order of things, so their marriage was tainted and their children cursed. They had to repeat the ceremony, this time with Izanagi speaking first, to straighten it out and be able to be fruitful as deities. Alas for poor Izanami - all she said was, "Wow, you're so handsome!" to her new husband, but that's what happens in ancient mythology when women think they get to be in charge of their own actions.

Alas also for these poor kids, who didn't do anything wrong but were still eternally condemned by their mother's totally unacceptable desire to think she was allowed to talk before a dude gave her permission. Hiruko - whose name means "leech", and who is therefore usually referred to as the Leech Child - was born deformed, unable to stand on his own even when he was three years of age. Various traditions have interpreted this as meaning that he was born without bones, making him a gross, leech-like jelly creature, while others read his name as possibly suggesting that he has no arms or legs, making him even more of a wormy sort of being. When they realize that the kid is never going to be able to play soccer or administer the universe, his parents put him in a boat and shove him off like a tiny unwanted Moses leech into the celestial ocean.

Hiruko never comes back, and in earlier Shinto scriptures it doesn't seem that he was intended to; he's gone because he was impure and unnatural, which in the purity-focused Japanese religion means that he must be removed. However, he was much later syncretized with the figure of Ebisu, one of the Seven Lucky Gods; the boating gods of good times and fun parties likewise come from the sea, and while the rest of them are Chinese imports, Ebisu is the only one said to have originated in Japan. A weird-looking little god, deaf and physically handicapped, who came back from parts unknown in a boat - it's not hard to see why the idea that he might be Hiruko returned sprang up and became so powerful.

But you're really more interested in Awashima, the second child, who is also considered a failure but whose problems are not actually described in the Kojiki. "Awashima" literally means "island of Awa", or possibly "pale island" from the word awai, meaning "pale"; Izanami and Izanagi also created the islands of Japan after correcting their first marriage attempt, and there are a few small Japanese islands called Awa, so it may be that the myth refers to the pair giving birth to a landmass. If that's so, it's hard to tell why that island was a disappointment to everyone, since the real-world islands are pretty normal places.

There's also an Awashima Shrine in the Wakayama prefecture which has a resident protector deity commonly referred to as Awashima or the kami of Awashima; the kami is a female deity who is in a perpetual state of "womens' problems" that make her miserable, and therefore she is banished to the shrine to keep her away from the other kami (probably because things like menstruation are considered impure) and spends her time trying to help ease the suffering of other women when they have uniquely female problems. We don't have any indication that this is necessarily the same Awashima, but if it is, presumably the fact that she's afflicted with lady-issues would be the reason that she was kicked off the official god-roster by her disgusted parents, and her backstory of being banished by the other gods might be a later version of the old story of the original two children being considered failures to be done away with. This second Awashima isn't attested in either the Kojiki or the Nihon Shoki, but is rather a popular figure in shrine worship in that particular part of Japan.

For most Scion games, Awashima probably isn't going to come up very much, considering that s/he vanished immediately after being born in the Shinto scriptures and never comes up again. However, if you want to play with where the missing second child might be - not to mention doing what, and associating with whom - there are a couple of possibilities for folding the lost deity in to the rest of Japanese mythology.

Terms of Invasion

Question: Would you consider Partholon, Nemed and the previous generations of colonists to be gods like the Tuatha?

What a neat question! Yes, we probably would!

For those who aren't up on their Lebor Gebala Erenn, Partholon and Nemed were the leaders of previous invasion forces that took and colonized Ireland, before their eventual descendents the Tuatha held it for the most major part of Irish mythology. Irish mythology is very fond of the idea of magical lands being located beyond the sea, so that those who come to the World from elsewhere do so by sailing across the waters. The earliest stories of the Irish universe are therefore about successive waves of sailors from across the sea, coming to Ireland to colonize it and wave their banners of kingship before the next set of people come to repeat the process.

Now, the sources we have the invasion myths from are heavily Christianized; they were rewritten after most of Ireland converted in order to change older stories into Christian ones to prevent lingering paganism from being remembered for too long. The first inhabitants of Ireland were the survivors of a great flood (the Flood of the Bible, in the rewritten version), who called upon an unnamed god to advise them so that they were able to sail through the disaster and land on and settle Ireland. Their leader was Cessair (granddaughter of Noah, according to the Christian writers), who successfully brought her people to Cork but eventually died of grief after her family was destroyed in the ensuing years.

After all of Cessair's people died, Partholon (another descendent of Noah, but one many generations further away) led the next invasion of Ireland, and after a seven-year journey established his people as its new rulers. Partholon shaped much of Ireland, creating new lakes, hills and other landscape features, but he and his people died en masse of a plague (another recurring feature in Irish myth), leaving the island once again empty.

Three generations later (in the same family tree according to one tradition, although the Noah genealogies don't agree), Nemed took his fleet of ships to sail to Ireland, although disasters along the way caused only the ship he himself sailed on to actually reach its shores. This is the first time the Fomorians appear as major characters in Irish mythology; they were inhabiting Ireland already when Nemed arrived, which means they must have settled there some time after the end of Partholon's reign, and Nemed is forced to defeat two Fomorian kings before he can solidify his hold on his territory. But alas, you guessed it - there's another plague, and Nemed and most of his followers go belly-up. The remainder are reconquered by the Fomorians, and eventually only a single ship of them makes it back off the island, to return to wherever they came from.

A period of "uninhabited" Ireland follows, which really just means that Ireland was populated by people that Irish mythology doesn't consider to be people: the Fir Bolg, who were said to have lived on the island on and off over the centuries and to have returned to colonize it in force after the end of Nemed's reign, and the Fomorians, whose origin is unexplained but who probably come in some way from or across the ocean (after all, everyone else does). Scholars spend a lot of time trying to come up with historical explanations for this period, including claiming that the Fir Bolg and/or Fomorians might be in actuality invasions of other Celtic peoples such as the Picts or the Gauls mythologized over time, but no one really knows for sure, especially with Christianity muddying the waters. At this point, Nuada shows up with his people and conquers the island again, and the rest is the period of Irish myth we all know and love, at the end of which the last invasion - that of the Milesians, who become the modern-day Irish - ushers in the end of the age of myth in Ireland.

So who are these waves of folks? We would say they're most likely definitely previous generations of gods, probably part of the mysterious generations of descendents between Danu and the Tuatha who sprang from her. It's hard to know the exact line or where people like Nemed and Partholon fall on it because of the rewriting of the myths in a new Christian context, but they definitely display a lot of the same kinds of behavior and imagery the Tuatha themselves do, not to mention doing distinctly god-like things like creating features of the landscape. Nemed even has a very interesting feature in that he's married to a woman named Macha, which is one of the possible aliases of the Morrigan; there's no proof that the two Machas are the same, of course, but it would certainly be a neat twist if she'd been around meddling even in previous invasions, wouldn't it?

These ancient figures are mostly dead, usually of plague, so you might rule that they're long gone; but then again, most of the regular Tuatha are also technically dead and we still run them as living, so it's really up to you whether you'd like them to be historical figures or living, breathing Legend 9 and 10 gods. You could also perhaps consider them Titans; while most of them aren't particularly nasty, they are obviously of an older generation with little to no connection to humanity, and exploring the idea of the waves of invasions fighting Fir Bolg and Fomorian as a raging ongoing battle between Titans that was only interrupted by the coming of the Tuatha might be some good story fodder, too. You could even say they might have been some of the ancient forbears of the fairy folk, predating even the Irish gods in their habitation of the Emerald Isle.

Irish mythological history is both very well-attested and hopelessly difficult to figure out, thanks to strategic rewriting and conflicting genealogies, so it's likely that every game that tackles it will come up with a few unique takes on it of their own. Go bananas.

Cunning Canine Corporation

Question: Could we have a post on Native American coyote gods?

Yes, we can! The coyote is a very common totem among various Native American groups, and while like a lot of American gods he tends to be cast as a non-deity folktale figure or a pan-continental all-Native-American-tribes mega-figure, there are actually a lot of very specific (and interesting, and awesome!) different features and stories about coyote deities in various different areas of the country.

Of course, you guys know where my heart lies, so I'll start with the Aztecs. Their coyote god is named Huehuecoyotl - literally, "old, old coyote" - and he is a prankster extraordinaire, pulling tricks on his friends and the other gods and often ending up on the hook for them himself. He's occasionally said to be a son of Tezcatlipoca, which certainly explains his mischievous nature, or even sometimes an alternate aspect of Tezcatlipoca himself (in fact, some scholars even theorize that it was Huehuecoyotl, in the shape of Tezcatlipoca, who ruined the Third World by seducing Xochiquetzal away from Tlaloc). Look at this delightful motherfucker:

He also shares lordship over dance, music, tasty foods and partying with various other Aztec deities, so he's really just begging to hang out in an awesome club with Xochipilli, Patecatl and various other Mexican miscreants.

But farther north is where this question is really looking to dig in, with the coyote gods above the border. Starting up with the Ho-Chunk people of Wisconsin, we have Manikaksis, a coyote god who is not really much of a top dog. While he is definitely skilled at stealth and sneakery - even Wakdjunkaga, the major trickster of that pantheon, gave up on trying to equal him for sneakiness - he's also generally depicted as ineffective, comical and petty, even pitiful when compared to more powerful gods (especially his brother Sukcakega, the wolf god, considered his opposite number). This poor guy never wins in Ho-Chunk mythology, which should become extremely obvious when you consider the fact that the markings on coyote fur are supposedly the result of the star spirits pissing on him and leaving acidic stains after one of his pranks didn't go very well for him.

Sadly, I couldn't find a picture of Manikaksis, who apparently is elusive in art thanks to not being as important a god and therefore less popular for weaving or painting. If any of you guys out there have one, share it!

Zoom over west to the Oregon area, and the Salish coyote god Sinkalip (literally "the mimicker") is also a trickster god, but he's much more of an important figure, beloved for his high-spirited antics and hilarious shenanigans as well as his occasional heroic deeds, especially when it comes to slaying monsters and thus saving humanity (either on purpose or as a side effect of trying to impress everyone, but either way, good stuff, right?). In Salish mythology, he's paired not with a wolf but with a fox, and many of his escapades are accomplished with the good-natured help of his twin brother Whyayloo the fox god, who is also in charge of resurrecting him whenever his fool antics get him killed. Which is often, because that's kind of how the life of an American trickster god goes.

That's a guy who's off to screw some things up. Look at that face.

Then, nearby, we've got the Nez Perce coyote god, Itsayaya. He's also a trickster and he also makes terrifyingly bad decisions as a result - like that time he got all the bear god's children killed and then was like "Shit, I have just angered a bear god, I did not plan ahead for this" - but he also takes on even more of a centrally responsible role, not only killing monsters and other threats to humanity but also functioning as the original creator who made humans in the first place. His behavior ranges from the judicial and benevolent, such as when he turned the feuding wasp and ant into stone rather than let them squabble over food, to the nasty, such as when he tried to cheat a rival god out of meat and ended up getting one of his own sons killed in the process, but he's always important, regardless of what he's up to.

Even farther north, we have the Yakama people in Washington State, who worship the coyote god Spilyay, a rare case of a coyote god famous for being more intentionally helpful to humanity than some of his pantheon-mates. In particular, he's one of the first gods to predict the creation and civilization of mankind and goes out of his way to make sure that winter is mild and manageable and that that game animals are placed on earth and fish seeded in rivers and ponds, although of course later humanity fails to be properly grateful for this and he angrily goes about blowing up most of the food he placed to force the people to have to work hard to eke out a living. Alas, that typical coyote god temper never goes out of style.

He looks so innocent and helpful, though!

To the Karuk of northern California, Pihneefich is the coyote god, and tends to appear in fully zoomorphic form more often than some of the other American coyote deities, who are presumed to appear as humanoids most of the time. Pihneefich steals fire for the world, similar to Prometheus, and while still an important trickster figure does not have the great cosmic powers of some other canine deities from neighboring peoples. In fact, he's so pitiful when it comes to physical power and ability that the creator god Kareya took pity on him and gave him his supreme cunning in order to make up for his helplessness in other areas.

But he's pretty adorable, so it's hard not to love that face, right?

The Miwok of California have one of the most famous coyote gods: Olette, the creator, who created the earth, the ocean, other animals and humanity, in a large suite of myths about how he does so and what kinds of materials he uses that vary slightly from group to group within Miwok territory. He still has his moments of madness - getting into a giant brawl with fellow creator the lizard god over whether or not humans should have hands, a fight he obviously lost - but is generally more serious and benevolent. He, too, has a fox deity as a partner, in this case Silver Fox, his mate and the level-headed guiding force who makes sure that his sometimes reactionary handling of things doesn't prevent him from appropriately providing care and teaching to humanity.

Again, no art for this guy that I could positively identify as Miwok, so share 'em if you got 'em.

Jaunt east a bit more (we are all over the U.S., aren't we?) and we can find the Shoshone people of Wyoming, whose coyote god Itsappa is a classic trickster who steals food and relics, doesn't think ahead and often gets killed but resurrects himself to keep the fun going, and has more than enough rivalry going on with his brother Issa, the wolf god and main creator figure, to rival any other canine brotherhoods across the continent. Itsappa also steals fire and harasses his fellow gods, and plays less of a responsible and more of a comical role in myths.

And last but not least, Ma'ii, the Navajo coyote god, who splits his time between being a benevolent creator and inventor and a prankster who creates problems as a necessary chaotic balancing force. Ma'ii's responsible for creating things like time, stars and lunar cycles (because he thought just having normal day/night was boring for everyone), finding and guiding the first group of humans into the world to keep him company, and simultaneously stealing flame and creating the Milky Way as a by-product in order to get one over on a rival trickster god. As a trickster and notorious gamester, his occasional mean-spiritedness is often attributed to his hobbies, since competitiveness and disappointment lead to anger and misbehavior for those who don't always win.

By the way, I know those of us in the U.S. tend to think of coyotes as a southwestern phenomenon, only causing people much notice in places like Arizona and New mexico, but they're actually extremely widespread and common all the way up into Canada. Which means gods with coyote imagery can and do pop up anywhere and everywhere in North America!

And you guys, this post is long enough, so I'm going to stop there, but this is far from the total number of coyotes out there. The Ohlone, Lakota, Pomo and several other cultures also have coyote gods, and while some may be cross-pollinated borrowings from other nearby peoples, many of them have their own unique features and tales. It's a veritable smorgasbord of coyote gods, enough to form their own confederation of craziness if they wanted to (and could avoid blowing the whole thing up every few minutes). They are everywhere. They are Legion. They are going to ruin everyone's day.

High-Level Conflict

Question: What would happen if Cernunnos and Eshu fought against each other? Both deities have very unique reputations among the gods, and both deities have an absurd number of purviews, not to mention that they both seem to be very magic-heavy. Also, what would a battle of wills and minds be like between them?

Why not invite Tezcatlipoca, too, and make it a party?

Honestly, as usual with these who-would-win-in-a-fight questions, there's no real answer to this one. Both gods have so many powers and possibilities at their command that trying to guess which one would be used when is an exercise in futility, and why they're fighting, when and where and who else is around could all potentially make a very big difference as well. And, as is usually the case with gods who are not generally meatheads, these two would probably never actually up and fight one another. That would be dangerous. Someone could get hurt. Much better idea to just subtly ruin one anothers' lives remotely in an ever-escalating war of influence, shenanigans and Fate-tweaking.

Sorry we don't have much more for you than that. Your imagination will have to run wild without us.

Hubris

Question: In a lot of modern fiction, technology is the great equalizer between humanity and the supernatural forces of the world. Where do you stand on technology ever being able to allow humans to fight the gods? Can humans ever develop weapons capable of harming the a god with minimum Epic Stamina? What about maximum? Can future man ever muster an army great enough and well equipped enough to conquer a pantheon of gods? Now please answer again, but include Fatebinding into the equation!

Well, jeez, you don't want much, do you?

We've covered this in depth on a similar question a while ago, which you can check out here, but where we stand is that no, humans can't fight gods. Large numbers of peak-trained and equipped humans getting extraordinarily lucky and succeeding well above average makes it just possible to hurt a single god who is already bad at defending himself. Humanity trying to take on a pantheon is flat-out impossible.

You're right, modern fiction is currently very fond of that idea of technology providing the means for humanity to overcome the supernatural; it's part of a general trend in literature and media in the past century that portrays humanity as the scrappy underdogs who can still manage to win if they just work hard enough, and in a larger sense a cultural expression of the power of capitalism and other merit-based social systems at work in the modern world. Especially in the United States, where we're all told that if we follow the American Dream and just work really hard and have moxy we'll eventually succeed no matter how insanely the odds are stacked against us, it only makes sense for writers and creators to project that idea forward into their art. And when that collides with supernatural fiction, it's natural to say: okay, so if humanity can always win if they just try hard enough, how do they beat supernatural things that are more powerful? The answer takes a variety of forms - super science equipment that can detect or contain ghosts, genetic modifications to make humans faster or stronger to compete with zombies, invention of more efficient stake-o-matics to take the fight to vampires, or whatever - all geared toward suggesting that humanity can level the playing field against the supernatural if they put the force of their collective creativity and determination toward it.

And that's totally awesome, and there are many excellent stories and worlds built around it. But it doesn't work in Scion, and the most major reason is that Scion is not about the supernatural; Scion is about the divine.

Things like werewolves, ghosts, witches and other common supernatural nasties are fundamentally based at the human level. They're more powerful than humans, certainly, thanks to their suite of personalized supernatural abilities, but they're within the same general realm of power. They affect human society, prey on humans who are capable, even pre-technology, of fighting back against them, and in many cases are actually at least partially human themselves. The stories told about these kinds of supernatural things are all concerned with humans and human society, or at the furthest with the environment they inhabit that is near that of humans. These are things that are designed to compete with humans on a similar level, whether by being cast out of a possession by a mortal priest, being hunted down by vampire hunters bearing crosses and holy water or being warded off by travelers who know enough to carry a little bread, a shaker of salt and an iron bar when crossing the fairy moors at night.

Or to reduce it to quick and dirty Scion game terms, they're close in Legend rating. Mortals have no Legend, and creatures like this might have anywhere from 1 to 3 dots, making them definitely more powerful and dangerous but still within the realm where concerted human effort can and does overcome them. Traditionally, in both antiquated and modern literature, they are creatures meant to be capable of meaningfully antagonizing humans and vice versa.

But Scion is concerned with gods, and gods are not supernatural creatures. Gods are gods. They are deities believed to be the fundamental powers of the universe, the shapers and creators, owners and overseers, the foundations of religions and the sources of life. They come from ancient religions where there was absolutely no question whatsoever that humans could "compete" with them, and stories about those stupid enough to try almost invariably end in complete misery or death for the mortal who dared try to compare themselves to the divine. The people who believed in these beings understood that they were hopelessly insignificant next to them, that there was no possibility of ever even thinking about equalling them much less trying to overcome them, and that their world and very lives constantly depended on their goodwill. Gods can instantly deprive the whole planet of sustenance with the powers of Animal and Fertility, or suffocate the entire planet with the powers of Sky, or blanket it in Darkness and Chaos until humanity kills itself in panic, and those things would not be particularly hard for them, especially if several gods decided to do so at once. Ra or Shiva or Tezcatlipoca can literally blink and end the world - and everything humanity has built in it - in a second.

That's the difference here: gods are not and were never thought of as being anywhere near the level of humans. If they were, they wouldn't be gods, just powerful demons/spirits/whatevers that mortals could deal with enterprisingly instead of needing to pray to and appease. If gods are beings that humans have even the vaguest hope of conquering, they aren't gods, ancient religions make no sense, and Scion's entire setting collapses. Gods are by definition the powers of the universe. If you make them something else, you're no longer playing with gods; you're playing a game where demons or aliens or the spirits of ancestors pretend to be gods but can be defeated. Which is not what Scion is about.

This doesn't mean it's impossible to harm gods with mortal means, of course, just extraordinarily unlikely. It's technically possible for a god to have no Epic Stamina at all if that was their dump stat, although we have a hard time conceiving of a deity with only fourteen health boxes who could have survived this long anyway, and they'd be just as easy to hurt - provided you can bring yourself to attack them and actually hit them and they have no powers that could save them, which is a massively unlikely string of events - as any mortal would. Gods who don't have minimum Epic Stamina but who do have fairly low Stamina could also be hurt by mortal weapons even now; if you'd shot Vala with a nuke, she and her five Epic Stamina would have been in deep trouble. Except, of course, for the ten zillion powers from Guardian to Psychopomp to basic Stamina Knacks that she could have used - or that others around her could have used - to escape completely unscathed.

As for maximums, that is impossible. A god who has Ultimate Stamina is the utter expression of durability and physical hardiness. There is nothing in the universe that is less hurtable than that god. You can't scratch him with a nuke. You probably can't scratch him with several nukes. A god with Ultimate Dexterity is so incredibly fast and fluid that it is quite literally abjectly impossible to hit him if he doesn't want to be hit, and you will just end up raining nukes down on random points where he's no longer hanging out. And, of course, you can't even want to shoot the guy with Ultimate Charisma, because he's so fucking incredible you could never, ever, ever in a million years bring yourself to do anything that might hurt him. Gods can and do hurt each other, but that's because they're on equal or semi-equal planes of power, where their unfathomable Strength can be a match for their opponent's immovable Stamina or their incredible powers of resistance can get past the insidiously powerful Manipulation their enemy turns on them. Humans are not on that plane of power. By definition, they can't be.

We could probably go on all day with different ways that gods basically have no concerns whatsoever about humans hurting them, but here's a simple way of looking at it: the game is not a fixed continuum, where the gods are exactly as "powerful" in megatons or miles per hour as they have always been. The gods were beyond fathoming when humanity was in the Bronze Age, and they're beyond fathoming now, and in two thousand years when mortals have built the Death Star, they'll be beyond fathoming then, too. Gods, in order to be gods, must always be unspeakably powerful in relation to humanity; in terms of the great universal cosmic scope of the game, humans can invent whatever they want, but they'll never actually get any closer to the gods. If someone were writing Scion in that time period, they'd change the stats and numbers so that the gods were just as far above mortals as they are now; if mortals have the technology to go at the speed of light, gods have the ability to go faster. Because otherwise, as we said, they're not gods.

I'm glad you mentioned Fatebonds, however, because that is an area where we totally cheat in favor of mortals sometimes! Humans who have been Fatebound into a particular Role for a given Legendary creature have the backing of Fate, which wants them to succeed, and that may occasionally mean that they have much more of a shot at hurting someone than they otherwise should. A mortal who is a Nemesis to a Legend 8 Scion shouldn't normally be able to touch her, but with Fate guiding her hand, we often represent that with penalties to the Scion, who has trouble trying to buck the whims of Fate, or bonuses to the Fatebound mortal who needs them to boost her to supernatural abilities for the brief time it takes to fulfill her destined part in the story. Or both. A Traitor will be way better at hiding her intentions from a Scion's Epic Perception than a normal mortal, because Fate will give her bonuses no other mortal could have; a Lover will be way more alluring to a Scion because Fate wants her to be loved and thus boosts her lovability to greater-than-human heights.

But even these things are not guarantees, just helpful nudging from Fate that might or might not make the difference. And in our Fatebond system they don't apply to gods anyway, since upon reaching Legend 9, gods no longer have individuals Fatebound to them in roles but instead are supported by Fatebound cults with collective beliefs about them. But we do think it's important for Storytellers to play up the importance of Fatebound mortals, and to remember that Fate wants them to succeed and sometimes that should mean that at the critical moment they're better than they have any right to be.

Lady Death

Question: In my current game, there is a Scion of Mictlantecuhtli who's become a bit of a mummy-in-law's-boy after Mictecacihuatl was the one to visit him. I was wondering how you guys portray her in your games? Is she a major power in her own right (what with that whole Santa Muerte business), or is she always in her husband's terrifyingly gribbly shadow?

Currently in our games, she's busy being very irritated that Geoff's and Sangria's son won't stop trying to hit on her. Get off her lawn, Cuatecuani!

Mictecacihuatl is a neat figure; while we're pretty sure she's lower in Legend than Mictlantecuhtli, having fewer myths and records of worship than he does and generally filling a sort of complementary consort role instead of having a separate schtick of her own, she's still got some very cool stuff going on that games should feel free to explore.

To start with, she's one of only two Aztec deities (Tlazolteotl is the other one) directly said to have originally been human, and to have been "transformed" into a goddess by the intervention of the gods. In Scion terms, this might mean that she was actually a Scion herself (which of course begs the question: of whom?) who ascended to rather sudden apotheosis, but since her transformation involved her death and mortal soul's removal to the underworld, perhaps there's something weirder going on involving Mictlantecuhtli's powers over the dead. Unlike other underworld deities like Persephone or Adonis who lived to adulthood before being forced to attend deathly underworld lovers, Mictecacihuatl hardly ever had a "life" at all; she was sacrificed to Mictlantecuhtli as a baby, and raised to adulthood - whatever that means for a ghost - exclusively under his care. As a result, she probably has a pretty abnormal attitude toward life and the living, which she never really knew and may not properly understand or appreciate. She might be thoroughly wrapped up in the affairs of Mictlan, never having known or cared about anything else; or, on the flip side, she might be very curious about the world above, which it's likely she has no memory of ever experiencing.

The Santa Muerte cult is a whole can of crazy worms for trying to determine who's related to what and which things influenced which others, but we do in fact consider it a modern-day cult dedicated to Mictecacihuatl in our games. While it's likely that the roots of the saint lie at least partially with her husband Mictlantecuhtli, the preeminent underworld power, the transformation of the figure over time into a female one gives us a perfect opportunity to let the lady of Mictlan have some influence in the World. Even if she left as a baby, she was still once at least partly human and is a natural choice if one of the powers of death is establishing a modern cult among humanity. Certainly, the image of Santa Muerte as a skeletal woman beckoning the living to join her in death is a dead ringer for Mictecacihuatl.

We'd probably put her at Legend 10 for a default, rocking Death and Appearance as her associations, and we love all the possibilities to play with when it comes to setting her up as Santa Muerte. It's a neat switcheroo to see her become more popular in the modern day than her formerly most-important husband, and the change probably has a lot to do with the influence of Christianity (especially the figure of the Virgin Mary), the formation of various underground societies in Latin America and the shift away from the pre-Conquest idea of afterlife determined by the manner of death toward one that incorporates Heaven and Hell as determined by manner of life. Those are all awesome themes to explore in a game that involves Mexico, other parts of Mesoamerica or peoples from there no matter where they live, and is a good linchpin for plots exploring how the gods remain relevant and active in the modern day.

So, yeah. Mictecacihuatl is an awesome Aztec goddess lady and we can always use more love for those!

The Source of Saturday

Question: Can you recommend a good source for the Baron Samedi-Samhain connection theory you once mentioned?

Actually, no, although I can tell you where we tripped over it. This is one of those theories that is floating around and referenced by several different works, but that is never visited in-depth enough that we could say, "Oh, here's the book/article/whatever that explains it thoroughly."

For those who haven't seen us mention it before, the basic gist of the theory is that Baron Samedi, a New-World-only loa with no African roots that we know of who seems to have sprung up out of nowhere to become part of his current religion, is influenced by or even a later version of the lesser Irish god Samhain, who was brought over by Irish migrant workers and indentured servants who shared their stories with the local African slaves, thus creating a modern synthesis deity where none had existed before.

We first ran into the idea of Irish influence on African diaspora religions in Margarite Olmos & Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert's Creole Religions of the Caribbean, which does not mention Irish influence on the Baron but does point out that his wife, Maman Brigitte, has been pretty obviously influenced by the Irish Brigid and that the rainbow-goddess Ayeda Wedo has gained a few suspiciously Celtic traits, most noticeably the legend that her crown or treasure may be found at the end of the rainbow (and, incidentally, Ayeda is married to Damballah, who is frequently associated with the Irish Saint Patrick because of the former's status as a god of serpents and the latter's famous exploits driving said serpents out of Ireland). From the other end of the spectrum, Sean O'Callaghan's To Hell or Barbados, which is mainly concerned with the cultural movement of Irish people displaced or forced into slavery in the Americas in the seventeenth century, spends some time discussing the influence of Irish myth and religious practices on both indigenous people and African diaspora slaves that they came into contact with, including a nod to the Baron. We've also seen the Samedi theory pop up in various books on modern vodun worship, but not much from the scholarly end of the spectrum, so I don't have a great citation for you there.

Maman Brigitte's Irish roots are much easier to find information on, and you can usually find at least a throwaway line about how Brigid probably influenced her in both diaspora religion texts that mention that Brigid might have been imported to color Maman Brigitte and Irish mythology texts that mention that Maman Brigitte may be a much later form of the older Brigid (in particular, they often cite Maman Brigitte's connection with death as possibly being descended from Brigid's invention of mourning for her slain son Ruadan). Her clearer connection to Celtic myth doesn't necessarily mean that her husband also came from the isles, of course, especially given the cavalier mix-and-match of American religions around that time period, but it still does paint a picture of some filtered European influence from that area in Loa that don't occur in the old African religions.

Basically, to us it looks like a theory someone once came up with that a lot of people said, "Hey, that might be plausible, neat!" but then no one ever actually did any thorough research or wrote any authoritative paper on it, so it remains ethereal and homeless in the scholarly community.

We like to use the theory of an Irish-based Baron Samedi (because what other theories do we even have about that guy?)and Maman Brigitte as an in-game universe explanation for where the "rootless" gods of the American religions might have come from, but it's only a theory, and not a very solid one at that. No one should confuse it for gospel truth, and while we might use it as an in-game plot device, it would be super religiously incorrect (not to mention very douchey) to try to use it to tell actual modern-day worshipers of vodun that any of their loa don't "belong to them" or are otherwise secretly Europeans in disguise. Even those gods who clearly do have European influence in their history are firmly part of the diaspora religions now and have their own unique character and religious importance.

So for us, in the game world where gods are discrete beings who can run around and do things and be interacted with as characters, Samedi and Brigitte are former members of the Tuatha who migrated to the New World and reinvented themselves as loa who spend their time bolstering the ranks of the Orisha; but don't go extending that to how real people might experience their religions in the real world. We like our games rooted in authenticity, but they're still just games, and like everyone else on the planet, sometimes we just have to take a guess and pick the theory we like most.

Gods on the Sidelines

Question: What do you think about obscure pantheons like those in the Philippines, Burma or Melanesia? Are they great enough to be Scion pantheons or...?

Of course they are!

One of our absolute favorite things about Scion is the fact that it's completely global, and that any religions or mythologies that exist anywhere can and should be used in its gameworld whenever the Storyteller wishes. All myths are true in Scion, and that means all of them, not just the most widely known or popular or adapted-for-television. The mythologies of places like the Philippines were no less part of a vibrant ancient belief system, nor were their gods any less worshiped, feared or beloved, so why should they be automatically excluded from the game? Because they aren't very well-known outside their native land? Plenty of pantheons weren't once upon a time, and still aren't now, and for those intrepid Burmese players out there it would be super unfair for them not to be able to play games set among the gods of their own country just because people in other countries haven't heard of them.

However, that doesn't mean that every Storyteller is going to have the time or inclination to go out there and stat up every pantheon that has ever seen the light of day. Nobody's got the time - even we don't have the time, and we love doing that! - and if a particular game's stories don't involve those deities, it's not useful for the game anyway. Some games may have players or Storytellers who mostly want to interact with gods they already know and are interested in, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as everyone has fun. But if a given game's players or story do want to have Degei roll up and start dispensing some snaky Fijian god-justice, well, damn, they can do that exactly as much as they want to.

Of course, we can't expect the Scion universe to really be able to release all the gods everywhere, and there've been lots of in-game excuses for why that is - the lesser pantheons were destroyed by Titans, or conquered by other pantheons, or they don't have enough power to bother helping in the war, or they're just more famous gods slumming it in disguise, or whatever. We don't like those explanations and never have, but that doesn't mean your game can't use them if you need a plausible answer when your players go, "Hey, what are X pantheon that you weren't planning to get involved here doing right now?" We like to dream of the entire world's pantheons all being alive and ready to kick some ass in Scion, and we do our best to try to slowly but steadily write some of them up for use, but it's a long, long road and not one every game has the time or inclination to embark on.

But sure, never let anyone tell you that you can't have a certain pantheon in the game because they're "not important enough". Every pantheon is important to the people who believed in it, and can be important to your story if you want them to. The obscure ones just require a little more legwork when it comes to learning about their powers and stories, but they're out there waiting if you want them.

Tall Tales and Folk Fun

And finally, the last in our recent string of marathon blogs! We look a little tired, but we're still here. For you!

Question: I'm watching Rise of the Guardians and am curious: how would you treat folk characters like Jack Frost?

Question: Have you considered including Santa Claus as a minor god (and perhaps other childrens' myth creatures like Jack Frost, the tooth fairy, etc.), or do you consider him to be a aspect of Odin?

Question: I'll be starting up a new Scion game soon, and I want to use several American folk characters (including a few that got turned into gods in that supplement that shall not be mentioned) and am looking for advice on how to use them.

Question: How do you define what should be god and not just a Legendary character/entity? As I know that some gods such as Hel were not worshiped but more acknowledged and feared, so is the status as a god more a certain belief that they existed by people at some time in history, or is it something else?

Question: I've been in a lot of games. They usually ignore gods less than Legend 12. Why do you think this is?

Total War

Question: Say the Titans aren't an issue, and one of the pantheons decides "screw it, we're taking over." Which pantheon do you think is most likely to start a war to dominate the rest?

I don't know if there's a "most likely" in this scenario, but let's look at the possibilities!

First of all, I want to know: taking over what, and why? Are you talking about one pantheon trying to conquer the Overworlds of all the others? Trying to take over all the real estate on earth so only they are worshiped? Trying to assert their power to make all the other pantheons fiefdoms under them? Different kinds of power grabs come from different kinds of gods - for that matter, are all the members of this pantheon going to get power in some way or is it all going to funnel to their current king/queen, and if so, how does that change things? Also, why are they taking over? Conquering one other pantheon would make sense - maybe they hate them, or they have something they want to seize, or they're strategically located next to something important, whatever - but all of them at once is a lot harder to have a motive for. Is this hypothetical pantheon made up completely of crazy megalomaniacs who want ultimate power in the universe, or are they trying to take over to impose some kind of order or goodness in areas they think are broken, or do they think everyone else is about to gang up on them and they want to go on the offensive first, or do they have some kind of racial supremacy thing (more than the usual) going on? What is this war even about?

All of that stuff affects the answer to this question; any pantheon might decide to up and declare war if they thought they had to in order to get something they needed or kill a group of hated enemies. If the idea is that they just want to be In Charge of Everything, with no further explanation, that seems pretty unlikely but would lend itself best to the pantheons that come from conqueror nations whose social climate was based on warfare and annexation. In the Americas, the Teotl, K'uh and Apu all come from extremely war-oriented and expansionist cultures, while in Africa the Orisha spend half their existing myths conquering one anothers' kingdoms, in Polynesia the Atua oversaw crazy canoe-cavalry warfare between islands for centuries and up north the Tuatha, Aesir, Yazata and Theoi are famous for European and Asian warfare. And that's not even counting ridiculous people like the Elohim, who just really love war.

Actually, there are very few pantheons that have no warfare in the background of either their gods or the culture they were worshiped by, so there are few of them that probably just wouldn't go for it at all. The Bogovi are probably one; the Slavs were no slouches in the arena of war, but the Bogovi policy of not interfering with the World (or anything else outside their scope most of the time) would make it unlikely that they'd suddenly go on a conquering rampage. Gods of cultures like the Inuit, who did have conflicts occasionally but were usually way more concerned about surviving the coming week, are even less likely to have any reason to go out and start something.

But even they are still totally possible. The Inuit gods might decide they'd like some real estate that isn't a frozen hellscape; the Bogovi might decide that if they were in charge of the universe, they could stop everyone else from all this interference in the World they keep insisting on. No pantheon is off the table for a power bid, not really; gods are, after all, creatures of power and influence. They were designed to be in charge of things.

If you're thinking about making this a major plot in your games, we'd probably say to keep in mind that you can find a way to make the idea work for any pantheon, but that the actual success of such an endeavor is very, very unlikely. Even the largest pantheons are massively outnumbered when they decide to oppose all the other gods in existence, and gods vs. gods is a matter of equal powers clashing, without the Titans' ability to call on greater disasters and powers thanks to their link to the primordial. It could maybe still be done, but it would have to be planned incredibly carefully, get really lucky, and have some massive distractions or reasons other pantheons wouldn't just cut it short before the ball rolled too far. Remember, this pantheon is deciding to suddenly attack and conquer literally hundreds of other Legend 12 beings with purview Avatars and Ultimate Attributes. One god with an Avatar can fuck up any battlefield plan; imagine how many would be involved here.

What would probably happen is that one of those warlike pantheons would start hostilities, conquer a few other pantheons, and then the remaining ones would decide, "Okay, they're out of control," and become allies to shut them down. Even a massive pantheon will run out of steam eventually, especially if fighting a multi-front or serial war.

Also, don't attack Russia in the winter, kids. I know it always seems like a great idea, but while mortals can't get past the weather and the angry natives, the gods will probably have no better luck getting past the brick wall of eternally stubborn Bogovi opposition.

Eight Times the Fun

Question: Who are the Eight Immortals and what do they do?

The Eight Immortals are part of the proud Chinese tradition of humans who transcend their mortality to become something more. They have achieved incredible philosophical enlightenment and possess great spiritual powers as a result, and appear frequently in Chinese mythology, embarking on quests for religious knowledge or granting their gifts to help others who are doing the same. They're not strictly gods, but rather former mortals who became powerful through their own merits; western translations often refer to them as "saints", but they are also worshiped as deities in China with temples and tales of their own.

If you're thinking that "humans who become worshiped as gods through their awesomeness" sounds like Scions, you're right! We would consider the Eight Immortals, who now hang out having rocking awesome parties on a magical island in the sea somewhere, to be fantastic examples of ancient Scions who succeeded at achieving apotheosis thanks to their adventures. A cadre of benevolent, good-time-lovin' Legend 9 former Scions is a fantastic set of Guides, characters or plot motivators for any Scion game that wants to bring in some Chinese goodness.

The Scion books take a different approach as usual; they set Immortals up as a class of Chinese lesser immortals on page 101, which gives you a basic template if you'd prefer not to elevate them all the way up to the level of gods. Personally, we think it's a bit silly to ignore their human origin and claim they were never mortal in the first place, or to keep them at Legend 8 or lower when they're so famous and widely worshiped in China, but it's an option if you're trying to keep the roster of deities down. You know, from the ten bazillion gods China already has besides these guys.

As for what they do... they help people. They grant good fortune and healing and encourage enlightenment and balance, especially for those who worship them appropriately. Including your Scions!

Melting Pot

Question: How do cross-pantheon gods and PSPs work? Does Quetzalcoatl, for example, have Itztli, Tal'ich, both? Apologies if this has been answered before, I've got a feeling it has but couldn't find it anywhere.

We've talked about it on and off, but I think mostly in comments and asides, so no worries about not finding those. We don't actually come to your house and hit you with bats when you ask about something that's been talked about before. That's just something John threatens people with.

The most important thing is that no god gets to rock two PSPs at once, regardless of line-crossing between pantheons. PSPs are so powerful that it's insane to have more than one, and many PSPs would have even more off-the-scale effects if stacked on one another. They were never meant to be used together and aren't balanced for it, so some will render one another redundant while others will be wildly out of control together. If Quetzalcoatl had both Tal'ich and Itztli, he would end up with Utzil Keban and Communal Divinity overlapping to an annoying degree, but his boons would end up almost free thanks to the combination of Caan Cab rendering them Willpower-free and Itztli boons making Legend an easily wasted commodity. Other combinations are even more bananas - can you imagine the guy who has both Dvoeverie and Heku and his endless, unconquerable Virtue Channel mill?

But Quetzalcoatl is clearly both Maya (as Kulkulkan) and Aztec, and he's not the only one. There are plenty of gods in more than one pantheon; if Mithra is a major figure in Hinduism and Zoroastrianism and a Roman mystery cult, how do you decide which of his cultural affiliations grants the PSP? Does he just choose one, and if so, which one? Does he swap between them depending on where he is and what he's doing, so that his command of Asha suddenly turns into an affinity for Samsara as soon as he crosses the Indian border? What if he's the major god of one religion and then centuries later becomes much more prominent in a different one - is he stuck with the PSP of the pantheon he barely belongs to anymore for the rest of eternity?

This is one of those places that Scion doesn't have a good way to reconcile ancient religions with game mechanics. Scion treats pantheons as discrete entities with their own specific powers, which means that gods have to be considered a member of one or the other no matter what their ancient cultural roots might be. It's a Storyteller call in the end, but we use the following guidelines:

1. What pantheon is the god most prominent in?
2. What pantheon's PSP does the god demonstrate powers from?
3. What pantheon are we planning to run the god's stories around?

Most of the time, the decision's made pretty easily by just looking at which pantheon a given god is most important, present or celebrated in. Guanyin is also known in India and Japan, for example, but her Chinese worship is clearly much more widespread and centrally important, so she has Taiyi instead of Samsara or Tsukumo-gami. But sometimes it's not so clear-cut which culture has the best claim to be a god's home base, as in Quetzalcoatl's case, so then we move on to seeing whether or not he actually uses any of the powers of that PSP in his myths. We have the feathered serpent mostly pegged at this point; he certainly appears in Maya myth, but he doesn't have much in the way of alternate personas or aspects, while on the other hand we know he does receive sacrifices and perform autosacrifice on himself in Aztec myths.

Most gods are sorted out by the time you get through those first two criteria, but once in a while one is just overly difficult to figure out, or you don't want to cut your options down too much as a Storyteller. In that case, it all comes down to the final and possibly most important issue, which is what you're planning to do with a god in your story. If you're crafting a giant master metaplot surrounding the Deva but aren't planning to do much with the Yazata, you're probably better off using Vayu in his Hindu guise rather than bothering with his Persian persona and powers, and if you have a story that revolves around the pantheons of the Celtic isles, you probably want Ogma as one of the Enech-wielding Tuatha instead of the continental Gaulish gods.

We're mostly talking about Storytelling here; which powers a god uses are under the control of the Storyteller, of course, and separate from issues of Scions and character creation. If you're a player and you're wondering what PSP you might get from a given god, always check with your Storyteller first. We've done a little monkeying around with it in the spirit of experimentation; in our Eastern Promises game, some of the Deva and Yazata that have overlap allow Scions to choose either Samsara or Asha for their PSP at character creation, although they can't change it later. It's a neat idea that allows the Scions to choose which culture and expression of their patron god they most identify with. That's worked out all right so far, although we're not sure how far we want to extend that or if it's a great system-wide idea.

But the most important thing to take away for Scions (the same as their parents) is this: they do not get two PSPs, ever. Whatever you choose, you'll have to give them access to one and only one PSP unless you feel like doing a massive, far-reaching rewrite of all the PSPs to make them capable of playing nicely together without being overpowered. We definitely don't want to do that and can't imagine anyone else would want to... but if you do undertake the sisyphean labor, let us know how it turns out!