The Meanings of Words
English is a terrible language. It really is. Whereas the Eskimo language proverbially has thousands of words for snow, denoting consistency, time, colour, etc., English frequently uses one word to mean lots and lots of things. Because of this, some things need to be at least conventionally defined so that people don’t get confused.
Pantheon
Pantheon is an important term in a game about gods and titans, all the more so when the game explicitly says “yeah, they all exist.” Technically “pantheon” means “all the gods.” This was a perfectly appropriate usage in antiquity because a culture usually didn’t worry about other peoples’ gods. However, colloquially, people will often use the word pantheon to refer to gods from a specific culture’s myths. The Greek/Olympian Pantheon, or the Egyptian(/Pharonic/Khmetic) Pantheon, for example. Because this usage is so prevalent, and because the other is so useless in this game, we will use the word pantheon to refer to discreet culturally related collections of gods. All the gods of the setting will simply be collectively referred to as “the gods.”
World
The word “world” can mean many things. It could mean “the planet upon which we stand,” “the known universe,” “the entire setting of a game,” or any of a number of other things. Given that we’re talking about a game, it makes sense to use it for that third thing. We will address a few uses:
- “The World”- Generally will be used in character, to refer to, essentially, Earth. In the rules, and in character for characters “In the Know,” we will instead use “the middle realm.”
- “The World of Divine Legacy”- The entire setting of this game. When we reference this, we will actually say either “The world of Divine Legacy” or “the setting.”
- “Worlds/A world”- Any of the various non-earthly realms of in the world of Divine Legacy. To avoid confusion, we will refer to all of the various realms as, well, Realms. Appropriately enough, The Middle Realm, is actually a realm too.
Heavenly Spheres
The setting of Divine Legacy has a number of realms. It is possible to see these realms as oriented, physically or metaphorically, vertically in relation to one another, as though with a tree, a mountain, plane and caverns; a river, etc. There are three basic realms, which break into multiple other realms. At base, there are:
- The Godly Realm- Where dwell the gods. Within the Godly Realm, there are numerous territories, mostly split up by pantheon. Territories are divided by varying strengths of boundary between them, though frequently the boundaries mimic geographic features between the terrestrial cultural groups that worshipped the gods. There are actual vast bodies of water between Asgard and the Spirit World of the Loa, but given that Baron Samedi really, really likes crashing Aesir parties for the booze and female servitors, there are established paths that make it easier to cross from one to another. By comparison, the villas of the Roman Pantheon are virtually right next door to Asgard, but neither side much likes the other, and so there is a hard wall between them, so to speak.
- The Middle Realm- Where live seven billion mundane humans. Also, many dwarves, elves, nature spirits, etc. The Middle Realm includes the known universe, as well as a few other quasi-realms, notably the Fae Realm, Svartalfheim and Jotunheim, as well as any number of pocket realms created by divine entities.
- The Under-realm- The lands of the dead. Like the Godly Realm, the Under-realm is one realm carved up into many different territories. Hades and Helheim are entirely separate territories in the Under-realm, as is Baron Samedi’s Yard. Even Territories may bebroken up into individual areas. Hades, for example, contains The Asphodel Meadows, the Elysium Fields, and the Fields of Punishment, among others. The Under-realm is also, almost wholly, the prison of the titans.
The War in Heaven
It is important to note here what is the overarching metaplot of Divine Legacy. Divine Legacy deals with a setting in which all the myths of pre-modern humanity are true. Specifically, this means that Zeus, Osiris, Odin, Vishnu, and Quetzalcoatl all exist, as do myrmidons, dwarves, kitsune, and things recognizable as vampires and zombies (after a fashion). However, modern myths, ie, pop culture, are still creative works of fiction in the setting. Superman and Batman are not running around in the Middle Realm. Unless, of course, you decide there are divinities of Zeus and Piquete-Zina who have decided to cosplay for some insane reason. But the fact remains (despite the internet telling me that Piquete-Zina is actually known as Batman and has a sidekick whose name starts with R), that the entities from the comic books are fictional characters from comic books in the world of Divine Legacy as well.
The general overarching story of Divine Legacy Is that a long time ago, the gods took the world, and all the hearts and minds of its people, from the Titans. The titans were actively malevolent, demanding sacrifices of human life for their own amusement. The gods were merely kind of dickish, and were, generally, happy to accept animal sacrifices. The Teotl, the gods of the Aztecs, demand human sacrifice, but it is at a more manageable rate than the titans’ “all of them, all the time.”
The Teotl also wish to maintain the world as it is. The Titans want to, essentially, destroy it. The titan of fire wishes for flames to engulf the Middle Realm, the titan of frost would send driving storms of hoary shards over it, and the titan of death would gather all to his house, slay those who will not come willingly, and ravage the world in one final apocalypse to scour all life from it. The rock may still hang in space after the titans win, but it would not be as we know it, and any of their endgames spells naught but pain and death for us.
The gods had sealed the titans away, but the titans could not be contained forever. It was fate that they would eventually break out. The gods swore a “non-interference” pact over the affairs of the Middle Realm. They also, for the most part, put aside their squabbles, allying, even when they were rivals, so they could fight against the titans. The unified force of the gods has tied up the titans, such that they cannot spare the time or attention for the Middle Realm.
For now, the gods and titans can only touch the Middle Realm briefly. For a god, it’s enough time to create a child, a new divinity, or to meet one they created previously. For the titans, it’s enough time to create a titanspawn. Some will tarry with mortals, in a mockery of the creation of a divinity, others will merely touch a mundane creature with their essence, perhaps showering it with ichor, thus causing it to mutate.
At its lowest level, Divine Legacy is a Monster of the Week game, where the heroes and monsters are mythic, both in source and form. One week the heroes might find a town beset by a manticore, track it to its lair, and engage in a lengthy, epic battle with it. The next, they might find that a Mexican ghetto has been taken as the hunting grounds of Tlahuelpuchi. Ideally the culmination of a story arc would be fighting direct servants to a titan, possibly causing that titan to withdraw from the Middle Realm due to attrition of forces. Whether you want the characters to fight an actual titan ultimately depends on the sort of game you want to run.
The high end game style for Divine Legacy is the characters acting as a divine strike force in the war between the gods and titans. In myth, it was often incredibly hard to kill the titans, or the gods were prevented from doing so for one reason or another. In Divine Legacy, it may not be easy to kill a titan, but it is the opinion of the author that it should be possible, given that such happens in more than a few pieces of source material.
Divine Patronage
“All men’s souls are immortal. But the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.”
-Socrates
The world of Divine Legacy has two types of people in it- extras, people destined to be eaten by the titanspawn, turned into stags to be hunted, sent as offerings to the minotaur, and generally play bit parts in motivating the other, Luminaries. Luminaries are the special people of the story. They may not be divinities themselves, but when Cronos unleashes the Sands of Time and everyone starts rapidly aging, the extras will crumble, the Luminaries can be cured. It sucks, and it’s kind of facist, but it’s the way it is. The elite few carry the power, and everyone else is just so much chaff before the harvest. If a titanspawn can convert victims, extras get changed into minor spawn, at best, but Luminaries become full titanspawn. In the garden of statues of a gorgon, every crumbling soldier in hoplite armour was an extra. The immaculate statue of a hero, still holding a spark of life is a Luminary, and his petrification can be reversed.
Personas Great and Terrible
There are three basic types of character in the grand scheme of Divine Legacy: Divinities, Titanspawn and Servitors. Divinities are the children of those who do not want to destroy civilization as we know it and reduce humanity to cattle. Titanspawn are things created by beings of great power who do want to do that. Servitors are minor creatures of myth, such as dwarves, kitsune, sirens, etc who are often given to divinities or titanspawn by their patrons to serve as soldiers, guardians, or general servants.
Divinities (Playable)
“Divinities” refer to those of divine heritage who fight on the side of the gods. They are generally the children of gods, though a not inconsiderable number of “gods” were actually vouched-for titans. Loki and Skald were giants who joined the Aesir. The Olympians may not like Prometheus, but his children side with the gods, because their father loves and cares for humanity.
The children of the gods display a wide variety of traits and powers. They are all, physically speaking, superior to mortals, at least in some way. It is possible that a divinity of, say, Aphrodite would be physically weaker than any given large, muscular macho mundane man, though she will often be more beautiful than other women. A divinity of Ares, however, will likely beat any mortal man, 99.99 repeating percent of the time in direct combat.
However, divinities are just as likely as not to share traits with their parents. While Asclepous, son of Apollo, god of medicine and healing, shows a clear relation to his father, who can send pestilence with his arrows, and Hercules can be seen as translating his father’s authority into physical might, Loki, the trickster of the Aesir, gave birth to Sleipnir, the eight legged horse, and sired the world serpent Jormungundir, the monstrous wolf Fenrir, and the half-dead Hel.
Examples: Kratos, Hellboy, Percy Jackson, Hercules the Legendary Journeys,
Titanspawn (Not Playable)
Titanspawn refers to creatures touched by the fell nature of the titans. Ichor runs in their veins, and titan energy crackles along their skin. Generally a titanspawn is some manner of monster, usually out of myth. While the gorgons of myth were divine punishment, the titans saw the terrifyingly effective murderer the gods had created, and cribbed the idea. The chimera was the issue of Echidna, and she has not stopped making them. All manner of giant beast can be found in the kennels of the Frost Giants. Serpents gravely venomous, enormous, or both, slither from Apep’s hole.
Some few titans, however, will take human form for a day and leave behind a drop of ichor, one which will, in time, develop into an embryo, then a fetus, and finally, a titanspawn child. These mock-divinities are not easily mistaken for the genuine-article, however. They are, almost universally, monstrous in form. A divinity in its youth might find itself in odd situations where they mysteriously are unharmed when they fall into a bonfire, or never want for intimate companionship in their teenage years. Titanspawn children, on the other hand, frequently are brought up in secret by other titanspawn, or titan servitors, as they could never pass for healthy, normal children.
Examples: Chimera, Oni, Zipacna
Servitors (Not Playable)
Servitors are, generally, not created by the divine or fell touching the mundane. Servitors are either wholly created by gods, or are members of a race which breeds true. Servitors include most of the non-human sentient races of myth- elves, dwarves, valkyries, einherjar, etc.Some, such as dwarves, live independently of their source-pantheons. Others, such as valkyries or spartoi, exist solely in the homes of their patrons, to fight at their behest, or to be gifted to favoured individuals.
Examples: Alfar, Svartalfar, Kitsune, Tengu, Amazons, Spartoi
