Expanding the Atruaghi pantheon
by Greg WeatherupA proposal for some expansions to the Atruaghi pantheon. If you look at the pantheon as is, some interesting issues/problems/ommisions/things come out:
- not a single Time immortal (or perhaps this is partially why the Atruaghin are not as advanced as other societies?)
- The "lesser" immortals of the pantheon (Ahmanni, Hattani, Mahmatti, Tahkati, Danel) have no power base outside of a single clan of the Atruaghin and yet they are all Celestials (with an average level of 14) How did they get that strong without other power bases, and many of them in a realatively short timeframe, and yet Atruaghin, who is the same only slightly older than 3 of them is a full Hierarch (level 32 - though admittedly with other interests).
- Native American cultures, which the Children of Atruaghin are based on, have such rich mythologies and legends, surely we can do better (I've heard lots of people say that the Atruaghin GAZ was limited, yet I haven't seen much fan work or discussion on them)
- If you look at the sponsors of the Atruaghi Immortals, only 2 of the patrons (Atruaghin himself for Hattani, and Atzanteotl for Danel) are supposed to be known to the Atruaghi, dispite the patrons being some of the strongest and oldest immortals around are not recalled by the Atruaghi (Ka, Korotiku, & Ixion - who admittedly is pseudo-officially mentioned)
- very isolated from surrounding lands and their immortals, despite being in their present location for centuries (or is it millenia?) as other cultures have rose, changed & adapted, came & gone all around them. While the Atruaghi are somewhat isolated, they are not THAT isolationistic
- The Atruaghi descend from the Oltecs and Azcans, yet there is little or no connection to earlier pantheons (I might need some help with the Azcan pantheon connections as I don't know much about it.)
- a lack of certain key portfolio's i.e. healing, fertility & agriculture (somewhat peripherial to Ahmanni), death, etc.
- and a case could be made that the sphere - element coorespondences are off, ie the one Thought Immortal is connected with Water instead of Air, and an case could be argued/made that either/both Energy & Matter amongst the Atruaghi is connected with Air (or perhaps 'Nature') instead of fire & earth respectively (though this one is rather debatable)
And I'm sure there is other issues if we think more on it.
So In a series of following posts I want to discuss some of my ideas for expanding the pantheon. Obviously all of the additional immortals only have minor roles in the expanded pantheon (ie too small to meet the requirements to show up on the Codex's regional pantheons pages), down to some just being legends and not even actually being worshipped.
I guess I'll start with what my draft expanded pantheon looks like and a order of each of their introductions, before (in future posts, perhaps starting next week) expounding on my ideals for each one in turn.
Of course we got the big 5:
Atruaghin
Ahmanni
Hattani
Mahmatti
Tahkati
then the 2 "opponents":
Danel
Atzanteotl
Then:
Ixion (who is obliquely mentioned in Canon IIRC)
then I add the next four, at roughly the same "popularity level" (for lack of better term):
Korotiku
Ka
Simurgh
Ninsun
And as increasingly rarer one's (in decreasing order), likely without any clerics amongst the clans (except perhaps the first 1 or 2):
Rathanos
Pax
Odin
Thor & Hymir (In a dual, somewhat complementary and connected role)
Terra & Thanatos
perhaps others if anyone has any good ideals for how the Atruaghi view them. I'm particularily still considering Thalia (logically goes alongside with Pax), Valerias (if you have Ixion then it seems like she should be close behind, but she might conflict with Ahmanni), Tyche & Fugit (early human Time immortals, which the atruaghi need more of) but haven't decided yet on them.
And here's an order they were introduced to the Atruaghi (and prior ancestors):
too old to be remembered properly: Terra & Thanatos (and likely others)
Early Oltec immortals: Ka, Ixion, Simurgh, Pax
later Oltec/early Azcan immortarls: Rathanos, Ninsun (and perhaps Korotiku?)
late Azcan/proto-Atruaghi: Atzanteotl, Tahkati (and perhaps Korotiku)
early Atruaghi: Atruaghin and very shortly afterwards (1 generation): Ahmanni, Hattani, & Danel
recent: Mahmatti
very near future?: Asterius
slightly more distant future: Hel? Benedanker (sp?)? others?
Odin, Thor, & Hymir would be from contact with their Neathar neighbors, but I don't know the history well enough so I'll let someone else point me to where this group would fit
I'll be discussing them and this whole topic more later, but for now, it's late and I've got a long day tomorrow (but I'll be in beautiful Yosemite for part of it so I think it will be worth it) so I'll open this up for any initial discussion or thoughts or ideals or flames or whatnots