Atlantis and your game

Figured I'd ask what's everyone's take on the Atlantien Pantheon within their Scion games.  Are they still around?  Did they only recently return?  If so, how?  Who's alive and who's dead or heel turned?

I found the Atlantien Pantheon almost as a big mistake as the Allied and Yankee ones. Just cut them off and prentended they never existed in the first place.

Given my druthers, the space used for the Atlantean Pantheon would have been used for something else.  That said, I did not have problems with how it worked so much as its presence in a setting with as little space as Scion. I use the Atlantean Pantheon as a mysterious "lost world" element the Gods can't just answer questions about...but its a spice. I use it rarely.

Yankee and Allied Pantheons I have no real use for. I commandeered Industry into an APP (for forge gods, basically), and shoved The Citizen and Baba Yaga into the Rus, combining Duality and Civitas.  All the rest of the material on the allied and yankee pantheons was tossed, with gusto. I did also find use for Qirinus and Marishiten in the Dodekatheon and Amatsukami, and the basic mass combat rules and heavy military hardware was welcome. Mostly I just hated the Pantheons.

I actually really like the Atlantis stuff, myself.  The pantheon comes off as realistic and yet still imaginative, Scire is just awesome and has a spot-on feel, and the whole thing is given a cool, mysterious air.  Not counting small references and bits from the Demigod adventure, it only takes up 17 total pages, so I'm glad they included it.

Baron Samedi:

the space used for the Atlantean Pantheon would have been used for something else. 

Totally agree, In my opinion, this space should specifically have been used for the Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian Pantheon they have made so many allusions to them and they fit so well into Scion, I can't for the life of me understand why they have never been officially published.

Baron Samedi:

Yankee and Allied Pantheons I have no real use for. I commandeered Industry into an APP (for forge gods, basically), and shoved The Citizen and Baba Yaga into the Rus, combining Duality and Civitas.  All the rest of the material on the allied and yankee pantheons was tossed, with gusto.

The Yankee and Allied Pantheons do not exist in my game setting. Baba Yaga goes into the Rus. Civitas and Industry are basically "Purviews ready to be taken" that is they could exist, perhaps they do, but no known pantheon wields them as their official PSP. Perhaps all they need is enterprising gods to take them up when forming a new pantheon.

The Atlantean pantheon itself doesn't exist in the form presented in the book in my game world. But the sinking of Atlantis was an event that did happen in the setting. Scire is a lost purview that disappeared with those gods that wielded them. Elements of the Atlantis mythos of pop culture has been tied into the Aztlanti and the Dodekhateon but the truth itself remains vague, something I haven't turned my full attention to yet, the setting I've set my game in is in constant expansion.

High Quabalist:

Totally agree, In my opinion, this space should specifically have been used for the Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian Pantheon they have made so many allusions to them and they fit so well into Scion, I can't for the life of me understand why they have never been officially published.

Me either. My Pathfinder in Graduate School was on them, they are pretty cool. (It was titled "The Old Time Religion."  Seriously. My Reference Instructor rocked...though I should post the homework assignment he gave us *shudder*).  Though if they cut anything, I'd prefer the adventures go.

High Quabalist:

The Yankee and Allied Pantheons do not exist in my game setting. Baba Yaga goes into the Rus. Civitas and Industry are basically "Purviews ready to be taken" that is they could exist, perhaps they do, but no known pantheon wields them as their official PSP. Perhaps all they need is enterprising gods to take them up when forming a new pantheon.

Yea I added her and the Citizen, as I said.

You should consider Industry as a forge God purview though. ^_^. I gave it to Ptah, Hephaestus, Wayland, Lugh, Dian Cecht, Fu Xi, and The Citizen (as a Rus).

While I had not done it myself, Scire could easily become a technology purview for those who would be into such things.

Baron Samedi:

You should consider Industry as a forge God purview though. ^_^. I gave it to Ptah, Hephaestus, Wayland, Lugh, Dian Cecht, Fu Xi, and The Citizen (as a Rus).

While it's certainly an interesting and viable idea. I tend to understand forge gods as gods using a combination of the fire, earth and magic purview to craft wonders combined with epic intelligence and high occult ratings. The Epic Intelligence and Occult ratings provides the proper knowledge for magical relics, the fire and earth purviews allow the craftsman to temper the steels and shape the materials, magic enchants and voila!

Baron Samedi:

While I had not done it myself, Scire could easily become a technology purview for those who would be into such things.

Also possible, but I haven't turned my attention to the Atlantean angle except on the roughest details for now so I haven't given it my whole scrutiny as a purview.

High Quabalist:

While it's certainly an interesting and viable idea. I tend to understand forge gods as gods using a combination of the fire, earth and magic purview to craft wonders combined with epic intelligence and high occult ratings. The Epic Intelligence and Occult ratings provides the proper knowledge for magical relics, the fire and earth purviews allow the craftsman to temper the steels and shape the materials, magic enchants and voila!

Industry is not so valuble for relics or supertech. Mostly it lets you fix things, lets you damage things, and conjure small items. the ability to instantly fix items, repair even destroyed items, and turn raw materials instantly into a craft won't replace good ol smithing, but it makes certain things easier.

I really liked the Atlantis pantheon. To me they added an element of exotism and allowed the GM to expand the universe in an unrestricted way. I have written the genesis of their gods and described their Overworld (I need to do the Underworld, creatures and relics still!).

In my campain the PCs have been sent to awake the Atlantean Gods again, so that they have one more ally in the war witht he Titans. Of course when the war is over, it will be one more rival :)

BlaineTog:

I actually really like the Atlantis stuff, myself.  The pantheon comes off as realistic and yet still imaginative, Scire is just awesome and has a spot-on feel, and the whole thing is given a cool, mysterious air.  Not counting small references and bits from the Demigod adventure, it only takes up 17 total pages, so I'm glad they included it.

As for how I'm using it, it's going to play a major part in a WWII campaign I'm going to be running (using barely anything out of The World At War chapter).  Basically, back in the day, the Atlantean gods created a giant machine out of their earthly empire that would act like a channel birthright for a new, super-duperly overpowered purview based on the energy of creation just beyond the universe called Creatos.  This purview not only would have given them power beyond imagining but it was also super-cheap to use, totally ignored Fate, and could be used to easily divinize mere mortals en masse.  The other gods obviously didn't want this power in the hands of what was already one of the more powerful pantheons, so they nuked the hell out of Atlantis.

WWII, as I'm going to be using it, involves the Azlanti essentially stealing the Purview Avatars for their own particular use, obviously giving them an incomparable advantage (exacerbated since they also immediately incapacitated the Aesir, Amatsukami, and Dodekatheon pantheons).  The PCs are going to try to venture down to the ruins of Atlantis to find some way of using Creatos long enough to end the war.  They're going to find that the Atlantean demigod in charge of the Creatos machine actually got it running just moments before the Atlantean lines broke and the wave of destruction, er, destroyed it.  Creatos isn't omnipotence so he couldn't hold off the combined forces of a dozen pantheons, but he did manage to use it to create a pocket universe (not a Terra Incognita) and shunt most of the Atlantean gods and some of its people into it.  The PCs are going to either enter this pocket universe somehow or find a way to draw the Atlantean demigod from it, giving them the necessary tools to recreate the Creatos machine and save the world.

It's a leeeetle hokey, but I'm confident my players are gonna like it.  Plus I'm going to get to say "Real Ultimate Power" and "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" over the course of the campaign with a straight face, so it's got that going for it too. ^_^

I thought about using a "Lost World" Savage Land idea. With Neptune as the new Atlantean chief-god.

I honestly don't understand the problems people have with the Yankee and other WWII Pantheon write ups. Sure they're a little quirky, but they're perfect for tweeking into whatever you need in your game..

As for Atlantis.. it will feature prominently in my "end of Demigod level" plot.. basically.. the Atlantean Gods still exist, they are just currently imprisioned my Oceanus, who co-opted their place somehow, usurping their Empire and worshippers, leading to the rest of the Gods smiting them down to Antartica.

It'll also tie into the Hyborian era Pantheon I'm working on as well..

MisterShifter:

I honestly don't understand the problems people have with the Yankee and other WWII Pantheon write ups. Sure they're a little quirky, but they're perfect for tweeking into whatever you need in your game..

Mostly? the rubbed me the wrong way for a couple reasons

1) Scion was (relatively) unique in belief not meaning a damn thing to gods, and mortal beliefs only mattering insofar as fatebinding goes. WaW hinted some were thought for deities, which screws the setting up a bit if just getting people to...not even believe in a deity but just talk about it, would make legend 12 deities.  Why had the gods not just made controllable legend 12 beings for fighting the titans via influencing mortals? It is pitifully easy with Epic Manipulation.  Why is there no Kool Aid Man if we had something like Uncle Sam or Rosie the Riveter. Overall, it just does not work, but at least the door is left open for that not to be the case

2) and more importantly, even if these dieties were not formed whole cloth, how the hell did they hit Legend 12 so fast and master multiple purviews? If Uncle Sam were presented as a Scion sure, I can buy that. Its silly but whatever. No Uncle Sam had fought his way to legend 12 with no Titan War and no major god conflict...how? As noted in the CB section of the Companion, this is a unique time for the emergence of new deities. The world is heady with legend and fate with the titanwar going on...but these were legend 12 as of WWII, and many make no sense at all.

3) For a game of modern mythology...most of these figures do not make good divine parents. Rodina Mat or Britannia are simply national figureheads, and there are no legends of Uncle Sam or Rosie the Riveter who were well understood to be propaganda symbols.  If your looking to play Scions of beings like Thor or Aphrodite how much sense does...Rosie the Riveter...make as a peer? it doesnt.

4) Many of us were hoping for a good alternate "battling Pantheons" setting. The way the Axis were done was by and large good. Why could we have not gotten the allies in the form of, say, Pesedjet, Celestial Bureaucracy, Loa, and Tuatha De Dannan instead of the made-up Pantheons? It was a good opportunity to take an interpantheon battling scenario to contrast the Titanomachy, but it was blown.

5) Or maybe even another Pantheon? The Annanuki would have been welcome.

In short, the approach fit Scion's metaphysics poorly, the overall theme poorly, were internally inconsistent with the rest of the game, and took up space in a situation were we dont have an infinite supplement mill to make up for it. A huge chunk of us would have preferred something to use more easily in the default Scion world, or at least something that jived better with the setting as it stood.

It was not a total waste of paper. We got war machines, military grade hardware, mass combat rules, a couple more gods for the base Pantheons (Marishiten, Quirinius) and a Psychompomp boon, but really...we could have done with more stuff that jived better with Scion. Replace those even with just say the Pesedjet, Loa  and CB and at least we would have a better idea of their role maybe an extra god or two for each.  Those of us trying to cannabalize the purviews like Industry and such are trying to make our investment pay off a little better, given that stuff was even more wasted space then adventure to many of us.

What the Baron said, plus:

Also, this isn't technically part of the OP, but I want to know:

From what I hear about the WWII section, I would have prefered them introducing a North Native-American Patheon based on a few of the stable Native American Gods. Raven, Coyote, Strong Eagle, Eaglebear, Tatonka (buffalo), Turtle, etc...or just used the WWII section for a War of the Gods section.

Then again I have not read it YET. Soon ohh soon.