History and Culture

The Origin of the Theoi

In the Beginning there was Chaos, and there the story of the Gods of Olympus begins. After three more came, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros. From Chaos came Erebus and Nix, who begot Aether and Hemera. Gaia bore Ouranos, and with him bore the Mountains, and the Nymphs. Without Ouranos, Gaia bore Pontus, and with Ouranos bore Oceanus. The progeny of Earth and Sky grew in time to host Koios, Kreios, Hyperion, and Iapetos. Thea, Rhea, Themes, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys too, before the youngest was born. Fateful Cronus.

But, these, the Titans, were not the last children of the Primordial pair of Gaia and Ouranos, with Thunderer, Lightner, and Whitebolt coming next, who were not Titans, but the Primordial Cyclopses. Kottos, Briareos, and Gyges too were born from Sky and Earth, though they were unlike the generations before them. They were the Hundred Handed Ones, with fifty heads, and one hundred arms who bore with them endless strength.

But, Ouranos looked upon his children and scowled. The Sky took all of his children, and as they were born, he put them in a cavern deep within the earth where not even light could reach, and this caused Gaia to groan in pain.

Gaia in that moment created the grey metal, Adamant, and from it fashioned a sickle, going to her children and asking them which would take up the weapon and strike their father. All were silent and afraid, but eventually young Cronus spoke that he would do as his mother wished. An ambush was set, and there Cronus reached up into the sky and with the great toothed-sickle, cut castrated Ouranos and threw his genitals far away. Where blood fell, Gaia bore the Giants, the Erinyes, and the Nymphs of the Ash tree called the Meliai. In a frothy foam, the genitals of Ouranos crashed into the sea, and here emerged the first Aphrodite.

With this, the Rule of the Titans began under Cronus as their King, and this time has oft been called the Age of Gold. The Titans had many children and their progeny grew and grew, ruling from Mount Olympus itself. However, all was not well in this Age of Gold, as mighty Gaia and Ouranos spoke to their son, Cronus, and told him that one day he too would fall by the hands of a son, with many suspecting this was due to Cronus’ imprisonment of the Primordial Cyclopes and the Hundred Handed Ones.

For the fear of the end of his rule, Cronus watched his wife, Rhea, with careful eyes, and every time she bore him a child Cronus snatched up the infant and devoured them. This marriage of cannibalism, infanticide, and filicide broke Rhea’s heart, so she went to her parents, Gaia and Ouranos, to ask for help, and Gaia helped her plot.

On the birth of her sixth child, Rhea hid the infant and swaddled a stone, giving it to Cronus when he arrived to devour the infant. Cronus swallowed the rock, having been fooled by the trick, and Rhea had her sixth child, Zeus, hidden away.

In time, when Zeus had grown, Rhea told her son, who had been hidden away, of her plan. She gave Cronus a special drink which caused him to vomit forth all of their children, the most resent to the earliest, making the first to be born from their mother the last to be born from the father.

From here, Zeus and his siblings found allies in the Primordial Cyclopes, and the Hundred Handed Ones who had been so mistreated by their brother Cronus who had sealed them away. The Hundred Handed Ones pledged their untenable strength to the cause of Zeus, and the Primordial Cyclopes forged great tools. Thunder, Lightning, and Smokingbolt were crafted for Zeus. A gleaming trident which shook the earth was given to Poseidon. To Hades, a help which let the wearer of it go unseen to even the Gods and Titans.

With the Hundred Handed Ones, and several defecting Titans such as Nix and Hecate, the six children of Rhea and Cronus brought war to Olympus, and tore down the Titans, ending their age of Gold. Those who resisted Zeus and his siblings were thrown to the depths of Tartarus the deepest depths of the world, which a bronze anvil would take twenty seven days falling to reach from the heights of the sky.

However, just as Kronos and Ouranos had disappointed Gaia, so too did Zeus. Gaia can accept many things, but the imprisonment of her line appears to eternally be the final straw. In imprisoning the Titans, Zeus disappointed her just as Cronus had done in imprisoning the Primordial Cyclopses and the Hundred Handed Ones. And so, Gaia entwined herself with Tartarus, and the pair produced a terrible son, Typhon.

Typhon, a Bestial-God, with great wings, hundreds of snakes from his shoulders, with a voice made of an entire menagerie of monsters. Typhon roared to the world, and set out to defeat Zeus. However, here the story splits in twain.

Some say that Zeus and Typhon clashed, and Zeus bringing to bear the terrible might of storms burned and broke Typhon in a clash which shook all, even the Titans in deep Tatarus. They say that here, Zeus hurled Typhon into Tartarus along with his siblings.

However, others say that Zeus did not win, in fact, Zeus was defeated, and Typhon cut the great God’s sinew from his body, leaving him weak and captured. Hermes came and stole Zeus’ sinues back, and restored Zeus, and the pair resumed their fight with Typhon being defeated and sealed under Mount Etna.

Which is true, likely only the Dodekatheon know.

And with this, the Age of the Olympians began, and their world was great. The three brothers, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus divided the world between themselves, with Hades taking the earth, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus the heavens, each an equal, though Zeus forgets this fact frequently.

The Nature of Divinity

Reading this explanation of the various wars between colossally powerful Divine Beings, you might wonder why no one is dying. Why everyone is so keen on imprisoning their enemies rather than just slaying them. Well, this is because the Greek Gods are Immortal. Not, like, ageless, but incapable of dying. Titans, Primordials, and Gods alike are all totally incapable of total destruction and have to be imprisoned instead. Just how to represent this however is tricky, as the entire Pantheon can't have Ultimate Stamina. Possibly, they might all have large amounts of it, or the Theoi somehow are playing by different rules.

There are three exceptions to this. First, the Giants get slain by Heracles, but that seemed to have been a Fate of theirs of some sort. Then, there is Asclepius who is obliterated by Zeus for resurrecting the dead and possibly offending Hades. He did have a mortal mother, so, possibly he wasn't entirely God to help explain this. And then there is Pan who just ruins everything by dying off by himself in an unmentioned way. Thanks Pan.

Zeus married Metis, primordial wisdom made flesh. However, Metis made the mistake of trusting her husband, and told him after becoming pregnant with their child that Zeus too would be overthrown by a son. Panicking, Zeus tricked Metis into taking the shape of a fly, and ate her. Then, Zeus married Themis, though their marriage must have faded in time as Zeus then found himself in the bed of Eurynome, daughter of Oceanus, then Demeter, his sister, then his aunt Mnemosyne. He then found himself with Leto, before finally marrying Hera.

From these trists, and more came the Gods of Olympus, and the Theoi ruled the world proudly. Though, Mighty Zeus still has the knowledge that their time too must end, and he will be overthrown by a son as well.

Those Other Guys

Of all Pantheons, the Theoi have the strangest relationship with, well, themselves. They are simultaneously two Pantheons, the Theoi of Greece and the Deī of Rome which is rather problematic as the Greeks and Romans disagreed on the details larger than just their names.

Presented here are the Theoi just purely as Greek, with some occasional bits of Roman myth to help round things out. Just how to handle the fact that most of these Gods are in fact two different Gods is left to individual storytellers, we haven't even decided what to do about it. Sometimes we add Associations to Gods to help represent both their figures, such as Ares gaining Guardian, and Fertility if he was Ares-Mars.

Pantheon Relationships

    • Aesir: The Aesir and the Theoi have never gotten along, a fact which is the fault of the Theoi, though they would insist otherwise. The Aesir are barbarians in the mind of the Theoi, a fact which only makes the multiple Germanic sackings of Rome sting more.

    • Anunna: The Anunna and the Theoi have a complex relationship. The Anunna talk about the Theoi as being some far distant children of theirs, and the Theoi insist otherwise. Only the fact that the Anunna are entirely withdrawn into High Heaven has prevented clashes as the Greeks grow irate over the suggestion they are from foreign stock.

    • Bogovi: The Bogovi greatly enjoy the theory the Theoi have that there is a heavy line dividing Mortals and Gods, however any approval the Theoi are given for this is immediately crushed by the sheer amount of involvement and Scions the Theoi have spawned. A strong theory which is only practiced one way.

    • Deva: The Theoi claim to have fought a war involving the Gods of India before, one which was started by Dionysus. The Deva know absolutely nothing about this, suggesting that Dionysus’ India may not be the real India.

    • Kami: The Theoi and the Kami have had the most minimal of interactions, though the Kami upset the Theoi deeply. They don’t fit inside the Theoi concept of foreigners. Sure, they are strange, but where are the pants, the comically large genitals, and brute nature? For this, the Theoi tend to ignore the Amatsukami.

    • Netjer: The Theoi and the Netjer have had an enormous amount of contact, with the cult of Isis being quite popular in Rome at times. The two Pantheons disagree on almost every fact of reality, but both tolerate the existence of the other. However, in their interactions there have been many bruised egos. Thoth, for example, has never let go of being compared to Hermes.

    • Orisha: The Greeks and the Orisha have had little contact, both geography, and the fact that the Theoi tend to refuse to speak to anyone who they deem strange mostly the cause of this. However, Dionysus, being a continual disappointment to his father has met with them before.

    • Shen: The Shen and the Theoi have had occasional glimpses of the other, but for the most part, the two ignore the other, neither wanting to deal with those strange foreigners if they don’t have to.

    • Teotl: The Teotl and the Theoi do not get along. The Theoi might get all high and mighty about human sacrifice, but will insist that sealing a young Gaulish man and a young Grecian woman into the foundations of a building is not human sacrifice in the slightest. One may suspect the Theoi are annoyed that the Teotl are appreciated by their mortals more without bothering to find out why.

    • Tuatha: Like the Aesir, the Theoi see in the Irish Gods the stereotypical barbarian. Bearded, pants wearing idiots who run around yelling at things with unreasonably large genitals. The Theoi have often mocked the Tuatha for their defeat by the Gael, and assume it to be due to the weakness of the Irish rather than something worthy investigating.

Enemies and Allies of the Pantheon

    • Enemies

      • The Giants

        • Gaia’s ire with the Theoi did not end with the birth of Typhon, and at a later time, the Earth sent forth her children, the Giants, to fight the Gods. The Giants are fated to be unable to die by the Gods, which in the past led to the Theoi calling forth Heracles to put the finishing blow on each Giant as they were defeated. However, some may still live, and their fate not to die at the hands of Gods despite being matches for them is deeply problematic.

      • The Titans

        • The generation before the Theoi were the Titans, and in the great Titanomachy, the Theoi overthrew the previous rulers of the world and sealed them away in Tartarus. One might worry, however, that the great bronze gates might fail, and the Titans would march to war again.

      • The Primordials

        • The Primordial Gods are the parents of the Titans, very fundamental aspects of reality. Of their number, Ouranos, Gaia, and Tartarus likely have issue with the Theoi, though they too at times can be helpful.

    • Allies

      • The Primordial Cyclopes

      • The Hundred Handed Ones

      • Nymphs

      • Rogue Titans

      • Not all Titans resisted Zeus, such as Hecate, who fought against the Titans alongside the young Gods. These beings have in some ways joined the Pantheon proper, but many others, such as Helios, have left their duties to the younger generation and drifted off to worlds unknown.

        • Thunder, Lightning, and Flashingbolt are the three Primordial Cyclopes, the ones met by Odysseus a lesser sort. These colossal one eyed smiths are some of the most skilled craftsmen in existence, rivaling, and some suggest surpassing even Hephaestus. However, they are distant, and rarely interact with their distant relatives the Theoi.

        • The three Hundred Handed Ones sit at the gates of Tartarus to release the great winds when the Gods deem it necessary. Old allies of the Gods, the Hundred Handed Ones are of terrible strength, but stand ever vigilant for their debt to Zeus.

        • The Nymphs are many, with many subsections of the species. These beings are the kin, and sometimes lovers or spouses of the Theoi, and other Pantheons may see them as nature spirits of a sort. The Nymphs serve the Theoi now, but in the past they have served under the Titans.

          • The Big Lads

              • The Hundred Handed Ones and their brothers, the Primordial Cyclopes (just called Cyclopes in myths, we added the 'Primordial' to help identify them) are truly exceptionally powerful allies of Zeus, and forever debited to him.

                • Just... what are they, however? Though not Titans in the Greek sense, they are likely Titans in the Scion sense. The Primordial Cyclopes being Titans of Artistry and possibly Storms, and the Hundred Handed Ones likely being Strength and possibly Sky.

                • These beings are some of the first to look out blinking at the world after it was formed. They are ancient, and some of the most powerful. They will likely be the right hands of Zeus in a war time if the Titans break free, and will fight with their terrible strengths to crush their cruel family members.

Cultural Notes

The Theoi are one of the best known Pantheons to the modern Western world, so there is not as much need to detail complicated situations and cultural traditions of the Greeks and Romans. However, some will be touched on momentarily despite this. What should be noted here is a quick comment on sources. Where other mythologies leave us scrabbling at the dirt to find scant mention of a Pantheon, the Theoi have the opposite problem, they have a huge amount of sources that don't agree with each other on details. What we did for this project was declare a single document the 'Most True', specifically Hesiod's The Theogony which was counted as primary cannon, and other stories were built off of this main body of text. On occasion, we did go with a work that contradicted Hesiod, but only when it either made more sense, helped explain something strange, or made for a better story. For the Storyteller who doesn't have the time to grab a Classics Degree to run a Scion game with their friends (which is sensible), here is a quick rundown on some points of the culture of the Theoi which may arise in games.

The Role of Women: Ancient Greece was not a good place to be a woman. It wasn't the worst, but it was far from being nice. Society was fundamentally patriarchal, and an unmarried woman owed her entire existence to her father, or eldest brother. Women were married young, to older men, and did not always get much of a say on the topic. In Rome, things were slightly better. If one was from the upper classes, it wasn't terrible, but it was still very deeply a patriarchal culture where women could hold few legal rights. In Sparta, Spartan women had a better lot in life than those in the Hellenistic League, for example, were allowed to privately own things. But still, life was not great.

Democracy: Athens came to be known as the first democracy. Ah yes, wonderful Athenian democracy, where you could vote only if both your parents were citizens, were not a foreigner, didn't happen to be a woman, and were over thirty years of age. Not quite what we see as democracy. But, this proto-democracy did find its birth in Greece, and the Republican Romans also had a system of representation, which might lead one to believe that the Theoi have similar values. They do not. Not at all. Zeus is King. Any who doubt this, Zeus will likely kill for being a traitor, and the rest of the Dodekatheon will likely agree. Except possibly Athena, though she really does tend to support her father in all things. A brave Scion it would be to suggest the idea of Democracy to Zeus, a God who is already paranoid enough about usurpation.

Homosexuality: Ancient Greece and Rome often get pegged as being places where homosexuality was accepted, and this therefore needs to be addressed. Totally ignoring the issue of sexuality being a more modern concept, Greece and Rome were not quite as accepting as one may hope. The Spartans, probably did have a fair amount of homosexuality despite the Spartans mocking the "Boy loving Athenians" for it in 300. Well, to be fair, it could be an accurate jab, if they were mocking the pederasty. During their upbringing, Spartan boys were all housed together and disallowed to visit the girls of their city, which both bred exceptionally stealthy teenage boys, and sexual contact as far as we can tell. There is also the Sacred Band of Thebes however, which was a special unit from Thebes (as one would guess) which was entirely made up of homosexual couples on the logic that they will fight harder to protect their lovers beside themselves. In Rome, there was homosexuality, but in simple detail, they didn't care who was the 'active' partner, but were exceptionally concerned about who was the 'passive' partner, seeing such a role as womanly.

Combat: Images of the Greek city states at war, and the war machine of Rome brings images of grand unified groups of soldiers working in perfect harmony. This is somewhat complicated. The Theoi themselves, with exception to Athena, come from an earlier period where the glory of a single combatant was paramount. This is plainly seen in Achilles running around the battlefield of Ilium single handedly fighting everyone he can get his hands on, and the other figures of the Iliad, such as Big Ajax, Hector, or Diomedes. Just what the Theoi think of the more modern version of combat doesn't seem to be much detailed, but, it really could go either way. It might even break down on a case by case basis.

The Tragic Hero: The Heroes of the Greeks don't end well, if you have noticed. The Greek Fates seem to adore ironic, tragic deaths, especially if one falls into their fate while trying to fight it. A huge number of Greek heroes suffer such a fate, and sort of presents a tricky situation in Scion. No one wants to play a character who should, technically, have an exceptionally high chance of dying in an exceptionally depressing way, but it would be accurate. Discuss it with your players beforehand, being a Tragic Hero is not something you want sprung on you.

The Age Issue: Greek mythology has a lot of situations with quite young figures. Be this Endymion, Dionysus, Ganymede, Hebe, and the other young figures. This, and the ancient Greek practice of pederasty should really not be touched with a ten foot barge pole. We tend to fudge some ages with Endymion and Ganymede. But, one really should just avoid that whole mess. It's just not really a great thing and will make people quite uncomfortable.