Monday, October 1, 2018

The titans are the parents of the gods

D&D and Pathfinder took the titans from Greek myth and mutilated them until they were unrecognizable. Apparently the titans are the children of the gods. When some titans rebelled for whatever reason, the gods smacked them down; this teaches no moral message that I may discern. Those titans ("empyrean titan" in the 5e MM) who did not rebel were allowed to pillage the land at whim; this teaches that the gods are dicks. Even if killed by a high-level party, their parent will resurrect them. Let's try something else, shall we?

Comparative mythology

In Greek mythology, the titans were a generation of gods who sired and birthed the Olympian gods. The king of the titans, Cronus, was a vicious tyrant. The Olympians and some of their titan cousins rebelled against Cronus and overthrew him at the behest of Gaia. This teaches a moral lesson about tyranny... for the warped moral standards of Ancient Greece anyway.

In fact, Greek myth specifies roughly three generations of primordial gods, titan gods, and Olympian gods. Although the terms refer to roughly three generations, this isn't strictly defined in mythology the way that everything in fantasy gaming is anally defined. The child of a primordial, titan or Olympian god is typically a god (e.g. Ares, Aphrodite), a giant (e.g. Polyphemus), a nymph or other rustic deity, a demon (e.g. Thanatos, Hypnos), etc... or a demigod (if the other parent was mortal).

The primordial gods were the direct precursors of the giants in Norse, Celtic and Greek myth. In Norse myth the primordial giant Ymir (whose name might mean "twin") was born from the union of fire and ice, and he asexually spawned several giant offspring who founded the races of giants. He was killed by Odin and his body used to make the heavens and the earth. The personified earth, feminine Gaia in Greek myth (comparable to masculine Geb in Egyptian myth), birthed various giants like the cyclopes and the hundred-handed. In Celtic myth the Fomorian giants are the children of the earth and the sea, although the surviving texts are fairly vague.

As per Greek myth some of the titans are good, like Prometheus, and it is these figures who should be represented by the "empyrean" in the 5e MM, "elysian titan" in PF, or whatever. The "thanatotic titan" would refer to Cronus and his cronies, who are the ancestors of the gods who imprisoned them. The hekatonkheires/hecatonchires is supposed to be the good guys, too!

However, by extension (and as seen in the dictionary) a "titan" may refer to any vaguely titanic being (physically or metaphorically) such as the kraken and tarrasque, who have the "(titan)" tag, even though they are not part of the titan party... unless they are literally siblings to the titans? Titans are basically just more powerful monsters now. I cannot begin to understand the 5e designers' reasoning for making "(titan)" into a generic tag, but it does make converting the abominations easier.

Abominations and gigas

The Epic Rules introduced the "abomination", who are supposed to be the unwanted demigod (half-god) children of a god and another being. The Pathfinder rules introduce the "gigas" (the Greek word for giant), who are supposed to be the children of the titans and the elemental ancestors of the giants. Obviously, they are all of them always evil and stuff. Again, this is in complete opposition to classical mythology and therefore I consider it silly.

In true gaming fashion there are like a bazillion different varieties of abomination, gigas and titan introduced by the Epic Rules, Pathfinder rules and Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary - Volume One (see the links section for details). The abominations include amilictli, anakim, anaxim, atropal, chichimec, dream larva, gibborim, hecatoncheires, infernal, odium, phaethon, phane, sadim, and xixecal; the gigas include abaddon, abyss, axis, boneyard, elemental (air, earth, fire, and water), elysium, energy (lumigen, necrophyscian), heaven, hell, maelstrom, nirvana, and shadow; the titans include danava, elder, elysian, fomorian, hekatonkheires, and thanatotic. Generally speaking in terms of size, giants range from large to gargantuan, gigas sit at gargantuan, and titans start at colossal. (The gods themselves are never given game statistics unless you include 3pp OSR like Petty Gods or Unknown Gods. Pretentious game designers like to pretend the gods are beyond game statistics or that it somehow ruins them to provide statistics so that player characters may kill them.)

I don't particular care for anal-retentive gamer distinctions like this, so I prefer to just label them all as giants or titans, since "(titan)" is a keyword/tag/subtype as of 5e. I've stated before why I think epic/mythic/divine rules are stupid. D&D has always broken down at higher levels (or "mythic" ranks/tiers), and these high level monsters are no different.

Titans in my setting

Anyway, in my cosmology "titan" is a convenient name for some of the earliest generation of deities to be born from primordial chaos. Some of these embodied order (the "gods" or "elysian titans") and others chaos (the "titans" or "thanatotic titans"), as per the Moorcockian standard for alignment. There was a Titanomachy, or multiple Titanomachies, in which the gods of order triumphed over the titans of chaos and the latter were imprisoned in the realms of chaos. The orderly gods maintained their hold over the world, but could never stop the depredations of chaos entirely. The names themselves are essentially arbitrary (since some titans are orderly), but the implication is that the layperson believes the gods are good rather than destructive psychopaths.

Research links:

Statistics:

3.x/d20/OGL

Pathfinder-OGL

5th edition

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