I'm sorry if this has been discussed on this thread already; I haven't gone through the entire thing. I'm curious about the genders of the other gods. Of the fifteen, by my count only four are confirmed female through flavor text or the Guide - Thassa, Nylea, Ephara,and Karametra. It's probably not a coincidence that they all end in the letter a, even though ancient Greek didn't work that way. Of the remaining eleven, five are confirmed male in the same way - Heliod, Erebos, Purphoros, Athreos, and Keranos. Iroas is also confirmed male from the leaked image of him.
That leaves Phenax, Mogis, and Kruphix. I'd really like for the distribution to be more equal. It seems safe to assume Pharika is female from the naming pattern, and Mogis is almost certainly male from his domains of war, fear, madness, and hatred. Of the final two, we know almost nothing. Their names both end in the letter x, which gives me some hope there may be another pattern and they're both female, but this is admittedly grasping at straws. Kruphix is worshipped in the Temple of Mystery, which immediately makes me think of the Women's Mysteries. Any thoughts?
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Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Karametra's gender was from the Planeswalker's Guide to Theros, Athreos' gender is from the flavor text of Sentry of the Underworld, and Keranos' is from the flavor text of Lightning Strike.
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Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Well, it would be nice if for once female characters weren't mostly about nurturing, protection and motherly qualities and male characters about strength, violence and aggressiveness. I'd like Mogis to be female. Or Keranos, that would at least be something (I do not know where you found information about the gender of the minor gods, save for Ephara trough Ephara's Warden).
There are plenty of wildly violent independent women in Magic, you know.
I'm interested in how the Theros Pantheon is mapped to the Greek Pantheon which reveals more about the Theros gods and what we can expect. Currently we have:
I looked at the flavour texts of cards and themes to find the rest of my guesses... Would appreciate more ideas!
Theros Pantheon:
------ Karametra (White / Green)
Karametra's Acolyte
Ability: Devotion Mana Druid
Flavour Text: "The wilds are a garden tended by divine hands."
Setessan Battle Priest
Ability: Heroic Life Gain
Flavour Text: "Your god teaches you only how to kill. Karametra teaches me to defend what I hold dear. That is why I will prevail."
Bronze Sable
Ability: Artifact Temple Guardian
Flavour Text: The Champion stood alone between the horde of the Returned and the shrine to Karametra, cutting down scores among hundreds. She would have been overcome if not for the aid of the temple guardians whom Karametra awakened.
—The Theriad
Themes:
- Enemy of the Returned
- Nature and healing
- Defensive powers
- Similar to Greek Goddess Demeter
------ Ephara (White / Blue?)
Ephara's Warden
Ability: Tap Creature
Flavour Text: "When you threaten the sanctity of the polis, you insult Ephara herself. If she doesn't smite you, I will."
Themes:
- City life / civilization protector
- Similar to Greek Goddess Athena
Borderland Minotaur
Flavour Text: "You have led us to triumph over the forces of Mogis!" said Brygus the Brave, clapping the Champion on the back. The Champion wiped the sweat and blood from her brow. "I count eight graves," she said. "Too many to call this a victory."
—The Theriad
Deathbellow Raider
Ability: Aggressive Regenerator
Flavour Text: "The temple has been rededicated. It belongs to Mogis now."
—Rastos, disciple of Mogis
Themes:
- Barbarians anti-civilization
- Fear, aggression and intimidation
- Patron of Minotaurs
- Similar to Greek God Aries wrong
------
Future God Xenagos (Green / Red)
Destructive Revelry
Ability: Anti Enchantments / Artifacts. Direct Damage
Flavour Text: "Stoke a fire hot enough and you'll never run out of things to burn."
—Xenagos, the Reveler
Annul
Ability: Anti Enchantments / Artifacts
Flavour Text:"Why pray to the gods, who feed on your worship? Dissolve your illusions and see the true nature of things."
— Xenagos, the Reveler
Themes:
- Disregard for civilization and gods
- Mana Ramping
- Likes destroying the tools of gods ie. artifacts / enchantments
- Patron of Satyrs
- Dionysus involved Satyrs but he doesn't fit...
------ Kruphix (Blue / Green)
Agent of Horizons
Ability: Evasion
Flavour Text: The light in the woods just before dawn reveals a glimmering network of branches, roots, and spiderwebs. The acolytes of Kruphix walk this lattice unseen.
Prophet of Kruphix
Ability: Untap and Flash
Flavour Text: "Time is fluid as a dance, and truth as fleeting."
Themes:
- Evasion and surprise
- Time
- Similar to Greek God Hermes
------ Pharika (Black / Green)
Pharika's Mender
Ability: Graveyard regrowth
Flavour Text: "The direst venom becomes a panacea under Pharika's guidance. I bring it to the worthy, clinging at the edge of the abyss."
Pharika's Cure
Ability: Damage and Healing.
Flavour Text: "The venom cleanses the sickness from your body, but it will not be pleasant, and you may not survive. Pharika's blessings are fickle."
—Solon, acolyte of Pharika
Viper's Kiss
Ability: Disabling
Flavour Text: "I could heal a snakebite. Looks like you got bitten by a constellation."
—Aescalos, healer of Pharika
Themes:
- Regeneration and regrowth
- Poison and healing
- Patron of Gorgons?
- Similar to Greek God Asclepius
------ Athreos (Black / White)
Sentry of the Underworld
Ability: Regeneration and Guarding
Flavour Text: When Athreos gathers the newly dead to be ferried across the Five Rivers that Ring the World, he sends skeletal griffins to fetch those who stray.
Scholar of Athreos
Ability: Draining life
Flavour Text: She asks pointed questions of the dead who wait for Athreos, learning of life from those who are about to leave it.
Themes:
- Domain over the dead
- Healing by draining
- Similar to River Styx and Greek Goddess Styx
------ Iroas (White / Red)
Arena Athlete
Ability: Influence combat
Flavour Text: The Iroan Games award no medals. Athletes vie for a visit from Iroas, god of victory.
Priest of Iroas
Ability: Sacrifice to destroy enchantment
Flavour Text: "Even my last breath with be a blow struck for Iroas."
Themes:
- God of Victory
- Competition.
- Rigtheous and noble sacrifice
- Similar to Greek Goddess Nike
------ Keranos (Blue / Red)
Steam Augury
Ability: Decisions and card draw
Flavour Text: Keranos is a fickle god, delivering punishment as readily as prophecy.
Lightning Strike
Ability: Direct damage
Flavour Text: "The hand of Keranos can be seen in every rumbling storm cloud. Best not to stand where he points."
—Rakleia of Shrine Peak
Themes:
- Vengeance and Prophecy
- Storms
I think that for the Allied Gods, we will have closer resemblance to the picture the Greeks had than the Enemy Gods. Strike, that, for the Non-Black ones? Maybe just for the Bant and Naya ones -_-
Bant/Naya Gods:
KARAMETRA- feels kinda Demeter-ish.....but more like Really Ancient Demeter. Way, way, way long ago, the Only/First Olympians were just Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Vesta, and Zeus. Those were the only Gods that actually fought against Chronos and the Titans. Almost all the image of Demeter we get is a pretty kind loving Garden-Goddess of the Harvest and stuff, with, if I looked hard for it, at least one story about Demeter having outright vengeance against mortals for some thing or other-- but comparatively, she has fewer Raging Badass moments. Karametra feels ruff n' tuff enough to evoke more of a Chronos-War Era Demeter, which people don't often see much of even if Post-Olympus Demeter does kind of have these qualities still? Also speaking of Ye Olde Chronos War, Karametra is Very Likely a fusion of both Demeter and Vesta. Goddess of the Hearth, Goddess of things that Grow, in general she's the Shire Goddess?
EPHARA feels to me all around VERY Athena-like, and will be extremely recognizable as this. Patron of Meletis and everything. Like, so Athena-like there will be little that looks specially changed to make it more "Theran" and not just "Plain Greek".
IROAS, not Mogis, is your man for Ares. He's got Sparta (sorry, Akros), and he's both Pro-War, and Pro-Civilization. Very much like how Ares was Pro-War, but also Pro-Olympus; he's the type to Conquer the World sure, but he isn't a Mad God out for Chaos and Destruction of humanity. He's just violent.
XENAGOS is going to be an extremely overt and obvious cross between the Greek Pan and the Christian Satan. Like, it's going to be so dripping with Duh-sauce that nobody will be able to miss it a thousand miles away. Paradise Lost meets Greek Mythology, all the way- or at least to some extent. (Not sure how the humans factor into Xenagos' plot at all, but he's at the least after Olympus)
KERANOS + Heliod = Odin + Zeus? Like- I mean neither Keranos nor Heliod seems *exactly* Zeus-like to me....very much more an "MTG-ified"/artistic license type of Zeus that definitely has Odin-like qualities too.
I can't think of a Greek analogy for Keranos. Unless you count Hephaestus as Zeus' lightning-forger. the connections are looser here- which is GOOD because it lets THEROS have more of it's own, Therian identity apart from any previous world mythology I feel like Keranos and Athreos are going to be two of the most MTG-ified/THERAN Gods: i.e. noticeably distinctly Theran as apart from Greek roots.
KRUPHIX this guy's flavor looks to be kind of "Theranized", but with two primary, distinctly Greek sources, and no weird semi-Norseness about it:
Hermes and the Oracle of Delphi. He's the Prophecy God. He might give a tiny bit of Morpheus vibes or other Gods that you might associate with Nyx/Night/Dreams/Sleep, and he's going to be all around Very Wizardy. The Gandalf the Grey Wanderer of the Pantheon, but it will feel pretty plausible.
ATHREOS either Charon or Styx could be inspirations for this God, and probably both are. And the Grim Reaper, and Hecate/Hel (sic, with only 1 ''l'', and pretty much anything Underworld-y you can think of in Greek or Norse Mythology. Most likely God to scare the crap out of people besides Erebos himself. I think we know what to expect just from Scholar of Athreos' flavor text, and if we didn't get it the Zombie Griffin drove the point home. Davy Jones, blah blah blah The Fates blah blah blah. He'll sort of feel almost as closely connected to Prophecy and Wisdom and Perception as Kruphix, except, you know, more Life and Death. Mostly Death.
Like Keranos, even with a distinctly Greek origin source for the main stuff: Charon, in this case; Athreos has potential to have pretty strongly distinctly THERAN flavor.
(Iroas and Ephara are the very farthest from being able to claim this, as Arkos and Meletis are blatant deliberate lifts of Sparta and Athens with as little changed as possible to make them work as an MTG setting- the Epharans are even sea-farers and the city probably has almost-mirror-myths about Thassa wanting to claim it and losing a contest or something. Akros looks exactly like Zack Snyder's 300 meets God of War. It's exactly what we think Sparta wants the rest of history to think Sparta was, whether they actually completely were or not. Extremely, Uber-tastically, GREEK for both Iroas and Ephara.)
MOGIS: Minotaurs are just plain completely different in MTG than in Original Greek Mythology. Expect this to look like a Gamer's God: at home in MTG, WoW, or DnD if you like, but really not actually very close to Greek Roots. Just....*strongly inspired*. Really more of a Monster than a God. This is the Rakdos God. PHENAX may or may not have someone that I'm forgetting that he's supposed to remind us of......or more likely he's the Dimir God with a similar deal.
PHARIKA- considering "Ascalos" was mentioned as a person, I think that guy is your actualy Asclepius connection. Second, Asclepius I think was only a God in Rome, but more of a Son of Zeus, not a god, in Greece? Not completely sure. Ascelpius IS the Healer-figure of Hellenic Myth though, but I think he was also actually a real mortal guy in history that later got deified-- much like Caesars did? A miraculous Cure-person would get worshipped, probably. MTG has Gorgon-ified it and it's going to be a very same deal as MOGIS and PHENAX. These particularly three Gods are going to be as much homages to what Games have done to and with the Greek Myths as they are to the Source Material themselves, which will set them somewhat differently apart from IROAS, KARAMETRA, and EPHARA, the three "Poleis" Gods that will bear the sharpest (I think) resemblance to how the Gods look in the original Homer and Hesiod.
Keranos, on reflection, even has some Stormy Sea God-ness to him, so he borrows some of Thassa's Poseidon. Really Thassa is an interesting cross between Ariel and Ursula. Picture King Triton married to Ursula, now picture Ariel as their kid, NOW picture what kind of Queen of the Sea she would make. Like,....that's kind of Thassa. With Keranos being slightly more Poseidon-y than that.
Order of "GREEK-Factor" of the Minor Gods:
1. Ephara- Most Greek
2. Karametra- Most Greek
3. Iroas- Still Greek
4. Athreos- Greek & Theran
*5. Keranos- Greek, Theran, and unavoidably Norse Vibe
*6. Xenagos- Least Greek that can still Fake it?
*********************************
*7. Pharika- Very Half-Breed Flavor
*8. Kruphix- Still Theran
*********************************
9. Phenax- Still MTG
10. Mogis- Gamer Monster-God
I'm open to putting Kruphix higher up than Pharika and Xenagos higher up than Keranos, but other than that, I think this is pretty accurate.
Athreos is the only Black God that really feels close enough to Greek Myth to actually fit as an analogy to a God of their pantheon.
Phenax and Mogis, to be perfectly honest, do not even feel like Gods though. They feel like either Enemy (Mogis) or Neutral (Phenax)
Cosmically Powerful beings that may attract the Fear of Humans or the Worship of Monsters, but I just can't seem them having Palaces in Nyx with the
rest of the Pantheon. Just doesn't quite fit. I could maybe see Pharika living in Nyx, but I'm also a bit sketchy on her:
She might be Divine and really very much on the side of Heliod, Erebos, and the rest (when it comes to Xenagos' War), but Nyx doesn't fit my picture of her home; she feels like the kind of Goddess that would bring herself down to live on the Earth/in caves on Theros. That's more than just because of the Elspeth flavor article, that's also the inescapable Golgari Vibes she puts off.
This is MTG, I think it's fine and appropriate for the Color Wheel to have a significant impact to the point where 3 of the Gods feel unmistakably Guild-Aligned. I can't be sure that the others would actually really align with the Guilds bc Theros and Ravnica are just DIFFERENT (Meletis might find Azorius cold and unjust, Akros might find Boros in no mood for Games of Championship, Keranos, being extremely Natural and Elemental, would probably love to Wreck the Izzet Experiments, actually),
but I feel safe in saying that Rakdos, Golgari, and Dimir really do have kindred spirits in the Theran Pantheon. They still differ culturally, but if the Theran Gods could planeswalk, those three Gods would find the Ravnica Culture ....interesting....and might actually want to start Cults there. Athreos might like to take the Orzhov Guild's power from Obzedat and completely remake it in the image of Erebos and Heliod. o.O Like-- Orzhov would seen as blasphemy, but blasphemy that has the potential to be turned back to the Gods.
Kruphix and the Simic have so little in common it's amusing.....and....Selesnya....probably would not like Karametra and much as Karametra likes them. That would be ironic.
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
@DarthParallax Vesta was the Roman goddess, Hestia is the greek goddess. And I don't really think Wizards based their greek mythology based gods, on Norse mythology.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
That's one exception. Of course, I know there are better examples out there. It escapes me though. That post in particular was made during break at work so I didn't exactly have all my resources either.
But, O wise one. Would you say that it is true that non Theran female characters are completely nurturing and feminine as dear Subbak claims?
@DarthParallax Vesta was the Roman goddess, Hestia is the greek goddess. And I don't really think Wizards based their greek mythology based gods, on Norse mythology.
My thoughts exactly. I generally regard WotC as an entity that does their research and stick to what they say they're doing. Any exceptions have been more or less intentional as far as I know. The kraken thing, while it irks me, had a reason to exist, and has been washed 'Greek' at this point. Distinctly Norse or Roman dieties would not otherwise be included if they say "GREEK BLOCK, YO.".
But, O wise one. Would you say that it is true that non Theran female characters are completely nurturing and feminine as dear Subbak claims?
It depends on your definition of each. Even Liliana had Jace as a morality pet, no matter the fact that she ultimately betrayed him, she still had doubts and thought of throwing it all away for him.
Any decent character will have shades of virtually everything in them.
The question is if it dominates their character. Which is, of course to say, no.
I think that for the Allied Gods, we will have closer resemblance to the picture the Greeks had than the Enemy Gods. Strike, that, for the Non-Black ones? Maybe just for the Bant and Naya ones -_-
Bant/Naya Gods:
KARAMETRA- feels kinda Demeter-ish.....but more like Really Ancient Demeter. Way, way, way long ago, the Only/First Olympians were just Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Vesta, and Zeus. Those were the only Gods that actually fought against Chronos and the Titans. Almost all the image of Demeter we get is a pretty kind loving Garden-Goddess of the Harvest and stuff, with, if I looked hard for it, at least one story about Demeter having outright vengeance against mortals for some thing or other-- but comparatively, she has fewer Raging Badass moments. Karametra feels ruff n' tuff enough to evoke more of a Chronos-War Era Demeter, which people don't often see much of even if Post-Olympus Demeter does kind of have these qualities still? Also speaking of Ye Olde Chronos War, Karametra is Very Likely a fusion of both Demeter and Vesta. Goddess of the Hearth, Goddess of things that Grow, in general she's the Shire Goddess?
EPHARA feels to me all around VERY Athena-like, and will be extremely recognizable as this. Patron of Meletis and everything. Like, so Athena-like there will be little that looks specially changed to make it more "Theran" and not just "Plain Greek".
IROAS, not Mogis, is your man for Ares. He's got Sparta (sorry, Akros), and he's both Pro-War, and Pro-Civilization. Very much like how Ares was Pro-War, but also Pro-Olympus; he's the type to Conquer the World sure, but he isn't a Mad God out for Chaos and Destruction of humanity. He's just violent.
XENAGOS is going to be an extremely overt and obvious cross between the Greek Pan and the Christian Satan. Like, it's going to be so dripping with Duh-sauce that nobody will be able to miss it a thousand miles away. Paradise Lost meets Greek Mythology, all the way- or at least to some extent. (Not sure how the humans factor into Xenagos' plot at all, but he's at the least after Olympus)
KERANOS + Heliod = Odin + Zeus? Like- I mean neither Keranos nor Heliod seems *exactly* Zeus-like to me....very much more an "MTG-ified"/artistic license type of Zeus that definitely has Odin-like qualities too.
I can't think of a Greek analogy for Keranos. Unless you count Hephaestus as Zeus' lightning-forger. the connections are looser here- which is GOOD because it lets THEROS have more of it's own, Therian identity apart from any previous world mythology I feel like Keranos and Athreos are going to be two of the most MTG-ified/THERAN Gods: i.e. noticeably distinctly Theran as apart from Greek roots.
KRUPHIX this guy's flavor looks to be kind of "Theranized", but with two primary, distinctly Greek sources, and no weird semi-Norseness about it:
Hermes and the Oracle of Delphi. He's the Prophecy God. He might give a tiny bit of Morpheus vibes or other Gods that you might associate with Nyx/Night/Dreams/Sleep, and he's going to be all around Very Wizardy. The Gandalf the Grey Wanderer of the Pantheon, but it will feel pretty plausible.
ATHREOS either Charon or Styx could be inspirations for this God, and probably both are. And the Grim Reaper, and Hecate/Hel (sic, with only 1 ''l'', and pretty much anything Underworld-y you can think of in Greek or Norse Mythology. Most likely God to scare the crap out of people besides Erebos himself. I think we know what to expect just from Scholar of Athreos' flavor text, and if we didn't get it the Zombie Griffin drove the point home. Davy Jones, blah blah blah The Fates blah blah blah. He'll sort of feel almost as closely connected to Prophecy and Wisdom and Perception as Kruphix, except, you know, more Life and Death. Mostly Death.
Like Keranos, even with a distinctly Greek origin source for the main stuff: Charon, in this case; Athreos has potential to have pretty strongly distinctly THERAN flavor.
(Iroas and Ephara are the very farthest from being able to claim this, as Arkos and Meletis are blatant deliberate lifts of Sparta and Athens with as little changed as possible to make them work as an MTG setting- the Epharans are even sea-farers and the city probably has almost-mirror-myths about Thassa wanting to claim it and losing a contest or something. Akros looks exactly like Zack Snyder's 300 meets God of War. It's exactly what we think Sparta wants the rest of history to think Sparta was, whether they actually completely were or not. Extremely, Uber-tastically, GREEK for both Iroas and Ephara.)
MOGIS: Minotaurs are just plain completely different in MTG than in Original Greek Mythology. Expect this to look like a Gamer's God: at home in MTG, WoW, or DnD if you like, but really not actually very close to Greek Roots. Just....*strongly inspired*. Really more of a Monster than a God. This is the Rakdos God. PHENAX may or may not have someone that I'm forgetting that he's supposed to remind us of......or more likely he's the Dimir God with a similar deal.
PHARIKA- considering "Ascalos" was mentioned as a person, I think that guy is your actualy Asclepius connection. Second, Asclepius I think was only a God in Rome, but more of a Son of Zeus, not a god, in Greece? Not completely sure. Ascelpius IS the Healer-figure of Hellenic Myth though, but I think he was also actually a real mortal guy in history that later got deified-- much like Caesars did? A miraculous Cure-person would get worshipped, probably. MTG has Gorgon-ified it and it's going to be a very same deal as MOGIS and PHENAX. These particularly three Gods are going to be as much homages to what Games have done to and with the Greek Myths as they are to the Source Material themselves, which will set them somewhat differently apart from IROAS, KARAMETRA, and EPHARA, the three "Poleis" Gods that will bear the sharpest (I think) resemblance to how the Gods look in the original Homer and Hesiod.
Keranos, on reflection, even has some Stormy Sea God-ness to him, so he borrows some of Thassa's Poseidon. Really Thassa is an interesting cross between Ariel and Ursula. Picture King Triton married to Ursula, now picture Ariel as their kid, NOW picture what kind of Queen of the Sea she would make. Like,....that's kind of Thassa. With Keranos being slightly more Poseidon-y than that.
Order of "GREEK-Factor" of the Minor Gods:
1. Ephara- Most Greek
2. Karametra- Most Greek
3. Iroas- Still Greek
4. Athreos- Greek & Theran
*5. Keranos- Greek, Theran, and unavoidably Norse Vibe
*6. Xenagos- Least Greek that can still Fake it?
*********************************
*7. Pharika- Very Half-Breed Flavor
*8. Kruphix- Still Theran
*********************************
9. Phenax- Still MTG
10. Mogis- Gamer Monster-God
I'm open to putting Kruphix higher up than Pharika and Xenagos higher up than Keranos, but other than that, I think this is pretty accurate.
Athreos is the only Black God that really feels close enough to Greek Myth to actually fit as an analogy to a God of their pantheon.
Phenax and Mogis, to be perfectly honest, do not even feel like Gods though. They feel like either Enemy (Mogis) or Neutral (Phenax)
Cosmically Powerful beings that may attract the Fear of Humans or the Worship of Monsters, but I just can't seem them having Palaces in Nyx with the
rest of the Pantheon. Just doesn't quite fit. I could maybe see Pharika living in Nyx, but I'm also a bit sketchy on her:
She might be Divine and really very much on the side of Heliod, Erebos, and the rest (when it comes to Xenagos' War), but Nyx doesn't fit my picture of her home; she feels like the kind of Goddess that would bring herself down to live on the Earth/in caves on Theros. That's more than just because of the Elspeth flavor article, that's also the inescapable Golgari Vibes she puts off.
This is MTG, I think it's fine and appropriate for the Color Wheel to have a significant impact to the point where 3 of the Gods feel unmistakably Guild-Aligned. I can't be sure that the others would actually really align with the Guilds bc Theros and Ravnica are just DIFFERENT (Meletis might find Azorius cold and unjust, Akros might find Boros in no mood for Games of Championship, Keranos, being extremely Natural and Elemental, would probably love to Wreck the Izzet Experiments, actually),
but I feel safe in saying that Rakdos, Golgari, and Dimir really do have kindred spirits in the Theran Pantheon. They still differ culturally, but if the Theran Gods could planeswalk, those three Gods would find the Ravnica Culture ....interesting....and might actually want to start Cults there. Athreos might like to take the Orzhov Guild's power from Obzedat and completely remake it in the image of Erebos and Heliod. o.O Like-- Orzhov would seen as blasphemy, but blasphemy that has the potential to be turned back to the Gods.
Kruphix and the Simic have so little in common it's amusing.....and....Selesnya....probably would not like Karametra and much as Karametra likes them. That would be ironic.
- Again, Keranos can be chalked up as an average indo-european thunder god, like Thor, Indra or Perkunas. Ancient roman religion had plenty of those anyways, and with some olympians actually associated with storms (Hera and Apollo, for example), it seems rather reasonable.
- Apollo was a god of prophecy, while Hermes carried the souls of the dead to the Underworld. There you go with Kruphix and Athreos.
- Ares was depicted by the greeks as a primordial, downright evil god. Zeus calls him "the most hateful of his children", and Ares is depicted as a mass murderer and a coward. I think it shows well that he is the inspiration for Mogis, while Iroas is either a genderflipped war-emphasis Athena, or Mars (which was much different from Ares).
Re: Xenagos, I think you can figure out what he's like by dissecting his name:
Xena- to Xeno- for 'foreign, other' and, -gos to -gnos to -gnosis for 'secret knowledge'.
IOW, he's the guy who learned elsewhere about the true measure of reality. That's his backstory, his motivation, and quite literally his name.
(You can also split it as xen- and -agos, so 'foreign' and 'no secret knowledge', which also fits.)
Re: the gods:
Kruphix seems like a combination of the Muses, Hermes, Iris, and quite possibly Aurora.
Phenax seems to be inspired by Hecate, Morpheus, and possibly others.
Heliod's is not really influenced by Zeus such much as Helios, a bit of Apollo, and (ironically) a male Hera. The only Zeus link is his sort-of 'head of gods' standing, which is quite interesting.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Love God/Goddess kind of... missing?
WELL, obviously WoTC is going to go for Theros to be Greek-y, but what I meant to show was that, in attempting to have the Creative Intent be Greek, but crossing it with Magic,
they will inevitably create Gods that have strong resemblences to a multitude of culture's Gods.
Magic itself is very Northern European flavor (Norse and English), just *by being Magic* and staying anywhere near true to the Color Wheel.
Magic and DnD both come from Wizards of the Coast. And Wizards of the Coast and TSR derived practically all their stuff from "Lord of the Rings plus some stuff"--
so saying that Keranos is going to bear a strong resemblance to THOR-- it's not that they're doing that on purpose at all-- it's that ZEUS *himself* bears a strong resemblance to Thor, Lightning Bolt has been part of Magic for freaking ever, and The Color Red has always had a bit of it's Thor-thang goin' on for 20 years.
Heliod bears a LOT of resemblance to Zeus-- he's got a Special Weapon, which for the most part calls back to Zeus' Thunderbolts, Hades' Invisibility Cap, and Poseidon's Trident. And of course the Norse Gods and practically all Gods in Myths eventually get Magic Items attached to their lore and whatnot.
But The Big Three of Olympus are Standouts for most famous examples of that, so the whole Spear of Heliod cycle, we have Zeus to thank for. I see more Odin in him than Hera, just because he's got a very much "Trust me, I'm Wise" attitude (Gandalf-y) and ....no I seriously don't see any Hera in him at all.
If you want to get right down to it, if a card feels like Thor, it's going to unavoidably feel like Zeus, if a card feels like Zeus, it's going to unavoidably feel like Ra.
Please consult Marvel Comics and Joseph Campbell for why it is so. Skyfathers are similar. Any God related to the sky is going to be like many other Sky Gods.
....
Phenax is probably going to feel more Egyptian than Greek. I can't be positively sure why, and I *am* *not* *saying* that Wizards is doing this any kind of *deliberately*....
I'm just saying that crossing MTG with Greek Myth is going to ironically get some mixed results, and some things will accidentally come out a little more Norse or Egyptian looking, because that's just how it'll come out.
Also, "Love" is pretty much completely absent from MTG.
Look up every female character, and the number of them that are the more conservative, motherly or damsel-in-distressy or princess, even battle-princessy.....
honestly Cymede is the most Pink I have ever seen in the whole of MTG put together that's not Unhinged or Vizzerdrix.
like.....they just don't really have room for a Tender Passion figure when they're busy trying to make everyone either at least a Warrior or a Free Spirit.
Basically Cymede is the only female character in Magic that strikes me as being potentially good at actually being a wifely character. the rest of them....might make girlfriends? but in general, none of these High Fantasy Warriors, male or female, seem suited to the lifestyle of being tied down by marriage.
MTG is very liberal. Not making a qualititative statement on whether being liberal is good or bad-- just saying it's liberal. Heck, they claim Setessans don't even practice marriage at all.....which...makes my brain hurt as I just don't see how that society would really work. feels way too much like alien sci-fi that claims to have ideal Progressive views....but.....I don't think humans are wired to be happy being that progressive.
We have our humanity which often consists of Selfishness, the desire to Own things, and Capitalist economies are more fun for people than communist ones. It almost doesn't matter if you think that's a bad thing, because people *like* this Owning/Selfishness stuff, people *like* jealousy and possessiveness in relationships, and......yeah.
I really don't think anyone can look Setessa straight in the face and think 'let's get rid of marriage! that sounds like a good idea!'
sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent, but it's somewhat related to the whole "Why is the Goddess of Love/God of Love missing?" thing.
I guess I'm saying that Karametra is the God of Communism, and Communism is apparently Love. Either that or there's no love on Theros.
Seriously.
We don't get a Goddess of Love because we get a Goddess of Kindness instead.
That's actually the only way to interpret the Style Guide xP
funny thing. Religon by nature is Conservative. Again, not trying to make qualitative assessment-- but it is about Belief that some things are actually Solid and Real, that some Good things Matter and oppose Evil.....
and really....I've never gotten a strong enough feeling since Apocalypse that any of Magic's colors stood for any of that. White used to, up until Apocalypse, but now MTG is pretty much all about Holistically accepting every color as legitimate.
If Theros ever cosmically collided with Ravnica, I take back everything else I said, um the Therans, all of them, even the 'enlightened' Meletans, would be so Conservative that they would just say "um? excuse me? what is this Rakdos BS? no., you do not need Rakdos to have a stable civilization, our God Heliod is here to take the Defiler's head off and hang it in the heavens as a warning to not be like that any more. "
The Setessans would be regarded by the rest of civilization as insane.
I am not saying that they actually are insane. I am just saying that they would definitely be called insane.
"Idealistic Fools" perfectly describes them to a T -_-
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I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
Love has always existed, its more how you view things Its easily conflated with other actions since fantasy-based combat is key in MtG. Love falls mostly into red, given its emotionality. That said, the only time we ever see love is when it is driven via passion.
Purphoros has been mentioned here and there to display plenty of the rarely seen red traits, such as art and love to a good degree. Let's not forget that there's Zedruu from the Commander sets too.
And I think actually fine evidence to show that Love is more Red-White, and soemtimes Red-White-Blue, and that Green actually doesn't make sense for Love.
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
Love is Red because it's an emotion; simple as that. You can apply things like marriage, which is a social contract and thus White, but Love itself is Red.
Heliod governs over marriages, but it is Purphoros that actually loves.
That leaves Phenax, Mogis, and Kruphix. I'd really like for the distribution to be more equal. It seems safe to assume Pharika is female from the naming pattern, and Mogis is almost certainly male from his domains of war, fear, madness, and hatred. Of the final two, we know almost nothing. Their names both end in the letter x, which gives me some hope there may be another pattern and they're both female, but this is admittedly grasping at straws. Kruphix is worshipped in the Temple of Mystery, which immediately makes me think of the Women's Mysteries. Any thoughts?
Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
Xantcha, Phyrexian Reject
Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Tovolar, Howlpack Alpha
Pivlic, Orzhov Informant
Crixizix, Master Engineer
Feather, Boros Peacekeeper
Marisi Coilbreaker
O-Kagachi
Gix, Phyrexian Praetor
Karn, Father of Machines
Yawgmoth, Father of Machines
Serra, Mother of All Angels
Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools
Leshrac the Nightwalker
Jeska, the Thrice-Touched
Elspeth Returned
Crucius the Mad
Taysir the Infinite
Urza's Head (Unglued!)
There are plenty of wildly violent independent women in Magic, you know.
Including Nylean, on this very pantheon !
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
in this block
elspeth(yeah not too many people know who she is, but she is the big white planeswalker she appeared in shards block and scars block)
green god(nylea i think)
both badass, and I wont talk about thassa being an indestructible giant chick.
I think that for the Allied Gods, we will have closer resemblance to the picture the Greeks had than the Enemy Gods. Strike, that, for the Non-Black ones? Maybe just for the Bant and Naya ones -_-
Bant/Naya Gods:
KARAMETRA- feels kinda Demeter-ish.....but more like Really Ancient Demeter. Way, way, way long ago, the Only/First Olympians were just Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Vesta, and Zeus. Those were the only Gods that actually fought against Chronos and the Titans. Almost all the image of Demeter we get is a pretty kind loving Garden-Goddess of the Harvest and stuff, with, if I looked hard for it, at least one story about Demeter having outright vengeance against mortals for some thing or other-- but comparatively, she has fewer Raging Badass moments. Karametra feels ruff n' tuff enough to evoke more of a Chronos-War Era Demeter, which people don't often see much of even if Post-Olympus Demeter does kind of have these qualities still? Also speaking of Ye Olde Chronos War, Karametra is Very Likely a fusion of both Demeter and Vesta. Goddess of the Hearth, Goddess of things that Grow, in general she's the Shire Goddess?
EPHARA feels to me all around VERY Athena-like, and will be extremely recognizable as this. Patron of Meletis and everything. Like, so Athena-like there will be little that looks specially changed to make it more "Theran" and not just "Plain Greek".
IROAS, not Mogis, is your man for Ares. He's got Sparta (sorry, Akros), and he's both Pro-War, and Pro-Civilization. Very much like how Ares was Pro-War, but also Pro-Olympus; he's the type to Conquer the World sure, but he isn't a Mad God out for Chaos and Destruction of humanity. He's just violent.
XENAGOS is going to be an extremely overt and obvious cross between the Greek Pan and the Christian Satan. Like, it's going to be so dripping with Duh-sauce that nobody will be able to miss it a thousand miles away. Paradise Lost meets Greek Mythology, all the way- or at least to some extent. (Not sure how the humans factor into Xenagos' plot at all, but he's at the least after Olympus)
==========================================================
Weirder/Enemy God Colors:
KERANOS + Heliod = Odin + Zeus? Like- I mean neither Keranos nor Heliod seems *exactly* Zeus-like to me....very much more an "MTG-ified"/artistic license type of Zeus that definitely has Odin-like qualities too.
I can't think of a Greek analogy for Keranos. Unless you count Hephaestus as Zeus' lightning-forger. the connections are looser here- which is GOOD because it lets THEROS have more of it's own, Therian identity apart from any previous world mythology I feel like Keranos and Athreos are going to be two of the most MTG-ified/THERAN Gods: i.e. noticeably distinctly Theran as apart from Greek roots.
KRUPHIX this guy's flavor looks to be kind of "Theranized", but with two primary, distinctly Greek sources, and no weird semi-Norseness about it:
Hermes and the Oracle of Delphi. He's the Prophecy God. He might give a tiny bit of Morpheus vibes or other Gods that you might associate with Nyx/Night/Dreams/Sleep, and he's going to be all around Very Wizardy. The Gandalf the Grey Wanderer of the Pantheon, but it will feel pretty plausible.
ATHREOS either Charon or Styx could be inspirations for this God, and probably both are. And the Grim Reaper, and Hecate/Hel (sic, with only 1 ''l'', and pretty much anything Underworld-y you can think of in Greek or Norse Mythology. Most likely God to scare the crap out of people besides Erebos himself. I think we know what to expect just from Scholar of Athreos' flavor text, and if we didn't get it the Zombie Griffin drove the point home. Davy Jones, blah blah blah The Fates blah blah blah. He'll sort of feel almost as closely connected to Prophecy and Wisdom and Perception as Kruphix, except, you know, more Life and Death. Mostly Death.
Like Keranos, even with a distinctly Greek origin source for the main stuff: Charon, in this case; Athreos has potential to have pretty strongly distinctly THERAN flavor.
(Iroas and Ephara are the very farthest from being able to claim this, as Arkos and Meletis are blatant deliberate lifts of Sparta and Athens with as little changed as possible to make them work as an MTG setting- the Epharans are even sea-farers and the city probably has almost-mirror-myths about Thassa wanting to claim it and losing a contest or something. Akros looks exactly like Zack Snyder's 300 meets God of War. It's exactly what we think Sparta wants the rest of history to think Sparta was, whether they actually completely were or not. Extremely, Uber-tastically, GREEK for both Iroas and Ephara.)
MOGIS: Minotaurs are just plain completely different in MTG than in Original Greek Mythology. Expect this to look like a Gamer's God: at home in MTG, WoW, or DnD if you like, but really not actually very close to Greek Roots. Just....*strongly inspired*. Really more of a Monster than a God. This is the Rakdos God. PHENAX may or may not have someone that I'm forgetting that he's supposed to remind us of......or more likely he's the Dimir God with a similar deal.
PHARIKA- considering "Ascalos" was mentioned as a person, I think that guy is your actualy Asclepius connection. Second, Asclepius I think was only a God in Rome, but more of a Son of Zeus, not a god, in Greece? Not completely sure. Ascelpius IS the Healer-figure of Hellenic Myth though, but I think he was also actually a real mortal guy in history that later got deified-- much like Caesars did? A miraculous Cure-person would get worshipped, probably. MTG has Gorgon-ified it and it's going to be a very same deal as MOGIS and PHENAX. These particularly three Gods are going to be as much homages to what Games have done to and with the Greek Myths as they are to the Source Material themselves, which will set them somewhat differently apart from IROAS, KARAMETRA, and EPHARA, the three "Poleis" Gods that will bear the sharpest (I think) resemblance to how the Gods look in the original Homer and Hesiod.
Keranos, on reflection, even has some Stormy Sea God-ness to him, so he borrows some of Thassa's Poseidon. Really Thassa is an interesting cross between Ariel and Ursula. Picture King Triton married to Ursula, now picture Ariel as their kid, NOW picture what kind of Queen of the Sea she would make. Like,....that's kind of Thassa. With Keranos being slightly more Poseidon-y than that.
Order of "GREEK-Factor" of the Minor Gods:
1. Ephara- Most Greek
2. Karametra- Most Greek
3. Iroas- Still Greek
4. Athreos- Greek & Theran
*5. Keranos- Greek, Theran, and unavoidably Norse Vibe
*6. Xenagos- Least Greek that can still Fake it?
*********************************
*7. Pharika- Very Half-Breed Flavor
*8. Kruphix- Still Theran
*********************************
9. Phenax- Still MTG
10. Mogis- Gamer Monster-God
I'm open to putting Kruphix higher up than Pharika and Xenagos higher up than Keranos, but other than that, I think this is pretty accurate.
Athreos is the only Black God that really feels close enough to Greek Myth to actually fit as an analogy to a God of their pantheon.
Phenax and Mogis, to be perfectly honest, do not even feel like Gods though. They feel like either Enemy (Mogis) or Neutral (Phenax)
Cosmically Powerful beings that may attract the Fear of Humans or the Worship of Monsters, but I just can't seem them having Palaces in Nyx with the
rest of the Pantheon. Just doesn't quite fit. I could maybe see Pharika living in Nyx, but I'm also a bit sketchy on her:
She might be Divine and really very much on the side of Heliod, Erebos, and the rest (when it comes to Xenagos' War), but Nyx doesn't fit my picture of her home; she feels like the kind of Goddess that would bring herself down to live on the Earth/in caves on Theros. That's more than just because of the Elspeth flavor article, that's also the inescapable Golgari Vibes she puts off.
This is MTG, I think it's fine and appropriate for the Color Wheel to have a significant impact to the point where 3 of the Gods feel unmistakably Guild-Aligned. I can't be sure that the others would actually really align with the Guilds bc Theros and Ravnica are just DIFFERENT (Meletis might find Azorius cold and unjust, Akros might find Boros in no mood for Games of Championship, Keranos, being extremely Natural and Elemental, would probably love to Wreck the Izzet Experiments, actually),
but I feel safe in saying that Rakdos, Golgari, and Dimir really do have kindred spirits in the Theran Pantheon. They still differ culturally, but if the Theran Gods could planeswalk, those three Gods would find the Ravnica Culture ....interesting....and might actually want to start Cults there. Athreos might like to take the Orzhov Guild's power from Obzedat and completely remake it in the image of Erebos and Heliod. o.O Like-- Orzhov would seen as blasphemy, but blasphemy that has the potential to be turned back to the Gods.
Kruphix and the Simic have so little in common it's amusing.....and....Selesnya....probably would not like Karametra and much as Karametra likes them. That would be ironic.
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
Tell that to Brannon.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
But, O wise one. Would you say that it is true that non Theran female characters are completely nurturing and feminine as dear Subbak claims?
My thoughts exactly. I generally regard WotC as an entity that does their research and stick to what they say they're doing. Any exceptions have been more or less intentional as far as I know. The kraken thing, while it irks me, had a reason to exist, and has been washed 'Greek' at this point. Distinctly Norse or Roman dieties would not otherwise be included if they say "GREEK BLOCK, YO.".
It depends on your definition of each. Even Liliana had Jace as a morality pet, no matter the fact that she ultimately betrayed him, she still had doubts and thought of throwing it all away for him.
Any decent character will have shades of virtually everything in them.
The question is if it dominates their character. Which is, of course to say, no.
- Again, Keranos can be chalked up as an average indo-european thunder god, like Thor, Indra or Perkunas. Ancient roman religion had plenty of those anyways, and with some olympians actually associated with storms (Hera and Apollo, for example), it seems rather reasonable.
- Apollo was a god of prophecy, while Hermes carried the souls of the dead to the Underworld. There you go with Kruphix and Athreos.
- Ares was depicted by the greeks as a primordial, downright evil god. Zeus calls him "the most hateful of his children", and Ares is depicted as a mass murderer and a coward. I think it shows well that he is the inspiration for Mogis, while Iroas is either a genderflipped war-emphasis Athena, or Mars (which was much different from Ares).
Xena- to Xeno- for 'foreign, other' and, -gos to -gnos to -gnosis for 'secret knowledge'.
IOW, he's the guy who learned elsewhere about the true measure of reality. That's his backstory, his motivation, and quite literally his name.
(You can also split it as xen- and -agos, so 'foreign' and 'no secret knowledge', which also fits.)
Re: the gods:
Kruphix seems like a combination of the Muses, Hermes, Iris, and quite possibly Aurora.
Phenax seems to be inspired by Hecate, Morpheus, and possibly others.
Heliod's is not really influenced by Zeus such much as Helios, a bit of Apollo, and (ironically) a male Hera. The only Zeus link is his sort-of 'head of gods' standing, which is quite interesting.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Love God/Goddess kind of... missing?
Level 1 Judge
I write flavor articles for RoxieCards.
I play and judge at Giga Bites Cafein Marietta, Georgia.
they will inevitably create Gods that have strong resemblences to a multitude of culture's Gods.
Magic itself is very Northern European flavor (Norse and English), just *by being Magic* and staying anywhere near true to the Color Wheel.
Magic and DnD both come from Wizards of the Coast. And Wizards of the Coast and TSR derived practically all their stuff from "Lord of the Rings plus some stuff"--
so saying that Keranos is going to bear a strong resemblance to THOR-- it's not that they're doing that on purpose at all-- it's that ZEUS *himself* bears a strong resemblance to Thor, Lightning Bolt has been part of Magic for freaking ever, and The Color Red has always had a bit of it's Thor-thang goin' on for 20 years.
Heliod bears a LOT of resemblance to Zeus-- he's got a Special Weapon, which for the most part calls back to Zeus' Thunderbolts, Hades' Invisibility Cap, and Poseidon's Trident. And of course the Norse Gods and practically all Gods in Myths eventually get Magic Items attached to their lore and whatnot.
But The Big Three of Olympus are Standouts for most famous examples of that, so the whole Spear of Heliod cycle, we have Zeus to thank for. I see more Odin in him than Hera, just because he's got a very much "Trust me, I'm Wise" attitude (Gandalf-y) and ....no I seriously don't see any Hera in him at all.
If you want to get right down to it, if a card feels like Thor, it's going to unavoidably feel like Zeus, if a card feels like Zeus, it's going to unavoidably feel like Ra.
Please consult Marvel Comics and Joseph Campbell for why it is so. Skyfathers are similar. Any God related to the sky is going to be like many other Sky Gods.
....
Phenax is probably going to feel more Egyptian than Greek. I can't be positively sure why, and I *am* *not* *saying* that Wizards is doing this any kind of *deliberately*....
I'm just saying that crossing MTG with Greek Myth is going to ironically get some mixed results, and some things will accidentally come out a little more Norse or Egyptian looking, because that's just how it'll come out.
Also, "Love" is pretty much completely absent from MTG.
Look up every female character, and the number of them that are the more conservative, motherly or damsel-in-distressy or princess, even battle-princessy.....
honestly Cymede is the most Pink I have ever seen in the whole of MTG put together that's not Unhinged or Vizzerdrix.
like.....they just don't really have room for a Tender Passion figure when they're busy trying to make everyone either at least a Warrior or a Free Spirit.
Basically Cymede is the only female character in Magic that strikes me as being potentially good at actually being a wifely character. the rest of them....might make girlfriends? but in general, none of these High Fantasy Warriors, male or female, seem suited to the lifestyle of being tied down by marriage.
MTG is very liberal. Not making a qualititative statement on whether being liberal is good or bad-- just saying it's liberal. Heck, they claim Setessans don't even practice marriage at all.....which...makes my brain hurt as I just don't see how that society would really work. feels way too much like alien sci-fi that claims to have ideal Progressive views....but.....I don't think humans are wired to be happy being that progressive.
We have our humanity which often consists of Selfishness, the desire to Own things, and Capitalist economies are more fun for people than communist ones. It almost doesn't matter if you think that's a bad thing, because people *like* this Owning/Selfishness stuff, people *like* jealousy and possessiveness in relationships, and......yeah.
I really don't think anyone can look Setessa straight in the face and think 'let's get rid of marriage! that sounds like a good idea!'
sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent, but it's somewhat related to the whole "Why is the Goddess of Love/God of Love missing?" thing.
I guess I'm saying that Karametra is the God of Communism, and Communism is apparently Love. Either that or there's no love on Theros.
Seriously.
We don't get a Goddess of Love because we get a Goddess of Kindness instead.
That's actually the only way to interpret the Style Guide xP
funny thing. Religon by nature is Conservative. Again, not trying to make qualitative assessment-- but it is about Belief that some things are actually Solid and Real, that some Good things Matter and oppose Evil.....
and really....I've never gotten a strong enough feeling since Apocalypse that any of Magic's colors stood for any of that. White used to, up until Apocalypse, but now MTG is pretty much all about Holistically accepting every color as legitimate.
If Theros ever cosmically collided with Ravnica, I take back everything else I said, um the Therans, all of them, even the 'enlightened' Meletans, would be so Conservative that they would just say "um? excuse me? what is this Rakdos BS? no., you do not need Rakdos to have a stable civilization, our God Heliod is here to take the Defiler's head off and hang it in the heavens as a warning to not be like that any more. "
The Setessans would be regarded by the rest of civilization as insane.
I am not saying that they actually are insane. I am just saying that they would definitely be called insane.
"Idealistic Fools" perfectly describes them to a T -_-
Moderator Action: Posts Merged
Please don't double (or in this case, quadruple) post. You can edit your own posts if you need to clarify or elaborate.
~kaburi
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
Purphoros has been mentioned here and there to display plenty of the rarely seen red traits, such as art and love to a good degree. Let's not forget that there's Zedruu from the Commander sets too.
And I think actually fine evidence to show that Love is more Red-White, and soemtimes Red-White-Blue, and that Green actually doesn't make sense for Love.
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
Heliod governs over marriages, but it is Purphoros that actually loves.
Scourge was such an awful book...
No... pretty much all of the Otaria series was bad, with the exception of Chainer's Torment.
Ha ha ha! Never speak of that again!