Incarnates: Mythology Connection?
By
40Thieves,
Posted on: 2005-05-20 15:26 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Depending on who you ask, many also refer to Greek (and Norse, etc.) Gods as being more inherently human like. They lusted, they wanted, they needed, etc. Whereas the Judeo-Christian God is "perfect" and "wants for nothing." So the old gods were not evil, they were just human....kinda.
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I'm just going to argue that there isn't, per se, a "Judeo-Christian" God. There is a God of the Hebrews and there is a God of the Christians, and never the twain shall meet.
And the God of the Hebrews is not perfect, he's a jealous God. He says as much himself.
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Jesus was a Jew and claimed the God of the Hebrews as his own God. This links Jews and Christians right there. Even in the Koran (spelling subject to change) Mohammed is told that Moses and Jesus are prophets of Allah, linking all three religions. But this link is downplayed for the same reason that Hell was created around a thousand years ago or so.
Competition.
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I didn't know that last part. I know Christians were a spin-off from the Herbrews but I had no idea about that link.
I think the idea is that Christians and Jews have part of the truth, but because they don't have the book of Islam, they don't have all of the truth. Or something to that affect.
I really don't know all that much about Islam.
I almost the entirety of my exposure to christian beliefs comes from Jack Chick's website. (I really hope he isn't the best source though)
And no matter what people say, there's absolutely no chance that I worship the same god that man does.
The name sounds familiar (and not in a good way) but I do not know who it is directly. A link mayhaps?
And I've never held what man does against the God he claims to represent. I mean, the KKK were "good Christians" yet in their early incarnation also hated Catholics (same God).
Of course, I also believe a person's faith is between the person and God (or Gods, or trees, or what have you) and is not for anyone else to judge.
And Statesman rules! (lol, on topic a bit)
Damnit Devs! Feed us some more INFO!!! PLEASE!!!! 
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Saying that is like saying that all Canadians are American.
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Well, Canadians are Americans. Canada is situated in North America, that being roughly half of the American Continent. The only problem is that there is no good word for people from the United States of America other than the very generic "American". "US:ers" or "Staters" would be more accurate but they do sound a little odd.
Though, you could live in Canada without being American or even Canadian. You could be born somewhere completely different. But, enough of this off-topic stuff now. 
So, to actually add something to the thread, I'll just say that "Mythical" would be the Incarnate origin. No Magic, or Natural, or Mutant even if you can "unlock your inner power" with any of those. I'm more in favour of Incarnates not being of the five Origins simply to avoid elitism. It's why Statesman isn't a Tanker, for example.
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About the only way to be wrong in your relating the stories of the greek pantheon is to say that someone else's version is wrong.
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Well, not to split hares (which would get one in trouble with animal welfare authorities) but if someone came along and said that Zeus was the goddess of Beauty and Fertility, I'm pretty sure we can agree that they were wong. 
In mythology, there can be canon and apocrypha. I don't know the existence of a defined canon for the Greek Mythologies, but there are consistencies and variations. The consistencies would lend themselves to a de facto canon, would they not?
As for the boader debate over an Incarnate link to mythology, there is already an in-game link to the Greek Mythology: Many of the magic SOs are artifacts (physical or metephysical) of Hermes. Broadening the scope to other gods, and favors bestowed upon heros by them, is not that far a stretch.
Judism was the first religion of the three. Islam split off from Judism when Abraham was alive. Abraham, thinking that his wife sarah was too old to bear children, he married his slave Hagar.
She then had a boy named Ishmael.
But later on Sarah bore a son named Isaac.
When this happened Abraham then cast Hagar and Ishmael out. They wandered through the Arabian desert until they reached Makkah (or Mecca)
Many years later Ishmael's decendent was Muhammad, who became the Prophet of Islam.
Isaac then went on to be one of the fathers of Judism.
So as you can see these religions are literily brothers.
It wasnt until many centuries later that Christianity split off from Judism.
As you can see both these religions trace they're roots through Judism, each worshipping the same god (not quiet sure if Allah is the same as the Judeo-Christian god)
And it is written in the bible that Jesus is the son of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The only difference between these religions is the worship of Jesus as the messiah.
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you know...that brings an interesting question... if zuse's father was a titan why is he a god...?... send me a pm?... would love someone to argue this stuff with.... kinda lacking where i am from
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This is a running theme through Indo-European mythology, especially contrasted against Judeu Christian beliefs. I know in Norse, Greek, and a lot of the Sumerian type beliefs, that their gods definitely have a beginning, they are born of someone else or created somehow, as compared to the JC god that has no beginning but has existed for infinite time.
But to your question, it seems mainly a nomenclature thing. Zeus was born of Titans, but he and his offspring were NOT Titans, but gods. Odin was born of a giant (probably) and his family intermarried with giants, but they were known as the Aesir and different from the giants, but not because of relation but mostly becaused they lived in Asgard. Marduk's parentage was monsters and such, but he was considered different.
And correct me if I'm wrong but Eris/Discord is one of Ares's helper gods along with Deimos and Phobos. She was also not invited to that one wedding where she threw the "To the Most Fair" apple that started the beauty contest that Paris judged that letd to the Trojan War.
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Saying that is like saying that all Canadians are American.
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Well, Canadians are Americans. Canada is situated in North America, that being roughly half of the American Continent. The only problem is that there is no good word for people from the United States of America other than the very generic "American". "US:ers" or "Staters" would be more accurate but they do sound a little odd.
Though, you could live in Canada without being American or even Canadian. You could be born somewhere completely different. But, enough of this off-topic stuff now.
So, to actually add something to the thread, I'll just say that "Mythical" would be the Incarnate origin. No Magic, or Natural, or Mutant even if you can "unlock your inner power" with any of those. I'm more in favour of Incarnates not being of the five Origins simply to avoid elitism. It's why Statesman isn't a Tanker, for example.
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I am in complete agreement. But on a majorly 'USA' forums, and me being Australian, it is far easier to avoid greif by just saying 'Americans.' Plus its easier than saying 'people from the USA' and 'USA'ers' sounds kinda flat.
Either way, as I said. Incarnates would be far cooler as a virtue or belief, not an intangible entity. How many Incarnates of Zeus could there be, and and how many people, even in the plethora of gods in mankinds history, wants to be any of the lesser ones?
Another question to ponder is where Foreshadow fits in to all of this? Is he an incarnate, or simply a MA/SR scrapper? He is kind of immortal, what with the being-reincarnated-after-he-dies thing, but he's different from both Recluse and Statesman in that he changes sides of the moral battleground.
While I enjoy all the speculation, I don't think Incarnates in general will have direct ties to gods, because really, who would believe that there were 1000 incarnations of gods running around in one city? That would be obscene. Plus, the public tends to be touchy about having gods in games. Incarnates definitely could be products of ancient magical rituals, though -- rituals dating to the Classical period, or to even longer ago.
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While I enjoy all the speculation, I don't think Incarnates in general will have direct ties to gods, because really, who would believe that there were 1000 incarnations of gods running around in one city? That would be obscene. Plus, the public tends to be touchy about having gods in games. Incarnates definitely could be products of ancient magical rituals, though -- rituals dating to the Classical period, or to even longer ago.
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Hrm. If you accept "Spectral Demon Lords" into the game, then I think you open it up to a lot of possibilities. Most of the people that currently revere 'ancient' gods tend to be pretty laid-back about their inclusion into things, and people who don't... well, they either accept the argument "it's just a game" or are cranky about sorcery getting promoted by J.K. Rowling, hence they tend to be touchy anyhow.
Regarding the 1000 fragments problem: that depends on your interpretation. Not so much "THE avatar/incarnation/embodiment of Zeus", but "An avatar/etc. of Zeus." "Indras all" and whatnot. I'm thinking of Billy Batson/"Shazam!" here; I don't recall precisely, but I suspect the various deities involved could have given all that power to someone else in addition to Billy if they'd chose. Hence the idea of a curse that Lord Recluse: the deity's power because of some act of hubris is split among mortals.
Granted, the more I think about it, the more I think Recluse's statement was meant to say: "Most people say I'm cursed, but after I'm through with you, Mr. Stateman-pants, you'll think you're the one who's cursed." Still, I like the idea that being an Incarnate is both a blessing and a burden simultaneously.
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While I enjoy all the speculation, I don't think Incarnates in general will have direct ties to gods, because really, who would believe that there were 1000 incarnations of gods running around in one city? That would be obscene. Plus, the public tends to be touchy about having gods in games. Incarnates definitely could be products of ancient magical rituals, though -- rituals dating to the Classical period, or to even longer ago.
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This is a thought i have toyed with for a while. What if the greek gods weren't actualy gods? What if they were simply people who had come into, or were given, some sort of power? The Greek gods certainly ACTED human enough. Easy enough to fool someone into thinking you are a god when you throw around lightning bolts or control the very seas.
Incarnates simply carry on that power.. or something like that.
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After all, Herc was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman.
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However, he achieved godhood in is own right at the moment of his death. The problem I see with Heracles and BAB being equated with each other is the fact that beyond just being physically powerful they have nothing else really in common that I can see. And there are plenty of physically powerful figures in Classical Mythology.
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The only difference between these religions is the worship of Jesus as the messiah.
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Not entirely true. There IS a sect of the Jewish faith that believes that Jesus was the messiah, which is the sect that Christianity split from. And what this split was really about who should be considered as being converted to a follower of Jesus.
Oh, and the phrase "good sameritan" hasn't been used correctly for quite a while, but that's neither here nor there.
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No, Sparta was a city state in a time where the concept of Greece didn't exist. Saying that is like saying that all Canadians are American.
Sparta was Sparta, a nation in their own right. Athens, who everyone commonly associates as the "Ancient Greeks" were completely different.
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You're right, and you're wrong.
Sparta WAS an independant city state (and actually the leader of a league of greek cities) and very different from Athens (in all it's different incarnations, from Tyranny to "democracy").
But they were greeks and they themselves said they were greeks, just like the athenians also said they were greek and while they would fight against each other they would unite against foreign invaders like the Persians.
The thing is that greeks had things in common.
They shared their style of architecture weapons and armor (and style of warfare), they shared their view of physical labour as a thing for slaves (free men were warriors and thinkers, not workers), they shared their structure as a slave society, they shared their love of physical perfection and athletism etc etc, and in front of all they shared their belief in their own superiority above anything not greek.
In any case, back to the original subject.
It could very well be that the greek gods decided that the age of "heroes" was to be reborn, but the greeks definition of "hero" is hardly the same as ours (just read the Iliad and you'll know what I mean), so chaos ensues.
So statesman is the Incarnate. Incarnate of whom or what?
My guess would be Law and Order and as such he would be a protege of Zeus.
Now here is where people start disagreeing
Lord Recluse then. He calls Statesman his brother. He also says "lets see then who is truly cursed".
Now some here may have interpreted that as he would be the incarnation of Hades (the brother of zeus), but personally that sounds a bit off. Hades was a dealer of justice (crimes in life has their reflections in death), and while he's described as merciless and somber he's not evil or injust. He's simply unforgiving.
Now this is my theory.
First of all, Marcus Cole was made the Incarnate of Law and Order.
As such, is he not to a certain degree cursed? Cursed to be the incarnate of law and order. He's Law and Order both physicly (stronger, faster, tougher, in general simply better) but also mentally! Mentally to the point where he is no longer Marcus Cole. Cole no longer exists. His "persona" has to a part been overwritten as he's an incarnate of law and justice, and as such he is only Statesman, no longer a man or in truth even a "person", but an ideal made manifest. Thus you can say that he's no longer truly has an Ego.
Lord Recluse on the other hand.
Personally I'd say first of all he's not an incarnation of evil (as has been suggested, but the greeks had no concept of evil).
No, he's the incarnation of Strife and Discord (which is reflected in his organisation, judging by the strife and discord between his 4 lieutenants), and thus protege of Eris. For the people who don't know who Eris is she's the goddess of strife and discord, a minor goddess but definitly a talented one. For example because she hadn't been invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis she arrived at the wedding anyway and threw in a golden apple inscribed with the words "to the fairest", and thus the goddesses Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite starts bickering which ultimatly leads to the 10 years of war and suffering known as the Trojan war.
In any case, as the Incarnation of Strife and Discord Lord Recluse has also been given heightened strenght, speed power and abilities (not to mention a snazzy eightlegged backpack/extra body parts). But unlike Statesman his ego has been boosted to very heightened proportions, for after all, isn't Eris foremost weapon the Ego?
This Ego also brings him into conflict with statesman, because his egos narcissistic tendencies cannot tolerate an equal in power and status.
Lord Recluse calling Statesman "brother" is not as in physical or blood brother, but more brother as in status as physical beings. They're both incarnates.
When he says Cursed he referring to their differences.
Who is truly cursed?
Statesman, the man without an Ego, who could be said is a slave under the need of others?
Or Lord Recluse, driven by his own Ego and his own ambitions, a slave under his own needs?
Can I just say... Wow?
Very nicely done.
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While I enjoy all the speculation, I don't think Incarnates in general will have direct ties to gods, because really, who would believe that there were 1000 incarnations of gods running around in one city? That would be obscene. Plus, the public tends to be touchy about having gods in games. Incarnates definitely could be products of ancient magical rituals, though -- rituals dating to the Classical period, or to even longer ago.
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This is a thought i have toyed with for a while. What if the greek gods weren't actualy gods? What if they were simply people who had come into, or were given, some sort of power? The Greek gods certainly ACTED human enough. Easy enough to fool someone into thinking you are a god when you throw around lightning bolts or control the very seas.
Incarnates simply carry on that power.. or something like that.
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This is an interpreation that I was going to bring up. It may be Incarnates are just the latest incarnations of primal powers. Justice, Strength, Death, Discord, War, Love, etc. The power "chooses" an individual by what every process. And that individual gains immense power and possible an attitude to goes along with the nature of the power.
These incatnations happen in waves. That last wave was during the Greek/Roman era. The start of the next wave happened when Marcus Cole or Lord Recluse got chosen.
Make sense. There are a ton of good ideas floating around, and I can't wait to see who is the closest. I am just glad I could come up with something that makes sense to someone else.
Im hoping that the Incarnates are incarnations of concepts as opposed to being deities incarnate. It seams to me that being the embodiment of something as intangible as an ideal would allow a greater range of role-playing.
Sure, there would be a hoard of Incarnation of Justice, or Incarnation of Protection backgrounds, but it would be neat to be the Incarnation of Pratfalls or the Incarnation of Serendipity. Just dont be the Incarnation of Superfluous; you will never get a team.
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Sure, there would be a hoard of Incarnation of Justice, or Incarnation of Protection backgrounds, but it would be neat to be the Incarnation of Pratfalls or the Incarnation of Serendipity. Just dont be the Incarnation of Superfluous; you will never get a team.
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I suspect that most players will be the Incarnation of Multiplicity.
If I ran the zoo, here's what I'd do...
The path to "Incarnate" status should be a Hero's Quest. Not unlike Heracles, there should be a number of tasks to accomplish, all of them difficult, some which require a team, some which must be done solo. Perhaps even a task which you must accomplish as an exemplar. All of the tasks in the arc should have one thing in common: the quester must be directly involved. This can't be done for you. (Though I'm not opposed to the idea of one task that must be done for you.)
Each task should test the quester in a different area: strength, courage, humility, self-sacrifice, etc. All the virtues an Incarnate should possess.
Failure of one or two tasks would not lead to failure of the quest, per se, but may shape the final outcome: the lacking virtues could constitute a weakness of the Incarnate. There should be a critical mass, however, at which point the quest is failed and cannot be repeated until you've earned the right. Yes, it's harsh, but Incarnate must be earned. There should be no easy way to it.
I would like paths to the end to vary. Unlike current story arcs in which everyone runs the same missions in the same order, let there be 3-4 tasks which can be accomplished for each virtue. This would lead to high variation the quest from player to player.
A Hero's Quest always involves some manner of sacrifice. This should be no different. The quester must be required to relinquish something of great value. Not influence, but something that would really count. An important power, perhaps, or several levels.
Completion of the quest should incur a reward consumate with the risk taken, and would elevate the character into a new realm of possibilities and dangers heretofore unimagined. It's a whole new ballgame.
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I thought Discord was just made up for Hercules/Xena. Well, I hate that character not at this point, if she was merely a renamed goddess.
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If we're going to be discussing greek mythology, can we at least for the sake of my blood pressure agree on a few things?
1) A google search for 'greek mythology' delivers a wealth of information. Don't boast of your 'knowledge' if three quarters of it is misspelled, misunderstood and basically incorrect, not to mention containing hideously misspelled names.
2) In conjunction with 1) , the following sources are under NO circumstances to be considered canonical of even remotely accurate: Disney movies, the Young Hercules and Xena series, the Troy movie, and come to think of it any movie or series designed with the current crop of teenagers in mind. Anything they didn't actually distort because they didn't think it'd sell they dumbed down to the point where it's useless.
3) Try Discovery Channel instead - at the very least, they have a reputation of sorts to maintain and can be counted on not to gloss things over.
Now that I've got that off my chest, here's a basic summary:
In the beginning, there was Gaia (ye basic Earth-Mother goddess), who gave birth to Uranus ("Heaven", "Sky" - greek doesn't always translate easily), who subsequently married her and had literally hundreds of offspring, including the twelve Titans, one of whom was Cronos.
Cronos revolted against his father and cut off his private bits with a scythe. Uranus either died or just left after that, but predicted that Cronos would suffer the same fate - downfall at the hands of one of his sons.
Cronos married Rhea, and since they didn't have contraceptives in that time, had a whole bunch of kids (collectively called the "Olympians"), all of whom he devoured at birth to make sure he wouldn't get overthrown. Rhea finally got tired of this and fed him a stone wrapped in linen instead of baby Zeus, whom she hid.
Zeus grows up in hiding and eventually decided he'll need allies to take his father down, so he has a few words with various other groups that are being kept down by Cronos, including the Cyclopeans, but more importantly, he has his mother sneak something into his father's wine that causes him to vomit up every single kid he ate, all of them intact (and adults by now), and battle is joined between the Olympians plus allies and Cronus and the rest of the Titans.
Zeus and allies win, and the Olympians take up permanent residence on Mount Olympus, the Titans get imprisoned in Tartarus, and absolutely nobody lives happily ever after because the Greek gods all had very human personalities and flaws.
I'll go into specific details in a future post.
My characters - all on Virtue.
Gabe's Internet [censored] Theory
RMT spammers WILL steal your credit card.
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Secondly, hades was in no way evil. The greeks did not have an evil underworld. They didn't really even have much of a concept of evil. Evil was a primarily christian concept, and that came around long after the greek pantheon had migrated into the romans.... same gods, less cool names. Evil is a relatively modern concept... the idea that any person or action can be "fundamentally, universally wrong just because of it's nature".... kind of an odd concept if you think about it. From what I can tell, Zeus was only an opponent of Hades in that damned disney movie.
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But the Disney cartoon said............
If you think things can't get any worse, it's probably because you lack sufficient imagination
Kenshin - lvl50 Scrapper Katana/SR
Kaigame - lvl50 Controller Earth/Emp
Mayfair - Lvl50 Defender Kinetic/Psy
Kai's Guide to Earth Controlling **Old**
Heh. Ignore the joys of the Disney movies. Jack is a bit more into the really old classics. :P
*spoiler notes*
From the new issue #2 of the CoH comic, we know that Statesman was imbued with Zeus' spirit through exposure to divine powers (drinking from the fountain of Zeus).
Right now, I'd say that gives Statesman plenty of divine rivals...including Prometheus.
(And boooooy, does Statesman have some ego problems at times- and that's the hero, not the dev. :P )
*spoiler over*
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Depending on who you ask, many also refer to Greek (and Norse, etc.) Gods as being more inherently human like. They lusted, they wanted, they needed, etc. Whereas the Judeo-Christian God is "perfect" and "wants for nothing." So the old gods were not evil, they were just human....kinda.
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I'm just going to argue that there isn't, per se, a "Judeo-Christian" God. There is a God of the Hebrews and there is a God of the Christians, and never the twain shall meet.
And the God of the Hebrews is not perfect, he's a jealous God. He says as much himself.
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Jesus was a Jew and claimed the God of the Hebrews as his own God. This links Jews and Christians right there. Even in the Koran (spelling subject to change) Mohammed is told that Moses and Jesus are prophets of Allah, linking all three religions. But this link is downplayed for the same reason that Hell was created around a thousand years ago or so.
Competition.