How would you play or GM Katrina Sun having a Love-Child?

[Hotrod]

I love having a character with a mysterious birth, both because it aligns with the classic epic story, and because it gives the GM some fodder for the ongoing storyline.

As I was reading through Africa, I had an odd thought. What if Isis, whilst under her "Katrina Sun" delusion, got knocked up? How would the goddess react after she regained her memories? How would the other gods of her pantheon react?

On the flipside, what would happen to the daddy, who's presumably one of the Gathering of Heroes fighting the Four Horsemen?

[Chronicle]

This seemes to be many o player's fantasy........i GM her as too busy to get involved

[Hotrod]

Yeah, banging a goddess is always fun, but I was thinking more along the lines of developing a character born from such a Shakespearean comedy of procreation.

[The Beast]

What if Isis, whilst under her "Katrina Sun" delusion, got knocked up? How would the goddess react after she regained her memories? How would the other gods of her pantheon react?

I doubt she would react with any animosity toward the one that knocked her up. I believe some sort of divine power would protect her if someone tried to rape her, so you'd be looking at a consensual encounter. Depending how well the individual did during the war against the Four Horsemen, she'd either make them raise the child (demigod, IIRC) or never inform him to keep the child and father safe from Set's pantheon. Maybe a bit of both. (Katrina drops by with kid in tow, hangs with group/father for the night. In the morning she's long gone but the kid's still there with a note for daddy.)

As for the other gods, her side might not do much one way or the other. However, Set's side would likely cause all sorts of problems if they ever found out who the mother is.

[Nekira Sudacne]

It's not exactly like sleeping around is something the ancient egyptians had a thing aginst, to be pefectly honest I think her reaction would be more anger over having been infected in the first place than the fact she has a child. she is a mother-goddess after all, caring for children is part of her devine nature.

I figure she'd treat the child like most devine parents do, watch over their exploits with interest and throw them a bone now and then. basically, no different than any other Demigod PC who's devine parent didn't necessarly intend to spawn another one.

[SolCannibal]

With gods, godlings and demigods nothing is certain - Hermes learned to walk, made a musical instrument and stole his divine brother's sheep all in his first day of life and magical children that grow up fast is quite within the realm of possibility.

Speaking of half-brothers, how would Horus react to learning he's not an only child anymore. Oh wait, Horus in Rifts: Africa is adopted and a sort of elevated monster if i'm not mistaken. There goes a fun subplot.

As an aside Isis might or not keep an occasional interest in an heroic "old flame". She is a widower. Having a child with him only adds to that baggage and desire to check out once in a while.

[Akashic Soldier]

I think that the pregnancy would empower the delusion and when she sort to destroy the child she would be forcefully divided into two halves becoming sufficiently weaker as a power and making her susceptible to the attack from gods/demons she normally would not be. She would then be captured and caged, while her counterpart (now believing it was mortal) fled and raised the child elsewhere.

16 years later, her counterpart would start to fade away because something terrible was happening to Isis and the truth of his origins would be revealed and it would be up to the young inexperienced Demigod to set out across the Megaverse to save the mother who never wanted him and put things to right... or something like that.

[Nekira Sudacne]

With gods, godlings and demigods nothing is certain - Hermes learned to walk, made a musical instrument and stole his divine brother's sheep all in his first day of life and magical children that grow up fast is quite within the realm of possibility.

Heremes is a full god, not a demigod.

[Hotrod]

True, but with time dilation between dimensions, it's entirely possible for offspring to show up out of a Rift fully grown, and timeline-wise, the Gathering of Heroes in Africa happens in what, 103 PA?

[taalismn]

Gotta agree that the motherhood aspect probably makes Isis more inclined to more involvement than 'wham-bam-thank-you-mam-Zeus'(even if he is a proud absentee father), but she also realizes she's in a dangerous position at a dangerous time, so she may try to lock away the child's more powerful and obvious aspects that might link the child to Isis and thus be a signpost to Isis's enemies. If she really believes in the good and caring nature of the father, she'll try to make sure said father takes good care of the kid, and go to pains to secretly monitor the child's progress to make sure her trust isn't misplaced(this may mean detaching a loyal and not too obvious minion and maybe an animal avatar-essence to shadow the child). Maybe the occasional basing warm sunbeam when the kid's feeling down, or a dropped note of encouragement. And any neglectful step-mom's going to be deep $#!+ thanks to some subtle divine interference.
THe demands of wartime/pantheonic conflict aren't going to make this sort of thing easy on Isis, so a future reveal/reunion's going to be tough on Isis, especially if she has to ask her child to play some role in the affairs of the deities.

[SolCannibal]

With gods, godlings and demigods nothing is certain - Hermes learned to walk, made a musical instrument and stole his divine brother's sheep all in his first day of life and magical children that grow up fast is quite within the realm of possibility.

Heremes is a full god, not a demigod.

So is Dyonisius, whose mother was mortal, your point being?

[Nekira Sudacne]

With gods, godlings and demigods nothing is certain - Hermes learned to walk, made a musical instrument and stole his divine brother's sheep all in his first day of life and magical children that grow up fast is quite within the realm of possibility.

Heremes is a full god, not a demigod.

So is Dyonisius, whose mother was mortal, your point being?

My point being if your born a full god and not a demigod, doing stuff your first day is standard, and thus has absolutely no relation to how demigods work.

also: having a mortal mother dosn't make the child being born a full god instead of a demigod impossible, just less likely. They were never demigods, either of them, so bring them up in a discussion about demigods is pointless.

[SolCannibal]

With gods, godlings and demigods nothing is certain - Hermes learned to walk, made a musical instrument and stole his divine brother's sheep all in his first day of life and magical children that grow up fast is quite within the realm of possibility.

Heremes is a full god, not a demigod.

So is Dyonisius, whose mother was mortal, your point being?

My point being if your born a full god and not a demigod, doing stuff your first day is standard, and thus has absolutely no relation to how demigods work.

also: having a mortal mother dosn't make the child being born a full god instead of a demigod impossible, just less likely. They were never demigods, either of them, so bring them up in a discussion about demigods is pointless.

Except things are not always so cut & dry as in a game and that is what i set out to point.

Also, Herakles and his little feat of snake-killing just after birth, or killing a music teacher with a lyre by accident in his childhood. Gods, godlings or demigods, such children are anything BUT normal and may do adventurer level stuff from the get-go.

[taalismn]

With gods, godlings and demigods nothing is certain - Hermes learned to walk, made a musical instrument and stole his divine brother's sheep all in his first day of life and magical children that grow up fast is quite within the realm of possibility.

Heremes is a full god, not a demigod.

So is Dyonisius, whose mother was mortal, your point being?

My point being if your born a full god and not a demigod, doing stuff your first day is standard, and thus has absolutely no relation to how demigods work.

also: having a mortal mother dosn't make the child being born a full god instead of a demigod impossible, just less likely. They were never demigods, either of them, so bring them up in a discussion about demigods is pointless.

Unless either of you can produce actual physical(and verifiable) proof of the maturation rates of either gods or demigiods, it's up to GM fiat whether baby Harry Thunderer is reading, writing, and playing the lyre before even leaving the neonatal care unit, or whether he has to wait until puberty before noticing "I ain't like the other kids, am I?".
Athena sprang full-blown in armor from her father's head, Hephastus was thrown as an infant from Mount Olympus, so even within the category of gods, there's radical variation as to what constitutes a 'standard' childhood and upbringing. Generally, though, demigods have the slower development, in part due to the mortal upbringing and gradual discovery of divine ancestry makes for a better story, but whereas Hephastus got bounced down the mountain slopes, breaking his infantile divine bones in the process, Hercules strangled a pair of (probably enhanced) snakes in his crib.

[SolCannibal]

I accept your point and concede it Taalismn - though a baby surviving bouncing all the way down Olympus slopes is pretty superhuman, broken bones notwithstanding.

[glitterboy2098]

Athena was born full grown from zeus' forehead because years prior Athena's mother had been swallowed whole by zeus because of a prophecy that the offspring of zeus and the lady would be more powerful than zeus. Athena was born and grew up inside* zeus, and only escaped after she grew powerful enough to cause zeus problems.

*in rifts, perhaps Zeus, and Chronus his father, have personal pocket dimensions or astral domains linked to them? which might explain the whole 'swallowing' theme without making it literally eating the person.


Dionysis is an odd case, in that while his mother was semele, a mortal, machinations by hera cause Semele to demand to look upon Zeus in full deific form, which killed her. zeus rescued the kid, sewed him into his own thigh, and carried the kid to term. so basically, while he had a mortal genetic mother, he had zeus as a second mother who carried him to term. which made him be born a full god instead of a half god.

Hephastus was the kid of Zeus and Hera (or possibly just hera.. depends on the tradition), so was born a full god, but because he was born malformed (or possibly just unwanted by zeus.. ), he was abandoned on earth. but Hephastus was found and raised by Thetis (a minor sea goddess) and an Oceanid (one of the 3000 daughters of the titans Oceanus and Tethys)

[taalismn]

I accept your point and concede it Taalismn - though a baby surviving bouncing all the way down Olympus slopes is pretty superhuman, broken bones notwithstanding.

Yeah, god babies dribble well.

[Talon Starblade]

Actually, an old GM buddy and I had fun with this scenario years ago…

My character had been through a reasonable amount of hell getting to Africa, including surviving some serious experimentation thanks to a Splugorth Minion bio-wizard. He was still kind of mutating even after a three year bounce through a couple of dimensions. It was still kind of tearing him up when he landed in Africa on a delivery, he joined up to help. Working through the story, he and Katrina were falling in love… Of course, we had some serious complications… You see, she wasn’t the only one that did strange things in stressful moments.

One of my favorite moments, was when the GM had Pestilence pull the engulfing grab on Katrina (she got too close to the action). My character (Richard) literally jumped in after her, and blew his way out. Then in a slightly suicidal move, he ran back and jumped into the thing with a satchel charge of something I’d invented called mystic C-4. They’d managed to hit him on a Nexus, so the charge got a serious boost. Unfortunately for Old Pesti that Richard lost it so badly that he transformed (The experiment and its side effects). The detonation blew Richard clear, and did a pretty good chunk to Pestilence. Their relationship really started taking off after that.

By the time the final confrontation at the end of the campaign landed, they were a complete item, and he unleashed his “Inner Demon” to take the bastard out. I was actually surprised at how powerful that nexus made my “monster.” In the end they had to separate, but we kept up with that character and campaign for a while, and she’d visited him a lot over the following years. Richard had even gone on artifact hunts to recover some of the Osiris artifacts for her. We hadn’t continued the campaign far enough, but I think he was planning on saddling me with our child and the problems involved there. Then again, by that time, he wasn’t really considered “human” any more.

I really wish we could have continued that campaign. It had been very interesting and entertaining.

[taalismn]

*Hands taalismn ans Internetz and an Evil Overlord Application*

Bravo sir...bravo

Hey, I believe in water births. If my kid can't outfight an alligator after being popped out of the womb, he or she doesn't deserve to be my heir.

[Tor]

What if Isis, whilst under her "Katrina Sun" delusion, got knocked up? How would the goddess react after she regained her memories? How would the other gods of her pantheon react? On the flipside, what would happen to the daddy, who's presumably one of the Gathering of Heroes fighting the Four Horsemen?

I'm looking at you, Victor Lazlo. Or Thorpe, if Erin managed to snag Vic.

I believe some sort of divine power would protect her if someone tried to rape her, so you'd be looking at a consensual encounter.

What power do you speak of exactly? It's not as if she's like Artemis and has her bro Apollo looking out for her. Katrina's tough and could defend herself with some sweet magic (though magic is more suited for revenge than immediate melee combat defenses) but beyond that I'm not sure what you think would happen here. Aren't guys who might look out for her like Ra/Thoth/Sphinx all unaware of the Katrina thing?

Heremes is a full god, not a demigod.

Do you recall if CB2 implies he is Hera's son? According to wikipedia his mother is Maia, one of Atlas' daughters (with a sea nymph) who hung out with Artemis.

True, but with time dilation between dimensions, it's entirely possible for offspring to show up out of a Rift fully grown

Especially with a lot of implications that many deific realms exist in the astral planes.

So is Dyonisius, whose mother was mortal, your point being?

Or Herakles, for that matter.

having a mortal mother dosn't make the child being born a full god instead of a demigod impossible, just less likely. They were never demigods, either of them, so bring them up in a discussion about demigods is pointless.

Dionysus would definitely have to be a demi-god originally since his mother was the mortal Semele. Just because Pantheons doesn't go into detail about his demigod>god elevation as it did with Herakles doesn't mean he was born a full god.

Course I'd buy Hermes being born a full god. Half Titan and half sea-Nymph is pretty close to being a god, considering Titans were often stronger than Gods and we're not entirely clear on the power level of Nymphs (only that Triton, son of Poseidon, also a god, had one as a mom).

Athena was born full grown from zeus' forehead because years prior Athena's mother had been swallowed whole by zeus because of a prophecy that the offspring of zeus and the lady would be more powerful than zeus. Athena was born and grew up inside* zeus, and only escaped after she grew powerful enough to cause zeus problems.

*in rifts, perhaps Zeus, and Chronus his father, have personal pocket dimensions or astral domains linked to them? which might explain the whole 'swallowing' theme without making it literally eating the person.

What and avoid gems like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son ? How boring.

Perhaps we should view Zeus' anarchist alignment as more of a recent phenomenon and back during his woman-eating days he was more miscreant like his father?

[The Beast]

I believe some sort of divine power would protect her if someone tried to rape her, so you'd be looking at a consensual encounter.

What power do you speak of exactly? It's not as if she's like Artemis and has her bro Apollo looking out for her. Katrina's tough and could defend herself with some sweet magic (though magic is more suited for revenge than immediate melee combat defenses) but beyond that I'm not sure what you think would happen here. Aren't guys who might look out for her like Ra/Thoth/Sphinx all unaware of the Katrina thing?

I mean specificly divine power from her. If you read her description you'll see that her sub-consious does act to protect her.