Good to see you again, Kenma! I’m glad you could provide more insight- even checking Wikipedia was providing difficult for me to check stuff.kenmadragon wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 12:52 am [
He still got a bunch of the little details wrong, or just flat-out changed some of them. Like, sure, they're fitting their mythological powers of "holy shit, that guy did what? Why the hell are these dudes throwing around planet-busting spells and weapons like they're party favors?!?!" but the relationships between them seem a bit off: Like, for example, Parvati was the one who chased after Shiva, and is literally the goddess of marital bliss and fidelity because of that. Her beginning to fall in love with Agni doesn't really track with the myths, given how obsessed Parvati was with Shiva. Heck, Kali isn't also just some spawn of Parvati's, but literally just Parvati flying into a berserk rage and incarnating herself as righteous fury and bloodthirsty violence, drawing on the fact that she's basically Shiva's wife and thus also a Goddess of Destruction... when she chooses to be, because she's otherwise perfectly happy being a peaceful homemaker and devoted wife whose presence effectively enhanced Shiva's ability to do his job as a God of Time and Destruction. The idea that Parvati and Shiva have a love/hate relationship is kinda ridiculous, considering how their most significant tiff pretty much involved Shiva's inability to knock when entering the bathrooms in his own house (which resulted in Ganesha's origin story).
Similarly Ravana doesn't hate all the Indian Gods - he just hates the Devas because the Devas tend to be assholes to Rakshasas. But, Ravana is otherwise one of the biggest devotees of Shiva - this is a major deal: Ravana got his sword "Chandrahas/Laughing-Moon" from Shiva as a gift after he earned redemption when Shiva humbled him for his arrogance and converted Ravana into his devotee - and even got blessings and spell-knowledge from Brahma once. I doubt any game books ever bothered to give him skill in music, do they? The guy's famous as a musician too, for a demon-lord, as he is legendarily skilled at singing and in playing the veena (it was part of how he earned his redemption and Shiva's sword, you know).
Also, Skanda is a spear-wielder in Hindu mythology. The sword-wielding is from the Buddhist take on him. He also rides a peacock and is otherwise quite awesome as a philosopher-warrior, poet-saint and all-round demon slayer. Not sure about the whole "can't use magic" thing, but him being a martial-arts badass tracks. Him being obsessed with combat is a bit weird, though... like mentioned, he's famous as a muse for poets and a reknowned philosopher (though his brother, Ganesha, has him beat on that front in terms of scholarly legend).
And like you mentioned, the write-up they gave for Saraswati just does not track with the mythology as far as I can tell...
That's about it off the top of my head, to be honest. I'd need to do a deep-dive later, but yeah... Carella did his best to make them super-powerful... but screwed up a bunch on the details, damn it!
Carella admits he changed some things to meet the story he wanted to tell, and that players could do whatever with them, but it’s still funny. Some characters he just kinda makes from whole cloth. Like, you’d figure someone who even KNOWS Parvati, much less is familiar with Kali being an aspect of her, would also know what she’s actually supposed to be like.
Unless he was hoping nobody would check.