TITANS OF THE TUATHA DE DOMNANN

TUATHA DE DANANN

The winner writes the history, that much is true of the history of both humans and the divine. For the Titans of the Tuatha Dé Domnann, the winners have determined not only who’s “good” and “bad,” but who’s even a member of the pantheon itself, as opposed to falling into Titanhood. Those who claim themselves as Titans follow the lead of Domnu and use her name as a banner. A relatively lesser-known pantheon, the Tuatha struggle to survive in the modern age of The World, and the Titans even more so.

BALOR -- THE EVIL EYE

Aliases: The Deadly One, King of Drought, The Piercing-Eyed, The Smiter

Balor died. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows that after he locked his daughter up in a tower — so she could never have children, thereby warding against a prophecy that his grandson would kill him — his daughter became pregnant by the son of Dian Cécht. Everyone knows that Balor set his grandson adrift on the sea to kill him, and that Lugh returned as a grown man and threw a spear through his grandfather’s single dread eye. The stories of Balor’s death, and the hole his great and fiery eye burned into the ground, forming a deep lake, are told to children and form one of the best-known stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Lugh handsomely rewards bards who tell the most flattering and elaborate versions of Balor’s death.

Balor died, and his body tumbled into the hole his dread eye burnt into the earth. Balor’s body lay still on the drought-wracked earth until his mother, Domnu, ran from the sea, screaming her agony and grief. Her tears filled the deep basin, and her screams shook the earth, causing waves which carried his body to her empty arms. He’d been her first favorite, the child she bore during the Incarnation that loved Buarainech, the best-beloved and most mercurial of her children.

Whether the tears of the primal mother brought her favorite child back from the dead or that Mantle passed to another one of her doted-upon children, Balor walks the earth again, much to Lugh’s chagrin. After that terrible war, he slept for several centuries, content to leave the World to its own business. His eye stayed closed, and drought did not plague Ireland, nor famine touch her shores.

Two centuries ago, he woke, and resumed wandering the length and breadth of the World. Whenever four of his servants pry back the seven lids on his single massive eye, he gazes upon the land and grasses dry and leaves wither. Forest fires break out when he blinks the first lid. The sea warms when he gazes upon it.

Indeed, in recent centuries Balor’s realization that he can warm the waters and raise mag- nificent storms has made this one of his very favorite hobbies. He’ll never forgive Lugh for that spear to the eye, and while his grandson celebrates those bards who tell the story of his death, Balor seeks out those same bards and wreaks havoc upon their lives. He never kills them directly, instead causing them misery and heartbreak. Family farms fail, loved ones fall ill or meet untimely ends by tragic accidents: dried- out old trees fall suddenly, a beloved infant succumbs to heat stroke, car engines explode.

Balor had enough of children centuries ago, and unlike other Tuatha Dé Domnann, he has no desire for progeny. The others create and adopt in order to increase their numbers, but The Deadly One has no plans for such things. Lugh still lives, after all; his first child didn’t work out so well for him. Of course, Balor’s plans don’t usually work, and he’s the king of the accidental Visitation.

Provinces: Destroyer, Tyrant, Warrior

Dominions: CHAOS, DEATH, FIRE, HEALING, WAR

RELATIONSHIPS AND AGENDAs

Of all the Domnann, Balor has the least interest in ruinous struggles between Gods and Titans (save, of course, for Lugh). He’s very much enjoying the way that the World has started growing warmer. The fact that he can wreak havoc on the World and enjoy the famines he creates? Delightful. Perhaps he’s just aware that it’s all pointless posturing: With as close-knit and interbred as both sides have become, any attempt at an overthrow would most likely look more like the World’s most horrifyingly bad wedding reception, with a million old grudges and family ties all bubbling into toxic prominence. No one wins when families this intertwined fight in front of the children, after all.

OTHER PANTHEONS

Balor plays rather nicely with most of the other Titans who bring famines: The more the merrier! He roams the World looking for like-minded compatriots and staying out of the business of his Tuatha siblings trying to overthrow each other over and over. Except, of course, Lugh. There’s always an exception for Lugh, who just needs to pay.

CURRENT PRIORITIES

That whole “playing with other Titans and making famines” thing? Balor avoids making Scions by causing cha- os in the World. Famine has so many different meanings in the World these days, and he’s learning about all of them. Some people claim the Library of Alexandria’s fire came from Balor’s eye. One of Balor’s accidental Scions, Jeremiah Glover, claimed to have invented the concept of the “food desert” and gloried in the wonderfully modern famine which followed in his footsteps. His father certainly showed Glover an immense amount of favor.

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