Tezcatlipoca

The most powerful god upon the surface of the Aztec world. He represents conflict—war and magecraft, beauty and discord, night and dominion, storms and plagues, crime and law, fortune and misfortune, providence and rivals—as well as the dynamism their conflicts create.

O great Moyocoyani. O terrible Ilhuicahua Tlalticpaque! Thy name is Tezcatlipoca, avatar of the black sun, which reflects all creation.

Height/Weight: 180cm, 80kg

Origin: Aztec mythology

Region: Mesoamerica

Alignment: Chaotic-Good

Sub-Attribute: Heaven

Gender: Male

Motive/Attitude toward Master

Happily participates in existential conflicts. However, he does not regard his Master with any particular respect or special treatment.

"I don't want heroes. Only warriors. I want a world where everyone is a warrior."

Tezcatlipoca in Mythology

Tezcatlipoca is known to the world as a bloodthirsty, wicked god who either takes on a particularly grotesque appearance, or appears as a merciless, mercurial jaguar. However, the earliest sources describe him as a celebrated deity, an avatar of power, and a clever man who helped humans build a place where they could thrive on their own strength. Furthermore, there are also legends that tell of times when he disguised himself as a woman to seduce the Toltec priest-king Huemac, or as an old man or spider to lay traps for Quetzalcoatl.

Tezcatlipoca has been defined in the Aztec world as an omnipotent god. In some respects, this makes him a mixture of the Norse god Odin, the Greek god Zeus, the Buddhist Demon King of the Sixth Heaven (Mara), and Satan (Lucifer) of Christianity. While such gods (or devils) are unrivalled in the material world, they are not so invincible in the spiritual world. They are similar in that they are nigh-omnipotent, but nonetheless limited.

While Tezcatlipoca's name is known in Japan, there are surprisingly few mythological accounts of him. Not only does he lack the more human personality of Greek deities, he has left no mark on human society like Japanese deities. In many ways, he is more like a system, inciting conflicts throughout the world and defining their outcome. It would seem that this is the sort of deity he is.

However, the standards by which such outcomes are defined are unclear. It is believed that Tezcatlipoca himself is indifferent to this aspect. The extent of his involvement is a roll of the dice. In this way, he resembles the many deities of destiny in other mythologies who are unable to truly bend fate itself to their will.

He will aid someone if he has acknowledged their power. In cases of a normal mortal whose might must be tested, he will set deadly trials before them instead. On the other hand, he will walk into the night alone without any protection to give seekers of power a chance to challenge him. It is said that the one who challenged and defeated Tezcatlipoca this way received his greatest possible boon. Moreover, being well aware of his position, Tezcatlipoca will stride onto the battlefield in kingly battle raiment, taking on all challengers unarmed. And he (in that moment, no matter what persona he wears) will never break a promise.

Tezcatlipoca the Black is a cold and ruthless god of war who has no interest in his opponents' opinions or beliefs. Tezcatlipoca the Red is a god of flame and the future, who impartially engages in dialogue with anyone who has the will to fight, no matter who they are. Tezcatlipoca the Blue is a beloved god of paradise who guards cities, approves of respite, and likes teasing Quetzalcoatl.

...Inexplicably, all three aspects of him have long since evolved beyond these descriptions. What a troublesome deity.

Personality

Diplomatic and active. A perfectionist and something of a satirist. Belligerent, obviously. He tends to prattle on and has a habit of warning others about what they lack in idle conversation.

Strict with others. Generous to himself. (Because his nature can change on the spot, he can't possibly be strict with himself.) At his core, he is a pessimist who darkens the atmosphere and has an innate lack of luck, and so invites even more demanding situations. Consequently, he is treated as though he is a grim reaper. His demeanor is indifferent and ruthless, but the conversationalist in him makes him quite likeable.

"First, you'll face the worst-case scenario. Fight and win, even if you have to die trying. A reward awaits you beyond the battle. Though, if we're talking net profit, you'll come out just a little ahead."

His cruel personality leads him to tirelessly search out seeds of war. He enjoys cultivating them and watching them bloom. This makes him seem like a warmonger or an arms dealer who gives weapons to two city-states to help ignite their inevitable conflict all the faster. There is no malice in this action, however. To Tezcatlipoca, the fight for existence itself is order. He sees it as a cyclical good which stabilizes the world.

Tezcatlipoca is intrigued by the wars of the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, and is fond of modern personal weaponry from the year 2017, seeing such things as "nice toys." He also holds them in high regard, as they are the very weapons the conquistadors used to defeat the Aztec Empire. But he is embarrassingly clumsy with them and resorts to using brutish axes, jaguar claws, and supernatural phenomena as his weapons. Point this out to him, however, and you'll hurt his feelings.

"I don't hate the Japanese. They're a remarkably circumspect people. They have this saying: 'You naturally pick up the skills you like.' Talk about cruel."

Chief of Warriors: A

Titlacauan, meaning, "he who enslaves and rules us." This skill presses Tezactlipoca's contractor into battle, with no regard for the risk of death. Those who make a pact with him are not allowed to die of natural causes; they must fall in battle. The terms of this severe pact grants the contractor vitality beyond normal limits.

Augments the power of Master Skills.

Charisma of Conflict: A

Just as Quetzalcoatl's Charisma nurtures the innate goodness and productivity of living creatures, his rival Tezcatlipoca has a Charisma capable of inciting creatures to action. It is an aggressive Charisma which agitates evil and conflict. Tezcatlipoca warmly blesses warriors who continue to fight even while mortally wounded, or those who try to fight in death.

Black Sun: EX

The sun, reflected in obsidian. The Authority of an omnipotent god to see the future and manipulate the currents of creation. While he cannot control that which does not exist in the world, he can rearrange that which does at will.

For example, he can change the outcome of a kingdom fated to triumph, then fall by reversing the order of events, causing it to fall, then triumph. However, excessive interference with natural laws will incur a penalty. When the obsidian on Tezcatlipoca's right leg stops reflecting the sun, he will lose his divinity and become human.

Heart of the Mountain: A

Tepēyōllōtl. The name denotes the king of jaguars, as well as a giant jaguar. It is a portion of the soul projected from Tezcatlipoca's jaguar form. In mythology, he took the skeleton of Quetzalcoatl after he had become the sun and smashed it upon the earth, then devoured all the giants teeming over the world.

『First Sun Xibalba』

Rank: B

NP Type: Anti-world

Range: 0–999

Maximum Targets: 999

"Nahui Ocelotl" or "Mictlān Xibalba" would be the correct original names, but Tezcatlipoca has rearranged them in modern fashion. The subterranean underworld Mictlān is conflated with Xibalba, the underworld of Mayan mythology. This Noble Phantasm fuses Tezcatlipoca's Authority as the ruler of Mictlānpa, the paradise of rest, and his era as the first sun in the sky. He controls all physical laws of the earth's surface and can force creation to comply with the laws he decides, but he is also bound by those same laws. The only traces of the era of the first sun—when the now-extinct giants roamed the earth—remain in the underworld. Thus, the act of Tezcatlipoca regaining his power, or expressing it on Earth, is necessarily equivalent to manifesting the underworld itself upon Earth's surface.

Mesoamerica is an unforgiving world and humanity is believed to have faced countless catastrophes there. For this reason, Mesoamerican people believed that the world they live in now did not always exist, holding that it was preceded by another long ago. Conversely, even if the world were to be destroyed, some aspect of it will remain to be inherited by the next world. They fervently believed that the world would recover even after its destruction.

The clearest expression of this belief is the Five Suns tradition describing five apocalypses. Tezcatlipoca led one of these five doomsdays. He also engaged in a dialogue with Quetzalcoatl during the fifth apocalypse, which regenerated the world and stabilized the current world of Aztec mythology.

Tezcatlipoca is misunderstood as the god of death and war. In fact, most Aztec gods are death gods. Thus, it is not he in particular who threatens the world and demands human death and sacrifice. In fact, he preserves the rules of the Mesoamerican world (the importance of sacrifices as valuable tributes stabilize the world), while Quetzalcoatl threatens it (attempting to destroy the existing order by insisting that sacrifices are unnecessary).