Aztec

The Aztecs were one of the three great empires that ruled over the lands now called Central and South America prior to the arrival of Europeans, alongside the Mayans and the Incas. The best-known of the three (until Eric Thompson bit it and the scholarly world finally accepted the Proskouriakoff - Coe Maya decipherment), the Aztecs were the overpower of modern-day Mexico. They arose from humble beginnings as a single Nahua tribe called the Mexica, who came down south to modern-day Mexico from an unknown area to the north called Atzlan. They formed an alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan (now "Tacuba") to rule a vast empire of subordinate vassal-states; through their diplomatic, trade, and ultimately martial skills. The Mexica and Texcoco sidelined Tlacopan fairly early on; at the end, Moteczoma II subjugated Texcoco under a puppet ruler and was in the process of absorbing it all when the Spaniards came knocking.

The Triple Alliance oversaw a highly advanced and cultured people, if you grade on a Chalcolithic curve. The Mexica / Aztec side had elaborate skills in architecture, sculpture, ornamental metalwork, and warfare; as well as skilled in trade - the pochteca system. Texcoco maintained the lore of Central Mesoamerica and composed much poetry of its own, most of which survives to this day, having impressed even the Catholics. All Mesoamericans were highly spiritual, whose culture was largely shaped by their religious devotion, although as the Mexica in particular interpreted that - well, read on.

The Mexica religion has gone down as perhaps the single bloodiest faith in human history. Blood sacrifice, up to and including that of humans, has been practiced by religions around the world pretty much as long as the concept of religion has been a thing, but the Aztec pantheon was uniquely bloodthirsty, starting with the central precept that human blood was of vital spiritual importance as the fuel that kept the universe working. Even basic offerings to the gods most frequently took the form of the Aztecs drilling into their arms, thighs, ears, lips, tongues and dicks with thorns and offering the bloody thorns. A traditional fertility rite to increase the productivity of a field was to tie a captive warrior between two trees and then riddle him full of arrows - the objective explicitly being to kill him as slowly as possible to ensure more of the blood went into the field. Tlaloc the Rain God was propitiated by ceremonially torturing and then drowning children. To evoke the favor of Xipe Totec, the Harvest God, priests would flay sacrificed virgins alive and wear the skins as ceremonial raiments to perform dances in. And, of course, Huitzilopochtli, patron god of the Aztecs, was offered hearts cut from the chests of living victims. Though it should be noted while some of this is certainly true most accounts were from the Spanish, as Cortez and the Conquistadors wished to emphasize the legitimacy of their claim. How much hyperbole were in these claims and how much is true is often a source of intense historical debate. Regardless, how many scarifices the Aztecs did is much debated given. Most Nahua and Nahuatl speaking people either died or were assimilated into Spanish culture, not many of their codices survived, and so what remains is largely going to be the works of people who lived under the Spanish or the Spanish themselves, who were less than sympathetic to preserving the culture of what they saw as a heathen society-let alone leaving enough evidence for future generations to find to verify their claims. Such claims that historians have seemingly disproven include the claim by Cortez that Templo Mayor with its four sacrificial altars were able to sacrifice 80,400 people, or roughly 14 people per minute and 3.5 people per alter a minute over the 96 hours continuously. Pair this with evidence suggesting Cortez's reports were altered by royal committee and we have a case of a seriously unreliable narrator-though the real number is likely between 4,000-20,000 by modern archaeological evidence, which is still horrifyingly high, but much more feasible.

This fueled the warlike nature of the Aztecs, and was responsible for their uniquely styled empire - the Aztecs "proper", the Mexica people, inhabited a single city-state that was supported by two sub-ordinate city-states, and ruled over a vast quilt of conquered tribes and city-states. To get the sacrifices they needed, the Aztecs would fight ceremonial "Flower Wars" against vassal states and real wars against peoples on their borders. Which of course meant people didn't like them much. Seriously, the Aztecs inherited most of their gods from their neighbors (barring Huitzilopochtli, who was uniquely theirs), complete with the traditions of human sacrifice, and their neighbors still thought they were a bunch of blood-soaked fanatics. So, when a tiny Spanish Conquistador exploration fleet showed up, they succeeded in "conquering" the Empire in large part because the vast majority of the Empire and its surrounding neighbors threw their lot in behind the Spanish to get rid of the Aztecs.

Fantasy Aztecs

The Aztecs and their unique combination of military imperialism, being a theocracy devoted to malevolent-seeming gods, and religion based on Blood Magic, have been something of an inspiration for fantasy games for a fair amount of time.

In Mystara, the Tiger Clan of the Atruaghin is a relatively "benign" depiction of the Mexica; they've dropped the human sacrifice thing, but are still a bunch of brutal war-loving racial supremacists who serve as the Evil Faction to the Mesoamerican-based Atruaghin Clans. The Hollow World has the Azcans, who are the even-more-evil counterpart to the Tiger Clan and who do practice human sacrifice, as well as having more of the Aztec visuals. The Schattenalfen are an evil Shadow Elf offshoot who've picked up some Aztec traits, namely the human sacrifice thing. All three groups worship the same malevolent Mystaran Immortal; Atzanteotl.

In Dark Sun The Mighty and Omnipotent Tectuktitlay, Wemmic Annihilator, Father of Life and Master of the Two Moons is the Sorcerer-King of the Aztec inspired city of Draj. As you might guess he thinks he's a living god however unlike other sorcerer kings who don't even believe in divinity and will openly brag about the life leeching nature of their magics this guy actually believes his own myth he thinks he is the son of the moons Ral and Guthay a god trapped in mortal flesh. That he with a word repaired the lands turning sand to soil and bringing forth lush growth & that the city he lives in was made with just a wave of his hand. Moon priests are fanatical believers in this cult while citizens who doubt this story since they live in a barren desert never voice their opinion openly and go through the motions of worshiping Tectuktitlay as the anger of Tectuktitlay can only be quenched through sacrifice by ripping the hearts out of dissenters.

In the Forgotten Realms, the sub-setting Maztica is basically Aztec Mexico with a dash of magic added to the top of it. It even emulates the whole "most of the Aztec empire didn't actually want to be Aztecs" thing; the truly devout worshippers of the bloodthirsty Zaltec are restricted to the peoples of one city-state, Nexal, who suffered for it when their god actually came to the Material Plane and his presence transformed them into orcs and ogres, resulting in the toppling of their empire and the resurgence of the long-buried Qotal faith.

In Shadowrun, the Megacorp Aztlan is based on the idea that a bunch of Southern Mesoamerican peoples got together and became a Megacorp deliberately styling itself after a mixture of Aztec, Mayan and Incan influences. Their unique gimmick is their heavy usage of Blood Magic.

In Deadlands Classic, there's a hidden kingdom of Aztecs who survived the Conquistadors in the deep jungles of South America and they've been plotting revenge ever since, which they hope to achieve with Blood Magic and an army of zombies. Naturally, the Reckoners love them.

In Magic: The Gathering, the civilizations of Naya, the Red/Green/White Shard of Alara, have a certain level of Aztec motif. Meanwhile, the Sun Empire of Ixalan combines elements of Aztec and Inca.

In Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Lizardmen represents the native South American natives who also lives on a continent similar shaped to South America called Lustria. Although the Lizardmen represents neither Maya nor Aztec, they have a named character called Tehenhauin, a red crested skink who is obsessed with sacrifice his most hated enemy invaders: The Skaven, by opening up their stomach and spill out their innards in the name of his snake god Sotek. The closest thing the Lizardmen could get to be an Aztec.

A Word of Caution

Let's get something straight here: the Mesoamerican people suffered a lot of terrible shit at the hands of European settlers. There's no arguing with that. But that doesn't mean they couldn't also be dicks in their own right. And the fact that the Aztecs' own "empire" revolted to overthrow them by siding with the newly arrived Spanish Conquistadors to do this is damning evidence that they were a bunch of dangerous fanatics even by the standards of their own people. But since SJWs became a thing, it's become a risky gambit to ever have Mesoamerican-inspired characters or cultures in an antagonistic role, and the Aztecs are no exemption. Basically it's best to follow the "Don't Beat Downwards" rule. If you team comes across a powerful or long lived Aztec empire go nuts. If your party are heroic white people from overseas fighting savages who throw rocks as they storm the palace with guns...Might want to step back a bit.

External links Links

A Youtube documentary about the culture of human scarifice within Aztec and Mesoamerican society