SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive backstory of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ new MOBA.
Lore: The Maya pantheon has always been the most difficult to source of the SMITE pantheons. That should appear as a conundrum. The Maya civilization only recently collapsed thanks to the introduction of westerners to the Americas in the late 1400s. Cortes kicked it off by pitting alternative natives against their sworn enemies adding them to his impossibly small ranks. Other manipulation and later conquerors thwarted the entire civilization. Eventually. Pockets held out until shortly before the 1700s rolled in. Yet in 300 years a large amount of their largely spoken religious stories have been partially lost, conflated with other or been lost to time.
This is a roundabout way to say that Ah Puch is, largely, a fabrication. Sources we’ve used throughout the life of this column – now in its third year! – stand firm that this Maya death god is not authentic. He did not run Mitnal, the ninth level of the underworld, not have anything to do with Xibalba, the best known name for the Maya underworld, and where the Maya Hero Twins met their match.
There you have it. The lore of the non-lore Ah Puch. Easily the shortest lore entry for this column.
In-Game: Despite being a fabrication of more recent times SMITE has immortalized the…let’s call him…janitor of the dead with a powerful AoE mage kit. The Horrific God of the Dead remains in tune with the recently deceased granting him extensive sustain. He couples this with hampering debuffs, including slows, DoTs and repercussions for being healed.
The kit Ah Puch is dealt remains common among heavy hitting AoE mages. He can’t take substantial advantage of additional magical power, he can’t easily escape without the aid of allies and he he’s rather squishy. It’s important to build him to with the intention of standing your ground, throwing out abilities and maximizing your harassment and containment powers. Chronos’ Pendant is a must, which is easily combined with an early Warlock’s Sash. Fling the Spear of the Magus to enhance your debuffs and damage but only snag a Rod of Tahuti if you absolutely must do damage. A Soul Reaver is likely a far better selection.
Further reading:
- Ah Puch on Wikipedia
- Maya Mythology on Wikipedia
- Popol Vuh (PDF)
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Head over to SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained for details on all of the playable characters.