American Gods showrunner Bryan Fuller spoke at length about some of the deviations from Neil Gaiman’s original book, but another new addition has been revealed. Corbin Bernsen of Psych fame will play Vulcan, an “old god” but a new character coming to the Starz series.

According to EW, which premiered the first look image of the deity, Gaiman was originally set to pen an episode of American Gods and Vulcan was a part of that treatment. He couldn’t fulfill the obligation due to timing commitments, but the character still made it into the series.

Co-showrunner Michael Green further explained:

He’s a brand-new addition who came from an experience Neil had. He was going through a small town in Alabama where he saw a statue of Vulcan. It was a steel town and, as he told the story, there was a factory that had a series of accidents where people were killed on the job and they kept happening because an actuarial had done the numbers and realized that it was cheaper to pay out the damages to the families of people who lost people, rather than to shut down the factory long enough to repair, and that occurred to him as modern a definition of sacrifice as there might be.

See the new image of Vulcan below:

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Image via Starz

American Gods tells of a war between the old gods of classical mythologies (Odin, Anubis, Loki, etc.) and the new gods of modernity (television, the Internet, drugs, etc.). Vulcan is the ancient Roman god of volcanoes and the forge, but he’s been able to maintain his flock through guns and ammunition.

Fuller said:

We started talking about America’s obsession with guns and gun control and, really, if you’re holding a gun in your hand, it’s a mini volcano, and perhaps, through this character, there’s a conversation to be had.

American Gods will premiere on Starz this coming April.

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