Epics, Sagas, Fantasies, Mythos, Legends, Nations.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd really like to see something based on Lord Dunsany's "The Gods of Pegana", "Time and the Gods", "The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories". Is anyone else familiar with them? I've got a lot of interest in these "pre-Tolkien" fantasy authors, and Lord Dunsany's maybe the best of all of them.

As much as I enjoy Lovecraft's works, I hate to see him overshadow so many other authors at this time-not that he doesn't deserve the credit for being a huge influence as a writer-but there's a huge body of work that doesn't have anything like the popularity of the C'thulhu Mythos-even Lovecraft's Dreamlands cycle is comparatively little known.

Aside from that, he had his own influences, and Lord Dunsany was one of them.

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez: The White People sound really interesting-thanks for sharing! Where does the legend come from? as in what geographical location? I know there are Native American legends about the Sky People that sound somewhat similar-but I'm guessing not, because of the reference to "soldiers". I've never heard of the Kommagene Kingdom or the Taurus mountain range.

[HoneyBadger]

Pre-colonial and early Colonial America was, in many ways, a VERY creepy place. Survival was hard, and the indigenous peoples had many stories that we today would recognise as horror stories. Ritual sacrifice, use of hallucinogenic plants in religious ceremonies, communion with spirits on a day to day basis, and cannibalism-which may have been much more myth than reality-atleast before the Donner Party-but was no less frightening-Add to that the stories about devils, witches, and ghosts that the Pilgrims and other settlers brought over from Europe, and it's no wonder that we're fascinated by the scary, creepy, gruesome and gory-we inherited that fascination from our forefathers!

Ofcourse, everybody's heard of the Chupacabra-if you haven't, it's a part lizard, part frog, part vampire, that exanguinates goats and other livestock, as well as often removing the livestock's internal organs with surgical precision, in the SouthWest-but here's a few more legends that may be part myth, part urban legend, and part fact-or atleast truth:


1: There are stories, fairly recent ones, about a mysterious city that lies somewhere in the Grand Canyon, in an area that is closed off to the public due to supposedly "unsafe" conditions-so unsafe infact that they won't even allow expert rock-climbers into the area. It's pretty easy to Google this one.

http://www.xpeditionsmagazine.com/ma...on/canyon.html

Years ago I read a version of this story that suggested the city was infact a "city of ghouls", and that the "ghouls" came out at night to steal people-which is why the area has been sealed off, to contain the hordes of nightmarish, immortal CHUDs.

2: Other stories from the 18th and 19th century concerns settlers and farmers discovering gigantic humanoid bones buried in various "Indian" burial grounds. This one can also be Googled.

3: There's supposedly a ranch in Utah, known as the "Skinwalker Ranch" where mysterious supernatural and UFO events supposedly occur. This one's in Wikipedia (the article is a bit vague, but contains lots of interesting ideas). The Ute Skinwalkers themselves are pretty interesting-being either a sort of monstrous lycanthrope, an extremely powerful shaman, or both at the same time. Apparently, the Skinwalkers were either sent by the Gods to punish the Ute, or the Ute all used to be Skinwalkers, but they used their power for selfish reasons, and were cursed, so most of them set their powers aside, but a few held on to them and hid themselves away.

I've often thought that it would be interesting to have either a nation of ghouls, or a Native American undead nation (or both!). Maybe with Skinwalker and giant units/summons.

Here are a few links to sites with Native American stories:

http://www.livingmyths.com/Nativesum.htm

http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/loreindx.html

http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Le...egends-AB.html

[TheMenacer]

I'd absolutely love to see an aboriginal Australian nation complete with bunyips and all sorts of supernatural nasties (like the vampire who's specific name I can't recall that looked like a tiny man with octopus suckers for fingers that'd find people asleep under trees, swallow them whole, and then spit them out slightly drained night after night until they gradually transformed into another vampire).

I'd also love a native american nation complete with skinwalkers and totemic spirits. The problem is of course that there were a whole lot of native american nations with a very diverse set of mythologies. I'm certain that wouldn't be a problem to abstract though, maybe their pretender god united the nations or somesuch. If I recall correctly, skinwalkers were supposed to be shamans that had given up their humanity and wore animal skins that allowed them to transform into animals. They were tremendously powerful and subtle when they wanted to be, and were figures to be both revered and feared.

On the literary side, I'd like to see some influence from Michael Moorecock, he's an awesome and influential writer from back in the days when science fiction and fantasy were considered to be pretty much the same thing. I wouldn't really want a nation based on his work per say as it was generally your standard high fantasy fare, but a few summons that referenced his work would be nice. Maybe the major players of the war between law and chaos could make an appearance, as I'd imagine they'd have something to say in the war for ultimate godhood.

[Lingchih]

HoneyBadger said:
I'd really like to see something based on Lord Dunsany's "The Gods of Pegana", "Time and the Gods", "The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories". Is anyone else familiar with them? I've got a lot of interest in these "pre-Tolkien" fantasy authors, and Lord Dunsany's maybe the best of all of them.

As much as I enjoy Lovecraft's works, I hate to see him overshadow so many other authors at this time-not that he doesn't deserve the credit for being a huge influence as a writer-but there's a huge body of work that doesn't have anything like the popularity of the C'thulhu Mythos-even Lovecraft's Dreamlands cycle is comparatively little known.

Aside from that, he had his own influences, and Lord Dunsany was one of them.

Yes, I've read the King of Elfland's Daughter, which is an incredible book, and the Book of Wonder. I would love to read more, but his other fantasy is extremely hard to find.

[JimMorrison]

MaxWilson said:
Jim,

Isn't that the source for Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath? Huge alien beings with godlike powers that educated humans for mysterious reasons and spawned a race of giants?

-Max

Ehh, I am pretty sure Hinnom et al are Jewish. Actually, I just looked it up, that is certainly the case. Did IW throw in the Annunaki to get the giant aspect? Not sure, as the Annunaki mythos in Sumeria does not include things like flesh-eating and such.

And as far as I know, there was no evidence that in Sumerian tradition, there was any interbreeding. In fact, from what we know, the Annunaki did not let ordinary people even into their presence, they had "temples" erected where they would take audience using their "priests" as mediators, IIRC.

[sector24]

Something about Dom3 I found interesting. The spell Streams of Hades summons a Kokythiad; but such a thing does not exist in Greek mythology. It is a perfectly reasonable type of naiad that could have existed, but apparently it didn't. It's very cool to blend mythology and fantasy in such a seamless way that you almost feel like the Greeks were the ones who messed up.

The idea could be futher expanded. Here's a little excerpt from wikipedia:

"These rivers had names and symbolic meanings: the five rivers of Hades are Acheron (the river of sorrow), Cocytus (lamentation), Phlegethon (fire), Lethe (forgetfulness) and Styx (hate)"

Cocytus (Kokytos -> Kokythiad) and Styx are the popular rivers, but there's room for additional content to be created around the other rivers.

Ague of Acheron - Ritual that spreads disease and sorrow through a province by poisonous water bubbling up from Hades. (Same alliteration as Claws of Cocytus, just a different effect. Could be Agony of Acheron if you don't like the word Ague.)

Summon Phlegethiad - W/D path to summon a F/D or F/W mage

Alright, no more brainstorming. I'm keeping the rest of these ideas to make my own game.

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
Ehh, I am pretty sure Hinnom et al are Jewish. Actually, I just looked it up, that is certainly the case. Did IW throw in the Annunaki to get the giant aspect? Not sure, as the Annunaki mythos in Sumeria does not include things like flesh-eating and such.

And as far as I know, there was no evidence that in Sumerian tradition, there was any interbreeding. In fact, from what we know, the Annunaki did not let ordinary people even into their presence, they had "temples" erected where they would take audience using their "priests" as mediators, IIRC.

Good point. I tend to equate early Hebrew <=> Sumerian (it sure looks like they're drawing on the same source material, filtered through different lenses) but they don't have to be the same thing from a game perspective. And you've pointed out one big difference between the Annunaki and Hinnom's Grigori.

-Max

[Omnirizon]

JimMorrison said:
My favorite that I would like to see though, is something based off of the Sumerian Annunaki. Some believe that they were alien visitors, and the mystery shrouding the mythos makes it very compelling to me. The Annunaki were said to be giants (not huuuuge, but say 10ft tall), and had godlike powers with which they ruled the Sumerians. The stranger websites claim that they educated humans, and they were the reason that we developed civilization, in exchange for using us as slaves to mine gold that they needed to repair/fuel their spaceship and get off of this planet, or some such thing. It's pretty far out, but even just using the stuff that we can reason to be true, it's very interesting (and no reason not to include hints of alien visitation, it's fun!).

Anyway, the wiki has an interesting taste of it, unfortunately the only websites I have bookmarked, are kind of crazy. >.> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anunnaki

that just gave me a great idea for a race based off of scientology mythology

[JimMorrison]

Hahaha, I love it!

There needs to be a Xenu pretender too. 8 )