>>61434851
I thought it up ;-)

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There was once three gates. The gods were lonely and wanted to let in everything that could be, but keep out the bad stuff.

So while the Gods of the various elements, magics, earth and sky got to work making the world, the warrior God took his big wolf dog to the three magic black gates where everything that could be was.

All three had to be opened at the same time, so he opened them and he stood guard at one gate, letting in only the races and people that would work well within the world; and that is why all people of the world have respect for the Gods.

The dog watched another gate, and using her jaws, ripped out the throats of any creatures too loathesome or too weak to survive in the world, and that is why all the animals of the world have different strategies to survive.

But the third gate, which was opened just a crack, wasn't being watched. And it was here that magical creatures, sneaky monsters, evil thoughts and bad weather crept into the world. And this is why dark places and far away lands scare people; because nobody truly knows what came through that gate.

Something like that, anyway.

>>61434851
You know what, I just read some stuff about world trees and now I want it to be in my setting, but it might actually conflict with my creation myth. At the same time: was the world tree in the norse creation myth ever mentioned? Because I think mine is pretty similar.

>>61434851
A newborn God saw his elders fighting in the heavens and wanted to grow up to be just like them. So he made a giant but crude sword and like all kids new to the unknown dangers of harm and pain he played with this sword. Eventually in his play he cut himself deep upon the sword and his blood flowed upon the swords surface in great gouts. In his anger and pain he flung his now unfavored toy away cursing it to a firey doom for daring to hurt him and this curse lay itself upon one side of the blade in the form of runes. Where his blood dripped and pooled life of all varieties sprung up from animals to plants to sentients and what was left pooled and flowed into the swords marred and pitted surfaces to form great rivers and bodies of water. The sword itself eventually settled into a stable orbit around the sun it was originally doomed to fall into thanks to the efforts of the darksiders who had the cursed runes to translate and read and much later with the help of the lightsiders using a combination of mining out key points of the sword to change its angle of rotation and a bit of magic to give small nudges that initially were seen as both quakes and attacks to the unknowing lightsiders which started the original creation wars and saw the birth of both the concepts of warfare and that of ascendant gods and the creation of pantheons for both sides.

As it stands the swords orbiting at a safe distance, the dark side is no longer being periodically exposed to the sun killing off the sensitive fauna and flora, and both the pantheons and sides are at a new peace though the war in heaven still rages.

>>61435005
Yggdrasil wasn't really a physical tree, more like an allegorical respresentation of the time and space I think.

>>61434965

What's the inspiration for this? I've heard of something similar but I can't quite place it.

>>61435256
I think the arrangement of worlds and roots didn't really make much sense when you have to imagine it as a physical entity.

>>61434851
the players are supposed to make the world
the entire campaign is just them trying to create another universe

>>61435298
How so?

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Once upon a time there was nothing but a bottomless ocean and an endless sky.

One day two brothers appeared. One came from the sky and the other from the water.

At first they got along, searching up and down both their domains for another being, another sign of life.

Eons passed and the brothers slowly grew frustrated and insane. They soon began to fight one another.

The brothers fought for millennia. Their blood, broken bones, cartilage and life essence itself flowed into the ocean and flew into the sky creating the universe with their ravaged bodies.

Life sprang from within the remains of the brothers like bacteria from a mortal and that is how the world came to be.

The different religions of my world split off from this creation myth. Some think one of the brothers survived and rules over the universe, some thing they both killed each other and some think neither of them died.

>>61435449
I think there was one root that goes through one of the upper worlds, one through the middle and through the lower worlds.

>>61434851
My world is created by an eldritch entity who is the same species as Azathoth named the Source but it created the world conciously unlike Azathoth. It endlessly spouts matter and some took form into other entities who became gods. Some gods are orderly and created their own worlds however these worlds are usually dull while some wanted chaos and destroyed worlds for there own amusement. An entity who is the herald of the Source took pity to the orderly gods and created a world where they can create but cannot directly influence their creations. The chaos gods heard about this because the Source lets it happen just to make things interesting. Despite the creator gods being orderly they would dispute on how the world should work.

To be continued

It's a giant, fuckoff huge ship and the "gods" are crew which live and work on it. Mortals are like the size of fleas, living on the ship. What is beyond the ship is unclear, assumedly just ocean and then prophesied stops at land which are treated as the beginning of a new age each time. Where the ship came from or is going, no civilization is old enough/has records of that far back and only wise sages can guess at where the ship is going. The only information can be discerned by priests of the different religions, who get near to the "gods" to listen in on their conversations or spy on their lives on the ship or in their quarters and such.

>>61434851
>his setting only has one creation myth

>>61435524
Not that I recall. Theres 3 roots. One for niflheim, one for jotunheim, and one for hel and the tips each land in a well(hvergelmir, mímisbrunnr, and Urðarbrunnr respectively.)

>>61435612
Maybe I need to reread that shit. I'm tired anyway.

>>61435272

I posted about it before in another thread. Or there could be some myth that I never heard of that had the same thing.

>>61435510
Reminds me of Xenoblade somewhat. I like it.

>>61435298
That's a modern invention spouted by people who wish the old myths to sound much smarter and profound than they actually are - usually the same people who make wild claims like that Norse mythology was cyclical in nature.
There's absolutely nothing in the stories that have been preserved and can be studied that implies that Yggdrasil was ever meant to anything other than a very physical tree upon which the world rested.

>>61435534
It's interesting how most fantasy settings have a 'definite' cosmology/creation myth with in-universe alternatives that are factually disproven.

>>61436251
That usually comes down to gods factually being real and meddling to some degree. IRL debate can range on that subject about basically anything because nothing definitive positive or negative has shown itself but in fantasy theres almost always some god/s around proving they exist and everything related to them exists as well.
Ex: in DnD theres no question how shit was made, if gods are real, and if souls are real.

>>61436497
>theres almost always some god/s around proving they exist
So? That doesn't mean all the gods claim the same thing or that their claims aren't mutually exclusive. Just because you know them to exist doesn't mean you have to accept that they are gods either as they might just be powerful demons pretending at godhood. In fact, the god you worship might outright claim this about all other gods. Then again, just because gods exist doesn't mean that they actually care about what mortals are doing, so while a religious group might claim A about god X and another claims B while a third claims C there's still no one who actually can verify if either or all of them are true because to the gods it couldn't matter less what the mortals believe about the matter.

>>61436615
Imagine you are a little kid raised in a society who's prevailing thoughts on gods and creation were handed to them by said god quite literally and has not changed for generations due to said gods presence being shown every so often and the miracles of his workers being a readily observable and demonstrable thing. Now imagine you were raised to believe in said God and have seen said workers miracles.
What reason would you have to question that gods validity?

>>61436910
>What reason would you have to question that gods validity?
Another faith worshipping another empirically provable to exist god somehow showing that their god is greater than mine and proclaiming that my god is nothing more than a malevolent spirit who tricks people into worshipping it. For example.

>>61434851
Which one? Each religion uas one

>>61436969
Okay, your God and your gods church people claim the exact opposite. Remember, you've been raised to believe in these gods and people and have very good very demonstratable reason to trust this belief meanwhile these random guys show up making claims their God is better than yours.
What reason would you have to question the validity of your god and to trust the validity of their statement?

>>61437004
>What reason would you have to question the validity of your god and to trust the validity of their statement?
This part
>somehow showing that their god is greater than mine

>>61436988
Then list them?

My big thing with this setting I got is that rather than a single creation story or a series of alternate accounts of creation, I just have a jumbled mess of information about prehistory without any clear continuity.

What probably happened first was that a strictly material plane merged with an independent and spiritual plane which was composed by a sovereign Will without a being attached to it. The result of this merger is the universe.
Imagine two universes ramming into each other to create a new universe with traits of the previous two but still wholly distinct.

The world was (maybe) initially created when the physical elements of the material universe took form and permanence after coming in contact with the Will.
The world was initial very cold and lacked water, air and fire but then "demons" from the spirit plane began to force themselves to incarnate so they can inhabit/control the world, adding other elements to the hunk of earth.

Most people don't care about that stuff. What they care about is that eventually the first god came into existence and warped the world into what it is now, expelling demons almost completely from the world. It is known that humans predate this first god by about 1000 years. If you ask a layman in this setting to explain the creation of the world, he'll tell you this story.
The god is understood to be the creator god by virtue of having created himself (the only being known to do so) and creating the world as it is known today. He also "created" the other gods although it's more like he gave god-power to a group of humans.

So, those are the broad stokes.

>>61436615
I think you might be too wrapped-up in what people could do with their creation stories. Just because a god in a setting could be a demon in disguise, that doesn't mean he should be.

>>61437095
>Just because a god in a setting could be a demon in disguise
It's not about if a god could be. It's about what people believe and what religious orders may claim. You'd theoretically never have to make up your mind either way or could simply having there be no actual difference between the two. The point is quite simply that just because gods are empirically provable to exist it doesn't mean that everyone will believe the same thing.

>>61437023
And you would just throw away your entire faith, family, and society at the random claims of a heathen?
I have land to sell to you and an rich uncles will you should sign.

>>61434851
Which one? You don't think the entire world has the same creation myth, do you?

>>61437174
Then list them?

>>61437146
>at the random claims of a heathen
A random claim is not the same thing as proving something.

>>61437130
I think it all depends on how the people of this setting defines godhood. My setting, for example, has a pretty clear definition of godhood that would put a stop to most of the hypothetically arguments that have been thrown-out in this discussion.

The point that I was trying to make is that some settings may just get along better with a simple unchallenged understanding of what is and isn't a god. You, the player/reader/whatever, know that there are ways that the writer could mix things up with their mythology but maybe there just isn't a practical need for the writer to do so.
Do you get what I'm saying.

>>61437329
You're not arguing against me. You're saying the same thing I'm saying but wording it differently so that it'll look like you've won when I say I agree with you. Read >>61436615 again. I never said that a setting must have this kind of uncertainty (though I personally find it way more interesting) but that having empirically provable gods doesn't automatically mean that everyone agrees and are certain about things.

>>61437264
Happens all the time and followers just double down. The brains wired to double down instead of be proven wrong it's just how we're made theres even a name for it though I've forgotten it currently.
Ex: science vs religion.
What makes you think you being raised that way or others raised similarly wouldn't just follow that trend instead of being one of the few outliers?

>>61437475
>Happens all the time and followers just double down
Donar's Oak.

>>61437511
You're claiming an extreme outlier with a case of No Power vs. Power is a basis not an outlier in and of itself.
We're talking demonstrable Power vs. Power.

>>61437429
>Just because you know them to exist doesn't mean you have to accept that they are gods
I'm reading this as saying "just because you know the gods exist who fit the criteria for being gods that doesn't mean people have to accept them as gods".

>having empirically provable gods doesn't automatically mean that everyone agrees and are certain about things
I guess that's technically true but I just kind of assume that if anything is empirical and provable then the majority of people would believe it.
And more to the point, what would be the practical use of a writer including people like this in a setting?

>>61437554
>No Power vs. Power
That's not what I'm claiming at all. I have neither accepted or denied the existence of either Yahweh or Thor in this case.

>>61434851
I based my main characters on the Ainu, the native people of Japan, with elements of the Cree. They believe that the great cloud serpent Yotin-ari-kamuy created the world though his divine storms; thunder, hail, and wind shaped the island they walk. Of course, many other peoples claim differently, from a tree who grew civilization to a potter god who spaed people from clay to there being no god, and lifeforms always existed and just adapted.

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>>61436081
Good taste.

>>61437604
No the tree.
It had no capability to defend itself from being cut down and turned into a church.
IE No Power vs. Power
In the case we're talking about this is 2 gods both with demonstrable powers.
IE Power vs. Power

>>61437598
>I'm reading this as
Yes. That is what I'm saying.

>what would be the practical use of a writer including people like this in a setting?
Being able to include different faiths that worship different gods in different ways. Being able to include sects and schisms within otherwised unified religious systems. Adding variety to your setting.

>>61437671
Yes, and as such if they're able to destroy one of my god's most holy sites, surely that must mean that their god is stronger than mine.

>>61435510
>One day two brothers appeared. One came from the sky and the other from the water.
How are they brothers, then? Or are you just saying they're black?

>>61434851
The first god, bitter about the fact that nobody wanted to worship him, decided to make his own world, with blackjack and hookers. He cupped his hands under the waters of life and cut them off, then took out his fiery eye and left it sitting above the world, to watch all mortals suffer underneath it's scorching light.

Then some other gods came in, kicked sand in his eyes and shoved him into a locker, from where he bitterly plots revenge against the much cooler gods that everyone likes.

>>61437716
This assumes the God protects holy sites or if thats down to individuals who aren't God.

>>61437801
No, it just assumes that people think they do.

>>61437723
The rules for mythological brothers tend to work differently from biological brothers.
I'm more concerned with how sky and ocean (both mostly water) would have children with bones and blood rather than giving birth to rain, wind, clouds and so forth.

>>61437685
Ok, we'll call this discussion the result of poor reading comprehension.

>>61437817
That comes down to the gods track record on the matter.
Again, they physically exist in this world and I doubt that's the first time a holysite or church was attacked or fucked up.

>>61437865
If you were a god who wanted to be worshiped, I'd imagine protecting holy sites would be high on your list of priorities.
I mean, if my god can't even protect his own temples, I wouldn't give him the time of day.

>>61437909
Plenty of gods run off strength of arms and/independence of their followers from him the main body. Again, as I said earlier, this depends entirely on the gods track record on such things but plenty expect their followers to be strong and self-sufficient otherwise they weren't worth his time.

>>61437204
Some dwarves believe the world was sung into being. The God's are Tones of the first Tone

Some dwarves believe if Darwinism/evolution, & are agnostic

Elves believe it was carved & crafted by the Dragon God's out of their progenitor

Humans believe lots of different things, the man religion teaches that the gods made man to fight corruption of their vision. All monsters/evil things are of tgis corrupted nature

The gods were debating perfect races so they created a world specifically to find out which race would be the last one standing.

>>61434851
There are two deities worth knowing about.

The first was a renowned artist and craftsman. Forger of a thousand truths, weaver of ten thousand skies, singer of a million fates. He was hailed as the greatest, and not without merit.

The second was less renowned, but not for a lack of skill. There was envy at the first being so lauded, but the second decided to make something to earn recognition. Something truly great, something nigh-perfect. And so he set to work.

Great spheres spun around a shining gem of a sun, a work of metal and spirit and life. The second had finished the barebones structure of the thing when the first arrived. The first recognized that the work would be a great thing, but also though there were many flaws that he, as the most skilled of them all, believed he was qualified to advise against and fix. The second rebuffed this, for this work was meant to eclipse the first's, and continued. The first insisted, for there were indeed seemingly fatal flaws in the work. The second doubled down, continuing on.

And then the first touched the work, altered it. It was a small thing, a slight adjustment that the second might've done himself. But it was done. Things escalated quickly, with both trying to impose their vision upon the work at the same time while also trying to fight the other. Spheres were thrown out of alignment, chunks were torn out of where they shouldn't have been, blends of material were left unbalanced, and all issues were hastily fixed if at all. As the fighting wound down, the work was a barely functioning mess, and neither were in a state to fully complete it.

One of them was dead, after all. The second had perished, falling down into the work, blood spilling deep into the now-roiling stone. But he hadn't gone quietly, and while the first lived, he no longer thought. A celestial hammer caving the skull will do that. Dreams and worse churned within the brain-dead god.

And that was the world at the start.

There isn't one creation myth for the world. Each society has its own, even though all societies have the same 9 gods (who are real and do manifest). The gods arent inclinded to talk about what really happened, but various philosphers and wise men have gathered clues from the avatars of the gods.
The mostly widely believed creation story is closest to the truth. It says that the three first gods (Lautne, the greatest of the gods. Hafner, his consort and queen. The Unnamed God) came from another world, a flawed world. They saw a void, and created the sun (where you go when you die, if you were a good person) and the earth and the seas (the damned are said to live at the bottom of the sea, where they suffocate but can't die). The original inhabitants of the void, the Jotunn, were angry, and warred against the three. They killed the unnamed god, and out of anger, Lautne forged an axe and killed thousands of Jotunn with a single blow. Out of the corpse of the unnamed God and the blood of the Jotunn, the other seven gods sprang forth. And ever since, this Jotunn lived in the wilderness and unclaimed parts of the world, while the Gods created man and made civilization. The gods are of order and justice, the Jotunn of wilderness and savagry. One day, there will be a great war, and the Jotunn will be vanquished. But that is not for a long, long time

Most of it is bullshit. The truth is, Lautne made a deal, and became the villain. He killed the unnamed God. Not that Lautne is evil. His actions also caused the world to exist, but that's for another post (maybe).

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>>61434851
Chaos scremaed and screamed as it has always done. In a certain moment, pure chance made of the Scream a Word, the first Word: EL. The first being with name and thus identity, EL commanded Chaos to stay silent, and repeat what EL said. As It imagined something, EL created the corresponding word for Chaos to repeat, giving form and substance to ideas. And the things said by EL and repeated by Chaos became objects and worlds, elements and life. Transforming the power of Chaos in Order, EL was the creative force that generated Creation.
-Atavic manuscripts of the Silvered Dinasty, Volume VIII.

Huh. Come to think of it, my setting is pretty much a steady-state universe.
I'll get back to you on that, OP.

>>61437723
They are brothers in the way that the only two beings on a species are brothers. Thier species is Titan, they are, have been and will be the only two titans, so they are brothers
>>61437850
I wanted my myth to be abstract and vuage like many ancient creation myths, not everything makes sense most of the time but it still happens, this is how they are flesh and blood.

>>61434965
pretty neat

>>61438584
>Some dwarves believe in darwinism
>Not dwarvinism
You missed an opportunity here anon.

>>61439636
If they believed in dwarvinism they wouldn't have an explanation as to why their species has been on the decline lately.

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>>61434851
Long ago, the Gods waged a war in their plane. Because they are immortal, war was a common occurrence, a matter used to settle disputes or even sport.

One day the Dark Lord forged a terrible weapon. With it, he struck his foes and their very essence shattered into millions of pieces, never to reform. Dozens fell before him and he rose to take the Throne.

However, a group of servants managed to band together and created a net in secret before the Raid of the Throneroom. This net would draw in all of the scattered shards of their masters out of the air and gather it into one place, where they could be preserved without evaporating.
They hid the shards within a grand painting they claimed to have created to please their new Master. It had mystic properties, as the scenery upon it moved of its own accord, and would react to additional things being painted upon it, which the Dark Lord would use to inflict disasters upon the figures for his amusement.

In truth, the world of mortals is that very painting. The gods worshiped by mortals are their own former servants.

Within every mortal's soul resides a kernel of divinity, seeking to remember its godhood and reform to what it once was. When a mortal dies, their soul is caught again by the net (which was woven into the fibers of the canvas), which permits their own memories gathered during their life to evaporate while keeping the divine shard contained until it is reborn in a new mortal.

The only way to break this cycle is for the shard to recall which god it was, either by the mortal living a live so similar to his shard's origin it regains its memories by accident, or by achieving a natural enlightenment through meditation and soul-searching.

After the shard recalls who it is and the mortal dies, it is plucked out by the servants and placed into a jar to hold it and the other shards of that god until every shard of that god is gathered and they can be revived.

>>61434851
"You fucked up."

I don't have one. I discovered that anything I came up with took out a lot of the magic, because instead of some primordial before-time you had whatever gay idea I'd come up with (e.g. the two gods of is and isn't constantly create and destroy worlds as they look into each other).

So now, all I have is that some *thing* created the multiverse as a cradle for the birth of...something. Or, it's an engine, or a factory, producing who knows what. The reality is probably a mix of all these things, but I don't want to figure out what because it'll probably be gay again.

I do have really early myths, but they're about the creation of the star-gods or the first empire and stuff.

The world was discovered in the year 1 by some dwarven sailor gods. The gods were mostly doing their own thing beforehand.

>>61435005
It's mentioned several times in Odins myths. He physically hangs himself from it, it has a root in yggdrasil where the norns live and the gods hold council, a root where Mimirs well is, and is has roots that feed off the waters in Nifelheim.
There is also a few divine animals like a giant eagle, a couple of stags and a squirrel that live in it. And it has a "dragon" that gnaws at the root in Hel.
It is still treated as being both physical and metaphysical though.

>>61438584
Darwinism would explain the world, not the world's origin.

>>61440406
They believe in whatever people call it when you think God is fake & the world just happened to happen.

>>61439636
If I had said that no one would know what I meant

>>61437475
You nignog, people always adapted religious ideals to suit scientific fact.

Most of the major races came from a single precursor. Since magic can mutate and affect the body, living in various areas saturated with it can produce significantly different evolutionary results (orcs and elves most strongly affected by this). As sentient races rose up their collective psychic energy created gods in their image, who proceeded to steer the development of their patron species in turn.

Actual creation myths vary; the humans generally believe their god split parts of himself off to make them, the dwarves believe their god's rising from the earth created their homelands' mountains and themselves from the stone, the elves believe they have always existed, orcs believe the great spirits made them as servants, and generally lycans have none to speak of since they're an artificial race less than 1100 years old. The insects aren't exactly releasing any detail about what they believe in, but it apparently involves the sun.

>>61439835
Brety cool

>>61440672
Correct. They never overturned religious belief in favor of something directly proving otherwise. Instead they doubled down and bent the new facts to fit in their religion mental tetris game.

>>61434851
If I created my own setting I'd probably rip-off the Mormonism creation myth.
>God, aka Elohim, was one of hundreds of other gods.
>He created humanity by having endless celestial sex with his many wives, who all gave birth to thousands of spirit children.
>The spirit children were sent to earth.
>Satan wanted all of humanity to ascend to godhood, Jesus said people should have the choice to ascend to godhood.
>War breaks out, Satan lost and his followers become demons. Those who fought with Jesus become white people, those who stayed neutral are cursed with black skin.
>There are 3 tiers of heaven, the highest tier is becoming a god and being given your own planet to rule over (and have endless celestial sex all the time if you want).

>>61441154
>There are 3 tiers of heaven, the highest tier is becoming a god and being given your own planet to rule over (and have endless celestial sex all the time if you want).
Can my planet be inhabited exclusively by lamias?

>>61434851
In my game world there are only twenty or so Gods. They have a thousand different names & each culture views them differently, so for player use i just gave them titles

I.e. the Lightning Lord might be seen as a brave Mediterranean war god in a toga & a bolt if lightning, named Torathi, by the Not!Greeks where as the same god the Lighting Lord could be seen as a chaotic boastful quarrelsome drunkard, named Orn by the Not!Norse. The God's don't really care. By & large they don't really do much, they are the embodiment of ideas/forms, things like storms, farming, darkness, sunlight, etc.

The oldest of the gods is the Lord of Darkness, he isn't malicious, but he is still the embodiment of darkness & death & iinevitably. He used to be the chief god, & is the one who focuses on holding the Eldritch Horrors at bay. The youngest god is that of Sunlight, who has become the new chief god.

In my world, Humans & Dragons are the oldest races, living on a barren rock surrounded by darkness, with the birth/Creation of the Lord of Sunlight, the world now thrives with life. The other races come from humans being changed by the influence/proximity to the Gods. Sun elves are from humans who followed the sun god & started to adapt features reflective of who he is. Etc

>>61434851
You know that autistic screeching meme?
Yeah well that's the creation myth and theology of the setting. Just a bunch of autistic superbeings being spergs.

Even have a literal beta orbiter who went full school shooter on the world because he got rebuffed by autistic mother earth.

>>61440498
>God is fake
As in, they believe God doesn't exist, or that the existing God is just fooling everyone else?

>>61434851
It is the year 2055, the world's population has reached 10 billion souls, the day that was prophesied came, some called it the end of days, others called it the rapture, what it really was was the harvesting. The creators of life returned, the progenitors of our world.

From the 9 billion 'collected' they would be used to seed new worlds, each world being allocated 10,000 souls, with a quarter of those with access to a 'god console' to become the new god's of their realm, to become the hero's of legend, to use their skills to guide those 'reborn' on these new frontiers. Will you become like Thor God of thunder, Buddah kind and guiding, or the serpent full of deceit, the choice is yours.

>>61440943
No you fucking retard they bent religion, which literally runs on reinterpretation, to suit the supposed facts (whether that was scientific or mythological e.g. Buddhism kick-starting the existence of non ancestral ghosts in China).

And that's ignoring all the fuckers who dropped religion entirely! By the Victorian period there was a very popular intellectual movement of atheists. And now damn near everyone's atheist or agnostic, at least in the west.

>>61441154
That's pretty hardcore. Didn't know that.

>>61441782
>turning mythology into a videogame
Fucking why

>>61442200
True it takes time and real facts working against whatever construct they're religion takes form in but it takes many multiple generations and long hard fought battles to do it. But, as you said, most cases end up being bent views to consolidate what they KNOW is true but also at least allows for those new tid bits assuming they don't just bar the source of discontent away like they often did until their ideas caught traction years later after their deaths.
This particular scenario, however, is you and everyone else being raised to be a good follower of -insert deity- who occasionally shows themselves to be real and who has followers that can use his granted powers demonstrable being challenged by a follower of another God claiming yours is a sham. In that world science would never overtake religion the way it did ours as there'd be no reason, it literally would just be explaining how gods set shit up not disproving gods but possibly even supporting them, and there'd be no reason for you or others to instantly question yourselves, your society, and your God at the words or even basic actions of an antagonist.

>>61441264
Sure, just make sure to wear your magic underwear.

>>61442244
Different anon.
Why not? We readily learn and accept things like computer controls for RTS's and the like. It would be a non-overwhelming way a mortal to use godlike powers without running the risk of giving them godlike powers.

Ancient Human Astronauts wipe out alien species. Humans settle it and terraform the planet for their own use. Shit happens later on and Humans are left alone on planet away from the Empire.
Humans are changed/mutated by "Energies" (magic) and over millenia gain superpowers/magic.

>>61434965
"hey. ya, u god of X, hey, c'mere. im gonna open the gates. lol i know right? but u just have to watch the 3rd one for a bit ok? ya i figured it was prudent to come ask u since we dont want any weird shit fucking things up, thx."

>>61441679
People who don't believe in Jesus, & think that the world just happened with no deity. I have dwarves in my setting that think that the world just happenened to develop life, instead of gods creating it

>>61442625
Because it's (literally) soulless. It's plain boring worldbuilding. You lose everything interesting about mythology by making it a video game.

>>61442942
Explain. To me it's a more concrete form of why some people end up being superhuman fuckers and others are npc's.

Once there were two brothers, one who loved Creation, and one of Destruction who was always taking things apart. They worked together, experimenting with things the Creator made, and the Destroyer getting rid of clutter, failed creations (the Creator hates harming his creations, even the failed ones). Then the Creator decided to make the universe, secretly hoping to give it to his brother as a present. His brother, jealous at the creation, mocked it for its imperfection, and so the Creator made another one, more perfect, and gave the perfect one to the Destroyer.

Despite it being Perfect, the Destroyer's nature was to Ruin, whereas the Creator's imperfect world flourished. The Destroyer, believing that since the First universe was originally meant for him, attempted to steal it. The two brothers wrestled, and eventually the Creator won. but the two universes were broken. The Creator stitched the two together (where Ley Lines are from), and castrated his brother to weaken him, taking her as his new bride to watch over her.

But her new form granted her a new power: a lesser form of creation. from her old ejaculate she birthed demons and monsters to continue her spiteful attempts to ruin the new universe.

Thats the gist anyway.

>>61434851
In the past world there were heroes, three of the greatest four became Titans and the fourth, the Enlightened One, rallied with his surviving heroes to become the new gods in a new world. The three serpent gods of sky, land, and sea shed their skins and the Enlightened One laid them out as the new world. Kadaam and Reyn, who were the sun and moon, brought a spirit of war, growth, ambition, culture, love, and freedom which would become life, the living beings of this new world. Lastly there was the Lightbringer and her sister Darkweaver, the two halves of truth, each would protect and challenge the world to help the ever growing future of all living beings.

Lastly the Enlightened One himself became as a star, covered in the skins of the serpent gods where he would forever hold the world. In this new world heroes would join Kadaam and Reyn in the sky as each star, and constellations would reflect noble adventuring parties. The Enlightened One being a new star would explain away the plate tectonic nonsense of the world, and as th serpent skins are old occasional tears would lead to mountains/ravines/volcanoes/whatever.

The three Titans simply dotted the lands as simple statues, waiting for a time they would be needed once more

>>61443201
I left out their names and a few details though, they are on a word doc somewhere

Once the world and the heaven were massive and full. The gods were curious as to what might lay beneath, so they dug deep abysses into the heaven. They dug so deeply, that the abyss became infinitely deep and infinitely wide, until they thought that they had dug enough. This is why we cannot reach the heaven, and neither can we reach the borders of this world. It has become empty due to the gods' curious digging.

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>>61443497
Why are you stealing ideas from 80s arcade games?

>>61442942
How else could I run the players as god's then oh genius of /tg/ to play a world building game people generally want to build the world, and not just poof, it's magic.
It's your world is now fully sustainable so we are using you to seed new worlds and build new myths, and lays the seed that this isn't the first time it has happened

>>61443665
He's just REEEing over muh vidya in muh tabletop.

>>61443661
Heh.

Anyway, funnily enough, one of the first computer games I played was Digger for some ancient home computer (though I am not sure which one it was), which was essentially a knock-off of Dig Dug. So maybe thats why.

Explorers who set foot on alien worlds across the galaxy will find them teeming with bizarre, unusual alien life... and somehow, turtles. Or squids. Or snakes, and so on. The surface fauna will be different from world to world, but underwater life will almost always be the same. There's a reason for that.

Each major celestial object, every star across the universe, is actually a titanic beast, one of the First. They resemble the sea life we know on Earth, but they hide their true forms behind masks: a halo of light, a cloak of darkness or a shell of rock. Among the First who fancy the latter, many grow life over their bodies, and generally shape sea creatures in their own images (or in the image of fellow gods). Therefore it's wrong to say the First are in the shape of, say, whales and eels: it's the other way around.

The First create life for a variety of strange reasons. Some do it as a form of art, others out of sheer curiosity. Some have strange or selfish reasons, such as Ananta, the world-serpent, who was exiled by the First for reasons that may have been cruel and unjust. At first, it would seem as if Ananta created sapient life -- humanity and other surface races, but also, of course, the peoples of the sea -- to entertain itself on its long, lonely pilgrimage through the depths of space.

While this is partly the case, Ananta has other goals in mind. The great world-serpent still cannot tell whether the trial that led to its exile was fair, whether the punishment was just. Therefore, it seeds pieces of First history all across its body, which, if examined all together, would tell the tale of Ananta's trial. Thus, in the future, land-folk and sea-folk will be able to judge the world-serpent's guilt. On this day of Judgement, it is God who will be found guilty or innocent, and depending on the verdict, Ananta will either let itself die or return among the First to protest its exile.

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The humans imagined God and he created reality, generic I know

The twist is that its the third instance of reality since it has been reimagined two times, in the first one humans are protean squiggly crayon stick figures and in the second one they are indifferentiated immortal gray mannequins

>>61442942

t. NPC

>>61443125
Well, frankly, the best parts of a creation myth are that from the perspective of the believers, it's their only answer to the question of life and it satisfies them. By creating a scenario which "answers" everything unambiguously you lose what makes mythology interesting.

Hell, that's basically magic in itself. The appeal is the mystery. You can have a perfect magic system that explains everything and all you'll have is something uninteresting to interact with. Magic and myth needs some ambiguity to it, things that can be interpreted allegorically, and situations that may imply fusions of multiple cultures into one. Your example is one very clear answer that doesn't make for an interesting origin.

>>61442662
You're the worst kind of person

>>61444854
rapists, murderers, people who point out implausibilities in creation myths on the internet

The story is basically this:

God discover itself exist and while playing with itself it create reality.
Then while testing stuff create the multiverse with gods and those gods create our universe (that has earth at it) with gods and etc... that created solar system.
This solar system has a council of gods and christian god is earth god but less powerfull than the council gods.

Reality is part of god, multiverse is part of reality that is part of god, our universe is part of multiverse that is part of reality that is part of god......

As closer to god you are, more knowledge you have.

God likes to unlearn stuff in the hopes he discover more stuff while having to relearn stuff..
Anyway, earth was like christian paradise, without free will, satan told the solar system gods council earth should have free will because people dont learn without free will so its important to have free will.
Christian god is a benevolent dictator and say he doesn't want to do it. The council gods say they will do it for him if he don't do it. So, christian god say "ok I will do it, but my children's wont make evil stuff since they are good beings."
He tell humans they shouldn't eat apples, and like at genesis they do.

God get angry and turn earth at normal reality earth and send humans there.

If you are more than 50% good when you die you go to heaven, if you are more than 95% evil you go to hell and if you are between 50% and 95% you go limbo.
Heaven = Basically Genesis Paradise
Hell =imagine the moment the first animal evolved to an sapient species, this didnt happened there and will never happen. Hell is basically this what if world.
The difference is that those that die will start to appear there, they appear at the place and moment they died. PS: The evil guys share the same world, there is no such thing as an unique quantum hell to each person.
Limbo = see later.

>>61434851
Not done yet, still trying to find what I need to round it out, taking the bits and pieces from both mythological and fictional, historic and literary creation myths, first draft was critiqued for being too Mesopotamian in feel compared to the more notHRE setting the players have experienced when I first created the sandbox I'm trying to tack this onto (which does make it all a bit tricky, fitting the myth into the already established reality in a way that is logically consistent)

So far it explains the cyclicality of creation, the presence of Great Old Ones, monsters, gods, the power of belief, the power of self-sacrifice, and the divine right to rule of the nobility. What I need is some of the in-between stuff.

Oh, and names. Better names. Any suggestions for two brothers, with an insinuation of First and Second?

>>61445360
The second coming of christ is a different thing, at the second coming of christ the multiverse restart, those alive that should go to hell got o hell, those who should go to heaven go to heaven, those at dead at limbo (not a place) or that are alive and would go to limbo if they died at this moment, reincarnate at next universe restart as humans.

>>61434965
>>61442662

There you go... setting's evil god. The Warrior God did exactly that, and the God of X stood at the third Gate, but was weary and fell asleep, and the bad stuff got past him.
The Warrior God figures out what happened, whoops God of X for being a dink, and kicks him out. Now X is pissed and wants revenge.

Easy shit man

>>61445438
i like it u have my blessing contingent on X being substituted with something appropriate

>>61444972

>people who are too autistic to process myth

fixed that for you

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Bear with me. I don't remember how long this is as I'm copy and pasting it from my old word document.

Also keep in mind that this is just the earliest stage. It's the creation process, but many of these figures are no longer around in my setting. They're ancient in a true sense of the word.

Pic related is of a god who's around in the modern day of the setting, but wasn't involved in the creation process and came ages after.

>Two primordial concepts have always existed: Elenu and Tiamatu. Elenu is the Above and represents all. Tiamatu is the Abyss and represents nothing. These concepts are a co-operating dichotomy, for Tiamatu’s nothingness is the space in which Elenu’s all can be something.
>The creation of everything began with Elenu who, no longer content to simply ‘be’ alongside Tiamatu, began to add and change so that something other than them would exist. The first things that Elenu made looked at her and cried ‘we are cold!’ Seeing her creations accosted by Sikaru, Tiamatu’s sleep-born child of cold, Elenu decided to counter the chill of the abyss by creating the first flame, Isatum.

>cont.

>>61445608
>Isatum succeeded at warming the others and keeping Sikaru at bay, but none dared to go near him lest they were burned. Angered by his treatment Isatum forced Elenu to keep creating in hope of finding acceptance, but after a while Elenu grew tired and could make no more. Isatum found none still who dared approach him and threatened to explode with rage, but Elenu stopped him by sealing him in a thousand orbs that became the stars. In doing this, Elenu’s power was completely spent and she disappeared into the abyss.
>After 6000 years, many of Elenu’s previous creations grew into immortal spirits capable of independent thought and speech. Calling themselves the Suen, they began to desire a place for themselves amongst the stars to live but were unable to create like Elenu could. >Eventually a Suen named Illikam traversed the abyss and managed to recover a remnant flicker of the first flame. The flicker, a primordial remnant of Isatum’s strength, gave Illikam great power over creation and he was declared Lord of all Suen.
>Sometime later, Illikam found Sikaru roaming the stars and partnered with the cold. With Sikaru’s help, Illikam used the remnant of the first flame to create a world for the Suen to live. This world became known as Erlan, known in the ancient Sarkanan Tongue to mean ‘All That Is’.

>cont

>>61445497

Obviously. The Adversary Analogue is not named X.

Simply substitute a sphere for the God to be from. Or, if you want to have a bit of fun with it...

No-one knows who the Third Guardian was. After their failure, Warrior God beat them for ruining paradise, kicked them out, and struck their name from history.
Now the priests of the different Gods all claim their own version of the story. It was this thing! It once had a God who ruined our world, punish them!
Instant religious disharmony/warfare. Even gives you plot hooks.

>>61445527
i think ur taking the position of "any criticism of a myth can only stem from misunderstanding the myth"? i mean, im not even sure how to engage with u lol.

>>61445646
>Ina Isten Sulu; The First Days.
>With the first flame as a source of great power and Sikaru’s cold to help control it, Illikam’s new world began to naturally take shape. It formed as a great sphere in the sky that equally took light from all stars, causing there to be little difference between day and night. Slowly other features of Erlan began to develop such as plains, mountains, rivers and trees. One by one these places of beauty began to attract the Suen, who would come to rest there and enjoy watching Erlan grow. As time passed the essence of the Suen began to take aspects of their surroundings and seep into the land, causing the very first non-Suen creatures to appear and populate the world.
>Meanwhile Illikam and Sikaru began to disagree on many things and Sikaru, who was jealous of Illikam, disappeared. Without Sikaru’s aid the heat from the stars began to warm Erlan to dangerous levels and much of the world began to experience a drought, with forests turning into desert. To try and keep themselves cool, a group of Suen used rocks and tree branches to build a canopy over their heads and block out the starlight. The Suen behind this idea, Arkit, gained Illikam’s attention and Illikam bestowed a small amount of the first flame’s power to Arkit, asking him to build a great city in which the Suen could live. Arkit obliged and after ten years of ceaseless labour, the great city of Anur was finished.
>The Suen, whose population numbered 1100, followed Illikam to the first city of Anur and for many years lived there in peace under the just and wise hand of their king. During these early days Suen culture began to grow and flourish and many of the Suen began to create new ways to express themselves, such as Kuba who drew the first picture, Amelnara who sang the first song and Kanu who wrote the first words and told the first fictional story.

>cont

>>61445692
>Meanwhile Sikaru entered the abyss to find his maker Tiamatu, where for 300 years he searched for his progeny in order to wake him from his slumber. When finally he was found, Sikaru asked Tiamatu for help in taking the city of Anur for himself. Tiamatu was uninterested in Sikaru’s struggles, but never-the-less promised to give Sikaru the opportunity to achieve his ambitions.

>Ana Harrani Sa Alaktasa La Tarat; The Road Whose Course Does Not Turn Back.
>One day, a Suen-like being appeared at the gate of Anur. Because the Suen numbered only 1100, and the only other being besides them was Sikaru, this new being instantly attracted the attention of Illikam who came down from his palace to introduce himself. >When he arrived, he discovered a creature more beautiful than anything a Suen had ever laid their eyes upon. Calling herself Sharaka, she looked different to the other Suen in that she had the body of a woman, whereas up until that moment the Suen had no discernible notion or physical qualities of gender.
>Sharaka had skin like ash, long white hair and six arms to cover her modesty with. Illikam was smitten by her and when he asked her for a private audience, she accepted. When the two were alone, Sharaka explained how she had been sent by the sky to teach the Suen how to love one another attain pleasure from that love. She taught Illikam how to become a man in body, then the two made love for eight days and nights until both were satisfied.
>Sharaka and Illikam began to teach the Suen how to become man or woman and soon, all had chosen their preferred gender. Not long after, love became something sought by all and many Suen began to pair with one another as lovers and companions. Of these, Illikam and Sharaka were the most iconic and admired; they performed a ceremony to express their love for one another and Sharaka became Illikam’s queen.

>cont

>>61445741
>As centuries passed like days, Illikam and Sharaka grew obsessed with one another and began to neglect the needs of the Suen for the privacy of their own hedonism. It was during this time that Sikaru returned to Erlan and entered Anur, where he began to preach that Illikam’s obsession with Sharaka made him unfit to be King and put himself forward as a possible replacement. Slowly Sikaru’s supporters amongst the Suen grew.
>Eventually Sharaka discovered Sikaru’s presence and to ascertain his motives she secretly scheduled a meeting. However when Sharaka arrived, Sikaru became smitten with her in the same way that Illikam did. Yet this time it was different – though Sharaka truly loved her King, Sikaru was like herself in that they were not of the Suen. She found a companionship in him which in turn became attraction and Sharaka had an affair with the cold.
>Though Sharaka was adamant in never letting it happen again, Sikaru wished for more and one night went to the palace to attempt to force himself on her. Sharaka screamed and when Illikam ran to her aid, he cast Sikaru out and banished him from Erlan forever.
>However, Sikaru would not accept this and gathered his followers from amongst the Suen and took over the streets of Anur, while those loyal to Illikam withdrew to the palace. When Sikaru and his followers marched on the palace, he called Illikam out for a meeting and there attempted to argue why he, and not a Suen, should be King of Anur.
>The next moments would lead Anur down a road from which it would never return.

>cont

>>61445761
>Sikaru revealed his affair with Sharaka in an attempt to break their love and demoralize Illikam, but Illikam instead flew into a never-before-seen rage and smashed Sikaru’s head into a rock, killing him. Thus murder was born. This act shook the very fabric of the Above and the Abyss, waking Tiamatu and the once lost Elenu from their slumbers.
>In Anur the followers of Sikaru were overtaken by grief, which then turned to anger, and attacked those loyal to Illikam in the first ever violent confrontation. Suen began to harm Suen, spilling the blood of their fellows into the streets as they attempted to emulate Illikam’s murder of Sikaru to gain victory. This violence began to tear through the above and the resulting rage and pain began to crack the stars, which long ago had become prison to hold Isatum, the flame crated by Elenu.
>Isatum had long been angry at the Suen and specifically Illikam for stealing and using the flicker of the first flame to create Erlan, and thus as the battle raged, Isatum sent a great storm of fire and rock down upon Anur in an attempt to undo Illikam’s work and recover his flame.
>Anur was destroyed, but with the help of Elenu a few of the Suen managed to escape and Isatum’s prison was re-sealed. Yet unfortunately, Tiamatu had witnessed the entire event in mild amusement and took the gift of immortality from the Suen for their murder. Tiamatu decreed that if they could kill Sikaru and each other, then everything else in turn would be able to kill them; including their own age and the passing of time, that they would be plagued by violence and illness and disasters until all found the death they wished on one another

>cont

>>61445791
>Elenu was distraught by this for she could not overwrite the actions of Tiamatu, but in her cunning found a way to prevent her creations from dying completely. Thus she took the gift of love, given to them by Tiamatu’s spawn Sharaka, and added to it the gift of reproduction and childbirth. Though the Suen would individually die, they would as a people endure. Exhausted from these actions, Elenu no longer had the power to stay awake and went to sleep once more.
>The Suen would not stay together. They now vilified Illikam for the fate he had brought upon them and each went their separate ways, with the goal of starting new lives elsewhere on Erlan. Sharaka, who was not Suen, felt overwhelming guilt for her part in what happened and disappeared. And Illikam, creator of Erlan, herald and King of the Suen and finally harbinger of their doom, found himself abandoned by all.
>Thus Illikam took his beloved flicker and marched alone into the desert, where he was never seen again.

Fin.

>>61445683

No, you understand the myth perfectly, your problem doesnt stems from a lack of understanding but from an inability to accept things that dont follow conventional logic

>>61435408
t. Andrew Hussie

>>61434851
Kinda just a rough idea

In the great dark three entities came from the shadows into existance, they called themselves simply the three. In their wandering through the dark they began to feel like they are alone and begin to create many things, they start small with stars and rocks floating through the dark. After they had become confident in their abilities to create, they tried their hand at the creation of life, their first directive was a planet, bringing together their powers to create something that could be lived on. In their work they each created something that would be personal to them, one the forests and animals of the land, another the waters and those that dwell in them, the third crafted the land in his own image and crafting mountains, crevasses and many more natural wonders. Through their efforts the brothers were happy with what they made and made smaller things, through these creations new smaller entities came about to command different forces, with the winds came the wind rider, the different elements brought about an aspect to command it. After a long while sentient creatures came alive, first was man who saw the brothers three in all things and gave them names and worshipped them, they were called; Keronouth, the wild king, Yortan-Kell, earthshaper and Namarth Lifegiverwho gave great boons to the men of the world of their own design and many prospered in this time. The time of men brought about something else, it was brought from the machinations and cruelty of men, this new God as the brothers three had now come to be called created something of it's own, a more lithe, fair and graceful looking thing, he called it elf and into them fueled secretly his cruelty and sent them to the scrutiny of the brothers. These elves had been given different and great lands to live in but scorned them all in favour of the cold and frozen wastes where none resided.

Most likely really shit but hey it's a thing

>>61445608
PROTIP: if your creation myth can fit over a page your doing it wrong. Trim that shit back

>>61445966
no and you're wrong

>>61436114
>usually the same people who make wild claims like that Norse mythology was cyclical in nature
I feel small brained now, is it not? That's what I gathered from reading about Ymir being split open by Odin with his spear to the same thing happening to Odin himself with the same spear, etc

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In the time before time, the gods made war in the heavens, singing the songs of battle and dancing the steps of destruction. Countless of their number fell slain, their bodies sinking to the center of the cosmos while their souls, rent from their flesh, rose to the edges of the firmament. Thus was formed the earth from the bodies of the fallen gods, and the stars from their departed spirits. So it was for eons unnumbered, for the gods knew no other way of being. Such was their lot, and such their nature, that they should clash in unbroken warfare until but one stood victorious over all.

In time, something new stirred, unbeknownst to the warring gods -- a new kind of being, springing from the bodies of the slain. Born of the Earth, these new lives stepped out into a world lit only by the distant stars and the flashes of the cosmic war raging above. They lived their lives in constant fear, not knowing when they may meet their end by some stray bolt from the heavens or calamitous impact of a slain god. Scraping out what existence they could for themselves, those Born of Earth sang songs the cosmos had not yet known: Songs of life beyond war and conflict. Songs of mourning and loss, of love and kindness, of fear and uncertainty, of hope and perseverance. For unknown ages, those Born of Earth sang their songs as the gods warred far above, absorbed in their own song of war and ignorant of the new lives below. But in the end, it was these new songs that changed the course of history.

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>>61446305
It was the god who came to be known as the Lord Moon who first took notice of those Born of Earth. In pausing to rest, he happened to draw near to the earth, and heard the songs of those below. Intrigued, he watched for a time, and as he observed their lives and heard their songs, his heart was stirred with emotions he had never known. For the first time ever, a god contemplated the possibility of peace in the heavens -- of a world where the gods put aside their war so that these new existences could flourish.

Fascinated by those Born of Earth and moved with pity for their difficult circumstances, Lord Moon returned to the heavens to attempt to persuade the other gods to end their eternal war. His task was difficult, but eventually Lord Moon prevailed in convincing many of the remaining gods to look upon those Born of Earth, and they too were moved by the experience. Uniting five others from among the most powerful of the gods, as well as numerous weaker gods, Lord Moon led the great Heavenly Accord. Together, the alliance of the Heavenly Accord quelled the chaos in the heavens. The gods, absorbed in their fierce conflict over individual ambitions, had never before known true cooperation, and the unprecedented divine alliance of the Heavenly Accord proved formidable indeed. Thus, the gods of the Heavenly Accord established dominance together in the heavens, ushering in a new era of relative peace among the gods.

The chief gods who agreed to the Heavenly Accord each selected a portion of those Born of Earth to guide and nurture, each god shaping their people according to the values they came to hold most dear in seeing the ways of those Born of Earth. Thus were born the principle races of the world.

The six great gods established their palaces in the heavens near to the Earth, and stood vigilant against those who would do her harm.

For though peace now reigned in the heavens, many among the old gods did not wish it so.

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>>61446319
There remained gods who cared nothing for those Born of Earth, and resented the Heavenly Accord for stifling their ambitions of primacy in the cosmos. Though their song of war had been silenced and their feet no longer danced the steps of destruction across the heavens, these gods hid away in the darkness between the stars, nurturing hatred and vengeance within their hearts. They plotted the downfall of the Heavenly Accord, and most especially the destruction of those Born of Earth for whose sake this new order had been established.

From time to time, even unto this day, these dark gods seek to approach the Earth to despoil it with their evil influence, appearing in the sky as Rogue Stars bringing destruction, chaos, terror, and death. And among their ranks may be counted even the souls of those gods who fell before the era of peace among the heavens, for their slumber is not eternal. The stars dotting the firmament may dislodge, and fall to Earth, reuniting the slain godsoul with fallen godsflesh to awaken the old god: A god ignorant of the ways of the new era, still singing war and dancing destruction in pursuit of the prize of sole victory over all the cosmos, and what's more twisted and driven mad by eons of death. Thus are born all manner of strange and vicious monsters which roam the earth, and dungeons of madness formed where slain gods alight upon the earth.

Much more may be said of the earliest ages of the world -- of Iruok the Adversary, chief of the Rogue Stars, his corruption of those Born of Earth to form the accursed races with which he attempted to conquer the Earth; and of the Earthly heroes who rose up to thwart him, their mighty deeds in the War of the Dawn (most notably Ruakha the Joybringer, whose kindness gave the Earth its sun), for which they were raised to become the gods we now most customarily honor. But those are lengthy tales, for another time.

>>61445365
Fuck it, I'll write up what I got in my head so far


When they speak of the beginning, it is only the latest in a long line of beginnings. What records remain from before the Age of Heroes only go as far back as the Age of Light, for by divine decree those that spoke of earlier times were burned. But nothing can hide the truth forever.

The world was created by great and terrible beings. Fear. Selfishness. Cruelty. These we're the things that ripened a world, and ours was far from the first they had made. These things however do not come from nothing: and so, as they had done countless times before, the Beings created. For the sake of fear, they created dark monsters. For the sake of selfishness, they created sentients. And for the sake of cruelty, they created their dark Laws.

Delighted, the Beings watched as their newest feast ripened, as the Great Beasts ravaged the land, as the First Ones waged war for the pettiest of reasons, and the blood of a thousand sacrifices drenched the land daily.

While hunting the Great Beasts, as the carcasses of those were part of the Rituals of Sacrifice, two brothers, Atar and Berat, were ambushed by such a monstrosity. As the beast was about to slay Atar, Berat sacrificed himself selflessly, taking the killing blow so his brother might live. Atar was suddenly reinvigorated, and bare-handedly slew the Great Beast, a feat unheard of. It was so that Atar, who would later become the first God-King, learned of the power that self-sacrifice done by the virtue of selflessness could lend unto others

Atar would share this knowledge with the rest of the First Ones, and as those who had shown themselves strong of spirit came forth, the rest committed mass ritual suicide, to give strength unto those that would become the First, or Atarian Gods, and the War Before began, which ended with the Beings being chased from the world, and the planar fortification known as the Endless Wall created to prevent their return

1/2

>>61446574
2/2, found the first rough draft again

The gods however had a problem. Every divine act lessened their power, and every time the Beings assaulted the Endless Wall, they had to reinforce it. They required a renewable source for their energy: worshipers

And so, many more gave their lives in self-sacrifice to repopulate the world: some splintered, becoming the flora and fauna that would sustain the worshipers, others fractured themselves to become great guardians, to protect the worshipers from the remaining Great Beasts, hunting them down one by one. These guardians were later known as Dragons.

Most important were those that created the Races, for not only did they sacrifice themselves, a number of Gods had to step away from their vigil on the Endless Wall to mold the Races, and be their object of worship, projecting the power they gain further on to the wall.

As this was completed, and the Races spread across the world, a new problem arose

While the Beings were banished from the world, their influence lingered, and they used every crack the could create in the Endless Wall to add more

Chaos, anarchy, bloodshed, war spread across the world like a fire, threatening to undo all the work if the Gods. And not enough of them were left to attempt the same a second time.

It was so that Atar descended from the heavens unto the earth, and using his power brought peace, united the Races under his rule, and proclaimed himself the First God-King, ensuring the proper worship of the Gods.

So great was his sacrifice of his godly power that he became mortal, and while the divine spark in him allowed the worship of the God-King to sustain him and his issue to live for centuries, he died, first among the Gods to find a peaceful death. His eldest son established the Atarian Dynasty, which would continue to rule his father's Divine Empire until its collapse during the time of the Mage Wars.
So far so good, eh?

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>>61434851
Here's one I made for a really dumb MtG pseudo-masters set I was putting together, along with a half-finished map of it. It's missing the entire bottom four realms.

>In the beginning, there was a single egg, a spawn of the Ur-Dragon, within the void. It wished to hatch, but could not, as there was no world to hatch upon.
>So the dragon, Niurigandur, spoke the First Word (Destiny), and formed the world from the debris of the void. But the world was barren, empty, and lightless.
>Nurigandur spoke the Second Word (Dawn) and pulled from the void a great glowing stone to be the sun, but it scorched the world and so the dragon spoke the Third Word (Dusk) and created an inky sphere to paint the sky black in the wake of the sun, creating time and from it, life. Here, the dragon hatched. But life was rudimentary, and concerned only with survival.
>Desirous for entertainment, the dragon spoke the Fourth Word (Duty) and from it the world separated and life began to know of things beyond survival. But they could not shirk their duty, only work towards it mindlessly until their bodies gave out. Nuirigandur in panic spoke the Fifth Word (Denial) and allowed the living the opportunity of choice, but with that choice they still only used it to simple and staid ends.
>Frustrated, the dragon spoke the Sixth Word (Dream) and gave creativity and wonder to the world, forming a great nexus in its center. For a time, all was good, and the dragon watched over his fledgling world with joy. Each word had brought fourth a new piece of land from the void, and while time passed the procession of night and day, none could die and so they flourished and grew and dreamed and fought, only to stand again at the end of the day and embrace as friends.
>Then, from the space between worlds came a great and terrible beast of smoke and ashes, of twisted thorns and blazing fire, a great monster that tore through the sky. The people of the world called it Brenna Lok, the Burning End.

>Cont.

>>61446194
It might have been but all claims that it was are based heavily on conjecture. The stories, as preserved, do not provide any reason for us to assume that the Old Norse believed the world to be cyclical in nature.

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>>61447667
>Brenna Lok could not kill the world, but it could destroy it, it could befoul it, and it could render all growth upon it pointless, scattering it back into the void, something Niurigandur would never allow. The dragon marshaled all of the creatures of the world against the beast, all of the might of the Five Realms.
>But for all its wanton destruction, Brenna Lok was intelligent, canny, and wise. Unpracticed with warfare and incapable of deception, the army of the Five Realms was circumvented and routed at every turn, and the dragon knew that he must taint his creation for it to survive.
>He spoke the Seventh Word (Deceit) and gave the world the capacity for falsehood, to outfox the beast and survive its plots. But despite this, they could not truly harm it. As Brenna Lok lingered, it became more and more part of the world and thus more part of its rules, and this world did not know destruction, and so neither did Brenna Lok. No matter how it was harmed, the beast would not break, and would not fall.
>Furious, Niurigandur charged to battle the beast, but even he could not injure something of his creation without instilling it with the potential to. So the dragon spoke the Eighth Word (Destruction) and gave his creation and himself the curse of frailty.
>The two tore through the landscape, leaving trails of blood and ichor as they battled, each a match for the other. But for all their fighting, they could not die, for this was a deathless world and Brenna Lok had stayed long enough to become a part of it.
>Knowing there was no choice, Niurigandur spoke the Ninth and Final Word (Death), tearing the form of Brenna Lok from reality and the dropped onto the earth, slain. The world grew around it, binding the nine realms together.
>From the spilled blood of Niurigandur grew lesser dragons, who could speak lesser words, and the world changed and shifted and grew. The nine realms became more than their creator's work. They became a world.
>And so it was.

Osmund is the Dengardian God of Steadfast Courage, Chivalrous Law, and Lordly Compassion
In the beginning, he was all powerful and ruled over all other gods (so say the Dengardians, others will argue it was self proclaimed/unearned/illegitmate, etc). There were many battles among the gods, for countless reasons both knowable and unknowable. Countless mortals were killed as a result. Osmund, instead of retaining his supremacy, forged the Chalice of Charity
Into the Chalice, he poured his blood, and mortals drank from the chalice, gaining sentience and the ability to defend themselves.

The divine blood gave them the innate mortal dignity we take for granted now. The Chalice kept Osmund alive despite such a loss of blood, and he recovered--but the power of the Chalice would fail if it were ever allowed to go empty. Thus, Osmund would faithfully fill it again and again to ensure mortalkind's safety/dignity/etc, allowing himself, a god, to slowly die in order for mortalkind to once day ascend into divine salvation.

>>61448807

For a time this was enough. As time went by, Osmund weakened, and the pantheon took advantage of his weakness, striking an uneasy balance of divine power--particularly his brother, Kaieng. Kaieng drained the Chalice, drinking his brothers blood and becoming the most powerful of the gods. The drought of Osmund’s blood forever ruined mortalkind’s chances at pure divinity, and they quickly were consumed by infighting and vice. Osmund and Kaieng fought, and, in a stalemate, denounced eachother forever.

Osmund continued to bleed for mortalkind, but it was no longer enough to keep mortals from destroying themselves and each other. Thus, Osmund created/sired a daughter--a sister muse for mortalkind--Lyveva. Lyveva, adoring and devoted to her brothers and sisters, the mortals, guides her struggling siblings on the paths of virtue and righteousness. The path to salvation is restored, and Osmund and Lyveva share in the sacrifice that allows mortalkind to endure their suffering and aspire to divinity.

Kaieng, wishing to repair relations with his brother, returns to Osmund, but is outraged by the situation. Whether it is because he is envious of Lyveva’s love, or outraged by her coddling of mortals, or any number of interpretations, attempts to sunder the plane of mortals, to sever the link between them and his brother. Kaieng’s strike is intercepted by Lyveva, who is mortally wounded. Osmund vows to kill Kaieng and begins a duel with Kaieng that will last until the end of days--the end of days being the result of who wins the duel and rejoins mortalkind.

With Osmund gone, mortalkind seems to have lost his redeeming blood, but Lyveva, being the adoring, devoted sister to mortalkind, takes up her father's chalice and consigns herself to dying for eternity, bleeding out into the chalice and weakly whispering words of encouragement to her mortal siblings. Osmund fights Kaieng for eternity. Lyveva bleeds for mortalkind for eternity

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>>61447667
>>61448758
As a note to what this setting is outside of its own creation for the more MtG inclined, it's a plane that was originally a bunch of debris and other junk lying in the middle of the Blind Eternities with enough mass that the Ur-Dragon thought it was a plane and dropped an egg on it. The egg couldn't actually hatch and so started transforming the debris into a world by imparting rules and concepts upon it and eventually creating a plane from what was essentially cast offs.

Then a whatever-the-fuck-Marit-Lage-is busts into the plane and starts fucking shit up, and the ensuing battle ends with it being deleted from reality via what is effectively a souped up version of pic related, and the dragon dies from its wounds. Lesser little baby dragons start popping out of its blood, each with their own Word they can use and people start learning from that about the magical potency of language. Some dudes invent rune-magic. The world keeps going.

The whole thing started off the idea that I wanted to make something like a 75% Masters set, a set that was mostly but not all reprints, and then try and make something fun with it. I asked a couple friends to post card suggestions and someone posted Foul-Tongue Invocation, Draconic Roar, and Runic Repetition. About ten minutes later I was rambling about word-magic and ripping off Norse myth and the Thu'um in equal measure.

bump!

>>61434851
Gaia made the world as a sort of snowglobe of nature, then went to sleep for a few thousand years to rest and let everything settle and see how they interacted. While she slept, four elemental spirits show up from another reality and fucking yoink her godhood, and essentially lock her in the basement, metaphysically speaking. They make "souled" beings to worship them, but they are not built for godhood and they go mad from it. The god of water made the orcs, who live on the sea, the god of earth made the dwarves, who are half stone and eat sand and stones as well as meat and grains. The god of air made the disconnected and ethereal elves, and the god of fire "made" men. Come to discover he was lazy, and stole some half-evolved monkey men from the planet next door and polished up their DNA instead. Oh, and I forgot to mention this all takes place on ancient mars.

>>61453809
John Carter of Mars is a lot stranger than I remember.