RealAlHazred
Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
EDIT: THIS POST HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ALEXANDRIAN BLOG.
So, I have been noodling around with my forever-in-development home game setting, which grew out of something I created thirty (or more!) years ago for a campaign. And I thought it would make sense to track progress, because it seems like, when I take a mental break from one project (currently, prepping The Wild Beyond the Witchlight) I go back to the home game setting. So, there's gaps in time, is what I'm saying, and it would be nice to get thoughts in one place.
The short form: the setting is a world called Maya, of which I have about half mapped: some of it in great detail, many parts in basic detail, and half the planet still in the Fog of Possibility. It sits on a fracture in space/time, which is (sort-of) sentient (... for reasons), which means it has portals to other places/times/etc. They generally open and close at intervals -- some are fairly regular, such that they can be reliably used for commerce, while others open intermittently or unpredictably. As a result, there are primarily-human populations from our Earth, and people who have vanished in our world have had a new life in Maya.
In my concept, there was fairly regular commerce between ancient Egypt and an arm of the Empire in Maya, set in a rich valley around a "second Nile." The Egyptian settlers also eventually "Imported" Greek sailors to help defend their settlements against their various enemies in Maya -- the portals were not open continuously, after all, so they needed to be able to see to their own defense.
Eventually, the portal frequency waned due to cosmic factors. One of the last groups through were, of course, Alexandrian scholars and craftsmen, bringing their books and possessions with them.
Alexandria was a fantastically cosmopolitan place, religiously speaking, under the Ptolemies. There were many Greek and Egyptian temples and shrines, but also temples to unusual foreign gods. When the Romans took over, they added Roman temples. So, one of the things I'd been putting off was compiling a list of deities. There is a certain lazy convenience in just using the gods from, say, Deities & Demigods, or the Fantasy Historical pantheons from the 5E PHB. But...
There were several gods worshipped in Alexandria who (I don't think) have ever been statted out in D&D terms. Specifically, the Alexandrian triad (or Alexandrian ennead).
All of the cities in ancient Egypt had "triads" of gods that they worshiped more than they were worshiped elsewhere. To a great extent, the idea that Ra, or Re-Horakhty, or whomever, was the "chief god" comes about when archaeologists only talk about one particular city, like Memphis or Thebes. But each city considered different gods important. The city of Thebes, for instance, considered Amun (the self-created creator god, god of wind and fertility) the "chief god," with his consort Mut (goddess of the primordial waters), and their son Khonsu (god of the Moon and travel) as greater gods. The city of Elephantis held Khnum (the creator of humans, god of potters, Lord of Life, Lord of the Field, "the good protector", and lord of the crocodiles) as supreme, with his consort Satis (goddess of war, hunting, and fertility) and their daughter Anuket (protector goddess of the southern border) as greater gods. And the city of Memphis held Ptah (creator god, god of crafts) as the "chief god," with his consort Sekhmet (warrior goddess, goddess of medicine) and their son Nefertem (god of beauty and beginnings) as greater gods.
So, the Alexandrian triad were Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates. Harpocrates is basically Horus with a different focus -- the name comes from the Egyptian words for Horus the Child" -- so the domains will need to be adjusted. Isis is also well-attested in D&D, though in Alexandria she was associated with other goddesses and took on some of their portfolio, like Aphrodite (who had many temples in Alexandria); again, her domains may need to be adjusted.
In the PHB, Re-Horakhty has Life and Light domains. Those are fine, but I might add Mike Mearls' Beauty domain. Isis in the same source has Knowledge and Life, to which I would add Arcana from SCAG. Again, I might have to tinker.
Serapis is the tough one. He is a syncretism of Osiris-Apis, Zeus, Pluto, and Dionysus. Several of these were also separately worshipped in Alexandria, but Serapis was considered greater than them. His main temple, the Serapeum, also contained the Mouseion, a temple devoted to the Muses and the location of the Library of Alexandria.
Osiris-Apis was a syncretism already worshipped in Egypt. Apis was a divine bull housed in Memphis who was thought to hold the fertility of cattle in Egypt in his power. When the bull passed on, he was mummified in proper fashion, and spiritually reborn -- he became an "Osiris" in other words, a deity who died and was resurrected, in the form of the next "new" Apis bull. The old bull was ritually interned in a special necropolis. In the afterlife, the Apis bull protected the dead from the many horrors waiting to prey on the souls of Egyptian devotees. Serapis may have been the idea that the Apis bull reincarnated as a humanoid deity instead of a mortal bull. Possibly. Maybe it was just one part of Apis' soul?
Anyway, as far as I can tell (from my amateur researches, not having access to scholarly articles on the subject) there are no myths of Serapis. That gives me a lot of leeway to reinterpret him for my setting. I'm thinking of combining elements of Greek and Egyptian myths, since the primary purpose the Ptolemaic Pharaohs had in promoting his worship was to try to integrate their Egyptian and Greek subjects -- the Egyptians valued traditional gods above foreign imports, while the Greeks wouldn't take seriously any god with animal features. Hence the fully human-appearing Serapis.
On the surface, Serapis seems to have been held to have been "killed" and entered the Underworld. There he overcame obstacles before conquering the Land of the Dead and coming back to life. This makes his domains include Grave from XGE, maybe Light or War, and possibly Order from GGR and TCE although I am not that fond of that last domain.
Anyway, I should probably put together a list of gods with temples in Alexandria. From the Notitia Urbis Alexandrinae of Michael bar Elias (1598), we have the following (note that in Alexandria, the districts were denoted by the first five letters of Greek):
So, I have been noodling around with my forever-in-development home game setting, which grew out of something I created thirty (or more!) years ago for a campaign. And I thought it would make sense to track progress, because it seems like, when I take a mental break from one project (currently, prepping The Wild Beyond the Witchlight) I go back to the home game setting. So, there's gaps in time, is what I'm saying, and it would be nice to get thoughts in one place.
The short form: the setting is a world called Maya, of which I have about half mapped: some of it in great detail, many parts in basic detail, and half the planet still in the Fog of Possibility. It sits on a fracture in space/time, which is (sort-of) sentient (... for reasons), which means it has portals to other places/times/etc. They generally open and close at intervals -- some are fairly regular, such that they can be reliably used for commerce, while others open intermittently or unpredictably. As a result, there are primarily-human populations from our Earth, and people who have vanished in our world have had a new life in Maya.
In my concept, there was fairly regular commerce between ancient Egypt and an arm of the Empire in Maya, set in a rich valley around a "second Nile." The Egyptian settlers also eventually "Imported" Greek sailors to help defend their settlements against their various enemies in Maya -- the portals were not open continuously, after all, so they needed to be able to see to their own defense.
Eventually, the portal frequency waned due to cosmic factors. One of the last groups through were, of course, Alexandrian scholars and craftsmen, bringing their books and possessions with them.
Alexandria was a fantastically cosmopolitan place, religiously speaking, under the Ptolemies. There were many Greek and Egyptian temples and shrines, but also temples to unusual foreign gods. When the Romans took over, they added Roman temples. So, one of the things I'd been putting off was compiling a list of deities. There is a certain lazy convenience in just using the gods from, say, Deities & Demigods, or the Fantasy Historical pantheons from the 5E PHB. But...
There were several gods worshipped in Alexandria who (I don't think) have ever been statted out in D&D terms. Specifically, the Alexandrian triad (or Alexandrian ennead).
All of the cities in ancient Egypt had "triads" of gods that they worshiped more than they were worshiped elsewhere. To a great extent, the idea that Ra, or Re-Horakhty, or whomever, was the "chief god" comes about when archaeologists only talk about one particular city, like Memphis or Thebes. But each city considered different gods important. The city of Thebes, for instance, considered Amun (the self-created creator god, god of wind and fertility) the "chief god," with his consort Mut (goddess of the primordial waters), and their son Khonsu (god of the Moon and travel) as greater gods. The city of Elephantis held Khnum (the creator of humans, god of potters, Lord of Life, Lord of the Field, "the good protector", and lord of the crocodiles) as supreme, with his consort Satis (goddess of war, hunting, and fertility) and their daughter Anuket (protector goddess of the southern border) as greater gods. And the city of Memphis held Ptah (creator god, god of crafts) as the "chief god," with his consort Sekhmet (warrior goddess, goddess of medicine) and their son Nefertem (god of beauty and beginnings) as greater gods.
So, the Alexandrian triad were Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates. Harpocrates is basically Horus with a different focus -- the name comes from the Egyptian words for Horus the Child" -- so the domains will need to be adjusted. Isis is also well-attested in D&D, though in Alexandria she was associated with other goddesses and took on some of their portfolio, like Aphrodite (who had many temples in Alexandria); again, her domains may need to be adjusted.
In the PHB, Re-Horakhty has Life and Light domains. Those are fine, but I might add Mike Mearls' Beauty domain. Isis in the same source has Knowledge and Life, to which I would add Arcana from SCAG. Again, I might have to tinker.
Serapis is the tough one. He is a syncretism of Osiris-Apis, Zeus, Pluto, and Dionysus. Several of these were also separately worshipped in Alexandria, but Serapis was considered greater than them. His main temple, the Serapeum, also contained the Mouseion, a temple devoted to the Muses and the location of the Library of Alexandria.
Osiris-Apis was a syncretism already worshipped in Egypt. Apis was a divine bull housed in Memphis who was thought to hold the fertility of cattle in Egypt in his power. When the bull passed on, he was mummified in proper fashion, and spiritually reborn -- he became an "Osiris" in other words, a deity who died and was resurrected, in the form of the next "new" Apis bull. The old bull was ritually interned in a special necropolis. In the afterlife, the Apis bull protected the dead from the many horrors waiting to prey on the souls of Egyptian devotees. Serapis may have been the idea that the Apis bull reincarnated as a humanoid deity instead of a mortal bull. Possibly. Maybe it was just one part of Apis' soul?
Anyway, as far as I can tell (from my amateur researches, not having access to scholarly articles on the subject) there are no myths of Serapis. That gives me a lot of leeway to reinterpret him for my setting. I'm thinking of combining elements of Greek and Egyptian myths, since the primary purpose the Ptolemaic Pharaohs had in promoting his worship was to try to integrate their Egyptian and Greek subjects -- the Egyptians valued traditional gods above foreign imports, while the Greeks wouldn't take seriously any god with animal features. Hence the fully human-appearing Serapis.
On the surface, Serapis seems to have been held to have been "killed" and entered the Underworld. There he overcame obstacles before conquering the Land of the Dead and coming back to life. This makes his domains include Grave from XGE, maybe Light or War, and possibly Order from GGR and TCE although I am not that fond of that last domain.
Anyway, I should probably put together a list of gods with temples in Alexandria. From the Notitia Urbis Alexandrinae of Michael bar Elias (1598), we have the following (note that in Alexandria, the districts were denoted by the first five letters of Greek):
So, plenty of room for whatever gods I want to include!
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