Customized Mythology

[LoneWolf23]

Okay, I like the sample of deities for D&D 4e, and while I don't mind the "gods sprung from the Astral Sea to fight the Primordials born of the Elemental Chaos" motif, I prefer the Mythology presented in my favorite sourcebook from the 3.5 era, Green Ronin's The Book of the Righteous. So naturally, I got to thinking about how to combine the two. Here's what I figured out so far...

The Universe was created by the Nameless One, an omnipotent Creator god, who emerged from the Elemental Chaos, then formed a massive sphere containing the Astral Sea. He then formed the World at the center of the sphere, along with the stars and planets around it. The tools he used to create the sphere and the world, after being touched by his power, gained a life of their own, becoming the Primordials.

The Nameless One then gathered some Fire from the Chaos, and created Kador in his image. He then gave will to the Earth, the Sky and the Waters. He entrused Kador with the responsibility to grant the fire of souls to all living things, gave him a prophecy, and withdrew from Creation. Kador tricked the Earth, Sky and Waters into gathering fully into gods, and granted fire to the newly born deities Rontra, Urian and Shalimyr.

Rontra and Shalimyr united to create Eliwyn, the Tree of Life. The Tree became the source of all plant-life in the world, and then bore five fruits. Four of them gave birth to the Gods of the Tree: Terak, god of War; Tinel, god of Magic; Morwynn, Goddess of Mercy; and Zhenkeef, goddess of Inspiration. Kador, thinking himself superior to the others, desired the fifth fruit for himself, but was denied it. He cursed the fruit, and instead of forming a deity, it produced a multitude of smaller creatures, the Divs.

Angered at the defiance of the other gods, Kador turned to the Primordials, who dispised the sphere of Creation, seeing it as an abomination in their realm, and desiring to return it to primal Chaos. Kador joined with them, rejecting his old name to become Tharizdun, taught them how to create the Titans and Archons to form their armies, and unleashed them upon the young world. The Old Gods, the Gods of the Tree, and the Divs quickly banded together, and after a long, brutal war, pushed the invading Primordials beyond the Sphere of Creation. Tharizdun was trapped in unbreakable chains, and tossed into the depths of the Elemental Chaos. There, his foul presence corrupted all he touched, and spreading outwards, formed the Abyss, a dark chasm of taint that eternally spirals out from around him.

One of the Divs, Asmodeus, was ambitious and ruthless, and sought to overthrow the gods to replace them. He tricked Terak and Tinel into waging war on one another, starting the War of the Gods. While the gods warred, Asmodeus retrieved Tharizdun's Regalia of Power, and used it to gain power equal to the gods themselves. Still, he bided his time, waiting in secret and gathering allies amongst the Divs, while Terak and Tinel mustered their armies. Finally, the two warring brothers slew one another in a final strike, and Zhenkeef lept upon their funeral pyre in a fit of madness. From this was born Mormekar, god of Death. Morwynn convinced Mormekar to allow the other gods to be reborn, and she agreed to become his wife. From their union was born Morgaine, whom mortals call the Raven Queen.

As the newborn (and reborn) gods grew, Morwynn took the most loyal and noble of the Divs and made them into the Celestial Host of Angels, proud servants of the gods. She then discovered the cause of the madness of the gods, and upon their reaching adulthood, convinced them to reject the taint within their own souls, casting it out into a prison they would call Hell. She then gave the gods three laws: One, that the gods would never wage war against one another again; Two, that the gods would use their strength to guide the div and the new races ripening in Eliwyn's fruit; and Third, that no one god would rule the others; as the eldest, she would lead, but could not order the others to obey.

Meanwhile, Asmodeus had gathered a host of Div of his own, choosing his lieutenants amongst their greatest champions. This army, he called "Divils" which would later become the word "Devils". He then unleashed his army upon the gods, forcing them to violate their first law to fend him off. After a brutal, destructive war, the gods defeated Asmodeus and trapped he and his armies within Hell, hopefully for eternity.

Afterwards, there was peace for some time. Morwynn took Terak as her second husband, and together they had the gods Bahamut, Bane, and Erathis. Tinel took Zhenkeef as his wife, and together they had Avandra, Corellon, Ioun, Lolth and Zehir. Zhenkeef was not faithful to her husband, however, and cuckold him with Shalimyr, giving birth to Melora and Tiamat. She also took on Morwynn's appearance and slept with Terak, and from this illicit union came forth Kord and Gruumsh. Urian sought no mate, but instead tore out his own eyes and gave them life, forming Pelor, the Sun, and Sehanine, the Moon. And from Rontra's womb came Torog and Moradin.

Many of the remaining Div grew restless, having been used and abused in every war of the gods. They rose up against the gods, but were put down by the celestial host. The gods then took the rebellious Div tribes, the Djinn and Ifrit, and banished them into the Elemental Chaos. The third tribe, the Shee, had never participated in any war, and were spared this judgement. The gods created a mirror of the world for them to inhabit, and thus the Feywild was created, and inhabited by those who would become the Fey.


Now, originally in The Book of the Righteous, there are no Primordials, and Kador eventually becomes Asmodeus. But this works out nicely, and makes Tharizdun even more epic as a deity of evil, while maintaining the 4e concept of Asmodeus being a former angel (or Div, as the case is here) who aspired to become a god himself. Also, the "Gods of the Womb" in BotR are different deities entirely, in smaller numbers. But most of them match Core deities closely enough that there's no real problem in replacing them, save some gender switches here and there.

Now, there's more to the mythology to adapt, but my first hurdle involves the second batch of fruits from Eliwyn ripening to form the mortal races. In the original book, the fruits form the Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings and Humans (Elves being descendants of the Shee who chose mortality). But I was thinking of a different approach for 4e, making the fruits spawn Precursor races which would later produce the races we know today.

My ideas involved:
-The Adama: forerunners of humans, halflings, illumians, shadar-kai, the gith and other such humanoid races
-The Grendel: forerunners of orcs, goblins, ogres, trolls and other such brutal races, having been corrupted by evil early on.
-The Dweomer: forrunners of dwarves, gnomes and, somehow, goliaths.
-the fourth fruit would not have produced a race of it's own, having been torn up and eaten by numerous animals. These would form the beastmen races: gnolls, minotaurs, shifters, lizardfolk and the like.
-The Shee would produce the eladrin, elves and drow.

The fifth fruit would not have ripened and fallen, and such is yet to produce any progeny.

The tieflings would've come about the usual way, while the dragonborn would be creations of the dragons, themselves descended from the Div.

...I'd like some feedback before continuing this work, though.

 

[Keldryn]

Good stuff! I'm just starting the process of doing much the same thing. The Book of the Righteous has long been my favourite 3.x sourcebook as well.

I wasn't quite sure how to incorporate the Primordials, but I like your idea of having them come into being as a "side effect" of the Nameless One creating the world. I've also considered making the Nameless One a Primordial, or perhaps the four Old Gods (Kador, Urian, Shalimyr, Rontra), but neither of those really fit.

Some of my own thoughts on combining elements of the 4e cosmology into the BoTR mythology:

The BoTR has the Nameless One creating himself from nothingness by uttering His name in the "meeting of perfection and change." In that moment of its creation, the universe naturally divided into the Astral Sea (reflecting the "perfect emptiness" of pre-creation) and the Elemental Chaos (reflecting the "pure change" of pre-creation).

The BoTR describes this moment of creation as the meeting of "pure law and good" and "pure chaos and evil," and the Elemental Chaos definitely fits in with the book's concept of the Corpus Infernus. Thus, I envision the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos as physical manifestations of these pre-creation forces but without the clear good/evil bias of those forces. It could also be that the Nameless One divided the universe thusly in the First Epoch, where he creates his palace in the void then speaks four words which create the four elements.

In the Second Epoch, The Nameless One builds the pillars of earth, fire, air, and water, four pure elemental powers rising out of the swirling Elemental Chaos. It is atop these four pillars that the sphere (containing the world and ultimately its reflections) rests. Hmm, I just had a thought that the Primordials could have been born out of the Elemental Chaos as the Nameless One pulled columns of pure elemental power out of the maelstrom.

Kador becoming Tharizdun the Chained God makes a lot of sense and fits well into the BoTR mythology, but I think I'd like to keep Kador as Asmodeus (although Iblis would be an alternative Asmodeus). Perhaps Kador became so corrupted by the Corpus Infernus that he split into two beings, one which would become Asmodeus and which would would become Tharizdun. The Abyss (pure chaos and evil) forming in the depths of the Elemental Chaos has "Corpus Infernus" written all over it; after Morwyn expelled the Corpus Infernus to Hell, Tharizdun (whoever he actually is) steals it and plants it within the Elemental Chaos, creating the Abyss. Perhaps Tharizdun is simply the oldest and most powerful Primordial or a fallen divine servant. Or perhaps he is simply "The Chained God" (without being named Tharizdun) and his true identity is that of the Nameless One, who secretly returned to the universe to remove the corrupting influence from His children but fell victim to the Corpus Infernus Himself, as this universal force of pure change and evil existed even before He spoke His name and came into being. That would put a dark and sinister twist on everything.

I plan on keeping the gods as named and described in the BoTR, using names of 4e gods as what these gods are known as in other cultures. They won't match up perfectly, but there are a lot of similarities. The legends of the Three Sisters and the Three Brothers in the BoTR makes it easy to work Bahamut and Tiamat, for example, into the mythology.

Out of time... I'll come back to this discussion in a bit. I like a lot of your ideas, and I'm glad to see that this book is still enjoyed by others.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Thanks for the interest. Your ideas are also interesting. I hadn't thought of using the Nameless One's self-creation to explain the Astral Sea/Elemental Chaos split.

Anyways, to continue my little Mythos...

After imprisonning Asmodeus into Hell, banishing the Djinn and Ifrit into the Elemental Chaos, and sending the Shee (later called Sidhe) into the Feywild, the gods took the last of the Div, who had remained loyal to the gods, and to reward them, gave them new, powerful forms, with skins of hards scales, wide and powerful wings, and hearts filled with elemental power. The gods renamed them Dragons, and gave them dominion over the world, to keep the surviving giants in check, and to watch over those beings who would be born next from the tree of life. Bahamut and his cousin Tiamat (who were lovers at the time) took upon themselves to watch over the dragons and guide them.

The Tree of Life now bore five fruits, which had been ripening long enough for the new generation of gods to grow to adulthood. Then one day, Zhenkeef, on a whim, began plucking the fruits.

The first, she plucked and tossed it into the mountains, where her nephew Moradin found it after it split open, releasing a race of stout people. These, the Dwarven, took to the mountains and the caverns, and Moradin taught them the ways of mining and smithing, and they, in turn, declared him their father in spirit, naming him the "Soulforger". Even when they were later enslaved by the Giants, they did not recant him, and he in turn aided them until they finally won their freedom.

The second fruit, Zhenkeef juggled and squeezed until it was difformed, and threw it near the gates of Hell, where Asmodeus was still imprisonned. From it emerged the difformed Grendel, ancestors of those now known as orcs, goblins, ogres and trolls. Asmodeus saw these misshapen creatures, and though his body was imprisonned, his voice was not. And he whispered to them that it was the gods who was responsible for their twisted bodies, and that they should hate them, and those beings who's forms were not flawed as theirs was. The grendel listened, but did not forswear the gods as he intended, though he knew he had planted seeds of darkness in their hearts.

The third fruit, she tore to pieces and tossed here and there across the world. The smallest pieces became the beasts of the earth, sky and seas, and so they spread across the earth in multitudes. Those pieces of the fruit that had been closer to the core were different, however, bearing limbs like the other races, yet with the appearances of their animal kindred. These became the Beastmen races: Minotaur, gnolls, kenku, lizardfolk and similar folk.

Zhenkeef tried to eat the fourth fruit, but became ill from it. Morwynn, who had discovered what she had done, made her vomit it, but the fruit was now ruined. And so the gods tried to gather the pieces back together as best they could, but soon discovered they each had made the new race differently from one another. Skin color, hair color, shape of face, and even size; while all were still of one race, they were as different from one another as the other races was from them. Still, the gods saw them fit enough to inhabit the world, and spread them across the world, naming them Humans if they were tall, or Halflings if they were short.

(Okay, I kinda fumbled on that one; I wanted to make Halflings related to Humans, since they're so similar anyway. Does anyone have a better suggestion as to how to explain it?)

The fifth fruit remained on the tree, and Morwynn kept Zhenkeef from plucking it. And to this day it yet remains on Eliwyn, and so we know not what lies within. As the new races spread across the world, the gods tasked the dragons with guiding them, protecting them and teaching them, as they had taught and guided the dragons. In time, they would build Arkhosia, the First Empire, as a bastion against Jotunheim, the Kingdom of the Giants.

As the mortal races began dying, their spirits began filling the earth, as Mormekar had nowhere to place them. And so the gods created another mirror to the world. This one they named the Shadowfell, and it was a place of darkness and gloom, not fit for the living, but perfect for the dead. Mormekar entrusted the Shadowfell to his daughter Morgaine, whom mortals now call the Raven Queen, ruler of the dead.

Meanwhile, the gods began taking turns to guard the gateway to Hell, to keep Asmodeus from whispering to mortal-kind again. And so Asmodeus began whispering to the gods instead. While most rejected his words, his lies and half-truths found root in many of them: he fanned the flames of Bane's pride; he made Lolth grow jealous of the sidhe's love for Corellon; he taught Tiamat the virtues of Greed and Dominance; he convinced Gruumsh he was mightier then Kord, and that he should prove it. Soon enough, Asmodeus had corrupted nearly half of the gods, and just stood back as sibling turned against sibling, son against father, daughter against mother. The gods began dividing themselves into camps; the gods of Light, whom civilized races worship, and the gods of Darkness, now worshipped by barbaric or fel races.

To stem the conflict, lest the first rule of the gods be violated, Morwynn convinced both sides to agree to a system, which they would call the Compact; the gods would grant mortals powers to serve the will of a god, but only if the mortal, of his own free will, chose to worship that god. To make this choice meaningful, the gods agreed to let Asmodeus tempt mortals towards Hell.

In time, Arkhosia became decadent and corrupt, and fell, the dragons abandonning their sacred duties to pursue more selfish pursuits, and leaving the mortal races to forge their own destinies.

And that's it for this update...