D&D General IRL nominations (historically classic ie religious, pantheonic, folkloric, no newer than 1600) for mythical cosmologies you enjoy including in d&d.

Son of the Serpent · Oct 12, 2019

Further clarification

1600 is merely the line drawn for how recent the origin/beginning of the over all core mythos in the general body of myth can be. So for instance, the origina of judaism's mythological core dates back to ancient sumeria before there are generally any jews and before ideas like michael and people like jacob and all them were born. It predates abraham but you couod call this the origin of the mythological core that would form abrahamic faith.

generic · Oct 12, 2019

Honestly...

1. Judaism
2. Aztec
3. Korean (broadly, in the traditional spiritual canon)

Legatus Legionis · Oct 12, 2019

Mercurius · Oct 12, 2019

Hard to narrow it down to just three, but I'll side step the good old favorites (e.g. Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece, etc) to give a nod to some more obscure ones:

Zoroastrianism
Platonism/Neo-Platonism/Hermeticism
Gnosticism

gyor · Oct 12, 2019

Mercurius said:
Hard to narrow it down to just three, but I'll side step the good old favorites (e.g. Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece, etc) to give a nod to some more obscure ones:

Zoroastrianism
Platonism/Neo-Platonism/Hermeticism
Gnosticism

Now that is interesting. I'm not sure how you'd fit Neoplatonism into D&D Cosmology, but adding Neoplatonist elements would super enhance the D&D setting in a host of ways. This deserves a second nomination.

Gnostism is a thing in Planescape were one of the factions is basically Gnostic, viewing the Gods of D&D as Demiurges and false gods and seek a higher God.

Bringing these faiths into D&D would give D&D a good reason to bring back Celestial Archons. I'd draw deeper onto Neoplatonic, Heremetic, and Gnostic lore for the Archons, giving them a more distinct place in the setting, and a bit of a darker edge in the case of Gnostic influences.

Mercurius · Oct 12, 2019

gyor said:
Now that is interesting. I'm not sure how you'd fit Neoplatonism into D&D Cosmology, but adding Neoplatonist elements would super enhance the D&D setting in a host of ways. This deserves a second nomination.

Gnostism is a thing in Planescape were one of the factions is basically Gnostic, viewing the Gods of D&D as Demiurges and false gods and seek a higher God.

Bringing these faiths into D&D would give D&D a good reason to bring back Celestial Archons. I'd draw deeper onto Neoplatonic, Heremetic, and Gnostic lore for the Archons, giving them a more distinct place in the setting, and a bit of a darker edge in the case of Gnostic influences.

I agree that Neoplatonism would be difficult to incorporate into D&D cosmology. It would probably require some kind of cap-system to allow for higher level play, or an alternate level system of spiritual development. Maybe port over some ideas from yogic philosophy, or someone like Sri Aurobindo. Chakras as untapped power sources for PCs?

The Gnostic Demiurge would make for a great uber-villain in a dystopian campaign. The gods of the pantheon are actually extra-terrestrial and/or extra-dimensional beings who the PCs gradually realize are parasitic to their world. They have to save the earth goddess "Sophia," and cast out the evil archons. It could incorporate elements of the Matrix film, albeit in a fantasy form (no simulated reality, but rather mass enchantments that keep people from seeing the true nature of the gods).

Son of the Serpent · Oct 14, 2019

NOMINATIONS ARE CLOSED

Yaarel · Oct 17, 2019

[Edit: Heh − didnt get to the last post yet.]

I nominate:

Norse/Scandinavian - shamanic/animistic - including Sámi and Suomi
Saxon/German - polytheistic/Roman-Empire, S Celtic landspirits, Holy Roman Empire, Renaissance plate armor
Medieval Jewish - kabala, sages, international communities
Native American - especially Northeast and Northwest
Australian Aborigine
Diverse Buddhisms of Sri Lanka, Tibet, Japan, and Southeast Asia
Hinduism (Brahman as transcending unchanging monotheistic God beyond space-time, Devas as variegations within space-time)

British Isles that focuses on the separate cultural influences: Irish Celtic, Welsh Celtic, Scottish Pict, Germanic Saxon, Viking Norse. Latin+Frankish French with Anglo-French, with Fata/Faie, Fay, and Fairie and Fairiefolk. For Celts, maybe as much as possible, a mythologically accurate Druid (priestly caste like Brahmin, pacifist in the sense of no weapon wielding, sages of nature brewing potions, creating magic items, cloud divination). Three branches of Celtic government: bards (sages), druids (priests), warriors (knights). Plus mythologically accurate Celtic Sidhe (Shee, Sith) races, including Scottish Elf Fairy and Shakespearean childlike landspirit Fairy.

Son of the Serpent · Oct 18, 2019

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this (had a lot of unexpected irl stuff come up) but the results are in for this segment of the nominations poll. The next section will be posted shortly. For any nomination idea, the time frame in history of which was not perfectly clear but was plausibly during the window specied, nominatioma for said examples wont be considered during later sections. Example: hawaiian was counted for pre 1600. Therefore, it will not be a valid nominatiom for later sections. It already made the cut during this segment though so it is inconsequential. It none the less illustrates a point i needed to make, hense my referencing it. The results from this segment are in and as there are 10 from this segment alone i dont think there will be any danger of not reaching 12 once all segments of the nominations are in.

The results are:

Nordic
Celtic
Egyptian
Greek
Roman
Slavic
Sumerian
Hawaiian
Japanese
Zoroastrian

Once all three sections are done voting will begin shortly after.