Published settings creation myths?

[D'karr]

One of the reasons I really like the 4e creation myth is exactly because it is nebulous and mythic. There are details but nothing is entirely nailed down. It leaves a lot of "story" open for the DM to tailor to his needs.

 

[Riley37]

Are there any myths, in FR? or in Greyhawk or Dragonlance?

That is, are there any stories, which people tell to their children, to explain the origin and nature of the world around them, which are made up, and which are not true historical fact in every detail?

 

[Tony Vargas]

One of the things I'm particularly confused about is all the mentions of times when human(oids) lived "before the gods." The 5e books talk about aboleths ruling the humanoid races before the gods came and booted them, as well as druidic faiths and oath of the ancients paladins being "older than the gods."

So...exactly when was this time period?

While I suppose it could be something like Glorantha's GodTime, an eternal instant of simultaneity 'before' Time itself existed, I suspect it has more to do with the many parallels of the Prime Material. The Gods might create a world or worlds, different gods create different ones or have different influence over them. Some pre-God entities may have created a world, disapeared or been defeatedby other Gods, and have their world smoothed over and re-created, leaving vestiges behind. Or creatures like aboleths and other lovecraftian horrors might be left over detritus from whatever existed in the prime material before creation.

'Before the Gods' legends could also just be a matter of exaggeration.

 

[The M'hael]

to sort of go away from published settings but in one of my latest homebrew worlds the nature spirits that are often referred to as being before the gods are actually the gods. The Angels expelled the gods from the upper planes and sealed off the outer planes from all contact. the gods split up the PMP into various realms and inhabit each, but with diminishing power. There were empires and kingdoms and all the races before the PMP split up, and this is just the next era.

 

[SkidAce]

You can refer to the "time before the gods" literally in several ways.

As long as you accept the premise that the gods rose from the worship of the established races. Then something (primordials, the cosmic balance, etc.) created the world(s) and life grew and spread. Aboleths existed etc.

Gods arose from the consciousnesses of the intelligent races, or were powerful individuals of those races that eventually tapped into divine power.

Bam! Done!

That's how I've done it for years anyway.

 

[SkidAce]

To clarify, most of the "gods" in my campaign setting are "small", relatively speaking. Not responsible for creating the universe.

They may have shepherded various races, guided their rise to power or prominence, but very few gods are "creator" gods, that can design entirely new races.

 

[gamerprinter]

For my published Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) there is no creation myth, as it is creation fact. Kaidan was instantaneously created by the Emma-O the lord of Jigoku (Buddhist hell) following an uttered divine curse and the subsequent suicide of an entire imperial house.

While Kaidan itself is a fictional setting, the event described leading to its creation is from actual Japanese history. In 1180 AD, the imperial prime minister tricked the then Emperor of Japan, Go-shirakawa into abdicating his throne due to a supposed assassination attempt on his life. Upon his abdication, the prime minister, Taira no Kiyomori, appointed his 1 year old grandson (the son of Go-shirakawa) as emperor, with himself as regent - (Kiyomori was Go-shirakawa's father in law). Clan Minamoto supported Go-shirakawa's cause and began to war with the Taira clan. By 1185, the Minamoto were winning the war. At the last battle, a sea battle off the coast of the main island of Honshu, in the straits between Honshu and Kyushu - a place called Dan-no-ura on April 25, 1185, at first the Taira were winning the battle, but the tides changed and the Minamoto gained the advantage. A Taira general turned traitor and revealed to the Minamoto forces which ship was the flagship of the Taira navy with the entire imperial house aboard. With concentrated attacks all on board the deck were killed, under the deck in the hold was the imperial family. Rather than being captured, humiliated then executed by the Minamoto, the grandmother of the then five year old emperor Antoku with the young emperor in her arms leapt into the sea to drown, followed by the rest of the imperial house - all committing suicide.

The fiction, I add, is that the grandmother, while holding the emperor and prior to her leap to death, utters a curse on the empire and the damned Wheel of Life (Buddhist afterlife), and that if the world was just, Antoku and his imperial house should rule the empire for all time... The demon lord of Jigoku, Lord Emma-O heard this delicious divine curse consummated with the suicide of an imperial house and granted it. The imperial house was fished from the sea, and apparently won the battle (lost in reality), but when they arrived on shore, it was not Japan that they ruled, it was, instead, Kaidan.

Now and for the last 714 years, the ruling house of Kaidan is House Taira, with Antoku as emperor (a ghost in the mind and body of a five year old), with his grandfather, Taira no Kiyomori, as Shogun (and graveknight), the defacto secular ruler of Kaidan. Thus Kaidan is a dark setting ruled by a fully undead imperial house, supported by living samurai, and a more structured than Japan social caste system.

Thus while certainly a ficitional setting, the events causing its creation is borrowed from actual Japanese history.