Twelve trees and green suns; refrences to a real world mythology?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Ok, I've noticed another weird congruence between different media. The Elder Scrolls games and the Exalted rulebook Graceful Wicked Masques: The Fair Folk seem to tell basically the same creation story, wherein an initially undifferentiated and timeless cosmos is divided by a primal force (Padomay/Akel in TES, Shinma Iraivan in Exalted) to create the original spirits. Time also comes into existence but there is not yet a single self-consistent timeline. Then some of the original spirits (The Aedra in Elder Scrolls or the Yozis/Neverborn in Exalted) mutilate or disfigure themselves in order to create the mundane world. At this point time becomes a single self-consistent history. The spirits who took no part in creating the world (The Daedra in TES or Raksha/Fair Folk/Chaos Lords in Exalted) mock and deride the spirits who disfigured themselves but find themselves morbidly fascinated by their creation and frequently interfere with it.

This probably comes from Gnosticism, a Jewish and Christian movement in antiquity that took inspiration from Zoroastrianism and possibly Buddhism. In various Gnostic faiths the creation myth involves the good, formless beings of light and thought (Aeons/Uthra/Angels) and the evil, physical beings (Yaldabaoth the Demiurge and the Archons). This is very similar to the concept of the Et Ada from the Elder Scrolls. I’m not as familiar with Exalted, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was inspired by Gnosticism too.

 

[Undrave]

The twelve thing is weird. Generally speaking 12 is a holy number in most cultures, and enormously so in Christianity. I don't know of any examples to the contrary, for trees or anything else. Possibly a conscious subversion of something holy? That would makes sense for the Abyss thing, although who knows about Twin Peaks.

Well, in certain variation of the story, the Knights of the Round Table were 12 until Galahad arrived as the 13th member and everything unravelled after that moment, despite the 13th member himself not being responsible for any of it. Might even be a prophecy in there somewhere.

Maybe the 12 trees in Twin Peaks symbolizes the person walking through being 'the 13th' and causing things to go down?

It also works with Jesus and the 12 apostles, with Judas being the 13th of the group?

 

[Staffan]

Go to Google.
Do a search on "The Tommyknockers"
Look at the associated images.
See that green? It is often called "Tommyknocker green". Media uses glowing green to be "unnatural power". I don't think this is a matter of real-world mythology, so much as visual media tropes.

I remember one game session where the GM mentioned that we saw a green glow somewhere, and one of the players asked "Hold on a minute. Are we talking a nice foresty green, or Stephen King green?"

I think that one's a relatively new trope, probably related to radioactivity being portrayed as green – and that, in turn, probably has to do with glow-in-the-dark radium paint.

 

[Umbran]

I think that one's a relatively new trope, probably related to radioactivity being portrayed as green – and that, in turn, probably has to do with glow-in-the-dark radium paint.

Well, radium was the radioactive component in the first glow-in-the-dark paints. Radium + copper-doped zinc sulfide = green glow.

Radium itself emits sufficient radiation to excite nitrogen in the air to glow, but that's much dimmer, and a pale blue color.

 

[Staffan]

Well, radium was the radioactive component in the first glow-in-the-dark paints. Radium + copper-doped zinc sulfide = green glow.

Radium itself emits sufficient radiation to excite nitrogen in the air to glow, but that's much dimmer, and a pale blue color.

Right, that's what I was getting at. Radioactivity itself is generally not visible, but one of the more publicly accessible uses of radioactive materials was the first glow-in-the-dark paints, and that had a fairly distinctive green glow. This would then lead to said glow being associated with radioactivity and then with general unnatural-ness.

 

[Richards]

I always assumed the Twelvetrees layout was meant to represent a clock, and the fact that twelve separate trees wouldn't likely grow up in such perfect symmetry on their own was simply meant to point out their otherworldliness.

Johnathan

 

[aramis erak]

I always assumed the Twelvetrees layout was meant to represent a clock, and the fact that twelve separate trees wouldn't likely grow up in such perfect symmetry on their own was simply meant to point out their otherworldliness.

Johnathan

12 trees around the Tree of Life has been used in the past as a representation of Jesus and the 12 apostles; each being a tree, intertwined and co-rooted with the Tree of life, their canopy representing the churches they founded. It's not much used now, since only a handful of the 12 have are attributed to have founded the surviving churches... Peter, Paul, Mark, Thomas, and James. And Paul was never one of the 12...

 

[Bohandas]

The Sun can sometimes appear as a green spot for a second or two as it is rising or setting: this is known as green flash. Roughly speaking, the red light from the Sun is blocked by Earth, the blue light is scattered by the atmosphere, and the green light is refracted by the atmosphere to the observer.

Initially I was sure that this was the root of it, but then in Shards of the Exalted Dream I came across the description "a green sun twice the mass of the universe" which is a detail that seems to appear in both sources.