D&D 5E Two more Classic Settings to go

[LuisCarlos17f]

The gods from the classic mythologies were powerful but not omnipotent. They could lose battles and sometimes even being killed. And the modern speculative fiction allows them to be enoughly vulnerable. In the videogames Kratos killed many of them.

Of course D&D Tiamat is not like the original from classic mythology, but we also should remember the original Thor was redheared and not blonde, and Loki was not adoptive Thor's brother.

---

I thought Dragonlance would be the next one, but now I am wondering about the modules. If they are too "railroad" then they are not enough good for the future videogame adaptation. This means maybe they are going to start all the adventures from zero. (A second reason is to avoid these to be "spoilered" by the players who read the novels or the PDFs. Other reason is to allow changed in the list of main characters. For example Tika is redheared-darksinned, Tasha Burrfoot is a girl (cousin, by adoption, of the original Tasslehof), Theros Ironfeld an artificier and Crysania (psionic ardent or favored soul) as (new) members of the heroes, Sturm is a "crusader"(martial adept with divine martial maneuvers) and Raistlin has got tribal tatoos on his face (and secret levels of warlock class, thanks Fistandantilus' curse). Wouldn't be it change the canon too much? No if they are only alternate options in the tabletop and the future videogame. Other reason is if there is some game-show streaming serie to promote the line, they can't use the original plot because it is too known by the fandom. But we can explain the retcon by fault of chronomancers (time-traveler spellcasters) who created a parallel timeline. "Sithicus" ( = land of wraiths) would be the name of the region of Shadowfell linked with Krynn sphere. There are some "domains" where the dark lords are the children and concubines+wives of Beldinas Pilofiro (Kingpriest of Istar and secretly psionic ardent or favored soul) fighting each other for the succesion (the classic harem intrigues).

I imagine something like "Xanxost's Guide for the Planeswalkers".

Dark Sun for 2022, maybe accompanied by a new Magic: the Gathering created to be a mixture of possible spin-off and spiritual succesor.

 

[Sithlord]

I'll grant the "heavens and earth" were created after, but there was a lot of creation (verb) going on prior. Elder dieties, 11 monsters to avenge Apsu's death etc.

I think for D&D purposes, using Tiamat as the primordial chaos sea from which all arose is a valid mythos.

Another D&D version could choose to add in Marduk as the architect of the current state of the cosmos.

But I feel it was more of a change of command situation "old guard out, new guard in" like many of the worlds myths.

The shifting waters of chaos before the creation of the ordered universe where man can live was the time of the great old ones. Marduk slayed Tiamat creating order and banished azatjoth outside time and space near the star Betelgeuse. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 

[Aldarc]

I'll grant the "heavens and earth" were created after, but there was a lot of creation (verb) going on prior. Elder dieties, 11 monsters to avenge Apsu's death etc.

There was a lot of bearing and begetting and things coming into formation, but "creation" in ancient West Asian cultures was primarily understood as actively giving order to chaos, which in turn has to be preserved through kingly dispensation of justice/order and priestly cultic practices. This is what I meant by "true creation." There are translations though that do translate the various inflections of the Akkadian "banûm" in several of these instances as to "create."

 

[Demetrios1453]

Because the Babylonians and Akkadians didn't think of it the way that you do. True creation was only able to happen once Marduk killed Tiamat and was able to use her divided body to create "the heavens and earth." You're trying to impose D&D understanding of terms and deities on ancient ones. It's generally not advised.

Let alone the differences from the understanding of the members of the Uruk Culture that built Eridu and Uruk and the Neo-Chaldaeans of Babylon at the time of the Persian conquest. 3000 year passed in that time, and even the gods involved changed!

 

[Steampunkette]

Okay... if you're gonna go into Babylonian and Akkadian mythologies you need to go back to Sumer, whose religions formed the -basis- of both.

Specifically, that there were stages of Cosmic Birth or Creation as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

First the Divine Waters "Nammu" created the Sky, An, and the Earth, Ki. An and Ki begat Enlil, god of wind, rain, and storm. Enlil separated his parents, again, keeping them apart with his presence. Nammu and An got it on and begat Enki, who later created Mankind. An made the Heavens for the Gods alone, and sent the dead humans to Kur in the earth, ruled by Ereshkigal and Nergal her husband. Where'd they come from? We literally don't know 'cause most of Sumerian Literature doesn't exist anymore and the Epic of Gilgamesh isn't a full listing of their religious beliefs...

There were also Ninil, Enil's wife and their child Ninurta. Inanna was Erishkegal's younger sister. Utu was there, as well. Nanna and his wife Ningal... and Neti gatekeeper of the Underworld.

But. That knowledge informs the Babylonian and Akkadian cultures.

Nammu over time became Tiamat, a name which was passed on to the Amorites of Babylon and the Akkadians who were Semites.

THEN Tiamat got axed by Marduk as a myth of a "New Cycle of Creation" as a way for the Amorites to subjugate the religious figures of the Sumerian Pantheon to break, or at least weaken, the Priesthood's hold on the populace, supplanting the important figures of the Sumerian pantheon with their own figures to create a new and hybridized religion. Suddenly Nammu/Tiamat wasn't just a goddess of divine water, but the source of CHAOS in your lives, and isn't it marvelous how our superior god (Who is now God-King of your Pantheon and secretly totally helped Enki create you) saved you from that chaos? You're welcome!

The Akkadians would do similar things before expanding their cultural identity toward a more centralized polytheism where the Sumerian gods became secondary figures below the Elohim along with the Moabite god Chemosh and the Sidonian goddess Astarte.

But after that point you start getting into Abrahamic Mysteries and early Judaism and we have to stop to avoid modern real world religious discussion!

Point is: The Sumerians believed in cycles of creation that began with Tiamat birthing the Sky and the Earth, with those two birthing the rain, and further generations of gods creating more and more of reality. And then other cultures took those ideas of creation cycles and wrote their own cycles into the story as a way to give themselves primacy.

With the ancillary point of: D&D is written with the idea of Gods and religion viewed through the lens of modern Western ideology. If you try and use modern ideas about the gods of the past you're gonna have a bad time. Because the Gods of the ancient world were not "Gods" as we think of them in the context of our reality. Even the term "God" bears a hell of a lot of connotations that really just ... don't fit. Nammu -was- the Sea. The spirit of the sea. And when she died, the sea remained, but lacked a spirit. It didn't change because of course it wouldn't. It just didn't have the same magic in it as it had before.

Meanwhile Enki, the god who created mankind? Was the god of Groundwater. Of rivers, of lakes, of underground liquid that you can reach with a well. Those forms of water still had a spirit. Why? Marduk didn't kill it.

Enki didn't become the sea god. Neither did Marduk. After that point there -was- no sea-god. Didn't need one. 'Cause you didn't actually need Gods of anything for them to exist. Kinda only to create them in the first place, often by being those things.

 

[Azzy]

And, suddenly, the conversation of D&D settings turns into one of Chaoskampf.

 

[Steampunkette]

It -is- a core part of many D&D Settings and Campaigns!

 

[Aldarc]

And, suddenly, the conversation of D&D settings turns into one of Chaoskampf.

I’m ready to Dawn War and World Axis.

 

[Steampunkette]

I’m ready to Dawn War and World Axis.

I'll Dawn War -YOUR- World Axis!

... I love meaningless and pointless threats like that. Hubby and I do it all the time.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Not really. Eberron and Dragonlance are no sillier than many real world cosmological beliefs. Planescape makes all beliefs in the entirety of D&D into BS that ignorant losers believe because they don’t know any better. That is a whole other level of bad.

You know the Greeks believed that the god Apollo literally woke up every morning in his Sun Palace, got in his Sun Chariot, and piloted it all day, and that was just how the sun worked? Real-world cosmology was if anything way MORE silly than D&D cosmology.

Hell, they thought the Sahara was made because Apollo's sun once tried the chariot and got too close to the Earth there and scorched it to sand.

EDIT: Plus those gods killed each other a lot.