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Mr. Mask
2015-11-06, 01:50 AM
I was wondering about the sorts of mythical monsters and legends fantasy cultures might have. This lead me to the question of... how are myths and monsters formed, in the real world, and how can you apply that to fiction?

Do you have ideas as to how you might formulate myths for a fictional culture, or knowledge of studies into just how myths are created in the real world?

cobaltstarfire
2015-11-06, 04:30 AM
Myths, monsters, cryptids, and whatever else are formed in the real world by humans that don't understand something, or who didn't get a good glimpse of it at any rate. Unreliable reporting also helps with that.

Legends are born from word of mouth and exaggeration to generate fear, awe, and an easier means of controlling the masses. Though I think some at least can be born from true happenings, people have been known to show crazy feats of strength in times of duress for example.

Things that differ from the norm on a significant level may be placed on a pedestal or feared.

That's my general observation anyway, from art history, paleontology, and zoologists who have a passing interest in cryptozoology, and how/why cryptids come into being. (carcasses that are too degraded to easily identify get mistaken for cryptids on a pretty regular basis)

If you know anyone with a degree in anthropology you could probably pick their mind for ages and get all kinds of really neat gems that don't come up very often. Philosophy can be pretty interesting place to get ideas for building myths upon.

Grinner
2015-11-06, 07:06 AM
I don't think anyone can establish with certainty the genesis of myths; it's extremely difficult to interrogate the dead for particular sorts of information. Some modern ones can be established to be the product of deceit, though.

It really depends on who you ask. More conducive to the purposes of fantasy, may I recommend a plot generator (http://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/fairytaleplot.htm)?

snowblizz
2015-11-06, 07:30 AM
I was wondering about the sorts of mythical monsters and legends fantasy cultures might have. This lead me to the question of... how are myths and monsters formed, in the real world, and how can you apply that to fiction?

Do you have ideas as to how you might formulate myths for a fictional culture, or knowledge of studies into just how myths are created in the real world?

They are formed from the unknown. Our fears, desires and other emotions made "real". From an innate need to make sense of things in a world we can't always easily explain.

What does your fictional culture fear? There are probably monsters and myths sprung out of that.

Comet
2015-11-06, 07:32 AM
A lot of standard fantasy makes its mythology so precise and easy to digest that it essentially turns into history and politics.

Myths are complicated, bizarre and often in conflict with one another. And silly, they are almost always a bit silly.

So the best way to go about creating myths would be to just come up with a number of symobols, characters and places that you feel embody the culture you're working with. Then, once you're excited about these vague ideas, just mash them against each other and see what could result from these interactions. Then think about how this would influence the culture as it would stand today. And don't worry about things not making perfect sense, you're not writing a history book.

cobaltstarfire
2015-11-06, 02:18 PM
Dofus and Wakfu have that approach to mythology. They have lots and lots of stories about their gods and the world of 12 (formerly 10 I think), its creation, how some of the gods became gods, what powers they have, ect. And while it's certain that there is some amount of truth to those myths, they also tend to be like real ones in that they don't easily fit together cohesively and there may several different versions of the same myth.

I guess another way to think about mythology is as a giant game of telephone.

Honest Tiefling
2015-11-06, 04:15 PM
They are also made to make people seem great. OUR historical ancestor beat up YOUR historical ancestor and then totally made out with all of their spouses who totally liked our guy better. And then he went on and challenged the god of music to a lyre contest. He didn't win, but the god of music said that it was pretty good and then they formed a band.

People want to make their own lineage seem awesome, or to be better then the guys next door. If there's some people way over there who are very awesome, then our people are so totally descended from them, or were otherwise taught by them. Or better yet, taught THEM.

The Fury
2015-11-07, 03:31 AM
Maybe there'd be a bit of actual history in a setting's myths too. With ample quantities of hyperbole, of course.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-07, 09:27 AM
As an interesting point, a greedy culture like the dwarves may have a lot of legends of bad things happening to greedy people. Which will contrast with all the heroic tales of people getting money through tricky means. The perception of greedy essentially being not what you do, but how you're presented in the story.

Dwarves would have ample opportunities to think up all sorts of evil monsters in the dark caverns, kept at bay simply/only by a good lantern and weapon by your side. Being underground dwellers, the idea of night terrors wouldn't beset the dwarves, the night wouldn't strike them as that different from their own homes. Cave ins and earthquakes and poisonous gas would be most terrible to the dwarves. Would that imply mental creations of say, underground giants where if you tunnel into their mouths, they might chomp you (AKA: Cave-in? That seems unlikely, as the dwarves ought to have a firm understanding of why cave-ins happen.

Poisonous gas in the ground, however.... obviously demons.


On a religious front, perhaps while the good dwarven gods went and buried wonderful things to be dug up, evil gods buried what they considered good things (which are actually quite beastly: poisonous gas, magma, and underground beasties).

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-07, 09:32 AM
A lot of standard fantasy makes its mythology so precise and easy to digest that it essentially turns into history and politics.


On the other hand, lots of real myths are just history and politics wrapped in a veneer of superstition and horror. See: anything about Nazis and their occult and scientific experiments.

Generally, myths come about just like all other stories; it's just that certain types of stories are more memorable than others and hence last a longer time. When it comes to religious concepts, specifically, Pascal Boyer explains fairly well in his book Religion Explained how concepts which appeal to multiple human intuitions at once, or break our intuitions in a way which causes overlap between categories, are more memorable than completely nonsensical ones (etc.).

Also, certain sorts of information are more interesting than others. Humans, being social creatures, find information regarding social relationships to be particularly interesting. To give a secular example: violence is interesting, because it obviously has an impact to functions between people. Sex, too, is interesting. Sexual violence combines the two, so it's especially interesting, and hence causes even greater emotions than just violence, or just sex.