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GaelofDarkness
2018-10-10, 10:18 AM
I was looking into vampire lore and how it's evolved over the years and I was really surprised at how different Bram Stoker's Dracula was to what one might call the "classic" vampire and in what ways he was different. For one thing, he could apparently be trapped in his coffin by leaving a wild rose stalk on it... which I can't believe I've never heard of considering how big an impact the paranormal romance genre had on vampires' portrayal.

This got me thinking, what other big changes to folklore inspired monsters do you know of, especially in rpgs? I'm wondering if there are any opportunities for a cool spin on some creatures that are actually just taking it back to its roots - because that takes a lot less effort and creativity :smallwink:. Like the portrayal of kobolds in dnd made liberal use of creative license - which I have no problem with, I'm just interested in how the stories have changed since the OG versions.

For my own contribution - the leprechaun as it is known today is waaay out of step with the original Irish folklore.
The name comes from lúchorpán which is just an Irish word meaning something like "small bodied one". If I'm remembering right, the first use of the word is from the Adventures of Fergus mac Léti - a legendary king. He was out riding in his chariot, took a break on the beach and fell asleep, as you do. He woke to find three water sprites had disarmed him and were trying to drag him into the sea (presumably to be drowned and eaten). They were referred to as lúchorpáin (the i makes it plural) and English versions of the story usually say "dwarves" - not leprechauns. That's right, the first leprechauns ever mentioned were murderous sea dwarves. Mac Léti captured them and demanded a wish in return for releasing them. So he got the power to breathe underwater though this power didn't work in the Bay of Dundrum, because fairy logic.

W. B. Yeats wrote about the leprechaun and described him as the son of an "evil spirit and degenerate fairy" being neither good nor evil. He was described as being really wealthy because he dug up the treasure crocks people from ages past had buried in war time and never returned for. I have no idea where the "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" stuff comes from. The leprechaun also gets conflated with other creatures a LOT, like the fairy shoemaker (Irish version of the helpful elves from the Grimm fairy tale) , the clurichaun which is a sprite that's really fond of other people's wine (similar name to leprechaun in English but not in Irish since clurichaun comes from the Irish for "red clover head" probably a reference to the flushed face of the drunken fey) and the far darrig which is better known as the red cap.

Honestly, the more interesting creature to come out of the Adventures of Fergus mac Léti was Muirdris, a sea monster that inflated and contracted like the smiths' bellows and whose appearance was such a lovecraftian horror that she left the king's face permanently contorted in terror - oh, and she was found in the Bay of Dundrum because of course the dude went swimming in the ONE PLACE his magic amphibiousness didn't work.

gkathellar
2018-10-10, 12:48 PM
One common thread is the presentation of different supernatural beings as occupying distinct species, whereas in their source material they're often more like different political factions or tribes. Take for instance Norse mythology's jotunn, clearly at least part of the for giants and trolls: in the sagas, they're not just big, elemental human-shaped dudes, but divine beings not unlike the Aesir, who they frequently intermarry and mix with. Likewise, the depictions of elves and dwarves draw inspiration from the different factions of alfr, who are themselves in the same general class of godlike beings that Aesir, Jotunn and Vanir occupy.

The presence of a second faction of rival divinities is a pretty common mythological trope when it comes to gods and their rivals, presumably because so many myth cycles have shared Indo-Iranian roots. Because that second faction is often cast as monstrous of demonic, they often appears in modern fantasy and D&D in particular as distinctly non-divine entities. I guess you could say D&D tends to simplify out a lot of the ambiguity and tribalism that exists in mythology, preferring clearly-defined categories, and interpreting the gods as categorically different than the majority of supernatural beings.

I'm rambling a little bit, but I guess what I'm saying is that gods are a great example.

Bastian Weaver
2018-10-10, 01:07 PM
Most of them, I'd say. Did you know that folklore zombies weren't people infected by a virus? Unbelievable, but true! And Kobolds weren't smallish reptile people. Amazons didn't fly or use lasso as a weapon! Druids didn't turn into bears! The banshee were quite different, too - just ghosts who predicted death, not actually monsters.

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-10, 01:10 PM
One common thread is the presentation of different supernatural beings as occupying distinct species, whereas in their source material they're often more like different political factions or tribes. Take for instance Norse mythology's jotunn, clearly at least part of the for giants and trolls: in the sagas, they're not just big, elemental human-shaped dudes, but divine beings not unlike the Aesir, who they frequently intermarry and mix with. Likewise, the depictions of elves and dwarves draw inspiration from the different factions of alfr, who are themselves in the same general class of godlike beings that Aesir, Jotunn and Vanir occupy.

The presence of a second faction of rival divinities is a pretty common mythological trope when it comes to gods and their rivals, presumably because so many myth cycles have shared Indo-Iranian roots. Because that second faction is often cast as monstrous of demonic, they often appears in modern fantasy and D&D in particular as distinctly non-divine entities. I guess you could say D&D tends to simplify out a lot of the ambiguity and tribalism that exists in mythology, preferring clearly-defined categories, and interpreting the gods as categorically different than the majority of supernatural beings.

I'm rambling a little bit, but I guess what I'm saying is that gods are a great example.

Makes sense.

The way dnd portrays fomorians was quite strange the first time I encountered them. The original fomorians were to the Tuatha Dé Danann as the Jotunn were to the Aesir I guess. In dnd they're more or less based on the fomorian high king Balor of the Evil Eye - though I suppose they already used balor to refer to another creature. The evil eye stuff they added in 5th edition is actually a lot closer to the folklore in that way. They were usually somewhat monstrous but it's Irish mythology so virtually everyone shape-shifts and some fomorians like Elatha were described as being beautiful, or at least taking on beautiful forms. And some of the high kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann were half-fomorian, like Bres and Lugh of the Long Arm. In fact, Bres was known by the title "The Beautiful".


Most of them, I'd say. Did you know that folklore zombies weren't people infected by a virus? Unbelievable, but true! And Kobolds weren't smallish reptile people. Amazons didn't fly or use lasso as a weapon! Druids didn't turn into bears! The banshee were quite different, too - just ghosts who predicted death, not actually monsters.

Well, I think most people know about the zombies and kobolds... though there are a lot of people who associate the amazons and pegasus for some reason... I suppose they both show up in the myth of Bellerophon *shrug*. The druids couldn't shape-shift into bears but in legends there were druids who could shape-shift into pretty much everything else - there are no bears in Ireland so I guess that makes sense. And though you're right banshees weren't monsters, banshees weren't really ghosts either. The name just means fairy woman - and there's some distinction between the dead and the fey in Irish mythology if not in other celtic traditions.

Bastian Weaver
2018-10-10, 01:31 PM
Good point, the word "ghost" really doesn't fit them.
Then there's the whole story with Medusa the Gorgon, who was a) unique with her flesh-to-stone gaze and b) used to be a stunningly beautiful woman before she was cursed and transformed into a monster.

jmberry
2018-10-10, 01:44 PM
Good point, the word "ghost" really doesn't fit them.
Then there's the whole story with Medusa the Gorgon, who was a) unique with her flesh-to-stone gaze and b) used to be a stunningly beautiful woman before she was cursed and transformed into a monster.

Medusa being originally beautiful is itself a (relatively) recent change - in the original stories, Medusa was always monstrous (as were her sisters, Stheno and Euryale). Pindar and his contemporaries were the ones that came up with the idea that Medusa's appearance was more a case of being so beautiful as to be frightening, and the story of her being a beautiful maiden who was raped by Poseidon and cursed by Athena doesn't show up until Ovid.

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-10, 02:45 PM
Medusa being originally beautiful is itself a (relatively) recent change - in the original stories, Medusa was always monstrous (as were her sisters, Stheno and Euryale). Pindar and his contemporaries were the ones that came up with the idea that Medusa's appearance was more a case of being so beautiful as to be frightening, and the story of her being a beautiful maiden who was raped by Poseidon and cursed by Athena doesn't show up until Ovid.

I sincerely love that a two thousand year old part of the story can be a recent addition :smallbiggrin:

Eldan
2018-10-10, 03:02 PM
Most of them, I'd say. Did you know that folklore zombies weren't people infected by a virus? Unbelievable, but true! And Kobolds weren't smallish reptile people. Amazons didn't fly or use lasso as a weapon! Druids didn't turn into bears! The banshee were quite different, too - just ghosts who predicted death, not actually monsters.

What, no. The Bean Sidhe is not a ghost. It just means faerie woman.

AmberVael
2018-10-10, 04:05 PM
The barghest! It has been in D&D practically from the beginning, presented as fiendish goblin with ties to Gehenna and a canine form. Their signature ability is devouring others to increase their power.

Barghests of lore, however, are an iteration of the black dog myth. They are ominous, omens of death, and the stories around them tend to emphasize their predatory, dangerous nature. Like a lot of mythical creatures there are some stories of alternate forms or shapeshifting, but the black dog form is a common thread. Other interesting commonalties include a terrifying howl, invisibility, and the sound of chains.

I'm not really sure where the goblin link came from, or why the typical black dog themes are underplayed or absent. I think a more traditional barghest could make for a very cool monster.

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-10, 05:39 PM
Ooooh, that sounds like fun! Misty moors, a starless night and a fork in the road visible only by lantern-light. Perfect set up for a black dog style monster.

Beneath
2018-10-10, 06:58 PM
Tolkein's use of "hobgoblin" to mean "a larger goblin" instead of a smaller more annoying one was based on a mistake in understanding the stories, IIRC

KillianHawkeye
2018-10-10, 10:42 PM
What I wanna know is why do D&D dopplegangers in their native form look so similar to the Roswell "gray aliens"?

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-11, 02:30 AM
What, no. The Bean Sidhe is not a ghost. It just means faerie woman.

In full 'woman of the fairy mounds', unless I'm very much mistaken. A Bean Sidhe would watch over a family and, as I remember, let out a wail when one of them was about to die.


Tolkein's use of "hobgoblin" to mean "a larger goblin" instead of a smaller more annoying one was based on a mistake in understanding the stories, IIRC

Yep, I believe it could also mean 'friendlier goblin'. Also that it was a shortened form of Robert Goblin, as in 'have you met that Rob Goblin down the way, keeps trying to say he owns my farm and demands half of the crop'.

Also trolls, like sidhe and goblins, varied quite a but in their folklore depictions to the point where they just seemed to be a term for 'supernatural creature' (possibly not otherwise specified). Oh, and from region to region of course, but also from tale to tale within a region.

Epimethee
2018-10-11, 03:41 AM
Fun fact: Dracula is already a modern transformation of the vampire, heavily influenced by the version of Polidori, a supernatural retelling of the life of Byron. It was written in the same place where Frankenstein was invented, near Geneva in Switzerland.

But this romantic Vampire, over sexualized, had nothing to do with the balkanic monster, a kind of devouring living dead, closer to the modern zombi.

As many have said, most creatures are heavily changed across time and literary tropes are often the main culprit: for example the classical image of ghost, with chains came from a letter written by Pliny the Younger.

And the examples are almost endless : rpg and videogames are only the latest link in this huge chain.

Even literary monster can experiment it: see for example how the cinema influenced Frankenstein !

Anymage
2018-10-11, 04:43 AM
Talking much more recently, look at the differences between the Marvel and DC comics universes, and their respective cinematic universes.

Most creatures from myth and folklore exist in a state of flux, as people are prone to embellish tales and then others partake in collaborative storytelling by picking the parts that best resonate with them. (I wish I could find some good folklore sources as to what sorts of elements are more or less likely to catch on in various cultural mythologies.) The only thingies that haven't changed are either the ones too uninspiring for other people to carry the idea on their own, or ones too new to have meaningfully evolved since their inception.

Misereor
2018-10-11, 05:38 AM
What folklore inspired creatures have really changed from their original versions?

The Nixie has many derivations.
Which makes sense since it is old enough to first be named in Sanskrit...

They are found in various forms in Germanic, Celtic, Latin, Greek, Finno-ugric, and Slavic mythology.
Sometimes male, sometimes female. Sometimes a dwarfish creature, sometimes a snake or dragon, sometimes a naked reveller. Usually related to water and drowning, but has been conflated enough with other mythological creatures that they may be related to the Roman Lares, Santa's Elves, Bridge Trolls, and the idea of Dragon's Gold. Sometimes they are Undergrounders, sometimes Guardian Spirits, sometimes agents of fate. Usually they require appeasement, whether by good manners, sacrifices, or outright bribes.

Eldan
2018-10-11, 05:41 AM
What I find interesting is how much Tolkien's depiction of dwarves has taken over from mythological accounts. I'm not too familiar with what the norse dwarves actually looked like (is that ever actually described), but the dwarves I'm familiar with from alpine myths are:

Tiny, from about two hands tall to maybe waist-high on a human.
Mostly old and wrinkled, almost always described as wizened, thin.
Mean and vengeful. Almost always antagonists. A classic is the dwarf who is trapped (a beard caught in a crack is a common one that shows up in several legends) and, when the hero/heroine tries to save him, he curses them for seeing him and is rarely grateful. They also curse people for seeing them in general, for taking their property (makes more sense, though sometimes, it's just "picked up an interesting looking rock"), for walking over their lands, for not being respectful enough and a lot of other things.
And based on that, they are masters of magic and stealth. They go invisible, they weave illusions, they live in hidden earth holes, they occasionally have magical treasures, and they are especially fond of creative curses.

And somehow, we got from that to the generic fantasy dwarf, who's a proud warrior living in a magnificent mountain fortress.

Epimethee
2018-10-11, 06:44 AM
I’m not sure what alpine creatures you are refering to Eldan. There is a lot of different small peoples across the world and across the alps. Even dwarf is a somewhat problematic term as it is a specific name as much as a generic one.

The Nordic dwarves were often human-sized and some scholars think they are small only because of christian influences: as the monks were writing the old stories they were trying to scorn the old magical creatures by diminishing them.

Also later, in XIX-XX century, with the print then the mass medias, the very diverses and peculiar occurences of small Folks tend to take similar shapes. A lot of classical tales were locally adapted to fit the new sensibilities.

For example, fahys mean sheep in old french but evolved in fée, sounding like fairy. So by the XIX century a lot of places who were named after the sheep gain some tales about fairies and magic that were made to justify a misunderstood name.

You have a lot of grotte aux fées or côte aux fées that were simple pastures...

Brother Oni
2018-10-11, 07:10 AM
Japanese kappa.

https://espressocomsaudade.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/k.png
https://images.japan-experience.com/guide-japon/15857/s380x280/.JPG
These days they're cute, friendly water critters, with a fondness for cucumbers and sumo wrestling.

In previous times, they were evil aquatic carnivores who dragged people underwater to drown and then both/or eat and steal their koshirikidama, a magical ball said to contain the soul. This ball is located in the dantian (not sure of the Japanese term), which is the seat of a person's chi and is approximately 2-4 inches behind the navel - the entry route favoured by the kappa to obtain this ball is via the anus.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6f/bb/c8/6fbbc8b837c656969e4086d3c21444a8.jpg

hotflungwok
2018-10-11, 07:42 AM
There's many different versions of demons/devils, lots of cultures have stories about evil supernatural beings. The origin of the word demon is the Greek daimon, which was just a spirit, not malevolent at all. D&D adopted Christianity's version of evil beings living in a dimension of torment which could harm humanity in various ways, deriving the many different variants from art and legends around the world.

SimonMoon6
2018-10-11, 10:57 AM
Consider Tiamat.

Even leaving out the whole "she died and that was the end of her story" part of her mythology... she was primarily a sea goddess and symbol of the chaos of primal creation. As a goddess of the salt sea water, she merged with the fresh water god Apsu to cause creation (how much is unclear), including the creation of gods. Basically, she's a creation goddess to at least some extent.

While she is the mother of dragons, she is also the mother of the entire pantheon of gods too, as well as possibly having given birth to other monsters (like scorpion men and merfolk). Furthermore, she is sometimes referred to as a woman and sometimes referred to more as a sea serpent/dragon, but I don't know of any pre-D&D sources that would suggest she had multiple heads (much less heads that are color-coded to match the color-coded D&D dragons).

And, of course, she died. Marduk formed the heavens and earth out of her body. If Tiamat was still alive, there would be no planet Earth. Her tail made up the Milky Way, so the entire galaxy could not exist if Tiamat was still alive.

Blymurkla
2018-10-11, 01:24 PM
What I find interesting is how much Tolkien's depiction of dwarves has taken over from mythological accounts. I'm not too familiar with what the norse dwarves actually looked like (is that ever actually described) Norse dwarves are known to be competent smiths (so at least that's survived into generic fantasy) but it's unsure if they're even small. They seem to operate on the same sort of 'scale' as the human-sized gods (and the giants, which doesn't appear to be large ...) if I remember correctly.

Bohandas
2018-10-11, 01:42 PM
Tengu. IIRC tengu seem to oscillate between bird monsters with humanoid features, and mostly human creatures with some birdlike features. IIRC they started out more feathery and birdlike, became almost entirely human, and then went back to being more birdlike. And the very very earliest most ancient form was some kind of thing closer to a black dog or a hellhound

EDIT:
Also ghouls were originally demons and draugr originally had shapeshifting powers

EDIT:
And Mi-Go was originally another word for "yeti"

gkathellar
2018-10-11, 03:08 PM
Rakshasa are another one. The whole tiger-headed thing? Pretty much a D&D neologism in its entire. The rakshasa appear in various Hindu stories, notably the Ramayana, where they're the principal antagonists, and their king Ravana is just a big dude with a whole bunch of heads (and infinite cosmic power, but that's a given). The genteel evil sorcerer thing is similarly without basis - in folklore, the rakshasa are a mixed bunch, if generally malevolent. They get more bestial and demonic in later stories (whereas in earlier ones they're sometimes said to be stand-ins for South Indian and Sri Lankan peoples and so get a more ambivalent portrayal), but never became anthropomorphic tigers.


Norse dwarves are known to be competent smiths (so at least that's survived into generic fantasy) but it's unsure if they're even small. They seem to operate on the same sort of 'scale' as the human-sized gods (and the giants, which doesn't appear to be large ...) if I remember correctly.

It varies by period. Certainly shortness wasn't their defining characteristic in the mythology, and while no one is quite sure where the root word dvergr comes from, the likely candidates do not mean "of small stature." That said, generally, Norse dwarves are venal, crude, vulgar, pathetic, and frequently bullied by other, more powerful supernatural beings. In later folkloric accounts, particularly post-Christian ones, that appears to have translated to descriptions of being short and ugly, which ... is what it is.

As to the smithing, that's definitely there. Dwarves are seen as many scholars as the same creatures as dark elves (svartalfr), mostly because the Prose Edda describes them both as natives of Svartalfaheim. Alfr in general are described as very skilled (compared with the wise Vanir and the powerful Aesir and Jotunn), so it makes sense to have them as the ultimate blacksmiths.

Knaight
2018-10-11, 04:34 PM
Japanese kappa.

https://espressocomsaudade.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/k.png
https://images.japan-experience.com/guide-japon/15857/s380x280/.JPG
These days they're cute, friendly water critters, with a fondness for cucumbers and sumo wrestling.

In previous times, they were evil aquatic carnivores who dragged people underwater to drown and then both/or eat and steal their koshirikidama, a magical ball said to contain the soul. This ball is located in the dantian (not sure of the Japanese term), which is the seat of a person's chi and is approximately 2-4 inches behind the navel - the entry route favoured by the kappa to obtain this ball is via the anus.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6f/bb/c8/6fbbc8b837c656969e4086d3c21444a8.jpg

The sumo creatures is based pretty closely on them having a very early connection to wrestling though - specifically, they had a real knack for breaking bones in particularly painful ways. They also had a real knack for fixing broken bones, though I don't know of much in the way of stories of them doing that for anyone other than themselves.

Brother Oni
2018-10-11, 06:22 PM
The sumo creatures is based pretty closely on them having a very early connection to wrestling though - specifically, they had a real knack for breaking bones in particularly painful ways. They also had a real knack for fixing broken bones, though I don't know of much in the way of stories of them doing that for anyone other than themselves.

In most of the stories, kappa were sticklers for proper etiquette, so treat them with the respect and politeness due (and maybe an offering of cucumbers), you could potentially get on their good side.

There's two stories I remember regarding broken bones/re-attaching severed limbs:

A samurai was trying to find a way across a small river when he chanced upon a kappa, which tried to kill him. The samurai severed the kappa's arm, at which point the kappa begged for its life, offering medicine in return for mercy. The samurai relented and the kappa asked the samurai to drop it into river with its arm. The samurai did so and the kappa recovered an urn and put some salve over its arm and reattached the arm. The kappa then gave the samurai the rest of the urn of medicine and the two parted ways.

The second story was a entourage of samurai travelling on a road next to a river where they encountered a kappa. Knowing that the kappa were polite, they all bowed to it and the kappa returned the bow on reflex. This emptied the bowl of water on top of the kappa's head (none of the stories say the kappa were particularly bright), at which point the kappa lost all its strength and collapsed to the ground. Like the first story, the kappa offered their medicine in return for the samurai putting it back into the river.

AceOfFools
2018-10-11, 11:14 PM
...
The druids couldn't shape-shift into bears but in legends there were druids who could shape-shift into pretty much everything else - there are no bears in Ireland so I guess that makes sense.
...
I'm quite sure druids were part of non-Irish Celtic groups on the island of Britain (I have no idea of there were bears in Britain or not). I was under the impression that there were some in Gaul, but the citation given for that fact on Wikipedia was flagged with "not in citation" when i checked.

For my contribution: Genies. In Arabic folklore jinni didn't have any special wish giving powers, but if one owed you favors, they could do a lot with their tremendous magical power.

And the "three wishes" thing was a later addition. When they were in a favor-granting mood in traditional tales (e.g. Ali ad-Din), there isn't a number placed on the favors they will or must perform.

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-12, 12:03 AM
No, there are no bears in the British Isles (barring zoos and the like). Otherwise living here would be unbearable.

On the subject of druids, I once had to convince my ex that our Celtic Priests from way back were called druids, she seemed to think it was a France only thing.

Bohandas
2018-10-12, 12:10 AM
And here I thought it was a Britain only thing

Arbane
2018-10-12, 12:40 AM
Ogres. In some of the fairy-tales I remember, they're intelligent and often magical - a far cry from D&D's moronic brutes. They did still eat people, though.

Goblins. A synonym for 'fairies'.

In D&D, dragons. Most (European) dragons of legend were exceptionally dangerous beasts tearing up the countryside, not intelligent spellcasting treasure-hoarding masterminds. (Well, Fafnir hoarded treasure, but I don't think he could talk.)

Bohandas
2018-10-12, 01:18 AM
In D&D, dragons. Most (European) dragons of legend were exceptionally dangerous beasts tearing up the countryside, not intelligent spellcasting treasure-hoarding masterminds. (Well, Fafnir hoarded treasure, but I don't think he could talk.)

I think Fafnir could talk. If not necessarily in his dragon form then certainly in his dwarf form.

EDIT:
According to Wikipedia it seems he does talk while in dragon form. While dying he tells Sigurd of the curse on his gold.


Ogres. In some of the fairy-tales I remember, they're intelligent and often magical - a far cry from D&D's moronic brutes. They did still eat people, though.
That type of ogre is in D&D as well as the "Orge Mage"

Speaking of ogres, IIRC "Orc" was originally just a variant or cognate of the word "ogre"

Epimethee
2018-10-12, 01:36 AM
I'm quite sure druids were part of non-Irish Celtic groups on the island of Britain (I have no idea of there were bears in Britain or not). I was under the impression that there were some in Gaul, but the citation given for that fact on Wikipedia was flagged with "not in citation" when i checked.



They were druids in Gaul, according to Posidonus, writing in the second century BC. Also according to Caesar, but he mostly use the writing of Posidonios and is testimony may be less than reliable in the specifics of druidism as he mostly used the writings of Posidonios so he seem to have used second-hand informations already old by is lifetime.
Diviciacos, the only person named as a druid in antiquity is mostly described as a military and political leader, also a diplomat and the main animator of the roman faction in the Aedui, a celt group from central Gaul.

The picture of druids as a pan-deltic sacerdotal class is really problematic. Their knowledge and philosophy is hinted in classical sources but this early organisation seem to have disappeared by the time of Caesar.
Also the oldest account are known only by second-hand retelling. So for example we are not sure if the institutions described by Caesar were a local practice from the second century that he expanded to all the Gaul because it fitted with how romans understood the country at this time.

Cicero, the famous orator, at the same time, used some similar arguments to win one of his trials. At the same time, the picture of Diviciacos that he write after having him as his guest is really nuanced but clearly don't fit with the picture of the white-bearded font of wisdom.

The Irish and welsh mythologies are about a thousand years younger. Note also that Celtic civilisation is younger in this part of Europe than in the continent. Also as I said, it is unclear how the institutions were connected in Celtic Europe. It tend to relativise the idea of Britain as an island of Druid in roman time.

But my point is that a continuity of institutions is really unlikely and mythologies would also be greatly different.
So I'm not sure what would be called a druid then. As the Celtic corpus was again mostly written by christians monks, and thus heavily rewritten, it is not unlikely that they would use romans concept to frame the society and give it more prestige.

Also there is at least a famous transformation in welsh mythology, around the poet Taliesin and the tale of Gwion Bach ap Gwreang, one of his first name according to some versions.

And then again by the XVIII-XIX century, the Celtic corpus would be reactivated for a lot of reasons, from romanticism to the invention of nationionalism but also because the concept of folklore was invented, leading to the idea of collecting and making sense of those stories.

You know, that's a lot like a huge river, at first you have small sources, little flow of images that come together, thus also consolidating the banks, making the image stronger and stronger. At some point it become a truism. But then the banks are dissolving, the image is mocked, parodied, it loose forces, like in a swamp or a delta.
The image is dissolving but ready to start the cycle again.

Eldan
2018-10-12, 02:28 AM
Ogres. In some of the fairy-tales I remember, they're intelligent and often magical - a far cry from D&D's moronic brutes. They did still eat people, though.

Goblins. A synonym for 'fairies'.

In D&D, dragons. Most (European) dragons of legend were exceptionally dangerous beasts tearing up the countryside, not intelligent spellcasting treasure-hoarding masterminds. (Well, Fafnir hoarded treasure, but I don't think he could talk.)

And most dragons in medieval artwork seem to be the size of a dog, to maybe the size of a horse at most.

carpocratian
2018-10-12, 02:42 AM
Most of the creatures that you find in D&D bear little resemblance to their folkloric source creatures. Even the creatures based on Tolkien's critters aren't very close to the folklore versions, since Tolkien changed a lot of things and took some very vaguely defined beings from mythology and fleshed them out to work with his world.

Two of my favorite examples of D&D creatures who barely resemble the folklore and myths they were based on are ghouls and the various varieties of djinn. They are very different than the ones in Middle Eastern myth, and (frankly) a lot less interesting overall.

Knaight
2018-10-12, 05:15 AM
That type of ogre is in D&D as well as the "Orge Mage"

Kind of. There's some weirdness to the particulars of the ogre mage that doesn't make a lot of sense based on that version of the ogre. Most of it suddenly snaps into place the instant you notice that the ogre mage was called an oni in previous editions.

kivzirrum
2018-10-12, 09:51 AM
No, there are no bears in the British Isles (barring zoos and the like). Otherwise living here would be unbearable.

Oh boy :smallbiggrin:

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-12, 10:27 AM
And here I thought it was a Britain only thing

To be fair to my ex she's French, grew up in France, and we originally met soon after she started her year in England. She knew that the Britons had had Celtic priests, she just thought we used another word for them.


Kind of. There's some weirdness to the particulars of the ogre mage that doesn't make a lot of sense based on that version of the ogre. Most of it suddenly snaps into place the instant you notice that the ogre mage was called an oni in previous editions.

IIRC even when it was called an Oni it was still pretty weird for what it was supposed to be. But we've come to expect that and it's not even a terrible thing, chagning creatures to add more playability or mystery is great. Although some of the changes in D&D don't actually do either.

I would go through my 2e Monstrous Manual and pull it apart change by change, but I don't know my folklore well enough.

gkathellar
2018-10-12, 10:39 AM
Some of it comes down to the specificity thing. Terms like ogre and oni are generally pretty vague, and folklore generally doesn’t worry about which version is canon. Most cultures have a word for monsters that are big and strong and human-shaped and wicked, but the details are usually up for grabs.

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-12, 11:35 AM
Some of it comes down to the specificity thing. Terms like ogre and oni are generally pretty vague, and folklore generally doesn’t worry about which version is canon. Most cultures have a word for monsters that are big and strong and human-shaped and wicked, but the details are usually up for grabs.

I've come to have the belief that goblin, fairy, (aes) sidhe, troll, oni, and similar 'generic' words that basically mean supernatural creature can pretty much be considered direct comparisions. You know what something is? Cool, but if you don't you'll call it a troll or a fairy or a goblin because that's your culture's word.'

I'm considering turning goblins in my setting into evil stereotyped Englishmen just to mess with the word's origins. Your average goblin here drinks tea, is skilled in the longbow, has an accent strangely reminiscent of RP, have a few other quirks that only make sense if you're an Englishman stereotyping the English, and a pack of them is referred to as a 'club'.

AceOfFools
2018-10-12, 12:02 PM
...
The picture of druids as a pan-deltic sacerdotal class is really problematic.
...
Fair. It'd be quite like both the Romans and people that construct consistent rules for ancient mythologies to apply the word they knew to similar concepts that may have undergone significant drift over time and distance.

And, regardless of the specific forms used by druidic shapeshifting, the idea of them being magical champions of nature isn't accurate to their classical literature or what i know of later mythology.

Paleomancer
2018-10-12, 01:48 PM
Sometimes you can even get words for creatures that have nothing to do with the original legend at all. Take “Wights” for instance. That’s an Old English word originally used mostly to mean person, human, or man. But an individual by the name of William Morris in the 19th century was translating an old saga and sought to make a more english-like substitute for the norse Draugr, revenant-like undead of Norse and Germanic mythology, and chose to call them Barrow Wights (essentially “people of the barrow” or “people of tombs”). After Tolkein copied that, the rest is history. “You see a wight.” “Every time I look in the mirror, yes.”

And sometimes, the legends even overlap. The word “elf” is related to the german word alp, for “nightmare,” making it close to legends of incubus, nightmares, and bogeymen. Witch and vampire are near synonyms in traditional Romanian mythology. Most dragons of old were also massive snakes, hence “wyrm.” I’d love to use these older forms and play with player expectations a bit :smallbiggrin:

Xuc Xac
2018-10-12, 05:04 PM
In D&D, a doc cu'o'c is a kind of creature. It's 5 feet tall and looks like a man cut in half vertically. It has one arm and one leg and wields a magic lightning ax.

The original story is Vietnamese. Độc Cước was a unique giant that lived in a small village. He used his great size and strength to help the people of his village. He helped plow fields, clear land, and did other work. He also used a tree cutting ax to fight against monsters that attacked the village.

One day, the village was attacked by red-nosed goblins that approached from two directions: by land and by sea. Độc Cước was in the classic comic book situation of having to choose who to save. Does he run up the hill to fight the invaders from the mountains or does he head down to the beach to face the invaders from the sea? He solved the dilemma by using his ax to cut himself in half so he could be in two places at once. Half of him went up to fight the mountain goblins and half of him waded into the surf to fight the sea goblins.

He saved the village and then the two halves of him went out to patrol the area around the village to keep it safe. He didn't come back to the village again, but the people made a shrine to worship him as a hero-god and there are big divots like giant footprints in the stone cliff overlooking the sea where Độc Cước walked while on patrol.

Bohandas
2018-10-12, 10:24 PM
Gnomes, IIRC, were originally spirits of elemental earth

FathomsDeep
2018-10-13, 02:26 AM
In full 'woman of the fairy mounds', unless I'm very much mistaken. A Bean Sidhe would watch over a family and, as I remember, let out a wail when one of them was about to die.

Um, actually, (because I had to)
Bean Sidhe is in fact Gaelic for "white fairy". And she was quite certainly always a type of monster. Sidhe refers to fairies. "People of the mounds" is I think an extreme transliteration, since legendarily, the fairy people were tricked into living underground through a shady contract that would grant them half of the land, leaving out precisely which half they were to receive.

The white lady, or wailing woman has taken various forms over centuries, but they always fortold doom. She may in fact be an oblique reference to the wailing of Macha, and the curse she inflicted on the men of Ulster. (Macha was forced to race on foot against horses while heavy with child, and won the race, then died in childbirth, cursing the men of the region to feel the pangs of labor whenever they were in the hour of their deepest need.)

The bean sidhe is said to either appear to a family to presage the death of a family member who is far from home, or to appear near the home of one presaged to die, though not necessarily appearing to the doomed individual. Later, it was told that to hear her cry was to hear one's own death knell, but I don't think that's a very big change.

She is also sometimes confused with the bean nighe, the "washer at the ford", who is a hag or ghost who lingers in water near crossroads, washing bloody linens of either those about to die, or of children who died before birth. (Seeing her was also a terribly ill omen.)

FathomsDeep
2018-10-13, 02:42 AM
Unicorns are a favorite of mine. Pliny wrote that “The unicorn is the fiercest animal, and it is said that it is impossible to capture one alive. It has the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single black horn three feet long in the middle of its forehead. Its cry is a deep bellow.” From which, it's not impossible to surmise, he was refering in fact to a rhinoceros.

gkathellar
2018-10-13, 03:27 AM
Um, actually, (because I had to)
Bean Sidhe is in fact Gaelic for "white fairy". And she was quite certainly always a type of monster. Sidhe refers to fairies.

That's not so clear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD#The_s%C3%ADdhe). While Sidhe means has come to mean fairy in the present day, this doesn't seem to have been the case historically. Non-static language etc etc.

FathomsDeep
2018-10-13, 04:41 AM
That's not so clear. ((link ommited because I'm a GitP newb)) While Sidhe means has come to mean fairy in the present day, this doesn't seem to have been the case historically. Non-static language etc etc.

I believe to be most accurate we'd have to discuss it with a native speaker, who is also a scholar of etymology. *lol* It's a tangled language, and I am fairly certain there are few if any native speakers left in the world. Still, from all I can determine, the word síd or sídh refers to the landscape feature, and sídhe, to those entities believed to dwell within. Interesting also to note that sídh could historically also mean woman or breast, which may have referred to the shape of the hill, rather than any supernatural trait. Still, while your disagreement has merit, I would challenge the reading of "bean sídhe" as "woman of the hill", if only for the sake that it omits the critical bean or ban, which denotes a crucial difference between the beansídhe and, for example, the leanann sídhe, sídhe la na gig, and other varieties which might be called "women of the hill". (Likewise, the initial notion implies that sídhe refers both to the woman, as an entity, and to a hill. Most likely, this issue has become steadily more complex as the language dwindled, owing to failed interpretation of non-native speakers.)

Clistenes
2018-10-13, 03:36 PM
The list is enormous...

D&D elves have nothing to do with mythological elves. Tolkien based his elves on Irish Tuatha de Danann, Scottish Aos Si... etc., but he wanted to give them a more familiar name, so he picked "elf"... he latter regretted his choice deeply, since traits from folklore's elves leaked into the popular image of Tolkien's elves (like, for example, pointed ears) and at the same time, the popularity of Tolkien's elves "corrupted" the folklore...

Kobolds are very different too. In German folklore kobolds are dwarf-like, gnome-like or imp-like, their traits changing wildly from one version to another, but the most common traits are: Kobolds are small humanoids (the look like tiny old men or children or deformed dwarfs) with bird (chicken or goose) feet who can become invisible (it's their natural state) and often help humans working for free for them, either as housekeepers, farmhands or as miners, but will leave if offended. They can perform magic, and in some versions they can change leaves into gold. In some versions they are demons, in other they are fairies, and in other they are the souls of dead children.

Ghouls are a kind of ogre-like demon-like creature in Arab folklore. They are deformed humanoids with a mix of animal traits (claws, hooves, bat wings, beaks...etc.). They eat dead corpses.

Orcs were an original creationg of Tolkien. It is believed their name is based on Beowulf's orcneas, which are believed to be some kind of evil undead... Tolkien just wanted a catchy name for his ogre-like, hobgoblin-like evil race.

But the "species" that have been warped most by D&D are... gods. D&D has convinced the general public that gods need human faith in order to survive. You will find that idea in all kinds of modern pop culture. Ancient people did never believe that their gods needed faith to survive... at most, they believed that gods needed to eat, and fed them with sacrifices, but it was blood what fed the gods, not prayer...

D&D dwarves on the other hand, are very similar to Nordic folklore and mythology's. I think it is due to how much information on dwarves we can find in the old Eddas, as opposed to elves. Tolkien basically copypasted them with few changes (making them less divine and more mundane).

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-13, 05:04 PM
I believe to be most accurate we'd have to discuss it with a native speaker, who is also a scholar of etymology. *lol*

Well, I'm not much of a scholar of etymology but I am a native speaker of Gaeilge (Irish). I don't speak Gáidhlig (Scottish Gaelic, and yes I know the accent is the wrong way around there but I've an Irish keyboard so it's the best I can do) but they are fairly closely related languages that exist on a continuum of dialects. So let me give this a shot. I'll say that the literal translation is "woman of the mounds" or "woman of the barrows" but a better translation in terms of capturing the meaning is "fairy woman".

First off, let's clarify what the variations on the word are. The original term in Old Irish was ban síde, the modern Irish is bean sí and the modern Scottish Gaelic is (I believe) bean síth. The most common variant people use in the English speaking world is probably bean sídhe (with or without the accent) which I think comes from an 18th century text - so it's somewhere in the middle. It's very possibly someone with more modern Irish just transcribing the word according to a more modern standardized form, putting the "e" into bean and adding the "h" to indicate the softened sound in sídhe that may have been represented by a diacritic or simply left up to the reader to understand in older written forms. Think about how we'd separate out the words if we were transcribing something originally written in scriptio continua. From now on I'm going to be including the "h" in sídhe because not marking this distinction feels weird to my modern sensibilities. As far as I can tell, all of these are pronounced identically by the way - the same as the English banshee, at least the modern Irish definitely is. If there's a Scottish Gaelic speaker or scholar of Old Irish on here who'd like to correct me on that one, please jump in!

Now, ban sídhe does NOT mean "white fairy". This is a common misunderstanding coming from the fact that Irish word for white is bán which looks very similar to the old word for woman ban and they're identical if the accent is ignored as often happens in transcriptions into English. This is made more complicated by the fact that the modern Irish for woman has an altered spelling, bean. Further, sídhe does not mean fairy. A sídh (sídhe is the plural) refers to a burial mound or ruined fort of ancient peoples that legend says is a doorway into the/an Otherworld where (at least some of) the aos sídhe ("people of the mounds/barrows") reside. There are those who use the term sídhe to refer to the fairies directly but with respect to the original folklore and language, this is incorrect. It would be like referring to the Children of the Forest in Game of Thrones as "the Forest". I don't know where that usage originates other than it's something from English speaking folklorists.

So bean sídhe literally means "woman of the mounds" or "woman of the barrows" but that doesn't really capture the meaning correctly. To use another example from Irish, Tá mé ar muin na muice! means "I'm on top of the world!" but literally translated it says "I'm on the pig's back!". Saying "woman of the barrows" would be an even poorer translation because of terms like barrow wights giving very clear undead connotations to that kind of terminology that is NOT present in Irish. The meaning in Irish communicates that a bean sídhe is a woman of the aos sídhe which is simply a different term used for the Tuatha Dé Danann after their retreat to the Otherworld(s), leaving Ireland to the Milesians (who are the primary ancestors of the Irish people according to legend). These are what most people refer to as the fairies of Irish legend and so "fairy woman".

There are a LOT of variations of this legend where sometimes the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians just decide to split things up fairly amicably and sometimes the Milesians defeat the Tuatha Dé Danann and force them off the land as retribution after the Tuatha Dé Danann killed the leader of the Milesians' uncle. If you're wondering how on earth it makes any kind of sense for mortals to be able to take on the gods... well, the Tuatha Dé Danann aren't exactly gods as most western cultures would think of them.

They might have been something more along the lines of the Norse deities once upon a time and then had their power and significance down-played by Christian authors over the centuries but in any case, that's what's produced the folklore about this lot that we know today and it's honestly a pretty interesting take on divine and heroic figures. The way the Tuatha Dé Danann are portrayed in the folklore that resulted are basically just people with some superior knowledge and wisdom. They are descended from the Nemedians (who tried to settle Ireland but all died of a plague or were horrifically enslaved by Fomorian overlords) who fled "into the North of the world". There (wherever there is supposed to be) they found the four cities of wisdom/knowledge (Falias, Gorias, Murias and Finias) and maybe received patronage from the (actual) goddess Danu. Anyways, when they come back to Ireland they have powerful magic and treasures and kick some Fomorian hindquarters. BUT they were not a united group, but multiple tribes prone to infighting (tuatha means tribes). So maybe as a result of fighting each other and the fomorians they weren't really at their strongest, so that when the Milesians showed up who also know how to use magic - they weren't able to win that fight.

It's also worth noting that the Tuatha Dé Danann did have children with both Milesians and Fomorians - and these children aren't distinguished as being demi-gods or half-demons really, though Lugh (who is half of the Tuatha Dé Danann and half Fomorian) being Cú Chulainn's dad is kind of a big deal. That might be more to do with the fact that different Irish tribes sometimes identified themselves as being the descendants of a particular heroic figure among the Tuatha Dé Danann and Lugh could basically be described as the hero/god of all things protagonist-y. In fact all Gaelic people are supposedly the descendants of Donn - whose name could literally be translated as "the Dark One" and his dying wish was for all his descendants to join him in his house after death - explaining where people go after death in Irish myth and getting Donn the description of "Irish god of death". You can see where the concept of godhood in the traditional sense doesn't really apply here - the Tuatha Dé Danann and indeed all the heroic figures of Irish legend are more like REALLY high level dnd PCs than true divinities.

It's also the case that the Otherworld in Irish mythology is not really one thing like in other celtic mythologies. In Welsh myth, the Otherworld is identified with Annwn while in Arthurian myth it is identified with Avalon. In Irish legend there are places like Tír na nÓg, Emain Ablach, Mag mell and the House of Donn which are all different... probably. Some legends say that the aos sí dwell across the sea instead of underground and others say that they dwell in invisible parallel worlds, living alongside us but unseen to our unenlightened eyes, with different mounds being portals to different realms. So in some legends the Tuatha Dé Danann just ceded the land of Ireland to the Milesians because they were done fighting with the Fomorians there and didn't really mind letting them have it.

Another thing that might help make the fall of the Tuatha Dé Danann to aos sí make sense are geasa. A geas is basically a taboo but a magical one. They are quite common in Irish legends. For example, a folk belief that still persists to a certain extent is that bringing white hawthorn flowers into a house will mean someone in that house will soon die. Another is that eating the meat of a dog causes one to "grow physically and spiritually weaker". Basically, geasa are magical rules about the world or compulsions that don't make sense but are nonetheless true. Some great curses or enchantments are artificial geasa - and perhaps all geasa were originally made by someone. They were also generally limited - only affecting a certain place or a certain group of people. It is generally assumed that elsewhere and with other people - the rules are different. The reason the Tuatha Dé Danann became the secretive and hidden aos sí could certainly be explained by them accepting a geas or having one placed upon them.

The bean sídhe and the bean níghe do get conflated a lot - though in fairness they are usually taken to be female fairies who foresee coming death. The major difference is that the bean níghe is typically associated with stillbirths or death on a battlefield while the bean sídhe wasn't. Originally the bean sídhe were associated with specific families - though later this became the family of whoever heard the wailing. The bean sídhe was rarely welcomed but she is not a malicious figure. It's generally interpreted that her wailing is in genuine grief at the upcoming death that only she knows about - so she's not spreading death.

Why exactly a generic term for fairy woman came to mean specifically one in this pretty narrow role I couldn't say. Then again there are analogues in other legends. The Lady of the Lake is a figure of considerable importance while the Woman of the Lake doesn't really mean anything. It's just convention I guess.

I have never heard of sídhe ever referring to a breast or to a woman, though I do not know of a refutation of this. One thing to bear in mind is that Irish is a language that, to quote an American friend who came here to study the language and culture academically, "talks around things but never about them". It uses almost poetic imagery and metaphor as a part of everyday speech. So it is likely that there are some texts that use the imagery of sídhe to refer to a breasts but most likely with additional symbolic meaning dependent on context - for example it could be read as inferring the woman's breast was like a barrow which could have been an insult to a childless or older woman but it could also be read to mean that the woman had an alluring an otherworldly/fey sexuality/beauty that should not be trusted - labeling her a temptress. The Irish language is honestly a convoluted, if beautiful, mess and can genuinely be a headache to use if you don't have a rapport with the person you're talking to.

Sídhe le na gig is not a thing in Irish folklore. This comes from a misunderstanding from the pronunciation. There is a specific style of grotesques found as ornaments on certain Irish churches referred to as Síle na gigs which are female figures with over-sized... to stay on the safe side of forum rules just google Síle na gig. The figures are called "Sheela na gigs" in English I think. Síle is just a female name (probably the Irish version of Cecilia) and can be used just as a stereotypical Australian might to refer to an arbitrary girl or woman, much like "lass" or "lassie". And yes, Australia did get the whole Sheila thing from Ireland. There's debate about what the symbolism was - if it was a fertility symbol or a warning against lust or a remnant of a pagan figure that didn't otherwise survive - nobody's sure. I'd hypothesize that someone saw the pun and ran with it to make a decent yarn except, again, sídhe does not mean fairy in Irish. So this is an invention external to Irish folklore - though by all means run with it if you find it interesting, we're all constantly creating and re-imagining stories. After all, that's how folklore got started.

Leannáin sídhe are really interesting figures in Irish folklore. The word is hard to define so I'm just going to link a dictionary entry for leannán (https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/leann%C3%A1n). So you can see that it makes some sort of sense that the leannáin sídhe were often temptresses that enchanted mortal men away to the Otherworld. Sometimes this was to his doom, sometimes he would be replaced by a fairy impostor who would pretend to be him and take up his life and sometimes he just lived a greatly extended life in a bountiful paradise with his new, sexy, fey wife. However, there's also male fairies who would seduce women away - so that's not really the heart of the distinction with the leannáin sídhe though it is the part many commentaries focus on, I guess because that's a pretty common archetype in a lot of different myths. It's worth noting that in many stories a leannán sídhe appears as an supporting character.

For example, one legend about the birth of Lugh says a leannán sídhe called Biróg helped Cian get to the top of the tower on Tory Island where Eithniú was kept prisoner at her father Balor of the Evil Eye's order. She was a captive on account of a prophecy that said Balor's grandson would murder him - but Eithniú and Cian conceived triplets. Balor gathers the triplets up and orders a messenger to drown them in a whirlpool but one of them is saved by Biróg because she can fly through the water like a bird through the air and has no need of air (at least that's the version I remember). This one turns out to be Lugh, who slays Balor. Biróg is otherwise described as a druidess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. There's also some parallels in abilities to Bodhmall in the story about Fionn Mac Cumhaill being raised by his aunt, the druidess Bodhmall, and her "companion" the warrior woman Liath Luachra (I'm pretty sure those two are an ancient example of an OTP). A lot of Irish legends have "the power of women" as a pretty prominent theme. A lot of the time, the only morals are things like "Listen to your wife's orders or you will wither into a deaf and blind old man", "If your step-mother IS evil, you're doomed 'cause she'll baleful polymorph you and your siblings", "a woman can destroy kingdoms", "the ire of a single woman can raise armies or devastate them". So a leannan sídhe basically refers to a type of female fairy (good or evil) with immense power and wisdom - often beyond that of males or simply different to that of males but essential to their success.

There are several different women named Macha in Irish legend. The one you're referring to was wife to a man named Cruinniuc who boasted about her too much and got her roped into a footrace against horses. She wins and gives birth to twins - yep, twins - but most stories don't say she dies. She curses the men of Ulster to experience five days of labor pains at their hour of greatest need (which they do when Queen Mebhdh's forces attack in the Táin Bó Cuailgne) but she simply leaves Cruinniuc as she said she would only stay with him so long as he did not speak of her. She's actually a pretty solid fit for a leannán sídhe except for the whole not being of the aos sí thing. She was just a woman with immense power. Remember what I said about "the ire of a single woman can raise armies or devastate them"? This Macha - nor any other - is generally not associated with the bean sídhe, though Macha daughter of Ernmas was one of the three sisters described as the Morrigan and so has some association with war and death.

And there are still quite a few of us Irish speakers left yet!:smallwink:

Braininthejar2
2018-10-13, 05:06 PM
Kappa

If a kappa is a short guy, who can be depowered by tipping him over so his head water spills, it makes a lot of sense for them to learn sumo.


Ettins were originally smart. They actually enjoyed Gollum-style riddles, and sometimes you could avoid getting eaten by answering one riddle from each head.

Basilisk and cocatrice also got mixed somewhere along the way - in Poland there is a legend of a monster hiding in one of the cellars in the capital, which was called "bazyliszek" and had a deadly gaze, (was killed by a convict sent into the cellar with a mirror) but its looks matched the current description of cocatrice. (And you could get one hatched on purpose by doing some shenanigans with a black chicken egg.)

Braininthejar2
2018-10-13, 05:17 PM
Werewolves were often just shapeshifting witches, and as far as I remember, they didn't have a hybrid form. Silver vulnerability is also a new thing. I think in the original story it could have been a silver button with a cross symbol on it, used as an improvised pistol bullet.

Vampires would sometimes have an owl form rather than a bat. They weren't contagious, but born of being cursed (it was common for an evil lord to be restless in death because of the curses of his subjects) or from being born with two souls, (often signified by being born with teeth, or having two rows of teeth, which sometimes happens) which left one soul stranded in the corpse when the person died.

Also striga was synonymous with vampire. And stake through the heart was just one of the methods of dealing with them - sometimes it was a nail through the skull, and sometimes it was enough to make them 'bite the dust' by turning the buried body face down.

gkathellar
2018-10-13, 06:15 PM
Awesome

That was tremendously informative and in-depth. Thank you.

The Jack
2018-10-13, 06:30 PM
Hobgoblins are domestic goblins I believe. Think Dobby.

I believe Vampires and werewolves (moreso the former) were born from disparate myths around the world, which each got lumped into one thing as the world connected more. Werewolves could be shapeshifters, a witch transformation, game of thrones style worging... As for vampires, bloody Australia arguably has a vampire myth.


A think that annoys me a bit is that the Kitsune (and some others) are seen as Japanese mythology.
It's a chinese creation. Japan as a distinctly seperate culture has only existed for a thousand years. But when we think of multi tailed fox demons now, it'll be wearing a kimono and'll have a katana somewhere...

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-13, 07:54 PM
A think that annoys me a bit is that the Kitsune (and some others) are seen as Japanese mythology.
It's a chinese creation. Japan as a distinctly seperate culture has only existed for a thousand years. But when we think of multi tailed fox demons now, it'll be wearing a kimono and'll have a katana somewhere...

One of these days I'm going to have all katana in a game spontaneously explode and the knowledge of how to create them lost.

This is rather off topic, so I'm going to spoiler it.
A thing that drives me nuts is how games tend to have the local 'eastern/Asian' culture use Japanese weapons and armour, and generally Japanese culture if they think that deeply. They'll generally be portrayed as either better than or cooler than 'western' weaponry as well. To the point where I was shocked that the Japan-inspired nationin Avatar uses Chinese swords instead of katana, both dao and jian.

If I ever do have a character from such a culture these days (it happens, my worlds tend to be smaller than the Earth and there's generally trade that goes from one side of the map to the other) they will tend to be either Chinese or Indian (generally the former, occasionally the latter). Staffs, spears, jian, and dao are generally the associated weapons, because I do significantly tend towards Chinese, but you'll see everything from halberds to hook swords.

One of the things I'd love to see in a game is more countries based off of Asian cultures. As well as 'faux-Arabian', 'faux-Japanese', and 'faux-China' let's have faux-India, faux-Mongolia (as the good guys!), faux-Korea, faux-whatever they want, just make it well researched and something I haven't seen a bajillion times.

halfeye
2018-10-13, 08:02 PM
One of these days I'm going to have all katana in a game spontaneously explode and the knowledge of how to create them lost.

This is rather off topic, so I'm going to spoiler it.
A thing that drives me nuts is how games tend to have the local 'eastern/Asian' culture use Japanese weapons and armour, and generally Japanese culture if they think that deeply. They'll generally be portrayed as either better than or cooler than 'western' weaponry as well. To the point where I was shocked that the Japan-inspired nation uses Chinese swords instead of katana, both dao and jian.

If I ever do have a character from such a culture these days (it happens, my worlds tend to be smaller than the Earth and there's generally trade that goes from one side of the map to the other) they will tend to be either Chinese or Indian (generally the former, occasionally the latter). Staffs, spears, jian, and dao are generally the associated weapons, because I do significantly tend towards Chinese, but you'll see everything from halberds to hook swords.

One of the things I'd love to see in a game is more countries based off of Asian cultures. As well as 'faux-Arabian', 'faux-Japanese', and 'faux-China' let's have faux-India, faux-Mongolia (as the good guys!), faux-Korea, faux-whatever they want, just make it well researched and something I haven't seen a bajillion times.
Don't rapiers beat katana? I don't know so, but they have better reach, and seem capable of surviving being hit.

gkathellar
2018-10-13, 08:29 PM
A think that annoys me a bit is that the Kitsune (and some others) are seen as Japanese mythology.
It's a chinese creation. Japan as a distinctly seperate culture has only existed for a thousand years. But when we think of multi tailed fox demons now, it'll be wearing a kimono and'll have a katana somewhere...

It's a Chinese creation in the sense that the idea is first seen there, and the idea of animals becoming human through self-cultivation in general has Taoist roots, but myths have a way of taking on the attributes of the cultures that import them. Japan in particular had and has a tendency to absorb folklore and mythology (among other things) from every culture they come into contact with. That doesn't make it any less Japanese mythology. It just means that it has roots elsewhere.

Japan, Korea and China all have their own versions of the multi-tailed fox-spirit myth, all with very different subtext and general tone (I think Malaysia might also have its own version, but I'm not sure). Japan's kitsune is more likely to be portrayed as sympathetic or even virtuous, owing in part to the association between foxes and the major deity Inari, and even in their malevolent aspects tend to be pretty keen on infiltrating human society. Korean kumiho are more decidedly monstrous, and stories about them tend to involve them killing and eating people - even in modern, Japanese-influenced portrayals where the kumiho are more humanized, the eating people thing is pretty common. China's huli jing are generally bad news, also get a pretty human portrayal in the manner of kitsune, and are more frequently tied into the larger Chinese cosmology as ascended beings.

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-13, 08:34 PM
Don't rapiers beat katana? I don't know so, but they have better reach, and seem capable of surviving being hit.

I've previously forced tables to sit through 'katana are just better' arguments when a fanboy is at the table. Generally if I have to pick a good all-rounder example I'll go for the infantry sabre, but my general point is that no sword is just better. The circumstances of Japan meant that the techniques used to forge katana made it a very good design for the region, and thus Japanese smiths tended to use the katana techniques and shape. Meanwhile at the exact same time Europe had decided to abandon those same techniques, they had access to iron that allowed them to make better steel with less hassle, and the differing culture and tactics meant that different designs proved far more practical.

Now as a very basic assumption we can say that a curved blade will be better at cutting, but even with that there are situations that will cause other styles of slashing swords to dominate.

Pocgels
2018-10-14, 03:53 AM
Frankly, OP, the better question is probably which haven't changed much from their origins

gkathellar
2018-10-14, 05:24 AM
I've previously forced tables to sit through 'katana are just better' arguments when a fanboy is at the table. Generally if I have to pick a good all-rounder example I'll go for the infantry sabre, but my general point is that no sword is just better. The circumstances of Japan meant that the techniques used to forge katana made it a very good design for the region, and thus Japanese smiths tended to use the katana techniques and shape. Meanwhile at the exact same time Europe had decided to abandon those same techniques, they had access to iron that allowed them to make better steel with less hassle, and the differing culture and tactics meant that different designs proved far more practical.

Now as a very basic assumption we can say that a curved blade will be better at cutting, but even with that there are situations that will cause other styles of slashing swords to dominate.

Mm ... yes and no. Premodern steel depends a lot on the iron impurities found at a specific location to achieve specific properties. Japanese iron was uniquely well-suited to the types of blades the Japanese tended to favor - inflexible with a strong spine, soft core, and hard edge. You couldn't have used the iron found in Japan to make most European swords, but you also couldn't have used most of the iron found elsewhere to make Japanese swords. This is all somewhat complicated by the extended peace of the Edo period, during which the use and even the length of swords was regulated, and they became status symbols and weapons of the civilian duelist. As a result, Edo-period swords are generally shorter, lighter, and less robust than earlier Muromachi-period swords (not necessarily worse, to be clear, but suited to a different environment and style of use).

That said, a Japanese longsword is pretty similar to a German longsword in actual practice - there's more voiding, more one-handed techniques (especially come the Edo period), slightly less sophistication in the bind due to the lack of a crossguard, and no false edge, but a lot of the stances and transitions are common to either weapon. The German longsword might have a slight edge in versatility, but it's debatable.

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-14, 06:10 AM
Mm ... yes and no. Premodern steel depends a lot on the iron impurities found at a specific location to achieve specific properties. Japanese iron was uniquely well-suited to the types of blades the Japanese tended to favor - inflexible with a strong spine, soft core, and hard edge. You couldn't have used the iron found in Japan to make most European swords, but you also couldn't have used most of the iron found elsewhere to make Japanese swords. This is all somewhat complicated by the extended peace of the Edo period, during which the use and even the length of swords was regulated, and they became status symbols and weapons of the civilian duelist. As a result, Edo-period swords are generally shorter, lighter, and less robust than earlier Muromachi-period swords (not necessarily worse, to be clear, but suited to a different environment and style of use).

That said, a Japanese longsword is pretty similar to a German longsword in actual practice - there's more voiding, more one-handed techniques (especially come the Edo period), slightly less sophistication in the bind due to the lack of a crossguard, and no false edge, but a lot of the stances and transitions are common to either weapon. The German longsword might have a slight edge in versatility, but it's debatable.

Really my point, the sword style fit the environment, for both cultural and resource reasons.

I do find it telling that some sword styles have been invented in multiple places. The straight double edged sword with a point in the end and the curved hacking blade, to name two.

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-14, 08:14 AM
Mm ... yes and no. Premodern steel depends a lot on the iron impurities found at a specific location to achieve specific properties. Japanese iron was uniquely well-suited to the types of blades the Japanese tended to favor - inflexible with a strong spine, soft core, and hard edge. You couldn't have used the iron found in Japan to make most European swords, but you also couldn't have used most of the iron found elsewhere to make Japanese swords. This is all somewhat complicated by the extended peace of the Edo period, during which the use and even the length of swords was regulated, and they became status symbols and weapons of the civilian duelist. As a result, Edo-period swords are generally shorter, lighter, and less robust than earlier Muromachi-period swords (not necessarily worse, to be clear, but suited to a different environment and style of use).

That said, a Japanese longsword is pretty similar to a German longsword in actual practice - there's more voiding, more one-handed techniques (especially come the Edo period), slightly less sophistication in the bind due to the lack of a crossguard, and no false edge, but a lot of the stances and transitions are common to either weapon. The German longsword might have a slight edge in versatility, but it's debatable.

You know what I'd love to see more of in rpgs and fiction? Damascus steel - or some fantastical rip off of it. There's no need for adamantium when there's a real-life type of cool sword which WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE ANYMORE and which has all kinds of weird properties. In legend, Beowulf used a damascus steel blade to kill Grendel's mother (that one was explicitly magical) and damascus steel blades could apparently cut through rifle barrels like butter (probably not true but who cares). I mean, we've been trying to figure these things out and they just keep surprising us, like when researchers discovered there were nanowires and carbon nanotubes in there.I mean, just by virtue of awesome appearance, how are they not more common in fantasy?

Clistenes
2018-10-14, 09:19 AM
It's a Chinese creation in the sense that the idea is first seen there, and the idea of animals becoming human through self-cultivation in general has Taoist roots, but myths have a way of taking on the attributes of the cultures that import them. Japan in particular had and has a tendency to absorb folklore and mythology (among other things) from every culture they come into contact with. That doesn't make it any less Japanese mythology. It just means that it has roots elsewhere.

Japan, Korea and China all have their own versions of the multi-tailed fox-spirit myth, all with very different subtext and general tone (I think Malaysia might also have its own version, but I'm not sure). Japan's kitsune is more likely to be portrayed as sympathetic or even virtuous, owing in part to the association between foxes and the major deity Inari, and even in their malevolent aspects tend to be pretty keen on infiltrating human society. Korean kumiho are more decidedly monstrous, and stories about them tend to involve them killing and eating people - even in modern, Japanese-influenced portrayals where the kumiho are more humanized, the eating people thing is pretty common. China's huli jing are generally bad news, also get a pretty human portrayal in the manner of kitsune, and are more frequently tied into the larger Chinese cosmology as ascended beings.

For what I have read, they are like this:

-Chinese foxes tend to be more sexual, behaving more like succubi and incubi, enthralling humans and sucking their lifeforce or having them spend money for the fox, or just merely tricking them into having sex...
-Japanese foxes tend to be pranksters and thieves. When they fall in love with human beings they tend to be benevolent, and some of them serve as messengers of the god Inari, but they can burn houses, steal food and possess human beings.
-Korean foxes are murderous, human-eating monsters, period...


Don't rapiers beat katana? I don't know so, but they have better reach, and seem capable of surviving being hit.

My thoughts on it:

If they start with the weapons in their sheaths, the japanese warrior unsheaths first and cuts the europena rapier wielder...

If they start with the weapons in their hands, I'm sure most of the time the rapier wielder hits first, and there is little the japanese katane wielder can do to stop it, but unless the wound is intantly lethal, the katana wielder would cut him down in turn...

So there are three possible outcomes:

1.-The rapier wielder hits the katana wielder in the face, lodging his point into his brain, or manages to stab through his heart, winning the fight.
2.-The rapier wielder hits the katana wielder in a non-lethal point, and is cut down afterwards, losing the fight.
3.-The rapier wielder hits the katana wielder in the gut, stomach, liver or lungs, inflicting a lethal wound but the katana wielder cuts him down before dying. Both lose.

Personification
2018-10-14, 10:03 AM
You know what I'd love to see more of in rpgs and fiction? Damascus steel - or some fantastical rip off of it. There's no need for adamantium when there's a real-life type of cool sword which WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE ANYMORE and which has all kinds of weird properties. In legend, Beowulf used a damascus steel blade to kill Grendel's mother (that one was explicitly magical) and damascus steel blades could apparently cut through rifle barrels like butter (probably not true but who cares). I mean, we've been trying to figure these things out and they just keep surprising us, like when researchers discovered there were nanowires and carbon nanotubes in there.I mean, just by virtue of awesome appearance, how are they not more common in fantasy?

That basically is what adamantine things are in fantasy. I actually think that reflavoring it to a weird ancient smithing technique would be cool.

Xania
2018-10-15, 11:29 PM
Ogres. In some of the fairy-tales I remember, they're intelligent and often magical - a far cry from D&D's moronic brutes. They did still eat people, though.

Goblins. A synonym for 'fairies'.

In D&D, dragons. Most (European) dragons of legend were exceptionally dangerous beasts tearing up the countryside, not intelligent spellcasting treasure-hoarding masterminds. (Well, Fafnir hoarded treasure, but I don't think he could talk.)

Not only goblins, imps were also a kind of fairy.

Pixies were possibly the souls of kids, and don't get along well with fairies.

Sucubbus/Incubbus are just the old term for vampires, werewolves were like the vampire's first stage.

Bohandas
2018-10-16, 12:04 AM
Sucubbus/Incubbus are just the old term for vampires, werewolves were like the vampire's first stage.

IIRC succubi and incubi were related to night terrors and sleep paralysis, and therefore would be more closely related to space aliens and witches than to vampires

Xania
2018-10-16, 07:29 AM
IIRC succubi and incubi were related to night terrors and sleep paralysis, and therefore would be more closely related to space aliens and witches than to vampires

Maybe, that information comes from a book wich says that vampires are a recent creation, being actually an amalgahm of several entities including succubi/inccubi, could be wrong though.

gkathellar
2018-10-16, 07:43 AM
What is and is not a vampire in folklore is not always readily apparent. The modern vampire is definitely a modern construction, but its evolution is convoluted and includes a wide variety of disparate influences.

AceOfFools
2018-10-19, 07:10 PM
And for that matter what is a succubus and what they did was not static over time and location. And, as is often the case for mythologies, some creatures got translated to their closest equivalent in the local language, even if that rolls over some places where they don't fit.

For example oni vs ogre. They have a lot of overlap (large, from the wilderness, strong), so it's tempting to just translate the term, but oni were more brightly colored, and often (but not commonly) to be friendly in a way ogres arent.

Bohandas
2018-10-21, 12:44 AM
What is and is not a vampire in folklore is not always readily apparent. The modern vampire is definitely a modern construction, but its evolution is convoluted and includes a wide variety of disparate influences.

The idea of human shaped supernatural creatures that feed on human blood has been popular in various parts of the world for at least half a millenium, and the idea of the undead has been around since the dawn of civilization

Xuc Xac
2018-10-21, 12:31 PM
The idea of human shaped supernatural creatures that feed on human blood has been popular in various parts of the world for at least half a millenium, and the idea of the undead has been around since the dawn of civilization

The term "undead" is fairly new, a couple centuries I think, but the concept of undead actually predates civilisation. Civilisation is settling down and building cities. People started burying their dead because they worried about them rising again in the stone age.

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-21, 02:39 PM
I always figured that legends about the dead spirits returning as a threat to the living were to reinforce the idea that the cycle of life and death was natural and necessary. If the dead were better off not being in the realm of the living, death was probably easier to accept. It probably also encouraged people to use more sanitary burial practices and keep distance from corpses. Not universally of course, just as a general trend.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-10-21, 02:48 PM
I find the idea that there was a fixed, culture-wide (or wider!) concept of these creatures (or many things) puzzling. One bad habit of modern times is that we look back and compress the weird, wild variety of the past into these nice little boxes. We obliterate the wide array of micro-cultures by lumping them together into ahistorical countries.

We forget that, unlike today, they didn't have fast, broad-spectrum communication and homogenization of information and cultural artifacts. Now memes can go viral and spread world-wide in hours; then you'd have much more heterogeneous cultures, often at the group-of-villages level. In some areas information and customs spread fast; others much slower. And not always in the way we think they would. Two areas far apart might have been linked by a river path and so be in sync; two other areas much closer might have been separated by political or natural barriers to the point that their practices may be alien. And these practices weren't static, either.

</rant>

Xuc Xac
2018-10-21, 04:16 PM
We forget that, unlike today, they didn't have fast, broad-spectrum communication and homogenization of information and cultural artifacts.

Not everything is verbally transmitted. A lot of these widespread or universal ideas weren't transmitted at all. They just arose independently everywhere because everyone was looking at the same "source material". Dead bodies decompose the same way regardless of what language you use to describe it, so everybody has similar stories of the undead based on things dead bodies do. Flesh contracts so it looks like hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. Rigor mortis makes dead bodies appear obviously inanimate, but then it goes away and the bodies are loose and limber again like they are coming back to life. Fluids leaking out of orifices can make it look like a previously clean dead body suddenly has blood on its lips. These things all give rise to very similar "just so" stories around the world about dead bodies getting back up to feed on the living. We know stone age people worried about it because they didn't just bury their dead: they tied them up before burial.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-10-21, 04:27 PM
Not everything is verbally transmitted. A lot of these widespread or universal ideas weren't transmitted at all. They just arose independently everywhere because everyone was looking at the same "source material". Dead bodies decompose the same way regardless of what language you use to describe it, so everybody has similar stories of the undead based on things dead bodies do. Flesh contracts so it looks like hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. Rigor mortis makes dead bodies appear obviously inanimate, but then it goes away and the bodies are loose and limber again like they are coming back to life. Fluids leaking out of orifices can make it look like a previously clean dead body suddenly has blood on its lips. These things all give rise to very similar "just so" stories around the world about dead bodies getting back up to feed on the living. We know stone age people worried about it because they didn't just bury their dead: they tied them up before burial.

But the resulting legends had substantial variations from village to village. We can try to find similarities, but trying to say "THIS is what a vampire was in the legends (and not THAT)" is imposing a regularity and a structure that may never have existed.

I was more directing my rant to the "but ogre meant X, Y, and Z" or "chinese X's were Y" comments. Consistency isn't all it's cracked up to be--the legends were legion. Embrace the variations.

gkathellar
2018-10-21, 04:35 PM
The idea of human shaped supernatural creatures that feed on human blood has been popular in various parts of the world for at least half a millenium, and the idea of the undead has been around since the dawn of civilization

Definitely. But the modern vampire, even given all its variation, is a lot more specific than just, "blood drinking demon that looks like a person," and while we can identify early instances in Gothic literature prior to Bram Stoker, it's not clear what in particular inspired those authors. Romanian legends are definitely in there somewhere, but like most folklore, there's no clear lineage.

Glaurung
2018-10-24, 11:38 PM
What I find interesting is how much Tolkien's depiction of dwarves has taken over from mythological accounts. I'm not too familiar with what the norse dwarves actually looked like (is that ever actually described), but the dwarves I'm familiar with from alpine myths are:

Tiny, from about two hands tall to maybe waist-high on a human.
Mostly old and wrinkled, almost always described as wizened, thin.
Mean and vengeful.

The professor might have covered your Alpine dwarves as well. Mim and the so-called petty dwarves generally match much of your description. Mim shows up in the tales from the First Age a couple of times and really wishes larger folk (Elves and men) would leave him and his rocky home alone. I think he even curses Turin or Beleg. But I’d have to reread to confirm.

Eldan
2018-10-25, 02:40 AM
Oh, true. I forgot about Mim. He fits pretty well.

I wasn't so much thinking about Tolkien though as about his followers. Tolkien's dwarves still move silently and have sharp ears, and they are quite cultured. They brought musical instruments, but not weapons. They have secret doors to their underground cities that can only be seen in moonlight.
But then you filter that through fifty or so years of fantasy clichés, and the dwarves are stout scottish vikings who consider stealth dishonourable and instead charge shouting and axe-swinging.

gkathellar
2018-10-25, 08:31 AM
I think it goes to different categorization impulses. Tolkein’s races were, to him, agglomerations of mythological archetypes, ethnic and regional stereotypes, particular interests, and embodied symbols. So Hobbits, to Tolkien, seem to have been stand-ins for the rural British common people, symbolic reflections of his views on childhood and innocence, and idealizations of a pre-industrial lifestyle. But to the rest of us, hobbits are short, sneaky, reluctant, lucky, and somewhat hedonistic; these are the most visible attributes of the ones we meet in the text. In the same way, Tolkein’s imitators drew dwarves not from the inspirations he did, but from the most prominent dwarves in his saga - Thorin and Gimli - both of whom are steadfast honorable tough guys, rather than secretive, vindictive misers as Tolkein’s dwarves sometimes were. And then there’s the need to understand things in contrast to one another - so even though Tolkein portrayed dwarves and Hobbits with a lot of shared attributes, those traits tended to get divided in half and apportioned evenly to either group.

Vinyadan
2018-10-25, 10:32 AM
Speaking of ogres, IIRC "Orc" was originally just a variant or cognate of the word "ogre"

And both are descendants of Latin Orcus, a god of the underworld.


Sometimes you can even get words for creatures that have nothing to do with the original legend at all. Take “Wights” for instance. That’s an Old English word originally used mostly to mean person, human, or man.



Isle of Man, Isle of Wight... (not really)

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-25, 10:13 PM
I don't know why this stuck with me, but it did. Basically, according to some myths, incubi and succubi are the same creature. The foocubus takes a female form, collects "seed" from a mortal man, takes a male form, deposits the demonic seed into a mortal woman, and leaves her pregnant with a cambion before heading off to...I dunno, go do whatever mythic demons do when they're not in the middle of a myth. (It probably involves the medieval equivalent of blackjack and hookers.)

I heard once that vampires and werewolves were the same creature in some ethnic variation or another, with vampires basically being what happens after you kill a werewolf.



In D&D, dragons. Most (European) dragons of legend were exceptionally dangerous beasts tearing up the countryside, not intelligent spellcasting treasure-hoarding masterminds. (Well, Fafnir hoarded treasure, but I don't think he could talk.)
D&D dragons seem to hoard traits from across European mythology (though, strangely, not their toxicity, which seems to be at least as prevalent as fire-breathing), and added in some traits from Eastern dragons as well (particularly their magic and intellect).
More accurately, they took Smaug and played up the magical mastermind aspects while borrowing some miscellaneous elements from eastern dragons.



I'm considering turning goblins in my setting into evil stereotyped Englishmen just to mess with the word's origins. Your average goblin here drinks tea, is skilled in the longbow, has an accent strangely reminiscent of RP, have a few other quirks that only make sense if you're an Englishman stereotyping the English, and a pack of them is referred to as a 'club'.
My thought process went something like: "So...if hobgoblins were originally just a subtype of goblins that became their own thing, I guess they'd be like Americans in this analogy. Which would mean hobgoblins would basically be Americans as stereotyped by Americans...Texans, I guess?"



Unicorns are a favorite of mine. Pliny wrote that “The unicorn is the fiercest animal, and it is said that it is impossible to capture one alive. It has the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single black horn three feet long in the middle of its forehead. Its cry is a deep bellow.” From which, it's not impossible to surmise, he was refering in fact to a rhinoceros.
Even after it went through many generations of mythification, it still had elements that rarely make it to modern fantasy. As one of my teachers one put it: "It's a horse, with a giant horn, that's attracted to virgins."



But the "species" that have been warped most by D&D are... gods. D&D has convinced the general public that gods need human faith in order to survive. You will find that idea in all kinds of modern pop culture. Ancient people did never believe that their gods needed faith to survive... at most, they believed that gods needed to eat, and fed them with sacrifices, but it was blood what fed the gods, not prayer...
There are at least some mythic examples of gods at least losing divine powers if they aren't worshiped. For instance, once Ra went senile (which is something Egyptian gods did when this particular myth was written), he started acting like a senile old fool, losing the respect and worship of mortals. By the time he noticed, his divine strength had waned to the point that he couldn't do anything about it.
...Until his dad told him to pluck out his eye and turn it into a vengeful goddess, at least.



A think that annoys me a bit is that the Kitsune (and some others) are seen as Japanese mythology.
It's a chinese creation. Japan as a distinctly seperate culture has only existed for a thousand years. But when we think of multi tailed fox demons now, it'll be wearing a kimono and'll have a katana somewhere...
All else aside...one culture spent most of the latter half of the 20th century on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain while the other was swapping cool bits of culture with the West. It's not too surprising that the Japanese version of the kitsune is the one we got.



Now as a very basic assumption we can say that a curved blade will be better at cutting, but even with that there are situations that will cause other styles of slashing swords to dominate.
...though depending on the details, it's possible to create a sword just curved enough to ruin its ability to stab without significantly improving its cutting ability. I've heard it argued by people who know their stuff that katana fall into that category.



IIRC succubi and incubi were related to night terrors and sleep paralysis, and therefore would be more closely related to space aliens and witches than to vampires
Regardless of the real-world events which caused people to think they exist, mythic creatures have an essence which can pass to other creatures with completely different kinds of real-world inspirations. Even if foocubi, witches, and the Gray are all physiologically the result of the same phenomena, their mythic "DNA" is completely separate.

Eldan
2018-10-26, 02:11 AM
[spoiler=Tidbits I remember hearing once]

My thought process went something like: "So...if hobgoblins were originally just a subtype of goblins that became their own thing, I guess they'd be like Americans in this analogy. Which would mean hobgoblins would basically be Americans as stereotyped by Americans...Texans, I guess?"



That would explain why they are bigger.

Epimethee
2018-10-26, 03:59 AM
Definitely. But the modern vampire, even given all its variation, is a lot more specific than just, "blood drinking demon that looks like a person," and while we can identify early instances in Gothic literature prior to Bram Stoker, it's not clear what in particular inspired those authors. Romanian legends are definitely in there somewhere, but like most folklore, there's no clear lineage.

In fact the history of modern vampire is really well known, from the early XVIII century to Dracula.

Of course, why some specifics would be lost and other would be upgraded to generic characteristics is subject to a lot of debate but the main sources, the pieces who would make the vampire a popular figure are known and well studied.

It start around 1725 with two famous account, the case of Arnold Paole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Paole) and the story of Peter Blagojevic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petar_Blagojevich) (or Peter Plgojowitz according to some).

Both are "real" cases, were a vampiric scare would overwhelm a town in the Balkans and the local would use the word "vampire" to describe the phenomenon.

Both are important because they were studied by Austrians authorities, doctors or soldiers, and the report are easy to find today if you are interested in such things. The configuration of local superstitions with a kind of scientific description, as made by the Austrians, is really interesting.

But the reports were also widely published across Europe, leading to the popularization of the concept who would be then taken by scholars, like Michael Ranft in 1728, or religious like Augustin Calmet around 1750, who would describe the vampire as a "revenant in body", unlike ghost for example.

Also you have to put the last one in the general context of enlightenment, a time when the Catholic Church was trying at the same time to downplay popular traditions and keep asserting its authority upon the supernatural.

Why the vampire would evolve from a mindless devouring undead to a perverse seductor is subject to huge debate but I like to focus on the idea of contagion. The dead that you bind to the grave by fear it would invade society is old and predate the name of vampire.
The idea of a fault is often central to those stories, somebody is badly buried, or he did something in his or her youth, or the child his special...

The idea of a community attacked from the inside because of the failing of one of its members is still present in XIX century but the contagion is best presented by a moral contagion than a physical one. Thus Carmillia, from Sheridan Le Fanu, were the relationship between Laura and Carmilla is more than scandalous at the time, even if suggested.
But the other pictures is still present, as a lot of scientific explanations of vampirism focus on biological questions, not only in scientific theories but also in the literature and movies (think about the Strain for example) and in my opinion are tied to the same folklore of contagion.




Sucubbus/Incubbus are just the old term for vampires, werewolves were like the vampire's first stage.

As the first known instance of werewolf is in Herodotus (Book IV chapter CV) I think it is quite unlikely.

[QUOTE]The Neuri follow Scythian usages; but one generation before the coming of Darius' army it fell out that they were driven from their country by snakes; for their land brought forth great numbers of these, and yet more came down upon them out of the desert, till at last the Neuri were so hard pressed that they left their own country and dwelt among the Budini. It may be that they are wizards; for the Scythians, and the Greeks settled in Scythia, say that once a year every one of the Neuri is turned into a wolf, and after remaining so for a few days returns again to his former shape. For myself, I cannot believe this tale; but they tell it nevertheless, yea, and swear to its truth./QUOTE]

You will note that the werewolves described here are clearly not undead. I don't think I can find any instance of a werewolf defined by his death, as is a vampire.

The texts and sources about werewolves go back far earlier than those about vampire but, in a way, the werewolf evolved less than other creatures: the characteristics are more or less fixed early and what change the most are the reasons of lycanthropy, the early greeks instances, like the story of Lycaon, talk often of some savagery that is punished, mostly devouring some human flesh.

But some depictions seem also tied to religious rites, as hinted by the existence of a Zeus Lycaeos.

Also Virgil talk about a sorcerer one of his characters saw (in the eight eclogue)disappear in the wood. The greeks and romans werewolves are really numerous and diverses.

So some speculate that the berserkers may be tied to the same kind of representations than the religious rituals of Greece, a type of possession by the spirit of an animal. Vargulfr are also present in nordic sagas.

The popularity of the creature is huge in medieval time, particularly in France were most famously Marie de France wrote the Bisclarvet around 1200. As a powerful woman and an important writer, she was instrumental in developing the courtly love, and of course her story is tragic and about love.

That's really interessant because by this point most of the depictions of the werewolves state his devotion to evil the devil and the status of lycanthropy as a malediction.

Then you have of course the trials in lycanthropy.



Incubi and succubi are also problematics because they tend to describe a particular kind of supernatural creatures but were also tied to the nightmare in a scientific description of a psychic phenomenon. The nightmare is funnily a kind of creature, a horse who acted a bit like the incubi, and a lot of creatures share those characteristics, a nocturnal demon (as in supernatural creature, not necessarily devilish but in this case often evil), manifesting in a room to a sleeping person and acting by pressing upon the body of the sleeper, be it or not in a sexual way.

Their infernal characteristics are of course tied with the medieval period, like tin the work of Alphonso de Spina around 1450, and reinforced in the modern time by books like the "Dictionnaire Infernal" of Collin de Plancy.

Eldan
2018-10-26, 05:08 AM
Actually, in the actual norse legends, it seems that Berserkrs (Or Ulfserkers) were mainly especially respected warriors among their tribes, who wore bear or wolf pelts, or helmets with animal imagery, in battle.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/Bronspl%C3%A5t_fr_Torslunda_sn%2C_%C3%96land_%28An tiqvitets_Akademiens_M%C3%A5nadsblad_1872_s090_fig 39%29.jpg/691px-Bronspl%C3%A5t_fr_Torslunda_sn%2C_%C3%96land_%28An tiqvitets_Akademiens_M%C3%A5nadsblad_1872_s090_fig 39%29.jpg

References to actual Berserkrgang, going wild and fighting naked or just with pure bloodlust, seem to come from later sources like Snorri Sturluson.

This is an actual older source on them:


I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood,
Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,
Those who wade out into battle?
Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle
They bear bloody shields.
Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.
They form a closed group.
The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men
Who hack through enemy shields.


Which makes them powerful warriors, but does not seem to paint them as savages. They fight in formation, too.

Epimethee
2018-10-26, 05:55 AM
Agreed, i may not have made clear my point about Zeus Lycaos and the initiation of warriors.

One of the interpretations of the tale of Anthus , metamorphosed in Wolf for Nine years, is as a kind of initiation ritual linked to the warrior society. The fact that the character is transformed in wolf point to a special place for this beast.

It was only around those terms that i pointed to similarites of representation with the Nordic warriors. The transitivity between human and wolves is very old and not always negative. The Wolf has a lot of ineresting qualities for symbolical thinking. ( think also of the Roman mother of Romulus and Remus).
I intended mostly to state that there is very little surprise in seeing a chosen elite of warriors adopt the wolf as a kind of totem.

More often than not the wolf is tied with violence in one way or another. Even Nordic warriors are warriors first.
How the martial qualities, often linked with magical abilities or sacred responsabilities, would devolve in maledictions or evil bargains in the middle age is really interesting in the evolution not only of the wolf but of most occidental creatures.

It involve of course a huge influence of the church, but also the early encyclopedic experience and the influence of courtly litterature in bringing together the religious sources with the tales and legends of the locals.

So i thank you for the precision. As with most of those fantastic creatures, generalities are hard to come by and they always become more blury the closer you go...

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-26, 12:06 PM
You will note that the werewolves described here are clearly not undead. I don't think I can find any instance of a werewolf defined by his death, as is a vampire.
I remember reading that, in some tradition or another, slain werewolves would/could return as vampires. Maybe that's what Xania was talking about?

Bohandas
2018-10-26, 12:07 PM
What someone said earlier about werewolves being the larval stage of vampires reminded me of the greek Vrykolakas (varcolac) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrykolakas). The original representation of this monster was basically a werewolf, but the modern varcolac is basically a vampire

Wardog
2018-10-26, 04:54 PM
One common thread is the presentation of different supernatural beings as occupying distinct species, whereas in their source material they're often more like different political factions or tribes.

Similarly, the tendancy to take what was in the original myths a unique individual creature and turning it into a species. Particularly notable with Greek mythology, which has lots of one-off weird, max-and-match creatures (typically created as the result of a specific curse, or being on of Echidna's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna_(mythology)) numerous offspring)

Deophaun
2018-10-26, 07:06 PM
I've found the changes to humans over the centuries to be quite bizarre. They used to be presented as little more than primitive cave dwellers. Now, it seems every time you turn around they're depicted in cities of metal and glass, moving around in plastic shells, and sometimes flying. Quite honestly, I think they've been allowed to spread too far out of their niche.

Xania
2018-10-27, 02:39 AM
I remember reading that, in some tradition or another, slain werewolves would/could return as vampires. Maybe that's what Xania was talking about?

Yes, it was exactly that.
My memory was broken and i was unable to remember the werewolf becoming a vampire after death part.

@Epimethee
It was complete, thanks.

Clistenes
2018-10-27, 04:03 AM
Yes, it was exactly that.
My memory was broken and i was unable to remember the werewolf becoming a vampire after death part.

@Epimethee
It was complete, thanks.

I think it's not so much werewolves are proto-vampires, but more like evil people could both learn to shapechange into wolves while alive and return as vampires after death...

Like, both being a werewolf and being a vampire were sub-powers to being a warlock/witch...

Epimethee
2018-10-27, 04:30 AM
I think it's not so much werewolves are proto-vampires, but more like evil people could both learn to shapechange into wolves while alive and return as vampires after death...

Like, both being a werewolf and being a vampire were sub-powers to being a warlock/witch...

That’s a really accurate description. In fact, as i said , the devouring Monsters would be a common category of revenant, often in body before it would become the many faces of the vampire. A huge range of creatures and peoples, from witches to strangers to unusual babies (most notable the ones with a caul) and of course those who had a peculiar sexuality could come back as devouring monsters. This fact may explain the varois significatons of the Word vroucolak, but on this specifics my sources are unclear iirc.

Also thank everybody for the collective effort!

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-27, 06:57 AM
My thought process went something like: "So...if hobgoblins were originally just a subtype of goblins that became their own thing, I guess they'd be like Americans in this analogy. Which would mean hobgoblins would basically be Americans as stereotyped by Americans...Texans, I guess?"

The 'stereotyped by the British' aspect is because I'm a Brit writing the setting for Brits. So hobgoblins would be Americans as stereotyped by the British.

So yeah, Texans :smallbiggrin:

Although this setting uses an orc/goblin split instead of a goblin/hobgoblin one, hobgoblin is a title roughly equivalent to 'leader' in a goblin club. I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with Orcs, mainly because they have a much looser mythological basis than other creatures.

Angel Bob
2018-10-27, 07:42 AM
Well, duh, you obviously ought to make the orcs Texans. Problem solved.

Xuc Xac
2018-10-27, 09:04 AM
Well, duh, you obviously ought to make the orcs Texans. Problem solved.

So "orcs" are just normal sized goblins who wear huge hats, boots, and belts and insist that they are bigger than other goblins?

Blymurkla
2018-10-27, 09:14 AM
What about nagas? I've heard they're nothing like their real-world inspiration.

(sure, I could read up on the matter myself, but that wouldn't be as much fun as reading your thoughts.)

Clistenes
2018-10-27, 03:27 PM
Werewolves were often just shapeshifting witches, and as far as I remember, they didn't have a hybrid form. Silver vulnerability is also a new thing. I think in the original story it could have been a silver button with a cross symbol on it, used as an improvised pistol bullet.

I think the origin of the silver bullet is this: You need a bulled blessed and consecrated by a priest to kill a werewolf/vampire/witch/warklock/whatever, but, since most priests don't go around blessing bullets, you can just steal one of the vessels used during Mass and melt it down to make bullets (not necessarily a chalice, you could use a paten or a ciborium, or you could just do with one of the lesser holy tools, like a naveta or a candlestick).

Chalices, patens, ciboriums, navetas and liturgic candlesticks used to be made of silver, or at least of a copper-silver alloy or of silvered copper or brass... hence, silver bullet.

Gnoman
2018-10-27, 03:32 PM
There are at least some mythic examples of gods at least losing divine powers if they aren't worshiped. For instance, once Ra went senile (which is something Egyptian gods did when this particular myth was written), he started acting like a senile old fool, losing the respect and worship of mortals. By the time he noticed, his divine strength had waned to the point that he couldn't do anything about it.
...Until his dad told him to pluck out his eye and turn it into a vengeful goddess, at least.




There's also pre-D&D media examples of the trope. Lord Dunsany included it in some of his stories, and there's a Star Trek TOS episode where the last Greek god tries to kidnap Kirk and Company to worship him.

gkathellar
2018-10-27, 03:51 PM
What about nagas? I've heard they're nothing like their real-world inspiration.

(sure, I could read up on the matter myself, but that wouldn't be as much fun as reading your thoughts.)

That's a bit of a mixed bag, in part because nagas appear in relatively varied forms across a fairly vast stretch of South, Southeast and East Asia. Very broadly speaking, they're generally divine or semi-divine cobras or cobra people (the forms they're described in run the gamut of what you'd see among the yuan-ti). Whether they're good guys or bad guys varies, although it's interesting that they include exceptions to the general rule in mythology that multi-headed serpents are forces of primal chaos and evil (the thousand-headed Ananta Shesha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shesha) is notably a benevolent figure strongly associated with Vishnu). But again, nagas show up even as far North as China due to the cultural influence of Buddhism, so it's hard to generalize.

Serpent mythology in general is complicated, and is frequently occluded by its origins in heterodox cults that may have been only partially absorbed by more "respectable" orthodox traditions. In a wide variety of cultures snakes are associated with healing, wisdom, and immortality on the one hand, but with danger, pre-human chaos, and the primal force of water on the other. Nagas touch on all of that, although as far as I know Hinduism's version of the reoccurring "storm god defeats a multi-headed serpent" motif does not call out its villain as a naga in particular.

All in all, D&D's presentation of nagas as giant magic cobras with human faces, some of whom are good and some of whom are evil? Actually not bad for a very superficial take.

Clistenes
2018-10-27, 04:04 PM
There are at least some mythic examples of gods at least losing divine powers if they aren't worshiped. For instance, once Ra went senile (which is something Egyptian gods did when this particular myth was written), he started acting like a senile old fool, losing the respect and worship of mortals. By the time he noticed, his divine strength had waned to the point that he couldn't do anything about it.
...Until his dad told him to pluck out his eye and turn it into a vengeful goddess, at least.

I got to re-read that myth, but I'm fairly sure Ra went senile on his own, and lost his power because of that. Mortals not worshipping him didn't weaken him further, they just stopped obeying him and mocked him...

He did create Sekhmet from his eye to destroy the mortals, so he had not lost his divine power. And the gods were ready to erradicate Humanity for their disobedience, which means they didn't need them to survive...


There's also pre-D&D media examples of the trope. Lord Dunsany included it in some of his stories, and there's a Star Trek TOS episode where the last Greek god tries to kidnap Kirk and Company to worship him.

As for Lord Dunsany, his version of Poseidon draws his power from blood sacrifice, not from faith, I think... Dunsany's original pantheon, the Gods of Pegana didn't need of mortal worship and considered them mere toys.

Star Trek is older than D&D only by a few years...

But I have to point that both Dunsany's Poseidon and Star Trek's gods were based on Greek deities, who definitely didn't need mortal worship in order to exist and to keep their power...

EDIT: Maybe we should stop speaking about Egyptian and Greek gods... I was banned once for speaking about Moloch...

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-27, 05:37 PM
Like, both being a werewolf and being a vampire were sub-powers to being a warlock/witch...
Hm...a game where everyone played witches and picked up supernatural abilities in various ability trees, leading to them becoming progressively more monstrous, could be neat.



I think the origin of the silver bullet is this: You need a bulled blessed and consecrated by a priest to kill a werewolf/vampire/witch/warklock/whatever, but, since most priests don't go around blessing bullets, you can just steal one of the vessels used during Mass and melt it down to make bullets (not necessarily a chalice, you could use a paten or a ciborium, or you could just do with one of the lesser holy tools, like a naveta or a candlestick).
So, melting an object doesn't remove its blessed-ness? How does that work? Does the blessing apply to the individual silver atoms, and if so, would that apply to the atoms making up holy water, communion bread, and sacramental wine? What would be the consequences of inhaling holy water vapor and consuming sanctified bread every week? For that matter, wouldn't little bits of sanctified organic matter end up all across the local area? Or would water treatment plants remove the sanctity?
Some people would say this is why you shouldn't look too deeply into how magic works. Others would say this is why you should.



A superficial search going beyond my memories (specifically, to TV Tropes) indicates other ancient examples of gods and godlike beings needing prayer (from voudoun to shinto), and that references to gods needing sacrifice exist in The Epic of Gilgamesh (which is true of other mythologies, from the Greeks to the Aztecs, and fundamentally isn't that different from requiring worship aside from cleanup requirements). A certain Bronze Age book also calls out that their god doesn't require sacrifices to live, which would be odd if that was universally the norm.
There are also more recent but still centuries-old examples of people thinking that certain gods relied on prayer, just not the ones they worship. Some occultists and neo-pagan groups incorporated this idea into their belief structures, which would make them part of their religious beliefs.

Finally, it's probably worth noting that there are good literary reasons to make gods need worship. After all, a universal trait of just about anything we could call a god is that they want worship. What drives this motivation? "They just want attention" or something works fine when you're fine with making your cosmic beings act like spoiled children, but few religions and even fewer fantasy novels are interested in that. When it comes to respectable reasons for all-powerful beings to demand mortals bow down to them, "they'll die without it" is one of the few responses people have been able to think of.

Clistenes
2018-10-27, 05:52 PM
So, melting an object doesn't remove its blessed-ness?

Nope. Actually, for a real-life example, the bullet that killed the Beast of Gévaudan was made melting together blessed medallions with the image of the Virgin Mary... or so claimed afterwards the hunter who slayed it...




A superficial search going beyond my memories (specifically, to TV Tropes) indicates other ancient examples of gods and godlike beings needing prayer (from voudoun to shinto), and that references to gods needing sacrifice exist in The Epic of Gilgamesh (which is true of other mythologies, from the Greeks to the Aztecs, and fundamentally isn't that different from requiring worship aside from cleanup requirements). A certain Bronze Age book also calls out that their god doesn't require sacrifices to live, which would be odd if that was universally the norm.
There are also more recent but still centuries-old examples of people thinking that certain gods relied on prayer, just not the ones they worship. Some occultists and neo-pagan groups incorporated this idea into their belief structures, which would make them part of their religious beliefs.


I don't think we should keep discussing real life religion, but, without mentioning any given deity by name, there is a difference between a deity needing to be fed sacrifices as nutrition, and needing faith in order to exist (a deity could just grab a weapon, hunt and cook their own food, but that's work! and both at least two of the pantheons you mentioned explicitly created humans to do their menial work...)

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-27, 06:04 PM
I don't think we should keep discussing real life religion, but, without mentioning any given deity by name, there is a difference between a deity needing to be fed sacrifices as nutrition, and needing faith in order to exist (a deity could just grab a weapon, hunt and cook their own food, but that's work! and both Mesoamerican and Sumero-Acadian-Babylonian gods explicitly created humans to do their menial work...)
Considering that sacrifices are explicitly a form of worship, I'm not sure the distinction is meaningful. Sure, you can say that gods could create de facto sacrifices themselves, but why couldn't they do the same for whatever arbitrary thing worship provides? Or, for that matter, why couldn't a pantheon sustain itself at least in part by having individual gods worship the pantheon itself? I've seen a setting or two where some (very minor) god-like creatures did that.

Also, technically you're the one who brought up real-world religion, since you claimed no real-world-religion gods like Ra and Marduk were subject to GNPB. That sort of discussion is inherently ready to dance all over the lie between "mythology" and "religion," especially since the gods who most definitively aren't GNPB are firmly on the "religion" side. (Not that I'm convinced there is a meaningful distinction...especially since our interpretation of mythological beings is influenced by the religions we're familiar with.)
...I might be a bit salty that you only complained about this after I researched a bunch of counterexamples. Whether or not it was your intent, it looked like an attempt to not have to respond to that kind of argument.

Clistenes
2018-10-27, 06:29 PM
Actually, my first post didn't mention any deity by name. I only mentioned Ra as an answer to your post (the gods in Lord Dunsany and Star Trek are safe). And then I realized I had done it and got scared.

I am sorry if I am giving the impression of trying to avoid the argument, but we are risking having our posts deleted. It has happened to me before...

Bohandas
2018-10-27, 07:22 PM
Maybe we could continue the discussion on a different forum more tolerant to open discussion

Does anyone have any ideas for where that could be?

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-28, 11:09 AM
Actually, my first post didn't mention any deity by name.
I don't think the rules care that much if you mention gods by name.

And to help calm you down, numerous posts mention Thor, Odin, etc without any trouble (including the originals, if only to compare or contrast them with OotS's version), even though there are absolutely people who still worship them (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asatru). The rule doesn't seem to be that strictly enforced.

GaelofDarkness
2018-10-28, 01:06 PM
I think it's not so much werewolves are proto-vampires, but more like evil people could both learn to shapechange into wolves while alive and return as vampires after death...

Like, both being a werewolf and being a vampire were sub-powers to being a warlock/witch...

That's really interesting. I've an idea now to make shapechangers work a bit more like how a green slaad can become a grey slaad and then a death slaad (being infused with necrotic energy and all).

Clistenes
2018-10-29, 09:11 AM
That's really interesting. I've an idea now to make shapechangers work a bit more like how a green slaad can become a grey slaad and then a death slaad (being infused with necrotic energy and all).

If you want to use real life folklore as inspiration, here is another one: in some folk traditions in Spain, witchcraft was seen as something similar to a disease; something almost biological which could be transmited and grew within your body.

A senior witch would put her power inside an object, often a needle case, and gift it to an apprentice, who upon accepting it would get "infected" and become a witch.

That said, that version of witchcraft tended to be used to hurt or curse people, almost as if witches had a poison inside thenselves they needed to release...

Needle cases are often associated with witchcraft, maybe because witches cursed people sticking needles to dolls, or maybe because they kept demonic imp familiars caged inside...


I don't think the rules care that much if you mention gods by name.

Well, only the mods can tell us where the line is...

SimonMoon6
2018-10-29, 11:07 AM
I don't think the rules care that much if you mention gods by name.

And to help calm you down, numerous posts mention Thor, Odin, etc without any trouble (including the originals, if only to compare or contrast them with OotS's version), even though there are absolutely people who still worship them (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asatru). The rule doesn't seem to be that strictly enforced.

On another thread, discussions of a sun god from Southern Europe got entirely scrubbed, even though I'm entirely sure that nobody currently worships that particular entity (who will remain nameless for fear of more scrubbing).

I would LOVE to see entire threads started by The Giant be scrubbed since he's mentioning this particular Scandinavian thunder god (who again, will remain nameless for fear of out-of-control mods scrubbing everything in sight).

Xuc Xac
2018-10-29, 11:15 AM
On another thread, discussions of a sun god from Southern Europe got entirely scrubbed, even though I'm entirely sure that nobody currently worships that particular entity (who will remain nameless for fear of more scrubbing).

I would LOVE to see entire threads started by The Giant be scrubbed since he's mentioning this particular Scandinavian thunder god (who again, will remain nameless for fear of out-of-control mods scrubbing everything in sight).

Although that might be humorous, I would much rather see less threads scrubbed and the rule changed from "no discussing real world religion or politics" to "no arguing about which real world religion or politics are right".

There's a fairly obvious line between "Thor is a god that was worshipped in Scandinavia. Here are the things people said about him." and "I'm a Southern Reformed Methodist Christian of the Concordance of 1825. I know in my heart that those heretical Southern Reformed Methodist Christians of the Concordance of 1873 are going to burn in hell for their wicked ways!"

Vinyadan
2018-10-29, 11:45 AM
Iirc, the Giant or the staff have already explained the difference between talking about d&d Thor vs Norse religion.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-29, 12:49 PM
Although that might be humorous, I would much rather see less threads scrubbed and the rule changed from "no discussing real world religion or politics" to "no arguing about which real world religion or politics are right".

There's a fairly obvious line between "Thor is a god that was worshipped in Scandinavia. Here are the things people said about him." and "I'm a Southern Reformed Methodist Christian of the Concordance of 1825. I know in my heart that those heretical Southern Reformed Methodist Christians of the Concordance of 1873 are going to burn in hell for their wicked ways!"
Agreed. It seems like that guideline is followed sometimes, given how many discussions there have been in the OotS subforum about how Thor/Loki/etc stand up to their mythological counterparts (and using traits allegedly possessed by them to argue if we should trust their webcomic counterparts' trustworthiness. And, of course, threads discussing the gods themselves brush up against real-world mythologies/religions all the time, because it's really not possible to talk about fictional religions without doing so.

...But we're getting off-topic.

Epimethee
2018-10-30, 04:37 AM
I think the origin of the silver bullet is this: You need a bulled blessed and consecrated by a priest to kill a werewolf/vampire/witch/warklock/whatever, but, since most priests don't go around blessing bullets, you can just steal one of the vessels used during Mass and melt it down to make bullets (not necessarily a chalice, you could use a paten or a ciborium, or you could just do with one of the lesser holy tools, like a naveta or a candlestick).

Chalices, patens, ciboriums, navetas and liturgic candlesticks used to be made of silver, or at least of a copper-silver alloy or of silvered copper or brass... hence, silver bullet.

You are quite right about that (and I like a lot of your interventions) but the blessed medallions is the most common occurence. The others objects were a bit too sacred to be used in such manner.

In fact, the Gevaudan case is seen by many to be the origin of the silver Bullet. The bullets in question were also consecrated by a priest. The idea of chalices and such is a modern take on the trope, as it is an easy shortcut to show this configuration.



Considering that sacrifices are explicitly a form of worship, I'm not sure the distinction is meaningful. Sure, you can say that gods could create de facto sacrifices themselves, but why couldn't they do the same for whatever arbitrary thing worship provides? Or, for that matter, why couldn't a pantheon sustain itself at least in part by having individual gods worship the pantheon itself? I've seen a setting or two where some (very minor) god-like creatures did that.

Also, technically you're the one who brought up real-world religion, since you claimed no real-world-religion gods like Ra and Marduk were subject to GNPB. That sort of discussion is inherently ready to dance all over the lie between "mythology" and "religion," especially since the gods who most definitively aren't GNPB are firmly on the "religion" side. (Not that I'm convinced there is a meaningful distinction...especially since our interpretation of mythological beings is influenced by the religions we're familiar with.)
...I might be a bit salty that you only complained about this after I researched a bunch of counterexamples. Whether or not it was your intent, it looked like an attempt to not have to respond to that kind of argument.


Ok, I think there is a lot to say about both your arguments here, GreatWyrmGold and Clistenes.

But in my opinion, and please take it as a gentle comment, it is more disruptive to start a debate about who said what and who started what than to talk about history of religion in a post dedicated to folklore and folkloric creatures.

Personally, and mods can explain me were I'm wrong, I really would appreciate the clarification, I think that in this case history of religion is necessary to make the conversation possible. It is also a scientific process different from theology or religious science. So as long as we understand that, we can talk about social phenomenons without bringing in the problem of faith.
But the limit may be subjective so self restrain and polite discussions would be our best ways to stay in the clear.

(also, and more generally, as much as I understand the aim of the rule, I think a bit of clarification could be fair, as a lot of historical discussions cannot go on without at least hinting at related matters, speaking about Middle Age in Europe without speaking at some point about the pope is ridiculous for example.)


So... I would like to give a bit of context about some big problems you discussed above. Worship in ancient religion is not really a matter of belief. Sacrifice is often a way to organize the world, and gods have a lot of ways to lost their power.

My first point is about how gods were political in ancient time. It is related to sacrifice so let me explain that first.

I hope everybody know the famous story of Promethee, as told by Herodotus. One of the most interesting interpretation of the myth come from the great French scholar Jean Pierre Vernant. It seem that Promethee is tricking Zeus in accepting the sacrifice of the inedible parts.

In fact, the part of the gods and the part of the humans, what belong to whom, is decided in this myth. The scene is only a step in a process that Zeus is actually understanding quite well.
At each step, the difference between humans a gods are assessed: the humans are working, are dying, they need to cook their food, they need to eat the product of their work and so on.
Even stealing the fire make it clearer: there is like a complex exchange were what is hidden and what is given relate to each other and make at each step the distinction more evident.

The first sacrifice is the concrete manifestation of this point. By performing it, as much as Promethee believe he is tricking Zeus, Zeus understand that Promethee is actually accepting and affirming the relative position of the gods and the humans. The Titan make clear the order of the world, even in believing he is tricking the god.

Accordingly, performing the rites in most ancient society was affirming the order of the world. As a pantheon was representative of a society, it was one of the main sign of identity. Think of the devotion to the roman emperor or to pharaoh in this way. But also of the family gods like the Lares and Penates of Rome, or the difference in devotion between the cities of Greece.

Thats why it was important for the romans to integrate or destroy the gods of the opponents and to make their conquest worship the Emperor. It is not a conversion to a new belief, it is joining a community.


They are other forms of sacrifices. Commonly, it could be used as the manifestation of a return to the normal order of things. As the gods, the sacred, were outside the human world, as much scary as they are holy, outside the common experience, you had to return to the common experience after being in contact with the divine powers.

So for example romans would make offerings in the place were a lightning had fallen, as to dissolve the power of Jupiter.

And then you have the bargains, the magical practices or the propitiatory rites to conciliates the good will of the gods, like when Socrates ask for a sacrifice to Asklepios to ensure safe passage in the afterlife.
Again, each of those rite state the proper place for humans and gods, as much as it pursue other aims.

Also, some of the most powerful ancient gods, like Terminus, roman god of Limits, or Moïra, goddess of destiny are more like abstracts concepts or hidden powers and were not worshipped.

So, as much as we can understand ancient sources, the belief is only partially related to the power of a god. Books were written about how and if the greeks believed in their gods in the modern sense of the term. But here we are on thin ice, because the next step would clearly involve discussing modern forms of beliefs.

In my opinion linking a god to the peoples who profess personal belief in it is a modern trope but I have to do a bit of research to really talk about that and I feel it is beyond the limit.



About the power of a god, they are actually a few famous cases or configuration.

But first, Aegypt is a problem by itself, as much of their gods were linked to the political power of temples and of pharaoh. They are in fact quite a lot of superior gods in Egypt and each relate to the power struggle of the time. So their stories could change a lot.
Finding what is mythological in nature and what is a late change to conform to the political landscape is a subject for a specialist in Egyptian mythology. It is still interesting for the layman to be aware of the problem.

I spoke about mythology by nature because the trope of the old god loosing its power as it is replaced by a new one is fairly common. One of the most famous example is the Ougarit god El, a kind of sky god who would be replaced by the god of Thunderstorm, Baal (one of its many versions at least).
They are quite a lot of explanations of this scene, from the political one, new peoples with news gods, to the cosmological, a way to describe the succession of seasons and how they came to be (note that Mesopotamia has only two seasons, a dry and a wet).

But a related scene may be discovered around the story of Isis and Osiris, and of course Horus, as the young god would achieve what his father was not able to do.

Or in the successions of godly generations in Greece. The Greeks myths are certainly influenced by those of the Middle East so a lot could be said of the influence, the variations, why some tales would evolve. Again those relationships are fascinating but a proper discussion would take a few books and this post is already damn long.

There is also the case of the Deus Otiosus, a neutral god who would leave the world after the creation. El may be transformed in this kind of divinity, but some of the most famous cases are found in African religions: The god is looking at humanity when an object, often a pestle, knock him, leading to his ascension outside the reach of humanity.

The idea that folkloric creatures are diminished gods is quite interesting, because it is one of the assumptions that lead to the historical invention of the folklore studies.
There is some truth in that, and it is something upon which the like of Pratchett and Gaiman would often play, but it work only in certain cases. The case of the Welsh legendarium or of the Golden Legend of Jacques de Voragines are often used to make this point but the specifics are still open to debate.

It is really a deep and complex subject, tying to interpretations and their history, modern research and of course the actual sources and material traces of ancient peoples.
Again, each subject could be specifically debated and I think a single person cannot give a perfect explanation, it would be a collective effort.
That's really something I would enjoy to discuss with the peoples here.

Kurald Galain
2018-10-30, 07:27 AM
legendarily, the fairy people were tricked into living underground through a shady contract that would grant them half of the land, leaving out precisely which half they were to receive.
I would love to hear which myth or legend this is from.

Medusa was mentioned earlier in the thread; I'd like to add that in myth, gorgons are a humanoid kind of creature (Medusa being one), whereas in D&D, they've somehow turned ino metallic bulls with petrifying breath. That has to be one of the more bizarre changes :smallbiggrin:

Another fun difference is how in most source material, creatures like vampires are pretty stupid and prone to ridiculous behavior (to the point where you can distract them by throwing rice on the ground, because they'll be compelled to stop chasing you until they've counted it all) which is a fary cry from the brilliantly scheming mastermind BBEGs that they've become...

Willie the Duck
2018-10-30, 07:37 AM
Medusa was mentioned earlier in the thread; I'd like to add that in myth, gorgons are a humanoid kind of creature (Medusa being one), whereas in D&D, they've somehow turned ino metallic bulls with petrifying breath. That has to be one of the more bizarre changes :smallbiggrin:

I'd call that the opposite of bizarre. It makes perfect sense. Everyone knows about Medusa so you have to call the 'mythic gorgon' creatures Medusas (even though that was actually simply the given name of the most famous one). So now you have this unused name floating about--better do something with that. :smalltongue:


Another fun difference is how in most source material, creatures like vampires are pretty stupid and prone to ridiculous behavior (to the point where you can distract them by throwing rice on the ground, because they'll be compelled to stop chasing you until they've counted it all) which is a fary cry from the brilliantly scheming mastermind BBEGs that they've become...

That is definitely a conception of the broad subject of vampires. Of course the mastermind part could have simply come from another vampire inspiration. I'm guessing a vague chain from Vlad-Dracula to Stoker's Dracula to all the other 'counts' living in castles and controlling the lives of others through being a noble and/or mesmerism.

Malphegor
2018-10-30, 01:30 PM
Vampires drive me nuts in modern parlance because all vampires are playing by unique rules of their own.

Ever had to slay a vampire in an rpg?

Then I hope you... deep breath...

Throw rice to distract it. During the daytime. Stuck a lemon (or a big rock) in its mouth. Decapitated it. Plunged a stake of oak or hawthorne where its heart would be. Whilst reciting a specific prayer of your faith commending the foul creature to be judged by your deity. Within a ring of salt. And garlic. Garlic salt is probably ok. With a silvered blade on you just in case. Also destroy its coffin, specifically taking out any dirt inside it.

Then once you’re done you must burn the body into ash, and kill any vermin it (polymorphs) turns into to escape, including small bugs and worms.

Then you should take the ashes and seal them, then bury it. Then redirect a river to flow over the burial spot.

That’s the most basic method to kill one. Should cover MOST of them.

Some can only be killed whilst they feed. Others just don’t die except by other vampires because some writers are hacks. Some die if you deny them blood.

Some can only die on the day of sacred holidays.

And each new vampire story has new reasons why you can’t just stake the damnable things or banish them with a simple holy symbol like the good olddays.


Plus. Glitter daywalker X-Men vampires. I actually blame Rice more than Meyer for most of that.

halfeye
2018-10-30, 02:18 PM
Vampires drive me nuts in modern parlance because all vampires are playing by unique rules of their own.

Ever had to slay a vampire in an rpg?

Then I hope you... deep breath...

Throw rice to distract it. During the daytime. Stuck a lemon (or a big rock) in its mouth. Decapitated it. Plunged a stake of oak or hawthorne where its heart would be. Whilst reciting a specific prayer of your faith commending the foul creature to be judged by your deity. Within a ring of salt. And garlic. Garlic salt is probably ok. With a silvered blade on you just in case. Also destroy its coffin, specifically taking out any dirt inside it.

Then once you’re done you must burn the body into ash, and kill any vermin it (polymorphs) turns into to escape, including small bugs and worms.

Then you should take the ashes and seal them, then bury it. Then redirect a river to flow over the burial spot.

That’s the most basic method to kill one. Should cover MOST of them.

Some can only be killed whilst they feed. Others just don’t die except by other vampires because some writers are hacks. Some die if you deny them blood.

Some can only die on the day of sacred holidays.

And each new vampire story has new reasons why you can’t just stake the damnable things or banish them with a simple holy symbol like the good olddays.


Plus. Glitter daywalker X-Men vampires. I actually blame Rice more than Meyer for most of that.

Someone should collect an anthology of vampires, with every story running on explicit and different rules of vampirism.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-10-30, 03:34 PM
But in my opinion, and please take it as a gentle comment, it is more disruptive to start a debate about who said what and who started what than to talk about history of religion in a post dedicated to folklore and folkloric creatures.
1. That's fair, I was just grumpy about how you only seemed to think it was a problem to talk about religion when it was being used to counter your argument. Especially since your argument, "There are no examples of GNPB in mythology," can really only be countered by talking about someone's religion.
2. I'm not sure there's a meaningful distinction between religion, mythology, and folklore. It all runs together and everything influences everything else. Perhaps the most obvious example is the fingerprints Christianity left on the mythologies of every land it spread to, creating the folklore we now know.


Personally, and mods can explain me were I'm wrong, I really would appreciate the clarification, I think that in this case history of religion is necessary to make the conversation possible. It is also a scientific process different from theology or religious science. So as long as we understand that, we can talk about social phenomenons without bringing in the problem of faith.
Sounds fine to me, until the mods say otherwise.

The rest of the post was interesting, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the question of "Did any ancient peoples believe their gods were dependent on sacrifices?" About the closest I saw to answering that question was when you brought up how sacrifices in ancient Greece were (among other things) re-establishing the "proper order" of things with gods at the top and humans below them.
There are a couple of problems with this argument. The first being that you can't prove a negative by citing positives; after all, I never said everyone believed gods were dependent on human worship, just that later authors including that aspect weren't making it up out of nowhere. More importantly, though, humanity being subservient to gods is not mutually exclusive with gods being dependent on humanity.
After all, look at mortal kings. They are undeniably above the common folk, in the same way that gods are above humanity in general. Yet nobody can deny that kings are reliant on the common folk for power, prestige, and even survival. If a king loses the faith of his followers, how can he rule? If he fails to provide all that they expect of a king, how long until he loses his royal powers?
Given how many cultures have made explicit parallels between gods and kings, I'd be shocked if none of them included a metaphysical version of the aforementioned connection in their belief system. If you fail to pay tribute to a king, they will fall and you will lose all the security and comfort they provide; likewise, if you fail to sacrifice to a god, they will also fall and you will lose all they provide.

There's one other point that I wanted to bring up, but which didn't seem particularly on-topic.

So... I would like to give a bit of context about some big problems you discussed above. Worship in ancient religion is not really a matter of belief....

-snip-

...It is not a conversion to a new belief, it is joining a community.
I agree that religion/mythology/whatever in general is an attempt to make sense of the world, to understand it. I also understand the role that sacrifices play in that. But I disagree with the idea that belief is unimportant to ancient religion. Belief was important in different ways, but it was still important. At bare minimum, you would need to believe A. that the gods exist and B. that the gods either were worthy of whatever veneration you gave them or would give you something in return.
You compared religion and politics a couple of times (which is an obvious enough comparison in ye olden days), so I'll do the same. How effective would a court system be if the people being governed refused to accept the existence or authority of the government which created those laws?

Regardless, thanks for sharing! It was an interesting read.




Another fun difference is how in most source material, creatures like vampires are pretty stupid and prone to ridiculous behavior (to the point where you can distract them by throwing rice on the ground, because they'll be compelled to stop chasing you until they've counted it all) which is a fary cry from the brilliantly scheming mastermind BBEGs that they've become...
It's not surprising if you look at how the literature they're part of has changed. In ye olden days, stories were explicitly more about imparting lessons than telling engaging stories with plausible characters; creatures which acted according to bizzare internal logic made perfect sense. But nowadays, we expect more subtle lessons mixed into engaging stories with plausible characters; having the antagonist act according to a bizarre, arbitrary set of rules would detract from that, especially if those rules were how the central tension of the story was resolved.

Brother Oni
2018-11-05, 08:04 AM
Someone should collect an anthology of vampires, with every story running on explicit and different rules of vampirism.

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Kronos_%E2%80%93_Vampire_Hunter) is an old Hammer Horror film which explores this a bit where the titular vampire hunter spends the first half or so of the movie trying to figure out whether it's actually a vampire he's been employed to get rid of (the victims aren't drained of blood, which confuses the initial identification) and exactly what type of vampire it is.

Depending on the definition of vampire, that anthology may get ridiculously big - "an undead critter that feeds off the living" would also include the Chinese Jiangshi (although it's closer to a western zombie) and the Malaysian Penanggalan (which is just plain weird).


Speaking of zombies, even the US government has identified eight different versions of zombies and have drawn up an 'official' response to an outbreak: CONPLAN 8888 (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/05/16/dod.zombie.apocalypse.plan.pdf).
Interestingly, those eight variants don't include the original Haitian vodoun zombie, although that could be argued not to be a supernatural critter.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-05, 06:14 PM
Speaking of zombies, even the US government has identified eight different versions of zombies and have drawn up an 'official' response to an outbreak: CONPLAN 8888 (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/05/16/dod.zombie.apocalypse.plan.pdf).
Interestingly, those eight variants don't include the original Haitian vodoun zombie, although that could be argued not to be a supernatural critter.
They also aren't contagious or otherwise apocalyptic. I'm pretty sure that vodoun zombies would be a problem for local governments, not national.

Eldan
2018-11-06, 03:39 AM
I would love to hear which myth or legend this is from.

I remember reading that, though I don't have any mythology books with me here. Wiki has this to say, though, on the Tuatha de Danann:


Their three husbands, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine, who were kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann at that time, asked for a truce of three days, during which the Milesians would lie at anchor nine waves' distance from the shore. The Milesians complied, but the Tuatha Dé Danann created a magical storm in an attempt to drive them away. The Milesian poet Amergin calmed the sea with his verse, then his people landed and defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann at Tailtiu. When Amergin was called upon to divide the land between the Tuatha Dé Danann and his own people, he cleverly allotted the portion above ground to the Milesians and the portion underground to the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Tuatha Dé Danann were led underground into the Sidhe mounds by Manannán mac Lir.

Eldan
2018-11-06, 03:43 AM
They also aren't contagious or otherwise apocalyptic. I'm pretty sure that vodoun zombies would be a problem for local governments, not national.

Honestly, a vodoun zombie is more a problem for the local police or hospital, the way it is usualyl described. Not even the government.

gkathellar
2018-11-06, 10:00 AM
Honestly, a vodoun zombie is more a problem for the local police or hospital, the way it is usualyl described. Not even the government.

The zombi of Haitian vodoun is less a supernatural menace and more the fanatically loyal enforcer for a bokor, or evil sorcerer. It’s used in part to talk about people whose humanity or moral sensibility is lost in the process of “just following orders.” Haitian dictators, and Papa Doc in particular, frequently appropriated vodoun imagery for his own ends, and the modern zombi has at least partial basis in notorious perpetrators of political violence under government auspices.

That’s not to say the zombi is intrinsically political, but rather that it’s not about physical malady so much as soullessness and the inextricability relationship between natural and supernatural evils. For purposes of an adventure game, I’d play it as a singular, highly dangerous figure capable of disguising itself as a human and willing to commit acts of terrible, heinous violence in the name of an even subtler master.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-06, 01:20 PM
Honestly, a vodoun zombie is more a problem for the local police or hospital, the way it is usualyl described. Not even the government.
I would generally count "the local police" as part of the government. After all, the government funds them and they enforce the government's law.

Clistenes
2018-11-06, 03:04 PM
I would love to hear which myth or legend this is from.

Medusa was mentioned earlier in the thread; I'd like to add that in myth, gorgons are a humanoid kind of creature (Medusa being one), whereas in D&D, they've somehow turned ino metallic bulls with petrifying breath. That has to be one of the more bizarre changes :smallbiggrin:

Another fun difference is how in most source material, creatures like vampires are pretty stupid and prone to ridiculous behavior (to the point where you can distract them by throwing rice on the ground, because they'll be compelled to stop chasing you until they've counted it all) which is a fary cry from the brilliantly scheming mastermind BBEGs that they've become...

In the Invasions of Ireland Saga, the Tuatha De Danann lose to the modern irish (aka normal humans) and retreat to their Sidhes. I think there was some kind of peace teatry afterwards that divided Ireland into the Human and the Fairy halves, but I'm not sure it was trickery or just the Tuatha De Danann acknowledging their defeat...

In a tale from German Folklore, the Kobolds were geese-footed invisible dwarves who were expelled from the surface due to human trickery (plus they were forced to pay a gold coin per living Kobold as a ransom).

Epimethee
2018-11-08, 06:26 AM
Someone should collect an anthology of vampires, with every story running on explicit and different rules of vampirism.

There is more than one in fact, but it depend on what you look for. A start could be the book by Charlotte Montague, as it is a good balance between ease of reading and information. I also like the books of Claude Lecouteux.

As an aside, the idea of Vampire as a BBEG can be in my opinion directly traced to the Vampire of Polidori and the representation of the romantic Byron as a superior mind and as a vampire.

Also, I think it was Willie the Duck who said that, but Vlad the Vampire and the Stoker vampire are one and the same. The historical Vlad Tepes is actually a complex figure also heavily blurred by legend but vampirism play no part in it till Stoker. He is even envisaged as a Romanian national hero because of his fight again the ottomans.







1. That's fair, I was just grumpy about how you only seemed to think it was a problem to talk about religion when it was being used to counter your argument. Especially since your argument, "There are no examples of GNPB in mythology," can really only be countered by talking about someone's religion.


Yeah but I'm pretty convinced that I'm not Clistenes...


2. I'm not sure there's a meaningful distinction between religion, mythology, and folklore. It all runs together and everything influences everything else. Perhaps the most obvious example is the fingerprints Christianity left on the mythologies of every land it spread to, creating the folklore we now know.


I think they are in fact a lot of meaningful distinctions. Of course some limits may be blurry and they are of course some connections, depending on how you look at things.
And depending of the argument the distinctions may be more or less relevant. But look like or influenced by does not mean is the same.

I will go back to religion a bit latter when we speak about belief but one problem with that, as Ronald Hutton said in his book "Pagan Britain", a great read, is that the definitions of religions are heavily influenced by modern faith and specifically christianity.

Still, mythology is mostly a corpus of texts. Those texts could be of various status but are mostly defined and envisaged in light of the greek corpus. We tend to think of it as a coherent set of texts but, as shown by their theater, they were ambivalent and a lot of stories were in fact modified by literary concepts and aesthetic considerations.

Folklore is littoral an invention of the XIX century. It has become a shorthand for popular tales but even then the ideologies behind the formation of the concept are influential in its definition.

Then the relationship between medieval christianity and older mythologies is very peculiar. roughly speaking, the monks were promoting their total control on the supernatural, asserting it as either miraculous, coming directly from god, or from the devil.

But at the same time, around the XII century, you have the rise of the marvelous, the actual world of fairies and goblins.

It was like a space between the christian ideology where other kinds of ideas could play. Interestingly, it was mostly the work of educated peoples like Marie de France, who was really instrumental in shaping the fairies as we know them, or by minstrels like Adam de la Halle.
They would play with literary tropes and could be described a bit like the modern fantastic literature, playing the space in between, using the sensibilities of the time to subvert it.

But they would also promote a different social order, like the ideology of the court and the social changes of high medieval time. Think of the famous Melusine of the Lusignan family or the matter of Britain.

So the modern fairies were mostly invented in this period. Some would draw heavily on ancient goddess, like the godmother fairies that are connected to the goddess of destiny. You could find some of the oldest examples in the Perceforest, a medieval novel were ou could read one of the oldest version of sleeping Beauty. Other were of a more erotic nature, like Melusine or in the tale of Yvain, the knight of the lion.

Again, the church tried to assert its influence on those spaces but was relatively unsuccessful. The transformation of those educated tales in folklore is quite another story.





There are a couple of problems with this argument. The first being that you can't prove a negative by citing positives; after all, I never said everyone believed gods were dependent on human worship, just that later authors including that aspect weren't making it up out of nowhere. More importantly, though, humanity being subservient to gods is not mutually exclusive with gods being dependent on humanity.

Yeah, but as shown by the famous kettle of Russell, you cannot prove a negative in any case. All you can do rationally is bring the positive arguments. So in this case the burden of proof is on your shoulders and you have to find actual examples of your point.

The fact that later authors would bring this point is irrelevant when discussing the subject of Ancient Religions. Starting with Frazer and the Golden Bough, I can give you a lot of example of even great scholar mostly making stuff up, influenced by the ideologies of their time.

On top of my head, the closer example of you point I can think of would be the death of the Great Pan but it is a late legend. And this interpretation is mostly made by christian apologists such as G.K.Chesterton and heavily disputed by most moderns scholars.



After all, look at mortal kings. They are undeniably above the common folk, in the same way that gods are above humanity in general. Yet nobody can deny that kings are reliant on the common folk for power, prestige, and even survival. If a king loses the faith of his followers, how can he rule? If he fails to provide all that they expect of a king, how long until he loses his royal powers?
Given how many cultures have made explicit parallels between gods and kings, I'd be shocked if none of them included a metaphysical version of the aforementioned connection in their belief system. If you fail to pay tribute to a king, they will fall and you will lose all the security and comfort they provide; likewise, if you fail to sacrifice to a god, they will also fall and you will lose all they provide.

Here you use moderns ideas to understand the past and in my opinion it is a path that lead nowhere.

I cannot say you are wrong, just that's not how a king would be considered in ancient societies. Look at Pharaoh as the most obvious example. As the person invested with the charge of applying Maat, the Divine rule on Earth, he is responsible for the good order of the relationship between humanity and the gods. It is the source of his power and it is natural, by essence, because it is the proper order of things, that he is above humanity, not because of the political structure you are bringing forward. The relationship work the other way around: it is not the people that give power to the king but the king that organize the world for his people.

As late as medieval time, the revolts were not contesting the authority of the king but were referring to him as the ultimate and only source of legitimate authority. You have to wait till the modern age to start seeing peoples who understand the power and the politic in the terms you are using.

Again, it's not that your understanding is false, it's just that your vocabulary is too modern and would not make sense for, say, a Mesopotamian farmer.





There's one other point that I wanted to bring up, but which didn't seem particularly on-topic.

I agree that religion/mythology/whatever in general is an attempt to make sense of the world, to understand it. I also understand the role that sacrifices play in that. But I disagree with the idea that belief is unimportant to ancient religion. Belief was important in different ways, but it was still important. At bare minimum, you would need to believe A. that the gods exist and B. that the gods either were worthy of whatever veneration you gave them or would give you something in return.
You compared religion and politics a couple of times (which is an obvious enough comparison in ye olden days), so I'll do the same. How effective would a court system be if the people being governed refused to accept the existence or authority of the government which created those laws?

Here I must agree with you. I should have used faith and not belief but I thought it would have been a bridge too far. I intended to say that the personal relationship between a person and a god was in no way significant. Of course, a shared belief, in the wider use of the term is still important, but as you pointed correctly, the word has too many senses to be relevant in this context.

In fact, the apparition of faith is the background of the religious revolution, the new relationship that is central to the first steps of christianity but is also evident in Mithraeism and lead to the credo, the profession of faith around the passage from BCE to CE.

It is again a huge subject, and you have to factor in somewhere the problem of mysteries, as in the famous rituals of Eleusis, who could have been influential in this process.

But again, as much as I think those considerations are important to discuss the topic of supernatural creatures, as they are always living in a context, you understand that I'm not sure how deep I should dwell on such matters.


Regardless, thanks for sharing! It was an interesting read.


And you are welcome, the pleasure is mine as I really try to understand such topics and it cost me a lot of time and efforts. Again I think those questions are related to the discussion, as they are the necessary background to understand how those things would play out.
But I gave you only a glimpse, as always, the deeper we go on the specifics of each cultural set of beliefs, rituals and practices, the more we need to be precise to be relevant.

Willie the Duck
2018-11-08, 08:58 AM
Also, I think it was Willie the Duck who said that, but Vlad the Vampire and the Stoker vampire are one and the same. The historical Vlad Tepes is actually a complex figure also heavily blurred by legend but vampirism play no part in it till Stoker. He is even envisaged as a Romanian national hero because of his fight again the ottomans.

I can't tell what you are suggesting I said. Kurald Galain found it interesting that vampires had moved from "prone to ridiculous behavior (to the point where you can distract them by throwing rice on the ground)" to mastermind. I thought it might have come from the overall "Count ___" version of vampires, to which I made a direct link from Vlad Dracula to Stoker Dracula to all the knockoffs like Strahd.

Epimethee
2018-11-08, 12:38 PM
That is definitely a conception of the broad subject of vampires. Of course the mastermind part could have simply come from another vampire inspiration. I'm guessing a vague chain from Vlad-Dracula to Stoker's Dracula to all the other 'counts' living in castles and controlling the lives of others through being a noble and/or mesmerism.

Again there is no chain from Vlad Dracula to Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker choose this Name for reasons and it stuck because of the success of his work. The idea of vampire as a noble come from Polidori, like the mesmerism.

You have also to credit Varney the Vampire, a popular novel from around 1850 in shaping the vampire as a mastermind.

That was my only point but i still think it is important to state those kind of facts.

Also sorry for any misunderstanding!

gkathellar
2018-11-08, 01:23 PM
Again there is no chain from Vlad Dracula to Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker choose this Name for reasons and it stuck because of the success of his work. The idea of vampire as a noble come from Polidori, like the mesmerism.

Pretty much this. During Vlad Dracula's life, his political enemies did a good job of tarring his name in the West and especially in the Vatican. Insofar as Stoker needed a continental nobleman painted by the popular history of his time as a godless psychopath, Dracula was a safe pick.

Mind you, Dracula was and is noted for his cruelty even among his apologists, but there's plenty of people even in modern Romania who see him as a darkly heroic figure employing methods that were brutal but necessary under the historical circumstances.

Willie the Duck
2018-11-08, 01:53 PM
Again there is no chain from Vlad Dracula to Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker choose this Name for reasons and it stuck because of the success of his work.

How is that not a chain?

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-08, 02:54 PM
-snip-

Still, mythology is mostly a corpus of texts. Those texts could be of various status but are mostly defined and envisaged in light of the greek corpus. We tend to think of it as a coherent set of texts but, as shown by their theater, they were ambivalent and a lot of stories were in fact modified by literary concepts and aesthetic considerations.

Folklore is littoral an invention of the XIX century. It has become a shorthand for popular tales but even then the ideologies behind the formation of the concept are influential in its definition.
I'd like to ask a couple of questions:
1. A corpus is a structured set of texts, right? I'm not sure it's accurate to say that all things commonly filed under "mythology" are structured. You can make that argument for the various Greek plays and other ways they "codified" their mythology, and for the Prose and Poetic Edda in Norse Mythology, but that's about it AFAIK.
2. What is the difference between a set of popular myths arranged into a corpus and a set of popular tales not arranged into a corpus? I mean, aside from whether or not they've been organized and structured, but it doesn't seem like whether or not someone's come along and organized the old stories should affect whethe or not they're considered mythology.


Stuff about fairy history
Again, interesting. Thanks for sharing!


Yeah, but as shown by the famous kettle of Russell, you cannot prove a negative in any case. All you can do rationally is bring the positive arguments. So in this case the burden of proof is on your shoulders and you have to find actual examples of your point.
1. I'm not convinced that that is the case, since you were the one asserting that GNPB was a deviation from source material.
2. I did. It was right before you noticed that we were discussing religion.


The fact that later authors would bring this point is irrelevant when discussing the subject of Ancient Religions.
I was referring to the original conversation, about later (fantasy) authors including gods who need prayer badly, and saying they weren't just making that up themselves—that there were precedents in mythology/folklore/religion/whatever.


Here you use moderns ideas to understand the past and in my opinion it is a path that lead nowhere.
-snip-
Again, it's not that your understanding is false, it's just that your vocabulary is too modern and would not make sense for, say, a Mesopotamian farmer.
I'll have to take your word for it. I know that that was the official belief, but I have no idea how common it was to doubt that belief.



How is that not a chain?
Maybe because it's only one link? Seems like an odd argument to make, though...

Willie the Duck
2018-11-08, 03:22 PM
Maybe because it's only one link? Seems like an odd argument to make, though...

Well yes, but that was shortened from mine of vladula->strokula->strahd, but even that was just plotting a line, not showing all the links (I guess Lugosi belongs in the lineup somewhere).

Akal Saris
2018-11-13, 01:12 AM
I find it interesting that the myth of Koschei the Deathless seems to have been one of the inspirations for the D&D lich's phylactery, while Koschei himself became "Kostchtchie", a demon lord of frost giants, for...no good reason, other than Koschei usually being represented as a tall, evil old wizard?

In his legend, (and here I'm quoting Wikipedia to be safe), Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. His soul (or death) is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest (sometimes the chest is crystal and/or gold), which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will bolt away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Koschei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. If the needle is broken, Koschei will die.

hamishspence
2018-11-13, 07:37 AM
In his legend, (and here I'm quoting Wikipedia to be safe), Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. His soul (or death) is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest (sometimes the chest is crystal and/or gold), which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will bolt away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Koschei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. If the needle is broken, Koschei will die.

I thought Mercedes Lackey's take on this was hilarious:


Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms: Fortune's Fool:

“There was an oak tree in the forecourt—it’s gone now. There was a dragon curled around the foot of a tree. In the tree was a chest. In the chest was a fox in the fox was a rabbit, in the rabbit was another duck, in the duck was an egg and in the egg was his heart. You had to get past the dragon, climb the tree, open the chest, kill the fox before it got away, then kill the rabbit, then kill the duck and break the egg.”

Katya’s brows rose. “Good heavens. That just shrieks ‘I am an important hiding place - look into me!’ Why didn’t he just put a big sign on a tree that said My Heart Is Up Here?”

Bohandas
2018-11-13, 09:08 PM
I find it interesting that the myth of Koschei the Deathless seems to have been one of the inspirations for the D&D lich's phylactery, while Koschei himself became "Kostchtchie", a demon lord of frost giants, for...no good reason, other than Koschei usually being represented as a tall, evil old wizard?

He's also from a cold region of the world

The Patterner
2018-11-14, 08:51 AM
Trolls vary a lot in Nordic folklore, they are now mostly known as ugly brutish beasts that regenerate unless struck with fire.

But in many stories they are creatures of exceptional beauty, grace and intelligence. The only thing that reveals their true nature is that they have a cows tail.

They can also be friendly and helpful, giving rewards to those who assist them and there are even tales of marriages between humans and trolls.

Other differences:
They can't walk past iron, steel or silver.
They turn to stone if hit by sunlight.
They can't stand the sound of church bells.
If you talk about them they might appear (there is a saying in Swedish that is similar to the "speak of the devil" one, but with trolls instead).

Bohandas
2018-11-14, 01:40 PM
Trolls vary a lot in Nordic folklore, they are now mostly known as ugly brutish beasts that regenerate unless struck with fire.

I think the regeneration thing is specific to D&D. It doesn't seem to figure into any of the other modern media I've seen that features trolls (Discworld, Middle Earth, MS Paint Adventures, Hilda, Frozen, Trolls)

Clistenes
2018-11-14, 02:33 PM
Honestly, a vodoun zombie is more a problem for the local police or hospital, the way it is usualyl described. Not even the government.

The scary thing about voudoun zombies isn't to be attacked by one (they are actually less dangerous than a regular person...), but the fact that you can be turned into one...

When a bokor wants to kill you using a monster, they will throw scariest stuff than a mere zombie at you: They are said to be able to capture a human's "gwo-bonanj" (one of the two souls of a human, the one representing power, intelligence and lifeforce...) into a jar, turn it into a shapeshifting invisible monster and send it to kill their foes...

Knaight
2018-11-14, 02:38 PM
This whole vodou zombie discussion is veering pretty close to real world religion - a category vodou fits in pretty clearly.

hamishspence
2018-11-14, 03:16 PM
I think the regeneration thing is specific to D&D. It doesn't seem to figure into any of the other modern media I've seen that features trolls (Discworld, Middle Earth, MS Paint Adventures, Hilda, Frozen, Trolls)

I thought it was present in Poul Anderson's 3 Hearts & 3 Lions - which provided the prototype for the green, warty, long-nosed D&D troll.

halfeye
2018-11-14, 03:50 PM
I thought it was present in Poul Anderson's 3 Hearts & 3 Lions - which provided the prototype for the green, warty, long-nosed D&D troll.

Yes, I'm not seeing much about warts mind. About eight feet tall with a stoop and arms that touch the ground, and a yard long nose, and eyes with no iris or white.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-14, 04:05 PM
In his legend, (and here I'm quoting Wikipedia to be safe), Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. His soul (or death) is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest (sometimes the chest is crystal and/or gold), which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will bolt away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Koschei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. If the needle is broken, Koschei will die.
If you're a powerful wizard and the best defense for keeping your soul jar away from anyone who opens the chest is a bunny, you're a failure. Though getting a live duck inside the bunny is quite a feat.



This whole vodou zombie discussion is veering pretty close to real world religion - a category vodou fits in pretty clearly.
Probably...but any discussion of real-world mythology is going to be dancing next to that line.

Bohandas
2018-11-14, 04:06 PM
I thought it was present in Poul Anderson's 3 Hearts & 3 Lions - which provided the prototype for the green, warty, long-nosed D&D troll.

Never heard of it

Bohandas
2018-11-14, 04:14 PM
Other differences:
They can't walk past iron, steel or silver.
They turn to stone if hit by sunlight.
They can't stand the sound of church bells.
If you talk about them they might appear (there is a saying in Swedish that is similar to the "speak of the devil" one, but with trolls instead).

The sunlight one is in most modern media in some form.

*Played straight in Middle Earth and in Hilda
*Discworld's trolls are earth elementals who are already stone regardless and can't stand direct sunlight because the heat makes them slow and dopey, in extreme cases knocking them unconscious and making them effectively inanimate rocks until the cold of night allows them to wake up
*The trolls in MS Paint Adventures aren't turned to stone, but have delicate visual systems adapted to darkness and going out in the sunlight can permanently blind them

Arbane
2018-11-14, 04:17 PM
Never heard of it

It's the source (sort of) of D&D Paladins, the Law vs Chaos conflict (along with Michael Moorcock's works), and the regenerating troll.
And it's an isekai story.

Knaight
2018-11-14, 04:18 PM
Probably...but any discussion of real-world mythology is going to be dancing next to that line.

Oh, sure - I've gotten dinged for things I thought were safely in mythology before - this is just particularly close to the line, veering hard away from mythology and into religion.

Bohandas
2018-11-14, 09:17 PM
Oh, sure - I've gotten dinged for things I thought were safely in mythology before

Me too.

Maybe we could mirror this thread on some less restrictive forum? If anyone has a suggestion for one.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-15, 12:04 AM
It's the source (sort of) of D&D Paladins, the Law vs Chaos conflict (along with Michael Moorcock's works), and the regenerating troll.
And it's an isekai story.
I'd argue that "isekai" is a bit more than just "ends up in another world," being defined by that plus a series of other cliches that riddle the genre. It's hard to define exact characteristics of the genre, but the protagonist being a nerd who ends up discovering he's super-important in the new world, as well as getting plenty of power-ups and multiple potential love interests, would probably be a good start.
looks up 3 Hearts & 3 Lions
Um, never mind.

Brother Oni
2018-11-15, 07:29 AM
Other differences:
They can't walk past iron, steel or silver.
They turn to stone if hit by sunlight.
They can't stand the sound of church bells.
If you talk about them they might appear (there is a saying in Swedish that is similar to the "speak of the devil" one, but with trolls instead).

I remember from the film Troll Hunter that certain types of troll could smell the blood of a baptised person.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-16, 03:57 AM
As opposed to giants, which can smell the blood of Englishmen, fee fi fo fen?

Knaight
2018-11-16, 04:29 AM
I remember from the film Troll Hunter that certain types of troll could smell the blood of a baptised person.

Is that how they ended up settling that? I remember at least thematically adjacent detection methods, but then it got really vague about details. Mostly because the troll hunter didn't know the detection rules around the replacement camera operator.

Anonymouswizard
2018-11-16, 06:31 AM
As opposed to giants, which can smell the blood of Englishmen, fee fi fo fen?

Learnt it as fee, fi, fo, fum myself.

Which reminds me, I've found no mention in D&D of giants grinding human bones to make their bread!

Brother Oni
2018-11-16, 09:20 AM
Is that how they ended up settling that? I remember at least thematically adjacent detection methods, but then it got really vague about details. Mostly because the troll hunter didn't know the detection rules around the replacement camera operator.

Looking it up again, the wiki says trolls can smell 'the blood of a Christian man', ie a believer. I remember from the film, the poor guy that got eaten said he had been baptised, but wasn't really a believer - apparently that still was enough for the trolls.

From other commentary, it seems there's a generic low level belief in Sweden, much like most people in the UK are nominally Church of England, but that's getting into forbidden topics.


For those who haven't seen the film, the replacement camera operator said she was Muslim, hence the troll hunter's uncertainty.

jmberry
2018-11-16, 03:49 PM
Learnt it as fee, fi, fo, fum myself.

Which reminds me, I've found no mention in D&D of giants grinding human bones to make their bread!

Cloud Giants do have Scent, though.

Beleriphon
2018-11-16, 06:18 PM
Learnt it as fee, fi, fo, fum myself.

Which reminds me, I've found no mention in D&D of giants grinding human bones to make their bread!

Bone meal makes terrible bread. There's no gluten in it, and it talks chalky. Mind you makes a very good fertilizer for things you can use to make bread.

Plus inhaling it can cause calcified growths in the lungs.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-11-16, 07:01 PM
Bone meal makes terrible bread. There's no gluten in it, and it talks chalky. Mind you makes a very good fertilizer for things you can use to make bread.

Plus inhaling it can cause calcified growths in the lungs.

So giants are hipsters? Going gluten free before it was cool? I knew they were evil...

Anonymouswizard
2018-11-16, 07:14 PM
Bone meal makes terrible bread. There's no gluten in it, and it talks chalky. Mind you makes a very good fertilizer for things you can use to make bread.

Plus inhaling it can cause calcified growths in the lungs.

I mean, the mythological recipe I know does also specify the ground bones of an Englishman, which must be hard to find in must D&D settings.

Honest Tiefling
2018-11-16, 07:20 PM
Bone meal makes terrible bread. There's no gluten in it, and it talks chalky.

So...It's just as bad as all other gluten-free breads. Don't judge, maybe the giant has dietary issues.


So giants are hipsters? Going gluten free before it was cool? I knew they were evil...

If they have dietary issues, the good aligned action is to not eat gluten before adventurers come around. Trust me.


I mean, the mythological recipe I know does also specify the ground bones of an Englishman, which must be hard to find in must D&D settings.

I don't know, would people from Not-England with English accents, English names and historic English fashions count? Or do giants just eat a lot of 'I can't Believe It's Not Englishman!'?

Arbane
2018-11-16, 09:33 PM
I'd argue that "isekai" is a bit more than just "ends up in another world," being defined by that plus a series of other cliches that riddle the genre. It's hard to define exact characteristics of the genre, but the protagonist being a nerd who ends up discovering he's super-important in the new world, as well as getting plenty of power-ups and multiple potential love interests, would probably be a good start.
looks up 3 Hearts & 3 Lions
Um, never mind.

Just so you know, I laughed at this.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-11-17, 12:36 PM
Learnt it as fee, fi, fo, fum myself.
Same, but "fum" sort of slant-rhymes with "an Englishman" but not with "Englishmen".



Just so you know, I laughed at this.
At least one person laughed at my joke? Mission accomplished.

Bohandas
2018-11-17, 02:03 PM
Another fun difference is how in most source material, creatures like vampires are pretty stupid and prone to ridiculous behavior (to the point where you can distract them by throwing rice on the ground, because they'll be compelled to stop chasing you until they've counted it all) which is a fary cry from the brilliantly scheming mastermind BBEGs that they've become...

Except on Sesame Street, where vampires compulsively counting things is still very much a thing.

EDIT:
I think. I haven't actually seen any of the episodes that were made after the 1990's but according to wikipedia that character is still on the show

Clistenes
2018-11-18, 05:57 PM
Looking it up again, the wiki says trolls can smell 'the blood of a Christian man', ie a believer. I remember from the film, the poor guy that got eaten said he had been baptised, but wasn't really a believer - apparently that still was enough for the trolls.

From other commentary, it seems there's a generic low level belief in Sweden, much like most people in the UK are nominally Church of England, but that's getting into forbidden topics.


For those who haven't seen the film, the replacement camera operator said she was Muslim, hence the troll hunter's uncertainty.

Funny... that's the same thing the Nuberu ("Cloudman") from Asturian folklore said when his wife tried to hide a crusader who had taken refuge in the Nuberu's house while running from muslims.

Luckily for the crusader, he had helped the Nuberu once (the Nuberu had fallen to the ground due to his nemesis, a Catholic priest, ringing the bells of the church while the Nuberu was flying above the village, and the future crusader had helped him gather green wood and light a smoky fire, so the Nuberu could use the thick smoke as a stair to reach the clouds...), so the Nuberu didn't just spare him, he took him back to Spain flying!


I'd argue that "isekai" is a bit more than just "ends up in another world," being defined by that plus a series of other cliches that riddle the genre. It's hard to define exact characteristics of the genre, but the protagonist being a nerd who ends up discovering he's super-important in the new world, as well as getting plenty of power-ups and multiple potential love interests, would probably be a good start.
looks up 3 Hearts & 3 Lions
Um, never mind.

I would like somebody to make a manga or anime in which the protagonist is a bystander who does nothing but witness an isekai story and point how stupid everything is all the time...

I have read a couple funny parodies: In one a princess travels to Japan and tries to murder a guy so he can reincarnate in her world, while the demons try to protect him and save his life, hence in Earth the villains are heroes and the heroes are villains.
In another parody the hero shouts at the girls who try to join his harem, telling them to have some pride and self-respect as human beings ("What's wrong about you!? Why do you want to be my lover!? I have done nothing save what any decent human being would have done in my shoes! Haven't you ever meet a decent human being, or what!? By the way, WEAR SOME TROUSERS!!! YOU ARE MARTIAL ARTIST, DAMMIT!!! WHY ARE YOU WEARING A SHORT SKIRT?!").
In another parody, the guy is still a loser in the fantasy world, because he is afraid to start the adventure... if he had the brains and guts required to be a hero, he wouldn't have been happier back in Japan... and he still lacks the will to take risks in the fantasy world or the cunning to get ahead without taking risks...

Honest Tiefling
2018-11-18, 06:10 PM
Except on Sesame Street, where vampires compulsively counting things is still very much a thing.

Yeah, I am sorta not surprised that the hippies might have actually been aware of that folklore. Through that does make the count on Sesame Street more accurate to older mythology than many other interpretations.

I think most mythological creatures tend to have stupid ways to foil them. Take for instance the jiangshi, or hopping vampire from East Asia. Trading in the mystic powers for increased resistance, they are foiled by sticky rice. Which I assume is moderately common in east Asia, so that's like a vampire trying to get some noms during the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Also, Chiaotzu from Dragonball Z is based off of the jiang shi, so that's probably a departure.

Roland St. Jude
2018-11-19, 01:47 AM
Sheriff: This definitely crossed into real world religion, particularly at the point specific real world religious denominations were mentioned, if not earlier.