So, is there any one unified Creation Myth, or does it boil down to individual racial and cultural myths, each contradicting the others?
--"In the begining..." NB
Feel free to create (and share!) an overarching myth, if ya feel like it!
Originally posted by Nero's Boot
So, is there any one unified Creation Myth, or does it boil down to individual racial and cultural myths, each contradicting the others?
To be quite honest, this is how I like it. I think it's how it should be. In other words, not even the gods know for sure how everything started. Gives it a more unique and mysterious and profound feel to the setting than giving some basic explanation which will never be truly as awe inspiring as existance.
Plus it creates interesting racial and religious tensions
"My God's better'n your god!"
"No she ain't, my God created your god!"
"Them's fightin' words!"
So much like Tizoc has put it feel free to create your own and share it if you like. I have created a few already. Their is one for each article I have submitted to canonfire. So you can see the Elvin, Dwarven, and Gnomish mythological creation info. This just shows you how each race has their own unique take on the creation of Oerth and the races which rest upon it.
--just wondering where Greyhawk's humans come from NB
I thought I should come back and note that Greyhawk has a rather specific (CY) timeline, and pre-timeline is pretty much in the dark as far as recorded history. Unfortunately I am not near my resources or I would humble you with a minor detailing of it. I believe the oldest records are roughly around 180 CY? up to around 600 CY? depending upon personal campaign. (mine personal runs in the late 500s for the most part)
You can pick up bits and pieces of "pre-timeline" history here and there from different modules, sourcebooks, etc but there is no *BEHOLD* "The Ancient History of Oerth" type resource.
I believe pretty much everything started out, timeline wise, with the Invoked Devastation from the Suel, followed up by the Rain of Colorless Fire from the Bakluni. After these event the great migrations occured and history pretty much starts there....
Abyss
Originally posted by abysslin
I thought I should come back and note that Greyhawk has a rather specific (CY) timeline, and pre-timeline is pretty much in the dark as far as recorded history. Unfortunately I am not near my resources or I would humble you with a minor detailing of it. I believe the oldest records are roughly around 180 CY? up to around 600 CY? depending upon personal campaign. (mine personal runs in the late 500s for the most part).
Hrm, the only reason I'm not stating otherwise is because I've come to realize that a lot of what I've read on Greyhawk has been fan material and therefore I can no longer seperate from what is canon and what is not, without looking up the sources.
But I'm fairly certain that there is a well established timeline beyond that of the Common Year calander created by the establishment of the Aerdi empire, aka The Great Kingdom.
Both the Suel and Bakluni have their own timelines, IIRC. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure they're referred to in the LGG.
Regardless, I'm positive that the pre-history of the Great Kingdom is well established in the '83 boxed set through the migratory information and details of the various races expansion and the dominance of the oeridien tribes and establishment of the GK.
Oh, now that I think about it, I'm also sure that the Scarlet Brotherhood supplement has a Suel timeline in it.
Again, though, I may be wrong as I'm too lazy to reference them all.
The various races all have their own timeline but they aren't CY. CY is basically.. "the timeline of the Flanaess" if you will. Think of it as CY = Common Year )
Abyss
Mike
In the Greyhawk Ruins module, it is mentioned that beneath Castle Greyhawk lies a mysterious obelisk that fascinated Zagyg. Indeed, it was his need for divine power to experiment on the obelisk that led him, at least partly, to imprison nine demigods. What he didn't know was that the obelisk is a distraction. It's presence conceals the Oerth Stone, which was supposedly a fragment of a larger artifact of elemental earth that the greater powers once used to create worlds on the Prime Material Plane. This was a juicy bit of DM-only info (players never find the Stone).
I've always been inclined to assume that the really big Greater Powers (Beory, Boccob, Istus, Nerull, and Pelor) were the primary Creator deities of Oerth. Their portfolios are quite broad: Beory (Nature), Boccob (Supernature), Istus (Fate), Nerull (Death), Pelor (Light). Their power also seems largely independent of any kind of mortal worship. Boccob in particular is not widely revered yet is extremely powerful nonetheless.
5031 Suloise/160 Oerid/160 Or Beginning of Baklunish-Suloise Wars
5050 Suloise.....First Migration of Humanoid Mercanaries
5058 Suloise.....Suloise Migrations Begin
5094 Suloise.....Invoked Devastation
5299 ...............Founding Kingdom Aerdy
CY1/5516..........Overking crowned in Rauxes
CY356...............Kingdom of Nyrond established, Keoland at its peak
CY437...............Turmois between Crowns
446 Founding Iron League
479 Might of Iuz grows, humanoids become common
513 Rise of The Horned Society576 Guide to the World of Greyhawk completed WOTC
Somewhere in cyber space there is a website with a very comprehensive time line spanning millenia and noting some campaign setting to campaign setting timelines. Believe it cover 17 or 18 Thousand years.
5031 Suloise/160 Oerid/160 Or Beginning of Baklunish-Suloise Wars
5050 Suloise.....First Migration of Humanoid Mercanaries
5058 Suloise.....Suloise Migrations Begin
5094 Suloise.....Invoked Devastation
5299 ...............Founding Kingdom Aerdy
CY1/5516..........Overking crowned in Rauxes
CY356...............Kingdom of Nyrond established, Keoland at its peak
CY437...............Turmois between Crowns
446 Founding Iron League
479 Might of Iuz grows, humanoids become common
513 Rise of The Horned Society576 Guide to the World of Greyhawk completed WOTC
Somewhere in cyber space there is a website with a very comprehensive time line spanning millenia and noting some campaign setting to campaign setting timelines. Believe it cover 17 or 18 Thousand years.
P.
The pre-history of the Flanaess is quite extensive and the LGG has added a lot of detail not only to the pre-history, but also to relatively more recent events - such as when exactly place like Onnwal, the Bone March, Ratik, the Lordship of the Isles etc were absorbed into the Great Kingdom, when the various expansions and contractions of Keoland occured.
I've added nearly all the dated LGG events (I'm certain I've missed a few) to Steve Wilson's Greychronodex to make a sort of Living Greychronodex. I would share it with y'all, but I'd prefer to have Steve's say-so before publically reproducing his work.
So if anyone knows how I can get in contact with Steve, I'd be grateful.
Paul
Got to Thinking in the Guide To Hell TSR11431 WOTC
In The beginning there was Primordial Chaos
A primordial soup of infinite possibilities the cosmos was everything and nothing.
Through some unknow process forms coalesced out of the chaos, including the planes themselves and those beings later known as Gods.
Some powers reveled in the chaos and others abhorred it.
The conflict between these two groups, between Chaos and Law, defined the planes and laws that they would obey.
The mightiest of Law's Champions were The Twin Serpents of Law: Jazirian winged and feathered dedicated herself to Good,
Ahriman scaled and forked embraced the darker path of Evil.
Despite their differences they were first and foremost agents of Law. They created The Great Ring of The Outer Planes, The Law of Threes and it's importance in all spheres.
Argued over defining the center of the cosmos One pushing for Mount Celestia and the other agitated for the inverted mountain of Baator. Weakened from their great struggle they split one flying to Mt Celestia a Greater Power and the other falling to Nessus lacking wings another Greater Power despite suffering mighty injury in the fall.....
Because of their disagreement No center of the planes all infinite instead of finite and defined. Ahriman still greatly injured from his fall. Most powers augmented or sustained by belief
Die Vecna Die WOTC in Sigil tends to support it.
Originally posted by Woesinger
Steve Wilson had a list of all the dates and historical events considered Canon by the 1998 Team Greyhawk. It was called the Greychronodex and damnabley useful it was. I'm not sure his site is still active - or at least Google doesn't pull it up.
I still have it on my links page (which means that I'm apparently not being indexed by google very well; time to adjust the meta tags...) as located at http://hometown.aol.com/tamerlain/Greyhawk/GreyChrondex41.html and the page is still active.
FWIW, Steve's GreyGods page is at http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tamerlain/Greyhawk/GreyGods.html too.
While early descriptions of Oerth's gods, i.e. the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set, do represent the gods as analogous to the Greek gods in their intrigues and foibles, From the Ashes mandated that the gods generally do not directly interfere with the affairs of Oerth. This canonical history undercuts the assertion that the seemingly "human" disposition of "most of the gods" necessarily supports their being ascended mortals.
(Also, do "most" of the Oerthly gods have human dispositions? What of Istus, Boccob, and Lendor? Does Pelor have a human disposition? What is a human disposition? Is human shape adequate?)
Using 3e's Deities & Demigods to support this assertion puts the cart before the horse. While new rules may help us model our roleplaying in new ways, post hoc rules can only artificially be used to explain aspects of the setting. While it's fine to do this -- indeed it's a regular part of DMing -- making the sweeping claim that most gods of Oerth were ascended mortals goes too far. Why not settle for the smaller and more precise claim -- specifying which gods were once mortal and distinguishing them from others who have different origins?
Finally, the organization of gods into cultural pantheons doesn't mean that any particular god is "dedicated" to the human culture that constructed the pantheon. Nerull for example, destroys all life. That the Flan named the Hater of Life and that this name has become common is far better explained by the history of the Flanaess than by the assertion that Nerull, like most/all gods worshipped on Oerth, was once a Flan mortal.
The player with the wizard character told the priest that their is text showing that his so called god was once a warrior who payed allegiance to a mortal king and worshiped another god. So how could his so-called god be something to worship as any of them could achieve such power.
The priest quickly responded. What makes you so sure that he was not always a god. Gods are not created like mortals their ways are completely different from the ways of mortal men. How could I or any other mortal justify questioning the way of the gods. After all were not his accomplishments god-like. So I ask you if he had always behaved in a god-like manner than he must have always been a good. My friend I think you confuse Devas with gods and gods with Devas. It is the gods who created all of Oerth and the life which it breaths. It is not Oerth which creates the gods. For only a god could achieve the greatness of which worship is deserved.
The wizard replied he was a human I've read it in a text keep by your so-called church. To which the priest replied wrong he walked amongst us humans before he ascended to his true origin. It was a gift those of that time did not fully understand.
This is in line with my thinking of gods. Yes their are tales of when some of the worshiped gods of today were refered to as mortals. But in truth gods and mortals are not the same thing. Much as a priest of IUZ can state that Iggwilv was the gate which brought their god to this world. She did not know that he was not hers because he truly has always existed. It was only the mating of Grazz't and Iggwilv that brought him physically to Oerth. As the gods have many gates that they may chose to enter this world.
The GreyChrondex timeline stretches back almost 15 centuries, but doesn't have a lot of material that old (one entry to be exact). I hope at sometime that Erik posts or lists the material/ideas he had on the cairn building people...they would probably be about that old, or possibly even older. And, with regard to history, the west and the "other continent" haven't been addressed at all, although I did make a bit of a stab at that in the OJ 1 history....(The Suloise material from that document is probably the most "canonical" in that it was developed by Len Lakofka, with some of my additions...Len has a very interesting take on the Suel (and the Baklunish) and their eventual Big Blowup. I have pretty much adopted that material for old Suel history. Likewise Frank Mentzer's Aqua-Aerdy "Johnian" notation for Western Oerik is pretty good, but IMC I've limited that to the far Northwestern areas (the Kingdom of the Marches from the Oerth map from the Dragon Annual).
Steve
I too have been keeping up with the LGJ's, and there is a version of GreyChrondex that has included those (alas, it's not on-line yet, as my home computer was completetly fried in a lightning storm in August, and, as of yet, I've not yet replaced it. [Fortunately, my hard drive was recovered, but I can't put that material on my work computer.] Christmas will take care of that particular problem [my wife said we could call a new computer "our present.") I would however, be more than happy to "compare notes" and list you as a co-generator of the LGJ material, if you would be so interested.
Steve
As to what "really" happened, the seed myth is as good as any, but it is quite possible that that isn't what happened (do you really trlust the powers of Greyhawk to release that kind of info?).
I think for campaign's sake, it is good to have people of different beliefs following their own inclinations, or the creation story of their group of gods. To have a single answer, in this instance, doesn't necessarily help the setting any, or move plots, or develop characters.
Once upon a time, somewhere, I wrote "my" creation myth stor(y/ies). I think that I had many of the powers spring into being at the "birth" of the Crystal Sphere (okay, so I wrote this after Spelljammer came out), they represented different planar "ethical" stances. Their interaction with each other, and ultimately, their interaction with mortals helped form the pantheons (which in turn, broke down with the changing of mortal interaction). I don't think I focussed on the creation of "humans" and I didn't have the gods make it clear whether they were created or imported (although later people like the Rhenee were definitely imports.) When my computer is back up and running, I'll look around for it. I don't think I'd use it as is now, but I was writing a Greyhawk "Faiths & Avatars" type thing...I got to 50 or so pages, and then turned my attention to other things (as is my curse).
Steve
Yeah - I'd be delighted to. I've mailed you off-list about it.
Cheers
Paul