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Mythology

2022-08-26T19:17:08Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: /* Abrahamic Mythology (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) */

In the olden days, before the scientific method was developed, people sought explanations for why the world exists as it does. Humans being humans, their first explanations revolved around ascribing human-like characteristics to natural phenomena, which in turn became the first gods worshiped by humankind. [[Skub|Depending who you ask]].

From there, stories spread about the nature of the gods. In time, people began telling other stories that sought to explain such thinigs as the origins of the world (cosmogonia), the origins of humankind (antropogonia), what happens after death (eschatology), or the exploits of ancient heroes. Many other mythical creatures are thought to have started the same way - for example, stories of giants being an attempt to explain the existence of massive fossilized bones (which we now know belonged to long-extinct animals such as mammoths). As these stories passed down through generations as either legends or religion, they gave birth to the fantasy genre we all know and love.

In a sense, '''mythology''' is a blend of history and fantasy, with elements of what might have really happened wrapped up in cultural beliefs, and then shaped by the worldview of the societies that created the myths in question. Even in the present day more than a few such myths are still prevalent, despite them no longer being openly supernatural, such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Many other such myths are significantly tied to the culture's religion.

Older myths often contained bizarre and fucked up shit like incest and rape, because people in ye olden times <s>[[Slaanesh|were fucking deranged and kinky as all hell]], and as far as they were concerned, nothing was off limits</s> had very different standards of morality than our own.

Put far less bluntly, several cultures saw their gods as models ''OF'' human behavior rather than FOR human behavior, and as such are not inherent indicators of how [[/d/|"deviant"]] a society was (though it ''also'' doesn't mean they might not have been fucked up in some ways). Naturally, exceptions to this "rule" do exist, e.g. the schools of Buddhism, where the core tenet is to transcend the impermanent nature of existence and break the cycle of death and rebirth thus achieving ''nirvana''; the central figurehead, Buddha, and his teachings are explicitly to be emulated as opposed to worshipping him directly (although some branches of Mahayana Buddhism do consider him divine, it's complicated).

Shifts in mythological narratives can also occur due to cultural osmosis and/or conflict; some "foreign" gods are integrated into local mythos or considered an aspect of a "native" god within the pantheon, while other gods (usually from conquered peoples) were sometimes demonized, [[Demon|often literally so]]; alternately, existing gods may shift in nature and reputation due to either technological shifts, or political ones. With different cultures from country to country, mythologies all had their own angels/demons/spirits/energies, with their moralities varying based on how their own cultures and others perceived them. Natural phenomena (the sun, the sea, storms, etc.) and common abstracts (chaos, order, art, etc.) will inevitably feature in nearly any culture's pantheon.

==Connection with Fantasy Genres==
As you can see, many an author took interest in the old legends and decided to include its elements in their own stories. Notably, Tolkien took many elements from the Norse and Germanic Mythologies and popularized the concept of fantasy races like Dwarfs and Elves.

Between these connections and the fact that some mythologies form the basis for many beliefs, both ancient and modern-day (e.g. the Abrahamic religions), while others often incorporate historical and semi-historical figures (with obvious overlap), the following thus bears mentioning: Many other authors have used existing religions (often including their own) as a basis to inform the mythos or cosmology of their settings; [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] in particular is well known for this, as is C.S. Lewis. Liberties will be taken with adapting such figures directly or creating analogues for a given fiction, the same as it would be with any other adaptation. As such should not be taken as absolution or commentary on the reality of such beliefs unless explicitly intended; even in that event such liberties can only be indicative of the author's own beliefs or lack thereof, which is still a far cry from true spiritual or theological objectivity, regardless of how much (if at all) the author may actually want it to be.

<span style='font-size:150%'>{{BLAM|'''''TL;DR The preceding and following descriptions have no ''necessary'' bearing on the matter of whether or not a given being exists or how much of any Scriptures are true or false.'''''}} [[Skub|That's a matter we'll leave to the reader.]]</span>

For the purposes of this article, we're focused more on '''characters''' (including Deities), '''species''', and '''artifacts''', along with particular '''individual stories''' that get repurposed or directly referenced in RPGs. If you're genuinely curious about religious beliefs and/or specifically how it figures into RPGs, we have the [[religion]] article for that.

==Mythologies==
===Abrahamic Mythology (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)===
The one set of mythology everyone most familiar with in the West and the Middle East, since you learn them in church. Or synagogue, or mosque, you get the idea.

Much of the Abrahamic mythology is drawn from the old Hebrew Bible, though it has been expanded considerably by prose and poetry over the centuries, meaning that there is a wealth of third-party, non-canon material out there for DMs to use in their campaign settings. Christian mythology is one of the many mythologies that were derived from Jewish mythology; the same goes for Islamic mythology and many others from Middle Eastern countries. Hence, they are collectively referred to as "Abrahamic" after the Biblical patriarch.

As Islamic mythology is not commonly depicted for a bunch of reasons (most notably because Islam derives from Jewish and Christian mythology, thus sharing many figures and events, along with Islam having a taboo against depicting religious figures - especially their chief prophet Muhammad - that Muslim extremists have often violently enforced even to this day), this section will primarily cover the Jewish and Christian elements of Abrahamic mythology.

'''Most notable heroes with lots of media adaptions:'''
*God is rarely depicted as a particularly active hero, but may [[Just as planned|work in mysterious ways.]] How Yahweh/God/Allah operates tends to be a lot of [[skub]], as all three of these religions nominally pray to the dame Deity, but each perceives him differently
**For the Jews, Yahweh (among many names) is the creator of the universe as well as the patron of their people. Most religions before theirs were polytheistic, believing in the existence of many gods suitable for worship. While there may have been many dudes and dudettes worthy of worship and maybe only one or two "creators", the Jews were unique in that they worshipped only '''one.''' While the other cultures around them had patron deities who were roughly analogous to their home cities (so while many of the Mesopotamian peoples would have the same pantheon, only their local god would be worthy of their worship, at least in general), Jews believed that there was only '''one true god''' and he had a special relationship with them, and the rest were lesser beings, unworthy of worship. From the Jewish perspective, their early covenant means they have already been saved, so long as they keep to their part of the bargain. Because of their self-assurance in this one god and their relationship with him, their polytheistic neighbors didn't get along with them. This worsened when they hardened their stance to say that their god was the '''only god''' and that all other purported gods were false idols fit only for destruction.
**Christians came second, and believed in the teachings of the famous Jew, Jesus. They believe that Jesus is the literal Son Of God, that he taught them a whole bunch of stuff that's in the Bible, died and [[Meme|got better]] after 3 days. Afterwards, his 12 [[Primarch|apostles]] [[Word Bearers|went all over the world being annoying]] and getting polytheists to convert, pretty [[The Last Church|much always by force and cultural eradication]]. There are many flavours of Christian, and a pretty wide (or narrow) canon. Seriously, the [[Dark Angels|Roman Catholics]] who we get all the fun Gothic and Inquisitorial themes justify their doctrines from the works of <s>philosophers and theologians</s> fucking nerds from all the way to the Roman era. Fun little conclaves like the Council of <s>[[Council of Nikaea|Nikaea]]</s> Nicaea were basically just debates among leaders of the Early Churches trying to agree on the nature of God and what beliefs are HERESY and what's not. Their reliance on <s>the catholic wiki</s> an entire body of secondary works and not the "primary source" that was the Bible eventually caused the Reformation and led to all the fun of Protestants and Evangelicals that we have so much fun with today, and that's before we factor in the schism between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and the miscellaneous splinter sects of all three major branches of Christianity. '''Tl;dr''' Christians see God as their [[Spiritual Liege|Papa]], their [[The Emperor|Savior]], and also as the essence of God, and to understand why one = three either just take their word for it or get a Theology degree to figure out why.
**Islam is the skubbiest, which is a shame, because it could've been the most simple. The Islamic view on God is that Allah is beyond human understanding and comprehension, and from Allah comes all things, good and evil, but still infinitely good. Allah is infinite, and the only thing worthy of worship. It wouldn't be out of place to consider Allah a "concept", because even trying to portray Allah as one thing or another is [[HERESY|haram]]; it would simply be too limiting, or placing human qualities on the creator. Before Muhammad, the Jews and Christians received parts of the revelation through the prophets, but they consider Jesus to be the greatest Jewish prophet and not the son of God; besides them, only Muhammad ever got the chance to communicate with Allah, and there will never be another until the End Times. And so just like the Catholics, any further questions regarding the qualities of God and morality would have to come from the Koran (the Muslim equivalent of the Bible) and hadiths, which were basically long oral histories of "Muhammad said this, according to X (his X), as told by Y, (X's Y), and passed down by Z, and so on." So while Islam wanted to [[Thousand Sons|bring the sort of mysticism of a single, indivisible, and infinite Allah that only contemplation of the Word could bring]], [[Horus Heresy|an almost immediate power struggle]] over who should succeed Muhammad as the leader of Muslim society caused Islam to split into two rival factions that defined themselves in opposition to the other, leading to skub and differences of tradition/theology that last to this day. They too ended up becoming quite fond of forced conversions, and needless to say it did not take very long for relations between Muslims and Christians to go sour.
*Jesus Christ: Please tell us you're joking. If for some reason you're actually serious and have a few hours to spare, find the nearest church and ask whoever's in charge to tell you about him. He will be happy to give you the full story. Otherwise you can ask a Christian you know or pick up a copy of the Bible - nearly every bookstore stocks them and then there's online copies - and see for yourself. Trivia: "Christ" is not Jesus' last name, but is one of Jesus' titles.
*Abraham: The common tie between the three Abrahamic religions, his covenant with God makes him and his descendants the first of the Jews.
*Samson: Legendary hero whose power of super strength was tied to <strike>never cutting his hair</strike> ACKCHYUALLY his power was tied to keeping his covenants with God, it just so happened that cutting his hair was the last one to break and he knew it.
*David: Once killed a mighty warrior with a [[Sling]]. Undertook the worst fetch quest in history when the king demanded he collect 100 Philistine foreskins to marry the princess, then decided to go above and beyond and collect 200. Said father in law was King Saul, who later tried to have David killed numerous times (strong contender for worst parent-in-law ever right here). He became the king of Israel some time later after King Saul's death. Also credited with writing the Biblical Psalms.
*Solomon: David's most famous son, also King of Israel. Better at his job then just about anybody who came after him, and (more relevant to media appearances outside of direct-Biblical-adaption) frequently reputed to be a (usually holy) sorcerer of some kind. Islam further credits him with authority over the djinn.
*Moses: See the Exodus for details. Hollywood is a big fan of this guy, even moreso than Jesus (regardless of how you take the implications), so you have a plethora of big-budget film options with A-list actors to choose from (Charlton Heston, Christian Bale, cartoon with Val Kilmer, etc)
*Noah: See below for his boating adventure.
*A few angels; notably, only two are given names: Michael and Gabriel, as well as Raphael in the Book of Tobit though its canonicity is disputed(there's also an Abbadon (no, not [[Abaddon|the armless retard one]]) in the Book of Revelation, but he's usually considered a Fallen Angel like Lucifer). Also notable and mentioned in the Bible: the Angel of Death, aka The Destroying Angel (no name given Biblically, but the Catholic and most Eastern Orthodox Apocryphas (as well as Jewish tradition, especially the later Kabbalic one), identify him as Azrael).
*Satan and the demons of Hell (see below) are sometimes depicted as an unpleasant but necessary part of the divine plan (compare to Hades, above), as the ones who punish sinners who escape mortal justice. In the early parts of the Old Testament, Satan is seen as a prosecutor of souls who puts people through spiritual trials to test their faith, rather than tempting people into evil for evil's sake, and to this day we speak of the "Devil's Advocate" who points out flaws in popular people or ideas (the term originates from the Catholic Church, of all places; when someone is considered for sainthood, the Devil's Advocate is specifically appointed to argue against them to hopefully ensure all sides of the story are considered).
** Alternatively, Satan is sometimes portrayed as a hero rebelling against an oppressive divine order. Obviously this is [[extra heresy]] (see also: Gnosticism).

'''Most notable villains with lots of media adaptions:'''
* Satan/Lucifer/The Devil (may or may not be the same character): With the many different interpretations, it's hard to tell which is which, but the general gist is that one angel disagreed with how God was doing business and staged a great rebellion. God cast him and his kin out of heaven and forced them to live in a realm where they are never able to feel his presence, and now he takes his hatred of God out on humanity by leading them into damnation.
** Relevant note: One approach used in various media is to have multiple Hellish factions, each of whom have some claim to the title of Supreme Evil. Usually, they're opposed to one another, and usually represent different kinds or aspects of Evil (e.g., one wants to destroy the world, and is directly opposed by another who wants to tempt and corrupt). Note that the Bible is completely silent about most things about demons, so both "they're all working for one master" and "it's every demon for himself" are plausible readings. The Ars Goetia is often a handy source from which to pull such factions.
* Baal, Moloch, and others: False idols (i.e. pagan gods) worshipped by the Caananites, which the Israelites would repeatedly turn to worshipping despite God punishing them every single time they did so.
* Judas Iscariot: One of Jesus' apostles who sold him out to the Romans, leading to the crucifixion. He hung himself shortly afterwards in a fit of despair. His name became a byword for betraying someone close to you, and is also known for the price he sold Jesus out for (30 pieces of silver).
* [[Cain]]: Adam and Eve's son after being cast out of paradise. Murdered his brother Abel for petty reasons.
* The Pharaoh of the Exodus, known simply as Pharaoh. Popular history assumes it to be Rameses II, although [[wikipedia:Pharaohs_in_the_Bible|historians have been arguing over this for millenia]]<ref>Not helping is the long-held knowledge among scholars that ancient Egyptians were more interested in propaganda than recording their actual history on their public displays, which is a large chunk of what contemporary evidence we have for what happened when.</ref>.
* Sometimes God and/or various angels are depicted negatively, as either being passive in the face of evil or complicit ([[Adeptus Evangelion|or being giant monsters out to destroy the world]]). Naturally, those kinds of interpretations are highly frowned upon for the obvious reason that people still worship God, this can involve in-universe retcons of Scripture, consider God good and do not like it when other people call His actions evil, so naturally this is [[Extra Heresy]] (and blasphemy).
** It should be added that Fallen Angels are a Canonical (as in, actually appear in the New Testament) option to have Evil Angels without making God Himself Evil, although it still runs into the problem of why God made his own angels susceptible to becoming evil in the first place. Note that this is more an early Jewish and Christian motif than a later Jewish or Islamic one, due to changes and differences, respectively, in theology.

'''Non-Biblical figures who show up in media adaptions'''
* Lilith, the fanon first wife of Adam, the first man. It must be emphasized that she '''does not exist in any biblical source'''<ref>Technically, the word "lilith" does appear in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_34#Verse_14 Isaiah 34:14], but the word is frequently translated to something similar to "night monster" or "screeching owl"</ref> (other then the first woman being created twice -- but then again, a lot of things happen twice, slightly differently described each time, in Genesis). That being said, she was reputed to be one of Satan's many wives and a mother of demons or Adam's first wife who disobeyed God, before God created Eve.
* The Wandering Jew and Longinus: Because Jesus implied that certain people listening to him speak would be around for the Second Coming (although two obvious alternate readings are that Jesus was talking about his shortly impending Resurrection, or referring to the then-future, but politically easy to foresee, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War Great Revolt of 66 AD], whose results could easily be seen as something that would be talked about in the same tone as the end of the world at the time), two non-biblical figures show up, starting in medieval works: The Wandering Jew, an Jew of the era, cursed to immortality, and Longinus, the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus' side with a spear during the Crucifixion, similarly cursed to immortality. Can show up as villains, heroes, or mere cameos. (Both are more likely to show up in literature and RPGs then visual media; Longinus in particular is the identity claimed by an important historical vampire in ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]''.)
* Various non-Biblically mentioned Angels.
*[[Djinn]]: Originally an element of pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, they are mentioned in the Quran as spirits born of "smokeless fire". Unlike Islamic angels, they are capable of sin and can go to either Heaven or Hell. The Islamic version of Satan (called Iblis or Shaitan) is said to have originally been a djinn. Over time and several (mis)interpretations, they came to be portrayed as the figures we now know as [[genie]]s.

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
* The Holy Grail: The cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper and/or a cup used for various purposes during the Crucifixion.
* The True Cross: So named because of the dozens of other crosses falsely passed off as the one Jesus was crucified on--not helped by the fact that the Roman Empire crucified a ''lot'' of people, as Crucifixion was the standard Roman method of execution of non-Romans. Whether it actually ''is'' the cross Jesus was crucified in is another story.
* The Spear of Destiny and various other objects associated with the Crucifixion: In certain media, the Spear of Destiny (which pierced his side during crucifixion), as well as the nails which pinned him to the cross, are considered gifted with magical powers because they have the blood of God on them.
** Other objects from the Crucifixion that can show up in media and are sometimes (but more rarely then the above) assigned supernatural powers include the Crown of Thorns, the 30 pieces of silver payed to Judas, the whip used for the 39 lashes, and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Sponge a sponge].
* The Veil of Veronica and/or the Shroud of Turin: These are two relics that purported to be pieces of cloth that were miraculously imprinted with an image of Christ's face after being in contact with him sometime during the crucial four days. The former is lost; the latter is of rather dubious authenticity and is now considered by most scholars to be a forgery made in the Middle Ages.
* The Ark of the Covenant: Where Moses supposedly put the shards of the original Ten Commandments (and possibly Aaron's rod and a pot of manna). Famously disappeared during one of the various times Jerusalem was sacked, and has never been seen since.
* The Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil
* The Fruit of Life.
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==== Creation Myth ====
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So in Abrahamic mythology there is only one god, or at least only one ''true'' god: '''YHVH''', which most people would just refer to him as '''GOD''' since his name is too sacred to speak of and because he is the only god that exists, with all others being false idols and products of human imagination or demonic ruse. In fact, we don't even know how its pronounced (in part because ancient Hebrew is an abjad- a language that only uses consonants in their writing system) the two most common anglicizations being '''Yahweh''' and '''Jehovah'''. Other names and titles that may be used instead of '''YHVH''' include '''Elohim''' (meaning '''God''' or gods), '''Adonai''' (meaning '''Lord'''), '''HaShem''', '''"I AM"''', and '''Father'''. In Islam (and also by Arabic speaking Christians), he is instead called '''Allah'''. And other languages have their own unique words used to refer to him.

Before the world was born, according to Milton, there was the "war in heaven" [[War in Heaven|(not this one)]] where [[Horus|Lucifer]], [[Horus Heresy|the most perfect of God's creations and the best of the archangels, rebelled against God with a third of the angels in Heaven, but was defeated and cast down to Hell]], in which he was imprisoned.

After that, God creates the world. It is said that he created the world in 7 days, hence the seven-day work week we all know and love: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (although those names themselves are drawn from various pagan, Roman, and Norse traditions -- Sun, Moon, Tyr, Woden/Odin, Thor, Frigga/Freya, and Saturn -- because flexibility is important when it comes to winning converts). He then created many animals, plants and the first two humans: Adam and Eve. He observed them in the Garden of Eden ''(aka his research facility)'' watching them having fun and telling them that they could do anything they wanted, except from eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden. But that promise was broken when the woman, Eve was tempted by a winged serpent - who according to Milton, was actually Lucifer in disguise seeking to avenge himself by corrupting humanity - to eat the fruit, which held within it the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve, having eaten the fruit, gained knowledge and dignity which made them embarrassed by their lack of clothing. God found out and exiled from the garden them to the mortal world. The serpent is also punished, with his wings taken from him, turning him into the [[snek]] we all knew and feared. According to Christianity, this also introduced original sin, fundamentally changing the nature of humankind from natural innocence to inherent wickedness.

In the mortal world, Adam and Eve worked hard to survive and later conceived two sons: Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer while Abel was a shepherd. When they both offered their produce to God, God only favored Abel's. ''(According to some, it was because Cain hid his best offering from God, and others because he gave God leftovers while Abel gave the best; others still say (frequently either looking to blame-shift or suggest that even small evils can lead to larger ones in other people), Abel's overweening pride at being favored provoked what followed. By this point if you are a true [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] fan, you would know what's coming next, but without the vampire shit.)'' Cain killed Abel, and his punishment for murder was to never farm ever again; wherever he spilled his brother's blood, the earth became cursed so that it can never grow anything, putting an end to Cain's favorite job and career. However, punishments differ in other mythologies and it's a clusterfuck, though the 'Mark of Cain' deal is a common point of reference - Cain fears the cold, cruel world will be out to get his marauding criminal ass, so God set a mark on him that made it clear anyone trying to inflict their justice over His own would get it seven times worse.

Adam and Eve later had the third son Seth, who is the true ancestor of mankind, and [[Command and Conquer|Cain is then exiled to the land of the Nod]] where he built the City of Enoch (because he can't farm) and conceived many other descendants. There's also the claim that Eve was not the first wife, but Lilith, a woman who was created from the same dirt as Adam. Felt too hot shit for Adam, so she ran away with an archangel called Samael ''(the Fallen name for Lucifer in some stories)'', though in other stories she ran away a demon prince called Asmodeus ([[Asmodeus|the one this guy was named after]]) and begat a whole race of demons called the Lilim or Lilitu. In [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] however, she taught Cain cool dark magic and shit.

As for the rest, it's easier to find the nearest Bible and/or Koran and read it for yourself. Just don't call it mythology or worse where anyone can hear you, unless you enjoy offending people, want to provoke an argument and don't particularly care about being ostracized or worse, depending on where you do it.
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==== Noah's Ark ====
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Humankind had become incredibly corrupt and sinful (we’re talking [[Fall of the Eldar|birth the Eye of Terror]] levels of debauchery(!) here), so God decided to have the sea level to suddenly rise to the kind you see in disaster movie like [[/tv/|The Day After Tomorrow]] after a 120 year countdown. He instructed the only righteous people on Earth, starting with the family patriarch named Noah to build [[Imperial Navy|an ark big enough to contain the non-aquatic animals of the world as well as his family]], or just each animal species with their own female and male pairing so that they could reproduce. God even instructed Noah to build the ark with the size he demands: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height (450 × 75 × 45 ft or 137 × 22.9 × 13.7 m), [[just as planned|it's almost as if God intended this]]. The ark is also made out of some probably extinct wood called "Gopher" (that's just how the Hebrew word is pronounced, ''gofer'' -- it's not related to the furry critter), probably the best kind since the ark has to withstand waves after waves of tsunami for a long time and a tragically, all of them were either used up building the Ark or the flood wrecked the rest.

Then the rain lasted 40 days and the resulting flood killed everyone except those on the ark. They basically float and live on their stockpiles for nearly a year until the water goes down. They disembark, and Noah makes a burnt sacrifice to thank God for sparing them and God makes a covenant to never again use a flood to destroy the world (either creating rainbows to serve as a reminder of this, or making the rainbow represent this).
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==== Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews ====
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Another myth took place in Egypt. There once lived the Israelite (later the Jewish) people, the chosen people of God. They had come to reside in Egypt after a renowned ancestor Joseph helped Egypt survive a major famine, and were living in peaceful harmony until one day some asshole [[Tomb Kings|Pharaoh]] came and starts to oppress the shit out of them. The Pharaoh hated how the Hebrews bred like rats and got paranoid that they '''might''' ally with Egypt's enemies, so he ordered [[grimdark|every one of their male babies thrown in the river of Nile to either drown or get eaten by wildlife]]. Moses, our hero of the story survived as an infant and was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter (oh the irony). Moses eventually grow up and learn of God '''Yahweh''' and is commanded to free his people and guide them on an exodus to the promised land. Pharaoh and his army tried to stop them but God basically said fuck you and send [[Nurgle|twelve powerful plagues]] to fucked them over; it could've ended sooner if he just let them go, but the Pharaoh was [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|stupidly stubborn and always tried to tweak the deal to his advantage]]. [[Nagash|The plagues were so effective that Egypt became a frigging wasteland, and even then Scripture states God was pulling His punches - but no undead unfortunately]]. The Pharaoh was pretty quick to let the Israelites go after the last one. Later, Moses guided his people to close to the red sea where he do the iconic sea splitting to make a crossing passage. The Pharaoh and his goons tried to take chase but was once again pwned by the sudden sea crushing them from both sides when they were on the sea.

After traveling with his fellow Hebrews, Moses was called to Mount Sinai by God, who gave him the '''Ten Commandments''': ten rules willed by God as the foundation of Jewish law and the worship of God. Later on other rules were given, and then sometimes God gave direct orders (e.g. commands to commit [[exterminatus|genocide]] on the entire cities of man, woman, children and animals for failing to worship God, though those nations were also at war with the Hebrews some sources cite that it was also punishment for the practices of those religions, which were said to include [[Khorne|human sacrifice]] and [[Slaanesh|ritual prostitution where they weren't picky about the participants age, gender, species...]]).

While he was up there, the Israelites believed he would never come back and had built an idol of a golden calf that they claimed as their new god. When Moses returned, he was enraged and had the calf ground to powder, which was scattered into water and force-fed to the Israelites, which were then struck with a plague as a punishment for their idolatry. Moses and his followers arrived to their promised land after a delay of 40 years due to the Israelites' incessant disbelief in God despite all he'd done, which is, unsurprisingly, Israel! The Israelites then spend a long chunk of their history trying to kill off the native Caananites who weren't big on peaceful co-existence, all while being repeatedly punished for continually abandoning God's worship in favor of false idols in what can only be called a stunning inability to learn from experience.

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====Things drawn from Abrahamic Myth / Demonology ====
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The "bibles" ''(Jewish, Christian and Islamic holy books)'' and associated apocrypha are undoubtedly HUGE sources of inspiration for game developers, particularly [[Dungeons and Dragons]] where monsters are ported over, virtually unchanged and names of significant figures are also often used.

*The idea that Hell has Nine layers - [[Baator]] - though where Dante's layers have distinct punishments, Baator's layers are the realms of powerful lords.
**Names of significant demon/devil characters: [[Asmodeus]] - demon of Lust, '''Baalzebul''' ''(or other variants like Baalzebul, Beelzebub)'' - demon of gluttony, or '''Mammon''' - demon of avarice
*Different orders of Angels, or angel analogues such as [[Genie]]s (or djinn, as they were originally called in Islamic tradition)
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====Gnosticism====
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A wide family of dualistic beliefs and religious systems that formed around early Christian and Jewish sects that were influnced by Neoplatonism, Persian ideas, and Buddhism (maybe). The main belief of Gnosticism was that the material world was created by a Demiurge, who may or may not be the God of the Old Testament, is flawed/evil and the only way to be saved/ascend from earthly constraints is by obtaining ''Gnosis'', personal spiritual knowledge given by the hidden, supreme God pertaining to humanity's divine nature. This spiritual knowledge was emphasized by all gnostic faiths and was held superior to any teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.

Gnosticism is by and large unknown to most people, with Christianity and Islam having largely wiped it out, with only Mandaeism and the [[China|Chinese]] branch of Manicheanism having survived of the original Gnostic religions. Modern gnostic religions tend to be more reconstructionist rather than revivalist. It has influenced several fantasy settings, like [[Kult]], [[The Elder Scrolls]] and both of the [[World of Darkness]] Mage games.
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===Arthurian Mythology===
The story of a boy who becomes king of England and his knights. Arthurian lore is unusual among mythology in that historians actually know the names and history of the authors who created most of it. This doesn't make it any more consistent, in-fact even authors directly continuing existing stories couldn't be assed to keep basic things consistent. The issue has to do with Arthur's story being used by every ambitious bard to introduce their own [[Original character, do not steal|OC]] Knight of the Round Table and why theirs is the best of the bunch, as well as many of Britain's monarchs adjusting his story for their own political gain.

Of some minor note, the story of King Arthur ''may'' have some sorta kinda basis in reality. If he existed, he was apparently a '''general''', not king, who successfully fought in at least one battle to contain the invading Anglo-Saxons during the era after the collapse of the western Roman Empire. Given many, many washings through the story retelling and expanding machine after being combined with the mythos associated with the Holy Grail, we wind up with the King Arthur mythology.

For the closest thing to an official "canon" for Arthurian literature, it officially begins with Geoffrey Monmouth's ''The History of the Kings of Britain'', with some of the more prominent stories including ''Le Morte D'Arthur,'' ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,'' ''Perceval, the Story of the Grail,'' etc. There are much older, Welsh-based stories, but these little resemble the Medieval stories modern pop culture is more familiar with, and as such only fodder for ''actual'' historians.

(Side note: If you intentionally quote from ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' at the gaming table, you deserve to be punched in the face.)

'''Notable Characters:'''
*Arthur <s>(no shit are you fucking stupid oh my god jesus christ come on its IN THE FUCKIN--)</s>
*The Knights of the Round Table
**Lancelot: The closest of Arthur's companions and the greatest knight of the age, but also infamous for his long affair with Guinevere. Some scholars believe he was not part the original group of knights and actually just a completely separate fictional knight that met Arthur in a crossover and never left.
**Gawain: One of the earliest knights in Arthurian mythos, representing Wales. He typically gets shit on by the newer, fancier knights, but really comes into his own during his duel with the Green Knight. Plebs normally don't know that he's the actually Arthur's nephew by his sister, as well as being the eldest of FOUR other Knights of the Round, including the infamous Mordred (Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth). Due to this little-remembered fact, he's ''technically'' Arthur's heir, as Arthur and Guinevere had no (surviving -- the Welsh side of the mythos is iffy about this) children.
**Galahad: Lancelot's son. [[Grey Knights|Absolutely pure of heart]], and the only one able to sit in the lethal chair at the Round Table known as "The Siege Perilous." For this he is able to complete the quest for the Holy Grail. After finding it, he ascends into Heaven along with the Grail.
**Percival: The Knight who was supposed to find the grail before Galahad appeared. In his version of the story, he finds the grail is kept by the Fisher King, ruler of a wasteland that can only be healed by Percival becoming the new king. In later versions, Percival is unsuccessful in healing the land, allowing Galahad to take over.
**Kay: Arthur's [[Gish]] step-brother. One of the earliest written knights, but nobody remembers him. Kay was a guy's name once upon a time.
**Tristan: Similar to Lancelot, it's assumed he was integrated into Arthurian mythos, but unlike him Tristan had an existing legend attached to him. In it, he was sent by his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to bring back the maiden Isolde for him to marry. A love potion mishap caused Tristan and Isolde to fall in love with each other instead, and the tragic love affair that followed cost them their lives.
**Bedivere: The Knight who returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake after Arthur's death.
**Mordred: Most commonly depicted as Arthur's bastard son with his half-sister (who may or may not be Morgan le Fay depending on the story) or possibly his aunt, but like a lot of things in Arthur Mythos his background is inconsistent as hell. The most consistent part is that he starts a rebellion against Arthur, and in their final battle he mortally wounds Arthur but is killed himself.
*Merlin: Arthur's wizard and mentor, as well as the template for almost every other wizard in fantasy fiction since the genre was a thing. Works vary wildly on how benevolent he is and how he got his powers. Originally named Myrddin, but that sounded too close to "shit" for audiences that knew French, which was a lot of people at the time, so it was changed. Since having a super OP wizard as a buddy would make things too easy for Arthur, some stories have him trapped by Morgan's apprentice Vivian or the Lady of the Lake so that Merlin can't warn Arthur of his impending doom.
*Morgan le Fay: Merlin's opposite number. Sometimes Arthur's half-sister because fuck consistency. Depending on the story, she is either an ally or an enemy of Arthur.
*Guinevere: Arthur's wife. Falls for Lancelot shortly after they meet, and somehow their affair goes unnoticed until exposed by Morgan le Fay and Mordred.
*Lady of the Lake: A fey chick who gives Arthur Excalibur after the sword in the stone breaks. Since most adaptations make the sword in the stone and Excalibur one in the same her role varies wildly. Sometimes said to be Lancelot's adoptive mother.
*The Green Knight: Shows up to the castle one day and challenges each knight to chop his head off with an axe, on the condition he gets to do the same thing to them next year. Nobody is willing to accept the challenge... except Gawain. Gawain beheads the Green Knight [[Dullahan|only for him to pick the head right back up and walk away]], reminding Gawain of their deal. Gawain survives thanks to the the Green Girdle and learns the whole thing really was a test of the knights' courage by Morgan. If this sounds uncharacteristically consistent to you, it's because he only appeared in one story, albeit a well regarded one.
*The Black Knight: There's a few different ones, or it could just be another case of zero consistency. (It should be noted that knights with black armor were actual semi-historical figures; blackening up your armor made it vastly easier to maintain for a solo knight without a squire, so a Knight without a liege sometimes did so while either seeking new employment, or just plain wandering; alternately, the knight painted up his armor and shield to conceal his identity. Either way, you have a knight without a master, a worrying prospect to the feudal mind.)
*The Fisher King: Usually only shows up in Holy Grail-related stories; in some versions, as he suffers, so does the land, and vice versa, and in others, he's just a protector of the Grail who was wounded by it for some sin (usually, adultery or getting married in the first place), and the wound also in some way renders the land barren (and thus, needing to fish in order to get food, thus, "''Fisher'' King"). In the latter case, he's associated with a "Healing Question", a question that when asked of him will heal his wounds, which varies from version to version (the two most famous are "Who serves the Grail?", and "Why are you so wounded?").
*Very few adaptions use the Anglo-Saxons, the people who the earliest chronicles claim he fought against.

'''Notable Artefacts:'''
Arthurian myth has some of the highest artifact density out there. Among the most famous are:
*The Holy Grail: Has some connections to the life of Jesus, see above. Short version is that it grants immortality.
*The Sword in The Stone and/or Excalibur: The legendary sword which acts as Arthur's badge of office. In some versions of the myth they are the same sword, others not; some versions even name the other sword "Caliburn" (which is just a translation of the French "Excalibur" to Latin) The scabbard in particular protects Arthur from all wounds; for this reason, Morgan steals the Scabbard to weaken him.
*The Green Girdle: Obtained by Sir Gawain in ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. A girdle of green silk, none who wear it can be killed.
*The Round Table itself: Most works just make the round table a mundane table, but a few give it magical powers of some kind. The symbolic importance is that all knights are considered equal to each other as it lacks any ends for a head to claim. One seat, the Siege Perilous, kills all unworthy knight who would sit on it; only the one who will find the Holy Grail may sit in it.

===Chinese Mythology===
Since China lived right next to various, heavily religious nations countries like India and Tibet, their mythology contains many gods from Buddhism, although the ancient Chinese tended more towards Taoism as a general rule. Chinese mythology is pretty well known and famous in Asia and one of its most famous myths, "The Journey to the West", brought forth near-endless adaptations, including everyone's [[anime|favorite anime/manga about a certain half-monkey xeno super fighter]].
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==== World Creation according to Chinese Mythology ====
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The Chinese mythos displays a heavy Taoist belief influenced by the Zhou Dynasty that passed it down from generation to generation until the Three Kingdoms era, where one Xu Zheng finally committed the story to paper. Basically, there is but formless [[Chaos]] in the beginning and it coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced, and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu was a [[anime|Tengan Toppa]]-sized sky titan and a hairy primitive humanoid; he would separate the yin and yang (earth and sky) by lifting up the sky and holding it for the next 18,000 frigging years (because fuck you Atlas, you derivative hack). While doing his lifting, both the sky and earth grew ten feet (3 meters) everyday.

Pangu finally died at the end of this period, with the world forming from several of his remains: His breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; his head, the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood, rivers; his muscles, fertile land; his facial hair, the stars and Milky Way; his fur, bushes and forests; his bones, valuable minerals; his bone marrow, sacred diamonds; his sweat, rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became animals. Kinda similar to [[#Norse|Ymir the giant]], except he wasn't murdered and it wasn't metal enough that the blood became killer tsunamis.
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==== Nüwa ====
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An ancient goddess named Nüwa was the one who created humanity out of clay. Men that were molded by her in yellow clay became the top dog of their society, just because they were molded by her hand - the rest of humankind were made out of mud for mass production and were thus [[peasants]]. [[Skub|(Whether it was ancient Chinese propaganda to let everyone know their place is up to the reader's interpretation)]]. As she was busy creating humans, the pillar holding the sky broke, so she had to fix it herself using a giant azure turtle's shell as water container and its legs as a new set of pillars. There's also another version where she is depicted as the Chinese version of Eve, as well as the daughter of the Jade Emperor, the first god. Her husband Fuxi taught humans how to hunt and fish and gave them the first system of writing.
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==== Xiyou Ji (Journey To The West) ====
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Xiyou Ji (or ''Journey To the West'') is an important historical Chinese fantasy adventure novel about a journey undertaken to India by a Chinese Buddhist monk, known as Tang Sanzang/Xuanzang or Tripitaka, to get better copies of the Buddhist sacred texts. In this, he has recruited four protectors throughout the journey who agree to help him in atonement for their various sins; two guys nobody cares about: a disgraced commander from heaven named Zhu Bajie, who was punished by the gods into a pig like beastman (who ''everyone'' calls an idiot, even ''the narrator'') and Sha Wujing, a random sand bandit who was also from heaven and was banished (the black sheep of the party); a horse (who was secretly the dragon king's son, also disgraced); and the ''real'' protagonist, [[Sun Wukong]], the Monkey King (see his page for more backstory and details).

They proceed to set off on a journey where they learn the virtues and teachings of Buddhism and encounter a lot of interesting folks and weird episodes (such as monsters who wanted Xuanzang's flesh for immortality and power) along the way, many of which you might recognize if you're a fan of Japanese or Chinese-themed fantasy works.

But did they succeed in the end? After a long and approximately 9 to 14 years of pilgrimage, they finally reach the borderlands of India. They then traveled to the mythical place known as the Griddharaj Parvat(Vulture Peak) where Sanzang received the scripture from living Buddha. Afterwards, the gang received their own reward from the heaven, where they have ascended to Buddhahood.
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====The Twelve Zodiac====
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In the ancient China, there is this "Twelve Earthly Branches" that the ancient chinese used to identify dates and time. However, it's origin wasn't clear but it was explained in a humorous manner and replaced with the twelve animal instead. You see a long ago, the Jade Emperor decided to host a race to see which animal would be worthy for the calendar years. The race is special because the animals will have to cross a river to prove their resolves.

The first three animals mentioned in the story are the Rat, Ox and Cat. Since both the Rat and the Cat are bad at swimming, they decided to ride on the Ox's back. The Ox was easy going and just let them have the free trip. Just before they reach the finish line, [[Skaven|the Rat backstabbed the Cat by pushing it into the river and went for the 1st place itself]]. Because of that, Rat became the 1st in the race with Ox being the 2nd. The Tiger got the 3rd place, the reason being it was pushed back by the downstream currents despite being strong and powerful. The Rabbit got the 4th place after it crossed the river by jumping on the exposed rocks in the water. It almost drowned if it weren't for a drifting log that washed it to shore. The frigging dragon (the slender Chinese type) takes the 5th place after that. Despite it being celestial and all powerful, it explained to Jade Emps that it had to stop by a village to save the people there from a housefire. Then on the way, it found the Rabbit helplessly clinging onto the drifting log that the Dragon gives a boost with just one breath. The Horse steadily appeared with galloping sound from a far, but was frightened by the sudden appearance of The Snake, which ended up giving Snake the 6th place with the Horse being the 7th. The Goat, the Monkey and the Rooster gets the 8th, 9th and 10th place in order after they please the Jade Emps with some good teamwork crossing the river. The Rooster found the raft with The Monkey and The Goat pulling the raft. The Dog ended up being the 11th place despite being the best swimmer and runner, simply because it was playing in the water the whole time. The lazy Pig ended up being the 12th and final place despite it eating and sleeping in the middle of the race. The Cat that was drowned did not make into the race and it is the reason why it hates rats so much, as well as suffering aquaphobia because of that.
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===Egyptian Mythology===
Most well known for its collection of gods with [[Furry|the heads of animals]]. Unlike Greek or Norse mythology, has very little emphasis on mortal or demimortal heroes.

Egyptian mythology is wildly inconsistent due to spanning numerous cultures over thousands of years: for instance, the world is alternately said to have been created by Ra, Atem, Ptah, Thoth, or a collection of eight gods known as the Ogdoad. Whoever was the supreme god mainly depended on what city you were in and what time period it was, but the most well-known one was the sun god Ra. A common theme was the maintaining of a divine order known as Ma'at. Maintaining Ma'at on Earth was seen as the prime responsibility of the Pharoah, a priest-king who was seen as the bridge between mortals and gods. Another major theme is the concept of the death and rebirth of mortals and gods alike, leading to the famous Egyptian practices of [[Mummy|mummification]] and the construction of elaborate tombs. In total the Eyptian pantheon had thousands of gods (and that's not counting the dvine aspects attributed to Pharaohs), some of the most notable of them are discussed below.

'''Notable Gods:'''
*Ra: Falcon-headed (although he was also often depicted as a ram or a scarab) god of the sun. During the night, he voyaged through the underworld where he would battle the monstrous serpent Apophis. Also known as Khephri or Atum (among other names), depending on the time of day- it is said he was Khephri in the morning, Ra at noon, and Atum at night.
*Osiris: Formerly the god-king of Egypt, he was murdered and cut to pieces by his brother Set and became the god of the afterlife. Was resurrected by his sister Isis and they conceived Horus... then Set killed him again. Due to the Egyptian obsession with funerary rites, this made him a very important god.
*Isis: Sister/wife of Osiris and goddess of magic and wisdom. Her sorcery was what allowed Osiris to rise from the dead to become god of the afterlife. Her influence was particularly strong during the Roman Empire, and some scholars believe that elements of her worship may have influenced Christianity by way of the veneration of the Virgin Mary.
*Horus (no, not that [[Horus]]): Falcon-headed sky god and son of Osiris and Isis. Waged war against Set to avenge his father, which included humiliating him by [[/d/|ejaculating in his salad]]. Ended up taking his father's job, and so became the patron of the pharoahs. He is heavily associated with the symbol known as the Eye of Horus, which was believed to protect against evil.
*Anubis: Psychopomp deity that oversaw the Weighing of the Heart. Although in actual Egyptian mythology he was only Osiris' servant, his striking jackal-headed appearance has made him more well-known.
*Set: God of deserts, who due to being associated with foreign invaders was demonized into an evil god who murdered Osiris (most myths tell about him doing so out of jealousy, while in some he murdered Osiris for sleeping, and even some raping, Set's wife Nepthys). Wasn't the ultimate villain of Egyptian Mythology, that would be Apophis (who was so evil Set was portrayed as fighting him even after being demonized), but Apophis is nowhere near as infamous.
*Apophis: Essentially, the God of Evil and Darkness. Enemy of all living things, and the sort of guy who picks a fight with Ra each and every night, even though he loses every time. While others gods are depicted as humanoid, Apophis, also called Apep, was depicted as a snake or sometimes a crocodile. Trivia; the Ancient Egyptians believed that depicting Apophis gave him power, so to counteract this whenever they drew him, they'd draw him being beaten in a fight by another god.

===Greco-Roman Mythology===
[[:Category:Greek Mythology|The stuff introduced in Greek myth]] is pretty widespread. Some of it is so widely used people forget it came from the Greeks in the first place.

Interestingly, [[Eldar]] and [[High Elves|Elves]] [[Dark Elves|of the]] [[Wood Elves|Warhammer]] worlds took a lot of elements from Indo-European myth, the prime examples of the west being Greco-Roman mythology.

'''Notable Locations:'''
*Mt. Olympus: The home of the gods, notably Zeus. This place is where the gods look down on mortals while discussing how their mortal champions are going to shank their rival gods' champions.
*Tartarus: Named after one of the primordial gods, it is the deepest abyss, deeper than Hade's underworld. It imprisons the most wicked of criminals along with the titans.
*[[Atlantis]]: Legendary sea kingdom. Pissed off the gods with their expansionist behaviors and got dunked into the ocean. Technically not part of the mythology, but since Plato was the first one to write it down we're putting it here anyway.

'''Most notable heroes with lots of media adaptions:'''
*Zeus/Jupiter (in his more positive depictions): King of the gods and big good of the pantheon, being a fair judge and ruler of gods and men. If there's any work of fiction with a pantheon of deities, expect one of them to be patterned after Zeus. This guy ''fucks''.
*Hercules/Heracles: The most famous of Zeus' misbegotten sons, Hercules is a demigod who undergoes twelve great labors to atone for killing his family in a berserk rage, slaying many monsters and ultimately saving the gods from an attack by the giants.
*Theseus: Reputed to be the son of Poseidon and the slayer of the Minotaur, he was also credited with the rise of Athens.
*Perseus: Another of Zeus's bastards, and the ancestor of Hercules no less. Famous for slaying Medusa.
*Daedalus: A masterful inventor whose name became synonymous with master craftsmen. Most famously responsible for creating the Labyrinth for [[Minotaur|King Minos' beast]] before being locked up himself.
*The leaders of both sides of the Trojan War (Achilles, Hector, Paris etc.).

'''Most notable villains in media adaptions:'''
*Zeus (in his more negative depictions): Zeus is also known as a serial philanderer/rapist, having slept with plenty of mortal women, nymphs, and goddesses just because he could (and sometimes doing so while shapeshifted into another form: among others, he's been a goose, a bull, and a shower of gold, don't ask how the last one works) and has created as many problems as he has solutions. One could also cast Zeus as being dickish and a control freak as the ultimate authority of Olympus, like when he had Prometheus bound and tortured for giving fire to humanity.
*Hades: A rather glaring case of typecasting, despite being the god of the dead Hades isn't actually as much of a villain as popular media casts him. In truth he's a rather decent fellow, if a bit on the gloomy side. Perhaps the most glaring of crimes he's done is the matter of kidnapping Demeter's daughter Persephone to make her his wife (causing Demeter to plunge the world into famine until it was arranged for Persephone to come out of the Underworld for half the year, creating the seasons in the process), but compared to Zeus he's still a shining beacon of virtue in that respect. He gets even better if you consider that in some tellings she willingly came with him.
*Hera: Only in works involving Zeus' bastards, since she tended to be ''just a little bit annoyed'' at her husband's constant infidelity and was prone to taking her jealous rage out on whoever was unlucky enough to catch his eye at the time as well as his illegitimate progeny.
*The Titans: See below as to why they hate the gods. They tend to be quite cross about it, and eager for revenge.
*Ares: God of War, who constantly feeds upon it. Thus, any matter of peace is bound to be disrupted.
*The various offspring of Echidna: Echidna is a monstrous [[lamia]] goddess who is known to have birthed many monsters, chief among them Cerberus (guardian to the gates of Hades), the Lernian [[Hydra]], and the Nemean Lion (which Hercules slays)

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
*Pandora's box
*Daedalus's inventions (especially the wings of Icarus): Probably the first man-powered flying machine, though it was entirely made of wax. Daedalus made it so that his son Icarus could escape their prison, but Icarus flew too close to the sun in his hubris, causing the wings to melt and him to fall to his death.
*The sun chariot of Helios
*Pelt of the Nemean Lion: The first of Heracles' labors was to kill the Nemean Lion, a beast with an impenetrable hide. After finding this out, Heracles manages to do it in by strangling the beast. Heracles then tries to skin it, only to fail until Athena informs him to use the lion's own claws. The hide retains its invulnerability to most weapons.
*Ambrosia: The food of the gods, capable of preserving their powers like Iduna's golden apples.
*[[Talos]]: a ROBOT. That's right, a frigging bronze robot made by Hephaestus to protect Crete where it circles three times a day and crush invader ships with boulders. Was defeated by Jason's gang when Medea distract him while having its nail removed by her teammates, which pour out the ichors inside and killed it.
*All sorts of stuff used by the gods (Zeus's thunderbolts, Hades's helmet of invisibility, Neptune's trident, Hermes's winged sandals, Athena's shield -- sometimes with [[Medusa]]'s head on it...).

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==== The Greco-Roman Gods & Creation Myth ====
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There's a god for every aspect of ordinary life, like smithing, governing and war. This makes naming the entire pantheon quite lengthy (though we neckbeards might see it as a good challenge), so we won't bore you with the entire mess. The following is a list of important gods/goddess, especially ones pertinent to [[/tg/]] interests (such as [[D&D]]):
*'''Jupiter/Zeus''', the guy with the lightning bolts who is the king of the gods.
*'''Juno/Hera''', wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, childbirth, and women.
*'''Minerva/Athena''', goddess of wisdom and war born from Jupiter having a massive headache [[Sisters of Battle|fully grown up and armed]].
*'''Pluto/Hades''', Jupiter's eldest brother and the god of most of the Greco-Roman afterlife.
*'''Neptune/Poseidon''', Jupiter's other brother and the god of the seas.
*'''Apollo''', god of the sun, music, and archery.
*'''Diana/Artemis''', goddess of the moon and the hunt.
*'''Ceres/Demeter''', goddess of the harvest.
*'''Mercury/Hermes''', messenger of the gods.
*'''Venus/Aphrodite''', goddess of sex and love.
*'''Mars/Ares''', god of war.
*'''Vulcan/Hephasteus''', god of the forge.
*'''Vesta/Hestia''', goddess of the hearth.
*'''Bacchus/Dionysus''', god of wine and drunken revelry.

According to Greek myth, the first beings to come into existence were '''Gaia''' (the Earth) and '''Uranus''' (the sky). They had three sets of children: the Cyclopses, the Hecatonchires (giants with a hundred hands), and the Titans. Uranus imprisoned the first two in Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld. This upset Gaia and she called upon the Titans to [[FATAL|castrate their father with a flint scythe she had made]]. '''Saturn/Kronos/Cronus''', the youngest of their number, agreed and duly carried it out, becoming the new king of the world. However, Uranus warned Cronus that he too would be overthrown by his children.

Cronus sought to avoid this, so he [[Cannibalism|ate each one of them as a new one is born]] from his wife Rhea, but Rhea hid Zeus and fooled Cronus into eating a rock. Zeus then grows up and tricks his father into drinking wine mixed with mustard which makes him puke, saving all his brothers and sisters inside his father's belly (and who were somehow undigested), thus igniting a war that leads to the overthrow of the Titans. This event is known as '''The Titanomachy''' (Battle of the Titans). After all the Titans had been imprisoned in Tartarus and the Cyclopses and Hecatonchires freed, Zeus formed a government with the rest of his gods while living a [[Slaanesh|comfy hedonist life where he raped many mortal girls and had many bastard sons for the lulz]].

Roman myth can't agree on anything, because, unlike Grecian legends, it isn't racist and isolationist as fuck and takes from all Indo-European religions it encountered. This also means that it deviates from the "twelve important gods" rule that the Greeks had, and every area and time period had its own important gods. Imagine it as something akin to ancient Hinduism, minus all the mysticism (at least until all the Egyptian-esque mystery cults started popping up at the dawn of the Empire) and with the occasional emperor being declared a god after his death.
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===Hindu Mythology===
India is a big place with millennia of history, so it has a lot of deities; dominant sects frequently absorbed deities from competing sects into their mythos as aspects of their own favored deity, so many of those once distinct deities have coalesced together over the centuries. The Puranic period saw a deliberate effort to harmonize rival sects together, which gave rise to the Trimurti ("Three Forms"); this is the subset of the Hindu pantheon that is most well known in the Western world. It is also the subset of Hinduism which formed the mythological backbone of two popular [[RPG]] games: ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''. The three cyclical concepts underlying the Trimurti are Creation, Preservation, and Destruction, with a particular deity filling each role as the divine manifestation of that concept, with deities differing by sect. When the roles are filled by goddesses (''devi'') the triad is known as the ''Tridevi''. In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the Trimurti are known as the '''''Triat''''', in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' the Trimurti are known as the three '''''Primordia''''', and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' uses an atheist version of the concepts called the '''''Metaphysic Trinity'''''. The [[grimdark]] spin that [[White Wolf]] puts on the Triat is that the three deities are embroiled in a vicious theomachy against each other, and have all fallen from grace and have become corrupted extremist versions of themselves.

Reincarnation also plays a big role in Hinduism- humans accumulate karma based on their actions in life, with good deeds granting good karma and bad deeds granting bad karma. One's karma then determines what your soul will be reborn as (human, animal, even a god or demon) in the process of ''samsara''. Ultimately, Hindus seek to rid themselves of karma entirely, both good and bad, and by doing so escape the cycle of reincarnation.

====Deities of Creation====
'''Brahma the Creator''' is said to be the creator of all things, but apart from that not much is known about him save for his tendency to be a bit too free to grant favors. Unlike Brahma who has no dedicated temples, his feminine counterpart '''Sarasvati the Creatrix''' sees active worship not only in India but in surrounding countries in various permutations, such as in Japan in the form of Benzaiten. In the ''Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes'' supplement from [[TSR]], '''Brahama''' was the ruler of the Hindu pantheon (via conflation with the related Hindu concept of ''[[wikipedia:Brahman|Brahman]]''). In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous androgynous deity of creation is known as the '''Wyld''', and in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Dynamicism'''.

====Deities of Preservation====
'''[[Vishnu]] the Preserver''' is one of the two best known Hindu male deities; Vishnu preserves the world from evil and upholds virtue. He is said to have had nine incarnations, or ''avatars'' that have manifested when he was needed along with one which has not yet appeared:
*''[[Matsaya]]'' the fish- Saved humanity from a great flood.
*''[[Kurma]]'' the tortoise- Aided the gods in churning the Ocean of Milk to produce the water of life ''amrita''.
*''[[Varaha]]'' the boar- Pulled the earth out of the sea after it fell in due to the weight of the human race.
*''[[Narasimha]]'' the man-lion- Slew the Asura (demon) lord Hiranyaksha, who had received the boon that he could not be killed "during the day or night, inside or outside, by any weapon, and by man or animal". So instead Narasimha [[rules lawyer|killed him at twilight with his claws as he was stepping through his doorway]], hitting every loophole at once.
*''[[Vamana]]'' the dwarf- When the Asura Mahabali conquered the universe, Vamana won it back through cunning.
*''[[Parashurma]]'' the axe-bearer- Defeated the Kshatriyas when the warrior caste grew prideful and oppressive.
*''[[Rama]]''- Hero of the ''Ramayana'' and prince of the kingdom of Kosala, famed for his war against the Asura king Ravana and his friendship with Hanuman the monkey king.
*''[[Krishna]]''- The most beloved of Vishnu's avatars. Many legends speak of him, but he is best known for his appearance in the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' as the charioteer for the prince Arjuna. Notably, he's popular enough to have inspired sects that claim Vishnu is one of ''his'' avatars and not the other way around. Also the supreme God in the Hare Krishna cult/airport conga line.
*''[[Buddha]]''- Yes, the same one from Buddhism. Needless to say, the Buddhists disagree with that interpretation.
*''[[Kalkin]]''- The "Future Avatar", who will appear upon a white horse and destroy evil forever.

In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess '''Lakshmi the Preservatrix''' (a.k.a. '''[[Vaishnavi]]''') sees more worship than Vishnu. In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous feminine deity of preservation is known as the '''Weaver''', and in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Stasis'''.

====Deities of Destruction====
Despite his title, '''Shiva the Destroyer''', the other of the two best known Hindu male deities, is viewed as a benevolent being who clears away the old and corrupt to make way for new creation. He is commonly depicted either as a slayer of demons or as a wise ascetic, and he's also strongly associated with dance (the means by which destruction and creation anew is achieved). In older scripture he was called '''Rudra''', a deification of destructive storms.

In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess '''[[Kali]] the Destructrix''' (a.k.a. '''Parvati''') sees more worship than Shiva. You might recognize the fiercer depictions of Kali from [https://youtube.com/watch?v=R0S8JZ6YO5c that one scene in Indiana Jones where the human sacrifice gets his heart ripped out of his chest].

In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous masculine deity of destruction is known as the '''Wyrm''', in ''[[Orpheus]]'' the nominally feminine deity of destruction is called Grandmother, in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Entropy''', and in ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]'' it is called, well, '''Oblivion''' (although both Grandmother and Oblivion seems to be something entirely separated and sometimes even enemies of the Wyrm).

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====Hindu Creation Myths====
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Every sect of Hinduism has its own version of the creation myth in which they somehow spin their own favored deity as the primary agent of creation, even if it is just simply claiming that a well-known name of a creator/creatrix deity is really just an aspect of the adherent's favored deity. Within the collective of Hindu myths of creation and related topics there is a running theme of recurring cycles of creation and destruction of consecutive universes; one iteration of universal creation and destruction is called a ''kalpa''.

Furthermore, every deity is but a single aspect of the ''Brahman'', the transcendent Godhead from which all other things derive from. It cannot be understood directly, but by adhering to one's dharma (their duties in life) and working off karma over many lifetimes a human can attain ''moksha''- freedom from samsara and eternal communion with the Brahman.

Other related religions of course have different beliefs from the Hindu myths. Jainism doesn't have a creation myth, believing that the universe has simply always existed and will exist. Buddhism says that the universes come into being and dissolve in cycles lasting billions of years by themselves.
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===Japanese Mythology===
Japanese laymen don't really bother separating their religions, taking up whatever is convenient or trendy at a particular phase in their life, and thus the major religions (Shinto, Buddhism), some more minor ones, and various folk heroes exist simultaneously. Rarely touched by non-Japanese works that aren't the pantheon for [[Japan]] analogues.

Japan is rife with it's own mythology, which often is connected to history. The most notable example is the first emperor - Jimmu. He is said to be a descendant of Amaterasu but is also taken as a real ancestor to the Imperial Family (which is why the Emperor was worshiped until the end of WWII); this is the equivalent of the British royal family theoretically dating their lineage from King Arthur, if King Arthur himself were a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.

In present day, all three religions plus a number of new religious movements exist in Japan.
There is a common misconception that most Japanese today are non-religious, largely stemming from cultural differences and the somewhat looser nature of Shinto and Buddhism as compared to Abrahamic faiths when it comes to mass-rituals and worship. Suffice it to say that anywhere from 50-80% of Japanese (depending if one counts Shinto and Buddhism individually or combined) pray and partake in religious rituals.

Japanese have a plethora of their native gods, in fact, ''plethora'' is a bit of an understatement. Shintoism posits that every thing, be it rock, flower or a makeup set has its own ''kami'' or god/spirit, and depending on what one counts, there are up to 1 MILLION (or literally uncountable number) Japanese gods/kami (see also god depiction in [[Exalted]]).

'''Notable Deities/Characters:'''
*'''[[Izanami and Izanagi]]''': See the creation myth.
*'''[[Amaterasu|Amaterasu Omikami]]''': Goddess of the sun, her name literally translates to 'the august (one amongst) kami that shines in the sky'. Major figure in Shintoism, quite benevolent toward mankind; because the damn sun is ''that'' important to us humans. The Japanese imperial family once claimed descent from her, but stopped doing so after World War II. How the majority to entirety of Japan's people as a whole weren't as well, since far younger people are ancestors of the majority of far larger and less isolationist populations, was never explained.
*'''[[Susano-o]]''': Amaterasu's brother and god of storms. Hot-headed, passionate braggart that likes getting into trouble. Kicked out of heaven for being an absolute dick (and especially for his last prank on his sister that would've ended fatally for everyone else). While walking the earth he proceeds to kill the Orochi, among other (anti-)heroics, and eventually gets his way back into heaven with the fat loot he finds as well as reconciling with his sister (and giving her a bitchin sword that she would later give to her mortal descendant-turned-emperor of Japan).
*'''[[Fujin]]''' - God of wind and one of the oldest gods, said to have been there when the world was created, often paired with Raijin.
*'''[[Raijin]]''' - God of thunder and lightning, often paired with Fujin. Known for eating people's bellybuttons during stormy nights if someone managed to piss him off.
*'''[[Hachiman]]''' - God of war, formerly god of agriculture until he got bored of it or something. His traditional animal and messenger is, ironically, a dove.
*'''[[Inari Okami]]''' - God/Goddess/group of spirits (it's complicated) and another major figure of Shintoism. Protector(s) of foxes, rice, tea and sake, of agriculture and industry; granter of fertility, general prosperity and worldly success to humans. Patron of [[kitsune]], who acts as his messengers.
*'''[[Okuninushi]]''' - God of nation-building, business, farming and medicine.
*'''[[Omoikane]]''' - God of wisdom and frequent adviser to the other kami.
*'''[[Tsukuyomi]]''' - God of the moon. He killed the goddess of food after witnessing how she created it by basically vomiting it from her mouth. After killing her, his sister Amaterasu vowed she would never again face him and thus the sun and the moon never do either.
*'''The [[Orochi]]''': Giant nine-headed snake monster that likes to eat (?) female sacrifices. Susano-O gets it drunk and kills it, then he finds the Kusanagi on its corpse.
*'''[[The Buddhas]]''': While normal Buddhists don't "worship" the Buddha, more Shinto leaning Japanese often do. See Buddhism whenever someone is assed to add it for how it's supposed to go. Siddartha Gautama is the one people talk about when they say "The Buddha", but the completely separate Budai/Laughing Buddha is the main one ignorant Westerners know the visual of.
**'''Various Buddhist demons''': Mostly assholes that tried to stop people from achieving enlightenment. Some are actually former assholes who were redeemed by enlightened people and now act as protectors.
*'''[[The Four Heavenly Kings]]''': Bishamonten, Jikokuten, Zouchouten and Koumokuten, the guardians of the North, East, South and West respectively. Their title is co-opted by everything (no seriously, '''everything''': examples include Hollywood stars, Japanese comedy acts, Chefs, (female) Idol Singers, even foodstuffs like meats and canned goods) with four members in Japanese culture, [https://legendsoflocalization.com/tricky-translations-2-the-four-heavenly-kings/ though westerners may not notice it because the title gets translated a shit ton of ways depending on the context].
*'''[[Yokai]]''': Various mythical monsters. The most famous are the [[Kitsune]], Kamaitachi, [[Tengu]] and (though not always counted as one) [[Oni]].

'''Historical People Shrouded in Myth'''
*Emperor Jimmu: [[God-Emperor of Mankind|THE GOD EMPEROR OF JAPAN]] as well as the first Emperor and the descendants of Goddess Amaterasu. Most of his records were old and depict him as a warrior hero-god character accompanied by Yatagarasu, a three-legged crow and wielding a longbow. He died at the age of 126 and has little to no worshipers in modern-day other than having at least a shrine and grave.
*Abe no Seimei: A court magician who lived between 921 and 1005. Fiction tends to make him an actual wizard.
*Himiko: Queen of Japan around 200 AD. Chinese records make it clear she existed but very little is known about her.
*Masakado: Samurai who led a brief rebellion in 940. He's considered the god of Tokyo. His shrine/grave occupies some of the most expensive real estates in the world, as it is thought that neglecting his shrine will cause his angry spirit to bring disaster upon Tokyo.
** Takiyasha Hime: His daughter. Fiction makes her a sorcerer with a toad [[Familiar]]. Possibly entirely fictional.
*Tomoe Gozen: A female [[Samurai]] that actually fought in battle in 1184.
*Oda Nobunaga: Self-proclaimed "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven" (That's '''''historical fact''''' recorded by a Jesuit missionary who knew him personally). Defacto unifier of Japan, while the dominos he set up were falling, he was murdered by his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide for unknown reasons. His successors conquered the country after he did the hard parts, forming what would become the Tokugawa Shogunate. Since he was ruthless and called himself a demon, it's no mystery why fiction depicts him as a literal one.
*Hattori Hanzo: A general during the late Sengoku era. He's better known for allegedly being a [[ninja]].
*Ishikawa Goemon: Bandit during the late Sengoku era, executed along with his infant son by being boiled alive after a failed assassination attempt on Nobunaga's successor. Reputed to be a Robin Hood-like figure and also allegedly a ninja.

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
*The Imperial regalia (Kusanagi, Magatama and the Yata no Kagami): A sword, mirror, and rosary that are considered the badges of office for the Emperor.
*Katana created by famous swordsmiths
**Muramasa: Swords created by the famous (and real) swordsmith Sengo Muramasa. Allegedly his swords have a taste for blood and are demonic in nature and can't be sheathed if they haven't tasted blood yet.
**Masamune: Even though Masamune lived hundreds of years before Muramasa, their swords are often counterparts in fantasy. In contrast to Muramasa, Masamune's blades are supposedly holy.
**Kotetsu: Nagasone Kotetsu was a quality swordsmith from the Edo period with a really fitting name (虎鉄 or "Tiger Iron"). His works are notable but if they show up in fiction expect them to be inferior to the above two.

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==== Creation Myth ====
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According to the Kojiki, the world (or just Japan because every culture at that time are so close minded that they believe their kingdom is THE entire world) was created by 2 gods: Izanami (the wife) and Izanagi (the husband). There were 5 other gods with difficult to pronounced name like Kotoamatsukami (別天津神, "Separate Heavenly Deities") before them, but they entrust these two with the world's creation because they are genderless and thus unable to procreate the next generation. Izanami and Izanagi belongs to the Kamiyonanayo ("Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods") and they shape the earth with this totally awesome spear called Ame-no-nuboko (天沼矛, "heavenly jeweled spear") and create the islands and land using salt.

They then settled down onto the land they've created and mated. Unfortunately, the first two children they conceived, Hiruko and Awashima, were mutants, so badly deformed that the parents decided to send them on a lone boat trip before their third birthday; Hiruko survived, worked hard and became a god known as Ebisu. Turns out, after confronting their elders about the misfortune, it was Izanami's fault for not acting properly during the mating ritual, causing birth defects and such. After some proper mating, their descendants were born, who would eventually become the modern day Japanese islands (or else the islands were named after them). Izanami then died giving birth to Kagutsuchi, a serpent Human Torch-wannabe that burned his mother upon his birth. Izanagi was angered and eight-pieced him, turning his body into 8 volcanoes; his blood on Izanagi's sword became the sea god Watatsumi and rain god Kuraokami. This also marks the end of the creation.

Izanagi was overwhelmed by grief that he traveled to Yomi ("land of the dead") to see his dead wife. Unfortunaly, Izanami already belonged to Yomi after eating its food. Izanagi refused to leave Izanami in this dark land, and waited there because Izanami agreed to go back if she had some rest, but the worried Izanagi decided to see what's going on with his dead wife by lighting a torch using his magical head comb - unfortunately, he found Izanami was already a maggot-ridden, ghoul-like monster. (Some retellings turn this into an 'Orpheus and Eurydice'-style affair where he [[Derp|looks back just as they reach the end]], cursing Izanami to be trapped.) Izanagi was scared so shitless that he ran away, while Izanami called the Shikome (ugly underworld woman) to chase him. After a long Looney Tunes chase that involves Izanagi's use of his magical hair dress and his urine to stop his pursuers, he eventually returns to the living realm. Izanami curses her husband and claims that she will kill 1,000 people everyday, with Izanagi responding that he will give birth to 1,500.
</div>
</div>

===Norse Mythology===
See the [[Norse Mythology]] page.

==Miscellaneous Mythical Figures/Artifacts/Stories That Are Directly /tg/ Relevant==

Although the above are the big hitters of Mythology Adaption in /tg/ stuff, there are a few miscellaneous ones who show up that may be worth mentioning. Here's a couple:

*'''Ariadne''': Per preeminent mythologist Karl Kerényi et al., Ariadne was a Minoan mother goddess of weaving and labyrinths who, upon absorption into Greco-Roman mythology, retained her deific name ''Ariadne'' meaning "Most Holy". In the [[Midgard]] D20 setting the goddess Ariadne also goes by the name ''[[Rava]]'', the Spinner of Fate and the Clockwork Oracle.
*'''Baba Yaga''': Probably the sole character from Russian folklore that most people would recognize. Talking about her in any detail would be overly long, even for this overly long article, so just [[Baba Yaga|read about her on her own article here]]. Privateer Press gave her [[Khador|a mini]].
*'''St. Cuthbert''': [[wikipedia:Cuthbert|Famous English monk and later bishop]]. Somehow wound up in [[Greyhawk]], for much the same reason that [[Murlynd|Clint Eastwood]] did.

==Urban Legend==
The '''Urban Legend''' is another type of myth, specifically one of a modern-day taste and often significantly connected to that country's pop culture. In Japan, many classic myths of Yokai continue to "exist" (see: [[Touhou]]), and some have been modernized to fit with new technology (for example, a cursed cart may become a cursed car). [[Board-tans/x|Creepypastas]] are a common sub-variant. Here are some examples:

*'''Bermuda Triangle''' - A triangular region in the gulf of Mexico with Bermuda island, Puerto Rico and Miami, Florida as its angle point. Reputed to be a place of paranormal activity where ships and aircraft suddenly loses their signal and disappeared, both on air or water. In reality, the Triangle is just one of the most heavily trafficked areas in the world, in a region known for storms and general bad weather; if there weren't several mysterious disappearances (and nautical and aeronautical life had, and occasionally still has, plenty of those), it would be surprising.
**'''Mary Celeste''' - A ship that was found abandoned in 1872 undamaged, with ample provisions, undisturbed cargo and a log dated to ten days prior to it being found. Was actually found well outside of the Bermuda Triangle, but often associated with it. Proposed solutions for what happened range from attempted insurance fraud to equipment malfunction, a waterspout strike and a butane explosion. The "wreck" was acquired by a new owner, who promptly sunk it in a poor attempt at insurance fraud.
**'''The Flying Dutchman''': Associated with the Cape of Good Hope, rather than the Bermuda Triangle, but frequently mentioned in connection with the Triangle as well. The most famous "Ghost ship" other then the ''Mary Celeste''; unlike the ''Celeste'', the ''Dutchman'' was only reported to have been seen, but never boarded. The ''Dutchman'' was supposedly an omen of doom, but given that in order to see a ship that isn't there you'd probably have to be in very poor visibility conditions, this reputation has an obvious explanation.
*'''Bloody Mary''' - It is said to be a malevolent spirit who if you call its name "Bloody Mary" in front of a mirror three times, she will come and do something horrible to you. A pretty stupid game often participate by very small children and idiots.
*'''Cryptids''' - Various creatures of folklore that, other then being fucked up looking, are actually plausible animals of one sort or another. Some have been substantiated, but most are just fake or distorted stories of other, known animals (as is speculated having happened with the [[Unicorn]] and Rhinoceros). Such creatures include:
**'''Bigfoot''' - Also known as Sasquatch. It is some sort of ape/man creature, named after its big foot print on the ground. Its sighting are mostly around the Pacific Northwest.
**'''Chupacabra''' - A small bear size monster who likes to suck a goat's blood dry. First spotted in Puerto Rico, where it killed 8 sheep, it is said that its influence has spread across Latin America. Allegedly, the idea of the chupacabra was just stolen from the movie Species.
**'''Drop Bear''' - Australian joke: Take a Koala, and pretend it's an ambush predator who kills by jumping on its prey, with a taste for human flesh. While clearly originating as a joke, unlike most "real" cryptids, the concept has been used straight in several contexts in fantasy works. As if Australia's actual dangerous animals weren't enough.
**'''Jackalope''' - A rabbit with antelope horns. Possibly based on sightings of rabbits with Shope papilloma virus, which causes infected hosts to grow horn-like tumors. The most popular version seems to have originated as a 12-year-old taxidermist's idea of a joke.
**'''Jersey Devil''' - Weird monster supposedly lurking in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, thus making it the most interesting thing in the state.
**'''Loch Ness Monster''' - A long necked sea creature that allegedly lives in Loch Ness in the Scottish highlands. Presumably to be Mauisaurus, a pre-historical sea dinosaur who shares the similar long neck appearance.
**'''Mokele-mbembe''' - A weird African swimming beast with reptilian traits. Widely believed to be either a rhinoceros or a hippopotamus (the latter of which are responsible for killing more people per year than any other animal in Africa) though some have claimed it's a rediscovered dinosaur - a sauropod specifically, as numerous descriptions ascribe it a long neck alongside reptilian features.
**'''Mothman''' - There were a bunch of West Virginia sightings of a "Man with Wings". Later got overhyped as having supernatural powers, and associated in some way with a local bridge collapse when writers looking to cash in got involved. Side note: Most descriptions from the early, pre-overhype encounter match a unusually large crane.
**'''Rods/Sky Fish''' - Extraterrestrial lifeforms that move at an unseen speed that can only be caught by camera. [[Skub|It may or may not be real]], since it might be just elongated visual artifacts appearing in photographic images and video recordings. Other insects like moths are mistakenly caught on camera and assumed to be them. It helps that there were no actual dissections of the creatures, and most of the videos about catching it are fake and exist for pure entertainment. In some fiction, e.g. [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]], they are portrayed as vaguely creatures with actual limbs and organs that feed on temperature and have the power to KILL or disable a person by absorbing the body heat from their vital organs.
**'''Tsuchinoko''' - Also known as "child of hammer", "child of dirt" or "bachi hebi" in Northeastern Japan, it is a snake that is 30 and 80 cm long, has a thin head and tail, and a wide girth in between. It was referenced in Kojiki (古事記) "Records of Ancient Matters" meaning it might have existed at some point in ancient Japan. [[Skub|Others would argue]] that it could be a type of slug who's features became exaggerated over thousands of years, an extinct snake species or an undiscovered snake species. Whatever the cases, the damn thing is popular in Japan and has been featured in many video games, manga and TV show.
**'''Yeti''' - Like Bigfoot above, but found in the Himalayan mountains.
*'''Grays''' - A stock alien appearance of short, large-headed, large-eyed, generally naked, grey men. Allegedly probe humans, steal cows and make patterns in vegetation while riding around in a saucer shaped spacecraft. Supposedly crashed in Rosswell, New Mexico in 1947, which was covered up by the US Government as a "weather balloon"; more recent declassification suggest it ''was'' a balloon, just an experimental and classified one meant for Cold War era spying and hushed up for fear that the Soviets would learn about it.
**'''Area 51''' - [[Wikipedia:Area 51|An actual military base]] in Nevada that the crashed spacecraft was allegedly taken to. Allegedly home to all sorts of government experiments on the supernatural and/or extraterrestrial. Takes its name from the much larger surrounding military reservation which is divided up into similarly numbered areas where the government plays with its most [[Ordinatus|Orky toys]]. Though the existence of the factual military base existing was always known, the US government didn't officially acknowledge it till 2013. Officially it's used for testing experimental and captured aircraft and thus highly classified. Supposedly, the US government thought that the UFO hysteria was good cover for the then-secret U-2 program, as any spotted aircraft could be explained away by kooks as an alien spacecraft.
**'''Men in Black / Majestic-12''' - Another component that's common to UFO conspiracies is a secret branch of the government dedicated to keeping the public in the dark about the existence of aliens. Some stories of the Men in Black instead suggest they're aliens impersonating human government agents to keep the stories quiet. The urban legend version is significantly scarier and more malevolent than their movie counterparts, but a bit ''less'' malevolent than those in the comics the movies were adapted from. The only known evidence of their existence was long since proven to be a forgery.
*'''Jack the Ripper''' - Also known by the London old media as the "Leather Apron", ol' Jack was a real life serial killer in London during 1[[Khorne|888]]. Since he was never caught and the number of victims can't be verified - five are specifically attributed to him - his identity remains a mystery and he is therefore held as the greatest serial killer. Known for mutilating his victim in the most precise manner and the mocking letters he wrote to the police (which are still held in Scotland Yard). He was even suspected to be a woman, with new nicknames such as "Jill the Ripper" added to the long list of nicknames. Since nothing physical is known about the killer, fiction is free to attribute supernatural origin (such as a possessed human or being a monster outright) or that the killer's vileness resulted in transformation into some kind of monster. Making the killer supernatural allows it to be divorced from its time period.
** Various other uncaught serial killers can get this sort of treatment, but to a much lower degree, with the notable exception of the Zodiac Killer, who shared Jack's media savvy.
* '''D. B. Cooper''' - Short version: Guy Hijacks a commercial airplane, demands $200,000 ($1.28 Million in today's money) and four parachutes, gets them, jumps out of the plane over state park, and is never seen again. Long version: [[wikipedia:D. B. Cooper|Wikipedia is your friend]].
* '''John Henry''' - A black manual laborer who raced against his industrialized replacement and won, but died from exhaustion at the end. Even if it was loosely based on a real story, any accounts of a real John Henry existing have been lost to history.
** '''Casey Jones''' - Unlike Henry, Jones was definitely a [[wikipedia:Casey Jones|real life train conductor]] who died saving the lives of his passengers. One of his assistants wrote a song defending Jones' reputation<ref>There was some argument at the time that Jones should have seen the signal indicating a possible collision, but the night was foggy, and both signal lights and signalmen could be unreliable.</ref> that got very popular shortly thereafter, and soon turned into a popular figure around which a mythology developed.
*'''Kiyotaki tunnel''' - A haunted tunnel in Japan said to be built by slaves in 1927. It is said to have an unfortunate length of 444 meters long (4 is a unlucky number in Japan--the word for "4" is a homophone for "death") and it is a famous suicide spot. There were witness who saw the spirit of suicide victim walking towards the tunnel. There are reports where the traffic light outside of the tunnel suddenly changing color and causing car accidents. The tunnel is frequently referenced by horror manga and anime where it is portrayed as a tunnel full of tormented spirits, dragging other passing travellers in to suffer with them.
*'''Radioactive Deer''' - Although decades have passed since the accident, the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant remains one of the most contaminated places on Earth. Every wildfire or severe storm that hits the area will inevitably spawn several days of doomsday fear-mongering from the press about nuclear tornadoes or toxic milk. Some recent horror stories have begun to weave the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga, the monstrous child-eating crone of the woods, into the story of the ruins of Pripyat.
*'''Slender Man''' - A fictional character that originated as an Internet meme created by [[Something Awful]] forums user Victor Surge in 2009. It is depicted as resembling a thin, unnaturally tall man with a blank and usually featureless face and wearing a black suit. The Slender Man is commonly said to stalk, abduct, or traumatize people, particularly children. The Slender Man is not tied to any particular story, but appears in many disparate works of fiction, mostly composed online, with the most famous being a series known as "Marble Hornets". Also famous for inspiring two girls to nearly murder their classmate in order to become his "proxies".

==Popular mythology elements used in Fantasy==
*[[Dwarfs]]
*[[Elves]]
*[[Vampires]]
*[[Werewolves]]
*[[Mermaids]]
*[[Necromancer|Necromancy]]
*[[Troll]]s
*[[Giant]]s
*[[Minotaur]]
*[[God|Gods/Deities]]
*[[Genie]]
*[[Dragon]]
*[[Orc]]
*[[Monstergirls]]

*More than one [[Superhero]] and Supervillain are based directly on Mythical figures. The most prominent at Marvel are Hercules and Thor, who are both exactly the characters named above, and the Black Knight, who descends from the Arthurian one. On the DC side there's Wonder Woman, an [[Amazon]] who frequently comes into conflict with the Greek gods and other elements of Greek myth.

==See Also==
*[[Yog-Sothothery]] - Mythology created by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] that took elements from other mythologies. Its "deities" are a bunch of alien like tentacle monster that defy laws of physic and drives people insane.

==Footnotes==

[[Category:History]]

Monarchy

2022-08-26T11:46:52Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D:

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government.

Monarchy has been a common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, charisma and generosity. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it was an easy system to put up. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role setting a precedent.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from Napoleon onward there's been push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son (not always the case, as there are hereditary dictatorships like Syria and North Korea).

== Types of Monarchy ==
* '''Divine Monarchy''': The Monarch is seen as being a God, at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent. IRL examples: Ancient Egypt and the Inca Empire.
* '''Theocratic Monarchy''': Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the High Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Though they don't claim to be divine themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. IRL examples: pre-modern India, the Vatican.
* '''Feudal Monarchy''': Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. There's a monarch which has (say) five Dukes swear fealty to them as Vassals. The system is mirrored at lower levels with each duke having 5 earls as sworn vassals, each Earl has 5 counts, each count has 5 Barons and each Baron has Five sworn Knightly houses. The Dukes get a measure of internal Peace, assistance against attack, the Benefits of Cooperation and Mediation of Disputes and the Monarchs gets a cut of their tax income and the services of five dynasties each of which has 3,125 Knights. Typically a loose and unstable set-up since if the King issues an order the Dukes don't like they can hold up in their castles and ignore it or if pressed rebel. IRL examples: Medieval Europe, Feudal Japan.
* '''Elected Monarchy''': There are a bunch of Aristocrats which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne. Tend to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering. IRL examples: The Holy Roman Empire, Poland before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up.
* '''Absolute Monarchy''': "I Am The State." The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. IRL Examples: The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period).
* '''Parliamentary Monarchy''': A Monarch's powers are outlined in a formal Constitution and much of the functioning of state is handled by representative democracy. IRL Examples: Modern Britain, Nordic states.
* '''Semi-Constitutional Monarchy''': A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics. IRL Examples: German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existance of European-style parliament is enough to get it there).

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]).

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
{{Stub}}

Demiplane

2022-08-26T01:48:54Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: /* Sigil */

A '''demiplane''' is a term introduced in the [[Planescape]] setting for [[Dungeons & Dragons]]. In a nutshell, it refers to a "miniature" [[plane]], one featuring well-defined limitations as opposed to extending on to infinity in all directions, having variable gravity and time traits, etc. Demiplanes can be big - [[Sigil]] is technically a demiplane - but are usually associated with small sizes, from "big as a large room" to "the size of a mansion".

Creating demiplanes is a popular pastime for high level [[wizard]]s, as it essentially lets them create their own personalized pocket of reality. With enough time and investment, a demiplane can grow into a full-fledged world in its own right.

==List of Demiplanes==
===[[Sigil]]===
While Sigil is part of the [[Outlands]] and can be seen at the top of the spire in the center, it isn't actually possible to reach Sigil from the Outlands without using a portal and it is not considered to be a layer of the plane. So [[Skub|idiots <s>it might be best</s> describe<s>d</s> it]] as a demiplane.

===[[Demiplane of Dread]]===
The [[Ravenloft]] setting is sometimes called the Demiplane of Dread even though it is large enough to be a world itself. It might be more accurate to call it the Demiplane'''s''' of Dread because it consists of many [[Domain of Dread|Domains of Dread]] with their own traits that can be completely isolated from each other by the will of the Dark Powers or a domain's Dark Lord, but then again when said Darklords are chill about it (or really, the DM is) you can outright ride a horse from one to the other.

===[[World Serpent Inn]]===
An entire dimension that consists of nothing but a single huge inn.

===City of Union===
Union is a less-violent version of Sigil that attracts a lot of epic level characters. Union consists of a large number of islands connected by portals floating in a void, with the main islands of the city also held together by bridges. It was constructed by a race called the [[Mercane]]s to use as trading hub.

===Neth, the Plane That Lives===
Neth is a living and extremely intelligent demiplane. It is a 500 mile wide plane of flesh crumbled into a ball. Its only exit and entrance is a single portal that connects it to the [[Astral Plane]]. Neth is extremely curious about the universe, and is surprised that anything other than itself exists, as it cannot directly see anything outside of itself. It learns by sending out [[Flesh Golem]] like minions, interrogating people who end up inside of it, or absorbing them into itself to take their memories. Neth communicates through a wall of faces of all the people it has absorbed. Most of all, Neth wants to know why it exists as it doesn't remember its origin.

===The Observatorium===
The Observatorium is a mysterious sphere that moves around the Astral Plane. It is difficult to reach because it moves unpredictably and most of the ways to exit it can't be used to get back. It is full of strange machinery that can be used to spy on and open one way gates to anywhere in the multiverse. However, you can't stay for too long because it has an effect of causing temporary wisdom loss to visitors that makes you more and more likely to accidently stumble into one of the exits the longer you are there.

===Common Ground===
Common Ground is a small plane where gods hold meetings with each other. Gods cannot harm each other on this plane and it's supposed to be impossible for mortals to enter.

===[[Demiplane of Nightmares]]===
Where the [[Plane of Dreams]] meets the [[Ethereal Plane]] and the [[Far Realm]].

===[[Plane of Mirrors]]===
A series of demiplanes that connect to reflective surfaces. While traveling through them you may run into your opposite alignment mirror counterpart who wants to kill you and take your place.

===Demiplane of Shadow===
Got promoted to the [[Plane of Shadow]].

===Demiplane of Time===
A weird plane where you may come out much older or younger than when you entered.

===Demiplane of Electromagnetism===
A plane that is slowly disappearing as it is absorbed into the quasielemental plane of lightning.

===Demiplane of Imprisonment===
A legendary plane ruled by horrifically powerful and evil beings left over from a time when they ruled over much of the universe before a great war where the great powers of the various alignments were forced to ally together to defeat them. This evil force probably came from the [[Far Realm]], though this was written before the [[Far Realm]] was added to the cosmology.

===The Mazes===
Where people who irritated the [[Lady of Pain]] end up if she doesn't feel like killing them.

===The Black Abyss===
A mysterious plane that is constantly decaying but seems to be in a weird equilibrium. The outer most layer of the demiplane is a series of caverns made of white stone lit by bright lights that feed the vegetation in this cavern. As you get closer to the center of the plane, the ethereal plane breaks down and may drop you into solid stone or into a cavern with no exits if you are unlucky. The center of the plane is massive hollow area full of swirling red clouds and red lightning with white stone bridges stretching towards the very center. Time and space become extremely distorted and magic starts failing the further you travel along the bridges. Pieces of the bridges are constantly breaking off and falling into the center and yet they never completely disappear. The very center appears to be a black hole which nobody knows what it leads to as nobody has been able to safely reach it. In one of the caverns are a pair of statues with the words "TIME" and "SPACE" written on them, and an obelisk with strange writing in between them.

===The Boundless===
A 3000 mile wide plane of crystal islands and gelatinous oceans. The first time you visit the plane, drinking from the ocean will heal your wounds, the second time you visit, drinking from the ocean will make you younger, but anybody who visits the plane again after this is never seen again, and if you have drunk from the plane twice you will constantly run into the edge of it while on the ethereal plane, making a third visit hard to avoid. The plane is guarded by a being named Asahel, who gives a warning to anybody who approaches the plane for the first time. The warning she gives seems to imply that third time visitors are enslaved forever. Asahel refuses to answer any questions and she respawns if she is killed. While you are on the plane, time does not pass outside, and on a second visit, all evidence of your previous visit will be gone.

===The Demiplane of Moil (The City that Waits)===
Moil was once a city on the world of [[Ranais]] that worshipped [[Orcus]], but when they turned away from worshiping him he was enraged and put a curse on the city that made the whole population fall asleep until the sun rose, then banished the city to a demiplane so the sun would never rise for them. The citizens eventually all died in their sleep and were later enslaved as undead by [[Acererak]], who discovered the plane and used them to construct his fortress outside of the demiplane. The city is haunted by a being called the Vestige (no relation to the [[Vestige|Vestiges]] that [[Binder|Binders]] summon), who is formed from the nightmares of all the people who died there. The plane consists of floating towers connected by bridges with a constant lightning storm above and crossing the border of the demiplane drops you into the Negative Energy Plane, which the demiplane itself has several of the traits of.
<gallery>
Moil 31.jpg
Moil Dragon 353.jpg
Moil.jpg
Moil vestige.jpg|The Vestige
</gallery>

===Maelost===
A [[Death World]] of constantly shifting black stone and falling black rain. The black waters of this plane are alive and like to drag people down, and it is also populated by some nasty monsters, though somehow a tribe of humanoids manages to survive here. The plane is 120 miles wide and crossing the edge causes you to loop back around to the other side.

===The Semblance===
An artificial world in the ethereal plane surrounded by mists that try to disintegrate unprotected matter, created by a group of wizards called the Mhagane as a hiding place from an unknown enemy.

===Wormscape===
A plane that seems to be completely filled with worms except for a few pockets of breathable air. One theory is that the worms are actually just the outer layer of an absolutely massive monster that they are feeding on or are spawned from. Maybe it has something to do with [[Kyuss]]?

==Edition History==
===1st Edition===
The concept of demiplanes has been around since the earliest days of the game, but it was mostly an example of DM fiat in creating pocket dimensions for all kinds of crazy adventures. Examples include the original Ravenloft module (I6), Dungeonland (EX1) and its sequel The Land Beyond The Magic Mirror (EX2). There's really nothing substantial about these places, just the vague notion that they are created by powerful (usually long-lost) magical techniques.

===2nd Edition===
In the early days of 2nd edition, demiplanes still remained a DM tool; adventures like Isle of the Ape (WG6) continued in the same vein as the prior edition.

All that changed with Planescape. In The Planewalker's Handbook, ''demiplane seed'' was available as an 8th-level spell to mages. That book, and A Guide To The Ethereal Plane established that these "minor" demiplanes had to be created on the Ethereal Plane (probably because it was considered something of a proto-reality plane). The process was pretty arduous, involving a pretty pricey gemstone and 100 days of spellcasting and other work, but otherwise, it did what it said on the box: you created your very own demiplane to fill with traps, treasure, whatever you felt you needed to keep up with.

There was also a 9th-level spell called ''demiplane decay'' that could destroy demiplanes under specific conditions, but it was pretty horrible overall; anyone who couldn't plane-hop out of the place was dissolved with the rest of the plane in the very end.

Special "major" demiplanes were beyond the scope of any mortal magic and were mainly the province of divine-level beings.

===3rd Edition===
Demiplanes made a definite comeback, but there was a lot of weird stuff throughout the edition. The first appearance was in the 3.0 Manual of the Planes: the Planeshifter prestige class gained access to the ability demiplane seed at 10th level.

The next mention of making demiplanes was in the Epic Level Handbook, under the ''genesis'' 9th-level spell, available only to wizards or clerics with the Creation domain (until the domain was reworked in 3.5). It was costly at 5,000 XP and a week's casting time (8 hours/day), but you didn't have to take some arbitrary class to get to it; it still had to be done on the Ethereal Plane as in 2nd edition.

In 3.5, ''genesis'' was also made a 9th-level psionic power, restricted to Shaper psions, who got it for a much less stringent 1,000 XP and could be created on the Astral Plane.

Oddly, there is one final source for creating a demiplane: the 9th-level general cleric spell ''Word of Genesis'', which had a truename component (basically, you had to buy ranks of a specific unique skill and pass a check at DC 50; yeah, it was about as [[Skub|well-written]] as the rest of the Truenamer section).

It should be noted that you don't really have to use such powerful magic to get yourself a little pocket dimension, at least temporarily. Rope trick has long been regarded as an infinitely useful "rest area" spell in dungeons, and ''Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion'' is even better, giving access to plenty of food and space for various tasks (along with a very long duration at the time you get access to it). In fact, there is a somewhat obscure reference in Complete Scoundrel to a permanent ''mansion'' effect (the headquarters of the Blind Tower criminal organization); given that the ''permanency'' spell even mentions that you can research certain spells to be made permanent, and that it costs a pretty pinch of XP to make any high-level spell permanent, it's not a far-fetched notion for a DM to approve such a thing. But there is a downside: the thing can be dispelled, causing all the contents - and guests - to spill out of it, so be advised.

===Pathfinder===
When [[Pathfinder]] was a 3.5 setting it added the Genesis spell, which was pretty much the psionic power of the same name as a spell, exclusive to Clerics of the Artifice domain. When Pathfinder became a setting, it ignored all off the previous methods, even though all three were OGL, and even created a new version of the artifice domain without Genesis in the core rulebook.

This would be rectified in Ultimate Magic. Printed in that book was the spell Create Demiplane alongside its lesser and greater variants. Demiplanes now come online much earlier than they did before, requiring only 7th level spells and a cheap focus to create. On the downside, a demiplane now has a limited duration unless you cast permanency it, ensuring only Wizards and Clerics of an obscure subdomain get access to permanent ones. You are also limited to what traits you can select for your plane, so some of the cheese is off limits.

===5th Edition===
Yeah, they're still around, if a bit neutered. You can still create a demiplane with the appropriately named ''Demiplane'', an 8th Level Conjuration spell that opens a spooky door to your brand new demiplane!... An empty 30ft. x 30ft. x 30ft. room made of stone or wood. Yeah... But anything placed inside (including creatures) remain inside the room indefinitely, even when the spell ends and the door vanishes. So... not exactly [[Mordenkainen]]'s place, but it's serviceable if you need a decent-sized off-plane hidey-hole. Oh, AND if you know of another demiplane's existence and makeup, you can get into it by using ''Demiplane'' or ''Planes Shift'' and pull an 'All your... modest studio apartment... are belong to us!'

==Demiplanes For Fun And Profit==
Even as early as 2nd edition, one can use a demiplane for all kinds of fun stuff.

The most basic use is to make your own private homestead or farm: the bottom of the demiplane is the ground, the top is the "sky". Give it a nice, moderate temperature good for crops and livestock, normal day/night cycle, basically the most ordinary environment you can. You want access to spells like ''control weather'' and ''plant growth'' to kickstart your first few years of crops, but if you keep careful control of the demiplane's environment, you automatically bypass several problems farmers contend with: various diseases and blights, pests/vermin, poor weather, natural disasters, etc.

Another option is to run a big ol' business out of the place. This is a great option in big cities where real estate is at a premium. Buy a small, cheap property, and install portals going to the demiplane where you put in all your manufacturing or services for your business. Now, most folks know this option is how a lot of wizards run their wizard towers, where the outside is smaller than the inside, but don't let yourself be limited to that old cliche. Imagine a little shack that runs the city's biggest tavern, inn, brothel, and casino, a vast pleasure palace.

All of this is enhanced with additional magic to provide labor and resources. For example, if you can summon up a djinn, even for just a short time, you can create permanent plant-based materials; while this stuff could theoretically be dispelled (a nuance that comes up in 3rd edition), that still means you can conjure up firewood, which by itself is a big fucking deal. (Why? Because you don't have to chop down trees for it now. This curtails a lot of effort to acquire fuel, as well as making a LOT of side folks like druids, elves, and sylvan creatures happy that you aren't cutting down their forests.) You can use ''permanent image'' to create decorations; in 2nd edition, these are difficult to change, but in 3rd edition the caster can change them at will, allowing for redecorating for special occasions.

Throw in some choice magic items, constructs, and other permanent effects, and you have a real piece of work to call home. Best part is, this provides a luxurious place for your favorite NPCs to come hang their hat. Any cohorts, followers, and loyal hirelings can be given room and board, either for some work on your behalf, or possibly even just to spend the rest of their days enjoying life.

Now, before you get super excited to try any of this, note that all this falls on the DM to approve of, and some may not want to bother with the whole thing. Having said that, if you are a DM, then this is a pretty good way to motivate your players to go on adventures to acquire the treasure needed to pay for all this kind of stuff. Nothing like a spare dragon hoard to fund the ultimate retirement plan, after all.

The most attractive feature of the demiplane is the fact that it's damn hard to find out about. All but the most powerful divination effects can't cross planar borders. Only a few effects can take you there (unless there's a portal somewhere); you can theoretically wander the Ethereal or Astral Planes looking for curtains/pools that lead to the right demiplane, but even if you find one, the chances you found the correct path to the correct demiplane are worse than the chances of a "good" result of using a ''rod of wonder''. Security like that is at a premium at the higher levels, and can be stacked with other effects to make it even better.

{{Planescape-Cosmology}}

Race

2022-08-26T01:37:51Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D:

In fantasy worlds, "race" means something similar to species. There are many common examples, such as [[humans]], [[elves]], [[dwarves]], and [[orcs]].

[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Category:races See Also]

Races

2022-08-26T01:31:40Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: Redirected page to Race

#REDIRECT [[race]]

Race

2022-08-26T01:30:14Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: Created page with "In fantasy worlds, "race" means something similar to species. There are many common examples, such as humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs."

In fantasy worlds, "race" means something similar to species. There are many common examples, such as [[humans]], [[elves]], [[dwarves]], and [[orcs]].

Approved Cartoons

2022-08-26T01:25:33Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: /* Fantasy */

{{/co/}}
This is a list of [[/tg/]] '''approved [[/co/|cartoons]]''', organized loosely into genres. This list was only recently split from the [[Approved Television|television page,]] so feel free to contribute; try to keep to the formatting used in the [[Approved anime|anime page,]] and fix any deviations (episode counts, related games) that you can.

== Action ==
*'''The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers''': 80s cartoons were all just merch-driven crap... aside this gem. Amazingly high quality show, which is still perfectly watchable today (unlike pretty much anything else from the 80s). Mostly famous for combining space exploration, western and alien invasion, without falling into camp. Oh, and killing characters left and right. Think about it as a prototype Exosquad. Also, kick-ass music.

*'''The Adventures of Tintin''': A ''very'' faithful adaptation of classic Franco-Belgian comics series, combining quality animation, great source material and the pulpy adventure feeling. Think Indiana Jones, but with a reporter instead of an action archeologist. And just like the source material, the series swiftly balances humor, pulp qualities and serious, often dark themes (there is on average at least one dead body per episode and this is still a kid-friendly show).

*'''Blake and Mortimer''': Another adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics series. This time it's about adventures of duo of Brits: Scottish scientist Philip Mortimer and Welsh Captain Francis Blake of MI5. Spy fiction, exotic adventures, weird science and ancient mythos - what else to expect from what started as a pulp magazine? If you ever plan to run ''[[Hollow Earth Expedition]]'', this is one of the best possible inspirations.

*'''Cybersix''': What was originally an adult-oriented Argentinian cyberpunk comics about Nazi escaped experiment fighting for her life was bizarrely adapted into children-oriented animated series. Probably due to how easily it is to mistake it for capeshit, despite not being even close to it. Worth watching due to sheer crazyness of the content alone. Not to be confused with '''Bionic Six''', an obscure 80s cartoon about a ridiculously diverse family of science adventurers who have all been turned into super-powered cyborgs and use their new powers to battle a mad scientist.

*'''Exosquad''': The European Front of World War II '''IN SPACE''' with Mechs and Power Armor. It is well plotted and can get incredibly dark for what is supposed to be a kids show with a very high body count, policies of extermination through starvation and genocide. Even so it suffered from having a small budget and a few sub par designs.

*'''Gargoyles''': Disney's serious response to Batman: TAS (as opposed to Disney's satirical response to Batman: TAS of Darkwing Duck, which was pretty damn good itself if a bit more conventionally cartoony). Some [[Gargoyle]]s (a race of winged strong humanoid creatures that turn into stone during the day, rather than mere architectural adornments) live in Scotland the middle ages fighting Vikings, get betrayed, frozen in stone and are re-awakened in modern New York by a businessman who could give Tzeentch lessons in plotting played by William Riker. That is just the beginning, as there are also stories of betrayal, robots, suits of [[power armor]], cyborgs and a fair number of magical things borrowing from a variety of mythological sources, but most notably the works of William Shakespeare.

*'''Gravity Falls''': 12-year-old boy-and-girl twins, Dipper and Mabel, are sent to spend a summer with their shady great-uncle ("Grunkle") Stan in the titular town of Gravity Falls. It's a Disney cartoon, so the tone is solidly [[Noblebright]], but some of the supernatural stuff is surprisingly [[Grimdark]] for a kids' show. Notable for ending organically at two seasons, preventing any seasonal decay. In Stan's own words, the show has "a big mystery element! And a lot of humor that goes over kids' heads!"

*'''Highlander: The Animated Series''': Yes, you are reading this right. It exists. It's kid-friendly. And it's one of the best things that ever happened to this franchise, even if it's not saying much. The crazy post-apo setting alone makes it worth watching.

*'''Invader Zim:''' A cult classic Dark sci-fi which focuses on the title character, a little green cyborg bug alien from a race of military fascist cyborg aliens called the Irkens, whose culture is centered around turning entire worlds into singular purposes, often for a excess and commercialism filled reason, like Foodcourtia the Food Court Planet. Zim is banished to Earth when he nearly accidentally destroys the Irken homeworld, and tries to pretend to be School student to conquer earth from the inside, with the aid of his insane robot GIR. Opposing Zim is a wannabe cryptozoologist nerd named Dib Membrane. The show was cancelled due to complaints from moral guardians, but was such a cult classic it was given a series finale movie in the form of a Netflix special, "Enter the Florpus".

*'''The Legend of Calamity Jane''': A too-good-to-last 90s cult classic. Probably the best "serious" animated western. Since it wasn't exactly made with kids in mind, it provides a lot of mature content. Which is the main reason why moral watchdogs killed it after just 13 episodes.

*'''Motorcity:''' Corporate overlord Mark Hamill has built an apple brand hive city on top of post apocalyptic Detroit and rules it with an iron fist while a band of renegades fights him from the Detroit Underhive with high tech muscle-cars. Similar to Megas XLR in a lot of ways, including being screwed over by the Network Execs.

*'''Nanook's Great Hunt''': A French-Canadian co-production, telling a story of a young Inuit boy on his self-declared quest to hunt down a mythical Great Bear which brought famine to his people. All in the backdrop of early 20th century and modernity slowly pushing even into the frozen fringes of the world. Borderline fantasy, since as long as things are viewed from Inuit perspective, everything is explained by magical thinking. Worth watching even for the setting and lore alone.

*'''Night Hood''': Yet another French-Canadian co-production, this time about "the exploits of Arsène Lupin" (which is the actual title of the series everywhere outside Anglosphere), escape artist, gentleman thief and rogue extraordinaire. Very stylish, very classy, full of heist jobs and pulp feeling to it all. There is also a whole lot of lore picked up from original books by Maurice Leblanc.

*'''Roughnecks: [[Starship Troopers]] Chronicles''': Take the best parts of the book and film and none of the crap. One of the early CGI shows (and it shows) cut short due to budget (as in just short of the ending).

*'''[[Samurai Jack]]:''' A wandering samurai lost in the future kicks ass and saves lives in his quest to get home. Elegance in simplicity. Amazing animation. [[Kaldor Draigo]] ''wishes'' he could be this cool. Finally got a conclusion on Adult Swim after years in limbo and the tragic death of Mako, the villain Aku's VA.

* '''Star Wars The Clone Wars:''' Not to be confused with the other one from 2005. A TV series that started out bad and gradually got better, while also injecting gradually enough grimdark to make some question how this show was for kids. Include the awesomeness that is the Clone Troopers and their incredibly talented VA, who was starred in several of the shows on this list, great character development all over the board and smart ass one-liners. Really just did a fantastic job with the lore and expanding the universe. It is advised to skim through the first two seasons, as the series was still trying to figure out what it wants to be. Then again, maybe don’t, since the first two do have some important plot points for later, but you have been warned.

*'''Todd McFarlane's Spawn''': Imagine a world where animated series aren't related with kids and "animated" doesn't mean "low quality". That's the world from which Spawn was accidentally teleported from. Dark as fuck, it plays anti-hero dial so high you seriously wonder if the guy can even quality as a hero at all. Worth even for the imagery alone. It gave us Keith David as the man himself (bless his sexy, deep voice).

*'''[[War Planets]]/Shadow Raiders''': Forgotten third show from Mainframe in the 90s, alongside Reboot and Beast Wars. Four alien races that have been screwing each other over for thousands of years because they need the resources of each other's worlds have to put aside their difference in the face of a common foe -- a "Beast Planet" that devours entire worlds and their civilisations whole, overwhelming its prey first with armies of mindless drones. Very intense, very good characters, plenty of action. The Beast Planet is kind of a "[[Necron]]s imitating [[Tyranid]]s" enigma, which may be a good or a bad thing.

*'''[[Wakfu]]'''

* '''Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?''': There is a good chance your local "Well, akshually" guy got in at least some of the trivia from this cartoon in his youth. Besides, it's one improbable heist job after another, along with random collection of pure adventuring and tomb-raiding, so what not to like.
** '''Carmen Santiego''': Netflix' nostalgia-driven cash grab, but from purely "scenarios for heists in exotic backdrop" standpoint it works just fine. Just keep in mind this was a low budget series.

== Capeshit ==
*'''Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes''': A [[Marvel Comics]] animated series about the titular Avengers. Unlike the later Avengers Assemble show, it relies primarily on the comics for it's inspiration rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also unlike the later Avengers show, it's actually good. Does a good job at balancing "monster of the week" episodes with a couple of running plot arcs across two seasons.

*'''Batman: The Animated Series:''' In a time when most cartoons were still [[My Little Pony|glorified half hour toy commercials]] BtAS dared to defy convention with a dark art style, darker themes, and characters you actually gave a shit about. This show was so iconic that a lot of the stuff you ''think'' was from the comic book (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze's wife Nora, Bruce being Best Friends with Harvey Dent before turning into TwoFace, and more recently, the Phantasm) actually started here. The show also gave us an incredibly well-rounded view of Bruce Wayne beyond his brooding demeanor, with episodes highlighting his philanthropic nature and genuine care for Gotham's people, even the no-name thugs that he's able to rehabilitate. This should be mandatory viewing for people making Batman films... unfortunately, [[DC Comics]] isn't that smart.
*'''Batman: Beyond:''' Sequel to the above series about a future Gotham where Bruce Wayne is a cranky old man who had to give up being Batman due to heart problems, in which a teenager is reluctantly accepted as a replacement Batman, using cyber-armor that is basically the batsuit sans cape but with rocket boots. Aside being a worthy contender for best animated Batman, it's also a great mine for cyberpunk ideas and storylines.

*'''The Justice League''' & '''The Justice League: Unlimited:''' More of the same cape stuff. These times with Superman & Batman are: Wonder Woman (WONDER WOMAN!), The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Hawk Girl, and The Flash. Includes an amazing story arc involving Project Cadmus, mature story themes and jokes, and the amazingness that is The Question.

*'''My Life as a Teenage Robot:''' A cult classic Nickelodeon cartoon starring a robotic superhero based on a Teenage girl as a design, Jenny "XJ9" Wakeman, who wishes to balance out trying to have a normal life amongst humans while protecting the world from various threats. The show was cancelled shortly after the made for TV movie, due to not raking in as many viewers as SpongeBob SquarePants, but /co/ almost universally regard the show as an unappreciated gem, and Jenny as the eternal "Queen of /co/".

*'''Spider-Man: The Animated Series:''' One of the series that were Marvel's attempt to challenge the DC Animated Universe, most of which (Batman TAS, Batman Beyond, Superman TAS, Justice League) are already mentioned here. Whilst hindered by an absolutely '''insane''' chief executive who labeled ludicrous restrictions on the show (for example, Spidey was never allowed to be shown punching people), it had an amazingly creative writing team who managed to miraculously pull off a decent cartoon despite her. Drawing heavily from the 90s and late 80s comic, it had season-long story arcs, actual character development, and plenty of fantastical action sequences. It's not as good as BtAS due to a lesser budget and the aforementioned restrictions, but it is generally considered the absolute best of the Spidey cartoons, saving perhaps maybe the Spectacular Spider-Man from the early 2000s.

*'''Spider-Man 1966:''' One of several series of "motion comics" that Marvel put out in the 1960s, including ones for the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and [[Thor]]. Limited animation, but the visuals and the plots are so batshit insane that it's worth watching just for laughs. A legendary fountain of memes just about everywhere on the Internet.

*'''Superman: The Animated Series:''' About the same quality of writing as the latest episodes of B:tAS (Bad, don't listen to the fanboys). This features 'the' seminal, if less popular, superhero: Superman from the planet Krypton. Made largely by the same crew as the above Batman, this series is another of the so christened 'Timmverse' that ended with ''Justice League''.

*''' Teen Titans''' (2003): Unlike the erratic shittiness that is Go! this series is pretty good, but barely makes it onto this list. It stars a group of DC characters no one usually knew about until this show (unless you read the comics). It had mostly good character development and it had the Half-Demon awesomeness that is Raven. However, it's bogged down by bipolar tone (keeps shifting between goofy humor and serious drama, albeit not as badly as [[Hellsing]] Ultimate), a shitty character that dares to name herself after [[Holy Terra]], and some bullshit plot devices. Hilariously, there is a villain that is literally a combination of a Neckbeard and a 4chan board full of skub. He also happens to be the monster responsible for Go!'s existence. When Control Freak dies, he's gonna be Trigon's torture buddy for the rest of eternity for such a sin.

*'''[[Transformers]]''': Near-legendary multi-series franchise dating back to the mid-80s, all of which revolve, in some way, around giant alien robots fighting a war that has been raging for millions of years without end. Different series have different aspects, so pick carefully.

*'''[[X-Men]]: The Animated Series:''' One of the sister shows to the aforementioned SMtAS, and generally regarded of the best of them. Takes all of Spidey's creativity and faithfulness to the comics, lifts some of the restrictions, but also piles on an extra serving of ham and cheese. The story goes the voice actors were Shakespearean theatre trainees and couldn't quite get the hang of toning it down. Still, if you like voluptuous Southern belles suplexing giant robots whilst their hot African weather witch partner rants like an angry goddess, you've come to the right show.

*'''Young Justice''': A DC animated show wherein Batman recruits the sidekicks and super-powered relatives of various heroes to serve as a black ops team for the Justice League. In spite of starring a bunch of teenagers, everyone still gets decent character development when the show isn't trying to be Dawson's Creek with superpowers. Unfortunately canceled because the execs felt it wasn't toyetic enough. Recently renewed for a third season to drive subscriptions for DC's exclusive streaming service.

== Comedy ==
*'''[[Adventure Time]]'''. tl;dr: A kids cartoon made by a DnD nerd. Starts off [[Chaotic Stupid|random is funny]], and never really gives up on that, but slowly reveals itself to be set in a Grimdark post-apocalyptic fantasy world inhabited by mutants and whatever remains of Earth's original animal population. The main character is one of the few humans left alive. Has [[skub]]tastic reputation due to art style and later seasons writing, so thread carefully. Written to be accessible to both adults and kids, so oldfags can watch the earlier episodes with their hellspawn, should they wish. Also, [[PROMOTIONS|you want to fuck the vampire.]]

*'''Archer:''' Think "Arrested Development" meets James Bond. It's an adventure comedy about an alcoholic man-child, who just so happens to be the world's most dangerous secret agent, and his equally deranged co-workers which include, but are not limited to; a sex addict accountant, a sadistic pyromaniac ditz, a bare-knuckle boxing Human Resource manager, a sassy black woman with abnormally large hands, the main-character's narcissistic mother, and a mad nazi scientist. Hilarious, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAHEhhJisk ultra quotable], and great source material for secret agent role-playing.
** Later seasons ('''Dreamland''', '''Danger Island''' and '''1999''') are all self-contained genre spoofs, respectively being a hard-boiled detective story, an Indy-style pulp adventure and a military sci-fi IN SPACE! - and as such can be watched even without the broader context of the series.

*'''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law:''' More of Adult Swim dragging Hanna-Barbera into an alleyway, brutally mugging them, and rifling through their pockets for old cartoon clips. If you were to script a show based on a Pheonix Wright rip-off with the same manic energy of Sealab 2021 and the failing-into-success of Archer, you'd likely hit close to HB:AAL. Can be mined for plotlines for "whodunnit" adventures in addition to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeRTo8MuTrw just plain weirdness] that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y11lxG8WM9M can inspire greatness] at the table-top.

*'''The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack''': One of the two decent cartoons that got kids through the dreaded 'CN Real' era. The show follows the eponymous (mis)adventures of Flapjack, a young boy dreaming of one day becoming an adventurer, joined by his "candyholic" friend and dubious mentor "captain" Knuckles and his adoptive mother Bubby the talking whale. While the concept seems innocuous enough the show is set in a pastiche world of 17th, 18th and 19th century nautical tropes and features as much creepy shit as the show creator could get past the network and still be kid-friendly.

*'''Megas XLR:''' [[Tau|I DIG GIANT ROBOTS. YOU DIG GIANT ROBOTS. CHICKS DIG GIANT ROBOTS.]] That's all you really need to know. Big robots and funny shit. It's also the [[Ork|Orkiest]] show ever made, the Gork to [[Approved anime|Gurren Lagann's]] Mork.

*'''Rick and Morty:''' /tg/: the series. A comedy about an alcoholic mad scientist's adventures with his wimpy grandson. Has a instantly recognizable blend of fart humor and soul-crushing Nietzschean/Lovecraftian philosophy. Manages to pack a good amount of emotional punches with enough fun adventures and sci-fi/pop culture references to keep even the most stoic entertained. The third season is forever [[skub]] after the showrunner decided to replace the original writers with an all female team; speculated reasons range from [[SJW|"muh diversity"]] to [[Troll|"because I felt like it"]] but everyone agrees that it's just not the same. Rebounded somewhat in followup seasons that finally started to flesh-out the canon of the series (while also establishing it actually had canon) and still churned out some of the best episodes of the series period (while also making some of the worst...........so two steps forward one step back as usual). [[Reddit]] loves this series for the lolrandom bullshit and ebin pop culture references, so mention it on 4chan at your own peril, but it's still got some neato ideas for [[Genius: The Transgression]] campaigns.

*'''SeaLab 2021''': Conceptually in the same vein as Venture Bros but as a direct sequel to the straight-faced SeaLab 2020. At least one episode is a literal comedy redub of a vintage episode. Roughly a third of the episodes end with everyone dying in an explosion.

*'''The Venture Bros.''' An absurd parody of Jonny Quest, 60's animated shows, comic books, and pretty much every action franchise ever. Episodes primarily theme around failure (so great for 4chan) and absurd comedy. Can be [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D8aBP-JOZsU hilarious] but like Austin Powers, it's hard to appreciate the comedy of it unless you've seen the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Quest source material].

== Fantasy ==
*'''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''': Considered by many to be the gold standard for animated shows in the 00'es and one of the best Western-made narrative shows. It has garnered many a fan for their funny characters, deep story lines, character development and Asian-but-not-[[weeaboo]] flavor. The sequel series, Legend of Korra, is rather [[skub]]tastic and while generally not considered as good as the original still contains a fair amount of deep storylines, world-building and well conceived villain's (arguably even more so than the original Avatar). Regarded as only good for [[Rule 34]] by much of /co/ and /aco/ (right down to be in their sticky). But than again knowing who your dealing with you can take that any way you want.

*'''Amphibia''': A 13 year old girl ends up teleported to the PG version of [[Catachan]] populated by sapient frogs, toads and [[Salamander|newts]] by a magical music box and moves in with a family of Frog farmers. Her two best friends are also brought along, but end up in different situations. Alternates between farce and peril at the drop of a hat and manages to pull both of them off, though it gradually shifts towards being more serious as time goes by.

*'''[[Castlevania]]''': A Netflix animated-series about the old Castlevania games of yore, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse to be precise. Follows the exploits of Trevor Belmont, who tries to live up to the legacy of his family and travels the grimdark land of Transsylvania in classic Castlevania fashion. To keep the whip cracking and dagger throwing from growing stale, he is accompanied by Dracula's son Alucard and the mage Sypha on his quest to exterminate the forces of evil (Grant the rogue gets shafted as usual). The show is beautifully animated, overall very well written and just an absolute joyride from front to back. Fans of the original games will feel especially jerked off, as the creators have gone to great lenghts to be as close to the source material as possible (discounting the exclusion of Grant from the hero's posse), like recreating the exact attacks of enemies and remixing the original music. A second show is in the making which will cover the exploits of Trevor's descendant Richter Belmont and his lady love Maria Renard, set during the French Revolution.

*'''[[Conan the Adventurer]]''': A very solid cartoon from the early 90s based off of, what else? [[Conan the Barbarian]]. Probably best known for its rocking opening theme (WARRIOR WITHOUT FEAR!), but it's very mineable for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and has a lot of actual novel lore scattered through the kid-friendly stuff.

*'''Delta State''': All Psyker Party: The Series. Four flat-mates are trying to both figure out their life after suffering from amnesia and in the same time prevent the invasion of body-stealing Rifters [[Warp|from another dimension]]. While it sounds like nothing in particular, it packs a punch and easily hooks you up with interesting universe and very relatable characters - the series was a successful attempt to deliver something like seinen for Western animation, so it's not for kids, but also avoids all the pitfalls of your typical "adult animation".

*'''[[D%26D_Cartoon|Dungeons & Dragons]]''': An absolute classic, worth watching even for the sake of the status alone. While the series still shows a lot of potential, most of it was wasted on too short episodes made on shoe-string budget. Being partially entangled into the [[Satanic Panic]] didn't help either. Still, worth watching. Just bring beer and friends. And a notepad for oldschool ideas. Sadly never got a proper canon ending. Is ''incredibly'' popular in Brazil, too.

*'''Jumanji''': Like a lot of successful and semi-successful films, Jumanji ended up with a follow-up cartoon. Pretty much what you'd want to see if Alan had stayed in Jumanji and Peter and Judy went on adventures with him. While the art style is (intentionally) weird, the episodes are amazingly mineable for campaigns and world-building ideas. Also featured many references to other works, but with a fun twist.

*'''Love, Death & Robots''': An animated anthology series that's all over the place, from comedy to cosmic horror and from pure skub for easy clickbait to genuinely good content, but remains very minable. First season's "[[Tyranids|Suits]]", "[[Vampire|Sucker of Souls]]", "[[Machine_Spirit|Lucky 13]]", "[[Kitsune|Good Hunting]]" and especially "[[Warp|Beyond the Aquila Rift]]" and "[[Delta_Green|The Secret War]]" are very much approved. The second season is full of shit, tho, skip it outright. Third season's entire saving grace comes in form of "[[Gothic_Horror|Bad Travelling]]" and if you squint really hard, then "[[Delta_Green|In Vaulted Halls Entombed]]" and "[[Q'Orl | Swarm]]" (if you believe in the theory that the [[Eldar]] created the [[Tau]]) get a pass. The rest is mostly cool visuals (with acid trips) and jokes about America.

*'''The New Adventures of Ocean Girl''': An Australian animated series, predominately aimed at teenage girls, but coming in a package with a complex world full of original races. Good world-building and bunch of interesting plot hooks and easy-to-reuse plot twists.

*'''[[Critical_Role#Vox_Machina|The Legend of Vox Machina]]''': A light-hearted show based, on a [[D&D]] [[Critical Role|campaign/podcast]]. It stars seven adventures that have very obvious [[races]] and [[classes]]. It's only had season so far, but it has been renewed.

*'''Omer and the Starchild''': A French animated series. A truly rich world-building mixed with a lot of New Age imagery and unexpectedly dark story for a kids show. The series follows adventures of Dan, the titular Starchild, in his quest to free "Twelve Wizards" and unite them against the evil Morkhan.

*'''Papyrus''': An animated adaptation of Franco-Belgian comics. An epic tale of a young fisherman tangled into the conflict between Egyptian gods, tasked with the mission of freeing Horus and putting end to the reign of Seth... regardless if Papyrus himself wants to or not being a plaything of gods.

*'''W.I.T.C.H.''': So you want magical girl warriors, but you dislike anime? Here is the answer then, as it delivers exactly that, with all the possible plot bits and the general feel without, well, being a Chinese cartoon. Plus neat urban fantasy and teen characters that feel like teens (early 00s teens, that is).

== Old Stuff & Remakes ==
*'''[[Masters of the Universe|He-Man/She-Ra]]:''' The original 80s [[Sword & Sorcery]] cartoons of choice, He-Man is about a cosmically-empowered [[barbarian]] hero who has to juggle his daily life as the foppish Prince Adam and his muscle-bound alter-ego whilst defending Castle Greyskull from the forces of Skeletor, an evil wizard who seeks to claim the castle and the cosmic powers it holds to rule the universe. Made to sell every single crazy toy the designers could come up with. It's 80s fucking bullshit to the extreme, but if you can embrace the cheese and get past the memetically limited animation, it's actually good, clean, turn-your-brain-off fun, with plenty of ideas to mine for a more S&S or old-school [[Science Fantasy]] setting. "She-Ra" is literally "He-Man for girls", with Prince Adam's twin sister Adora using the twin to He-Man's sword of power to turn into a super-powered [[Amazon]] warrior, leading a resistance on the magical world of Etheria against the Horde, an invading army of space monsters and robots.
** An early 90s remake tried to rebrand He-Man (since it was also one of the forerunners of "cartoons as toy commercials" in the 80s) and failed flat. Mostly forgotten, since it dropped everything unique about the setting, replacing it with generic science fiction.
** A 2001 remake of He-Man attempted to create a more serious, focused, action-orientated and generally less goofy take on the show. It worked, but sadly it died after two seasons due to a lack of an audience. Dig it up and enjoy it if you can.
** A 2018 "remake" called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power...exists. Whilst it ''technically'' has a better plot and animation than its predecessor, it is also much more rooted in post-2010s culture memes, so view at your own risk.
*** Success of the above led to the 2021 "continuation" of the 2001 version, done to <s>maintain copyrights and licensing agreement</s>{{BLAM}} refresh the format and shakes things up. Not only it suffers from the same issues the 90s remake had, it's also [[Serious Business]] [[Edge]]fest running entirely on [[skub]]. Unlike rest of the list, fully disapproved.
** The 2021/2022 "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe" show. Reimagines Eternia as [[Science Fantasy|an advanced technological world whose magical past is being brought back]]. Despite a rather weird animation style and some borderline [[SJW]] choices (replacing Ram-Man with a female counterpart, most notable), largely considered to ''not'' be as shit as Revelation.
* '''Jonny Quest:''' '''''The''''' adventure series from Hanna-Barbera, notable originally for being first "realistic" cartoon to be made and having amounts of violence and brutality - for a show ostentiably aimed at very young kids - that makes moral watchdogs twitch to this day. For those same reasons, it is also never-ending source of pulp ideas and weird science plots. Even if you never saw it, there is a high chance you can recognise the characters and hum the main theme, regardless of nationality. Comes in three distinctive flavours, all three very much approved:
** The original series from the 60s, titled simply ''Jonny Quest''.
** 80s revival series, ''The New Adventures of Jonny Quest'', which came with animation bump, updated the setting and made if far more kid-friendly, without losing the adventuring vibe
** 90s Cartoon Network sponsored remake, ''Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures'', which finally realised the series mostly watched by teen boys could benefit from having a teen-aged main character.

*'''Lucky Luke''': An animated adaptation of a classic Franco-Belgian comics, done with help of Hanna-Barbera, following adventures of titular Lucky Luke - a cowboy so fast with his gun, he can even outdraw his shadow. Just like its source material, it's humorous in style and spoofs various staples of western genre, but never becomes an outright parody. Your gunslinger PC ''wishes'' to be this cool and suave.
** Got a new series in 2001, aptly titled '''The New Adventures of Lucky Luke''' and it's a hit-and-miss, with quality of the writing being all over the place. Somewhat infamous for being never screened to the original creator, Morris, for review and waiting out until he died with the release.

*'''The Mysterious Cities of Gold''': Throw into a shaker El Dorado, greedy conquistadors, dashing adventurers, an alien race of Mayan precursors... and a group of children tangled into the middle of it. Stir together, serve chilled. It's a high grade adventuring in the Latin America, easily passing modern quality standards without any issues and not struggling with any kind of typical cartoon censorship (thank God for the French). Oh, and it's a continuous plot, rather than villain-of-a-week type of deal - so you get a story of epic proportions, with equally impressive prep to to make it all work and come together, with world-building to carry it through. It's also one of the first "big" cartoons to be done in corroboration with Japanese (Studio Pierrot), so on technicality, it's an anime. Absolute classic and if you aren't a literal zoomer, you probably saw it as a kid.
** Got renewed in 2012 and 2016, thirty goddamn years after original premiere, for two additional seasons. To make it weirder, it picks the plot where the original, self-contained series ended, so you pretty much have to watch the whole thing to "get" it. Still worth every minute.

* '''Thundarr the Barbarian:''' Hanna-Barbera's [[Science Fantasy]] series set in the far future of post-apoc ruins of the United States. It's a collection of everything popular in early 80s: fantasy, post-apo, buff barbarians, Chewbacca look-alikes, <s>tits</s> princesses, light sabers and cheese. Copious amounts of cheese. If you ever wanted to run pulp megadungeon, look no further for inspiration. Aged far better than most 80s cartoons, since it wasn't intended as being a 20 minute long toy commercial.

*'''[[Thundercats]]:''' Regarded by /tg/ as "Dangerously [[Furry]]: the Cartoon". A [[Science Fantasy]] series revolving around a group of survivors from the destroyed world of Thundera crashlanding on the apocalyptic ruins of a far-future Earth and trying to rebuild their civilization, whilst battling mutants, monsters, magic and the ancient [[mummy]]-[[lich]]-thing called "Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living". Essentally He-Man, but more focus on action than on goofy comedy. Like He-Man, it also got a darker, edgier, more serious 2011 remake that fell through because <s>nobody watched it</s> <s>everyone was turned away by the tone shift</s> [[Derp|Cartoon Network wanted to replace it with Lego Ninjago]].
** Then it had yet another - an unapproved - remake with even worse reception, the late 2010s "Thundercats Roar", which doubles down on just about everything awful in cartoons that had been pioneered by Teen Titans GO! (in fact, they did a crossover with TTG! purely for the "Teen Titans" to shill the Roar cartoon, which went down like a lead balloon). It aired early 2020 and only lasted one season. Given that COVID would force kids to stay at home, and thus have easy access to television, [[Fail|that is quite the accomplishment]].

== Unapproved, But Mineable ==
Any cartoons that have /tg/-worthy subject matter, but it's not like fa/tg/uys opinions really matter anyway.

*'''[[BattleTech]]:''' Yes, BattleTech had a cartoon series. It talks about a Adam Steiner and the 1st Somerset Strikers. It wasn't that good. Its production value was lacklustre and being forced into the animation age ghetto did not help. Its notable for its early use of transiting between traditional cel-animation and computer-generated imaging. While not godawful it was at best a slightly above average Saturday morning cartoon that's inappropriate to it's subject manner. What's even more notable is that the show exists in the BattleTech universe. You read that right, this cartoon that depicts BattleTech actually exists in the BattleTech universe. Can give inspiration on how the actions of a party can be distorted or changed to fit a different narrative. Also attracts much [[rage]] from fans of [[The Clans]] because the series is based around Inner Sphere protagonists, and thus the Clans are shown as a bunch of lunatics who just randomly showed up and invaded one day.

*'''Hazbin Hotel:''' Cartoon Network-tier [[Slaanesh|Slaaneshii stuff]], man. A grimdark musical dramedy about the princess of hell (who acts like a typical Disney princess) and her girlfriend opening a hotel where demons are reformed in the hope that they will be able to checkout into Heaven, so that Hell won't be forced to go through regular population purges anymore. Their first test subject is a drug addicted spider demon porn star. A mysterious and extremely powerful demon known as Alastor (A.K.A.: The Radio Demon), who is convinced that demons are irredeemable so their plan is impossible, offers to help so that he can enjoy watching them fail. Pretty good for character ideas if you want to make a demon or demon-like entity that isn't another cliché Always Chaotic Evil stereotype. Has had absolutely nothing since the pilot episode is for all intents and purposes dead.
**'''Helluva Boss:''' a spin-off of Hazbin Hotel. A low ranking demon manages to steal access to the mortal world from a powerful demon lord (who lets him keep it in exchange for sexual favours), and forms a company where damned souls pay for the assassination of the humans who wronged them in life. More comedy focused than Hazbin Hotel.

*'''Hilda:''' Based on a series of comics and books of the same name, this Netflix series focuses on the eponymous Hilda, a young and blue-haired girl who is absolutely fascinated by the natural world and lives (at first) with her mother in a cabin in the woods before moving to a quaint and rather comfy-looking town and making some friends her own age (while still hanging out with a tiny two-inch tall elf and her pet deerfox Twig). The series is rather cute overall with some heavy touches of creepiness spread throughout. Recently got a second season released and rumors of a third being in the works.

*'''Regular Show:''' A weird show that appeared on Cartoon Network with a really crappy final season. Still, quirky characters, more than a few /tg/ worthy references, and a few decent jokes with lol random stuff all over the place make it decent enough if you need something to play while you paint that Gaunt Swarm.

*'''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]] AKA Sonic SatAM''': A animated adaption of Sonic the Hedgehog. Well regarded by fans as something of a cult classic. Do be warned it is full of 90's cheese, it was a Saturday morning cartoon meant to make money off of a cartoon character after all. One special note is Jim Cummings in one of the scarier depictions of Dr. Robotnik. Also features one of the better depictions of nature vs industrialization, less green Aesop and more freedom from slavery (most of the time). Mineable for concepts and a good villain. [[Chris-chan|Possibly even watched by the]] [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|God-Emperor of Mankind.]] The Archie comic is also of note since it does technically continue the story, though do be warned of Ken Penders. He is considered the Matt Ward of the Sonic Fandom.

*'''Steven Universe''': A fairly average show with some surprisingly interesting world-building. Thousands of years ago, a caste-based race of mineral-based "Crystal Gems" with holographic bodies dominated the galaxy. A small band of Gems refused to let this continue, rebelling against their masters and shattering their empire at great cost to both sides. Now, a small cadre of Gems remains on the planet Earth, protecting humanity from the monsters their civil war left behind and raising the rebel leader's "son". [[Fail|Unfortunately, he's kind of a fuckup,]] and he's going to have to learn how to use his powers fast because the Gem empire is coming back for round two. Incredibly mineable for campaign and adventure ideas, when it decides to stop being hollow slice of life and gets its ass in gear. Warning: prolonged viewing <s>may</s> will cause [[Sanity|SAN loss.]]
** The fandom for this one is... mostly okay. While it's pretty chill overall, it's got its share of froth-mouthed SJWs (infamous for trying to drive an artist to suicide over drawing a fat character thin) and psychotic "You don't like [Character] x [Character]! DIE, SCUM!" shippers. Stay the fuck out of the Tumblrtards/Twitterati's way, and you'll be good.

*'''Tigtone:''' Similar to Adventure Time but even more insane and a lot more bloody. The surreal adventures of a murderhobo named Tigtone who is obsessed with completing quests, writing about his quests in his journal, and shouting his own name. Takes place in a world that runs on a mixture of video game and dream logic. Has a unique animation style created with realistic paintings brought to life with motion capture to look deliberately uncanny like a poorly animated video game but also strangely beautiful.

*'''Visionaries:''' Also known as "Knights of the Magical Light". A shitty, toy-selling and very short animated series from the 80s. However, it's essentially one dungeon crawl after another, filled to the brim with all the science-fantasy gonzo ideas your average writing committee from that era could come up. Which makes it all extra mineable, despite otherwise being a set of 20 minute toy commercials. Don't try to actually watch it, just strip-mine the dungeons and encounter ideas.

[[Category: Approved Media]]

Mythology

2022-08-26T00:58:47Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: /* Popular mythology elements used in Fantasy */

In the olden days, before the scientific method was developed, people sought explanations for why the world exists as it does. Humans being humans, their first explanations revolved around ascribing human-like characteristics to natural phenomena, which in turn became the first gods worshiped by humankind. [[Skub|Depending who you ask]].

From there, stories spread about the nature of the gods. In time, people began telling other stories that sought to explain such thinigs as the origins of the world (cosmogonia), the origins of humankind (antropogonia), what happens after death (eschatology), or the exploits of ancient heroes. Many other mythical creatures are thought to have started the same way - for example, stories of giants being an attempt to explain the existence of massive fossilized bones (which we now know belonged to long-extinct animals such as mammoths). As these stories passed down through generations as either legends or religion, they gave birth to the fantasy genre we all know and love.

In a sense, '''mythology''' is a blend of history and fantasy, with elements of what might have really happened wrapped up in cultural beliefs, and then shaped by the worldview of the societies that created the myths in question. Even in the present day more than a few such myths are still prevalent, despite them no longer being openly supernatural, such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Many other such myths are significantly tied to the culture's religion.

Older myths often contained bizarre and fucked up shit like incest and rape, because people in ye olden times <s>[[Slaanesh|were fucking deranged and kinky as all hell]], and as far as they were concerned, nothing was off limits</s> had very different standards of morality than our own.

Put far less bluntly, several cultures saw their gods as models ''OF'' human behavior rather than FOR human behavior, and as such are not inherent indicators of how [[/d/|"deviant"]] a society was (though it ''also'' doesn't mean they might not have been fucked up in some ways). Naturally, exceptions to this "rule" do exist, e.g. the schools of Buddhism, where the core tenet is to transcend the impermanent nature of existence and break the cycle of death and rebirth thus achieving ''nirvana''; the central figurehead, Buddha, and his teachings are explicitly to be emulated as opposed to worshipping him directly (although some branches of Mahayana Buddhism do consider him divine, it's complicated).

Shifts in mythological narratives can also occur due to cultural osmosis and/or conflict; some "foreign" gods are integrated into local mythos or considered an aspect of a "native" god within the pantheon, while other gods (usually from conquered peoples) were sometimes demonized, [[Demon|often literally so]]; alternately, existing gods may shift in nature and reputation due to either technological shifts, or political ones. With different cultures from country to country, mythologies all had their own angels/demons/spirits/energies, with their moralities varying based on how their own cultures and others perceived them. Natural phenomena (the sun, the sea, storms, etc.) and common abstracts (chaos, order, art, etc.) will inevitably feature in nearly any culture's pantheon.

==Connection with Fantasy Genres==
As you can see, many an author took interest in the old legends and decided to include its elements in their own stories. Notably, Tolkien took many elements from the Norse and Germanic Mythologies and popularized the concept of fantasy races like Dwarfs and Elves.

Between these connections and the fact that some mythologies form the basis for many beliefs, both ancient and modern-day (e.g. the Abrahamic religions), while others often incorporate historical and semi-historical figures (with obvious overlap), the following thus bears mentioning: Many other authors have used existing religions (often including their own) as a basis to inform the mythos or cosmology of their settings; [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] in particular is well known for this, as is C.S. Lewis. Liberties will be taken with adapting such figures directly or creating analogues for a given fiction, the same as it would be with any other adaptation. As such should not be taken as absolution or commentary on the reality of such beliefs unless explicitly intended; even in that event such liberties can only be indicative of the author's own beliefs or lack thereof, which is still a far cry from true spiritual or theological objectivity, regardless of how much (if at all) the author may actually want it to be.

<span style='font-size:150%'>{{BLAM|'''''TL;DR The preceding and following descriptions have no ''necessary'' bearing on the matter of whether or not a given being exists or how much of any Scriptures are true or false.'''''}} [[Skub|That's a matter we'll leave to the reader.]]</span>

For the purposes of this article, we're focused more on '''characters''' (including Deities), '''species''', and '''artifacts''', along with particular '''individual stories''' that get repurposed or directly referenced in RPGs. If you're genuinely curious about religious beliefs and/or specifically how it figures into RPGs, we have the [[religion]] article for that.

==Mythologies==
===Abrahamic Mythology (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)===
The one set of mythology everyone most familiar with in the West and the Middle East, since you learn them in church. Or synagogue, or mosque, you get the idea.

Much of the Abrahamic mythology is drawn from the old Hebrew Bible, though it has been expanded considerably by prose and poetry over the centuries, meaning that there is a wealth of third-party, non-canon material out there for DMs to use in their campaign settings. Christian mythology is one of the many mythologies that were derived from Jewish mythology; the same goes for Islamic mythology and many others from Middle Eastern countries. Hence, they are collectively referred to as "Abrahamic" after the Biblical patriarch.

As Islamic mythology is not commonly depicted for a bunch of reasons (most notably because Islam derives from Jewish and Christian mythology, thus sharing many figures and events, along with Islam having a taboo against depicting religious figures - especially their chief prophet Muhammad - that Muslim extremists have often violently enforced even to this day), this section will primarily cover the Jewish and Christian elements of Abrahamic mythology.

'''Most notable heroes with lots of media adaptions:'''
*God is rarely depicted as a particularly active hero, but may [[Just as planned|work in mysterious ways.]] How Yahweh/God/Allah operates tends to be a lot of [[skub]], as all three of these religions nominally pray to the dame Deity, but each perceives him differently
**For the Jews, Yahweh (among many names) is the creator of the universe as well as the patron of their people. Most religions before theirs were polytheistic, believing in the existence of many gods suitable for worship. While there may have been many dudes and dudettes worthy of worship and maybe only one or two "creators", the Jews were unique in that they worshipped only '''one.''' While the other cultures around them had patron deities who were roughly analogous to their home cities (so while many of the Mesopotamian peoples would have the same pantheon, only their local god would be worthy of their worship, at least in general), Jews believed that there was only '''one true god''' and he had a special relationship with them, and the rest were lesser beings, unworthy of worship. From the Jewish perspective, their early covenant means they have already been saved, so long as they keep to their part of the bargain. Because of their self-assurance in this one god and their relationship with him, their polytheistic neighbors didn't get along with them. This worsened when they hardened their stance to say that their god was the '''only god''' and that all other purported gods were false idols fit only for destruction.
**Christians came second, and believed in the teachings of the famous Jew, Jesus. They believe that Jesus is the literal Son Of God, that he taught them a whole bunch of stuff that's in the Bible, died and [[Meme|got better]] after 3 days. Afterwards, his 12 [[Primarch|apostles]] [[Word Bearers|went all over the world being annoying]] and getting polytheists to convert, pretty [[The Last Church|much always by force and cultural eradication]]. There are many flavours of Christian, and a pretty wide (or narrow) canon. Seriously, the [[Dark Angels|Roman Catholics]] who we get all the fun Gothic and Inquisitorial themes justify their doctrines from the works of <s>philosophers and theologians</s> fucking nerds from all the way to the Roman era. Fun little conclaves like the Council of <s>[[Council of Nikaea|Nikaea]]</s> Nicaea were basically just debates among leaders of the Early Churches trying to agree on the nature of God and what beliefs are HERESY and what's not. Their reliance on <s>the catholic wiki</s> an entire body of secondary works and not the "primary source" that was the Bible eventually caused the Reformation and led to all the fun of Protestants and Evangelicals that we have so much fun with today, and that's before we factor in the schism between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and the miscellaneous splinter sects of all three major branches of Christianity. '''Tl;dr''' Christians see God as their [[Spiritual Liege|Papa]], their [[The Emperor|Savior]], and also as the essence of God, and to understand why one = three either just take their word for it or get a Theology degree to figure out why.
**Islam is the skubbiest, which is a shame, because it could've been the most simple. The Islamic view on God is that Allah is beyond human understanding and comprehension, and from Allah comes all things, good and evil, but still infinitely good. Allah is infinite, and the only thing worthy of worship. It wouldn't be out of place to consider Allah a "concept", because even trying to portray Allah as one thing or another is [[HERESY|haram]]; it would simply be too limiting, or placing human qualities on the creator. Before Muhammad, the Jews and Christians received parts of the revelation through the prophets, but they consider Jesus to be the greatest Jewish prophet and not the son of God; besides them, only Muhammad ever got the chance to communicate with Allah, and there will never be another until the End Times. And so just like the Catholics, any further questions regarding the qualities of God and morality would have to come from the Koran (the Muslim equivalent of the Bible) and hadiths, which were basically long oral histories of "Muhammad said this, according to X (his X), as told by Y, (X's Y), and passed down by Z, and so on." So while Islam wanted to [[Thousand Sons|bring the sort of mysticism of a single, indivisible, and infinite Allah that only contemplation of the Word could bring]], [[Horus Heresy|an almost immediate power struggle]] over who should succeed Muhammad as the leader of Muslim society caused Islam to split into two rival factions that defined themselves in opposition to the other, leading to skub and differences of tradition/theology that last to this day. They too ended up becoming quite fond of forced conversions, and needless to say it did not take very long for relations between Muslims and Christians to go sour.
*Jesus Christ: Please tell us you're joking. If for some reason you're actually serious and have a few hours to spare, find the nearest church and ask whoever's in charge to tell you about him. He will be happy to give you the full story. Otherwise you can ask a Christian you know or pick up a copy of the Bible - nearly every bookstore stocks them and then there's online copies - and see for yourself. Trivia: "Christ" is not Jesus' last name, but is one of Jesus' titles.
*Abraham: The common tie between the three Abrahamic religions, his covenant with God makes him and his descendants the first of the Jews.
*Samson: Legendary hero whose power of super strength was tied to <strike>never cutting his hair</strike> ACKCHYUALLY his power was tied to keeping his covenants with God, it just so happened that cutting his hair was the last one to break and he knew it.
*David: Once killed a mighty warrior with a [[Sling]]. Undertook the worst fetch quest in history when the king demanded he collect 100 Philistine foreskins to marry the princess, then decided to go above and beyond and collect 200. Said father in law was King Saul, who later tried to have David killed numerous times (strong contender for worst parent-in-law ever right here). He became the king of Israel some time later after King Saul's death. Also credited with writing the Biblical Psalms.
*Solomon: David's most famous son, also King of Israel. Better at his job then just about anybody who came after him, and (more relevant to media appearances outside of direct-Biblical-adaption) frequently reputed to be a (usually holy) sorcerer of some kind. Islam further credits him with authority over the djinn.
*Moses: See the Exodus for details. Hollywood is a big fan of this guy, even moreso than Jesus (regardless of how you take the implications), so you have a plethora of big-budget film options with A-list actors to choose from (Charlton Heston, Christian Bale, cartoon with Val Kilmer, etc)
*Noah: See below for his boating adventure.
*A few angels; notably, only two are given names: Michael and Gabriel, as well as Raphael in the Book of Tobit though its canonicity is disputed(there's also an Abbadon (no, not [[Abaddon|the armless retard one]]) in the Book of Revelation, but he's usually considered a Fallen Angel like Lucifer). Also notable and mentioned in the Bible: the Angel of Death, aka The Destroying Angel (no name given Biblically, but the Catholic and most Eastern Orthodox Apocryphas (as well as Jewish tradition, especially the later Kabbalic one), identify him as Azrael).
*Satan and the demons of Hell (see below) are sometimes depicted as an unpleasant but necessary part of the divine plan (compare to Hades, above), as the ones who punish sinners who escape mortal justice. In the early parts of the Old Testament, Satan is seen as a prosecutor of souls who puts people through spiritual trials to test their faith, rather than tempting people into evil for evil's sake, and to this day we speak of the "Devil's Advocate" who points out flaws in popular people or ideas (the term originates from the Catholic Church, of all places; when someone is considered for sainthood, the Devil's Advocate is specifically appointed to argue against them to hopefully ensure all sides of the story are considered).
** Alternatively, Satan is sometimes portrayed as a hero rebelling against an oppressive divine order. Obviously this is [[extra heresy]] (see also: Gnosticism).

'''Most notable villains with lots of media adaptions:'''
* Satan/Lucifer/The Devil (may or may not be the same character): With the many different interpretations, it's hard to tell which is which, but the general gist is that one angel disagreed with how God was doing business and staged a great rebellion. God cast him and his kin out of heaven and forced them to live in a realm where they are never able to feel his presence, and now he takes his hatred of God out on humanity by leading them into damnation.
** Relevant note: One approach used in various media is to have multiple Hellish factions, each of whom have some claim to the title of Supreme Evil. Usually, they're opposed to one another, and usually represent different kinds or aspects of Evil (e.g., one wants to destroy the world, and is directly opposed by another who wants to tempt and corrupt). Note that the Bible is completely silent about most things about demons, so both "they're all working for one master" and "it's every demon for himself" are plausible readings. The Ars Goetia is often a handy source from which to pull such factions.
* Baal, Moloch, and others: False idols (i.e. pagan gods) worshipped by the Caananites, which the Israelites would repeatedly turn to worshipping despite God punishing them every single time they did so.
* Judas Iscariot: One of Jesus' apostles who sold him out to the Romans, leading to the crucifixion. He hung himself shortly afterwards in a fit of despair. His name became a byword for betraying someone close to you, and is also known for the price he sold Jesus out for (30 pieces of silver).
* [[Cain]]: Adam and Eve's son after being cast out of paradise. Murdered his brother Abel for petty reasons.
* The Pharaoh of the Exodus, known simply as Pharaoh. Popular history assumes it to be Rameses II, although [[wikipedia:Pharaohs_in_the_Bible|historians have been arguing over this for millenia]]<ref>Not helping is the long-held knowledge among scholars that ancient Egyptians were more interested in propaganda than recording their actual history on their public displays, which is a large chunk of what contemporary evidence we have for what happened when.</ref>.
* Sometimes God and/or various angels are depicted negatively, as either being passive in the face of evil or complicit ([[Adeptus Evangelion|or being giant monsters out to destroy the world]]). Naturally, those kinds of interpretations are highly frowned upon for the obvious reason that people still worship God, this can involve in-universe retcons of Scripture, consider God good and do not like it when other people call His actions evil, so naturally this is [[Extra Heresy]] (and blasphemy).
** It should be added that Fallen Angels are a Canonical (as in, actually appear in the New Testament) option to have Evil Angels without making God Himself Evil, although it still runs into the problem of why God made his own angels susceptible to becoming evil in the first place. Note that this is more an early Jewish and Christian motif than a later Jewish or Islamic one, due to changes and differences, respectively, in theology.

'''Non-Biblical figures who show up in media adaptions'''
* Lilith, the fanon first wife of Adam, the first man. <s>It must be emphasized that she '''does not exist in any biblical source''' (other then the first woman being created twice -- but then again, a lot of things happen twice, slightly differently described each time, in Genesis)</s> Technically, the word "lilith" appears in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_34#Verse_14 Isaiah 34:14], but the word is frequently translated to something similar to "night monster" or "screeching owl". That being said, she was reputed to be one of Satan's many wives and a mother of demons or Adam's first wife who disobeyed God, before God created Eve.
* The Wandering Jew and Longinus: Because Jesus implied that certain people listening to him speak would be around for the Second Coming (although two obvious alternate readings are that Jesus was talking about his shortly impending Resurrection, or referring to the then-future, but politically easy to foresee, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War Great Revolt of 66 AD], whose results could easily be seen as something that would be talked about in the same tone as the end of the world at the time), two non-biblical figures show up, starting in medieval works: The Wandering Jew, an Jew of the era, cursed to immortality, and Longinus, the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus' side with a spear during the Crucifixion, similarly cursed to immortality. Can show up as villains, heroes, or mere cameos. (Both are more likely to show up in literature and RPGs then visual media; Longinus in particular is the identity claimed by an important historical vampire in ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]''.)
* Various non-Biblically mentioned Angels.
*[[Djinn]]: Originally an element of pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, they are mentioned in the Quran as spirits born of "smokeless fire". Unlike Islamic angels, they are capable of sin and can go to either Heaven or Hell. The Islamic version of Satan (called Iblis or Shaitan) is said to have originally been a djinn. Over time and several (mis)interpretations, they came to be portrayed as the figures we now know as [[genie]]s.

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
* The Holy Grail: The cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper and/or a cup used for various purposes during the Crucifixion.
* The True Cross: So named because of the dozens of other crosses falsely passed off as the one Jesus was crucified on--not helped by the fact that the Roman Empire crucified a ''lot'' of people, as Crucifixion was the standard Roman method of execution of non-Romans. Whether it actually ''is'' the cross Jesus was crucified in is another story.
* The Spear of Destiny and various other objects associated with the Crucifixion: In certain media, the Spear of Destiny (which pierced his side during crucifixion), as well as the nails which pinned him to the cross, are considered gifted with magical powers because they have the blood of God on them.
** Other objects from the Crucifixion that can show up in media and are sometimes (but more rarely then the above) assigned supernatural powers include the Crown of Thorns, the 30 pieces of silver payed to Judas, the whip used for the 39 lashes, and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Sponge a sponge].
* The Veil of Veronica and/or the Shroud of Turin: These are two relics that purported to be pieces of cloth that were miraculously imprinted with an image of Christ's face after being in contact with him sometime during the crucial four days. The former is lost; the latter is of rather dubious authenticity and is now considered by most scholars to be a forgery made in the Middle Ages.
* The Ark of the Covenant: Where Moses supposedly put the shards of the original Ten Commandments (and possibly Aaron's rod and a pot of manna). Famously disappeared during one of the various times Jerusalem was sacked, and has never been seen since.
* The Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil
* The Fruit of Life.
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==== Creation Myth ====
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So in Abrahamic mythology there is only one god, or at least only one ''true'' god: '''YHVH''', which most people would just refer to him as '''GOD''' since his name is too sacred to speak of and because he is the only god that exists, with all others being false idols and products of human imagination or demonic ruse. In fact, we don't even know how its pronounced (in part because ancient Hebrew is an abjad- a language that only uses consonants in their writing system) the two most common anglicizations being '''Yahweh''' and '''Jehovah'''. Other names and titles that may be used instead of '''YHVH''' include '''Elohim''' (meaning '''God''' or gods), '''Adonai''' (meaning '''Lord'''), '''HaShem''', '''"I AM"''', and '''Father'''. In Islam (and also by Arabic speaking Christians), he is instead called '''Allah'''. And other languages have their own unique words used to refer to him.

Before the world was born, according to Milton, there was the "war in heaven" [[War in Heaven|(not this one)]] where [[Horus|Lucifer]], [[Horus Heresy|the most perfect of God's creations and the best of the archangels, rebelled against God with a third of the angels in Heaven, but was defeated and cast down to Hell]], in which he was imprisoned.

After that, God creates the world. It is said that he created the world in 7 days, hence the seven-day work week we all know and love: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (although those names themselves are drawn from various pagan, Roman, and Norse traditions -- Sun, Moon, Tyr, Woden/Odin, Thor, Frigga/Freya, and Saturn -- because flexibility is important when it comes to winning converts). He then created many animals, plants and the first two humans: Adam and Eve. He observed them in the Garden of Eden ''(aka his research facility)'' watching them having fun and telling them that they could do anything they wanted, except from eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden. But that promise was broken when the woman, Eve was tempted by a winged serpent - who according to Milton, was actually Lucifer in disguise seeking to avenge himself by corrupting humanity - to eat the fruit, which held within it the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve, having eaten the fruit, gained knowledge and dignity which made them embarrassed by their lack of clothing. God found out and exiled from the garden them to the mortal world. The serpent is also punished, with his wings taken from him, turning him into the [[snek]] we all knew and feared. According to Christianity, this also introduced original sin, fundamentally changing the nature of humankind from natural innocence to inherent wickedness.

In the mortal world, Adam and Eve worked hard to survive and later conceived two sons: Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer while Abel was a shepherd. When they both offered their produce to God, God only favored Abel's. ''(According to some, it was because Cain hid his best offering from God, and others because he gave God leftovers while Abel gave the best; others still say (frequently either looking to blame-shift or suggest that even small evils can lead to larger ones in other people), Abel's overweening pride at being favored provoked what followed. By this point if you are a true [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] fan, you would know what's coming next, but without the vampire shit.)'' Cain killed Abel, and his punishment for murder was to never farm ever again; wherever he spilled his brother's blood, the earth became cursed so that it can never grow anything, putting an end to Cain's favorite job and career. However, punishments differ in other mythologies and it's a clusterfuck, though the 'Mark of Cain' deal is a common point of reference - Cain fears the cold, cruel world will be out to get his marauding criminal ass, so God set a mark on him that made it clear anyone trying to inflict their justice over His own would get it seven times worse.

Adam and Eve later had the third son Seth, who is the true ancestor of mankind, and [[Command and Conquer|Cain is then exiled to the land of the Nod]] where he built the City of Enoch (because he can't farm) and conceived many other descendants. There's also the claim that Eve was not the first wife, but Lilith, a woman who was created from the same dirt as Adam. Felt too hot shit for Adam, so she ran away with an archangel called Samael ''(the Fallen name for Lucifer in some stories)'', though in other stories she ran away a demon prince called Asmodeus ([[Asmodeus|the one this guy was named after]]) and begat a whole race of demons called the Lilim or Lilitu. In [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] however, she taught Cain cool dark magic and shit.

As for the rest, it's easier to find the nearest Bible and/or Koran and read it for yourself. Just don't call it mythology or worse where anyone can hear you, unless you enjoy offending people, want to provoke an argument and don't particularly care about being ostracized or worse, depending on where you do it.
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==== Noah's Ark ====
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Humankind had become incredibly corrupt and sinful (we’re talking [[Fall of the Eldar|birth the Eye of Terror]] levels of debauchery(!) here), so God decided to have the sea level to suddenly rise to the kind you see in disaster movie like [[/tv/|The Day After Tomorrow]] after a 120 year countdown. He instructed the only righteous people on Earth, starting with the family patriarch named Noah to build [[Imperial Navy|an ark big enough to contain the non-aquatic animals of the world as well as his family]], or just each animal species with their own female and male pairing so that they could reproduce. God even instructed Noah to build the ark with the size he demands: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height (450 × 75 × 45 ft or 137 × 22.9 × 13.7 m), [[just as planned|it's almost as if God intended this]]. The ark is also made out of some probably extinct wood called "Gopher" (that's just how the Hebrew word is pronounced, ''gofer'' -- it's not related to the furry critter), probably the best kind since the ark has to withstand waves after waves of tsunami for a long time and a tragically, all of them were either used up building the Ark or the flood wrecked the rest.

Then the rain lasted 40 days and the resulting flood killed everyone except those on the ark. They basically float and live on their stockpiles for nearly a year until the water goes down. They disembark, and Noah makes a burnt sacrifice to thank God for sparing them and God makes a covenant to never again use a flood to destroy the world (either creating rainbows to serve as a reminder of this, or making the rainbow represent this).
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==== Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews ====
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Another myth took place in Egypt. There once lived the Israelite (later the Jewish) people, the chosen people of God. They had come to reside in Egypt after a renowned ancestor Joseph helped Egypt survive a major famine, and were living in peaceful harmony until one day some asshole [[Tomb Kings|Pharaoh]] came and starts to oppress the shit out of them. The Pharaoh hated how the Hebrews bred like rats and got paranoid that they '''might''' ally with Egypt's enemies, so he ordered [[grimdark|every one of their male babies thrown in the river of Nile to either drown or get eaten by wildlife]]. Moses, our hero of the story survived as an infant and was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter (oh the irony). Moses eventually grow up and learn of God '''Yahweh''' and is commanded to free his people and guide them on an exodus to the promised land. Pharaoh and his army tried to stop them but God basically said fuck you and send [[Nurgle|twelve powerful plagues]] to fucked them over; it could've ended sooner if he just let them go, but the Pharaoh was [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|stupidly stubborn and always tried to tweak the deal to his advantage]]. [[Nagash|The plagues were so effective that Egypt became a frigging wasteland, and even then Scripture states God was pulling His punches - but no undead unfortunately]]. The Pharaoh was pretty quick to let the Israelites go after the last one. Later, Moses guided his people to close to the red sea where he do the iconic sea splitting to make a crossing passage. The Pharaoh and his goons tried to take chase but was once again pwned by the sudden sea crushing them from both sides when they were on the sea.

After traveling with his fellow Hebrews, Moses was called to Mount Sinai by God, who gave him the '''Ten Commandments''': ten rules willed by God as the foundation of Jewish law and the worship of God. Later on other rules were given, and then sometimes God gave direct orders (e.g. commands to commit [[exterminatus|genocide]] on the entire cities of man, woman, children and animals for failing to worship God, though those nations were also at war with the Hebrews some sources cite that it was also punishment for the practices of those religions, which were said to include [[Khorne|human sacrifice]] and [[Slaanesh|ritual prostitution where they weren't picky about the participants age, gender, species...]]).

While he was up there, the Israelites believed he would never come back and had built an idol of a golden calf that they claimed as their new god. When Moses returned, he was enraged and had the calf ground to powder, which was scattered into water and force-fed to the Israelites, which were then struck with a plague as a punishment for their idolatry. Moses and his followers arrived to their promised land after a delay of 40 years due to the Israelites' incessant disbelief in God despite all he'd done, which is, unsurprisingly, Israel! The Israelites then spend a long chunk of their history trying to kill off the native Caananites who weren't big on peaceful co-existence, all while being repeatedly punished for continually abandoning God's worship in favor of false idols in what can only be called a stunning inability to learn from experience.

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====Things drawn from Abrahamic Myth / Demonology ====
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The "bibles" ''(Jewish, Christian and Islamic holy books)'' and associated apocrypha are undoubtedly HUGE sources of inspiration for game developers, particularly [[Dungeons and Dragons]] where monsters are ported over, virtually unchanged and names of significant figures are also often used.

*The idea that Hell has Nine layers - [[Baator]] - though where Dante's layers have distinct punishments, Baator's layers are the realms of powerful lords.
**Names of significant demon/devil characters: [[Asmodeus]] - demon of Lust, '''Baalzebul''' ''(or other variants like Baalzebul, Beelzebub)'' - demon of gluttony, or '''Mammon''' - demon of avarice
*Different orders of Angels, or angel analogues such as [[Genie]]s (or djinn, as they were originally called in Islamic tradition)
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====Gnosticism====
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A wide family of dualistic beliefs and religious systems that formed around early Christian and Jewish sects that were influnced by Neoplatonism, Persian ideas, and Buddhism (maybe). The main belief of Gnosticism was that the material world was created by a Demiurge, who may or may not be the God of the Old Testament, is flawed/evil and the only way to be saved/ascend from earthly constraints is by obtaining ''Gnosis'', personal spiritual knowledge given by the hidden, supreme God pertaining to humanity's divine nature. This spiritual knowledge was emphasized by all gnostic faiths and was held superior to any teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.

Gnosticism is by and large unknown to most people, with Christianity and Islam having largely wiped it out, with only Mandaeism and the [[China|Chinese]] branch of Manicheanism having survived of the original Gnostic religions. Modern gnostic religions tend to be more reconstructionist rather than revivalist. It has influenced several fantasy settings, like [[Kult]], [[The Elder Scrolls]] and both of the [[World of Darkness]] Mage games.
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===Arthurian Mythology===
The story of a boy who becomes king of England and his knights. Arthurian lore is unusual among mythology in that historians actually know the names and history of the authors who created most of it. This doesn't make it any more consistent, in-fact even authors directly continuing existing stories couldn't be assed to keep basic things consistent. The issue has to do with Arthur's story being used by every ambitious bard to introduce their own [[Original character, do not steal|OC]] Knight of the Round Table and why theirs is the best of the bunch, as well as many of Britain's monarchs adjusting his story for their own political gain.

Of some minor note, the story of King Arthur ''may'' have some sorta kinda basis in reality. If he existed, he was apparently a '''general''', not king, who successfully fought in at least one battle to contain the invading Anglo-Saxons during the era after the collapse of the western Roman Empire. Given many, many washings through the story retelling and expanding machine after being combined with the mythos associated with the Holy Grail, we wind up with the King Arthur mythology.

For the closest thing to an official "canon" for Arthurian literature, it officially begins with Geoffrey Monmouth's ''The History of the Kings of Britain'', with some of the more prominent stories including ''Le Morte D'Arthur,'' ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,'' ''Perceval, the Story of the Grail,'' etc. There are much older, Welsh-based stories, but these little resemble the Medieval stories modern pop culture is more familiar with, and as such only fodder for ''actual'' historians.

(Side note: If you intentionally quote from ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' at the gaming table, you deserve to be punched in the face.)

'''Notable Characters:'''
*Arthur <s>(no shit are you fucking stupid oh my god jesus christ come on its IN THE FUCKIN--)</s>
*The Knights of the Round Table
**Lancelot: The closest of Arthur's companions and the greatest knight of the age, but also infamous for his long affair with Guinevere. Some scholars believe he was not part the original group of knights and actually just a completely separate fictional knight that met Arthur in a crossover and never left.
**Gawain: One of the earliest knights in Arthurian mythos, representing Wales. He typically gets shit on by the newer, fancier knights, but really comes into his own during his duel with the Green Knight. Plebs normally don't know that he's the actually Arthur's nephew by his sister, as well as being the eldest of FOUR other Knights of the Round, including the infamous Mordred (Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth). Due to this little-remembered fact, he's ''technically'' Arthur's heir, as Arthur and Guinevere had no (surviving -- the Welsh side of the mythos is iffy about this) children.
**Galahad: Lancelot's son. [[Grey Knights|Absolutely pure of heart]], and the only one able to sit in the lethal chair at the Round Table known as "The Siege Perilous." For this he is able to complete the quest for the Holy Grail. After finding it, he ascends into Heaven along with the Grail.
**Percival: The Knight who was supposed to find the grail before Galahad appeared. In his version of the story, he finds the grail is kept by the Fisher King, ruler of a wasteland that can only be healed by Percival becoming the new king. In later versions, Percival is unsuccessful in healing the land, allowing Galahad to take over.
**Kay: Arthur's [[Gish]] step-brother. One of the earliest written knights, but nobody remembers him. Kay was a guy's name once upon a time.
**Tristan: Similar to Lancelot, it's assumed he was integrated into Arthurian mythos, but unlike him Tristan had an existing legend attached to him. In it, he was sent by his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to bring back the maiden Isolde for him to marry. A love potion mishap caused Tristan and Isolde to fall in love with each other instead, and the tragic love affair that followed cost them their lives.
**Bedivere: The Knight who returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake after Arthur's death.
**Mordred: Most commonly depicted as Arthur's bastard son with his half-sister (who may or may not be Morgan le Fay depending on the story) or possibly his aunt, but like a lot of things in Arthur Mythos his background is inconsistent as hell. The most consistent part is that he starts a rebellion against Arthur, and in their final battle he mortally wounds Arthur but is killed himself.
*Merlin: Arthur's wizard and mentor, as well as the template for almost every other wizard in fantasy fiction since the genre was a thing. Works vary wildly on how benevolent he is and how he got his powers. Originally named Myrddin, but that sounded too close to "shit" for audiences that knew French, which was a lot of people at the time, so it was changed. Since having a super OP wizard as a buddy would make things too easy for Arthur, some stories have him trapped by Morgan's apprentice Vivian or the Lady of the Lake so that Merlin can't warn Arthur of his impending doom.
*Morgan le Fay: Merlin's opposite number. Sometimes Arthur's half-sister because fuck consistency. Depending on the story, she is either an ally or an enemy of Arthur.
*Guinevere: Arthur's wife. Falls for Lancelot shortly after they meet, and somehow their affair goes unnoticed until exposed by Morgan le Fay and Mordred.
*Lady of the Lake: A fey chick who gives Arthur Excalibur after the sword in the stone breaks. Since most adaptations make the sword in the stone and Excalibur one in the same her role varies wildly. Sometimes said to be Lancelot's adoptive mother.
*The Green Knight: Shows up to the castle one day and challenges each knight to chop his head off with an axe, on the condition he gets to do the same thing to them next year. Nobody is willing to accept the challenge... except Gawain. Gawain beheads the Green Knight [[Dullahan|only for him to pick the head right back up and walk away]], reminding Gawain of their deal. Gawain survives thanks to the the Green Girdle and learns the whole thing really was a test of the knights' courage by Morgan. If this sounds uncharacteristically consistent to you, it's because he only appeared in one story, albeit a well regarded one.
*The Black Knight: There's a few different ones, or it could just be another case of zero consistency. (It should be noted that knights with black armor were actual semi-historical figures; blackening up your armor made it vastly easier to maintain for a solo knight without a squire, so a Knight without a liege sometimes did so while either seeking new employment, or just plain wandering; alternately, the knight painted up his armor and shield to conceal his identity. Either way, you have a knight without a master, a worrying prospect to the feudal mind.)
*The Fisher King: Usually only shows up in Holy Grail-related stories; in some versions, as he suffers, so does the land, and vice versa, and in others, he's just a protector of the Grail who was wounded by it for some sin (usually, adultery or getting married in the first place), and the wound also in some way renders the land barren (and thus, needing to fish in order to get food, thus, "''Fisher'' King"). In the latter case, he's associated with a "Healing Question", a question that when asked of him will heal his wounds, which varies from version to version (the two most famous are "Who serves the Grail?", and "Why are you so wounded?").
*Very few adaptions use the Anglo-Saxons, the people who the earliest chronicles claim he fought against.

'''Notable Artefacts:'''
Arthurian myth has some of the highest artifact density out there. Among the most famous are:
*The Holy Grail: Has some connections to the life of Jesus, see above. Short version is that it grants immortality.
*The Sword in The Stone and/or Excalibur: The legendary sword which acts as Arthur's badge of office. In some versions of the myth they are the same sword, others not; some versions even name the other sword "Caliburn" (which is just a translation of the French "Excalibur" to Latin) The scabbard in particular protects Arthur from all wounds; for this reason, Morgan steals the Scabbard to weaken him.
*The Green Girdle: Obtained by Sir Gawain in ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. A girdle of green silk, none who wear it can be killed.
*The Round Table itself: Most works just make the round table a mundane table, but a few give it magical powers of some kind. The symbolic importance is that all knights are considered equal to each other as it lacks any ends for a head to claim. One seat, the Siege Perilous, kills all unworthy knight who would sit on it; only the one who will find the Holy Grail may sit in it.

===Chinese Mythology===
Since China lived right next to various, heavily religious nations countries like India and Tibet, their mythology contains many gods from Buddhism, although the ancient Chinese tended more towards Taoism as a general rule. Chinese mythology is pretty well known and famous in Asia and one of its most famous myths, "The Journey to the West", brought forth near-endless adaptations, including everyone's [[anime|favorite anime/manga about a certain half-monkey xeno super fighter]].
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==== World Creation according to Chinese Mythology ====
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The Chinese mythos displays a heavy Taoist belief influenced by the Zhou Dynasty that passed it down from generation to generation until the Three Kingdoms era, where one Xu Zheng finally committed the story to paper. Basically, there is but formless [[Chaos]] in the beginning and it coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced, and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu was a [[anime|Tengan Toppa]]-sized sky titan and a hairy primitive humanoid; he would separate the yin and yang (earth and sky) by lifting up the sky and holding it for the next 18,000 frigging years (because fuck you Atlas, you derivative hack). While doing his lifting, both the sky and earth grew ten feet (3 meters) everyday.

Pangu finally died at the end of this period, with the world forming from several of his remains: His breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; his head, the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood, rivers; his muscles, fertile land; his facial hair, the stars and Milky Way; his fur, bushes and forests; his bones, valuable minerals; his bone marrow, sacred diamonds; his sweat, rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became animals. Kinda similar to [[#Norse|Ymir the giant]], except he wasn't murdered and it wasn't metal enough that the blood became killer tsunamis.
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==== Nüwa ====
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An ancient goddess named Nüwa was the one who created humanity out of clay. Men that were molded by her in yellow clay became the top dog of their society, just because they were molded by her hand - the rest of humankind were made out of mud for mass production and were thus [[peasants]]. [[Skub|(Whether it was ancient Chinese propaganda to let everyone know their place is up to the reader's interpretation)]]. As she was busy creating humans, the pillar holding the sky broke, so she had to fix it herself using a giant azure turtle's shell as water container and its legs as a new set of pillars. There's also another version where she is depicted as the Chinese version of Eve, as well as the daughter of the Jade Emperor, the first god. Her husband Fuxi taught humans how to hunt and fish and gave them the first system of writing.
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==== Xiyou Ji (Journey To The West) ====
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Xiyou Ji (or ''Journey To the West'') is an important historical Chinese fantasy adventure novel about a journey undertaken to India by a Chinese Buddhist monk, known as Tang Sanzang/Xuanzang or Tripitaka, to get better copies of the Buddhist sacred texts. In this, he has recruited four protectors throughout the journey who agree to help him in atonement for their various sins; two guys nobody cares about: a disgraced commander from heaven named Zhu Bajie, who was punished by the gods into a pig like beastman (who ''everyone'' calls an idiot, even ''the narrator'') and Sha Wujing, a random sand bandit who was also from heaven and was banished (the black sheep of the party); a horse (who was secretly the dragon king's son, also disgraced); and the ''real'' protagonist, [[Sun Wukong]], the Monkey King (see his page for more backstory and details).

They proceed to set off on a journey where they learn the virtues and teachings of Buddhism and encounter a lot of interesting folks and weird episodes (such as monsters who wanted Xuanzang's flesh for immortality and power) along the way, many of which you might recognize if you're a fan of Japanese or Chinese-themed fantasy works.

But did they succeed in the end? After a long and approximately 9 to 14 years of pilgrimage, they finally reach the borderlands of India. They then traveled to the mythical place known as the Griddharaj Parvat(Vulture Peak) where Sanzang received the scripture from living Buddha. Afterwards, the gang received their own reward from the heaven, where they have ascended to Buddhahood.
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====The Twelve Zodiac====
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In the ancient China, there is this "Twelve Earthly Branches" that the ancient chinese used to identify dates and time. However, it's origin wasn't clear but it was explained in a humorous manner and replaced with the twelve animal instead. You see a long ago, the Jade Emperor decided to host a race to see which animal would be worthy for the calendar years. The race is special because the animals will have to cross a river to prove their resolves.

The first three animals mentioned in the story are the Rat, Ox and Cat. Since both the Rat and the Cat are bad at swimming, they decided to ride on the Ox's back. The Ox was easy going and just let them have the free trip. Just before they reach the finish line, [[Skaven|the Rat backstabbed the Cat by pushing it into the river and went for the 1st place itself]]. Because of that, Rat became the 1st in the race with Ox being the 2nd. The Tiger got the 3rd place, the reason being it was pushed back by the downstream currents despite being strong and powerful. The Rabbit got the 4th place after it crossed the river by jumping on the exposed rocks in the water. It almost drowned if it weren't for a drifting log that washed it to shore. The frigging dragon (the slender Chinese type) takes the 5th place after that. Despite it being celestial and all powerful, it explained to Jade Emps that it had to stop by a village to save the people there from a housefire. Then on the way, it found the Rabbit helplessly clinging onto the drifting log that the Dragon gives a boost with just one breath. The Horse steadily appeared with galloping sound from a far, but was frightened by the sudden appearance of The Snake, which ended up giving Snake the 6th place with the Horse being the 7th. The Goat, the Monkey and the Rooster gets the 8th, 9th and 10th place in order after they please the Jade Emps with some good teamwork crossing the river. The Rooster found the raft with The Monkey and The Goat pulling the raft. The Dog ended up being the 11th place despite being the best swimmer and runner, simply because it was playing in the water the whole time. The lazy Pig ended up being the 12th and final place despite it eating and sleeping in the middle of the race. The Cat that was drowned did not make into the race and it is the reason why it hates rats so much, as well as suffering aquaphobia because of that.
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===Egyptian Mythology===
Most well known for its collection of gods with [[Furry|the heads of animals]]. Unlike Greek or Norse mythology, has very little emphasis on mortal or demimortal heroes.

Egyptian mythology is wildly inconsistent due to spanning numerous cultures over thousands of years: for instance, the world is alternately said to have been created by Ra, Atem, Ptah, Thoth, or a collection of eight gods known as the Ogdoad. Whoever was the supreme god mainly depended on what city you were in and what time period it was, but the most well-known one was the sun god Ra. A common theme was the maintaining of a divine order known as Ma'at. Maintaining Ma'at on Earth was seen as the prime responsibility of the Pharoah, a priest-king who was seen as the bridge between mortals and gods. Another major theme is the concept of the death and rebirth of mortals and gods alike, leading to the famous Egyptian practices of [[Mummy|mummification]] and the construction of elaborate tombs. In total the Eyptian pantheon had thousands of gods (and that's not counting the dvine aspects attributed to Pharaohs), some of the most notable of them are discussed below.

'''Notable Gods:'''
*Ra: Falcon-headed (although he was also often depicted as a ram or a scarab) god of the sun. During the night, he voyaged through the underworld where he would battle the monstrous serpent Apophis. Also known as Khephri or Atum (among other names), depending on the time of day- it is said he was Khephri in the morning, Ra at noon, and Atum at night.
*Osiris: Formerly the god-king of Egypt, he was murdered and cut to pieces by his brother Set and became the god of the afterlife. Was resurrected by his sister Isis and they conceived Horus... then Set killed him again. Due to the Egyptian obsession with funerary rites, this made him a very important god.
*Isis: Sister/wife of Osiris and goddess of magic and wisdom. Her sorcery was what allowed Osiris to rise from the dead to become god of the afterlife. Her influence was particularly strong during the Roman Empire, and some scholars believe that elements of her worship may have influenced Christianity by way of the veneration of the Virgin Mary.
*Horus (no, not that [[Horus]]): Falcon-headed sky god and son of Osiris and Isis. Waged war against Set to avenge his father, which included humiliating him by [[/d/|ejaculating in his salad]]. Ended up taking his father's job, and so became the patron of the pharoahs. He is heavily associated with the symbol known as the Eye of Horus, which was believed to protect against evil.
*Anubis: Psychopomp deity that oversaw the Weighing of the Heart. Although in actual Egyptian mythology he was only Osiris' servant, his striking jackal-headed appearance has made him more well-known.
*Set: God of deserts, who due to being associated with foreign invaders was demonized into an evil god who murdered Osiris (most myths tell about him doing so out of jealousy, while in some he murdered Osiris for sleeping, and even some raping, Set's wife Nepthys). Wasn't the ultimate villain of Egyptian Mythology, that would be Apophis (who was so evil Set was portrayed as fighting him even after being demonized), but Apophis is nowhere near as infamous.
*Apophis: Essentially, the God of Evil and Darkness. Enemy of all living things, and the sort of guy who picks a fight with Ra each and every night, even though he loses every time. While others gods are depicted as humanoid, Apophis, also called Apep, was depicted as a snake or sometimes a crocodile. Trivia; the Ancient Egyptians believed that depicting Apophis gave him power, so to counteract this whenever they drew him, they'd draw him being beaten in a fight by another god.

===Greco-Roman Mythology===
[[:Category:Greek Mythology|The stuff introduced in Greek myth]] is pretty widespread. Some of it is so widely used people forget it came from the Greeks in the first place.

Interestingly, [[Eldar]] and [[High Elves|Elves]] [[Dark Elves|of the]] [[Wood Elves|Warhammer]] worlds took a lot of elements from Indo-European myth, the prime examples of the west being Greco-Roman mythology.

'''Notable Locations:'''
*Mt. Olympus: The home of the gods, notably Zeus. This place is where the gods look down on mortals while discussing how their mortal champions are going to shank their rival gods' champions.
*Tartarus: Named after one of the primordial gods, it is the deepest abyss, deeper than Hade's underworld. It imprisons the most wicked of criminals along with the titans.
*[[Atlantis]]: Legendary sea kingdom. Pissed off the gods with their expansionist behaviors and got dunked into the ocean. Technically not part of the mythology, but since Plato was the first one to write it down we're putting it here anyway.

'''Most notable heroes with lots of media adaptions:'''
*Zeus/Jupiter (in his more positive depictions): King of the gods and big good of the pantheon, being a fair judge and ruler of gods and men. If there's any work of fiction with a pantheon of deities, expect one of them to be patterned after Zeus. This guy ''fucks''.
*Hercules/Heracles: The most famous of Zeus' misbegotten sons, Hercules is a demigod who undergoes twelve great labors to atone for killing his family in a berserk rage, slaying many monsters and ultimately saving the gods from an attack by the giants.
*Theseus: Reputed to be the son of Poseidon and the slayer of the Minotaur, he was also credited with the rise of Athens.
*Perseus: Another of Zeus's bastards, and the ancestor of Hercules no less. Famous for slaying Medusa.
*Daedalus: A masterful inventor whose name became synonymous with master craftsmen. Most famously responsible for creating the Labyrinth for [[Minotaur|King Minos' beast]] before being locked up himself.
*The leaders of both sides of the Trojan War (Achilles, Hector, Paris etc.).

'''Most notable villains in media adaptions:'''
*Zeus (in his more negative depictions): Zeus is also known as a serial philanderer/rapist, having slept with plenty of mortal women, nymphs, and goddesses just because he could (and sometimes doing so while shapeshifted into another form: among others, he's been a goose, a bull, and a shower of gold, don't ask how the last one works) and has created as many problems as he has solutions. One could also cast Zeus as being dickish and a control freak as the ultimate authority of Olympus, like when he had Prometheus bound and tortured for giving fire to humanity.
*Hades: A rather glaring case of typecasting, despite being the god of the dead Hades isn't actually as much of a villain as popular media casts him. In truth he's a rather decent fellow, if a bit on the gloomy side. Perhaps the most glaring of crimes he's done is the matter of kidnapping Demeter's daughter Persephone to make her his wife (causing Demeter to plunge the world into famine until it was arranged for Persephone to come out of the Underworld for half the year, creating the seasons in the process), but compared to Zeus he's still a shining beacon of virtue in that respect. He gets even better if you consider that in some tellings she willingly came with him.
*Hera: Only in works involving Zeus' bastards, since she tended to be ''just a little bit annoyed'' at her husband's constant infidelity and was prone to taking her jealous rage out on whoever was unlucky enough to catch his eye at the time as well as his illegitimate progeny.
*The Titans: See below as to why they hate the gods. They tend to be quite cross about it, and eager for revenge.
*Ares: God of War, who constantly feeds upon it. Thus, any matter of peace is bound to be disrupted.
*The various offspring of Echidna: Echidna is a monstrous [[lamia]] goddess who is known to have birthed many monsters, chief among them Cerberus (guardian to the gates of Hades), the Lernian [[Hydra]], and the Nemean Lion (which Hercules slays)

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
*Pandora's box
*Daedalus's inventions (especially the wings of Icarus): Probably the first man-powered flying machine, though it was entirely made of wax. Daedalus made it so that his son Icarus could escape their prison, but Icarus flew too close to the sun in his hubris, causing the wings to melt and him to fall to his death.
*The sun chariot of Helios
*Pelt of the Nemean Lion: The first of Heracles' labors was to kill the Nemean Lion, a beast with an impenetrable hide. After finding this out, Heracles manages to do it in by strangling the beast. Heracles then tries to skin it, only to fail until Athena informs him to use the lion's own claws. The hide retains its invulnerability to most weapons.
*Ambrosia: The food of the gods, capable of preserving their powers like Iduna's golden apples.
*[[Talos]]: a ROBOT. That's right, a frigging bronze robot made by Hephaestus to protect Crete where it circles three times a day and crush invader ships with boulders. Was defeated by Jason's gang when Medea distract him while having its nail removed by her teammates, which pour out the ichors inside and killed it.
*All sorts of stuff used by the gods (Zeus's thunderbolts, Hades's helmet of invisibility, Neptune's trident, Hermes's winged sandals, Athena's shield -- sometimes with [[Medusa]]'s head on it...).

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==== The Greco-Roman Gods & Creation Myth ====
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There's a god for every aspect of ordinary life, like smithing, governing and war. This makes naming the entire pantheon quite lengthy (though we neckbeards might see it as a good challenge), so we won't bore you with the entire mess. The following is a list of important gods/goddess, especially ones pertinent to [[/tg/]] interests (such as [[D&D]]):
*'''Jupiter/Zeus''', the guy with the lightning bolts who is the king of the gods.
*'''Juno/Hera''', wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, childbirth, and women.
*'''Minerva/Athena''', goddess of wisdom and war born from Jupiter having a massive headache [[Sisters of Battle|fully grown up and armed]].
*'''Pluto/Hades''', Jupiter's eldest brother and the god of most of the Greco-Roman afterlife.
*'''Neptune/Poseidon''', Jupiter's other brother and the god of the seas.
*'''Apollo''', god of the sun, music, and archery.
*'''Diana/Artemis''', goddess of the moon and the hunt.
*'''Ceres/Demeter''', goddess of the harvest.
*'''Mercury/Hermes''', messenger of the gods.
*'''Venus/Aphrodite''', goddess of sex and love.
*'''Mars/Ares''', god of war.
*'''Vulcan/Hephasteus''', god of the forge.
*'''Vesta/Hestia''', goddess of the hearth.
*'''Bacchus/Dionysus''', god of wine and drunken revelry.

According to Greek myth, the first beings to come into existence were '''Gaia''' (the Earth) and '''Uranus''' (the sky). They had three sets of children: the Cyclopses, the Hecatonchires (giants with a hundred hands), and the Titans. Uranus imprisoned the first two in Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld. This upset Gaia and she called upon the Titans to [[FATAL|castrate their father with a flint scythe she had made]]. '''Saturn/Kronos/Cronus''', the youngest of their number, agreed and duly carried it out, becoming the new king of the world. However, Uranus warned Cronus that he too would be overthrown by his children.

Cronus sought to avoid this, so he [[Cannibalism|ate each one of them as a new one is born]] from his wife Rhea, but Rhea hid Zeus and fooled Cronus into eating a rock. Zeus then grows up and tricks his father into drinking wine mixed with mustard which makes him puke, saving all his brothers and sisters inside his father's belly (and who were somehow undigested), thus igniting a war that leads to the overthrow of the Titans. This event is known as '''The Titanomachy''' (Battle of the Titans). After all the Titans had been imprisoned in Tartarus and the Cyclopses and Hecatonchires freed, Zeus formed a government with the rest of his gods while living a [[Slaanesh|comfy hedonist life where he raped many mortal girls and had many bastard sons for the lulz]].

Roman myth can't agree on anything, because, unlike Grecian legends, it isn't racist and isolationist as fuck and takes from all Indo-European religions it encountered. This also means that it deviates from the "twelve important gods" rule that the Greeks had, and every area and time period had its own important gods. Imagine it as something akin to ancient Hinduism, minus all the mysticism (at least until all the Egyptian-esque mystery cults started popping up at the dawn of the Empire) and with the occasional emperor being declared a god after his death.
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===Hindu Mythology===
India is a big place with millennia of history, so it has a lot of deities; dominant sects frequently absorbed deities from competing sects into their mythos as aspects of their own favored deity, so many of those once distinct deities have coalesced together over the centuries. The Puranic period saw a deliberate effort to harmonize rival sects together, which gave rise to the Trimurti ("Three Forms"); this is the subset of the Hindu pantheon that is most well known in the Western world. It is also the subset of Hinduism which formed the mythological backbone of two popular [[RPG]] games: ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''. The three cyclical concepts underlying the Trimurti are Creation, Preservation, and Destruction, with a particular deity filling each role as the divine manifestation of that concept, with deities differing by sect. When the roles are filled by goddesses (''devi'') the triad is known as the ''Tridevi''. In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the Trimurti are known as the '''''Triat''''', in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' the Trimurti are known as the three '''''Primordia''''', and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' uses an atheist version of the concepts called the '''''Metaphysic Trinity'''''. The [[grimdark]] spin that [[White Wolf]] puts on the Triat is that the three deities are embroiled in a vicious theomachy against each other, and have all fallen from grace and have become corrupted extremist versions of themselves.

Reincarnation also plays a big role in Hinduism- humans accumulate karma based on their actions in life, with good deeds granting good karma and bad deeds granting bad karma. One's karma then determines what your soul will be reborn as (human, animal, even a god or demon) in the process of ''samsara''. Ultimately, Hindus seek to rid themselves of karma entirely, both good and bad, and by doing so escape the cycle of reincarnation.

====Deities of Creation====
'''Brahma the Creator''' is said to be the creator of all things, but apart from that not much is known about him save for his tendency to be a bit too free to grant favors. Unlike Brahma who has no dedicated temples, his feminine counterpart '''Sarasvati the Creatrix''' sees active worship not only in India but in surrounding countries in various permutations, such as in Japan in the form of Benzaiten. In the ''Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes'' supplement from [[TSR]], '''Brahama''' was the ruler of the Hindu pantheon (via conflation with the related Hindu concept of ''[[wikipedia:Brahman|Brahman]]''). In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous androgynous deity of creation is known as the '''Wyld''', and in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Dynamicism'''.

====Deities of Preservation====
'''[[Vishnu]] the Preserver''' is one of the two best known Hindu male deities; Vishnu preserves the world from evil and upholds virtue. He is said to have had nine incarnations, or ''avatars'' that have manifested when he was needed along with one which has not yet appeared:
*''[[Matsaya]]'' the fish- Saved humanity from a great flood.
*''[[Kurma]]'' the tortoise- Aided the gods in churning the Ocean of Milk to produce the water of life ''amrita''.
*''[[Varaha]]'' the boar- Pulled the earth out of the sea after it fell in due to the weight of the human race.
*''[[Narasimha]]'' the man-lion- Slew the Asura (demon) lord Hiranyaksha, who had received the boon that he could not be killed "during the day or night, inside or outside, by any weapon, and by man or animal". So instead Narasimha [[rules lawyer|killed him at twilight with his claws as he was stepping through his doorway]], hitting every loophole at once.
*''[[Vamana]]'' the dwarf- When the Asura Mahabali conquered the universe, Vamana won it back through cunning.
*''[[Parashurma]]'' the axe-bearer- Defeated the Kshatriyas when the warrior caste grew prideful and oppressive.
*''[[Rama]]''- Hero of the ''Ramayana'' and prince of the kingdom of Kosala, famed for his war against the Asura king Ravana and his friendship with Hanuman the monkey king.
*''[[Krishna]]''- The most beloved of Vishnu's avatars. Many legends speak of him, but he is best known for his appearance in the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' as the charioteer for the prince Arjuna. Notably, he's popular enough to have inspired sects that claim Vishnu is one of ''his'' avatars and not the other way around. Also the supreme God in the Hare Krishna cult/airport conga line.
*''[[Buddha]]''- Yes, the same one from Buddhism. Needless to say, the Buddhists disagree with that interpretation.
*''[[Kalkin]]''- The "Future Avatar", who will appear upon a white horse and destroy evil forever.

In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess '''Lakshmi the Preservatrix''' (a.k.a. '''[[Vaishnavi]]''') sees more worship than Vishnu. In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous feminine deity of preservation is known as the '''Weaver''', and in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Stasis'''.

====Deities of Destruction====
Despite his title, '''Shiva the Destroyer''', the other of the two best known Hindu male deities, is viewed as a benevolent being who clears away the old and corrupt to make way for new creation. He is commonly depicted either as a slayer of demons or as a wise ascetic, and he's also strongly associated with dance (the means by which destruction and creation anew is achieved). In older scripture he was called '''Rudra''', a deification of destructive storms.

In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess '''[[Kali]] the Destructrix''' (a.k.a. '''Parvati''') sees more worship than Shiva. You might recognize the fiercer depictions of Kali from [https://youtube.com/watch?v=R0S8JZ6YO5c that one scene in Indiana Jones where the human sacrifice gets his heart ripped out of his chest].

In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous masculine deity of destruction is known as the '''Wyrm''', in ''[[Orpheus]]'' the nominally feminine deity of destruction is called Grandmother, in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Entropy''', and in ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]'' it is called, well, '''Oblivion''' (although both Grandmother and Oblivion seems to be something entirely separated and sometimes even enemies of the Wyrm).

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====Hindu Creation Myths====
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Every sect of Hinduism has its own version of the creation myth in which they somehow spin their own favored deity as the primary agent of creation, even if it is just simply claiming that a well-known name of a creator/creatrix deity is really just an aspect of the adherent's favored deity. Within the collective of Hindu myths of creation and related topics there is a running theme of recurring cycles of creation and destruction of consecutive universes; one iteration of universal creation and destruction is called a ''kalpa''.

Furthermore, every deity is but a single aspect of the ''Brahman'', the transcendent Godhead from which all other things derive from. It cannot be understood directly, but by adhering to one's dharma (their duties in life) and working off karma over many lifetimes a human can attain ''moksha''- freedom from samsara and eternal communion with the Brahman.

Other related religions of course have different beliefs from the Hindu myths. Jainism doesn't have a creation myth, believing that the universe has simply always existed and will exist. Buddhism says that the universes come into being and dissolve in cycles lasting billions of years by themselves.
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===Japanese Mythology===
Japanese laymen don't really bother separating their religions, taking up whatever is convenient or trendy at a particular phase in their life, and thus the major religions (Shinto, Buddhism), some more minor ones, and various folk heroes exist simultaneously. Rarely touched by non-Japanese works that aren't the pantheon for [[Japan]] analogues.

Japan is rife with it's own mythology, which often is connected to history. The most notable example is the first emperor - Jimmu. He is said to be a descendant of Amaterasu but is also taken as a real ancestor to the Imperial Family (which is why the Emperor was worshiped until the end of WWII); this is the equivalent of the British royal family theoretically dating their lineage from King Arthur, if King Arthur himself were a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.

In present day, all three religions plus a number of new religious movements exist in Japan.
There is a common misconception that most Japanese today are non-religious, largely stemming from cultural differences and the somewhat looser nature of Shinto and Buddhism as compared to Abrahamic faiths when it comes to mass-rituals and worship. Suffice it to say that anywhere from 50-80% of Japanese (depending if one counts Shinto and Buddhism individually or combined) pray and partake in religious rituals.

Japanese have a plethora of their native gods, in fact, ''plethora'' is a bit of an understatement. Shintoism posits that every thing, be it rock, flower or a makeup set has its own ''kami'' or god/spirit, and depending on what one counts, there are up to 1 MILLION (or literally uncountable number) Japanese gods/kami (see also god depiction in [[Exalted]]).

'''Notable Deities/Characters:'''
*'''[[Izanami and Izanagi]]''': See the creation myth.
*'''[[Amaterasu|Amaterasu Omikami]]''': Goddess of the sun, her name literally translates to 'the august (one amongst) kami that shines in the sky'. Major figure in Shintoism, quite benevolent toward mankind; because the damn sun is ''that'' important to us humans. The Japanese imperial family once claimed descent from her, but stopped doing so after World War II. How the majority to entirety of Japan's people as a whole weren't as well, since far younger people are ancestors of the majority of far larger and less isolationist populations, was never explained.
*'''[[Susano-o]]''': Amaterasu's brother and god of storms. Hot-headed, passionate braggart that likes getting into trouble. Kicked out of heaven for being an absolute dick (and especially for his last prank on his sister that would've ended fatally for everyone else). While walking the earth he proceeds to kill the Orochi, among other (anti-)heroics, and eventually gets his way back into heaven with the fat loot he finds as well as reconciling with his sister (and giving her a bitchin sword that she would later give to her mortal descendant-turned-emperor of Japan).
*'''[[Fujin]]''' - God of wind and one of the oldest gods, said to have been there when the world was created, often paired with Raijin.
*'''[[Raijin]]''' - God of thunder and lightning, often paired with Fujin. Known for eating people's bellybuttons during stormy nights if someone managed to piss him off.
*'''[[Hachiman]]''' - God of war, formerly god of agriculture until he got bored of it or something. His traditional animal and messenger is, ironically, a dove.
*'''[[Inari Okami]]''' - God/Goddess/group of spirits (it's complicated) and another major figure of Shintoism. Protector(s) of foxes, rice, tea and sake, of agriculture and industry; granter of fertility, general prosperity and worldly success to humans. Patron of [[kitsune]], who acts as his messengers.
*'''[[Okuninushi]]''' - God of nation-building, business, farming and medicine.
*'''[[Omoikane]]''' - God of wisdom and frequent adviser to the other kami.
*'''[[Tsukuyomi]]''' - God of the moon. He killed the goddess of food after witnessing how she created it by basically vomiting it from her mouth. After killing her, his sister Amaterasu vowed she would never again face him and thus the sun and the moon never do either.
*'''The [[Orochi]]''': Giant nine-headed snake monster that likes to eat (?) female sacrifices. Susano-O gets it drunk and kills it, then he finds the Kusanagi on its corpse.
*'''[[The Buddhas]]''': While normal Buddhists don't "worship" the Buddha, more Shinto leaning Japanese often do. See Buddhism whenever someone is assed to add it for how it's supposed to go. Siddartha Gautama is the one people talk about when they say "The Buddha", but the completely separate Budai/Laughing Buddha is the main one ignorant Westerners know the visual of.
**'''Various Buddhist demons''': Mostly assholes that tried to stop people from achieving enlightenment. Some are actually former assholes who were redeemed by enlightened people and now act as protectors.
*'''[[The Four Heavenly Kings]]''': Bishamonten, Jikokuten, Zouchouten and Koumokuten, the guardians of the North, East, South and West respectively. Their title is co-opted by everything (no seriously, '''everything''': examples include Hollywood stars, Japanese comedy acts, Chefs, (female) Idol Singers, even foodstuffs like meats and canned goods) with four members in Japanese culture, [https://legendsoflocalization.com/tricky-translations-2-the-four-heavenly-kings/ though westerners may not notice it because the title gets translated a shit ton of ways depending on the context].
*'''[[Yokai]]''': Various mythical monsters. The most famous are the [[Kitsune]], Kamaitachi, [[Tengu]] and (though not always counted as one) [[Oni]].

'''Historical People Shrouded in Myth'''
*Emperor Jimmu: [[God-Emperor of Mankind|THE GOD EMPEROR OF JAPAN]] as well as the first Emperor and the descendants of Goddess Amaterasu. Most of his records were old and depict him as a warrior hero-god character accompanied by Yatagarasu, a three-legged crow and wielding a longbow. He died at the age of 126 and has little to no worshipers in modern-day other than having at least a shrine and grave.
*Abe no Seimei: A court magician who lived between 921 and 1005. Fiction tends to make him an actual wizard.
*Himiko: Queen of Japan around 200 AD. Chinese records make it clear she existed but very little is known about her.
*Masakado: Samurai who led a brief rebellion in 940. He's considered the god of Tokyo. His shrine/grave occupies some of the most expensive real estates in the world, as it is thought that neglecting his shrine will cause his angry spirit to bring disaster upon Tokyo.
** Takiyasha Hime: His daughter. Fiction makes her a sorcerer with a toad [[Familiar]]. Possibly entirely fictional.
*Tomoe Gozen: A female [[Samurai]] that actually fought in battle in 1184.
*Oda Nobunaga: Self-proclaimed "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven" (That's '''''historical fact''''' recorded by a Jesuit missionary who knew him personally). Defacto unifier of Japan, while the dominos he set up were falling, he was murdered by his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide for unknown reasons. His successors conquered the country after he did the hard parts, forming what would become the Tokugawa Shogunate. Since he was ruthless and called himself a demon, it's no mystery why fiction depicts him as a literal one.
*Hattori Hanzo: A general during the late Sengoku era. He's better known for allegedly being a [[ninja]].
*Ishikawa Goemon: Bandit during the late Sengoku era, executed along with his infant son by being boiled alive after a failed assassination attempt on Nobunaga's successor. Reputed to be a Robin Hood-like figure and also allegedly a ninja.

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
*The Imperial regalia (Kusanagi, Magatama and the Yata no Kagami): A sword, mirror, and rosary that are considered the badges of office for the Emperor.
*Katana created by famous swordsmiths
**Muramasa: Swords created by the famous (and real) swordsmith Sengo Muramasa. Allegedly his swords have a taste for blood and are demonic in nature and can't be sheathed if they haven't tasted blood yet.
**Masamune: Even though Masamune lived hundreds of years before Muramasa, their swords are often counterparts in fantasy. In contrast to Muramasa, Masamune's blades are supposedly holy.
**Kotetsu: Nagasone Kotetsu was a quality swordsmith from the Edo period with a really fitting name (虎鉄 or "Tiger Iron"). His works are notable but if they show up in fiction expect them to be inferior to the above two.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
==== Creation Myth ====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
According to the Kojiki, the world (or just Japan because every culture at that time are so close minded that they believe their kingdom is THE entire world) was created by 2 gods: Izanami (the wife) and Izanagi (the husband). There were 5 other gods with difficult to pronounced name like Kotoamatsukami (別天津神, "Separate Heavenly Deities") before them, but they entrust these two with the world's creation because they are genderless and thus unable to procreate the next generation. Izanami and Izanagi belongs to the Kamiyonanayo ("Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods") and they shape the earth with this totally awesome spear called Ame-no-nuboko (天沼矛, "heavenly jeweled spear") and create the islands and land using salt.

They then settled down onto the land they've created and mated. Unfortunately, the first two children they conceived, Hiruko and Awashima, were mutants, so badly deformed that the parents decided to send them on a lone boat trip before their third birthday; Hiruko survived, worked hard and became a god known as Ebisu. Turns out, after confronting their elders about the misfortune, it was Izanami's fault for not acting properly during the mating ritual, causing birth defects and such. After some proper mating, their descendants were born, who would eventually become the modern day Japanese islands (or else the islands were named after them). Izanami then died giving birth to Kagutsuchi, a serpent Human Torch-wannabe that burned his mother upon his birth. Izanagi was angered and eight-pieced him, turning his body into 8 volcanoes; his blood on Izanagi's sword became the sea god Watatsumi and rain god Kuraokami. This also marks the end of the creation.

Izanagi was overwhelmed by grief that he traveled to Yomi ("land of the dead") to see his dead wife. Unfortunaly, Izanami already belonged to Yomi after eating its food. Izanagi refused to leave Izanami in this dark land, and waited there because Izanami agreed to go back if she had some rest, but the worried Izanagi decided to see what's going on with his dead wife by lighting a torch using his magical head comb - unfortunately, he found Izanami was already a maggot-ridden, ghoul-like monster. (Some retellings turn this into an 'Orpheus and Eurydice'-style affair where he [[Derp|looks back just as they reach the end]], cursing Izanami to be trapped.) Izanagi was scared so shitless that he ran away, while Izanami called the Shikome (ugly underworld woman) to chase him. After a long Looney Tunes chase that involves Izanagi's use of his magical hair dress and his urine to stop his pursuers, he eventually returns to the living realm. Izanami curses her husband and claims that she will kill 1,000 people everyday, with Izanagi responding that he will give birth to 1,500.
</div>
</div>

===Norse Mythology===
See the [[Norse Mythology]] page.

==Miscellaneous Mythical Figures/Artifacts/Stories That Are Directly /tg/ Relevant==

Although the above are the big hitters of Mythology Adaption in /tg/ stuff, there are a few miscellaneous ones who show up that may be worth mentioning. Here's a couple:

*'''Ariadne''': Per preeminent mythologist Karl Kerényi et al., Ariadne was a Minoan mother goddess of weaving and labyrinths who, upon absorption into Greco-Roman mythology, retained her deific name ''Ariadne'' meaning "Most Holy". In the [[Midgard]] D20 setting the goddess Ariadne also goes by the name ''[[Rava]]'', the Spinner of Fate and the Clockwork Oracle.
*'''Baba Yaga''': Probably the sole character from Russian folklore that most people would recognize. Talking about her in any detail would be overly long, even for this overly long article, so just [[Baba Yaga|read about her on her own article here]]. Privateer Press gave her [[Khador|a mini]].
*'''St. Cuthbert''': [[wikipedia:Cuthbert|Famous English monk and later bishop]]. Somehow wound up in [[Greyhawk]], for much the same reason that [[Murlynd|Clint Eastwood]] did.

==Urban Legend==
The '''Urban Legend''' is another type of myth, specifically one of a modern-day taste and often significantly connected to that country's pop culture. In Japan, many classic myths of Yokai continue to "exist" (see: [[Touhou]]), and some have been modernized to fit with new technology (for example, a cursed cart may become a cursed car). [[Board-tans/x|Creepypastas]] are a common sub-variant. Here are some examples:

*'''Bermuda Triangle''' - A triangular region in the gulf of Mexico with Bermuda island, Puerto Rico and Miami, Florida as its angle point. Reputed to be a place of paranormal activity where ships and aircraft suddenly loses their signal and disappeared, both on air or water. In reality, the Triangle is just one of the most heavily trafficked areas in the world, in a region known for storms and general bad weather; if there weren't several mysterious disappearances (and nautical and aeronautical life had, and occasionally still has, plenty of those), it would be surprising.
**'''Mary Celeste''' - A ship that was found abandoned in 1872 undamaged, with ample provisions, undisturbed cargo and a log dated to ten days prior to it being found. Was actually found well outside of the Bermuda Triangle, but often associated with it. Proposed solutions for what happened range from attempted insurance fraud to equipment malfunction, a waterspout strike and a butane explosion. The "wreck" was acquired by a new owner, who promptly sunk it in a poor attempt at insurance fraud.
**'''The Flying Dutchman''': Associated with the Cape of Good Hope, rather than the Bermuda Triangle, but frequently mentioned in connection with the Triangle as well. The most famous "Ghost ship" other then the ''Mary Celeste''; unlike the ''Celeste'', the ''Dutchman'' was only reported to have been seen, but never boarded. The ''Dutchman'' was supposedly an omen of doom, but given that in order to see a ship that isn't there you'd probably have to be in very poor visibility conditions, this reputation has an obvious explanation.
*'''Bloody Mary''' - It is said to be a malevolent spirit who if you call its name "Bloody Mary" in front of a mirror three times, she will come and do something horrible to you. A pretty stupid game often participate by very small children and idiots.
*'''Cryptids''' - Various creatures of folklore that, other then being fucked up looking, are actually plausible animals of one sort or another. Some have been substantiated, but most are just fake or distorted stories of other, known animals (as is speculated having happened with the [[Unicorn]] and Rhinoceros). Such creatures include:
**'''Bigfoot''' - Also known as Sasquatch. It is some sort of ape/man creature, named after its big foot print on the ground. Its sighting are mostly around the Pacific Northwest.
**'''Chupacabra''' - A small bear size monster who likes to suck a goat's blood dry. First spotted in Puerto Rico, where it killed 8 sheep, it is said that its influence has spread across Latin America. Allegedly, the idea of the chupacabra was just stolen from the movie Species.
**'''Drop Bear''' - Australian joke: Take a Koala, and pretend it's an ambush predator who kills by jumping on its prey, with a taste for human flesh. While clearly originating as a joke, unlike most "real" cryptids, the concept has been used straight in several contexts in fantasy works. As if Australia's actual dangerous animals weren't enough.
**'''Jackalope''' - A rabbit with antelope horns. Possibly based on sightings of rabbits with Shope papilloma virus, which causes infected hosts to grow horn-like tumors. The most popular version seems to have originated as a 12-year-old taxidermist's idea of a joke.
**'''Jersey Devil''' - Weird monster supposedly lurking in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, thus making it the most interesting thing in the state.
**'''Loch Ness Monster''' - A long necked sea creature that allegedly lives in Loch Ness in the Scottish highlands. Presumably to be Mauisaurus, a pre-historical sea dinosaur who shares the similar long neck appearance.
**'''Mokele-mbembe''' - A weird African swimming beast with reptilian traits. Widely believed to be either a rhinoceros or a hippopotamus (the latter of which are responsible for killing more people per year than any other animal in Africa) though some have claimed it's a rediscovered dinosaur - a sauropod specifically, as numerous descriptions ascribe it a long neck alongside reptilian features.
**'''Mothman''' - There were a bunch of West Virginia sightings of a "Man with Wings". Later got overhyped as having supernatural powers, and associated in some way with a local bridge collapse when writers looking to cash in got involved. Side note: Most descriptions from the early, pre-overhype encounter match a unusually large crane.
**'''Rods/Sky Fish''' - Extraterrestrial lifeforms that move at an unseen speed that can only be caught by camera. [[Skub|It may or may not be real]], since it might be just elongated visual artifacts appearing in photographic images and video recordings. Other insects like moths are mistakenly caught on camera and assumed to be them. It helps that there were no actual dissections of the creatures, and most of the videos about catching it are fake and exist for pure entertainment. In some fiction, e.g. [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]], they are portrayed as vaguely creatures with actual limbs and organs that feed on temperature and have the power to KILL or disable a person by absorbing the body heat from their vital organs.
**'''Tsuchinoko''' - Also known as "child of hammer", "child of dirt" or "bachi hebi" in Northeastern Japan, it is a snake that is 30 and 80 cm long, has a thin head and tail, and a wide girth in between. It was referenced in Kojiki (古事記) "Records of Ancient Matters" meaning it might have existed at some point in ancient Japan. [[Skub|Others would argue]] that it could be a type of slug who's features became exaggerated over thousands of years, an extinct snake species or an undiscovered snake species. Whatever the cases, the damn thing is popular in Japan and has been featured in many video games, manga and TV show.
**'''Yeti''' - Like Bigfoot above, but found in the Himalayan mountains.
*'''Grays''' - A stock alien appearance of short, large-headed, large-eyed, generally naked, grey men. Allegedly probe humans, steal cows and make patterns in vegetation while riding around in a saucer shaped spacecraft. Supposedly crashed in Rosswell, New Mexico in 1947, which was covered up by the US Government as a "weather balloon"; more recent declassification suggest it ''was'' a balloon, just an experimental and classified one meant for Cold War era spying and hushed up for fear that the Soviets would learn about it.
**'''Area 51''' - [[Wikipedia:Area 51|An actual military base]] in Nevada that the crashed spacecraft was allegedly taken to. Allegedly home to all sorts of government experiments on the supernatural and/or extraterrestrial. Takes its name from the much larger surrounding military reservation which is divided up into similarly numbered areas where the government plays with its most [[Ordinatus|Orky toys]]. Though the existence of the factual military base existing was always known, the US government didn't officially acknowledge it till 2013. Officially it's used for testing experimental and captured aircraft and thus highly classified. Supposedly, the US government thought that the UFO hysteria was good cover for the then-secret U-2 program, as any spotted aircraft could be explained away by kooks as an alien spacecraft.
**'''Men in Black / Majestic-12''' - Another component that's common to UFO conspiracies is a secret branch of the government dedicated to keeping the public in the dark about the existence of aliens. Some stories of the Men in Black instead suggest they're aliens impersonating human government agents to keep the stories quiet. The urban legend version is significantly scarier and more malevolent than their movie counterparts, but a bit ''less'' malevolent than those in the comics the movies were adapted from. The only known evidence of their existence was long since proven to be a forgery.
*'''Jack the Ripper''' - Also known by the London old media as the "Leather Apron", ol' Jack was a real life serial killer in London during 1[[Khorne|888]]. Since he was never caught and the number of victims can't be verified - five are specifically attributed to him - his identity remains a mystery and he is therefore held as the greatest serial killer. Known for mutilating his victim in the most precise manner and the mocking letters he wrote to the police (which are still held in Scotland Yard). He was even suspected to be a woman, with new nicknames such as "Jill the Ripper" added to the long list of nicknames. Since nothing physical is known about the killer, fiction is free to attribute supernatural origin (such as a possessed human or being a monster outright) or that the killer's vileness resulted in transformation into some kind of monster. Making the killer supernatural allows it to be divorced from its time period.
** Various other uncaught serial killers can get this sort of treatment, but to a much lower degree, with the notable exception of the Zodiac Killer, who shared Jack's media savvy.
* '''D. B. Cooper''' - Short version: Guy Hijacks a commercial airplane, demands $200,000 ($1.28 Million in today's money) and four parachutes, gets them, jumps out of the plane over state park, and is never seen again. Long version: [[wikipedia:D. B. Cooper|Wikipedia is your friend]].
* '''John Henry''' - A black manual laborer who raced against his industrialized replacement and won, but died from exhaustion at the end. Even if it was loosely based on a real story, any accounts of a real John Henry existing have been lost to history.
** '''Casey Jones''' - Unlike Henry, Jones was definitely a [[wikipedia:Casey Jones|real life train conductor]] who died saving the lives of his passengers. One of his assistants wrote a song defending Jones' reputation<ref>There was some argument at the time that Jones should have seen the signal indicating a possible collision, but the night was foggy, and both signal lights and signalmen could be unreliable.</ref> that got very popular shortly thereafter, and soon turned into a popular figure around which a mythology developed.
*'''Kiyotaki tunnel''' - A haunted tunnel in Japan said to be built by slaves in 1927. It is said to have an unfortunate length of 444 meters long (4 is a unlucky number in Japan--the word for "4" is a homophone for "death") and it is a famous suicide spot. There were witness who saw the spirit of suicide victim walking towards the tunnel. There are reports where the traffic light outside of the tunnel suddenly changing color and causing car accidents. The tunnel is frequently referenced by horror manga and anime where it is portrayed as a tunnel full of tormented spirits, dragging other passing travellers in to suffer with them.
*'''Radioactive Deer''' - Although decades have passed since the accident, the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant remains one of the most contaminated places on Earth. Every wildfire or severe storm that hits the area will inevitably spawn several days of doomsday fear-mongering from the press about nuclear tornadoes or toxic milk. Some recent horror stories have begun to weave the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga, the monstrous child-eating crone of the woods, into the story of the ruins of Pripyat.
*'''Slender Man''' - A fictional character that originated as an Internet meme created by [[Something Awful]] forums user Victor Surge in 2009. It is depicted as resembling a thin, unnaturally tall man with a blank and usually featureless face and wearing a black suit. The Slender Man is commonly said to stalk, abduct, or traumatize people, particularly children. The Slender Man is not tied to any particular story, but appears in many disparate works of fiction, mostly composed online, with the most famous being a series known as "Marble Hornets". Also famous for inspiring two girls to nearly murder their classmate in order to become his "proxies".

==Popular mythology elements used in Fantasy==
*[[Dwarfs]]
*[[Elves]]
*[[Vampires]]
*[[Werewolves]]
*[[Mermaids]]
*[[Necromancer|Necromancy]]
*[[Troll]]s
*[[Giant]]s
*[[Minotaur]]
*[[God|Gods/Deities]]
*[[Genie]]
*[[Dragon]]
*[[Orc]]
*[[Monstergirls]]

*More than one [[Superhero]] and Supervillain are based directly on Mythical figures. The most prominent at Marvel are Hercules and Thor, who are both exactly the characters named above, and the Black Knight, who descends from the Arthurian one. On the DC side there's Wonder Woman, an [[Amazon]] who frequently comes into conflict with the Greek gods and other elements of Greek myth.

==See Also==
*[[Yog-Sothothery]] - Mythology created by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] that took elements from other mythologies. Its "deities" are a bunch of alien like tentacle monster that defy laws of physic and drives people insane.

==Footnotes==

[[Category:History]]

Mythology

2022-08-26T00:48:41Z

2601:249:8200:5A40:897:B0AD:9D5C:DD3D: /* Abrahamic Mythology (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) */

In the olden days, before the scientific method was developed, people sought explanations for why the world exists as it does. Humans being humans, their first explanations revolved around ascribing human-like characteristics to natural phenomena, which in turn became the first gods worshiped by humankind. [[Skub|Depending who you ask]].

From there, stories spread about the nature of the gods. In time, people began telling other stories that sought to explain such thinigs as the origins of the world (cosmogonia), the origins of humankind (antropogonia), what happens after death (eschatology), or the exploits of ancient heroes. Many other mythical creatures are thought to have started the same way - for example, stories of giants being an attempt to explain the existence of massive fossilized bones (which we now know belonged to long-extinct animals such as mammoths). As these stories passed down through generations as either legends or religion, they gave birth to the fantasy genre we all know and love.

In a sense, '''mythology''' is a blend of history and fantasy, with elements of what might have really happened wrapped up in cultural beliefs, and then shaped by the worldview of the societies that created the myths in question. Even in the present day more than a few such myths are still prevalent, despite them no longer being openly supernatural, such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Many other such myths are significantly tied to the culture's religion.

Older myths often contained bizarre and fucked up shit like incest and rape, because people in ye olden times <s>[[Slaanesh|were fucking deranged and kinky as all hell]], and as far as they were concerned, nothing was off limits</s> had very different standards of morality than our own.

Put far less bluntly, several cultures saw their gods as models ''OF'' human behavior rather than FOR human behavior, and as such are not inherent indicators of how [[/d/|"deviant"]] a society was (though it ''also'' doesn't mean they might not have been fucked up in some ways). Naturally, exceptions to this "rule" do exist, e.g. the schools of Buddhism, where the core tenet is to transcend the impermanent nature of existence and break the cycle of death and rebirth thus achieving ''nirvana''; the central figurehead, Buddha, and his teachings are explicitly to be emulated as opposed to worshipping him directly (although some branches of Mahayana Buddhism do consider him divine, it's complicated).

Shifts in mythological narratives can also occur due to cultural osmosis and/or conflict; some "foreign" gods are integrated into local mythos or considered an aspect of a "native" god within the pantheon, while other gods (usually from conquered peoples) were sometimes demonized, [[Demon|often literally so]]; alternately, existing gods may shift in nature and reputation due to either technological shifts, or political ones. With different cultures from country to country, mythologies all had their own angels/demons/spirits/energies, with their moralities varying based on how their own cultures and others perceived them. Natural phenomena (the sun, the sea, storms, etc.) and common abstracts (chaos, order, art, etc.) will inevitably feature in nearly any culture's pantheon.

==Connection with Fantasy Genres==
As you can see, many an author took interest in the old legends and decided to include its elements in their own stories. Notably, Tolkien took many elements from the Norse and Germanic Mythologies and popularized the concept of fantasy races like Dwarfs and Elves.

Between these connections and the fact that some mythologies form the basis for many beliefs, both ancient and modern-day (e.g. the Abrahamic religions), while others often incorporate historical and semi-historical figures (with obvious overlap), the following thus bears mentioning: Many other authors have used existing religions (often including their own) as a basis to inform the mythos or cosmology of their settings; [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] in particular is well known for this, as is C.S. Lewis. Liberties will be taken with adapting such figures directly or creating analogues for a given fiction, the same as it would be with any other adaptation. As such should not be taken as absolution or commentary on the reality of such beliefs unless explicitly intended; even in that event such liberties can only be indicative of the author's own beliefs or lack thereof, which is still a far cry from true spiritual or theological objectivity, regardless of how much (if at all) the author may actually want it to be.

<span style='font-size:150%'>{{BLAM|'''''TL;DR The preceding and following descriptions have no ''necessary'' bearing on the matter of whether or not a given being exists or how much of any Scriptures are true or false.'''''}} [[Skub|That's a matter we'll leave to the reader.]]</span>

For the purposes of this article, we're focused more on '''characters''' (including Deities), '''species''', and '''artifacts''', along with particular '''individual stories''' that get repurposed or directly referenced in RPGs. If you're genuinely curious about religious beliefs and/or specifically how it figures into RPGs, we have the [[religion]] article for that.

==Mythologies==
===Abrahamic Mythology (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)===
The one set of mythology everyone most familiar with in the West and the Middle East, since you learn them in church. Or synagogue, or mosque, you get the idea.

Much of the Abrahamic mythology is drawn from the old Hebrew Bible, though it has been expanded considerably by prose and poetry over the centuries, meaning that there is a wealth of third-party, non-canon material out there for DMs to use in their campaign settings. Christian mythology is one of the many mythologies that were derived from Jewish mythology; the same goes for Islamic mythology and many others from Middle Eastern countries. Hence, they are collectively referred to as "Abrahamic" after the Biblical patriarch.

As Islamic mythology is not commonly depicted for a bunch of reasons (most notably because Islam derives from Jewish and Christian mythology, thus sharing many figures and events, along with Islam having a taboo against depicting religious figures - especially their chief prophet Muhammad - that Muslim extremists have often violently enforced even to this day), this section will primarily cover the Jewish and Christian elements of Abrahamic mythology.

'''Most notable heroes with lots of media adaptions:'''
*God is rarely depicted as a particularly active hero, but may [[Just as planned|work in mysterious ways.]] How Yahweh/God/Allah operates tends to be a lot of [[skub]], as all three of these religions nominally pray to the dame Deity, but each perceives him differently
**For the Jews, Yahweh (among many names) is the creator of the universe as well as the patron of their people. Most religions before theirs were polytheistic, believing in the existence of many gods suitable for worship. While there may have been many dudes and dudettes worthy of worship and maybe only one or two "creators", the Jews were unique in that they worshipped only '''one.''' While the other cultures around them had patron deities who were roughly analogous to their home cities (so while many of the Mesopotamian peoples would have the same pantheon, only their local god would be worthy of their worship, at least in general), Jews believed that there was only '''one true god''' and he had a special relationship with them, and the rest were lesser beings, unworthy of worship. From the Jewish perspective, their early covenant means they have already been saved, so long as they keep to their part of the bargain. Because of their self-assurance in this one god and their relationship with him, their polytheistic neighbors didn't get along with them. This worsened when they hardened their stance to say that their god was the '''only god''' and that all other purported gods were false idols fit only for destruction.
**Christians came second, and believed in the teachings of the famous Jew, Jesus. They believe that Jesus is the literal Son Of God, that he taught them a whole bunch of stuff that's in the Bible, died and [[Meme|got better]] after 3 days. Afterwards, his 12 [[Primarch|apostles]] [[Word Bearers|went all over the world being annoying]] and getting polytheists to convert, pretty [[The Last Church|much always by force and cultural eradication]]. There are many flavours of Christian, and a pretty wide (or narrow) canon. Seriously, the [[Dark Angels|Roman Catholics]] who we get all the fun Gothic and Inquisitorial themes justify their doctrines from the works of <s>philosophers and theologians</s> fucking nerds from all the way to the Roman era. Fun little conclaves like the Council of <s>[[Council of Nikaea|Nikaea]]</s> Nicaea were basically just debates among leaders of the Early Churches trying to agree on the nature of God and what beliefs are HERESY and what's not. Their reliance on <s>the catholic wiki</s> an entire body of secondary works and not the "primary source" that was the Bible eventually caused the Reformation and led to all the fun of Protestants and Evangelicals that we have so much fun with today, and that's before we factor in the schism between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and the miscellaneous splinter sects of all three major branches of Christianity. '''Tl;dr''' Christians see God as their [[Spiritual Liege|Papa]], their [[The Emperor|Savior]], and also as the essence of God, and to understand why one = three either just take their word for it or get a Theology degree to figure out why.
**Islam is the skubbiest, which is a shame, because it could've been the most simple. The Islamic view on God is that Allah is beyond human understanding and comprehension, and from Allah comes all things, good and evil, but still infinitely good. Allah is infinite, and the only thing worthy of worship. It wouldn't be out of place to consider Allah a "concept", because even trying to portray Allah as one thing or another is [[HERESY|haram]]; it would simply be too limiting, or placing human qualities on the creator. Before Muhammad, the Jews and Christians received parts of the revelation through the prophets, but they consider Jesus to be the greatest Jewish prophet and not the son of God; besides them, only Muhammad ever got the chance to communicate with Allah, and there will never be another until the End Times. And so just like the Catholics, any further questions regarding the qualities of God and morality would have to come from the Koran (the Muslim equivalent of the Bible) and hadiths, which were basically long oral histories of "Muhammad said this, according to X (his X), as told by Y, (X's Y), and passed down by Z, and so on." So while Islam wanted to [[Thousand Sons|bring the sort of mysticism of a single, indivisible, and infinite Allah that only contemplation of the Word could bring]], [[Horus Heresy|an almost immediate power struggle]] over who should succeed Muhammad as the leader of Muslim society caused Islam to split into two rival factions that defined themselves in opposition to the other, leading to skub and differences of tradition/theology that last to this day. They too ended up becoming quite fond of forced conversions, and needless to say it did not take very long for relations between Muslims and Christians to go sour.
*Jesus Christ: Please tell us you're joking. If for some reason you're actually serious and have a few hours to spare, find the nearest church and ask whoever's in charge to tell you about him. He will be happy to give you the full story. Otherwise you can ask a Christian you know or pick up a copy of the Bible - nearly every bookstore stocks them and then there's online copies - and see for yourself. Trivia: "Christ" is not Jesus' last name, but is one of Jesus' titles.
*Abraham: The common tie between the three Abrahamic religions, his covenant with God makes him and his descendants the first of the Jews.
*Samson: Legendary hero whose power of super strength was tied to <strike>never cutting his hair</strike> ACKCHYUALLY his power was tied to keeping his covenants with God, it just so happened that cutting his hair was the last one to break and he knew it.
*David: Once killed a mighty warrior with a [[Sling]]. Undertook the worst fetch quest in history when the king demanded he collect 100 Philistine foreskins to marry the princess, then decided to go above and beyond and collect 200. Said father in law was King Saul, who later tried to have David killed numerous times (strong contender for worst parent-in-law ever right here). He became the king of Israel some time later after King Saul's death. Also credited with writing the Biblical Psalms.
*Solomon: David's most famous son, also King of Israel. Better at his job then just about anybody who came after him, and (more relevant to media appearances outside of direct-Biblical-adaption) frequently reputed to be a (usually holy) sorcerer of some kind. Islam further credits him with authority over the djinn.
*Moses: See the Exodus for details. Hollywood is a big fan of this guy, even moreso than Jesus (regardless of how you take the implications), so you have a plethora of big-budget film options with A-list actors to choose from (Charlton Heston, Christian Bale, cartoon with Val Kilmer, etc)
*Noah: See below for his boating adventure.
*A few angels; notably, only two are given names: Michael and Gabriel, as well as Raphael in the Book of Tobit though its canonicity is disputed(there's also an Abbadon (no, not [[Abaddon|the armless retard one]]) in the Book of Revelation, but he's usually considered a Fallen Angel like Lucifer). Also notable and mentioned in the Bible: the Angel of Death, aka The Destroying Angel (no name given Biblically, but the Catholic and most Eastern Orthodox Apocryphas (as well as Jewish tradition, especially the later Kabbalic one), identify him as Azrael).
*Satan and the demons of Hell (see below) are sometimes depicted as an unpleasant but necessary part of the divine plan (compare to Hades, above), as the ones who punish sinners who escape mortal justice. In the early parts of the Old Testament, Satan is seen as a prosecutor of souls who puts people through spiritual trials to test their faith, rather than tempting people into evil for evil's sake, and to this day we speak of the "Devil's Advocate" who points out flaws in popular people or ideas (the term originates from the Catholic Church, of all places; when someone is considered for sainthood, the Devil's Advocate is specifically appointed to argue against them to hopefully ensure all sides of the story are considered).
** Alternatively, Satan is sometimes portrayed as a hero rebelling against an oppressive divine order. Obviously this is [[extra heresy]] (see also: Gnosticism).

'''Most notable villains with lots of media adaptions:'''
* Satan/Lucifer/The Devil (may or may not be the same character): With the many different interpretations, it's hard to tell which is which, but the general gist is that one angel disagreed with how God was doing business and staged a great rebellion. God cast him and his kin out of heaven and forced them to live in a realm where they are never able to feel his presence, and now he takes his hatred of God out on humanity by leading them into damnation.
** Relevant note: One approach used in various media is to have multiple Hellish factions, each of whom have some claim to the title of Supreme Evil. Usually, they're opposed to one another, and usually represent different kinds or aspects of Evil (e.g., one wants to destroy the world, and is directly opposed by another who wants to tempt and corrupt). Note that the Bible is completely silent about most things about demons, so both "they're all working for one master" and "it's every demon for himself" are plausible readings. The Ars Goetia is often a handy source from which to pull such factions.
* Baal, Moloch, and others: False idols (i.e. pagan gods) worshipped by the Caananites, which the Israelites would repeatedly turn to worshipping despite God punishing them every single time they did so.
* Judas Iscariot: One of Jesus' apostles who sold him out to the Romans, leading to the crucifixion. He hung himself shortly afterwards in a fit of despair. His name became a byword for betraying someone close to you, and is also known for the price he sold Jesus out for (30 pieces of silver).
* [[Cain]]: Adam and Eve's son after being cast out of paradise. Murdered his brother Abel for petty reasons.
* The Pharaoh of the Exodus, known simply as Pharaoh. Popular history assumes it to be Rameses II, although [[wikipedia:Pharaohs_in_the_Bible|historians have been arguing over this for millenia]]<ref>Not helping is the long-held knowledge among scholars that ancient Egyptians were more interested in propaganda than recording their actual history on their public displays, which is a large chunk of what contemporary evidence we have for what happened when.</ref>.
* Sometimes God and/or various angels are depicted negatively, as either being passive in the face of evil or complicit ([[Adeptus Evangelion|or being giant monsters out to destroy the world]]). Naturally, those kinds of interpretations are highly frowned upon for the obvious reason that people still worship God, this can involve in-universe retcons of Scripture, consider God good and do not like it when other people call His actions evil, so naturally this is [[Extra Heresy]] (and blasphemy).
** It should be added that Fallen Angels are a Canonical (as in, actually appear in the New Testament) option to have Evil Angels without making God Himself Evil, although it still runs into the problem of why God made his own angels susceptible to becoming evil in the first place. Note that this is more an early Jewish and Christian motif than a later Jewish or Islamic one, due to changes and differences, respectively, in theology.

'''Non-Biblical figures who show up in media adaptions'''
* Lilith, the fanon first wife of Adam, the first man. <s>It must be emphasized that she '''does not exist in any biblical source''' (other then the first woman being created twice -- but then again, a lot of things happen twice, slightly differently described each time, in Genesis)</s> Technically, the word "lilith" appears in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_34#Verse_14 Isaiah 34:14], but the word is frequently translated to something similar to "night monster" or "screeching owl". That being said, she was reputed to be one of Satan's many wives and a mother of demons or Adam's first wife who disobeyed God, before God created Eve.
* The Wandering Jew and Longinus: Because Jesus implied that certain people listening to him speak would be around for the Second Coming (although two obvious alternate readings are that Jesus was talking about his shortly impending Resurrection, or referring to the then-future, but politically easy to foresee, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War Great Revolt of 66 AD], whose results could easily be seen as something that would be talked about in the same tone as the end of the world at the time), two non-biblical figures show up, starting in medieval works: The Wandering Jew, an Jew of the era, cursed to immortality, and Longinus, the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus' side with a spear during the Crucifixion, similarly cursed to immortality. Can show up as villains, heroes, or mere cameos. (Both are more likely to show up in literature and RPGs then visual media; Longinus in particular is the identity claimed by an important historical vampire in ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]''.)
* Various non-Biblically mentioned Angels.
*[[Djinn]]: Originally an element of pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, they are mentioned in the Quran as spirits born of "smokeless fire". Unlike Islamic angels, they are capable of sin and can go to either Heaven or Hell. The Islamic version of Satan (called Iblis or Shaitan) is said to have originally been a djinn. Over time and several (mis)interpretations, they came to be portrayed as the figures we now know as [[genie]]s.

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
* The Holy Grail: The cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper and/or a cup used for various purposes during the Crucifixion.
* The True Cross: So named because of the dozens of other crosses falsely passed off as the one Jesus was crucified on--not helped by the fact that the Roman Empire crucified a ''lot'' of people, as Crucifixion was the standard Roman method of execution of non-Romans. Whether it actually ''is'' the cross Jesus was crucified in is another story.
* The Spear of Destiny and various other objects associated with the Crucifixion: In certain media, the Spear of Destiny (which pierced his side during crucifixion), as well as the nails which pinned him to the cross, are considered gifted with magical powers because they have the blood of God on them.
** Other objects from the Crucifixion that can show up in media and are sometimes (but more rarely then the above) assigned supernatural powers include the Crown of Thorns, the 30 pieces of silver payed to Judas, the whip used for the 39 lashes, and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Sponge a sponge].
* The Veil of Veronica and/or the Shroud of Turin: These are two relics that purported to be pieces of cloth that were miraculously imprinted with an image of Christ's face after being in contact with him sometime during the crucial four days. The former is lost; the latter is of rather dubious authenticity and is now considered by most scholars to be a forgery made in the Middle Ages.
* The Ark of the Covenant: Where Moses supposedly put the shards of the original Ten Commandments (and possibly Aaron's rod and a pot of manna). Famously disappeared during one of the various times Jerusalem was sacked, and has never been seen since.
* The Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil
* The Fruit of Life.
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==== Creation Myth ====
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So in Abrahamic mythology there is only one god, or at least only one ''true'' god: '''YHVH''', which most people would just refer to him as '''GOD''' since his name is too sacred to speak of and because he is the only god that exists, with all others being false idols and products of human imagination or demonic ruse. In fact, we don't even know how its pronounced (in part because ancient Hebrew is an abjad- a language that only uses consonants in their writing system) the two most common anglicizations being '''Yahweh''' and '''Jehovah'''. Other names and titles that may be used instead of '''YHVH''' include '''Elohim''' (meaning '''God''' or gods), '''Adonai''' (meaning '''Lord'''), '''HaShem''', '''"I AM"''', and '''Father'''. In Islam (and also by Arabic speaking Christians), he is instead called '''Allah'''. And other languages have their own unique words used to refer to him.

Before the world was born, according to Milton, there was the "war in heaven" [[War in Heaven|(not this one)]] where [[Horus|Lucifer]], [[Horus Heresy|the most perfect of God's creations and the best of the archangels, rebelled against God with a third of the angels in Heaven, but was defeated and cast down to Hell]], in which he was imprisoned.

After that, God creates the world. It is said that he created the world in 7 days, hence the seven-day work week we all know and love: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (although those names themselves are drawn from various pagan, Roman, and Norse traditions -- Sun, Moon, Tyr, Woden/Odin, Thor, Frigga/Freya, and Saturn -- because flexibility is important when it comes to winning converts). He then created many animals, plants and the first two humans: Adam and Eve. He observed them in the Garden of Eden ''(aka his research facility)'' watching them having fun and telling them that they could do anything they wanted, except from eat the fruit of one particular tree in the garden. But that promise was broken when the woman, Eve was tempted by a winged serpent - who according to Milton, was actually Lucifer in disguise seeking to avenge himself by corrupting humanity - to eat the fruit, which held within it the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve, having eaten the fruit, gained knowledge and dignity which made them embarrassed by their lack of clothing. God found out and exiled from the garden them to the mortal world. The serpent is also punished, with his wings taken from him, turning him into the [[snek]] we all knew and feared. According to Christianity, this also introduced original sin, fundamentally changing the nature of humankind from natural innocence to inherent wickedness.

In the mortal world, Adam and Eve worked hard to survive and later conceived two sons: Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer while Abel was a shepherd. When they both offered their produce to God, God only favored Abel's. ''(According to some, it was because Cain hid his best offering from God, and others because he gave God leftovers while Abel gave the best; others still say (frequently either looking to blame-shift or suggest that even small evils can lead to larger ones in other people), Abel's overweening pride at being favored provoked what followed. By this point if you are a true [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] fan, you would know what's coming next, but without the vampire shit.)'' Cain killed Abel, and his punishment for murder was to never farm ever again; wherever he spilled his brother's blood, the earth became cursed so that it can never grow anything, putting an end to Cain's favorite job and career. However, punishments differ in other mythologies and it's a clusterfuck, though the 'Mark of Cain' deal is a common point of reference - Cain fears the cold, cruel world will be out to get his marauding criminal ass, so God set a mark on him that made it clear anyone trying to inflict their justice over His own would get it seven times worse.

Adam and Eve later had the third son Seth, who is the true ancestor of mankind, and [[Command and Conquer|Cain is then exiled to the land of the Nod]] where he built the City of Enoch (because he can't farm) and conceived many other descendants. There's also the claim that Eve was not the first wife, but Lilith, a woman who was created from the same dirt as Adam. Felt too hot shit for Adam, so she ran away with an archangel called Samael ''(the Fallen name for Lucifer in some stories)'', though in other stories she ran away a demon prince called Asmodeus ([[Asmodeus|the one this guy was named after]]) and begat a whole race of demons called the Lilim or Lilitu. In [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] however, she taught Cain cool dark magic and shit.

As for the rest, it's easier to find the nearest Bible and/or Koran and read it for yourself. Just don't call it mythology or worse where anyone can hear you, unless you enjoy offending people, want to provoke an argument and don't particularly care about being ostracized or worse, depending on where you do it.
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==== Noah's Ark ====
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Humankind had become incredibly corrupt and sinful (we’re talking [[Fall of the Eldar|birth the Eye of Terror]] levels of debauchery(!) here), so God decided to have the sea level to suddenly rise to the kind you see in disaster movie like [[/tv/|The Day After Tomorrow]] after a 120 year countdown. He instructed the only righteous people on Earth, starting with the family patriarch named Noah to build [[Imperial Navy|an ark big enough to contain the non-aquatic animals of the world as well as his family]], or just each animal species with their own female and male pairing so that they could reproduce. God even instructed Noah to build the ark with the size he demands: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height (450 × 75 × 45 ft or 137 × 22.9 × 13.7 m), [[just as planned|it's almost as if God intended this]]. The ark is also made out of some probably extinct wood called "Gopher" (that's just how the Hebrew word is pronounced, ''gofer'' -- it's not related to the furry critter), probably the best kind since the ark has to withstand waves after waves of tsunami for a long time and a tragically, all of them were either used up building the Ark or the flood wrecked the rest.

Then the rain lasted 40 days and the resulting flood killed everyone except those on the ark. They basically float and live on their stockpiles for nearly a year until the water goes down. They disembark, and Noah makes a burnt sacrifice to thank God for sparing them and God makes a covenant to never again use a flood to destroy the world (either creating rainbows to serve as a reminder of this, or making the rainbow represent this).
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==== Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews ====
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Another myth took place in Egypt. There once lived the Israelite (later the Jewish) people, the chosen people of God. They had come to reside in Egypt after a renowned ancestor Joseph helped Egypt survive a major famine, and were living in peaceful harmony until one day some asshole [[Tomb Kings|Pharaoh]] came and starts to oppress the shit out of them. The Pharaoh hated how the Hebrews bred like rats and got paranoid that they '''might''' ally with Egypt's enemies, so he ordered [[grimdark|every one of their male babies thrown in the river of Nile to either drown or get eaten by wildlife]]. Moses, our hero of the story survived as an infant and was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter (oh the irony). Moses eventually grow up and learn of God '''Yahweh''' and is commanded to free his people and guide them on an exodus to the promised land. Pharaoh and his army tried to stop them but God basically said fuck you and send [[Nurgle|twelve powerful plagues]] to fucked them over; it could've ended sooner if he just let them go, but the Pharaoh was [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|stupidly stubborn and always tried to tweak the deal to his advantage]]. [[Nagash|The plagues were so effective that Egypt became a frigging wasteland, and even then Scripture states God was pulling His punches - but no undead unfortunately]]. The Pharaoh was pretty quick to let the Israelites go after the last one. Later, Moses guided his people to close to the red sea where he do the iconic sea splitting to make a crossing passage. The Pharaoh and his goons tried to take chase but was once again pwned by the sudden sea crushing them from both sides when they were on the sea.

After traveling with his fellow Hebrews, Moses was called to Mount Sinai by God, who gave him the '''Ten Commandments''': ten rules willed by God as the foundation of Jewish law and the worship of God. Later on other rules were given, and then sometimes God gave direct orders (e.g. commands to commit [[exterminatus|genocide]] on the entire cities of man, woman, children and animals for failing to worship God, though those nations were also at war with the Hebrews some sources cite that it was also punishment for the practices of those religions, which were said to include [[Khorne|human sacrifice]] and [[Slaanesh|ritual prostitution where they weren't picky about the participants age, gender, species...]]).

While he was up there, the Israelites believed he would never come back and had built an idol of a golden calf that they claimed as their new god. When Moses returned, he was enraged and had the calf ground to powder, which was scattered into water and force-fed to the Israelites, which were then struck with a plague as a punishment for their idolatry. Moses and his followers arrived to their promised land after a delay of 40 years due to the Israelites' incessant disbelief in God despite all he'd done, which is, unsurprisingly, Israel! The Israelites then spend a long chunk of their history trying to kill off the native Caananites who weren't big on peaceful co-existence, all while being repeatedly punished for continually abandoning God's worship in favor of false idols in what can only be called a stunning inability to learn from experience.

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====Things drawn from Abrahamic Myth / Demonology ====
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The "bibles" ''(Jewish, Christian and Islamic holy books)'' and associated apocrypha are undoubtedly HUGE sources of inspiration for game developers, particularly [[Dungeons and Dragons]] where monsters are ported over, virtually unchanged and names of significant figures are also often used.

*The idea that Hell has Nine layers - [[Baator]] - though where Dante's layers have distinct punishments, Baator's layers are the realms of powerful lords.
**Names of significant demon/devil characters: [[Asmodeus]] - demon of Lust, '''Baalzebul''' ''(or other variants like Baalzebul, Beelzebub)'' - demon of gluttony, or '''Mammon''' - demon of avarice
*Different orders of Angels, or angel analogues such as [[Genie]]s (or djinn, as they were originally called in Islamic tradition)
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====Gnosticism====
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A wide family of dualistic beliefs and religious systems that formed around early Christian and Jewish sects that were influnced by Neoplatonism, Persian ideas, and Buddhism (maybe). The main belief of Gnosticism was that the material world was created by a Demiurge, who may or may not be the God of the Old Testament, is flawed/evil and the only way to be saved/ascend from earthly constraints is by obtaining ''Gnosis'', personal spiritual knowledge given by the hidden, supreme God pertaining to humanity's divine nature. This spiritual knowledge was emphasized by all gnostic faiths and was held superior to any teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.

Gnosticism is by and large unknown to most people, with Christianity and Islam having largely wiped it out, with only Mandaeism and the [[China|Chinese]] branch of Manicheanism having survived of the original Gnostic religions. Modern gnostic religions tend to be more reconstructionist rather than revivalist. It has influenced several fantasy settings, like [[Kult]], [[The Elder Scrolls]] and both of the [[World of Darkness]] Mage games.
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===Arthurian Mythology===
The story of a boy who becomes king of England and his knights. Arthurian lore is unusual among mythology in that historians actually know the names and history of the authors who created most of it. This doesn't make it any more consistent, in-fact even authors directly continuing existing stories couldn't be assed to keep basic things consistent. The issue has to do with Arthur's story being used by every ambitious bard to introduce their own [[Original character, do not steal|OC]] Knight of the Round Table and why theirs is the best of the bunch, as well as many of Britain's monarchs adjusting his story for their own political gain.

Of some minor note, the story of King Arthur ''may'' have some sorta kinda basis in reality. If he existed, he was apparently a '''general''', not king, who successfully fought in at least one battle to contain the invading Anglo-Saxons during the era after the collapse of the western Roman Empire. Given many, many washings through the story retelling and expanding machine after being combined with the mythos associated with the Holy Grail, we wind up with the King Arthur mythology.

For the closest thing to an official "canon" for Arthurian literature, it officially begins with Geoffrey Monmouth's ''The History of the Kings of Britain'', with some of the more prominent stories including ''Le Morte D'Arthur,'' ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,'' ''Perceval, the Story of the Grail,'' etc. There are much older, Welsh-based stories, but these little resemble the Medieval stories modern pop culture is more familiar with, and as such only fodder for ''actual'' historians.

(Side note: If you intentionally quote from ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' at the gaming table, you deserve to be punched in the face.)

'''Notable Characters:'''
*Arthur <s>(no shit are you fucking stupid oh my god jesus christ come on its IN THE FUCKIN--)</s>
*The Knights of the Round Table
**Lancelot: The closest of Arthur's companions and the greatest knight of the age, but also infamous for his long affair with Guinevere. Some scholars believe he was not part the original group of knights and actually just a completely separate fictional knight that met Arthur in a crossover and never left.
**Gawain: One of the earliest knights in Arthurian mythos, representing Wales. He typically gets shit on by the newer, fancier knights, but really comes into his own during his duel with the Green Knight. Plebs normally don't know that he's the actually Arthur's nephew by his sister, as well as being the eldest of FOUR other Knights of the Round, including the infamous Mordred (Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth). Due to this little-remembered fact, he's ''technically'' Arthur's heir, as Arthur and Guinevere had no (surviving -- the Welsh side of the mythos is iffy about this) children.
**Galahad: Lancelot's son. [[Grey Knights|Absolutely pure of heart]], and the only one able to sit in the lethal chair at the Round Table known as "The Siege Perilous." For this he is able to complete the quest for the Holy Grail. After finding it, he ascends into Heaven along with the Grail.
**Percival: The Knight who was supposed to find the grail before Galahad appeared. In his version of the story, he finds the grail is kept by the Fisher King, ruler of a wasteland that can only be healed by Percival becoming the new king. In later versions, Percival is unsuccessful in healing the land, allowing Galahad to take over.
**Kay: Arthur's [[Gish]] step-brother. One of the earliest written knights, but nobody remembers him. Kay was a guy's name once upon a time.
**Tristan: Similar to Lancelot, it's assumed he was integrated into Arthurian mythos, but unlike him Tristan had an existing legend attached to him. In it, he was sent by his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to bring back the maiden Isolde for him to marry. A love potion mishap caused Tristan and Isolde to fall in love with each other instead, and the tragic love affair that followed cost them their lives.
**Bedivere: The Knight who returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake after Arthur's death.
**Mordred: Most commonly depicted as Arthur's bastard son with his half-sister (who may or may not be Morgan le Fay depending on the story) or possibly his aunt, but like a lot of things in Arthur Mythos his background is inconsistent as hell. The most consistent part is that he starts a rebellion against Arthur, and in their final battle he mortally wounds Arthur but is killed himself.
*Merlin: Arthur's wizard and mentor, as well as the template for almost every other wizard in fantasy fiction since the genre was a thing. Works vary wildly on how benevolent he is and how he got his powers. Originally named Myrddin, but that sounded too close to "shit" for audiences that knew French, which was a lot of people at the time, so it was changed. Since having a super OP wizard as a buddy would make things too easy for Arthur, some stories have him trapped by Morgan's apprentice Vivian or the Lady of the Lake so that Merlin can't warn Arthur of his impending doom.
*Morgan le Fay: Merlin's opposite number. Sometimes Arthur's half-sister because fuck consistency. Depending on the story, she is either an ally or an enemy of Arthur.
*Guinevere: Arthur's wife. Falls for Lancelot shortly after they meet, and somehow their affair goes unnoticed until exposed by Morgan le Fay and Mordred.
*Lady of the Lake: A fey chick who gives Arthur Excalibur after the sword in the stone breaks. Since most adaptations make the sword in the stone and Excalibur one in the same her role varies wildly. Sometimes said to be Lancelot's adoptive mother.
*The Green Knight: Shows up to the castle one day and challenges each knight to chop his head off with an axe, on the condition he gets to do the same thing to them next year. Nobody is willing to accept the challenge... except Gawain. Gawain beheads the Green Knight [[Dullahan|only for him to pick the head right back up and walk away]], reminding Gawain of their deal. Gawain survives thanks to the the Green Girdle and learns the whole thing really was a test of the knights' courage by Morgan. If this sounds uncharacteristically consistent to you, it's because he only appeared in one story, albeit a well regarded one.
*The Black Knight: There's a few different ones, or it could just be another case of zero consistency. (It should be noted that knights with black armor were actual semi-historical figures; blackening up your armor made it vastly easier to maintain for a solo knight without a squire, so a Knight without a liege sometimes did so while either seeking new employment, or just plain wandering; alternately, the knight painted up his armor and shield to conceal his identity. Either way, you have a knight without a master, a worrying prospect to the feudal mind.)
*The Fisher King: Usually only shows up in Holy Grail-related stories; in some versions, as he suffers, so does the land, and vice versa, and in others, he's just a protector of the Grail who was wounded by it for some sin (usually, adultery or getting married in the first place), and the wound also in some way renders the land barren (and thus, needing to fish in order to get food, thus, "''Fisher'' King"). In the latter case, he's associated with a "Healing Question", a question that when asked of him will heal his wounds, which varies from version to version (the two most famous are "Who serves the Grail?", and "Why are you so wounded?").
*Very few adaptions use the Anglo-Saxons, the people who the earliest chronicles claim he fought against.

'''Notable Artefacts:'''
Arthurian myth has some of the highest artifact density out there. Among the most famous are:
*The Holy Grail: Has some connections to the life of Jesus, see above. Short version is that it grants immortality.
*The Sword in The Stone and/or Excalibur: The legendary sword which acts as Arthur's badge of office. In some versions of the myth they are the same sword, others not; some versions even name the other sword "Caliburn" (which is just a translation of the French "Excalibur" to Latin) The scabbard in particular protects Arthur from all wounds; for this reason, Morgan steals the Scabbard to weaken him.
*The Green Girdle: Obtained by Sir Gawain in ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. A girdle of green silk, none who wear it can be killed.
*The Round Table itself: Most works just make the round table a mundane table, but a few give it magical powers of some kind. The symbolic importance is that all knights are considered equal to each other as it lacks any ends for a head to claim. One seat, the Siege Perilous, kills all unworthy knight who would sit on it; only the one who will find the Holy Grail may sit in it.

===Chinese Mythology===
Since China lived right next to various, heavily religious nations countries like India and Tibet, their mythology contains many gods from Buddhism, although the ancient Chinese tended more towards Taoism as a general rule. Chinese mythology is pretty well known and famous in Asia and one of its most famous myths, "The Journey to the West", brought forth near-endless adaptations, including everyone's [[anime|favorite anime/manga about a certain half-monkey xeno super fighter]].
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==== World Creation according to Chinese Mythology ====
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The Chinese mythos displays a heavy Taoist belief influenced by the Zhou Dynasty that passed it down from generation to generation until the Three Kingdoms era, where one Xu Zheng finally committed the story to paper. Basically, there is but formless [[Chaos]] in the beginning and it coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced, and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu was a [[anime|Tengan Toppa]]-sized sky titan and a hairy primitive humanoid; he would separate the yin and yang (earth and sky) by lifting up the sky and holding it for the next 18,000 frigging years (because fuck you Atlas, you derivative hack). While doing his lifting, both the sky and earth grew ten feet (3 meters) everyday.

Pangu finally died at the end of this period, with the world forming from several of his remains: His breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the moon; his head, the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood, rivers; his muscles, fertile land; his facial hair, the stars and Milky Way; his fur, bushes and forests; his bones, valuable minerals; his bone marrow, sacred diamonds; his sweat, rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became animals. Kinda similar to [[#Norse|Ymir the giant]], except he wasn't murdered and it wasn't metal enough that the blood became killer tsunamis.
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==== Nüwa ====
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An ancient goddess named Nüwa was the one who created humanity out of clay. Men that were molded by her in yellow clay became the top dog of their society, just because they were molded by her hand - the rest of humankind were made out of mud for mass production and were thus [[peasants]]. [[Skub|(Whether it was ancient Chinese propaganda to let everyone know their place is up to the reader's interpretation)]]. As she was busy creating humans, the pillar holding the sky broke, so she had to fix it herself using a giant azure turtle's shell as water container and its legs as a new set of pillars. There's also another version where she is depicted as the Chinese version of Eve, as well as the daughter of the Jade Emperor, the first god. Her husband Fuxi taught humans how to hunt and fish and gave them the first system of writing.
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==== Xiyou Ji (Journey To The West) ====
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Xiyou Ji (or ''Journey To the West'') is an important historical Chinese fantasy adventure novel about a journey undertaken to India by a Chinese Buddhist monk, known as Tang Sanzang/Xuanzang or Tripitaka, to get better copies of the Buddhist sacred texts. In this, he has recruited four protectors throughout the journey who agree to help him in atonement for their various sins; two guys nobody cares about: a disgraced commander from heaven named Zhu Bajie, who was punished by the gods into a pig like beastman (who ''everyone'' calls an idiot, even ''the narrator'') and Sha Wujing, a random sand bandit who was also from heaven and was banished (the black sheep of the party); a horse (who was secretly the dragon king's son, also disgraced); and the ''real'' protagonist, [[Sun Wukong]], the Monkey King (see his page for more backstory and details).

They proceed to set off on a journey where they learn the virtues and teachings of Buddhism and encounter a lot of interesting folks and weird episodes (such as monsters who wanted Xuanzang's flesh for immortality and power) along the way, many of which you might recognize if you're a fan of Japanese or Chinese-themed fantasy works.

But did they succeed in the end? After a long and approximately 9 to 14 years of pilgrimage, they finally reach the borderlands of India. They then traveled to the mythical place known as the Griddharaj Parvat(Vulture Peak) where Sanzang received the scripture from living Buddha. Afterwards, the gang received their own reward from the heaven, where they have ascended to Buddhahood.
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====The Twelve Zodiac====
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In the ancient China, there is this "Twelve Earthly Branches" that the ancient chinese used to identify dates and time. However, it's origin wasn't clear but it was explained in a humorous manner and replaced with the twelve animal instead. You see a long ago, the Jade Emperor decided to host a race to see which animal would be worthy for the calendar years. The race is special because the animals will have to cross a river to prove their resolves.

The first three animals mentioned in the story are the Rat, Ox and Cat. Since both the Rat and the Cat are bad at swimming, they decided to ride on the Ox's back. The Ox was easy going and just let them have the free trip. Just before they reach the finish line, [[Skaven|the Rat backstabbed the Cat by pushing it into the river and went for the 1st place itself]]. Because of that, Rat became the 1st in the race with Ox being the 2nd. The Tiger got the 3rd place, the reason being it was pushed back by the downstream currents despite being strong and powerful. The Rabbit got the 4th place after it crossed the river by jumping on the exposed rocks in the water. It almost drowned if it weren't for a drifting log that washed it to shore. The frigging dragon (the slender Chinese type) takes the 5th place after that. Despite it being celestial and all powerful, it explained to Jade Emps that it had to stop by a village to save the people there from a housefire. Then on the way, it found the Rabbit helplessly clinging onto the drifting log that the Dragon gives a boost with just one breath. The Horse steadily appeared with galloping sound from a far, but was frightened by the sudden appearance of The Snake, which ended up giving Snake the 6th place with the Horse being the 7th. The Goat, the Monkey and the Rooster gets the 8th, 9th and 10th place in order after they please the Jade Emps with some good teamwork crossing the river. The Rooster found the raft with The Monkey and The Goat pulling the raft. The Dog ended up being the 11th place despite being the best swimmer and runner, simply because it was playing in the water the whole time. The lazy Pig ended up being the 12th and final place despite it eating and sleeping in the middle of the race. The Cat that was drowned did not make into the race and it is the reason why it hates rats so much, as well as suffering aquaphobia because of that.
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===Egyptian Mythology===
Most well known for its collection of gods with [[Furry|the heads of animals]]. Unlike Greek or Norse mythology, has very little emphasis on mortal or demimortal heroes.

Egyptian mythology is wildly inconsistent due to spanning numerous cultures over thousands of years: for instance, the world is alternately said to have been created by Ra, Atem, Ptah, Thoth, or a collection of eight gods known as the Ogdoad. Whoever was the supreme god mainly depended on what city you were in and what time period it was, but the most well-known one was the sun god Ra. A common theme was the maintaining of a divine order known as Ma'at. Maintaining Ma'at on Earth was seen as the prime responsibility of the Pharoah, a priest-king who was seen as the bridge between mortals and gods. Another major theme is the concept of the death and rebirth of mortals and gods alike, leading to the famous Egyptian practices of [[Mummy|mummification]] and the construction of elaborate tombs. In total the Eyptian pantheon had thousands of gods (and that's not counting the dvine aspects attributed to Pharaohs), some of the most notable of them are discussed below.

'''Notable Gods:'''
*Ra: Falcon-headed (although he was also often depicted as a ram or a scarab) god of the sun. During the night, he voyaged through the underworld where he would battle the monstrous serpent Apophis. Also known as Khephri or Atum (among other names), depending on the time of day- it is said he was Khephri in the morning, Ra at noon, and Atum at night.
*Osiris: Formerly the god-king of Egypt, he was murdered and cut to pieces by his brother Set and became the god of the afterlife. Was resurrected by his sister Isis and they conceived Horus... then Set killed him again. Due to the Egyptian obsession with funerary rites, this made him a very important god.
*Isis: Sister/wife of Osiris and goddess of magic and wisdom. Her sorcery was what allowed Osiris to rise from the dead to become god of the afterlife. Her influence was particularly strong during the Roman Empire, and some scholars believe that elements of her worship may have influenced Christianity by way of the veneration of the Virgin Mary.
*Horus (no, not that [[Horus]]): Falcon-headed sky god and son of Osiris and Isis. Waged war against Set to avenge his father, which included humiliating him by [[/d/|ejaculating in his salad]]. Ended up taking his father's job, and so became the patron of the pharoahs. He is heavily associated with the symbol known as the Eye of Horus, which was believed to protect against evil.
*Anubis: Psychopomp deity that oversaw the Weighing of the Heart. Although in actual Egyptian mythology he was only Osiris' servant, his striking jackal-headed appearance has made him more well-known.
*Set: God of deserts, who due to being associated with foreign invaders was demonized into an evil god who murdered Osiris (most myths tell about him doing so out of jealousy, while in some he murdered Osiris for sleeping, and even some raping, Set's wife Nepthys). Wasn't the ultimate villain of Egyptian Mythology, that would be Apophis (who was so evil Set was portrayed as fighting him even after being demonized), but Apophis is nowhere near as infamous.
*Apophis: Essentially, the God of Evil and Darkness. Enemy of all living things, and the sort of guy who picks a fight with Ra each and every night, even though he loses every time. While others gods are depicted as humanoid, Apophis, also called Apep, was depicted as a snake or sometimes a crocodile. Trivia; the Ancient Egyptians believed that depicting Apophis gave him power, so to counteract this whenever they drew him, they'd draw him being beaten in a fight by another god.

===Greco-Roman Mythology===
[[:Category:Greek Mythology|The stuff introduced in Greek myth]] is pretty widespread. Some of it is so widely used people forget it came from the Greeks in the first place.

Interestingly, [[Eldar]] and [[High Elves|Elves]] [[Dark Elves|of the]] [[Wood Elves|Warhammer]] worlds took a lot of elements from Indo-European myth, the prime examples of the west being Greco-Roman mythology.

'''Notable Locations:'''
*Mt. Olympus: The home of the gods, notably Zeus. This place is where the gods look down on mortals while discussing how their mortal champions are going to shank their rival gods' champions.
*Tartarus: Named after one of the primordial gods, it is the deepest abyss, deeper than Hade's underworld. It imprisons the most wicked of criminals along with the titans.
*[[Atlantis]]: Legendary sea kingdom. Pissed off the gods with their expansionist behaviors and got dunked into the ocean. Technically not part of the mythology, but since Plato was the first one to write it down we're putting it here anyway.

'''Most notable heroes with lots of media adaptions:'''
*Zeus/Jupiter (in his more positive depictions): King of the gods and big good of the pantheon, being a fair judge and ruler of gods and men. If there's any work of fiction with a pantheon of deities, expect one of them to be patterned after Zeus. This guy ''fucks''.
*Hercules/Heracles: The most famous of Zeus' misbegotten sons, Hercules is a demigod who undergoes twelve great labors to atone for killing his family in a berserk rage, slaying many monsters and ultimately saving the gods from an attack by the giants.
*Theseus: Reputed to be the son of Poseidon and the slayer of the Minotaur, he was also credited with the rise of Athens.
*Perseus: Another of Zeus's bastards, and the ancestor of Hercules no less. Famous for slaying Medusa.
*Daedalus: A masterful inventor whose name became synonymous with master craftsmen. Most famously responsible for creating the Labyrinth for [[Minotaur|King Minos' beast]] before being locked up himself.
*The leaders of both sides of the Trojan War (Achilles, Hector, Paris etc.).

'''Most notable villains in media adaptions:'''
*Zeus (in his more negative depictions): Zeus is also known as a serial philanderer/rapist, having slept with plenty of mortal women, nymphs, and goddesses just because he could (and sometimes doing so while shapeshifted into another form: among others, he's been a goose, a bull, and a shower of gold, don't ask how the last one works) and has created as many problems as he has solutions. One could also cast Zeus as being dickish and a control freak as the ultimate authority of Olympus, like when he had Prometheus bound and tortured for giving fire to humanity.
*Hades: A rather glaring case of typecasting, despite being the god of the dead Hades isn't actually as much of a villain as popular media casts him. In truth he's a rather decent fellow, if a bit on the gloomy side. Perhaps the most glaring of crimes he's done is the matter of kidnapping Demeter's daughter Persephone to make her his wife (causing Demeter to plunge the world into famine until it was arranged for Persephone to come out of the Underworld for half the year, creating the seasons in the process), but compared to Zeus he's still a shining beacon of virtue in that respect. He gets even better if you consider that in some tellings she willingly came with him.
*Hera: Only in works involving Zeus' bastards, since she tended to be ''just a little bit annoyed'' at her husband's constant infidelity and was prone to taking her jealous rage out on whoever was unlucky enough to catch his eye at the time as well as his illegitimate progeny.
*The Titans: See below as to why they hate the gods. They tend to be quite cross about it, and eager for revenge.
*Ares: God of War, who constantly feeds upon it. Thus, any matter of peace is bound to be disrupted.
*The various offspring of Echidna: Echidna is a monstrous [[lamia]] goddess who is known to have birthed many monsters, chief among them Cerberus (guardian to the gates of Hades), the Lernian [[Hydra]], and the Nemean Lion (which Hercules slays)

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
*Pandora's box
*Daedalus's inventions (especially the wings of Icarus): Probably the first man-powered flying machine, though it was entirely made of wax. Daedalus made it so that his son Icarus could escape their prison, but Icarus flew too close to the sun in his hubris, causing the wings to melt and him to fall to his death.
*The sun chariot of Helios
*Pelt of the Nemean Lion: The first of Heracles' labors was to kill the Nemean Lion, a beast with an impenetrable hide. After finding this out, Heracles manages to do it in by strangling the beast. Heracles then tries to skin it, only to fail until Athena informs him to use the lion's own claws. The hide retains its invulnerability to most weapons.
*Ambrosia: The food of the gods, capable of preserving their powers like Iduna's golden apples.
*[[Talos]]: a ROBOT. That's right, a frigging bronze robot made by Hephaestus to protect Crete where it circles three times a day and crush invader ships with boulders. Was defeated by Jason's gang when Medea distract him while having its nail removed by her teammates, which pour out the ichors inside and killed it.
*All sorts of stuff used by the gods (Zeus's thunderbolts, Hades's helmet of invisibility, Neptune's trident, Hermes's winged sandals, Athena's shield -- sometimes with [[Medusa]]'s head on it...).

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==== The Greco-Roman Gods & Creation Myth ====
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There's a god for every aspect of ordinary life, like smithing, governing and war. This makes naming the entire pantheon quite lengthy (though we neckbeards might see it as a good challenge), so we won't bore you with the entire mess. The following is a list of important gods/goddess, especially ones pertinent to [[/tg/]] interests (such as [[D&D]]):
*'''Jupiter/Zeus''', the guy with the lightning bolts who is the king of the gods.
*'''Juno/Hera''', wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, childbirth, and women.
*'''Minerva/Athena''', goddess of wisdom and war born from Jupiter having a massive headache [[Sisters of Battle|fully grown up and armed]].
*'''Pluto/Hades''', Jupiter's eldest brother and the god of most of the Greco-Roman afterlife.
*'''Neptune/Poseidon''', Jupiter's other brother and the god of the seas.
*'''Apollo''', god of the sun, music, and archery.
*'''Diana/Artemis''', goddess of the moon and the hunt.
*'''Ceres/Demeter''', goddess of the harvest.
*'''Mercury/Hermes''', messenger of the gods.
*'''Venus/Aphrodite''', goddess of sex and love.
*'''Mars/Ares''', god of war.
*'''Vulcan/Hephasteus''', god of the forge.
*'''Vesta/Hestia''', goddess of the hearth.
*'''Bacchus/Dionysus''', god of wine and drunken revelry.

According to Greek myth, the first beings to come into existence were '''Gaia''' (the Earth) and '''Uranus''' (the sky). They had three sets of children: the Cyclopses, the Hecatonchires (giants with a hundred hands), and the Titans. Uranus imprisoned the first two in Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld. This upset Gaia and she called upon the Titans to [[FATAL|castrate their father with a flint scythe she had made]]. '''Saturn/Kronos/Cronus''', the youngest of their number, agreed and duly carried it out, becoming the new king of the world. However, Uranus warned Cronus that he too would be overthrown by his children.

Cronus sought to avoid this, so he [[Cannibalism|ate each one of them as a new one is born]] from his wife Rhea, but Rhea hid Zeus and fooled Cronus into eating a rock. Zeus then grows up and tricks his father into drinking wine mixed with mustard which makes him puke, saving all his brothers and sisters inside his father's belly (and who were somehow undigested), thus igniting a war that leads to the overthrow of the Titans. This event is known as '''The Titanomachy''' (Battle of the Titans). After all the Titans had been imprisoned in Tartarus and the Cyclopses and Hecatonchires freed, Zeus formed a government with the rest of his gods while living a [[Slaanesh|comfy hedonist life where he raped many mortal girls and had many bastard sons for the lulz]].

Roman myth can't agree on anything, because, unlike Grecian legends, it isn't racist and isolationist as fuck and takes from all Indo-European religions it encountered. This also means that it deviates from the "twelve important gods" rule that the Greeks had, and every area and time period had its own important gods. Imagine it as something akin to ancient Hinduism, minus all the mysticism (at least until all the Egyptian-esque mystery cults started popping up at the dawn of the Empire) and with the occasional emperor being declared a god after his death.
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===Hindu Mythology===
India is a big place with millennia of history, so it has a lot of deities; dominant sects frequently absorbed deities from competing sects into their mythos as aspects of their own favored deity, so many of those once distinct deities have coalesced together over the centuries. The Puranic period saw a deliberate effort to harmonize rival sects together, which gave rise to the Trimurti ("Three Forms"); this is the subset of the Hindu pantheon that is most well known in the Western world. It is also the subset of Hinduism which formed the mythological backbone of two popular [[RPG]] games: ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''. The three cyclical concepts underlying the Trimurti are Creation, Preservation, and Destruction, with a particular deity filling each role as the divine manifestation of that concept, with deities differing by sect. When the roles are filled by goddesses (''devi'') the triad is known as the ''Tridevi''. In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the Trimurti are known as the '''''Triat''''', in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' the Trimurti are known as the three '''''Primordia''''', and ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' uses an atheist version of the concepts called the '''''Metaphysic Trinity'''''. The [[grimdark]] spin that [[White Wolf]] puts on the Triat is that the three deities are embroiled in a vicious theomachy against each other, and have all fallen from grace and have become corrupted extremist versions of themselves.

Reincarnation also plays a big role in Hinduism- humans accumulate karma based on their actions in life, with good deeds granting good karma and bad deeds granting bad karma. One's karma then determines what your soul will be reborn as (human, animal, even a god or demon) in the process of ''samsara''. Ultimately, Hindus seek to rid themselves of karma entirely, both good and bad, and by doing so escape the cycle of reincarnation.

====Deities of Creation====
'''Brahma the Creator''' is said to be the creator of all things, but apart from that not much is known about him save for his tendency to be a bit too free to grant favors. Unlike Brahma who has no dedicated temples, his feminine counterpart '''Sarasvati the Creatrix''' sees active worship not only in India but in surrounding countries in various permutations, such as in Japan in the form of Benzaiten. In the ''Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes'' supplement from [[TSR]], '''Brahama''' was the ruler of the Hindu pantheon (via conflation with the related Hindu concept of ''[[wikipedia:Brahman|Brahman]]''). In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous androgynous deity of creation is known as the '''Wyld''', and in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Dynamicism'''.

====Deities of Preservation====
'''[[Vishnu]] the Preserver''' is one of the two best known Hindu male deities; Vishnu preserves the world from evil and upholds virtue. He is said to have had nine incarnations, or ''avatars'' that have manifested when he was needed along with one which has not yet appeared:
*''[[Matsaya]]'' the fish- Saved humanity from a great flood.
*''[[Kurma]]'' the tortoise- Aided the gods in churning the Ocean of Milk to produce the water of life ''amrita''.
*''[[Varaha]]'' the boar- Pulled the earth out of the sea after it fell in due to the weight of the human race.
*''[[Narasimha]]'' the man-lion- Slew the Asura (demon) lord Hiranyaksha, who had received the boon that he could not be killed "during the day or night, inside or outside, by any weapon, and by man or animal". So instead Narasimha [[rules lawyer|killed him at twilight with his claws as he was stepping through his doorway]], hitting every loophole at once.
*''[[Vamana]]'' the dwarf- When the Asura Mahabali conquered the universe, Vamana won it back through cunning.
*''[[Parashurma]]'' the axe-bearer- Defeated the Kshatriyas when the warrior caste grew prideful and oppressive.
*''[[Rama]]''- Hero of the ''Ramayana'' and prince of the kingdom of Kosala, famed for his war against the Asura king Ravana and his friendship with Hanuman the monkey king.
*''[[Krishna]]''- The most beloved of Vishnu's avatars. Many legends speak of him, but he is best known for his appearance in the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' as the charioteer for the prince Arjuna. Notably, he's popular enough to have inspired sects that claim Vishnu is one of ''his'' avatars and not the other way around. Also the supreme God in the Hare Krishna cult/airport conga line.
*''[[Buddha]]''- Yes, the same one from Buddhism. Needless to say, the Buddhists disagree with that interpretation.
*''[[Kalkin]]''- The "Future Avatar", who will appear upon a white horse and destroy evil forever.

In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess '''Lakshmi the Preservatrix''' (a.k.a. '''[[Vaishnavi]]''') sees more worship than Vishnu. In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous feminine deity of preservation is known as the '''Weaver''', and in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Stasis'''.

====Deities of Destruction====
Despite his title, '''Shiva the Destroyer''', the other of the two best known Hindu male deities, is viewed as a benevolent being who clears away the old and corrupt to make way for new creation. He is commonly depicted either as a slayer of demons or as a wise ascetic, and he's also strongly associated with dance (the means by which destruction and creation anew is achieved). In older scripture he was called '''Rudra''', a deification of destructive storms.

In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess '''[[Kali]] the Destructrix''' (a.k.a. '''Parvati''') sees more worship than Shiva. You might recognize the fiercer depictions of Kali from [https://youtube.com/watch?v=R0S8JZ6YO5c that one scene in Indiana Jones where the human sacrifice gets his heart ripped out of his chest].

In ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' the analogous masculine deity of destruction is known as the '''Wyrm''', in ''[[Orpheus]]'' the nominally feminine deity of destruction is called Grandmother, in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' the corresponding concept is called '''Entropy''', and in ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]'' it is called, well, '''Oblivion''' (although both Grandmother and Oblivion seems to be something entirely separated and sometimes even enemies of the Wyrm).

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====Hindu Creation Myths====
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Every sect of Hinduism has its own version of the creation myth in which they somehow spin their own favored deity as the primary agent of creation, even if it is just simply claiming that a well-known name of a creator/creatrix deity is really just an aspect of the adherent's favored deity. Within the collective of Hindu myths of creation and related topics there is a running theme of recurring cycles of creation and destruction of consecutive universes; one iteration of universal creation and destruction is called a ''kalpa''.

Furthermore, every deity is but a single aspect of the ''Brahman'', the transcendent Godhead from which all other things derive from. It cannot be understood directly, but by adhering to one's dharma (their duties in life) and working off karma over many lifetimes a human can attain ''moksha''- freedom from samsara and eternal communion with the Brahman.

Other related religions of course have different beliefs from the Hindu myths. Jainism doesn't have a creation myth, believing that the universe has simply always existed and will exist. Buddhism says that the universes come into being and dissolve in cycles lasting billions of years by themselves.
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===Japanese Mythology===
Japanese laymen don't really bother separating their religions, taking up whatever is convenient or trendy at a particular phase in their life, and thus the major religions (Shinto, Buddhism), some more minor ones, and various folk heroes exist simultaneously. Rarely touched by non-Japanese works that aren't the pantheon for [[Japan]] analogues.

Japan is rife with it's own mythology, which often is connected to history. The most notable example is the first emperor - Jimmu. He is said to be a descendant of Amaterasu but is also taken as a real ancestor to the Imperial Family (which is why the Emperor was worshiped until the end of WWII); this is the equivalent of the British royal family theoretically dating their lineage from King Arthur, if King Arthur himself were a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.

In present day, all three religions plus a number of new religious movements exist in Japan.
There is a common misconception that most Japanese today are non-religious, largely stemming from cultural differences and the somewhat looser nature of Shinto and Buddhism as compared to Abrahamic faiths when it comes to mass-rituals and worship. Suffice it to say that anywhere from 50-80% of Japanese (depending if one counts Shinto and Buddhism individually or combined) pray and partake in religious rituals.

Japanese have a plethora of their native gods, in fact, ''plethora'' is a bit of an understatement. Shintoism posits that every thing, be it rock, flower or a makeup set has its own ''kami'' or god/spirit, and depending on what one counts, there are up to 1 MILLION (or literally uncountable number) Japanese gods/kami (see also god depiction in [[Exalted]]).

'''Notable Deities/Characters:'''
*'''[[Izanami and Izanagi]]''': See the creation myth.
*'''[[Amaterasu|Amaterasu Omikami]]''': Goddess of the sun, her name literally translates to 'the august (one amongst) kami that shines in the sky'. Major figure in Shintoism, quite benevolent toward mankind; because the damn sun is ''that'' important to us humans. The Japanese imperial family once claimed descent from her, but stopped doing so after World War II. How the majority to entirety of Japan's people as a whole weren't as well, since far younger people are ancestors of the majority of far larger and less isolationist populations, was never explained.
*'''[[Susano-o]]''': Amaterasu's brother and god of storms. Hot-headed, passionate braggart that likes getting into trouble. Kicked out of heaven for being an absolute dick (and especially for his last prank on his sister that would've ended fatally for everyone else). While walking the earth he proceeds to kill the Orochi, among other (anti-)heroics, and eventually gets his way back into heaven with the fat loot he finds as well as reconciling with his sister (and giving her a bitchin sword that she would later give to her mortal descendant-turned-emperor of Japan).
*'''[[Fujin]]''' - God of wind and one of the oldest gods, said to have been there when the world was created, often paired with Raijin.
*'''[[Raijin]]''' - God of thunder and lightning, often paired with Fujin. Known for eating people's bellybuttons during stormy nights if someone managed to piss him off.
*'''[[Hachiman]]''' - God of war, formerly god of agriculture until he got bored of it or something. His traditional animal and messenger is, ironically, a dove.
*'''[[Inari Okami]]''' - God/Goddess/group of spirits (it's complicated) and another major figure of Shintoism. Protector(s) of foxes, rice, tea and sake, of agriculture and industry; granter of fertility, general prosperity and worldly success to humans. Patron of [[kitsune]], who acts as his messengers.
*'''[[Okuninushi]]''' - God of nation-building, business, farming and medicine.
*'''[[Omoikane]]''' - God of wisdom and frequent adviser to the other kami.
*'''[[Tsukuyomi]]''' - God of the moon. He killed the goddess of food after witnessing how she created it by basically vomiting it from her mouth. After killing her, his sister Amaterasu vowed she would never again face him and thus the sun and the moon never do either.
*'''The [[Orochi]]''': Giant nine-headed snake monster that likes to eat (?) female sacrifices. Susano-O gets it drunk and kills it, then he finds the Kusanagi on its corpse.
*'''[[The Buddhas]]''': While normal Buddhists don't "worship" the Buddha, more Shinto leaning Japanese often do. See Buddhism whenever someone is assed to add it for how it's supposed to go. Siddartha Gautama is the one people talk about when they say "The Buddha", but the completely separate Budai/Laughing Buddha is the main one ignorant Westerners know the visual of.
**'''Various Buddhist demons''': Mostly assholes that tried to stop people from achieving enlightenment. Some are actually former assholes who were redeemed by enlightened people and now act as protectors.
*'''[[The Four Heavenly Kings]]''': Bishamonten, Jikokuten, Zouchouten and Koumokuten, the guardians of the North, East, South and West respectively. Their title is co-opted by everything (no seriously, '''everything''': examples include Hollywood stars, Japanese comedy acts, Chefs, (female) Idol Singers, even foodstuffs like meats and canned goods) with four members in Japanese culture, [https://legendsoflocalization.com/tricky-translations-2-the-four-heavenly-kings/ though westerners may not notice it because the title gets translated a shit ton of ways depending on the context].
*'''[[Yokai]]''': Various mythical monsters. The most famous are the [[Kitsune]], Kamaitachi, [[Tengu]] and (though not always counted as one) [[Oni]].

'''Historical People Shrouded in Myth'''
*Emperor Jimmu: [[God-Emperor of Mankind|THE GOD EMPEROR OF JAPAN]] as well as the first Emperor and the descendants of Goddess Amaterasu. Most of his records were old and depict him as a warrior hero-god character accompanied by Yatagarasu, a three-legged crow and wielding a longbow. He died at the age of 126 and has little to no worshipers in modern-day other than having at least a shrine and grave.
*Abe no Seimei: A court magician who lived between 921 and 1005. Fiction tends to make him an actual wizard.
*Himiko: Queen of Japan around 200 AD. Chinese records make it clear she existed but very little is known about her.
*Masakado: Samurai who led a brief rebellion in 940. He's considered the god of Tokyo. His shrine/grave occupies some of the most expensive real estates in the world, as it is thought that neglecting his shrine will cause his angry spirit to bring disaster upon Tokyo.
** Takiyasha Hime: His daughter. Fiction makes her a sorcerer with a toad [[Familiar]]. Possibly entirely fictional.
*Tomoe Gozen: A female [[Samurai]] that actually fought in battle in 1184.
*Oda Nobunaga: Self-proclaimed "Demon King of the Sixth Heaven" (That's '''''historical fact''''' recorded by a Jesuit missionary who knew him personally). Defacto unifier of Japan, while the dominos he set up were falling, he was murdered by his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide for unknown reasons. His successors conquered the country after he did the hard parts, forming what would become the Tokugawa Shogunate. Since he was ruthless and called himself a demon, it's no mystery why fiction depicts him as a literal one.
*Hattori Hanzo: A general during the late Sengoku era. He's better known for allegedly being a [[ninja]].
*Ishikawa Goemon: Bandit during the late Sengoku era, executed along with his infant son by being boiled alive after a failed assassination attempt on Nobunaga's successor. Reputed to be a Robin Hood-like figure and also allegedly a ninja.

'''Artifacts that tend to show up in media adaptions:'''
*The Imperial regalia (Kusanagi, Magatama and the Yata no Kagami): A sword, mirror, and rosary that are considered the badges of office for the Emperor.
*Katana created by famous swordsmiths
**Muramasa: Swords created by the famous (and real) swordsmith Sengo Muramasa. Allegedly his swords have a taste for blood and are demonic in nature and can't be sheathed if they haven't tasted blood yet.
**Masamune: Even though Masamune lived hundreds of years before Muramasa, their swords are often counterparts in fantasy. In contrast to Muramasa, Masamune's blades are supposedly holy.
**Kotetsu: Nagasone Kotetsu was a quality swordsmith from the Edo period with a really fitting name (虎鉄 or "Tiger Iron"). His works are notable but if they show up in fiction expect them to be inferior to the above two.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
==== Creation Myth ====
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According to the Kojiki, the world (or just Japan because every culture at that time are so close minded that they believe their kingdom is THE entire world) was created by 2 gods: Izanami (the wife) and Izanagi (the husband). There were 5 other gods with difficult to pronounced name like Kotoamatsukami (別天津神, "Separate Heavenly Deities") before them, but they entrust these two with the world's creation because they are genderless and thus unable to procreate the next generation. Izanami and Izanagi belongs to the Kamiyonanayo ("Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods") and they shape the earth with this totally awesome spear called Ame-no-nuboko (天沼矛, "heavenly jeweled spear") and create the islands and land using salt.

They then settled down onto the land they've created and mated. Unfortunately, the first two children they conceived, Hiruko and Awashima, were mutants, so badly deformed that the parents decided to send them on a lone boat trip before their third birthday; Hiruko survived, worked hard and became a god known as Ebisu. Turns out, after confronting their elders about the misfortune, it was Izanami's fault for not acting properly during the mating ritual, causing birth defects and such. After some proper mating, their descendants were born, who would eventually become the modern day Japanese islands (or else the islands were named after them). Izanami then died giving birth to Kagutsuchi, a serpent Human Torch-wannabe that burned his mother upon his birth. Izanagi was angered and eight-pieced him, turning his body into 8 volcanoes; his blood on Izanagi's sword became the sea god Watatsumi and rain god Kuraokami. This also marks the end of the creation.

Izanagi was overwhelmed by grief that he traveled to Yomi ("land of the dead") to see his dead wife. Unfortunaly, Izanami already belonged to Yomi after eating its food. Izanagi refused to leave Izanami in this dark land, and waited there because Izanami agreed to go back if she had some rest, but the worried Izanagi decided to see what's going on with his dead wife by lighting a torch using his magical head comb - unfortunately, he found Izanami was already a maggot-ridden, ghoul-like monster. (Some retellings turn this into an 'Orpheus and Eurydice'-style affair where he [[Derp|looks back just as they reach the end]], cursing Izanami to be trapped.) Izanagi was scared so shitless that he ran away, while Izanami called the Shikome (ugly underworld woman) to chase him. After a long Looney Tunes chase that involves Izanagi's use of his magical hair dress and his urine to stop his pursuers, he eventually returns to the living realm. Izanami curses her husband and claims that she will kill 1,000 people everyday, with Izanagi responding that he will give birth to 1,500.
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===Norse Mythology===
See the [[Norse Mythology]] page.

==Miscellaneous Mythical Figures/Artifacts/Stories That Are Directly /tg/ Relevant==

Although the above are the big hitters of Mythology Adaption in /tg/ stuff, there are a few miscellaneous ones who show up that may be worth mentioning. Here's a couple:

*'''Ariadne''': Per preeminent mythologist Karl Kerényi et al., Ariadne was a Minoan mother goddess of weaving and labyrinths who, upon absorption into Greco-Roman mythology, retained her deific name ''Ariadne'' meaning "Most Holy". In the [[Midgard]] D20 setting the goddess Ariadne also goes by the name ''[[Rava]]'', the Spinner of Fate and the Clockwork Oracle.
*'''Baba Yaga''': Probably the sole character from Russian folklore that most people would recognize. Talking about her in any detail would be overly long, even for this overly long article, so just [[Baba Yaga|read about her on her own article here]]. Privateer Press gave her [[Khador|a mini]].
*'''St. Cuthbert''': [[wikipedia:Cuthbert|Famous English monk and later bishop]]. Somehow wound up in [[Greyhawk]], for much the same reason that [[Murlynd|Clint Eastwood]] did.

==Urban Legend==
The '''Urban Legend''' is another type of myth, specifically one of a modern-day taste and often significantly connected to that country's pop culture. In Japan, many classic myths of Yokai continue to "exist" (see: [[Touhou]]), and some have been modernized to fit with new technology (for example, a cursed cart may become a cursed car). [[Board-tans/x|Creepypastas]] are a common sub-variant. Here are some examples:

*'''Bermuda Triangle''' - A triangular region in the gulf of Mexico with Bermuda island, Puerto Rico and Miami, Florida as its angle point. Reputed to be a place of paranormal activity where ships and aircraft suddenly loses their signal and disappeared, both on air or water. In reality, the Triangle is just one of the most heavily trafficked areas in the world, in a region known for storms and general bad weather; if there weren't several mysterious disappearances (and nautical and aeronautical life had, and occasionally still has, plenty of those), it would be surprising.
**'''Mary Celeste''' - A ship that was found abandoned in 1872 undamaged, with ample provisions, undisturbed cargo and a log dated to ten days prior to it being found. Was actually found well outside of the Bermuda Triangle, but often associated with it. Proposed solutions for what happened range from attempted insurance fraud to equipment malfunction, a waterspout strike and a butane explosion. The "wreck" was acquired by a new owner, who promptly sunk it in a poor attempt at insurance fraud.
**'''The Flying Dutchman''': Associated with the Cape of Good Hope, rather than the Bermuda Triangle, but frequently mentioned in connection with the Triangle as well. The most famous "Ghost ship" other then the ''Mary Celeste''; unlike the ''Celeste'', the ''Dutchman'' was only reported to have been seen, but never boarded. The ''Dutchman'' was supposedly an omen of doom, but given that in order to see a ship that isn't there you'd probably have to be in very poor visibility conditions, this reputation has an obvious explanation.
*'''Bloody Mary''' - It is said to be a malevolent spirit who if you call its name "Bloody Mary" in front of a mirror three times, she will come and do something horrible to you. A pretty stupid game often participate by very small children and idiots.
*'''Cryptids''' - Various creatures of folklore that, other then being fucked up looking, are actually plausible animals of one sort or another. Some have been substantiated, but most are just fake or distorted stories of other, known animals (as is speculated having happened with the [[Unicorn]] and Rhinoceros). Such creatures include:
**'''Bigfoot''' - Also known as Sasquatch. It is some sort of ape/man creature, named after its big foot print on the ground. Its sighting are mostly around the Pacific Northwest.
**'''Chupacabra''' - A small bear size monster who likes to suck a goat's blood dry. First spotted in Puerto Rico, where it killed 8 sheep, it is said that its influence has spread across Latin America. Allegedly, the idea of the chupacabra was just stolen from the movie Species.
**'''Drop Bear''' - Australian joke: Take a Koala, and pretend it's an ambush predator who kills by jumping on its prey, with a taste for human flesh. While clearly originating as a joke, unlike most "real" cryptids, the concept has been used straight in several contexts in fantasy works. As if Australia's actual dangerous animals weren't enough.
**'''Jackalope''' - A rabbit with antelope horns. Possibly based on sightings of rabbits with Shope papilloma virus, which causes infected hosts to grow horn-like tumors. The most popular version seems to have originated as a 12-year-old taxidermist's idea of a joke.
**'''Jersey Devil''' - Weird monster supposedly lurking in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, thus making it the most interesting thing in the state.
**'''Loch Ness Monster''' - A long necked sea creature that allegedly lives in Loch Ness in the Scottish highlands. Presumably to be Mauisaurus, a pre-historical sea dinosaur who shares the similar long neck appearance.
**'''Mokele-mbembe''' - A weird African swimming beast with reptilian traits. Widely believed to be either a rhinoceros or a hippopotamus (the latter of which are responsible for killing more people per year than any other animal in Africa) though some have claimed it's a rediscovered dinosaur - a sauropod specifically, as numerous descriptions ascribe it a long neck alongside reptilian features.
**'''Mothman''' - There were a bunch of West Virginia sightings of a "Man with Wings". Later got overhyped as having supernatural powers, and associated in some way with a local bridge collapse when writers looking to cash in got involved. Side note: Most descriptions from the early, pre-overhype encounter match a unusually large crane.
**'''Rods/Sky Fish''' - Extraterrestrial lifeforms that move at an unseen speed that can only be caught by camera. [[Skub|It may or may not be real]], since it might be just elongated visual artifacts appearing in photographic images and video recordings. Other insects like moths are mistakenly caught on camera and assumed to be them. It helps that there were no actual dissections of the creatures, and most of the videos about catching it are fake and exist for pure entertainment. In some fiction, e.g. [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]], they are portrayed as vaguely creatures with actual limbs and organs that feed on temperature and have the power to KILL or disable a person by absorbing the body heat from their vital organs.
**'''Tsuchinoko''' - Also known as "child of hammer", "child of dirt" or "bachi hebi" in Northeastern Japan, it is a snake that is 30 and 80 cm long, has a thin head and tail, and a wide girth in between. It was referenced in Kojiki (古事記) "Records of Ancient Matters" meaning it might have existed at some point in ancient Japan. [[Skub|Others would argue]] that it could be a type of slug who's features became exaggerated over thousands of years, an extinct snake species or an undiscovered snake species. Whatever the cases, the damn thing is popular in Japan and has been featured in many video games, manga and TV show.
**'''Yeti''' - Like Bigfoot above, but found in the Himalayan mountains.
*'''Grays''' - A stock alien appearance of short, large-headed, large-eyed, generally naked, grey men. Allegedly probe humans, steal cows and make patterns in vegetation while riding around in a saucer shaped spacecraft. Supposedly crashed in Rosswell, New Mexico in 1947, which was covered up by the US Government as a "weather balloon"; more recent declassification suggest it ''was'' a balloon, just an experimental and classified one meant for Cold War era spying and hushed up for fear that the Soviets would learn about it.
**'''Area 51''' - [[Wikipedia:Area 51|An actual military base]] in Nevada that the crashed spacecraft was allegedly taken to. Allegedly home to all sorts of government experiments on the supernatural and/or extraterrestrial. Takes its name from the much larger surrounding military reservation which is divided up into similarly numbered areas where the government plays with its most [[Ordinatus|Orky toys]]. Though the existence of the factual military base existing was always known, the US government didn't officially acknowledge it till 2013. Officially it's used for testing experimental and captured aircraft and thus highly classified. Supposedly, the US government thought that the UFO hysteria was good cover for the then-secret U-2 program, as any spotted aircraft could be explained away by kooks as an alien spacecraft.
**'''Men in Black / Majestic-12''' - Another component that's common to UFO conspiracies is a secret branch of the government dedicated to keeping the public in the dark about the existence of aliens. Some stories of the Men in Black instead suggest they're aliens impersonating human government agents to keep the stories quiet. The urban legend version is significantly scarier and more malevolent than their movie counterparts, but a bit ''less'' malevolent than those in the comics the movies were adapted from. The only known evidence of their existence was long since proven to be a forgery.
*'''Jack the Ripper''' - Also known by the London old media as the "Leather Apron", ol' Jack was a real life serial killer in London during 1[[Khorne|888]]. Since he was never caught and the number of victims can't be verified - five are specifically attributed to him - his identity remains a mystery and he is therefore held as the greatest serial killer. Known for mutilating his victim in the most precise manner and the mocking letters he wrote to the police (which are still held in Scotland Yard). He was even suspected to be a woman, with new nicknames such as "Jill the Ripper" added to the long list of nicknames. Since nothing physical is known about the killer, fiction is free to attribute supernatural origin (such as a possessed human or being a monster outright) or that the killer's vileness resulted in transformation into some kind of monster. Making the killer supernatural allows it to be divorced from its time period.
** Various other uncaught serial killers can get this sort of treatment, but to a much lower degree, with the notable exception of the Zodiac Killer, who shared Jack's media savvy.
* '''D. B. Cooper''' - Short version: Guy Hijacks a commercial airplane, demands $200,000 ($1.28 Million in today's money) and four parachutes, gets them, jumps out of the plane over state park, and is never seen again. Long version: [[wikipedia:D. B. Cooper|Wikipedia is your friend]].
* '''John Henry''' - A black manual laborer who raced against his industrialized replacement and won, but died from exhaustion at the end. Even if it was loosely based on a real story, any accounts of a real John Henry existing have been lost to history.
** '''Casey Jones''' - Unlike Henry, Jones was definitely a [[wikipedia:Casey Jones|real life train conductor]] who died saving the lives of his passengers. One of his assistants wrote a song defending Jones' reputation<ref>There was some argument at the time that Jones should have seen the signal indicating a possible collision, but the night was foggy, and both signal lights and signalmen could be unreliable.</ref> that got very popular shortly thereafter, and soon turned into a popular figure around which a mythology developed.
*'''Kiyotaki tunnel''' - A haunted tunnel in Japan said to be built by slaves in 1927. It is said to have an unfortunate length of 444 meters long (4 is a unlucky number in Japan--the word for "4" is a homophone for "death") and it is a famous suicide spot. There were witness who saw the spirit of suicide victim walking towards the tunnel. There are reports where the traffic light outside of the tunnel suddenly changing color and causing car accidents. The tunnel is frequently referenced by horror manga and anime where it is portrayed as a tunnel full of tormented spirits, dragging other passing travellers in to suffer with them.
*'''Radioactive Deer''' - Although decades have passed since the accident, the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant remains one of the most contaminated places on Earth. Every wildfire or severe storm that hits the area will inevitably spawn several days of doomsday fear-mongering from the press about nuclear tornadoes or toxic milk. Some recent horror stories have begun to weave the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga, the monstrous child-eating crone of the woods, into the story of the ruins of Pripyat.
*'''Slender Man''' - A fictional character that originated as an Internet meme created by [[Something Awful]] forums user Victor Surge in 2009. It is depicted as resembling a thin, unnaturally tall man with a blank and usually featureless face and wearing a black suit. The Slender Man is commonly said to stalk, abduct, or traumatize people, particularly children. The Slender Man is not tied to any particular story, but appears in many disparate works of fiction, mostly composed online, with the most famous being a series known as "Marble Hornets". Also famous for inspiring two girls to nearly murder their classmate in order to become his "proxies".

==Popular mythology elements used in Fantasy==
*[[Dwarfs]]
*[[Elves]]
*[[Vampires]]
*[[Werewolves]]
*[[Necromancer|Necromancy]]
*[[Troll]]s
*[[Giant]]s
*[[Minotaur]]
*[[God|Gods/Deities]]
*[[Genie]]
*[[Dragon]]
*[[Orc]]
*[[Monstergirls]]

*More than one [[Superhero]] and Supervillain are based directly on Mythical figures. The most prominent at Marvel are Hercules and Thor, who are both exactly the characters named above, and the Black Knight, who descends from the Arthurian one. On the DC side there's Wonder Woman, an [[Amazon]] who frequently comes into conflict with the Greek gods and other elements of Greek myth.

==See Also==
*[[Yog-Sothothery]] - Mythology created by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] that took elements from other mythologies. Its "deities" are a bunch of alien like tentacle monster that defy laws of physic and drives people insane.

==Footnotes==

[[Category:History]]

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