MYSTERIOUS FIGURE: This video is sponsored by Skillshare, but maybe it's not too late.
In the beginning, for the first six days the author rested.
Then on the seventh day he realized his deadline was upon him so he rushed the mythology of
his world out the door before it was ready.
Um... let’s just lasso ancient Greek and Norse mythology, change a few names then copy,
and then paste!
Wow.
That was faster than you can say “it’s not cultural appropriation when no members
of that culture are left alive to sue me”.
Now that leaves me plenty of time to instruct other writers on how to construct their very
own myths, legends, and entire pantheons of gods and goddesses for their own writing projects.
Now the thing that most writers need to consider about writing a constructed mythology for
a story is that background information, or as most people call it these days ‘the lore’,
can be thought of as a potent spice that is sprinkled onto the story to add flavor.
And much like cayenne pepper, lore should just be heaped on, overpowering the whole
thing until it is just unpalatable to all but the most die hard lore junkies.
The best way to start this process is by front loading the creation myth at the start of
the story!
A long-winded prologue about how the world came to be, who’s who among the gods, and
a how the story’s macguffin was forged will go great with the infodump of the world’s
history in chapter 2.
Who is telling this prologue creation myth?
Why the author of course.
No reason to have a creation myth told by an in universe character, allowing that character’s
unique perspective color the story.
Nor should an author considering compacting that myth into a short poem or phrase that
can be use as a reoccurring motif.
Does the creation myth need to be in the prologue or in the story at all?
What purpose does it serve?
Well the purpose is that I think it’s cool therefore it goes in the story.
Not include my precious creation myth?
Why don’t I just murder my darlings while I’m at it, you monster!
This bit of world building is like my baby.
I could never just, eh I’m bored now.
Ooh.
I wanna add some gods and goddesses to my story!
But I can’t decide what my gods and goddesses should be like.
Thankfully Terrible Writing Advice has provided all writers with this handy list of commonly
used templates.
The God of War, Battle, and mentioning honor every other word.
Odds are he will look like a Greek hoplite even if in a fantasy world devoid of ancient
Greeks.
Common weapons include a spear, sword, or axe.
If the classic Greek look doesn’t suit your taste, then this template can also sport a
standard issue Dark Lord armor set.
Medium odds of being the story’s antagonist especially if no god of evil or death is around.
The Goddess of fertility, birth, cultivation, and ladiness.
Mentioned offhand in the story, but never given much focus because her dominion doesn’t
involve stabbing people with magic weapons or other things most writers consider cool.
However, if the setting’s deities grant magic powers, her bestowed magic would be
absolutely game breaking in terms of usefulness and utility to an ancient or medieval society
and would have far reaching military applications that I will, of course, completely ignore.
The god of fire, forges, cool magical weapons, and macguffin creation.
Macguffin screwing up the world?
Well this is the guy to blame.
Don’t complain too much though because he will also make the chosen one’s anti-dark
lord sword.
Even in fantasy there is no escaping the military industrial complex.
The god of death, decay, evil, demons, and dark color palettes with an optional side
of necromancy.
If not outright the story’s main antagonist then expect him to at least be worshiped by
bad guys.
This god being evil is essential so I can lump all of the aspects of nature I don’t
like onto him so my nature god or goddess can be good.
Routinely abuses and sacrifices his own followers, betrays everyone he enters a deal with, and
will bring about the destruction of the universe should he ever win so naturally anyone can
see why scores of cults flock to worship him.
I mean they so much get out of it.
Despite being a god of chaos and destruction he is sure good at creating the logistics
and infrastructure needed to maintained his highly advanced and organized empire and military
forces.
Same as the previous entry, but a goddess instead and with both seduction and corruption
as an added domain of influence.
Always has dark hair, copious amounts of cleavage.
Will 100% want the hero for herself, but thankfully the hero is immune to her godly charisma,
supernatural attractiveness, far more interesting personality, and plethora of interesting story
possibilities to instead choose the far more conventional love interest the story has saddled
him with.
The god of a single element and one other random trait to make them stand out a little
more.
Usually come in clusters to represent various classical elements with maybe a few extras
like light, dark, life, death, or some other more esoteric ‘element’.
We can’t have the gods of hydrogen or chlorine wandering about because a pantheon of the
periodic table of elements would be way too big.
The trickster god of pranks, trolling, and advancing the plot when things get too stale.
Even if the gods are never characters in the story, expect the trickster god to still nudge
things along.
High odds of ending up on the team good guy eventually even if their initial loyalty is
in question.
The nature god that is basically a giant tree and not like a billion other things found
in nature.
Sometimes alternatively represented as an older, motherly woman.
Nature gods and goddesses tend to emphasize the good parts of nature like sunshine, trees,
running streams, and other such things found on a park brochures and not the less savory
aspects of nature like storms, disease, and parasitic wasps that instead fall under the
domain of the god of evil.
The god of magic that has the essential role of allowing magic to exist.
Otherwise this god has no discernible personality, motive, or anything else and is there solely
for the setting to justify its magic powers.
When pressed for more details a writer can just say the god of magic looks like Odin.
The god of justice who exists mostly so the Dungeon Master has a justification to take
away the paladin’s powers when the player role-playing him gets too uppity.
Now the important thing to remember when filling out one or more pantheons is to just create
the gods, not flesh out the world’s major religions that would be built around them.
The ceremonies and rituals that make up much of a culture’s daily routine and allow a
people to contextualize the world around them by viewing it through a religious lens is
not needed when we have an entire pantheon of Mary Sues at our disposal.
Competing pantheons of wildly different styles of gods being used to generate conflict?
A complex web of animistic spirits that make up a spiritual ecosystem?
Competing religious perspectives among characters to add another layer of conflict?
Thoughtful critique of organized religion through a fantasy setting so an author doesn’t
have to offend real world religious readers?
I mean we could do those, or we put three of the gods into a love triangle,... or two,...
or three, not counting all of the mortals they are wooing on the side.
The point isn’t to add depth to the worldbuilding, but to add in a bunch of cool god characters
that take over the story and turn the previously established cast of mortals into glorified
background extras.
Well that, and also so the characters can use setting specific swear words.
By Thor’s hangnail is that fun to do.
And just like real life curse words, they should be strung together and used so often
that they loose all meaning, start to become unintentionally funny, or eventually fade
into annoying background noise.
Speaking of background noise, a setting’s legends can be safely reduced down to the
level of a simple plot hook for a fetch quest.
Many have searched for the legendary Lore Stones whose magical properties are so mysterious
and infamous that the characters have just now heard of them halfway through the story.
The Lore Stones, um… let’s see.
They…
Uh.
I got it!
The Lore Stones hold the secret to magic itself.
As it turns out, the dark secret of magic I’ve alluded to since chapter one will be
revealed now!
What is the secret nature of the setting’s magic?
Aliens did it I guess with like science stuff or whatever.
Hey look, the mystery box already did its job with marketing.
It’s way too hard to actually put something cool in it.
Deities and myths for a setting should always be carelessly thrown in based on the author’s
capricious whims, and never used to explore and reflect the setting’s cultural ideals
or values.
Nor should the setting’s myths and legends be used to reinforce the theme of a work or
prop up a central design pillar of the worldbuilding.
The setting’s lore need not earn its place within the narrative, rather the narrative
should bend to the will of the lore.
Think of the setting’s lore as a baseball bat that can be used to mercilessly beat new
audience members with until they finally give up and go enjoy a work that doesn’t have
an impenetrable shell of proper nouns to stop them from getting into the story.
At least until someone invents a ‘skip lore’ button.
DARK LORD: Who is that again?
It’s getting increasing difficult to keep track of all the pitiful worms at my feet.
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CONSPIRATOR: I already warned you about these weirdos when they tried to kill me a few videos
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And what absurd costumes.
You look like a renaissance fair got raided by anarcho-communists.
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I know an oncoming info dump when I see one.
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