What are some neat mythological explanations for different skin color...

Yep, you got it.

Pic related.

Originally in the setting, people could change their appearance at will, but eventually different groups became more comfortable with one general look or the other (with people nearby one another tending to share a general shape and set of features), and when their ability to shift forms was taken away, they were stuck in their chosen coloration.

...

NOI are basically to islam what mormons are to christianity. It's biblical cosplay with a dash of religious terminology.

Jeez is that racist

thank you user, this is going to be used in all of my games. keep doing god's work

The Lakota believe that humans were created by the gods from various colors of clay, like a potter might make differently colored pots. The Sumerians likewise believed humans were made of clay, tho I don't think they make any comment about skin tone in their myths.

They're also completely fucking retarded.

>old southern story book

>racist

ayup

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamanite

I really wish I could find the name of the book or even the story but I just can't. It had some other interesting stories along similar lines that we're pretty interesting all things considered.

there was a passage in Ovid's metamorphisis were they talk about black skin as being a punishment from the gods. like they did something to piss off zeus so he fried them with a thunderbolt hence the black skin.

>Sumerians
>[Enki and Nintu (the birth-goddess) work to create man]
>We-ila [a god], who had a personality
>They slaughtered in their assembly.
>From his flesh and blood
>Nintu mixed clay.
>For the rest of the time they heard the drum,
>From the flesh of the god there was a spirit.
>It proclaimed living man as its sign,
>And so that this was not forgotten there was a spirit.
>After she had mixed that clay
>She summoned the Anunnaki, the great gods.
>The Igigi, the great gods,
>Spat upon the clay.
>Mami [Nintu] opened her mouth
>And addressed the great gods,
>'You commanded me a task, I have completed it;
>You have slaughtered a god together with his personality.'
>[snip]
>They entered the house of destiny
>Did Prince Ea [Enki] and the wise Mami
>With the birth-goddesses assembled
>He trod the clay in her presence.
>She kept reciting the incantation,
>Ea, seated before her, was prompting her.
>After she had finished her incantation
>She nipped off fourteen pieces of clay.
>Seven she put on the right
>Seven she put on the left.
>Between them she placed the brick
>She [line damaged] the cutter of the umbilical cord [line damaged]
>The wise and the learned
>Twice seven birth-goddesses had assembled,
>Seven produced males,
>Seven produced females.
>The birth-goddesses, creatress of destiny-
>They completed them in pairs.

Black people made from shit, Brown from sand, White from diamonds.
>The ancient /pol/ myth.

In my setting I made humans Volcano people, so they are all the colors of ash.

Black skin is the mark of Cain that all of Cain's descendants are marked with because the evil of Cain was passed down through his bloodline. This is why black people are more likely to commit crimes and kill people, they can't help it, there's a biblical precedent for them to do so, and Satan has them in his grasp

Best answer so far. Where you from user?

That could be interesting in a fantasy setting - humans are clay, elves are trees, dwarves are stone. Humans were shaped, elves were grown, dwarves were carved.

Internet prince scam land

Better known as Nigeria

>badass concepts
Tell me more

Exa tly like Mormons

Native African beliefs run the gamut between crazy Zen and bro and full on fucking metal God hates you so murder your neighbor shit

What about the other animals? Shaped?

Animals are made from bone and shell and other basic things like that. Well made, but they'll never be more than they are - no shaping into a new form, no branching, no carving into a new shape.

The creation myth for humans in my setting has the ur-human being a psudeo deity that shows up on the scene from the "spaces between what the gods made" and spontaneously gives birth to the next two humans, the younger of which was tasked with quite literally planting the seeds of humanity across the world and teaching them just enough to get by before leaving them to form their own cultures unaided. The humans that sprouted from the earth bore traits indicative of other flora and fauna of their clime as they spawned, leading to different ethnicities.

TLDR: Humans are essentially elementals of the material plane.

Curse of Ham is hilarious.

>be me
>be son of Noah
>have alcoholic dad
>haven't heard from him for a while
>start to get a little worried
>go to his tent
>"Hey dad, are you okay?"
>no answer
>better check on him, be a good son
>open tent flap
>dad is passed out drunk with his dick hanging out
>suddenly blinding flash of light
>realize that my skin has turned black
>hear voice of Our Lord
>oh shi-
>all my descendants cursed because I saw my dad's dick

Born hindu here, this is utter bullshit.

The blue colour of some of the gods are because it is a metaphor for the depth and vastness of the divine entity given visual form, as in deep as an ocean, which is blue, or vast as the morning sky, which is also blue.

Vedas are basically a over-mythologized narrative history of the movement of Indo-Aryan tribes into the then depopulated indus valley that was turning to a desert due to the drying of the Gaggar Hakkar and the Sarswat river from receding glaciers that formed during the ice age.

In the RigVeda from 1.138 onwards it tells the story of how the leader of the Aryans, Indra with his golden skin and hair attacked the 99 forts of Vritra a Serpent of Drought that who was also a Brahmin that had apparently stolen all the water from the land, but the reality is that Indra was attacking the remains of the Indus Valley cities were surviving by storing water through elaborate dams to water their fields while the surrounding area turned to desert.

Indo Aryans thought they were causing the drought as they, a nomadic peoples, did not understand the concept of irrigation and water storage and attacked the cities and destroyed them, "freeing the waters and relieving the drought."

To an extent they then understood more the farther they travelled into central and eastern india and the vedas began to evolve and the existent social class system of the native indians were adopted as Brahmin concept existed before the Aryan migration according to the Vritra story.

But there are some striking parts of the Vedas like the story of Vishapala the woman warrior who lost a leg, was gifted a metal leg and kept fighting on, also there is the proto mahabharata which was the vedas recorded Battle of the Ten Kings and the concept of transmigration of the soul.

A couple of madeup ones.

>When the first of them cradled the Sparks of Hope in their hands, it charred them black.
>When those sparks turned to embers, they were joined into one Pillar of Light.
>Fed with the blood of self-sacrifice, their veins and the veins of their children were forever cast in light.
>They paint their faces according to which of those first clans they are descended from, as renewal of the oaths to Hope.

>Bee god
>Clay had been the base, but golden honey had been the glaze.
>Translucent, but ever so brilliant, these people treated themselves as works of art just as much as the structures they erected in god's name.

>Hewn from everlasting ice, the First Soul was deemed too hardened, too callous to be a whole body.
>It was instead placed within a vessel of snow, held together with the flesh and fruit of trees
uhh, I think I just made snowmen

One of the Just So stories features man painting himself pitch black for hunting purposes.

That's interesting, user. Can you tell us more about how Indian mythology formed?

According to Ovid's version of the Greek myth of Phaethon, the Ethiopians are black because of an incident where Phaethon lost control of the sun-chariot and accidentally drove the sun too close to the Earth, darkening their skin (and also creating the Sahara desert).

This is not biblical at all. Closer to the bible (but still false) and abrahmic tradition is to consider the blacks to be descendants of Ham, who was cursed by his father Noah.

Tough but fair.

Tell them to us as best you remember.

I always thought it was Enu, or whaever his name was - the hairy guy who was cheated of his father's blessing.

it's a quasi-made up denomination myth I believe, some shit my mom told me when I was a kid, wasn't trying to play it off as real

That's Mormonism, and it was those who remained neutral in the debate between Jesus and his brother Lucifer.

>implying that is a bad thing

Niggers are that dumb.

I've got a D&D character whose skin is red because he was boiled alive by a hag as a baby.

>...How indian mythology formed...
>Indian mythology

GG to you user, try to explain the most diversive culture on earth.

You're forgetting the part where Ham runs to his brothers and says DUDES DAD'S NAKED LMAO

And "father's nakedness" can also be a euphemism for his own mom, as seen in the prohibitions against incest.

Everyone made out of clay. The white folk say everyone darker than them was left in the kiln too long and are burned. The black folk say everyone paler than them was taken out of the kiln too early and are half-baked. The guys in the middle take a goldilocks approach. The green fellas shut the fuck up and aren't welcome around these parts.

Nah. As I recall, the Mormons believe in a somewhat corrupted interpretation of the Curse of Ham/Canaan, in which Noah curses his grandson Canaan for something his son, Canaan's father, did (this is why some people know it as Curse of Ham instead of the Curse of Canaan, since it was Ham being punished, despite Canaan being the one to actually suffer the curse... because that makes perfect sense).

The curse was for Canaan and his descendants to be slaves forever, or something like that... and some assholes have decided that that means black people are the descendants of Ham and Canaan which is why it was perfectly okay to enslave them, since it was God's will the whole time. Apparently, part of this interpretation is that the curse turned Canaan and his descendants' skin black to mark them as cursed.

In my Rolemaster setting
The Stone-blooded men are a quasi-neanderthal race. They are short, pale and very hairy.
They believe the other races descend from traitors who couldn't take living in the mountains, hunting and doing proper human things. They gave in to the trickery of the gods, accepting a place second to the divine. They forgot about the love of the earth and looked to the sky for so long their backs to stretched and weakened. They covered themselves in dust for protection for their master's hateful heat. Still they grew hot, their skin melter like wax and accepted the dust into it marking them forever.

The Othmen descend from a proud but fallen civilisation that lived alongside the old Stone-blooded men. In the waning years it's people took to huffing mercury. Most of they died horribly, the ones that didn't muted into muscular, blue supermen. There was, however, the grim side-effect of mental weakness. They are very intelligent but prone to rage, forgetfulness, depression, paranoia and most of all megalomania.
They believe they are and always have been the best.
In ancient times there was only Othmen. They built themselves out of the blue sky while the gods watched in awe. It were fucking awesome. So awesome the gods became worried that one day their place might be taken by these beautiful blue bastards. So the gods made proxies out of dirt, wood and stone. Creatures of the earth. Automations whose sole purpose was to put the Othmen down. They made these people in all shapes and sizes and each held one strength of the true race. For milions of years the war raged on until finally their people were torn down.
But they will rise again soon! No army of divine meat robots can stop them.

As I recall, wasn't the "black skin" part added later as a justification for black slavery? I haven't seen an actual bible verse about being cursed with black skin, only servitude.

Also, the curse was placed on Canaan, Ham's son, not Ham himself... because apparently that's how biblical logic works.

Esau, the hairy nomad.

"A slave of slaves shall your children be." It wasn't directed at Ham at all, just his descendants

>Esau
He's ginger.

The quote I saw specified his fourth son, Canaan, but yeah, that was actually my point: it was Ham being punished, but the curse was directed at someone that was not Ham, which is fucking stupid in many different ways.

Having read the Book of Mormon a while back, I don't remember that part, but I definitely remember the part where the Native Americans were created from the lost 13th tribe of Israel who came to the Americas on a boat in the BC era, developed an amazing kingdom, but then were rent by civil war. The good Israelites fought the bad Israelites, the bad Israelites won, and as punishment for their awesome battle strategies, God cursed them with red skin.

Bible's full of people who pissed off God and had their children, grandchildren, children of children unto the seventh generation, etc. harmed as a result instead of them.

Why is getting a different skin color such a common curse? Doesn't seem that bad.

>Why is getting a different skin color such a common curse? Doesn't seem that bad.
Because within the culture, it's a big glowing sign above your head that says THIS GUY IS AN ASSHOLE, BE SURE TO TREAT HIM LIKE AN ASSHOLE.

dark skin caused by lots of sun

white skin by cold environment and lack of sun

Is that explanation good enough?

Tibetans fucked a cloud and that's why they're so pale.

Oh, no, the Curse of Canaan is in the regular Bible, not the Book of Mormon. It's just that Mormons follow the interpretation that basically amounts to "Black people are black because they were cursed by god to be slaves forever."

Or they did, anyway: the Mormons are trying to play nice lately, so the "official" stance is that they're fine with black people now. It's up to you whether you believe them or not.

Man, I'm 100% sure that the Indian stuff is in the BoM, but I don't have the patience to re-read the whole thing again...

Didn't Prometheus make humans out of clay in Greek myth as well? Then he tried to help his creations by giving them fire and got his liver pecked out by an eagle for his troubles.

God made man in an oven.
He was not very good at making the bread he wanted. Eventually he made lots of bread and that was that.

The Curse of Canaan is a completely different story from the Indian thing. I was explaining why you don't remember reading about the Curse of Canaan in the Book of Mormon: because it's not in the Book of Mormon, it's in the Bible.

Yeah, I know the Canaan one is in the Bible; I thought you were talking about the Indians before, but having re-read your earlier post I realize you were talking about regular Canaan in the BoM, not Indians in the BoM. Sorry for the confusion.

...Can someone else please assure me that the Indian curse is in the BoM?

>...Can someone else please assure me that the Indian curse is in the BoM?
According to , the Indian curse is definitely in the Book of Mormon.

There's just one small problem with that.

It went through various phases, starting possibly in 3000 BC under the Indus valley Civilization, as a 4000 year old Pashupati Seal depicts the current hindu diety known as Shiva who is synonmous with being Pashupati, lord of the beasts and is often found sitting in the lotus position as in the seal and is often adopted by a yogi, shiva was the first yogi so it is natural for him to be found in such poses.

This leads to the possibility of the Hindu religion in its most basic form found in those times, Shiva is one of the three major gods of hinduism, they are the Trimurti, the other two are Vishnu (Protector) and Brahma (Creator), Shiva being the Destroyer. These are simple facets mind you, their role is still personified deities for the larger universal ParamAtman, the Greatest Soul or the Eternal God.

There are other lesser gods below the Three, these gods form the first set of the traditional pantheons found in ancient roman and greek paganism. Indra was analogous to Zeus/Jupiter, Varuna to Uranus/Poseidon etc., but I consider them as Indo-Aryan injections into the IVC existing faith along with various other meta-philosophical concepts and historical narrative built up around the existing and newly introduced forms of faith into the first parts of the Vedas.

Yeah, I know, I was just trying to fuck with you... I was expecting a more interesting reaction. You've completely ruined my whole day, I hope you're happy.

Have all creatures be oeiginate from minerals/clays/etc. Skin color would also denote the strengths/weaknesses they gain from said source.

Would be pretty cool for a half-crystalid race....

Cool, I like how the Othmen are a race of Dr. Manhattans

No, there's several Greek creation stories IIRC but the most prominent is that all people were basically two humans back to back until Zeus, fearing their strength, separated them, so all of your life is a quest for your "other half", yadda yadda

Prometheus is the primordial trickster who gave humans fire, for that he gets his liver pecked out by an eagle... FOREVER! because Greeks have something for eternal torment happening daily

>No, there's several Greek creation stories IIRC but the most prominent is that all people were basically two humans back to back until Zeus, fearing their strength, separated them, so all of your life is a quest for your "other half", yadda yadda
But that doesn't mesh at ALL with ANY of the other myths. The Titans, Gaea, etc., none of that. As far as I'm aware, the only actual Greek creation myth was the one where Prometheus created people, and that "people were made with two heads + hearts etc." stuff was just something somebody made up for clickbait. (because if they did it fucking worked)

In the book series the Queen's thief.

The god eugenides. God of thieves, is dark skinned because although he was a god, he was burnt from a great fire which killed his human brother. His burns healed but he was turned dark skinned from it.

You can read the two heads, two hearts, two bodies et cetera in Plato's Symposium, it's a well-established part of the Greek mythos.

Huh. My bad. Although wouldn't Plato writing it make it more of a "myth" on the level of, say, Atlantis than the whole tale of Prometheus kinda stuff? I guess when it comes down to mythologies it's all a bit fuzzy where these things end.

Many fathers would rather be harmed themselves than see their children harmed.

I'd even say most, but deadbeats are the norm where I live.

Sort of. They are what Dr. Manhattan would be without his godmode, in a worst case scenario.
In game they balance out to
>Bonus to everything active: Strength, quickness, intuition, presence
>Penalty to everything passive: Constitution, agility, reason, memory
Great at doing things, not so great at general living or growing.
They tend to show up as Mad Max style villains. High spoken, vaguely philosophical but ultimately self serving and unsustainable. They rally to some Warrior-Poet King, follow him fantasticaly as he cooly commits atrocities in the name progress and reason, then fall into existential apathy. They loose faith in the whole endeavour devolving into common bandits or just breaking up. Whatever revolution they set out on is sabotaged by infighting, impatience and, occasionally, over-thinking.

Sort of mix of Shitty-Manhattan, Lord Humongous and Occupy Wallstreeters.

Blacks were cursed for their high rates of criminality.

Jesus cursed a fig tree because it didn't have fruit out of season when he was hungry. Shits crazy

That's a parable.
You might have noticed Jesus always uses bearing fruit as a metaphor for religion doing good.
The tree is religion.
As the tree couldn't actually feed a person (it's intended purpose) it deserved to die. Ergo if the religious institution isn't actually helping anyone it deserves to just fall over and die.
One could get into semantics and whatnot but that's the basic jist of it.

Don't they believe the "First Race" was black males and caucasian females exclusively until the advent of White men destroyed society?

What is that image from?

Sure, but that doesn't mean that it's okay to punish an innocent for something someone else did. That's one of the ways in which the story is fucking stupid.

The fact that it happens often doesn't make it any less stupid.

>As the tree couldn't actually feed a person (it's intended purpose) it deserved to die. Ergo if the religious institution isn't actually helping anyone it deserves to just fall over and die.

But the "it was out of season" thing still fits the parable: sure, the tree wasn't doing anything to help anyone at the moment, but that's because it wasn't the moment that the tree was meant to be helping people. In the same way, religion can't help everybody with every little thing... there are times when you should turn to religion to help you, and there are times when you should just go get some food somewhere else.

Unless you're Jesus, in which case religion/figs must always be available to solve all of your problems all the time.

Because White colors are often associated with purity.

>White as fresh snow
>White as gentle clouds
>White as a prosperous shore

Granted, most white people are more pinkish, but they sure as hell aren't red, black, or olive.

Perhaps the "out of season" part is meant to say that it had served it's purpose once upon a time, but is no longer needed?

The tree was useful when it beared fruit, but once it had stopped being helpful, and people should find something else to nourish them instead of waiting for it to be useful again.

Oglaf.

It's a NSFW webcomic. Usually pretty funny.

If god was against incest, he would have personally created more than just a handful of people and animals.

So the banana is a parable for gay sex?

Tower of Babel from the bible. Humans all unite and build massive tower into heaven to show that they're equal to God. God takes note, gets pissy, and breaks the tower. Then, that morning, God forces humanity to forget it's language, then takes handfuls of people and tosses them around the world, changing their colors, because humanity will always think it's own new traits superior, they can never unite again.

Just like the Chaos Gods to the Primarch.
They clearly took inspiration from 40k

Saw something just recently with an Australia Aboriginal saying the first time he saw a white person he thought they had sat too close to a fire and their skin had peeled off.

ancient romans reasoned that climate was what decided human skin colour.