Can you make a series of myths work for a fantasy setting?

Nah, Dark Souls is awesome at mythos building.

Because the point of a mythos is that it's a vague recollection of events and things.

Last I checked the Iliad nor the Odyssey go into hardcore detail about all the places that they visit. They are vaguely described with a focus on important events that happened.

I'm sorry, I'm not being clear - we aren't seeing how the mythos is treated across the entirety of the setting. It'd be like looking at WFB's Empire and assuming all religions across the Warhammer World are the same way.

I've never read any Conan or Kull, though I have read a little Tarzan. Never seemed to delve into myth though.

No, myth in most cultures is a way to explain how things are happening as they are. So in a fantasy setting, tossing a huge fire elemental up into the sky might be considered the source of the sun. The battle itself might be barely remembered, but we can assume it concretely happened, just like the Greeks would have assumed at some point the gods really did defeat the Titans in a huge battle and become rulers of the world.

I've expanded upon the Nehwon Mythos, with a whole how, when and why their strange system of Gods exist. Of course, regular folks and even "priests" have no idea about it, and a few regional religions have it tragically wrong.

It's a strange mythos with no Heaven or Hell, only a Shadowlands for the dead, and the Gods living in a nigh-unreachable Godsland (sorta like a Mt Olympus).

The Gods are brought into existence by human belief, and perish when they are forgotten (there are a lot of them). They don't grant spells, and generally only dick around with mortals that peeve them.

All of that is out of the novels, and I've created a mythos from that kernel.

So? The details are vague enough that every other place can easily have the same story.

Fuck, how you are exposed to the mythos has no allegiance, it's all from item descriptions and the opening cutscene, which are told from what can be safely assumed is an omniscient narrator (with maybe a few exceptions)

>So in a fantasy setting, tossing a huge fire elemental up into the sky might be considered the source of the sun.

In Nehwon, the "world" is inside a sphere floating in the Void, the Sun and Moon and the stars (which were launched off the tallest peak, Stardock) all exist inside that sphere.

> myth in most cultures is a way to explain how things are happening as they are

Yeah, and they are told in a way that's a vague recollection of how things happened.

They aren't hyper specific and they aren't all-encompassing unless in a vague way.

>All of that is out of the novels, and I've created a mythos from that kernel.

Just like how Dark Souls fans will create an elaborate story and come up with a mythos about the world.

ok?

What do you mean by hyper specific? They might not have every stroke of a sword down or something, but all the basics are fairly concrete. If you say something happens this way, it happened that way.

And outside of real world history, in a fantasy setting, you can assume that if you are told by some narrator or background booklet that something happened one way, it happened that way.

Then we agree.

But you're saying it's vague, I'm saying what's said has to be concrete, unless for whatever reason it's put into doubt - it's given IC, there's another version given, etc.

Even in Dark Souls, you can either listen to Frampt or Kaathe, one telling you your destiny is to cause an age of dark, the other saying that your destiny is to keep the age of fire going.

That's generally true of published material, yes.

In my campaign, people do not have a clear idea for the purpose of the Gods. The Gods have essentially forgotten why the exist (they are neither omnipotent nor omniscient in any fashion). The first generation Gods, the animalist dieties like, are largely forgotten and dead. The current Gods, very humanistic in nature, are only slightly older than a millennium old. Also, they do not reproduce like most pantheons.

There's a lot of uncertainty is what I am saying.

Something can be vague and concrete dude.

Also the destiny thing is a terrible example since the player literally has direct control over their destiny.

Future prophecy and ancient mythos aren't the same thing.

He's stating that the fans, and dark souls, are both full of shit, and only use vaguery as a way around being forced to create a story around all the unrelated shit that happens in the games.

Literally can't believe you just compared one of the greatest works of literary art in history to a fucking video game. Get over yourself.

>the quality of art has completely stopped
>there can never be anything created to match famous works

Get over yourself.

I don't think that if you go into really concrete detail, it can also be vague.

Look at some real world myths - not like the Illiad, but stuff like how humans were formed in Chinese religion, or how the Aztecs thought the sun and moon were created and why they were different. If we were to assume those stories were true, then they would've happened the way they were told, disregarding years of forgotten details or new things being added to the story.

Yes, because a shitty Blade of Darkness ripoff that got out of having an actual story by tricking people into thinking it had one by making it up themselves, as a mere way to avoid the extra work of creating an actually relevant plot or reason, ranks up there with the likes of Homer.

Holy shit, fucking kill yourself kid, if this isn't a troll.

>I don't think that if you go into really concrete detail, it can also be vague.

That's not what was described though.

Not every sword swing is detailed but the events are the same.

It is both vague and concrete.

No, it's concrete, without any vagueness.

...

But it is vague.

Because you don't know exactly what happened.

Only the end result and the players involved.

...

But the myth details exactly what happens. I can go up and look several different myths right now, and get told what happened in each event.

Oh, no, there can, I think what he meant was, you're an idiot for thinking Dark Souls can compare, seeing as 90% of the bullshit mythos and lore that the fans vomited up to try and make for a reason as to why Dark Souls was so deep, was retconned in the very beginning of Dark Souls 2.

So yea, they're shitty writers, but they get past that by leaving it up to the players imagination.

Yeah, and I can tell you that Gwyn's knights peel away the dragon's scales with lightning, Nito rotted them away with a plague, the witches burned their homes, and Seathe betrayed his own kind.

But it's still vague with the specific details on how all these things went down. We don't get a crystal perfect image of who these people all are, we don't get a perfect image about how the world was at the time, any details that are irrelevant to the event that the myth depicts are deemed irrelevant and not disclosed.

> 90% of the bullshit mythos and lore that the fans vomited up

No it's not. In fact one of the big things that bugs me about other similar games is how they are just "lol vague" without really providing a lot of details. Dark Souls has a lot of details and has only a few gaps for the player to fill in on their own. Play the game and you'll see it.

Also who ever said anything about Dark Souls 2? I don't give a fuck about that game so I sure as hell didn't bring it up, so I don't see why it should be brought up since I'm pretty sure I mentioned Dark Souls.

Also there is more to Dark Souls than just the lore.

>greatest works of literary art in history

Actually those Greek works are pretty shoddy. Even in contemporary terms they didn't challenge anything or explore new ideas, and the use of language is nothing special. They're like Ancient Greek Star Wars: simple, derivative, and popular chiefly because they pander to collective tropes. There are some pretty good Greek plays, I'll give you that, but the Odyssey and Iliad are popcorn material.

>Also there is more to Dark Souls than just the lore.

You mean like the gameplay? Which would be far more thrilling if it wasn't in a game that's just wandering around pointless environments just to find a fire place or to open up a shortcut that creates the illusion of progress?

There's a series that did this and did it a lot better with actual plot, story, lore, and mythos, which was better in every single regard, and upon which lots of people have as a point of reference when judging the quality of writing in a game....mmm, but damn, what was it? Oh, yea, Legacy of Kain.

You approach it the same way Myths formed for us. It doesn't matter if one culture in your story declares the world was an eye plucked from a great serpent or a pearl born from some some space clam.. the point is the world was created. Everything else is flavor.

I think OP is confused and assuming 'myths' means something alone the lines of 'definite established story for how everything goes down, happening exactly as told.'

>environments
>pointless

wut?

>illusion of progress

wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut? The whole point of the shortcuts is to help the player cut back on retreading the same ground when they die.

>who gives a fuck about Dark Souls 2

>has to directly state that the canonical sequel to Dark Souls 1 doesn't exist in his own head canon to pretend Dark Souls 1 had any decent writing (of the writing that WAS in it) at all

Tip top kekeroo

>wut

They all have fancy names, and maybe even get a short little 10 second cinematic introduction every now and then, but they're virtually meaningless palette swaps of the previous area's in the sense that there's no real reason to continue onward. You have no goal. You're simply raised and told to "kill demons".

Oh, but sure, some dragons came around and fucked everyone's shit. Yea, that happened.

Wow, such a great mythos. What's next, are they going to knock-off H.P. Lovecraft's writing by throwing in a bunch of random incoherent references and concepts about the Elder Gods, without actually understanding their actual context?

>bloodborne

Oh....

...how does the existence of Dark Souls 2 effect the writing of Dark Souls 1?

Do you think they are the same game?

Do you like having your head up your ass and acting obtuse?

> You have no goal.
> You're simply raised and told to "kill demons".

You literally disproved your own argument.

>Wow, such a great mythos

It's like you ignored the opening cinematic, the details of the environment, character dialogue, and item descriptions.

>bloodborne
> a bunch of random incoherent references and concepts about the Elder Gods

uuuuuh they are quite coherent. Did you play the game?

Do you like insulting people rather than forming an argument?

>the details of the environment

There's details in every environment in every video game, but fans of other video games aren't autistic enough to pretend that it's enough to supplant an actual fucking story and plot.

But if you look at the environment there are clear details in it that supplant the story and plot.

Fuck there are a bunch of games where you need to look at the environment for details about the story and plot.

...

>supplant the story and plot

You clearly don't know what the word "supplant" means, because you just used it incorrectly.

>Fuck there are a bunch of games where you need to look at the environment for details about the story and plot.

Well, yea, no shit, because other games with actual story use the environments to tell their story, because other-wise they would just be big white boxes.

They don't give an environment with a bunch of random bullshit that maybe looks interesting or cool and says "there, there's your story."

Sure, it's interesting way to tell a story, but don't even pretend for one fucking minute that it's new, or deep, because it's not.

It's like all this bullshit with modern art where you "create your own meaning" out of a piece of shit that someone threw together.

Myths exist to explain what isn't known.

Define how things came to be, and think on what culture X knows about it, if any. Nevertheless, they'll try to explain it, though their myth may be a window into their culture instead of what really happened.

And perhaps each culture shows hints that put together, present how things came to be.

Of course, that depends on people not being able to ask the gods about it, and/or that the gods themselves know about it.

>You clearly don't know what the word "supplant" means, because you just used it incorrectly.

Oh wait, are you claiming that the story and lore of Dark Souls relies 100% on environmental details?

It's like you ignored the opening cinematic, character dialogue, and item descriptions.

>fucking kill yourself kid

/v/ plz leave

>How do cultures develop?
>How do things like the environment shape a peoples customs, arts, worldview, and wider society?
>Oh shit son, anthropologist here, and I gotta tell you there's a shitload of answer to your questions. But at its most basic, cultural practices develop because they serve a certain function. I can post lots of things for you if you are interested in some basics, can even provide university level reading if you need.
>even if op dont want it i do. HIT ME UP
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/37435457/

well, there are the witcher novels

if a mythology is definite, you're more defining a setting's metaphysics than it's mythology.