If I'm playing a setting based around Greek mythology, what do I do with centaurs, fauns, satyrs, etc?
I know there's a whole rape narrative there but I don't know how it actually is in the mythology: what would the attitude to it be in the Greek culture? What should centaurs or satyrs do in the setting? If they abduct people, what happens to the people they abduct?
Kinda the same deal with nymphs actually, at least the naiad kind.
If you aren't interested in hot interspecies rape, then I don't know why you want to play in a setting based around Greek mythology.
> what happens to the people they abduct?
Slaves, raped in the modern sense, or maybe just stolen briefly as "just a prank bro"
They're all minor nature spirits. They are divine, but they aren't gods in same sense as the Olympians.
Think of them as incarnations of wild masculinity. They're big on rape because they have lust without having the restraint that good Greeks are supposed to have. They're all the traits that men have but were expected to control.
Less famous example: if you look at Greek art of satyrs, you'll find that they're normally drinking. That's because they're fundamentally creatures of excess and they're associated with Dionysus. Look closely and you'll find that they almost always drink from a horn. Why? Partly because horns look kind of like penises. Partly because you can't set it down without spilling it. That means they can never stop drinking.
tl;dr Greeks thought moderation and self-control were important, satyrs and centaurs are what you get when you take men and get rid of those parts.
Fauns were Roman mythology, not Greek.
The distinction is minor, but an important one, as Roman mythology represented mankind beginning to conquer and subjugate divinity itself. Fauns are to Satyrs as Jupiter is to Zeus.
Centaur could serve as a Sarmatian/Hunnic/steppe tribe standin. Why bother with tribes of mounted barbarian archers when you have centaur running around?
> Fauns and Satyr are different
Afraid not friendo. Different name, same thing, like with almost all roman mythology
>Centaur could serve as a Sarmatian/Hunnic/steppe tribe standin
Isn't that literally where they came from in the Greek cultural memory? Oral tradition of horse archers coming down from the steppes to raze and rape Greek colonies in Anatolia?
Were centaurs generally rapey in greek myth (compared to human characters, who were fairly rapey) or was it just that Eurytion and his friends who couldn't handle their booze got wild that one time?
>Were centaurs generally rapey in greek myth
Centaurs were extremely rapey, probably one of the most rapey creatures in the Greek mythology.
At least Satyrs tried to seduce their targets first.
I thought in Greek mythology, fauns were the goat dudes, and satyrs were just hairy guys with horsecocks, and then at some point down the line they both ended up being portrayed as goat men
Not that user, but Roman mythology does have differences to Greek mythology. Compare Mars and Ares.
Maybe the Scythian/Sarmatian/Hun analogue takes centaurs captive as prestigious mounts. Like that one smut story I wrote about a Scythian noblewoman catching, molesting and enslaving a female centaur.
Rule of thumb when you're talking mythology: there isn't really a canon, and things vary a lot. Think of it like comic books. Everyone knows Superman's basic themes, but every author does him a little differently. That's how myth works.
Strict classifications are a later invention by historians trying to simplify things, since it's really hard to grasp how pagan religious structures work when you come from a more organized culture.
Satyr were goat-like men with horse cocks that played flutes, were sons of Pan, and seduced nymphs or human women in the forest. They were wise but rapey.
Fauns were goat-like men (and women) with goat-dicks that roamed the forest as aspects of wild nature. They weren't wise, but tended to be less rapey and more goofy.
The Romans were making an active effort in creating a grand unified pagan religion, they were the Marvel of the ancient world with a Hellenic Religious Universe.
Surely you mean the DC of the ancient world.
No it's not,if you read about archaic Roman mythology things were quite different.
For example fauns were not so rapey and a sort of wild men with donkey ears (and tails perhaps i don't Remember).
Many of the things seemed the same for many reasons:1) both are indoeuropeans religiones2) romans renamed gods that were similar as their own,for example tacitus names a deity as Mercury but it seems wodan(both traveling deities),3)half of Italian pre-roman cultures were in touch with greeks from ancient times and parte of Italy was colonized by greeks,4)romans were "changed" by greek cultures like usa did After war with europe,but they saw it as an outsider culture(Remember the scipians against Cato,he said greek cultures would have corrupted Roman boys).
Obviously greek mythology "changed romans ways" but in the beginning they were different(and the similarities are because both are indoeuropean mythologies,we Can get same similiraties between indian or celtic myths).
Obviously being "neighbours in the Mediterranean was also a considerabile factor.
Assuming greek geography
> Centaur tribes in the north, horse archers who raid to steal food, slaves, supplies and riches so that they can indulge in a hedonistic lifestyle
> Satyr and Faun in the forests, hunt and gather in the wild and trade for luxuries like wine. Known for getting up to all kinds of mischeif
> Harpies, Minotaur, and other monsters running about
> Human cities are walled polis that fight wars against eachother on a regular basis. Follow the greek proverb of "summer, harvest, war". Very rarely are cities conquered or destroyed, typically three battles are fought and the loser pays a bribe to get the winner to leave them alone
>If I'm playing a setting based around Greek mythology
You're constantly in the danger of getting shit on by an angry god randomly, yes they shit on you for no reason at all, even if you did nothing wrong
>what do I do with centaurs, fauns, satyrs, etc?
Depend really, most of the centaurs is rapey, satyrs are like incubus but like to have drunk sex more
>what would the attitude to it be in the Greek culture?
Free sex, sex everywhere, bestiality, gangbang, incest, ntr, mind control, stockholm syndrome etc...
>What should centaurs or satyrs do in the setting?
For centaurs if you want less rapey you can make them good archers and scouts, Chiron is also famous as the teacher of almost every Grecian heroes, centaur's blood is lethal poison too
I swear after CoC everything with hooves always has a horsecock or two
There is literally nothing wrong with horsecock.
> Another society of humans across the sea, a massive empire of a hundred nations under a tyrant king
Consider: rape in the context of ancient Greece often just refers to abduction. Satyrs were more seductive than forceful.
Centaurs were shit heads though.
>I know there's a whole rape narrative there but I don't know how it actually is in the mythology
If you know the rape narrative, you know the mythology. Greek myths are lewd as fuck.
I find it interesting that the greco-roman satyr, seen as playful, lusty symbols of nature and celebration, became the reviled incubi under christianity.
Maybe that might be sometihng to play with, a new religion that veiws the hedonistic beast-men as inherently sinful and vile
I fucking love theories like this.
Ever hear any discussion about troll/giant mythology in European cultures possibly being a highly debased remnant of oral histories concerning Neanderthals? That one absolutely captures my imagination.
>Like that one smut story I wrote about a Scythian noblewoman catching, molesting and enslaving a female centaur.
>post a link
To be fair, loads of niggers acknowledged Greek mythos as degenerate before Christianity came along. It's one of the reasons why Socrates (literary Socraties ie. Plato's mouthpiece) detested the Illiad and the Odyssey: they depicted the gods as petty, lewd and arbitrary rather than examplary.
That does make me wonder if the Greeks legitimately believed the Illiad or Odyssey or saw it as just a story written by Homer that happened to feature the gods. A sort of Olympian fanfiction to put it crudely.
It's Greek mythology. Everybody is either raping, or being raped. I'm not talking mythology here, I'm talking history. The Greeks were rapists. Entire cities were being raped. Troy was about a bunch of horny single men sieging a city for rape-slaves.
Why do all those horse dudes look like they're flaming homosexuals
>implying OP doesn't want to subject his players to a magical realm where wild gay interspecies rape orgies are commonplace
Just make sure your players are sufficiently high level enough to survive multiple innings of horsecock. I assume that gets pretty rough.
Neigh, I couldn't inflict that on all of you.
Centaurs were a symbol of debauched wildness and barbarism, whose very blood was poisonous. "An invasion of centaurs" was used as a metaphor for the rising counterculture of the New Left, in reference to a bunch of drunk centaurs gatecrashing a ceremony at the Temple of Zeus on Olympia. In some versions of the Hercules myth, the thing that kills him is when he puts on a shirt that has been soaked in centaur blood.
because they are
But we want to be inflicted.
Nah, it would be a real night-mare.
I feel like this is an exaggeration.