Legends of your motherland translated to RPGs

Solutreans got there first.

paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PA20140470.pdf

Yes, the legend of a great king who could never be stumped.

OP here thats the most well known legend of quebec. the Chasse galerie (or hunt galery in literal translation).

Its about Lumberjacks being stuck in the middle of the woods during christmas/new years and they make a deal with the devil so that they can go to see their loved ones and party during new years. So they jump in a canoe and the devil makes it fly in the air faster than any man could be. But he has a ton of rules that if broken means the canoe stops flying and/or the devil has their souls

The most common rules are to not say gods name (wich means no swearing too since quebecois swears are also religious names), dont wear crosses or holy items, dont touch the roof of a church, be back in the canoe by midnight or something similar and dont kiss/"touch" a woman.

Its not a single legend and instead theres a ton of stories about the chasse galerie and the fate of their users. They even made a serial TV show about it recently, havent watched it yet.

>Flying canoe? Canada?? With demons 'n shit???

Just look up "La chasse galerie" To sum up, it's about lumberjacks that make a deal with the devil to see their family during Christmastime.

Other Quebec legends include werewolves, "feux-follets" (will'o wisps) and drowned native girls.

>Uhhhh. There's the tale of how we got our name from an idiot explorer. He got introduced to the natives, he said"show me your king, what is the name of this country?" And they were all "come to the village" which out loud sounded like KANETA and they ended up anglicizing it to hell and back into Canada.

You mean "francisizing" it. Jacques Cartier was French and on a mission from the king of France.

eh, we dont have much.

There is one 'Om Regl Mashlokha' which means the mother with flayed legs.

Think of it as a boogeyman(woman) who is so grotesques that she peeled the skin on her legs removing all the pustules and shit thinking that this will make her prettier.

It didn't. People laughed at her which forced her to hide away in the corn/wheatfields. As a mean of vengeance, she would kidnap children who would stray from home at it night.

She would flay their legs first and chop them before eating the child in hopes that she will be pretty. Then she would place the flayed legs in the child's leg four days later.

Some of the other legends i quite like is "La here" a earth-elemental born with no father or mother wich can shapeshift and whose sole known feature is a long, bushy orange tail. Only 2 people would have ever survived its attack.

There's also the Wendigo, one of the more well known one about how a man that eats too much human flesh would be corrupted and cursed into a hideous and gigantic beast. always hungry feeding solely on human flesh wich only makes it bigger, stronger and more hungry. Its even said that wherever a Wendigo is causes winters to be even more harsh and long to force people to have to eat each other or die of starvation.

Theres also a legend about a lumberjack who would never go to church and would simply wake up every day (even on sunday) to go and cut every single tree in his way for fun. A tree began to bleed as he was cutting it and he began chopping another tree, once again it bled and he simply finished cutting it and once he did the branches of the trees came alive and tore him into pieces, his screams echoed and when the lumberjacks arrived all they could do is see the mans limbs and head being torn apart by the trees.

Thats a pretty metal legend.

further proof Canada /= Quebec

> England
> English mythology
You mean basically all the generic fantasy tropes?
Wizards, dragon slaying, swords in stones, etc?
Find me something that DOESN'T include those. They all rip off Tolkien, who mined mythology for it.
Or all the quaint local legends got turned into hollywood movies for 'look at the quaint little victorian era people' value.

More locally, there's a long-standing thing about the treasure from the torn-down abbey being hidden under a park.
Otherwise, it's a town of shopkeepers and the farmers supplying them, and a mass of morons fit for nothing except mashing vegetables all day to turn into animal feed.

Quebec = Canada, though, no matter what the locals may want.
As long as it's part of Canada, it's under the reign of the british monarch. And like fuck are we letting the frogs have it.

I mean, legally of course it fucking is.

But culturally its a whole different boat. A boat that is also different from the French's as well so dont lump us with them.

>people who ain't me are fucking weird, yo
Welcome to current year!

Newt Knight and the Free State of Jones. One backwoods county in Mississippi had no interest in fighting for the Union or the CS. Their leader, Newt Knight, harassed confederate troops and murdered their officers on a regular basis. One myth about him states that he took two pistols into a hotel and shoot three officers dead. The next day, the blood that had been washed from the floor boards had returned. Same thing the next day. So they replaced the boards, and a legend was born.

>A boat that is also different from the French's
I've been to both, and Montreal was a lot like France, just less rude to someone with an english accent.
Still pretty fucking rude sometimes, though, but wayyy nicer than most of the US I saw on the same trip.

I got the Mothman.

So... no. it's a pretty lame myth.

Big moth guy shows up, bad shit happens, people sort of see him and he doesn't really do anything.

He has a statue, though.

Mettanpeiton valtijaale (hope I spell that right) is a pretty based mythological concept.

Well, I'm a slav, so yeah, there are a couple awesome ones.

I take historical inspo from Vladimir I of Kiev, the guy is no less significant to the culture than Charlemagne is to western Europe, and pretty edgy at that. Like, he got turned down by a princess girl because he was a bastard, and got so spuned he called in on his viking buddies, burned her whole town down, killed her parents and took her forcibly. He also introduced Christianity to slavic culture, pretty forcibly at that, and is still revered as an orthodox saint.

Out of myths, I do use the triplicity of "yav, prav and nav". Concept basically that says that the whole universe is tri-layered, "yav" standing for the material world, "prav" for a higher plane consisting of rules and laws defining yav, and "nav" - the layer of everything dead, forgotten and abandoned.

Scandinavian trolls are fantastic.

I'm pretty sure my sister is a changeling.

Sorry. Wrong John Bauer painting.

Changeling as in oWoD or CofD?

Wendigos man, Wendigos.
Aside from that animal spirits and generic tribal symbolism can be fun, though it's so watered down and generalized it can hardly be considered accurate of native american myth. Skinwalkers are fun too.

La Chasse-galerie, like basically every folktale in Quebec, isn't exclusive to or even necessarily native to Quebec.

Stories surrounding Jos Montferrant (think Paul Bunyan style folk hero, but Canadian), for example, are much more popular among Franco-Ontarians in the Ottawa region than most other places.

Wich is why it was never translated in anything other than english and seem to all happen in quebec for one reason or another and even have its own TV show and songs all made in quebec.

Im not refutting your claim but its kinda obvious where its prevalent. sure it might "exist" in other places but i doubt its as well known as in Quebec.

>There are more French speakers speaking French stories in Quebec than in the English speaking provinces.

No shit?

>Drowned native girls

Don't think that's a myth user.

Italy is in a strange position in this regard.

As the country on Earth which more than any other went full Mad Max in the dark ages (considering what we had before, I mean), basically we had:
1) a very early "civilized" and (relatively speaking) cultured population in a universal empire. This kinda fucked up the LOCAL traditions: we know more about the Gauls' religion than the italic people's ones. It doesn't help that the roman themselves thought their gods and shit were more less a continuation of the greeks'.
2) a whole lot of history of a not-united peninsula. Which is fine per se, but means it's strangely difficult to find something truly italian in that regard.

So... well, I dunno. In my area sadly there aren't really specific legends that one would find unique. We have a veritable plethora of ghosts though, you can find something for every taste, and I find kinda refreshing that a whole deal of them are set in the city, instead of the usual remote castle (it's not like in Veneto we really have remote castles, of course).

Venice per se, fittingly enough, has a lot of witches/bad fairies/magic stories. Pretty scenic, in the sense that many tell you "and THIS is the bridge were the devil appears the night of Christmas", but not that easy to use in a campaign if you're not doing a urban fantasy thing.

Probably the most interesting thing there are the ladini's legends, especially the Fanes myth. Actually the history of how they were "discovered" and "lost" is so weird and sad that it might be the most RPG-worthy topic.

The benandanti of Friuli might be interesting too, for druids or something. But that's history, not legend.

Are we talking "lungs full of water" or are we talking "Jack Daniels?"

Theres a legend i had forgotten from Quebec wich i really liked. Its more specific but it kicks ass.

Its about this blacksmith called antoine Tasse and hes a real strongman. Hes gigantic, built like a brick shithouse and even drank molten copper without a scratch. But he dosent give a damn about religion and he issues a challenge one day to every man. angel and devil that could defeat him in a physical challenge of their choosing. The prize? Everything he owns including himself.

Of course the devil shows up no sooner hes done issuing his challenge and the devil challenges him to a simple 1-round match of arm wrestling. If the devil won he would take his soul but if Antoine won the devil would enchant his tools to work for him for a year. They arm wrestle for hours but Antoine wins and the devil leaves while Antoine says one of the most badass line i know "Go back home, disapear from my face! Youll tell your fallen angels and your twisted demons that you have found your master. Practice and come back next year, you set the game, i grab the prize!" And he says that to the motherfucking DEVIL.

So a year of training montage passes and they meet again this time the devil Challenges him to a wrestling match. Once again their strength seems equal and the fight lasts hours before Antoine once again wins. The story ends a couple of days later when Antoine his found dead as he had choked on a piece of apple stuck in his throat.

How can you not use that in a game?

Canadian monarch, not the british monarch. Yes I know it's the same person but legally, it's two distinct titles. The british monarch does not lead canada. Again, I know it's the person but on paper it is not.

Being a slavshit, there are many stuff from which you can get inspiration.
Honestly, I wanna try a reskin Bogatyrs a little next time there will be a Deathwatch campaign. Those dudes already practically space marines.

Damn. There was a collection of animated stories of the Devil in New France that I've been looking for for years. - would stab to find it.

There's a Great Coyote / Grandfather Fox story about Wendigos where he tells the women of a village whose hunters have gone looking for food in the deep winter that the only way they can save themselves is by thrusting their naked haunches out of the bottom of the tent at night.
He bangs them all.
- Then a Wendigo. gets him.

He has various zany times.

fuck I found it.
And of course it's in French. I remember English Canadian Stations would play this around Halloween

Called in English "Beware the Devil" and narrated by Vincent Price.
Damn I want this.
youtube.com/watch?v=wxhE7A1kBgA

This site is really helpfull if you're looking for stuff on finnish mythology or old beliefs, especially the e-book
taivaannaula.org/in-english/

I think the facebook page has more information thats been translated to english.

Copy pasted from "For the ancient Finns, everything in nature had its own invisible soul which was somehow connected to
the natural phenomenon perceived by the senses. Trees, water, stones, fire, animals and plants were all
controlled by guardian spirits, or 'Haltijat' in Finnish. This was also true of some places or beings in the
human domain; such as home, fireplace, cattle, and barn. They were each considered to have their own
guardian spirits. Even non-concrete things like death and sleep had their own spiritual forces. Also,
each human being was accompanied by a guardian spirit that helped the person to reach his goals and
protected him against physical dangers and hostile spiritual forces. The word 'haltija' is of Germanic
origin and is interpreted to mean 'mother' or 'father'. In Eastern Finland nature spirits had names like
'Mother', 'Father', 'Old Man' and 'Old Woman'
.
These guardian spirits protected their own domains and drove away intruders and any beings with evil
intentions. If a person treated the spirits with respect he could gain their protection, but bad or
thoughtless behavior would result in revenge. Respected house 'haltija' protected the house and warned
the family of any approaching dangers. However if insulted, the spirit could burn down the house or
cause other damage. Spirits were generally considered to be invisible but sometimes they appeared to
people, albeit mostly in dreams. This belief in guardian spirits made people aware of the spiritual order
of things. It was well understood that humans could not for instance, rule the forest, but instead they
had to treat it as an equal partner. The ancient Finns lived in constant interaction with both the visible
and invisible forces of nature. In order to secure luck and success in life one had to maintain a balance
with the spirits."

There's a poem from my country about three shepherds from the three regions that meet in a sheep resting place, and the best sheep from the eastern shepherd's flock tells him about the other two shepherd's plot to kill him and split his wealth of livestock, horses and ferocious dogs. That's the first half of the poem, the other half being the eastern shepherd's curious response to his sheep. I'd say it makes a pretty nice quest, where the party of adventurers meets the travelling shepherds, stays with them for the night, and offers to protect the would-be victim when asked by the talking sheep itself. The crime would take place at the dawn of the day the shepherd speaks with the sheep, as the poem goes.

From my country we have a headless ass (the animal) who shoots fire from its opened neck.

A river type of mermaid.

A giant fire snake.

A black child with one leg that smokes pipe and is the kind of deadly trickster.

And plenty more, but I'm on the phone.

I don't know how entertaining a rpg about Franks would be. It'd have to be based on the pagan era instead of the christian one.

>Poland
Basically pic related.

Bears are just people. That is the mythology of this land.

youtube.com/watch?v=rbE53XUtVw0

Well In Ireland where I'm from there's a fucking goldmine of stuff from the local legends. From banshees to cuculainn to swords made of lightning so sharp they cut several hills in a single swing

Germany would be the forest parts of skellige then.
Fear the forest, asshole.

There's a shitton of american folklore, you just have to look for it. I've got Botkin's A Treasury of American Folklore, and it's great. 900 pages of stories and songs.

Ghosts, ghost trains, big heros, clever men against the devil, all sorts of great stuff.

Here in Milan we have the tradition that our first Lords, the Visconti, descend directly from a dragon. In fact, many people believe that our symbol (pic related) represents a serpent eating a boy, while it is quite the opposite: the monster is giving birth to the young man from the mouth.

I once ran an asoiaf inspired campaign based on this myth: the players were all members of house Visconti trying to protect and hide a dragon egg.