Cosmology Comment

[Scott Cohan]

sc>   Where in Egyptian mythology does a fight between Set and a warrior
sc> god take   place?  Set and Horus.  Perhaps, in the Perilous Lands,
sc> Set is victorious,   slays Horus and takes over as ruler of the
sc> Egyptian Pantheon.  Over the   centuries, the other gods are probably
sc> slain (perhaps even Set's wife   Nephyths, who might side with her
sc> sister, Isis), although Ptah is allowed to   escape and throw his lot

I know there was...I watch alot of the TLC type history shows...they have one
on Egypt very recently...but the one show I remeber maybe last year the guy did
talk about potential 'god' wars the people believed in.  And thsoe names are
very familar.  So it might have occured....

  --> Well, the original myth is that Set and Horus fight, Set rips out Horus's
  eye, and Horus castrates Set and wins the fight.  They are both restored and
  Set agrees not to take over the throne.


sc>   This leads to all sort of ideas about the fabled unknown "great
sc> treasure" of   the Robari.  Perhaps a great lost temple to the
sc> Egyptian Pantheon, which now   resembles a mountain among many,

You have a good point...could be a good thing to look into....

  --> Only real problem that I can see is that cultures that build pyramids (RW)
  build them because they don't have any natural mountains nearby.  Although
  cultural anthropology pales in the face of heroic fantasy.

sc>   If I find the time to develop this idea, I'll post stuff to the
sc> list or to   Wout for the web page.  Any ideas or comments?

Sounds interesting as always to see.

I wish someone had typed/scanned in the gods and maybe did a cosmology on them
from the pnp books.  Titles help but you know to get a idea of the little
things would help...which AH did that cosmo book ...sigh

  --> Well, I do have the entire list of gods and their titles typed into my
  computer as a WPWIN file.  Of course, it does have the various name changes
  that I made.

  The big problem with a cosmology book for PL is that we have a mishmash of
  gods from various pantheons with nothing really tying them together.  Most
  ancient cultures believed in a family of gods, some good, some bad.  In the
  PL, we have decided that certain cultures are good or evil, and have them
  worship only gods of their alignment.  What we really need to do, is work up
  seperate cosmologies for each section of the world, i.e. a Nordian cosmology,
  a Donaran cosmology, a Korchi cosmology, all the ones which influence other
  countries.  This would also help figure out what monsters are native to what
  areas.  For example, the Edimmu, Akhkharu, Endkikummu (sp?), Nidikimmu (sp?),
  Lamassu, and Alal all derive from Sumerian mythology.  Some of the Sumerian
  gods are present in the PL.  Does that mean that these monsters should only be
  found there?
     What I'd like to do is start from scratch.  Make up a few families of gods
  for the various cultural areas, and work from there, or have one giant
  pantheon, which includes all sorts of various deities, which are worshipped as
  a whole everywhere, but certain countries feel a kinship with one or two
  deities especially.  This seems to be to be the best bet, since we are working
  on the premise that the gods exist, and that proof of their existence exists
  as well.  This changes things drastically from a RW perspective.
     I think we would need to start with a "Creation of the World" myth and work
  our way up from there.  I propose that we take common elements from RW
  mythologies and try and tie them together.  Perhaps the first god was Tiamat
  (names will change of course), the sea dragon of chaos.  From her were born
  all the gods and monsters.  The gods decided that she had to be put down, and
  attacked her.  They divided her into two parts, one of which reformed into a
  less powerful Tiamat which could be dealt with, and the rest of her body was
  used to form the worlds.  {So far, this is a quick summary of the Sumerian
  creation story}.  It's pretty typical, seeing as most other mythologies borrow
  from it.  We have the dragon, the sea/chaos, the hero, the creation of the
  world out of the body of the slain, etc.
     Then of course, we have the creation of Man, and the other races, and which
  order and who they are created by is important, of course.  Then comes the
  myth of the sundering of the worlds, and the decision of the gods to hold back
  in their interventions on the Middle World (something hinted at, but never
  explicitly stated anywhere in the PL), and so forth.
     A daunting task, one that I know that I don't have time for.  Does anyone
  have a simpler solution (and please don't say "let's use the RQ gods", because
  I don't have those.  If you really like them, post a run down of their
  cosmology).

  Scott Cohan