Myth Direction

Mythology is among the best sources of inspiration for a fantasy roleplaying game.  Delving into myth and legend can help you develop both your scenarios and your worlds, and it can lend a sense of verisimilitude to your world if your players recognize the similarities.

My recent series, Seeking, Defining, and Encountering the Raven Queen, gave an example of one methodology for using mythological motifs in action:  starting with a basic concept or character (in this case, one defined in the rulebooks, but it could also have been one of my own making), I did a little research and took note of myths and stories that seemed to have similar themes to the character I was looking for.  I took elements of those stories and wove them together to define the character within my game world, and finally I did a bit of brainstorming and laid out some ways in which I could use that character.

It’s equally possible to reverse the initial steps:  start with a myth you’d like to reference, strip out the themes or other elements you find useful, and then create your character or situation to suit.

It’s not limited to just myth, either.  Legends, fairy tales, novels, movies, and even nonfiction can all be adapted for your purposes.  It’s worked for everyone from Shakespeare to Spielberg, and it can work for you, too.  If you want to set your campaign in a world where a once-great nation is now wracked with internal strife and even outright warfare between factions, you might look to the Wars of the Roses or the American Civil War for inspiration, or perhaps read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Macbeth.  Look at everything as a potential source of inspiration; you’ll find it in the oddest places.

How best to use that inspiration once you’ve got it?

The easy solution is to attempt to copy the situation outright.  This is usually a mistake.  Even if you’re not tempted into excessive railroading by a desire to see the situation play out as it did in the original, the situation will probably feel forced within your world, because it wasn’t crafted for your world.  The seams may be too obvious for your players to ignore, especially if any of them is intimately familiar with your source.

A better solution is to look over the work you’re drawing from, identify the elements, and choose the ones you want to make use of.  Then, change the situation.  Instead of simply giving characters new names and the like, take the basic idea and figure out how you want to use it in your world.  Rewrite it so that it fits naturally into your world.

Take the Lernaean Hydra, for example.  In Greek myth, one of the labors of Heracles was to kill this many-headed monster, which lived in a poisonous swamp.  When Heracles confronted it, he began to chop off its heads, but for each one he cut off, two more took its place.  Ultimately, Heracles had to burn the stump of each neck with a torch, so that the heads could not regrow.

Adapting this myth sounds promising.  A tough solo monster in a challenging environment, which can be overcome only by exploiting a weakness the characters are clever enough to catch onto.  What’s not to like?

The first approach would take the Monster Manual‘s Hydra stat block, add some regeneration and a power to increase the number of base attacks Hydra Fury causes (to represent the regrowing heads), and perhaps add a vulnerability to fire.  This would probably present a challenge to the party.  However, it’s a direct transplantation of the myth.  What happens when the wizard fireballs it on round one?  What if the party doesn’t catch on, and the heads just keep growing until you end up with a total party kill?  What if someone in your group recognizes the myth immediately and says, “Hey, guys, have your torches ready, we’ll need to burn the neck stumps before the heads can regrow,” before the combat’s even begun?

If you’re going to use the Hydra directly, you’ll need to consider these questions.  And even more importantly:  Even if your party plays along, will they have fun simply recreating an existing story?  As much as they would if they participated in an original story?  (This is a legitimate question, mind you.  Some groups will.  But many won’t.)

Using the second approach, we might decide that the important elements here are a hazardous setting and an enemy that only becomes stronger when conventional means of attack are used.

Instead of hunting the Hydra in a poisonous swamp, say the party is sent after the legendary White Hart.  They must track it through the Feywild until they bring it to bay in the Glade of Stars, a clearing in the primordial forest where tiny will-o-wisps coalesce randomly, sending an electrical jolt through anyone who happens to be standing too close to the spot in which they appear.  The Hart has the ability to redirect fire or electrical damage, and its defenses increase each time an attack (or perhaps a hit) is made against it.  However, these increased defenses do not apply to a certain sort of attack — perhaps radiant attacks, which use divine energy, or perhaps weapons of cold iron, traditional bane of the fey.  (It would be best to choose a weakness, or weaknesses, available to all of the party members, but this weakness doesn’t have to be immediately obvious.)

Of course, the Hart example draws upon legends other than the myth of Heracles and the Hydra.  That’s okay; weaving them together only serves to increase the “authenticity” of your setting, if the players catch it.  If one of your players is familiar with the symbolism of the White Stag in Celtic or Arthurian legend, or knows that the White Hart was the heraldic badge of Richard II and associated with Herne the Hunter, they may wonder what the meaning of hunting such a creature through the Feywild could be.  You can use their speculations to launch further adventures after the hunt concludes.  If they don’t catch it, well, you don’t have to tell them.

And if they “catch” an association you hadn’t realized existed, and start theorizing along wild tangents?  Run with it.  The players will be gratified when they learn that they deduced your future plans, even if those plans were nonexistent until the players happened to mention them.

Related posts:

1. Myth Direction: the Faerie Courts
2. Myth Direction: The Great Con
3. Myth Direction: Dragons’ Teeth
4. Myth Direction: Excalibur
5. Stealing, By the Numbers