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.
Categories: Myth Direction, Philosophy and Rants | Comments (3)
Defining the Raven Queen
In yesterday’s post, I briefly examined some mythical entities that might serve as inspirations to those who intend to give the Raven Queen a prominent role in their campaigns. Today’s post presents a more fleshed-out, in-game model of the Raven Queen and her domain. Almost none of this is official in any way, of course, but I hope it will prove useful, or at least interesting.
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The being now known as the Raven Queen is the second-oldest entity in the universe. In the moment of the first entity’s creation, death became a possibility, and from that possibility the Raven Queen was born. She became the consort of this entity, of whom little is known other than the titles found in rare and obscure texts: the King Most Ancient or the King of Moments. And when that King died, his passing tore the universe in two, creating the Elemental Chaos and the Astral Sea from what had come before. From the failing sparks of the King’s being arose the first gods and the first primordials.
It’s little known that the Raven Queen is not, properly speaking, a goddess at all. She predates gods and primordials alike, and in many ways she possesses more in common with the latter, those creatures who arose from the Elemental Chaos. When the primordials formed the world, the Raven Queen was among them; it was she who first began to remove the darkest areas, setting into motion the creation of the Shadowfell, the dark echo of the first world.
Categories: My Campaigns, Myth Direction, Original Game Content | Comments (16)
Seeking the Raven Queen
The Raven Queen is one of the most mysterious deities of fourth edition, and, judging by various forum posts, one of the most popular. This is what’s known of her: She’s the unaligned goddess of death; she’s also the goddess of fate and winter. She opposes Orcus and undeath in general. Unlike most gods, she does not make her home within a dominion in the Astral Sea; instead, she rules from the palace Letherna in the Shadowfell.
And that’s about it.
There are some obvious parallels to Greek myth here. “Letherna” suggests Lethe, the river of Hades, whose waters caused total forgetfulness in any who drank of them. The word lethe literally means forgetfulness, but also concealment or deception — and it’s related to the Greek word often translated as truth, aletheia. (The actual meaning is something more akin to disclosure or non-concealment, from what I understand, and connotes recognition.)
Categories: Myth Direction, Original Game Content | Comments (11)
