MYTH & BACKSTORY

Tue, 02 Aug 2016 04:26:22 GMT

♦ This character is from an original project based on Greek mythology (and specifically ancient Greek mystery religion, which focused on Dionysos, Demeter, and Persephone along with various foreign gods), with a dash of Egyptian mythology as well.
♦ The premise is this: "What if we could reconstruct Minoan mythology based partly on evidence from Crete and partly on blending Greek and Egyptian mythology?"
♦ Of course that's nonsense but here you go.
♦ In comments here, along with commentary, are the bits and pieces of this character's mythos.

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notes on Greek mythology in the Thirstverse

Sat, 16 Jul 2016 01:56:48 GMT

( Greek mythology stuff under here )

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resources

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 13:47:20 GMT

ON DIONYSOS
Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, by Karoly Kerényi. Amazon link. Published in 1973 by an elderly scholar and therefore kind of dated in its language and philosophy, this is still the main source of the ideas used for this character. The author traces not just the character but the entire religion of Dionysos through its history, starting with speculated origins in Minoan Crete. Kerényi was a contemporary and colleague of Jung and it shows in his approach to mythology.
THEOI.COM: titles of Dionysos; general Dionysos page. Theoi.com is a huge collection of primary sources surrounding ancient Greek religion. It's extremely useful for research.

ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY
The Gods of the Greeks, by Karoly Kerényi. Amazon link. As usual for this guy, somewhat dated language and perspective, but also a lot of good info in general.
Classical Myth, by Barry B. Powell. Amazon link. This is a pretty solid textbook and it's how I got started on the subject recently.
See above on Theoi.com.

ON EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY
More here later.

ON MINOAN CRETE
ACADEMIA.EDU: Minoan religion. This is kind of tricky because a lot of the actual serious scholars here are deeply invested in refuting the idea that Homeric material can be used to extrapolate anything about Crete, which means never talking about the minotaur and the labyrinth. Which is fair because from an academic standpoint they're probably correct, but it does make my fantasy research a bit harder.

OTHER SUBJECTS
Temple of the Cosmos, by Jeremy Naydler. A highly esoteric book about ancient Egyptian cosmology and magic that gave me some ideas for this setting's worldbuild.
Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, by Karoly Kerényi. More self-indulgent and awkward than his Dionysos book (mostly because it's an elderly male mid-twentieth century scholar trying to talk about Demeter and Persephone), this still had some useful research for fleshing out the other characters in this setting.

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ASTERION, the star and sacrifice.

MYTH & BACKSTORY

notes on Greek mythology in the Thirstverse

resources