Characters/Events/Items in your stories that reference Mythology/History

Anon_Y_Mousse

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Just curious, I mean most of us probably have an element of history/myth in our stories without intending to due to the nature of writing. But was there ever an element in your story that you decided to base on an interesting piece you've read or one you've decided to research on?
 

Clori

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A lot of people love this one, but the Battle of Thermopylae is a really fun to write about. I mean, who doesn't love desperate last stand hold the pass battles?

Something more obscure is the Fenian raids. I liked the idea that Canada was partially motivated to unite because they thought they were being attacked by Americans (in reality it was a Irish independent movement that happened to have followers in America but for some reason thought attacking the then British owned colonies up north was a thing), and tried to use that in my story as how association and distant issues drive even things that don't feel related at all.
 

Anon_Y_Mousse

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A lot of people love this one, but the Battle of Thermopylae is a really fun to write about. I mean, who doesn't love desperate last stand hold the pass battles?

Something more obscure is the Fenian raids. I liked the idea that Canada was partially motivated to unite because they thought they were being attacked by Americans (in reality it was a Irish independent movement that happened to have followers in America but for some reason thought attacking the then British owned colonies up north was a thing), and tried to use that in my story as how association and distant issues drive even things that don't feel related at all.
Ooh, I like writing parallels to historical battles too. Mostly because I get to listen to Sabaton to motivate myself, but that's besides the point
 

EternalSunset0

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Three of the more broken powers in my series are named after the Imperial Regalia of Japan. I just felt like it.
 

GodlyKamui

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The gods of my novel fought against several gods from Norse and Greek mythology. They lowkey provoked the collapse of civilization at the end of the Bronze Age. :blob_popcorn:
 

HokuouTenrou

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Nothing much, just naming most of my weapons after mythological stuff. Took the idea after playing Luminous Arc 3, and I'm pretty sure said idea is old anyway.
 

Jemini

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I've packed a truly ludicrous amount of mythological lore into my world-building. All you need to do is look at my world bible to start to get an idea of just how seriously I based this world off of many different things.


My creation story for my world is based straight out of the Babylonian creation myth. The earlier portions of it are almost exactly the same, with only a little of my own spin. It also incorporates a little bit of Hindu lore in the form of including Bahamut.

(The real Bahamut, not the dragon from D&D and the Final Fantasy series. I'm talking about the mighty leviathin-scale creature. Speaking of which, mythological leviathins outclass dragons by several levels of magnitude. Dragons are just dragons, having no more or less than the powers we commonly attribute to them today. In fact, modern fantasy has actually powered up dragons compared to their origins. Leviathins in their original mythology, on the other hand, were always portrayed as primordial-scale creatures that have powers able to create or destroy entire worlds.)

I also use a little bit of the Chinese 4 guardians lore, putting a heavy bit of my own spin on it once again but somehow actually getting closer to their original versions than most modern portrayals do. My guardians of the North and East are far more accurate to their original lore, my Vermillion bird is a cross between all 3 of the famous birds of fire. (I call it the fire bird for Slavic, it is the guardian of the south for Chinese, and it has rebirth from flames power like the Phoenix of Egyptian lore.) My guardian of the West is probably the most corrupted of the 4 compared to the original lore. I just thought a white tiger was too boring, so I added a black wolf and made the two eternal adversaries for a bit of a yin-yang theme.

I've also borrowed a little more from Hindu lore in the form of Avatars, although while god avatars do exist in my world I actually use it a little differently. My avatars are avatars of concepts and stories, and they are very important to the power system in my world. (For instance, my guardians are all avatars. The fire bird would be the best example of the concept. The fire bird (who has the phoenix powers) is the avatar of eras. He always dies whenever there is a time of chaos and upset in the world that is massive enough to shift the world, and then the newly born fire bird will seek out the person who will be most influential in driving the next era to give it's blessing to.)

Yeah, the lore in my story is pretty well researched. Those are the most prominent points I just brought up, but I have woven well-researched and well woven together lore of several cultures into what I think is a pretty cohesive tapestry. An example of some of my lower scale world-building inclusions would be that for my "beastfolk" races, there are several tribes that are named after the creatures in the real world lore. For instance, there is a prominent human-dog tribe called the "Aldet." Aldet was a creature in Egyptian lore that was a human with the head of a dog. (Not to be confused with Anubis, who was a specific god with the head of a Jackal. Aldet refers to dog-headed humans in general, making no specification to what species of dog.)
 

Reborn_Cat

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a little bit of Hindu lore in the form of including Bahamut
My parents and grandparents are hindus, but this is the first time I'm hearing about bahamut coming from hindu lore
 

SerikoLee

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Just curious, I mean most of us probably have an element of history/myth in our stories without intending to due to the nature of writing. But was there ever an element in your story that you decided to base on an interesting piece you've read or one you've decided to research on?
I made a story like this but kinda like the fall of lucifer called The Fallen God as starting point for the series am working on.
 

ArcadiaBlade

I'm a Lazy Writer, So What?
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Imma be real with you bruh, I might have been researching much on Zeus on the many ways on how he mated a lot of women and animals. Probably enough to change his title from God of Thunder to God of Sex.
 

Anon_Y_Mousse

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I've packed a truly ludicrous amount of mythological lore into my world-building. All you need to do is look at my world bible to start to get an idea of just how seriously I based this world off of many different things.


My creation story for my world is based straight out of the Babylonian creation myth. The earlier portions of it are almost exactly the same, with only a little of my own spin. It also incorporates a little bit of Hindu lore in the form of including Bahamut.

(The real Bahamut, not the dragon from D&D and the Final Fantasy series. I'm talking about the mighty leviathin-scale creature. Speaking of which, mythological leviathins outclass dragons by several levels of magnitude. Dragons are just dragons, having no more or less than the powers we commonly attribute to them today. In fact, modern fantasy has actually powered up dragons compared to their origins. Leviathins in their original mythology, on the other hand, were always portrayed as primordial-scale creatures that have powers able to create or destroy entire worlds.)

I also use a little bit of the Chinese 4 guardians lore, putting a heavy bit of my own spin on it once again but somehow actually getting closer to their original versions than most modern portrayals do. My guardians of the North and East are far more accurate to their original lore, my Vermillion bird is a cross between all 3 of the famous birds of fire. (I call it the fire bird for Slavic, it is the guardian of the south for Chinese, and it has rebirth from flames power like the Phoenix of Egyptian lore.) My guardian of the West is probably the most corrupted of the 4 compared to the original lore. I just thought a white tiger was too boring, so I added a black wolf and made the two eternal adversaries for a bit of a yin-yang theme.

I've also borrowed a little more from Hindu lore in the form of Avatars, although while god avatars do exist in my world I actually use it a little differently. My avatars are avatars of concepts and stories, and they are very important to the power system in my world. (For instance, my guardians are all avatars. The fire bird would be the best example of the concept. The fire bird (who has the phoenix powers) is the avatar of eras. He always dies whenever there is a time of chaos and upset in the world that is massive enough to shift the world, and then the newly born fire bird will seek out the person who will be most influential in driving the next era to give it's blessing to.)

Yeah, the lore in my story is pretty well researched. Those are the most prominent points I just brought up, but I have woven well-researched and well woven together lore of several cultures into what I think is a pretty cohesive tapestry. An example of some of my lower scale world-building inclusions would be that for my "beastfolk" races, there are several tribes that are named after the creatures in the real world lore. For instance, there is a prominent human-dog tribe called the "Aldet." Aldet was a creature in Egyptian lore that was a human with the head of a dog. (Not to be confused with Anubis, who was a specific god with the head of a Jackal. Aldet refers to dog-headed humans in general, making no specification to what species of dog.)
That is a very satisfying answer to say the least.
 

Jemini

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My parents and grandparents are hindus, but this is the first time I'm hearing about bahamut coming from hindu lore
It's a pretty back-corner reference, not part of the main pantheon or anything. Rather, he is (as I referenced) a primordial tier existence. I'm talking a rank above the Titans from Greek mythology.

The idea is that the entire world is held up on the backs of giant elephants. And, the elephants in turn are supported by walking on the back of an even more giant fish. The fish's name is Bahamut. That's the origin of Bahamut's lore.

Me calling Bahamut a leviathin is something of an interpretation from multiple different mythologies I've researched. There are actually a startlingly large number of primordial-tier fish in various ancient mythology. There is only one source in all of mythology that names these giant sea-related creatures that everyone refers to as fish though. That is, believe it or not, the bible. (You will also be hard pressed to find many Christians or Jews who know about the leviathin mentions in the bible.)

The old testament makes specific reference to Tiamat from the Babylonian creation myth. (Another thing you will be stunned by is how frequently Babylonian lore is referenced in the bible.) The bible calls her a leviathin, and Tiamat's characteristics when she is described happen to match those of Bahamut pretty closely.

Leviathins are not really a part of Christian or Jewish lore as anything central to their beliefs, so this tells me that the term "leviathin" is something that was more along the lines of folk lore. One of those things in verbal tradition that just got passed along and accepted as a fact. As such, it does indeed look like these great primordial sea creatures are referred to as leviathins by the ancient world.

(We can also thank the Final Fantasy series for nerfing down leviathins. They do not portray them as anything even close to the overwhelming planetary scale power that the ancient mythologies said leviathins had, and it is not just a single mythos that has leviathins either. They appear all over in ancient lore, and they always share the characteristics of being sea creatures that can create, destroy, or hold up entire worlds, and also have the power to create entire pantheons of gods and entire new races of species. Leviathins in ancient lore are something seriously powerful, and it is almost criminal that they are seen as lesser than dragons in modern fantasy lore compared to the over-god scale creatures they were in the ancient world.)
 

T.K._Paradox

Was Divided By Zero: Looking for Glovebox Jesus
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Beau a dragon in my story is slightly based on the hundred-headed dragon Ladon, I turned the idea of the manticore being a simple chimera into a manufactured eldritch being that is the product of alchemists trying to play God. My main character James takes a few traits from the Greek hero Perseus and Classical hero Beowulf (minus the dying thing), both of these heroes overcame their hardships and monsters with their wits and intelligence.
 

killwrites

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I've always been interested in pre-WW1 Europe as a setting, and two of the countries which will be featured in my story is based on Austria and Hungary following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire :blob_cookie:
 

AryaX

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Not really a story at this point and maybe never... not quite "world" building either... maybe "dungeon" building? anyway, I've been "trying" to marry the Seven Deadly Sins and the Dante's Inferno with various Hentai tropes and Fetishes... to come up with something that is still clearly recognizably based on the Inferno (until the city of dis), but make it all lewd hentai versions of sins and "punishments".
 
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KittraMcBriar

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My story the Persephone Variant is a science fantasy reimagining of the Hades and Persephone myths, so pretty much the whole thing is inspired by mythology in some way
 
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