BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
Because I am currently drowning in worldbuilding for a story that took me over half a year to strangle, let’s talk about mythos.
A mythos is a culture’s myths, and it’s a pretty common trope in fantasy to have all myths be true. This trope is usually used for urban fantasy, but it can work for any genre, depending on the worldbuilding. But justifying how and why all myths are real is going to be a bit of a challenge. You’re going to have a bunch of sun gods running around, so is the sun a huge group project or something else? And researching and cultural appropriation might also get in the way.
The thing that most people forget about history is that certain eras didn’t just disappear and drop off. It’s like how in a few hundred years America went from a small Christain nation to… whatever we are now – culture changes over time. This also is the reason why we have so many versions of myths and legends.
Using these legends is pretty acceptable if you are part of the culture, but using some other people’s culture is not something to casually use without an understanding. You could get unreliable sources, and you might accidentally write something offensive. And making the son of Satan and an angel fall in love is not the same as naming your shapeshifting monster a wendigo because they are from different cultures.
So how do you avoid this? Well, you could use common sense and actually research, get others’ opinions, and other things to get familiar with the mythos. But we’re too lazy for that so let’s write our own mythos before you realize you have a lot of history to rewrite!
You see, religion comes from culture and religion becomes a mythos when it becomes old and no longer believed. That means you have to write about a fictional culture – which is going to put out a lot of questions. An explanation is that characters just forgot about the culture, but that’s now how it exactly works in real life. If a culture is unbothered and going on strong, then they aren’t going to disappear. In fact, it will be quite the opposite, and the culture will bloom and prosper. So how did your mythos die out, and what happened to the culture?
If your culture was pretty big and strong, then they might be still around and so might be the mythos. How would your culture affect history in wars and today?
And the way your culture preserves information is important. The reason why we know so much about the Greeks is because they wrote their stories down. And even at that, there are a ton of different versions and misconceptions, for example, how people think Hestia gave her place on Olympus to Dionysus. And some myths that haven’t been entirely written down have lived on and been rewritten.
Depending on the significance and preservation of the mythos, the mythos may live on.
Also, if the mythos is still practiced, then it would be a religion – which you then have to include.. And if the myths are true, then how does no one else know? Is there something like the mist from Percy Jackson or is there a punishment for exposing the magic?
A way this is often avoided is by saying the gods used to live among humans but left for some reason. The world then continued on and eventually forgot about them. There are plenty of reasons why your protagonist finds out about this mythos such as the afterlife, they are a part of it, the mythos reveals itself to the world, or just about any rational explanation.
It’s also possible to say that the mythos was always there and that they never bothered to show themselves to humans, but this is very unpopular. It’s unrealistic, kind of boring, and narrows the opportunities when telling a story with it.
But let’s say that your story isn’t set in real life. In this scenario, it is a lot easier to write a mythos because you have complete control over the history and culture. But then this raises a few questions you need to consider. If your mythos is a religion, then are the gods still going out or did they disappear? If there isn’t any proof of the gods, then there are surely other religions and mythos in that world. And if everyone knows that the mythos is real, then how do the people worship them and how does it play into people’s lives?
Let’s look at things broadly.
Like I said before, religion comes from culture, so when creating a pantheon of gods, you need to keep in mind what is important to the people. If your culture values water and the ocean is part of their daily lives, then you could add multiple water gods.
Then you need to think about how the people would worship the gods. Worship of gods is often based on the values of the people. It’s also common that gods will have their own individual cults or temples because, historically, the pantheon can change and certain gods are more prominent.
Take Greece as an example. People would pray to certain gods more depending on their values – if you’re a blacksmith then Hephaestus is your guy and Hera isn’t. And Dionysus was pretty late to the pantheon as he is one of the youngest both mythologically and historically. The cult of Dionysus mostly consisted of marginalized groups like slaves and women for a long time, but it wasn’t until people admitted that Dionysus held the best parties did he get big. He was originally more of an underworld god, but the Dionysus that we recognize is because he was turned into a drunk party god. Despite his changes, Dionysus is still quite wild – with all the driving people crazy and turning them into dolphins, something earlier Dionysus would do.
An interesting element you could add to your story for realism points is to show how much the culture has changed with their gods. Try adding in a few misconceptions or a historical event that rewrote the mythos to suit the people like a certain other religion in Europe.
Furthermore, if you use this, then use it wisely to not explode the brains of your audience and fictional historians. It is possible that Ragnarok was entirely a Christain concept, and Loki might literally be Satan, so learn from history’s mistakes.
It’s also common for fictional gods to be dressed like different cultures such as war gods having Greek armor while the god of darkness accidentally had a bucket of black paint fall on them. So, if you’re nitpicky, then maybe make creative designs.
Speaking of gods of darkness, in my own opinion, gods of darkness and evil are virtually pointless and excuses for villains. A god of darkness is more than the villain, but a god of evil is honestly nonsensical. There is no definition of evil, and there is no explanation to why there is a god of the concept. Like, did the god of evil exist when people became sentient? Is every other thing automatically not evil or does the god of evil come with it?
The point of this is that when creating a mythos, you have to consider the reasons certain gods exist.
In fact, a pet peeve I found while writing a mythos was that I limited and contradicted myself without a basis for the existence of certain gods. What I mean is, if you’re like me, quickly write some creation myths. The general basis is to explain how the universe was created. Universe creation myths are also usually put in a prologue if it isn’t explained in the story.
So have common sense and hopefully you learned something.