The Kosmos Topic

[Gurkhal]

This is intended to a be general topic for my development of my, if things comes to success, development of a Ancient Greece and Hellenistic inspired fantasty setting thus far named "Kosmos". I'll be posting a little of everything, do revisions etc. All manner of comments and suggestions are welcome.

To start with it. I'll start with a short overview of the race of men called the Hallienes.

The Hallienes

Part 1.

This people were born by the ur-mother Galaya and by a divine father whose name and nature shifts according to version, and the place where they were raised and put up their homes was called Hallia, a set of mountainous islands and penninsulas shoting out into Sapphire Sea. This geographical circumstances pulled them towards the waters and it was not long before they came into contact with surrounding cultures and became part of the great trade network that span across the Sapphire Sea. This had several effects of both getting trade contacts, offering oppertunities for piracy as well as get the Hallienes into contact with clients who could pay well for foreign mercenaries for one of their many wars.

For just as fertile soil, fresh water springs, good grazing lands and other resources were sparse due to the mountainous nature of their homeland, so had the Hallienes grown to fight harshly with each other over these resurces. For many the lure of foreign gold proved a great alternative to poverty or risk of starvation and so they sold their spears to whatever king or cheiftain would care to hire them in their wars and feuds.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

You can have traditional fantasy races, with elves,dwarves,gnomes and goblins coming mostly from Celtic and Norse mythology they just have to come from elswhere, most likely the northwest;Travelers,explorers or migrants/settlers who are probably fleeing something.

A Pseudo Atlantis that is more advanced than everyone else and is in the process of invading the known world.

Demigods and lots of them all at varying degrees of divine power.

You can have fire ball and lightning bolt wizardry, a lot of western mysticism is drawing from Hellenic mysticism and philosophy and those two overlap quite a bit. Also don't forget the witches Cirrce and Medea, and the Wizard, Demigod and King Aeolus who gave Odysseus a bag of wind.


Pankration! Is a must, the master of hand to hand combat is not one of the common archetypes in western fantasy despite the existence of occidental hand to hand traditions. Well you're in pseudo Ancient Greece, and any warrior and well rounded athlete would have been trained in it.


Divinely granted magic items.


Mechanical constructs made by the gods,demigods or the divinely inspired such as great bronze bulls and towering sentinels that defend cities from invaders.

Mechanical computers that wouldn't be out of place in a Steampunk setting.

Your world might be in the begins of a Steampunk industrial revolution.



Well that's all I got.

 

[Gurkhal]

You can have traditional fantasy races, with elves,dwarves,gnomes and goblins coming mostly from Celtic and Norse mythology they just have to come from elswhere, most likely the northwest;Travelers,explorers or migrants/settlers who are probably fleeing something.

A Pseudo Atlantis that is more advanced than everyone else and is in the process of invading the known world.

Demigods and lots of them all at varying degrees of divine power.

You can have fire ball and lightning bolt wizardry, a lot of western mysticism is drawing from Hellenic mysticism and philosophy and those two overlap quite a bit. Also don't forget the witches Cirrce and Medea, and the Wizard, Demigod and King Aeolus who gave Odysseus a bag of wind.


Pankration! Is a must, the master of hand to hand combat is not one of the common archetypes in western fantasy despite the existence of occidental hand to hand traditions. Well you're in pseudo Ancient Greece, and any warrior and well rounded athlete would have been trained in it.


Divinely granted magic items.


Mechanical constructs made by the gods,demigods or the divinely inspired such as great bronze bulls and towering sentinels that defend cities from invaders.

Mechanical computers that wouldn't be out of place in a Steampunk setting.

Your world might be in the begins of a Steampunk industrial revolution.



Well that's all I got.

Thank you very much for you ideas.

At this moment I'm reluctant to include elves and dwarfs as I simply have no good idea what to do with them and I fear they would essentially just bloat the setting.

Thanks for the mystical ideas. Hermes Trismegistus has as you noted remained a highley influential source in occult traditions, to my knowledge, and it would make much sense to include this kind of stuff in a Hellenic and Hellenistic inspired setting.

And thanks for pankration! I'll check out this in more detail.

The thing that most caught my eye was the theme of a steam punk revolution. At first I dismissed it because it wasn't according to the themes I wanted to explore with this setting. But when I thought about it, I decided that may this can be made to work? What I have as an idea in that case could be that Atlantis was essentially leaving antiquity behind and moving into a steampunk era and rising above the limits of their fellow man. But this isn't a story of mankind's triumph but a story of hybris and the fundamental inequality between gods and men. The Atlanteans grasped for the heavens with science and sorcery, but the heavens striked them down, drowned their wonderous island and crushed their legacy into a whispered myth.

 

[Erudite]

How closely are you trying to tie this to the actual Greek mythology? Galaya, Gaia, Hallienes, Hellenics...

 

[Gurkhal]

How closely are you trying to tie this to the actual Greek mythology? Galaya, Gaia, Hallienes, Hellenics...

Foremost I'm trying to capture the essence and to start with, I shall cleave fairly close. But as I get a better grasp for the setting and develop it, I'm planning on diverging more and more.

Most names are placeholders as of now untill I get the inspiration for something better. The reason for this is that I don't want to essentially get bogged down with details but rather jump some details to keep momentum, and then return to deal with the details later.

 

[Boiled Water]

I think what you've come up with is great. How prominent is this society in the greater world? Do you imagine them as the dominant race or limited to a small chain of islands?

 

[Gurkhal]

I think what you've come up with is great. How prominent is this society in the greater world? Do you imagine them as the dominant race or limited to a small chain of islands?

As I imagine it, the society will be prominent but geographically it will gradually fade from the scene. My present vision of the original homeland of the Hallienes is that they start off almost tribal, develop into Mycenaen citadel-kings and Minoan palace-kings, before these develop into city-states. The city-states will hold an age of strength but gradually as they turn from Hellenic to Hellenistic and more and more people are drawn away to settle in distant lands, these city-states's power will fade. In the end they are essentially reduced to half-empty theocratic temple-cities. The cities are drained of political, economical and military power but given their prestigeous sites as mother-cities for colonies and sacred cities to the gods, they live on the vast offerings given by later Hellenistic-style kings and more successful cities.

One of the main reasons I'm thinking about changing is that in this setting, the kings never go out of fashion like they do in Ancient Greece but rather there's continuity between the Mycenaenan kings and the Hellenistic-style kings. There might be political challenges from oligarchs and democrats but most likely these different political systems never take hold like they did in actual history. And the reason I want this is that I find that monarchies are easier to write about as politics and personal life becomes easily intermixed with each other.

 

[Gurkhal]

Story of the Hallienes, part 2

As the Hallienes became more and more accustom to the outside world they started to bring greater wealth back with them. If they got them as part of mercenaries, traders or pirates the effect was the same, the growth of wealth, increase in population and the beginning of a elevanted aristocratic class that had far more resources than what their predecessors had possessed. But with such changes, and with experience of more organized ways to rule, it was perhaps not a wonder that it also brought increased strife to Hallia. Many of them who lost in this strife or simply wanted to carve out a piece for themselves left the land to either conquer or colonize distant lands across the sea, thus spreading the Hallienes and their ways far across the known world.

In Hallia meanwhile there rose powerful kings and lords who rule from great citadel-palaces with an increasingly complex and stratified society, that was increasingly brought into the great diplomatic and trade networks that brought new ideas and inventions to Hallia.

More to come!

 

[Gurkhal]

First Draft to Core of the Pantheon

Please note that this is just supposed to be the major gods and most likely there will be many more like divine spouses, children, servants and essentially support casts to these great deities.

Kranox - the King of the Gods, the patron of kings, kingdoms and great men, with little tolerance or time for subjects or unworthy

Locara - the Queen of the Gods, patron of marriage, women with power and avenger of women mistreated by their male relatives

Aklon - the Champion of the Gods, he is the heir of Kranox, patron of heroes, young men, the defender of rights and order and the slayer of monsters

Efaros - the Radient God, he is the god of the sun and light who brings joy, light, warmth, music and cultivation to the world

Gnosia - the Hidden Goddess, she is the goddess of secrecy and sorcery, connected with wolves and the moon and a teacher of hidden and forbidden secrets for those who can seek her out

Kageus – the Lord of the Field, an agricultural god said to have taught mankind how to farm, planet orchards and organize work

Seris – the Watcher of the Herd, the god of cattle and domesticated animals and most importantly, the handling of these

Akera – the Inventer of Civilization, she taught humans the crafts and arts and is a mistress of all of them

Oike – the goddess of the home and hearth

Atheraia – Lady of Love and Desire, she ignites hearths with passion and acts as patroness to men and women driven by passions

Vigon – the chaotic god of violence, hate and wrath, he fills the heart with the desire to hurt others

Nemeus – the vengeful god vengeance, justice and cruelty, for he takes delight in bringing harm to those who work evil and let their ways lead to their destruction

Pemoine – the lady of all growing things, the goddess of plants and the fertility of the earth

Urox – the brother of Kranox and lord of the wild places, a savage god with no concern for civilization and who would be all to happy to tear it to pieces if his brother had not decreed against it

Aseidon – the brother of Kranox and lord of the seas, a grim god who do not suffer any challenge or disrespect

Modros – the lord of the dead and the afterlife, and a brother of Kranox, he holds the dead in his grey realm

 

[Gurkhal]

Now I have a small question that I would like to ask. It concerns the development of my world in regard to socio-political and economical structures.

I have a weakness for dynastic politics and find them very interesting and also easier spin stories from than say party politics or parlimentary politics. For this reason I would like to say that in this setting the "Greeks" never got around to democracy or oligarchy or something like that, but instead retained kingship from Mycenean-style and onwards to Hellenistic-style kings. What I then wonder is, if I tried to sell this as a Ancient Greece inspired setting, would it be a let down to only see essentially kings and kingdoms all over the place? As I imagine it there will be democratic, oligarchic and tyrranic/populist challenges but these would never get the same breakthrough as they did in reality.

And would could the effects of this be? As I understand it the hoplite and Greek idea of citizen arose because of the lack of great rulers who controlled pretty much everything, as was the cases in Mycenaean Greece, and likewise philosophy arose as a result of a lack of claims by men to have special divine insight or special relations with the gods that other men could, or were not allowed, to question. So would these things be impossible to explain in a realistic-ish way if the kings remained?

So essentially to boil it down, would it be reasonable to sell a setting focused on dynastic relations in regards to the politics as "Ancient Greece" inspired or could it lead to readers feeling cheated or mislead? And what logical in-world consequences would there be to "Greek" culture if they never left the rule of kings?

Some perspectives beyond my own would be appreciated.

 

[Gurkhal]

I can't edit away the post above, but you can forget about it. I found the answers I was looking for.