Epicon Mythos

Hail and well-met! I've recently had some ideas for Epicon Mythos I want to share. Some of these I might act on, but idk.

One thing is I might not try to limit the Epicon Mythos to just one set world as I have before. I kinda want to define Epicon Mythos more by its genre of mythology-inspired worldbuilding or storytelling and some shared world building or story elements. Some of the Worlds I'm thinking will be set to be more fantastical than others. Some might be very similar to the real world with more specific fantastical elements. Some might have more fantastical but still somewhat similar equivalents to real world things, and some might just have entirely fantastical versions.

A working idea of the cosmology in Epicon Mythos is that what caused the Worlds to be as they are is a group of natural forces or fields which create physical phenomena. For unknown reasons and with unknown origins, there are also phenomena which seem unnatural, yet are present across all Worlds. Some of these fields seem to govern destiny and fate based on some kind of principles or commandments of creation. Other fields seem to be programmed to ensure sapient life across all Worlds. Perhaps these laws were simply unknown until later and always existed in nature, or perhaps they were created. If they were created, it's unknown why.

Hello, not sure what "WBW" is, but Happy WBW to you too! The Seven Wonders would probably be not too different from in real world history, but if I were to change them: I'm not really sure if I'd ever be able to make a solid list of *just* 7 wonders. If I were to adapt the idea of the Seven Wonders of the World in some way, it'd probably be as a bunch of holy sites that're called "Wonders of the World" but aren't exactly seven. If I went with that approach, I'd also probably give some kind of sacred attribute to the holy sites, but I'm not sure what exactly. I'd most likely connect most of them to the Human Gods who mastered nature in some way and founded most humans civilization.

For a while, I've wanted to center different stories of mine in a shared world called the Epicon Mythos (see pinned post or description on blog for context) and this post is to record the current idea for how I'm going to present this world over different stories.

To be clear, I don't want to create any stories that're reliant on another story unless it's a sequel or part of a larger series. I hope for most or ideally all of my stories to be understandable and enjoyable as a stand-alone story.

What I'm most confident in doing currently is publishing stories as ebooks. If I'll end up making any comics or whatever else I'm not too sure. I'm trying my best to save up money from a babysitting job for a digital drawing tablet I can use. I ideally want to make the ebooks with special calligraphy and illustrations by me that'd take inspiration from different forms of ancient writing and different forms of ancient artwork.

Hail and well met! Recently for my passion project the Epicon Mythos (see pinned post on my blog or blog's description for more info and context on what that's all about), I mentioned the different gods I wanted to include, with "gods" being an umbrella term for any entity who had the power to influence the physical world.

Some of the ideas for how these gods worked was created with influence from religious cultural phenomena such as euhemerism, perennialism, syncretism, and diffusion. Some of the examples of how I want to use this include:

Euhemerism -- euhemerism is when a god is reimagined as a historical person who is deified. This idea was one of the major influences for the Human Gods as a concept. An example of a myth or legend I would be more likely to euhemerize is Prometheus because not much is relevant about him being a god in the story's basic outline.

Perennialism -- perennialism is the often mystical view that multiple, most, or all religions share an inherent truth or reality. This also overlaps a lot with syncretism. This will mostly influence the big cosmology and theology and stuff. I really want to incorporate different cosmological and theological themes into the worldbuilding for the more powerful, non-human gods and their societies. A lot of perennialism will be present mostly through worldbuilding and fictional culture.

So for my passion project Epicon Mythos (see pinned post or description for more info), I've made some ideas for different gods'/pantheons' character designs. I plan for the term "gods" to be used as a kind of umbrella term for beings who have any kind of power that allows them to significantly influence the World. Some ideas are:

For human gods who obtain godlike power: I plan for most of them to be regular humans, but maybe some can get odd traits like enlarged stature, random physical traits that result from their power, or maybe even more divine forms. Their clothing will probably depend on their individual culture.

For creator gods who shape Worlds: I plan for them to be vaguely humanoid but have very inhuman traits. I might look into Aztec iconography for inspiration. I plan for the lower forms of life to be sort of predetermined by these creator gods so that the Worlds they made could stay in order.

For celestial gods who live in the Stars: I plan for them to also be vaguely humanoid but have very inhuman traits. I might look into different pantheons that're "heavenly" or "celestial" and their independent iconography for inspiration. Most of the celestial gods I think would fit best in space-core colors like purples, reds, blues, oranges, whites, and yellows.

For psychic gods who are in constant war: I plan for them to be more humanoid, but have some inhuman traits that're most comparable to other animals. I'm taking most inspiration from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Canaanite, and Greek gods. So psychic gods might be given a fish-like tail, wings, or horns. However, I want these traits to be more naturally harmonized in the design. Think of a dragon for example: it takes traits from birds of prey, snakes, lions, and has fire powers atop all that. All give the presentation of an apex predator, but they're brought together harmoniously in a way that looks like a real animal.

For my passion project the Epicon Mythos (see Epicon Mythos' pinned post or description for more info), I've made some ideas for the deities. I've got some I think I could try to share. These are all work-in-progress and I'm always happy to hear all suggestions, critique, inspiration, and questions! The main types of deities I have planned are:

Gods who originated as humans but through the mastery of the divine became far more powerful than most humans. Many monarchies were initially established by them, but among them were both just and evil, and their descendants became scattered across the World after the last of their civilizations (the Kingdom of Eden) collapsed in the 41st century BC.

Gods who are born from dying stars and live in societies amongst other star-born gods in nebulae before they die and form new stars, planets, and godly societies. Their hearts and minds form stars, but their flesh and bones form planets, moons, and asteroids. When they die, there is a special kind of energy emitted by these gods that effects the way things exist on an almost unpredictable manner. It is often conjectured that these gods use this special energy to influence their creations after they die.

Gods who exist eternally as unfeeling forces of nature which are omnipresent across the entirety of a World Tree, but have no verified backstory and could never be completely understood by humanity.

Gods whose cultures embody entire moralities. These different nations battle for millennia to preserve their own ethics. They are psychic in nature and thus can't affect humans in the same way other gods might be able to, but they do often send out avatars or incarnations to humanity as agents of their own values.