The Coming of the Gods

Now we have a living breathing universe, it is time to populate it with beings, actors with agency who will act and have effect pushed upon them by the logic of the world you are creating. The first beings in any universe are often viewed as divinities in some shape, due to their antiquity and the strangeness of their birth perhaps, but also because of the forces and powers they represent.

When sifting through multiple different myths of the birth of the first gods, these ideas come through clearly. However, what stories like Hesiod’s Theogony or the Dynasty of Dunmun also have clearly embedded within them are succession myths and crises.

Succeeding to rule

There are several ways in which these succession myths can be viewed. In the more immediate they are perhaps reflections of the societies that create them, mirrors of their own anxieties about how to pass on wealth and power down the generations and a nervousness about internecine strife. But they could also be viewed in a much more esoteric ways I believe. Of the increasing complexity of a cosmos growing and maturing, of the development of the layered forces that I have referenced in previous blog posts. In many of these myths we see representatives of supreme cosmic forces, night and day, the oceans and the skies, and they are often overthrown by gods whose domains are narrower and more sharply focused. The classic example of this being Zeus challenging Cronos for the rulership of the Cosmos.

Bul, the cloud gatherer

Bringing these ideas to Kolgennon

These ideas gave me a clear set of tools to play with as I developed my own myths for Kolgennon and the Xosu. Staying within this tradition allowed me to hit the sweet spot I have always strived for with Kolgennon, creating a world that is strange and yet familiar, shaped by its own logic. The conflict between the twins, Dunsun and Tholo, with their parents, especially the sky god Bul, reflects this tradition. It maintains the succession motif, and the familial conflict.  It also strives to show the layering effect, one generation of gods that could be interpreted as representations of immense physical forces, being challenged by the next generation taking on more cognitive aspects to their domains.

Impact and conclusions

Such ideas sitting within the core stories of society seed within the Xosu a normalisation, perhaps even an expectation of generational strife. Perhaps this reflects the pressures of the world they live in, or that world is conjured by the society’s understanding of the world. Either way such layering enriches the tales in the foreground, informing how characters view and interact with the world.

Yulthelon