Myths aren’t Lies

In each of the “building better religion” columns I have offered ideas and suggestions for designing some aspect of a religion. I saved “sacred stories” for last because mythology is the most important part of designing a religion. Every other aspect I have talked about--building, rituals, holidays--they are all based in the symbolic framework of a mythology.

Now by “myth” I don’t mean “lie.” Instead, I mean a story that is used to give meaning to our lives. All religions are stories, and not the way you may think. People tend to think of religious stories as pre-technological answers to natural phenomenon “Why does the sun rise and set?” or “why does winter happen?” And there are certainly religious stories that do this. But the truly sacred stories are those that address deeper existential questions. “Why do we die?” “What happens when we die?” “Why do we exist?” and, most importantly “What is the right way to live?” The heart of all religions are stories that give us meaning. They show us what it means to be human, they teach us how to be human.

Now, I would like to make two notes before I continue.

The first is that I am going to be using the term “human” to mean “generic sentient being.” If you craft a race of elves, or dwarves, crocodile men or sentient slime piles, this will still probably apply. As long as whatever race you are using searches for meaning, they will have mythology. And in my opinion the search for meaning is too much a part of sentience to design out.

The second caveat of this column is that it expresses my views about the nature of religion. There are many theories and ideas on that subject, and if I could conclusively prove mine is correct I would already have a PhD. Even if you disagree with the centrality I give to mythology, I think the rest of the column will be useful for designing one.

Creation Myths are Overrated

Now, from what I have read many “designing religion” sources advise starting with a creation story. This seems logical enough. If you want to begin a religion, “In the Beginning” seems like the best place. However, a creation myth is not the most important story of a religion. Hinduism has seven that I know of, for example.

The most important story to create, the true starting point, is a hero quest. What I mean by a hero quest is a story in which a hero lives out the virtues of his (or her) religion. You can read Joseph Campbell for extensive discussion of what makes a hero quest, but the basic features are this: a protagonist (usually on the cusp of adulthood) leaves their home and journeys to the greater world. They overcome various obstacles through cleverness, goodness, strength, or whatever virtues their culture holds. They may stumble, make mistakes, and experience tragedy and loss. In the end they are usually a wiser and stronger person, a mature and capable adult.

This is the journey of all of our lives. We grow up, we struggle with the world and with ourselves. A hero quest story gives us a greater context for our own journey, helps us find meaning in our triumphs and tragedies, and offers us a model of a life, based in the values of our culture.

If you know the hero quest, you know the heroic virtues. Does the culture value strength, bravery, goodness? What virtues bring the hero to their destiny? This is a source of morality that PC’s can better truly live out. A good hero can inspire sacrifice and glory far greater then a simple set of moral rules. No religion just has virtues. They have stories that exemplify those virtues.

Beyond creating morality, hero quests offer you the tone of the religion. They address the question “what is our place in the universe?” What is the purpose of suffering and struggle, and how should you react to it? What is the role of death in your existence? What is your ultimate destiny?

As mentioned, a hero quest is a story of a life lived correctly. Once you know that, you know everything. Every other myth, moral law, ritual, or prayer will flow from that knowledge. In the Greek mythology we can see heroes with excellence, cleverness, and piety struggling against capricious squabbling gods and the temptation to hubris. In Norse mythology we see heroes of battle fighting a doomed struggle against destruction and entropy. The hero quest tells us the basic nature of the universe, and the right way to respond to it.

Go ahead and make a creation story or two (or seven). They should support each other--the creation story will explain why the hero’s life is a life lived correctly. It should set up the true nature of the universe in such a way that the hero quest makes sense.

Also, a good companion piece to a creation story is an end-of-the-world story. Where do we come from, where are we going. The both draw from the same basic truth--the nature of the world. They tell the believers about life and death, beginnings and ends. In fact, I would come up with them together. They should complement each other in creating a coherent drama of the universe that shows the believers the nature of their own lives and their role in that universe.

If you want to do the creation story or the apocalypse first, that’s fine. But please have a hero quest. That’s going to be the main way religious characters relate to the teachings of their faith--through stories of the great men and women (and sentient slime piles) that have gone before them. That’s the part of religion that truly inspires people, and makes their faith alive.

Now, a religion is not just a hero quest or a creation story, but is an entire tapestry of myths. Those I mentioned are (in my opinion) the most important. But some others will be necessary for a fully realized in game religion.

Why Does the Sun Rise, and What Does it Have to Do With Me?

The classic idea of a myth is a story that explains some aspect of the world. I will call this sort of myth “explanation myths” These explanation myths put the experience of this world in a context humans can understand. If the sun rises and sets because Apollo rides his chariot around the heavens, if the stars exist as they are because Coyote scattered them across the sky, if lightning is the gods fighting--those are forces and phenomenon a pre-technological culture can understand.

Creating a mythological structure such as this for the physical world is an easy way to give players a unique worldview, and to better integrate your-in game religion to the world. If every storm or sunrise is interpreted through the lens of your religions, it will be a great help to role playing believers. But as I said, this sort of natural phenomenon explanation myth is not the only type of explanation myth. Or indeed, the most important type.

But it’s not just about the mechanics of life. The question every myth should address is “why is the world the way it is?” Remember, a myth does not just explain the natural world, but the human experience of the world.

Pandora’s box is a perfect example of this sort of myth. It is an explanation story, but not for any natural phenomenon. It explains the world as we live it. We all perceive that unfair suffering and evil exist. This story tells the Greeks why. A human made a choice, disobeyed the gods and gave into temptation and now the world is not the way it was created to be. These sorts of myth explain different aspects of human life, things as inherent to life as lightning or sunrises. I will call this type of explanation myth “archetypes.”

By “archetypes” I mean a story about some part of an inherent human experience that is held up as the defining example of that experience. A hero quest gives us a story of a rightly lived life exemplified for the believers. In the same way, archetype stories take a specific aspect of life and exemplify it. One universal type of myth (in my experience) is the cosmic tragedy. This is a story that is about an innocent experiencing a representation of all of the pain and injustice of the world. Human life involves suffering and loss, and a cosmic tragedy story helps give that suffering and loss a definition. It makes that suffering in some way be about something, some aspect of human meaning, not random pointlessness. For the believers, the cosmic tragedy is the story that exemplifies and contains all tragedy.

Another very common example is a primal love story. The story of a couple where love is lost, or won. The tone of the religion will determine a love story that provides a model of what love is supposed to be for that religion. We all experience the longing of love, and a cosmic love story teaches us what that longing means in the context of the greater world.

Father and son. Mother and daughter. Friendship betrayed. Friendship upheld. Brothers. Sisters. The search for home, the search for escape. You can look at any basic aspect of life and derive an archetypal story. If you know your PC’s back stories, you can create myths that will resonant with and define their own search for identity and meaning.

These sorts of stories will be very much based in the core tone of your religion. If you have that core tone set, you can build the stories around it, or the other way around. The religion of a doomed universe will have stories of doomed love, and inevitable loss. A regenerative universe will may have stories of lovers across different lives, finding each other through history. A religion of eternal glory may have a pair of lovers so passionate they burn into the sky. For religious characters, having these stories is an invaluable aid to playing a realistic and believable faith. Archetype myths will determine how characters understand the most basic parts of human life.

To Touch the Sky

A final category of myth I am going to offer prospective world builders are stories of boundaries. Every religion believes that there are certain categories of existence, certain borders of the world. Humans have a specific section of the universe they are supposed to inhabit. But sometimes, people try to go beyond that section, to transcend human limitations. Your religion’s view on humans will determine how those stories end.

Greek mythology is full of stories like this. Icarus, Phaeton, Arachne--all people that tried to be more then they are, to do what they should not. And all people who were punished for it. If your religion believes that the boundaries of human life are rigid and inflexible, they will have this sort of stories. They will have a whole collection of tales of people who try to climb the heights, and are smacked back down to earth.

On the other hand, if your religion believes that that is right and proper for humans to go beyond the limits of normal human existence, they will have stories of transcendence. Heroes who through courage, strength, cleverness, whatever virtues you embrace--become more then human. This especially applies to any gaming world where sufficient leveling up allows ascension to some sort of godhood or divine status- these make perfect mythological heroes for a culture. You then must decide if this ascension is something that all are called to, or just an elite few.

And of course it’s possible for the same religion to have both sorts of stories. In the midst of all the Greek myths of boundaries transgressed, there are heroes such as Hercules who ascended to the heavens by force of awesome. These myths of boundaries will be offered to believers as models of behavior, warnings or examples, or both.

One more point about boundaries. If you look at any collection of mythology, you will see plenty of boundary crossings. An event like Zeus impregnating a human to create a demi-god, or a creature like the minotaur are all mixing of the categories of life, categories of god and human, man and animal. Myths do this to show us those boundaries. Stories of the bizarre and the fantastic help us to understand and embrace the mundane. What the religion’s attitude towards these stories is will be based on their attitude toward borders and limits. Are centaurs monstrous or glorious? Is non-traditional thoughts or behaviors something to be embraced or rejected? This basic attitude toward transgression will have great consequences for the ethics and morals of any religion you create, especially in world with mixed race or species characters.

God Commands it Whether He Exists or Not

I have so far been neutral on the subject of the reality of myths. What I have said about types of myths applies to believers whatever the truth of the religion.

If you are playing a classic D&D-esque “the gods are real and self-evident” universe, then the myths you create will be memories of real events handed down by believers. The myths are what they claim to be. They are the stories of specific events that especially define human existence. That hero really did live the model life. Those lovers were the ultimate example of passion. That man trying to touch heaven was struck down for his arrogance. If your myths are real, then what they teach about morality, ethical behavior, and human purpose is correct. The true and correct meaning of life is summed up in the sacred stories of your religions.

However, if you are creating a religion that is not true or not correct, that doesn’t change the power of mythology. The sacred stories of an incorrect religion serve the same essential purpose for their believers. They have power in the lives of their believers because they give that basic definition of humanity. A believer will interpret all of the fundamental aspects of human existence- life, love, death, family- through the tone set by this network of myths. The mythology of a character will effect their interactions with any other characters, as well as their view of their own role in the universe. If players can tap into a sacred story, they will have enormous social power. Ob the other hand, if you end up on the wrong side of a myth, the full wraith of the believers will be upon your head. If you know their mythology, you can get so much insight into a character’s mind.

Myths Give Meaning

All religions, all cultures, and all gaming itself are based on stories. Myths are stories about human experiences that define those experiences. They teach us what being human is. We make sense of our own humanity by referencing the myths we have been taught by our faith and our culture. All religious practice and worship comes from using the symbols and drama in that religion’s mythology. If you have a mythology created, you can give your players a rich narrative internal world for them to reference. You can better immerse your players in the world you have created by giving them an entire world-specific set of stories to interpret their in-game experiences. The core mythology of a religion will set the basic tone of the religion. If you know what the general feel of the faith (fatalism, transcendence, repeating cycles, a capricious and random universe, etc) you can design the whole mythology out of that- or vice versa.

Questions? Comments?