Weight of Mythos

[MarekSusicky]

Heyo guys, can myths and their weight be replicated?

I struggle to build a mythos that carries the same depth and cultural resonance, especially in fantasy. The way certain words alone can evoke history, belief, and identity, it's hard to replicate that kind of impact.

Take this, for example: When Odin’s ravens take flight, fear shall not touch our eyes. We fight as one, for the clash of steel is our oath, and Valhalla awaits us all.

Or consider the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where the Rohirrim charge with a single, resounding cry: "Death!" It’s more than a battle cry, it’s a declaration of fate, a full embrace of mortality as a gift from Ilúvatar. They ride forward knowing they may fall, yet they do not waver. Orcs can never comprehend this. Twisted by Morgoth, they exist in fear, ruled by their masters, shackled to survival. Unlike Men, who meet death with courage, Orcs recoil from it.

One word, one moment, when backed by myth, carries so much weight. Not just because of the buildup, but because of the world that is behind it. And yet, as much as I love Tolkien, his.. uhm.. style wouldn’t work in today's webnovel format. Infodumps don’t land the same way.

So, how do you create mythos without losing momentum? I struggle with this. Every time I try, it feels like I’m dumping exposition instead of letting the myth live naturally.

Take God Carl, for example. I was thinking of embedding mythology into language, people saying "Thank Carl" instead of "Thank God," or swearing "In the name of Carl." Curses, blessings, figures of speech, oaths… even physical traditions.

Imagine warriors painting Carl’s name on their foreheads before battle. Or a saying like "Carl favors the bold," before bold charge. Maybe "Death isn’t shameful, but cowardice leads to misery."

Would something like that be enough to make Carl’s mythos feel real? Or is there still something missing?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

You can't - not quickly. It took about a decade for the Cthulhu Mythos to become a "thing" - and that was after it's originator, H. P. Lovecraft (who, himself, called it the Yog Sothoth Cycle) was dead for a few years and several other authors had written stories in this now-shared mythos.
Tolkien spent years building up his setting, had four books to work with, and another that came later, along with several short stories and fragments, but again, it took years to build up.
The fastest successful mythos building I've seen was Dune, which kind of fell apart under its own weight eventually.
The classical myths have been around (and reimagined multiple times - just compare, say, the Marvel Comics, DC Comics and classical versions of the Greek or Norse mythoi for evidence).
Either build from an existing one (like Marvel and DC did) but go your own way with it, or accept that it may never hit the level of resonance as things like the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons (with millions of players over several decades to build upon), Tolkien (who built from the ground up, and had a son to carry on his legacy), Herbert (same as Tolkien), Baum (the Oz stories developed their own sort of mythos as well, though not as well-defined as some of these others), or Lovecraft (with dozens, perhaps hundreds - including myself - of writers building on his creation over several decades).

 

[Daitengu]

Well, first you have to create names with no past.

Then you have to create a world where they exist, or people 'think' they exist.

Then you have your author only hidden lore of the beings.

Then you create a story based on normies encountering/interacting with the myths and legends in some way.

Comparison studies would be the classic 80's D&D and Dragonlance novels as well as Lovecraft.

One key thing: never show all you cards. Myths have and require mystery to intrigue the reader.

 

[miyoga]

I swear to f-ing Carl...

Jokes aside, the mythos has to be part of the world-building to such a degree that we as readers will catch on to things and take them as truths. Most writers work on this for their entire career with very few ever getting to see the true results of their works. I think one good example, other than Lovecraft and Tolkein, would have to be Anne McCaffery with her dragonriders series. Most of her myths in that set of books was borrowed ideas from her established universe. The small amount that wasn't from her other books was more akin to how we looked at the world before science told us stuff (and that's exactly how she wrote the Pern series, lost technology/knowledge to create their world and fight the natural threats).

Thunderbirds were indigenous people's way to explain storms and the sound of thunder and probably one of the easiest thoughts to latch on to. Vampires for strange deaths and bodies that seemed to have growing hair and nails. Witches and gypsy's to explain "curses" and abnormally bad luck are yet another set of myths that had to catch on before anything about them had any sort of merit. Taking the mythos of religions into context, it took something like 1000 years before Christianity caught on with people and even then it took some emperors and kings to make it stick.

 

[beast_regards]

You can't.

Well, you can...

...but not here....

You said it yourself.

One word, one moment, when backed by myth, carries so much weight. Not just because of the buildup, but because of the world that is behind it. And yet, as much as I love Tolkien, his.. uhm.. style wouldn’t work in today's webnovel format. Infodumps don’t land the same way.

As long as you are locked into the format of the serialized web novel, meant to be read chapter by chapter as it releases, you could forget about forming some overarching myth for your setting, regardless of your effort and the quality of the writing. The novel simply isn't consumed this way. It is consumed in the small, digestible pieces - chapters, or in small chucks as the readers wait until chapters accumulate, then pause until the backlog grows again. At this format, they will simply don't memorize the backstory that would normally form the mythos....

Tolkien work needed to be based on the pre-existing mythology, immense popularity, zero competition at the times, and several years, while being traditionally published (not to mention being the higher class gentleman already)

Lovecraft works weren't popular at the time of his life (and at time of his death). They needed to be utterly unique, a luck, a twist of fate, and few decades of exposition. Even he needed traditional publishing to do the spreading for him, even if it was in a pulp magazine. (keep in mind, the pulp fiction publishers are professionals, it's just on budget)

...but you shouldn't compare yourself to them.

You should instead consider how is your work consumed. See, even Lovecraft novels were consumed whole, even if it was in cheap print.

Your work can't be consumed in small pieces like the web novel is, where people only remember the important pieces between chapters, or between chunks they binge through

You need a book to be read as a whole, with the ending.

Perhaps several books, like it was with Lovecraft's and pulp magazines (luckily for you, his writings weren't long, and your doesn't have to be either).

 

[Clo]

Take months and months to build up your setting/world bible, establish heroes, gods, wars, idioms belonging to this world.

Then, simply sprinkle the right expressions in your story as your characters experience the world, behaving as if the expression's meaning was universally understood. Make it feel self-evident. To people in your world, those things are universally understood.

Frostine is the ice goddess of serenity and fate in my current novel. So if someone is wondering what to do in life, someone could describe him at "standing at Frostine's crossing."

Someone born for greatness might be born under Frostine's star. If someone is completely lost in life, they might be lost in one of Frostine's blizzard. If someone's plan failed, then Frostine's ice might have cracked. If someone is trying to fight their destiny, people may remind them how Her frost never melts.

The idea is, the reader doesn't need a glossary of those sayings explained ahead of time. They can infer the meaning. "He ran with Aer's grace.", "he showed Luxoria's light to the blind", "she paid a steep price for Nocturne's lessons", "seeing her smile brought Pyra's flames to his hearth.", "this girl's mood swings like Zephyra's winds."

You keep using them. People will get it. Just act as if they should understand it. Don't stop the story to explain it. Maybe add a comment in the author's notes about it, if you feel like it's critical to understand it right, but don't feel obligated. Someday, create a glossary entry on your story if you build up a nice collection.

When I say "between Scylla and Charybdis" in real life, I don't pause to explain what it means. Neither should your characters (unless you have a fish-out-of-water character who is the reader's proxy).

They can also make fun custom swearing. "Ignis take you!", "Pyra's tits!", "Zephyra's piss", "Frostine's frigid cunt"