Slavic Mythology thread

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>>48720407

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>>48720414

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>>48720429

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>>48720440

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>>48720452

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>>48720468

Bielobog and Czernobog could form the basis of a cool dualistic law vs. chaos religion.

>>48720407
It's quite a task to create a Slavthology setting as there are next to none original sources about it. My suggestion is looking into lythurgical rites and folk celebrations of eastern European peasantry.
Back when we were pagan we had no writing system of our own and thus no corpus of mythology exists. What we did do tho was simply change the names of our gods with names of various saints: eg. Perun became st. Ilija and Velles became st. Vlaho.
The only known dualism is between those two Gods: Perun- sky, Veles- soil.
Try to find " Walk through the year" by Vitomir Belaj, I am not 100% certain it's been translated to English tho.
If the thread stays alive I might post some folk tales of monsters and such, but I promise nothing as I plan to be quite busy the following few days.

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>>48720494
perhaps it could since Bielobog/Czernobog in theory is one being and it's dualistic nature might cause a schism within the religion, splitting the followers into the parts where they worship the opposing aspects of him. I never seen it done before per se, except for well, Glorantha with Gbaji/Nysalor but it could be interesting, especially he's at odds with himself

>>48720708
it's a bit sad to see that the mythology is so hard to find and keep close if not accurate to how it was originally. I found much of the aspects in that to be quite interesting while they are bizarre. some of it has been quite christianized as you said, so they've been quite altered and thus hard to find anything authentic from it outside of folklore

>>48720494
Bielobog doesn't exist. It was an asspull by early historians who assumed that because there is a Black God there must be a White God.

The only explicit duality I know of in old Slavic myths is a rough division between dry (sky) and wet (earth) gods.

>>48720708
All of our own sources about our myths need to be taken with a full shovel of salt, because most of it was fabricated during the advent of nationalism in early XIX century. It's not just that we don't know much, it's that we also have to clear a jungle of bullshit to even arrive at that point.

>>48720407
Peron, Licho, Swiatowid (Svetovid?). Im not an expert in that matter but they are part of this cult.

>>48721585
Where are you from brother Slav?

>>48723632
Serbia.

>>48723632
>>48723861
That's another thing. Slavic myths aren't unified.
I don't really know that much, but here in Slovenia we had Perun and Morana for instance.

>>48720407
>slavic mythology

Have you tried reading Eclipse Phase? The players mostly believe in communism.

>>48720440
Really like no.1 and 2

>>48723936
I know we had Perun too because St. Ilija is fairly popular, but I don't know much more. The only literature I could scrounge up deals mainly in Russian and Polish folklore.

>>48720407
I am really not sure what is original slavic myths and what is just "fantasy" written in last hundreds years.

>>48723861
Brate! :D
>>48724314
I can't say with absolute certainty but 95% literature on the subject that is written in the last 30-40 years is pretentious semi-fantasy garbage written by wannabe philologists.

>>48724497
This. There are some properly researched papers, but they're old, few, and far between even in their native languages. English you can forget about entirely.
The revival, or more accurately, revisionist fantasy bullshit, that's been going on of late among certain circles has muddled the matter beyond any hope of recovery.

That said, you can easily base a gameworld on revisionist fantasy bullshit, and the end result won't be fundamentally different to a properly grounded one: it is, in the end, fiction. Fiction that takes more from its genre inclinations and the author's intent than it takes from any source material.

>>48720407

I recommend an old splat for 4th edition Ars Magicka titled "The Dragon and the Bear". It's set ~1200 AD and has lots of detail on Slavic paganism, with particular focus on magical traditions and cult practise. It has entries on the many gods of the Slavs, and on the various supernatural creatures the Slavs believed in, and is of an exceedingly high standard of research (as most Ars Magicka splats are, tbqh)

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>>48723936
we had pic related completely replacing Perun

>>48721585
This is true, between christianity trying to erase everything and between nationalists making things up, it's hard to find more than a tiny fraction of what probably existed.

>>48727380
>>48720407

http://www.4shared.com/get/fUPI6LlD/Ars_Magica_-_The_Dragon_and_th.html

i am curious, what sort of things the nationalists revised and made up that makes the myths different? maybe a fraction of it is true even if it was changed in a few parts

>>48733061
It is not, the revisionism based itself upon the assumption that our myths and our pantheon are simmilar to their Germanic counterparts , which is untrue. The mythologies did intertwine for a short while though, as many raiders from Novgord took a lot of influence from their Scandinavian colleagues. These ideas gave birth to a short-lived state religion instituted by knjaz Vladimir of Novgorod (he replaced it with Christianity later and destroyed all he had built).
A general pantheon of Slavic gods can't work because not all Slavs worshipped all the gods, they commonly worshipped one diety that was the patron of either their proffesion, class or area they lived in. They knew and cared very little of other gods.

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>>48720407

>>48730208
I wouldn't worry about the things nationalists made up. Just take out the most obvious lies. Atleast in finland most of what was made up was from the basis of folklore that already existed(Though the fact we had A LOT of oral tradition helped)
Its not like the mythology and stories of indigenous people have stayed the same all this time either

Some of the most known things:

Koschei the Deathless is probably what you'd want for big bad. He's a wizard who put his death in the needle, hid needle in the egg, egg in a duck, duck in a hare, hare in a chest and buried chest on Buyan (Stormy) island under a great oak. It's a pain in the ass to kill the guy by finding and snapping said needle.

Rusalkas are drowned maidens (Sometimes, I think, only suicide from heartbreak would do, but it's not in all versions) who lure men into water and either drown or tickle them to death. They get conflated with mermaids a lot but don't actually have fish parts.

Leschi is forest spirit who can make you lost. Vodyanoi is water spirit (Usually lake spirit) and Kikimora is female spirit of the swamp.

Zhar-ptitsa (Firebird) is a popular MacGuffin in fairy tales.

Solovei-Razboinik (Nightingale the Robber) is a highwayman who can whistle with the power of hurricane. Not an actual bird, probably some kind of Mongol.

Look up bogatyrs for archetypal super-strong warriors protecting the land from foreign hordes.

Vasilisa the Beautiful or the Wise is your magic waifu of choice. Sometimes can willingly shapeshift as a frog.

Three brothers where the youngest is a fool and a trickster who wins with dumb luck, kind heart or simpleton wisdom is popular setup for a fairy tale.

>>48720407
Dig into russian fairytales then.

>Lesser known mythical creatures. May and probably will overlap with mythical creatures from Europe.

Leshiy - lives inside forests, really likes to fuck with travelers by making them get lost in the woods. When a person gets lost in the woods and can't find his way out it is said that he is "beeing led by Leshiy in circles"

Vodyanoy - lives in a water, think mermaid but drowned and a male.

Domovoy - lives in a house with people, but always hides. Mantains house while owner is out somewhere. Don't piss him off and he'll be your best bro. We have a funny superstition that you need to sit down inside your house right before you go for a long journey. This is because in pagan times people used to actually talk to Domovoi, tell him what to do and not to do while they are taking journey.

Zmei Gorynich - a giant fucking green dragon with three heads. Won't die unless you chop all three of them, does not regrow heads back. Can only be injured by powerful sword(the one that Koshei hides somewhere)

>>48736860
Damn, sniped.

Man, I'm from Russia and I used to love reading fairytails, yet I had problems remembering all those on a spot. GJ.

>>48720407
Sorry to disappoint you, but there is no such a thing like a witcher in our mythology. It's just something that Sapkowski created for his books.

My only actual experience with Slavic mythology is Thea: the Awakening. Not sure how accurate it is, though, or whether it's helpful/useful to you.

>>48736862
>We have a funny superstition that you need to sit down inside your house right before you go for a long journey. This is because in pagan times people used to actually talk to Domovoi, tell him what to do and not to do while they are taking journey.

So THAT's where it comes from! I always wondered about that.

>>48720407
All the Slavic mythos I use in my companions are just stories I heard from my parents, grandparents and folk tales from people in my village. Needless to say it's more than enough

>>48736862
huh, I've know similar things about Domovoi in different cultures. somewhere in southeast asia there's this thing about spirits that will live and haunt an empty house if kept empty for a week or so. you cannot greet anybody in the empty house unless you want that spirit to live in it

>>48738294
There are also similarities with creatures from the celtic culture of the fairies where some of the would serve humans if treated rightly.