Indian mythology in fantasy RPGs

[devp]

I have a long-term project: properly mix aspects of Indian mythology into a fantasy setting for RPG purposes - D&D, BW or TSOY depending on the group, but the main thing is establishing a structure I like.

This will take a long time, because I think step one is: actually reread some of the old texts so I have a smattering of understanding! Even still, I wanted to post a thread here to share thoughts and angles of research because I figure this is a shared interests.

(I also think aDCQ might be a good discussion space where there's a reasonable community that's not going to mine mythology in ignorant wants, and is also willing to call me out when I'm being under-educated about things.)

[Chris Chinn]

Cool, let us know how we can contribute!

Chris

[devp]

(Oops, meant to post something and got called away. (And everyone should threadjack as they like.)

Recent inspiration: deriving fantasy races from Dashavatara, or the ten avatars of Vishnu. My mom has been performing a dance drama based on the 10 phases of Vishnu. (And uh she appears at the end as Kalki, the destroyer of all things. )

A few of those avatars stuck out:

* Varaha, the boar
* Narasimha, the half-man/half-lion
* Vamana, the dwarf (not quite that kind of dwarf)

Now, the point of these avatars was not to make awesome animal hybrids, but there's something of a template we can use. Perhaps the lore is: "In ancient times, the first gods came to the Earth as an avatar, a template of what was to come; and the Earth brought forth a new wave of men in that template".

Some inspirations this gives me:

* The non-human species all came before the humans, from a different time when their empires were ascendent. This emphasizes the transient nature of things.

* It's important that they're not all humans, but they're all *people*: they all have a capacity of reason that's important.

* This is a good reason to say that humans are not a "generic" people after all. If you're looking for the rampaging, emotional, war-loving people, perhaps it's humans.

There will be a challenge - perhaps insurmountable - of presenting some of these mythic species as viable races without being ridiculous to a primarily Western audience. I admit that it'll be hard to create a species of three-legged dwarves or tortoise-folk that works for a campaign.

[devp]

And this is good time to bring up one problem I'm mulling over: the way that "Indian mythology" and "Hindu religion" are intermixed. I've read a (perhaps well-intentioned) game that was copypasta of some Hindu tenets, and it felt weird. I'm interested in drawing from principles and aesthetics and creating content, but not following the literal attributes of the content over again into something they're not. (Ancient religious epics are not meant to be epic tabletop fantasy.)

Another problem: are there unfortunate implications from conflating "Hindu mythology" with "Indian mythology"? Short answer: obviously. Indian culture draws from several other traditions and relgiions. I don't know if it's acceptable to draw only from a certain set of influences, or overambitious to try to draw from so many.

[Chris Chinn]

That sets up a really interesting idea, if you wanted to do a D&D type thing- every race would have their own versions of the given deities, which means clerics/devotees/mystics who are aligned with the same deities would either a) form alliances across species or b) form rivalries as to who's religious methods were "the true way".

If you wanted to be stupid D&D crunchy, maybe it would be giving some common powers/feats among all species ("Vishnu traditions get Heal spells") and specific ones depending on the race... that could be learned cross cultural/species-wise?

On the second note, I guess that would require asking what is this specific game about? You could probably do dozens of games based on this material, each with a different focus or take on it.

Chris