An exercise in world mythology

[JCarter426]

So, I've been thinking about fantasy races for a while now. About the ones based on creatures from world mythology. In standard D&D, some races are fairly close to the mythology (e.g. dwarf), some have a loose connection (e.g. nixie), while others are... not remotely related to anything (e.g. kobold). I've been trying to come up with my own bestiary, and I've run into some difficulty. My initial idea was to pick one or two races from each major mythological branch and build the societies around each mythology. But dividing the world by mythology proved difficult, primarily because a great many mythologies are derivative of some Proto-Indo-European mythology. There is a lot of overlap. Not every mythology contains a race so distinctive as the elves and dwarves of Germanic mythology, either. Even if the mythology does have a unique race, it's not necessarily the focus of the mythology; Hellenistic mythology does not revolve around centaurs, for example. I struggled with this for some time. I only had solid ideas for Celtic and Germanic mythology, even though I knew of others I wanted to include - Slavic, Hellenistic, Mesopotamian, etc. And I had planned on a total of nine.

So this morning I went down to the waterfront with a notebook and I wrote down every supernatural creature that came to mind. And then I thought about the type of creature, rather than its origin or any associated folklore. I drew lines connecting creatures from different mythologies with similar traits, to come up with the core archetypes. That diagram was a bit of a mess, so instead I present a spreadsheet developed from my original notes:

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It's still a work in progress; I'm sure there are a few blanks I could fill in, and as of yet I've only included Celtic, Germanic, Hellenistic, Slavic, and Basque mythologies. But already I've identified a handful of racial archetypes. I'm hoping I'll be able to use this information to create a race reflecting each archetype... an amalgamation, if you will.

I would be interested in hearing about other archetype ideas, any blanks that could be filled, or connections to other mythologies.

[sktarq]

Well for the Helenistic side Nymph is a very broad category with specialized groups for Fresh Water, Salt Water, Air/Winds, Mountains, etc etc So that would be somethings.

Also the general Hobgoblin group had a pretty wide variety to it.
Also Red Caps-and various dog/death/howling spirits of Celtic myth
Mermaids, Selkies for water spirits

[Blightedmarsh]

You have other mythologies as well. You have the vedic (Indian) shinto, Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Phoenician as well as various African, Pacific and native American beliefs as well.

If you are looking for truly bizarre try the new world.

[Axiomatic]

I'd just like to point out that Kobolds are, in fact, from Germanic mythology. They just aren't miniature dragon-dogs. They're little bastards made out of rock and earth who like to mess with miners for the lulz.

[JCarter426]

I haven't had much time to work on this on account of having the thousand other aspects of the project to work on, but here's a quick update:

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Well for the Helenistic side Nymph is a very broad category with specialized groups for Fresh Water, Salt Water, Air/Winds, Mountains, etc etc So that would be somethings.

Also the general Hobgoblin group had a pretty wide variety to it.
Also Red Caps-and various dog/death/howling spirits of Celtic myth
Mermaids, Selkies for water spirits

Right, added some of those. Although at the moment I'm only focusing on humanoid races. So no dogs or animals that sometimes shapeshift into humans.

You have other mythologies as well. You have the vedic (Indian) shinto, Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Phoenician as well as various African, Pacific and native American beliefs as well.

If you are looking for truly bizarre try the new world.

Right, I know I want Mesopotamian. I may expand into Indo-Iranian once I'm done with Indo-European. In general I've had trouble nailing down some key humanoid races from some of the above mythologies, though. They certainly have spirits, but many focus on animals more than people.

I'd just like to point out that Kobolds are, in fact, from Germanic mythology. They just aren't miniature dragon-dogs. They're little bastards made out of rock and earth who like to mess with miners for the lulz.

Aye, I'll probably have kobolds... I mean kobold kobolds. I haven't decided whether to use the mine spirit kind or the house spirit kind, though. Probably the former, because they mesh well with knockers and bluecaps.

At the moment I'm struggling with how to reconcile dark elves/black elves/dwarves and how they relate to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, if at all. The mythology is sketchy.

[Zovc]

Aye, I'll probably have kobolds... I mean kobold kobolds. I haven't decided whether to use the mine spirit kind or the house spirit kind, though. Probably the former, because they mesh well with knockers and bluecaps.

You could always have both. There's no real reason that kobolds couldn't have some mystical powers (or whatever) that allows them to be an urban pest in addition to a nuisance to miners.

[Blightedmarsh]

For Persia try 1001 Arabian nights. You get djinn and the first recorded mention of ghouls.