/lit/ - Literature

Ditch clinging to some video game setting and write your own shit. You can do it, I believe in you. And even if you can't it will still be better than embellishing the story of a video game. As bonus, proper original work would have a scarce but not zero chance of getting proper critique, which should be the holy grail of any starting writer these days.

As for the text, barfing exposition about the cosmology of the setting is something pretty much no writer can get away with. Only special kind of autists read Silmarillion, and I bet most of even them had to gather all their will in order to power through the erudamned Ainulindale. Unless in very small doses, that shit is boring even if you are already invested in the setting.

Writing radically different but still sensible religions in a setting that has actual real supernatural and divinity in it is already a challenge, but when you have demonstrable dualism with the other side being literally the Devil, you are in for some heavy mental gymnastics in order to justify anyone sane worshipping it instead of the God of Good. In some Abrahamic thought the Advesary is seen as a necessary part of God's creation that tests the faithful, but only a nutter would start worshipping it. "Our god tries to make everything awful for everyone, so we may become stronk (for some vague purpose)" always sounds really like a parody religion about existentialism. Blissful stasis without strife, or a state akin to it, has been the goal/reward of almost all widespread religious movements, and by going against that a religious group would rightly be considered madmen in a world that hasn't become high on nihilism. Nobody worships the fucking Ahriman.

>>14999

>Ditch clinging to some video game setting and write your own shit. You can do it, I believe in you. And even if you can't it will still be better than embellishing the story of a video game. As bonus, proper original work would have a scarce but not zero chance of getting proper critique, which should be the holy grail of any starting writer these days.

It's based on the universe. The game(s) might as well not take place at all for the purpose of my story and if it did I'd concede that it would be utterly autistic. I'd personally prefer to call it 'nods' or 'references' rather than 'fanfiction' despite that term being accurate.

Though I've considered the idea of simply replacing the names (and I might in the future) in order to fully make it my own, I still enjoy referencing the universe if for no other reason than to entertain myself.

>As for the text, barfing exposition about the cosmology of the setting is something pretty much no writer can get away with. Only special kind of autists read Silmarillion, and I bet most of even them had to gather all their will in order to power through the erudamned Ainulindale. Unless in very small doses, that shit is boring even if you are already invested in the setting.

Yeah I've worried about the length of the flat exposition that I'm presenting (especially the first piece and then having them follow each other) and maybe I've been blinded by my own fascination of the universe's mythos. Perhaps a whole page dedicated to it is too much irregardless of context but I feel like I left a lot without explanation up until this point. The MC is an apprentice in a monastery and I feel that starting to explain the mythos is important in order to not frustrate the reader. There's very little (or none at all) exposition preceding or following this.

Any suggestions on how I can make it more readable whilst still getting the lore across?

>Writing radically different but still sensible religions in a setting that has actual real supernatural and divinity in it is already a challenge, but when you have demonstrable dualism with the other side being literally the Devil, you are in for some heavy mental gymnastics in order to justify anyone sane worshipping it instead of the God of Good.

I don't intend to write 'Beliar' as an actual evil being, I just want him to come across as that from the point of view of the people that follow 'Innos'.

In my own mind they're both 'evil', one too authoritarian and one too selfish. But neither expressively evil and together they inadvertently create the very balance that man requires in order to live.

>In some Abrahamic thought the Advesary is seen as a necessary part of God's creation that tests the faithful, but only a nutter would start worshipping it. "Our god tries to make everything awful for everyone, so we may become stronk (for some vague purpose)" always sounds really like a parody religion about existentialism. Blissful stasis without strife, or a state akin to it, has been the goal/reward of almost all widespread religious movements, and by going against that a religious group would rightly be considered madmen in a world that hasn't become high on nihilism. Nobody worships the fucking Ahriman.

The way I imagined to solve this would be to push for the extremes of both. 'Innos' would stand for an extreme and unopposed hierarchical order which suffocates the wishes of almost everyone whilst 'Beliar' is the essence of chaos and promotes complete individualism even to the detriment of the world and society itself.

I greatly appreciate your reply anon.

>>15000 (checked)

>>14999 (checked)

>Blissful stasis without strife, or a state akin to it, has been the goal/reward of almost all widespread religious movements, and by going against that a religious group would rightly be considered madmen in a world that hasn't become high on nihilism. Nobody worships the fucking Ahriman.

To (simplistically) expand upon my explanation of the counter argument to this.

Innos: You're a sheep and you'll always be a sheep

Beliar: You're fucking dirt but if you take advantage of the world and everyone in it, you may rule it

>>14999

>Only special kind of autists read Silmarillion, and I bet most of even them had to gather all their will in order to power through the erudamned Ainulindale. Unless in very small doses, that shit is boring even if you are already invested in the setting.

But the Ainulindale was one of the easiest and most enjoyable parts.

>>15000

>I still enjoy referencing the universe if for no other reason than to entertain myself

In the end, doing whatever you want is propably the best way going on about hobby writing. File off the serial numbers if you can though, so you can change whatever you feel like (and so the bad god doesn't have to share the name with a jewish devil).

>Any suggestions on how I can make it more readable whilst still getting the lore across?

Show the religion's philosophy in practice. How the believers act, how their world view is shaped by these religious stories. Maybe throw in a few cryptic references to scripture in the dialogue or character thoughts. Describing religious art and letting a character ponder the symbolism can work in a pinch. I'm positive most readers would appreciate the mythology more if there's room in the narrative for their own imagination to fill in the blanks.

>Innos would stand for an extreme and unopposed hierarchical order which suffocates the wishes of almost everyone

Most religions seem to have thing for strict and orderly structure for the universe. If you asked a medieval yuropoor how he felt about being stuck in the eternal despotism of God, he'd have consider it a blessing. Structure offers comfort, even if you are at the bottom of it. And getting mad at God for keeping you down only gets you smited.

You could consider giving these religions widely different philosophies that aren't merely diametrical opposites. Completely different ideas about the life after death would be a good starting point. Maybe the bad guys think they only have one life and need to make most of it, or worse, get eternally reincarnated as the punching bags of the cosmos unless they break the chain, while the good guys think they go to paradise/become one with God (which the bad goyim interpret as getting their soul consumed) and the sinners go to hell (where the bad guys think they already are, being edgy shits).

I recommend separating the background reality of the setting from the mortal theology. For me, mortals knowing the truth about reality of the setting really takes away from the feel of religion; if you know what's up it's just choosing the sports team to cheer for instead anything spiritual. In reality, even the adherents of the same religion rarely can all agree on the specifics of their faith. This shouldn't necessary change even if there's confirmable miracles about as they too could be interpreted differently. Or maybe the gods straight up lie.

Some examples, which are painfully generic, but I hope you get the idea. Have the good guy worshippers think their god as the Creator and the bad god as only a creature among others. You could get some mileage out of the zany theory needed to explain how one of the siblings can be creator of the others. Then there's the gnostic trick; bad guys could claim the good god is actually a mindless/evil demiurge, and the bad god a misunderstood helper of the downtrodden. On the other hand the bad guys could claim that the god they worship isn't actually the devil of the good guy religion, but a separate entity and the devil is the intentional creation of the good god. Maybe they could even go as far as claim that their gods are one and the same. The truth could be a hidden esoteric mystery in both religions.

You wouldn't get a great dualistic struggle between simplistic "primal" ideologies with mortals as concious participants this way (though the struggle could still exist in which the mortals would be unknowing participants), but you'd get something resembling real religions. I think the tenets of a religion should allow participants to live a normal life, even if the hardcore inner circle is into drinking babies and killing gods. Openly asocial cults of crazies can't survive for long, so after having to revive the cult with miracles a few times the god should wisen up a little and offer something else than suffering. You know, like YHWH.

>>15002

There's the special autists who want to read the title story about fairy-men grabbing balls, and then there's you.

>>15003

>File off the serial numbers if you can though, so you can change whatever you feel like (and so the bad god doesn't have to share the name with a jewish devil).

I didn't even know. They got pretty lazy (not all that strange considering that it's not super fleshed out), so I've gone and changed the names of the gods whilst still 'stealing' the names of some side characters for just that, side characters. That's enough of a nod for me.

I'm shit at coming up with names (partly why I based it on an existing universe). Here's what I came up with. I did some quick googling to make sure I wasn't unintentionally referencing someone or something.

>Beliar = Braxir

>Adanos = Athanos

>Innos = Iffanos

>Maybe the bad guys think they only have one life and need to make most of it,[…] while the good guys think they go to paradise/become one with God (which the bad goyim interpret as getting their soul consumed)

I was actually planning on not having an afterlife, I like this idea since it would further move the two followers into the different camps of chaos and order. One must obey in order to be rewarded and the other must fight for themselves in order to attain what they seek to get out of life.

Canonically I will still not have an afterlife but I'd obviously leave it up to the readers interpretation.

>I recommend separating the background reality of the setting from the mortal theology. For me, mortals knowing the truth about reality of the setting really takes away from the feel of religion; if you know what's up it's just choosing the sports team to cheer for instead anything spiritual. In reality, even the adherents of the same religion rarely can all agree on the specifics of their faith. This shouldn't necessary change even if there's confirmable miracles about as they too could be interpreted differently. Or maybe the gods straight up lie.

I wasn't actually considering having these religious texts be in-universe canon, rather they're the beliefs of the followers and I'm not planning on confirming nor denying them. Maybe I can make it more clear by having Innos Iffanos play a different role in the creation of the universe from the point of view from someone that follows Braxir.

>Openly asocial cults of crazies can't survive for long, so after having to revive the cult with miracles a few times the god should wisen up a little and offer something else than suffering.

I actually planned on having some remnants of a death cult that followed Braxir in a different way than the one mentioned in the second picture, more of a blood for the blood god type deal. But it eventually destroyed itself.

>>15004

I've also played with the idea of having these 'Gods' just be really powerful magic users that practically wiped everyone out that they couldn't brainwash until they were forever established as the creators of the universe many thousands of years ago.

I like this especially since my universe and story is very centred on magic and the arcane.

I'd politely sage for double posting but on this board it wont make a difference

>>15005

Well I guess that's pretty much the plot in 'The Black Company' but I'm not averse to stealing fun ideas.

read the book on comparative religion by Eliade and also other authors

and read the primary sources too

>>15003

>There's the special autists who want to read the title story about fairy-men grabbing balls, and then there's you.

A lot of the Silmarillion proper is hard to keep track of what with all the dozens of characters you're expected to remember with very little in the way of introduction and sometimes long gaps in between appearances. It's like reading Mallory's Arthur cycle but way more autistic. Not that some parts weren't enjoyable, of course, like Feanor's story or Beren and Luthien, but a lot of the rest of it just takes way too much effort. The Ainulindale, on the other hand, is a simple and enjoyable word-painting, it reads like proper mythology.

>>14998

>fanfic

>>14998

OP, make your religion(s) for the universe in full detail. Then write your story in that universe. The characters' actions should show their beliefs. No monologue or exposition should be needed except rarely and briefly.

>>15117

I've already changed all the names. The story and universe deviates so heavily that it's more like an inspiration at this point.

>>15148

What I've presented is pretty much the only exposition I (currently) plan to shove in the readers face so plainly.

I still need to work on fleshing out the deeper lore and mythos but my idea as I mentioned in a previous post is that the gods and religion people in my universe follow (there aren't different religions, only different interpretations of the same) is in actuality, false.

Many thousands of years ago three brothers managed to attain immortality and with it the time required to delve ever deeper into their study of the arcane. Eventually they individually became strong enough to single handedly overthrow whole kingdoms, and so they did. After many years their subjects eventually started to look up at them as almost god-like beings since they never aged and wielded awe-inspiring magick.

Then one of the brothers decided to abuse this and wrote a creation mythos of his own, with himself as the one true god. The brothers were split up and ruled a third of the world as their own kingdom, in order to not lose their footing and have people start worshipping their other brother, the other two created their own works of fiction which also they portrayed them as creators of the known universe.

My story taking place many thousands of years in the future with the three brothers having vanished (still not sure regarding the details, might just leave it vague) people have twisted and changed the stories so many times that nothing of the truth or even original fictitious stories remain. And so many different types of sects, faiths and beliefs have sprouted, but they all base it on the same three brothers. There aren't really any 'none-believers', at most some might feel apathetic towards the stories of gods.

I don't plan to have an atheistic tips fedora storyline, I'll leave the actual creation of the universe deliberately obscured and vague even after the protagonist finds hints of the 'truth'. Instead it'll be focused on his own rise to power and how much he's willing to sacrifice for it. I've been toying with the idea of having him be a tiny bit sociopathic (not in a 'lol randumb serial killer xD' way) and egoistic but not to a point where he's completely emotionless and disregards all other human life. I just want him to be obsessed with attaining power and learning the mysteries of magick.

>>14998

>The core idea is that the two brother's conflict is what keeps this universe together

Are you writing a fan fiction for Lost?

>>15158

>Are you writing a fan fiction for Lost?

It's loosely based on the universe from the games of Gothic but it on its own is very threadbare and they've even retconned things in the sequels.

But the thing you quoted is essentially the core of it, except that there's also a third brother that acts as the keeper of balance between the two. In the games it's heavily implied that the gods are actual gods but like I talked about in a few posts (like the one above your reply) this is not the route I wish to take with my universe.

In the end I've decided that what I'm writing is completely my own and instead to only draw from their universe as an inspiration rather than force myself to write within their limitations. I simply enjoy the core concepts of their fictitious religion.