Steve Long

I don't think the issue is that it would be hard, but that it is not consistent with the vision for the book. Why not write up the Moorcock deities, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the God Of Rear Service Entrances, while you're at it?
 
Mythic Hero is about bringing the real Deities of Myth to Hero, not fictional Deites.
 
It's not like Steve needs to pad the page count!

Yes, it's correct that a lot of Lovecraft's work is now in the public domain. But not necessarily all of it, and many parts of the Mythos created by other/later authors remain copyrighted AFAIK. In theory there are ways around all this, but since it's a subject I don't intend to cover it's a moot point.

The Heronomicon?

Yup, that's true. At this point it's all idle speculation. I've never done a book set with a slipcase though, so it's fun to daydream about.

Yup, that's true. At this point it's all idle speculation. I've never done a book set with a slipcase though, so it's fun to daydream about.

Sorry I missed this question earlier, Zephrosyne. Mea culpa.
 
Honest -- I don't know. I can't know that until I'm finished with the writing and a rough layout is mocked up. At this point I don't know whether I can publish it as one volume, or two or more will be required.
 
I can offer this as a data point though. 6E1 & 2 are combined about 550,000 words. The MH manuscript, which is far from finished, is currently at 425,000 words. So make of that what thou wilst.

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack.
 
On to answers and observations about the points you made.
 
1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth).
 
However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff.
 
By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material.
 
(Another fun data point:  the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. )
 
1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you.
 
1b.  But here's the great thing:  you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them.
 
1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder.
 
1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this:  I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods.
 
2.  Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to!
 
3.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars.
 
However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming.
 
There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book.
 
4.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff.
 
 
It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link.
 
Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack.
 
On to answers and observations about the points you made.
 
1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth).
 
However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff.
 
By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material.
 
(Another fun data point:  the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. )
 
1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you.
 
1b.  But here's the great thing:  you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them.
 
1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder.
 
1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this:  I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods.
 
2.  Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to!
 
3.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars.
 
However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming.
 
There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book.
 
4.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff.
 
 
It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link.
 
Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack.
 
On to answers and observations about the points you made.
 
1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth).
 
However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff.
 
By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material.
 
(Another fun data point:  the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. )
 
1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you.
 
1b.  But here's the great thing:  you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them.
 
1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder.
 
1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this:  I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods.
 
2.  Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to!
 
3.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars.
 
However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming.
 
There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book.
 
4.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff.
 
 
It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link.
 
Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack.
 
On to answers and observations about the points you made.
 
1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth).
 
However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff.
 
By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material.
 
(Another fun data point:  the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. )
 
1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you.
 
1b.  But here's the great thing:  you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them.
 
1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder.
 
1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this:  I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods.
 
2.  Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to!
 
3.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars.
 
However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming.
 
There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book.
 
4.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff.
 
 
It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link.
 
Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

Sorry, but I'm afraid not. Even if it remains my primary work focus for the foreseeable future -- and I intend for it to -- there's still a lot of work left. But I'm going to finish it, come Hell* or high water.
 
Fortunately, with the exception of Celtic, the "big" mythoi are all behind me. Most of what I have left is comparatively minor -- though that doesn't mean that I can skimp on the research for any of them. Sometimes even a small mythos requires a lot of reading.
 
Here's what I have left to do, roughly speaking:
 
1. Research and write all the chapters for mythoi I haven't yet covered.
2. Read all my "general" books on mythology. In some cases this will mean skimming through a book, in others I will have to read through reference books one entry at a time looking for obscure gods I've missed somehow. So it'll take awhile.
3. Read all the mythology books I've acquired since I began work that I haven't yet read. This will serve as a way to go back through the book and "double-check" to make sure I've got things right (in a sense, #2 fulfills this purpose as well).
4. At this point, with the manuscript finished (including appendices), I can contemplate running a Kickstarter for the project. Preparing for that will require some work, of course.
5. Getting the artwork and layout done. Then I have to do the Index, which is going to be an absolute nightmare due to all the weird names and words used.
6. Getting the book printed, shipped to me, and then shipped out to KS backers and whatnot.
 
So, like I said, a lot left to do. But I'm having an absolute ball working on this book, and do not intend to stop.
 
*:  Or other underworld of your choice.

...aaaand done! The Canaanite Mythology chapter of Mythic Hero is finished. It clocked in at a shade over 6,000 words.


 


I had initially intended to move on to Incan Mythology next, but I think I have enough books out here in the RV to stay in the Near East and polish off the Hittite Mythology chapter. Or if not, at least I'll get the foundations laid before I head off to South America.

Sorry, but I'm afraid not. Even if it remains my primary work focus for the foreseeable future -- and I intend for it to -- there's still a lot of work left. But I'm going to finish it, come Hell* or high water.
 
Fortunately, with the exception of Celtic, the "big" mythoi are all behind me. Most of what I have left is comparatively minor -- though that doesn't mean that I can skimp on the research for any of them. Sometimes even a small mythos requires a lot of reading.
 
Here's what I have left to do, roughly speaking:
 
1. Research and write all the chapters for mythoi I haven't yet covered.
2. Read all my "general" books on mythology. In some cases this will mean skimming through a book, in others I will have to read through reference books one entry at a time looking for obscure gods I've missed somehow. So it'll take awhile.
3. Read all the mythology books I've acquired since I began work that I haven't yet read. This will serve as a way to go back through the book and "double-check" to make sure I've got things right (in a sense, #2 fulfills this purpose as well).
4. At this point, with the manuscript finished (including appendices), I can contemplate running a Kickstarter for the project. Preparing for that will require some work, of course.
5. Getting the artwork and layout done. Then I have to do the Index, which is going to be an absolute nightmare due to all the weird names and words used.
6. Getting the book printed, shipped to me, and then shipped out to KS backers and whatnot.
 
So, like I said, a lot left to do. But I'm having an absolute ball working on this book, and do not intend to stop.
 
*:  Or other underworld of your choice.

...aaaand done! The Hawaiian Mythology chapter of Mythic Hero is now complete. Clocking in at 28,000 words, it features five gods with character sheets, dozens of others without, a whole mess of heroes, several monsters, and a complete system of Hawaiian magic.


 


Well, OK, to be fair, I have three or four more books I want to read -- but for some damn fool reason I didn't bring them out to the RV along with all the others. So I'll take care of that this summer after I'm back in the house.


 


On to the next chapter: Canaanite Mythology! A somewhat broad and sometimes vague topic, but I think I can handle it. That oughtta be enough to hold me until I'm back in the house, but if not I have books on Incan and Inuit mythology out here too.

Well, the Canaanite pantheon has at least one late-bloomer who hit it big later.

...aaaand done! The Hawaiian Mythology chapter of Mythic Hero is now complete. Clocking in at 28,000 words, it features five gods with character sheets, dozens of others without, a whole mess of heroes, several monsters, and a complete system of Hawaiian magic.


 


Well, OK, to be fair, I have three or four more books I want to read -- but for some damn fool reason I didn't bring them out to the RV along with all the others. So I'll take care of that this summer after I'm back in the house.


 


On to the next chapter: Canaanite Mythology! A somewhat broad and sometimes vague topic, but I think I can handle it. That oughtta be enough to hold me until I'm back in the house, but if not I have books on Incan and Inuit mythology out here too.

...aaaand done! The Hawaiian Mythology chapter of Mythic Hero is now complete. Clocking in at 28,000 words, it features five gods with character sheets, dozens of others without, a whole mess of heroes, several monsters, and a complete system of Hawaiian magic.


 


Well, OK, to be fair, I have three or four more books I want to read -- but for some damn fool reason I didn't bring them out to the RV along with all the others. So I'll take care of that this summer after I'm back in the house.


 


On to the next chapter: Canaanite Mythology! A somewhat broad and sometimes vague topic, but I think I can handle it. That oughtta be enough to hold me until I'm back in the house, but if not I have books on Incan and Inuit mythology out here too.

"Big Kahuna Burger? I hear they have some tasty burgers!"

Oh yeah, absolutely -- 61 sample spells, to be precise. They're written up as one short descriptive paragraph and then one game info paragraph (rather than getting a "spell template" header like in HSG, for space reasons), but they're in there.
 
 
Currently I have completed sections on Australian Aborigine Magic, Finnish Magic, and Slavic (Russian) Magic (each with plenty of sample spells, of course!), and partially completed sections on Egyptian and Norse Magic. Several other mythoi, such as Ainu and Etruscan, have a paragraph or sidebar explaining briefly how magic works and giving vernacular terms for spellcasters and such, but no fully fleshed-out system or spells. And I expect to add to both counts going forward, since there are plenty of mythoi left (I have some books on Hawaiian magic that might yield a system, for example).
 
Once MH is published (with magic systems included), I am considering pulling out all the magic systems and creating a separate book of them, for those who are only interested in that sort of thing. Not sure I'd have enough material to fill a whole hardcopy book, but at the very least I could do it as a PDF. We'll see -- it's hard to make predictions when there's so much work left to do!
 
 
P.S.:  I left out the Chinese and Voodoo mythoi in this discussion, since both get effective coverage in HSG, so I just cross-reference that.

Glad to hear it! I'm working hard to get it out into the light of day, and one way or another I'm going to succeed.

Glad to hear it! I'm working hard to get it out into the light of day, and one way or another I'm going to succeed.

Oh yeah, absolutely -- 61 sample spells, to be precise. They're written up as one short descriptive paragraph and then one game info paragraph (rather than getting a "spell template" header like in HSG, for space reasons), but they're in there.
 
 
Currently I have completed sections on Australian Aborigine Magic, Finnish Magic, and Slavic (Russian) Magic (each with plenty of sample spells, of course!), and partially completed sections on Egyptian and Norse Magic. Several other mythoi, such as Ainu and Etruscan, have a paragraph or sidebar explaining briefly how magic works and giving vernacular terms for spellcasters and such, but no fully fleshed-out system or spells. And I expect to add to both counts going forward, since there are plenty of mythoi left (I have some books on Hawaiian magic that might yield a system, for example).
 
Once MH is published (with magic systems included), I am considering pulling out all the magic systems and creating a separate book of them, for those who are only interested in that sort of thing. Not sure I'd have enough material to fill a whole hardcopy book, but at the very least I could do it as a PDF. We'll see -- it's hard to make predictions when there's so much work left to do!
 
 
P.S.:  I left out the Chinese and Voodoo mythoi in this discussion, since both get effective coverage in HSG, so I just cross-reference that.

For those of you keeping score at home, I finally seem to have cleared enough stuff out of the way that I can get back to working on MH on a more regular basis. I'm still working on the Hindu Mythology chapter (already 56,000 words long!), but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Next I think I'll tackle Hawaiian Mythology. And after that -- who knows? So many fun possibilities!

That sounds intriguing!
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary is glad Mr. Long did what had to be done to Finnish that chapter.

100% agreed.   After all, Finnish Mythology is the only one where ( a ) characters use crossbows, and ( b ) we are often informed of the color of the gods' socks.
 
Fortunately I've dug up a good many so far -- Finnish, Slavic, Baltic, and Etruscan, to name four I've already written up. And there are several others I haven't gotten to yet that will hopefully pan out for full chapter treatment (or decent coverage in the Miscellaneous chapter; or if not in MH, then in Legendary Hero). Going a bit further afield, there's also Armenian and various mythoi from the Caucasus (which are fairly European-esque), and important but often overlooked faiths/deities from the Classical era, such as Mithras and Cybele.
 
Lots of fun stuff to read, lots of research to do, lots of writing yet to come.  Once I'm past chemo and have a bit more stamina on a daily basis, I'm getting back to MH with a vengeance.