#slavic beliefs

[chrysaliaa]

Marzanna! I still remember when in childhood in primary school we would make a life sized "doll" (similar looking to the one on the photo) and, at the end of the winter, we would go outside with our teachers and burn it. I know we were supposed to drown her - that's the proper way. However, there was no body of water available near us. The ritual of drowning Marzanna was supposed to welcome spring and say goodbye to winter.

We didn't consider her a goddess though, because Poland is a very catholic country. She was seen as someone evil and who didn't deserve our respect.

MORANA // SLAVIC GODDESS OF COLD, FROST, WINTER, DEATH & AGRICULTURE

“She is a pagan Slavic goddess associated with seasonal rites based on the idea of death and rebirth of nature. She is an ancient goddess associated with winter's death, rebirth and dreams. In ancient Slavic rites, the death of the Goddess Morana at the end of winter becomes the rebirth of Spring of the Goddess Kostroma (Russian), Lada or Vesna representing the coming of Spring. In modern times, the rituals associated with Marzanna have lost their sacred character and are a pastime – an occasion to have fun and celebrate the beginning of spring.”

(above is an effigy of Morana)

[royalfilm]

If anyone has resources on upper Silesian folk magic or folk beliefs, I am desperate for some! They are hard to come by in English but ones that can be translated would be amazing

[szczekaczz]

i have to learn more about belarus

[weirdnerdygoat]

I don't think that Christianity adopting earlier customs and beliefs is bad necessarily? Like I'm saying this from the perspective of someone from Ireland, where the conversion to Christianity was relatively peaceful and voluntary, and a LOT of older customs were adopted into Christian tradition. Obviously, it would differ depending on the area and how conversion played out there.

I actually think it's quite beautiful that there's a continuum of tradition dating from ancient times, (despite enjoying dunking on Christianity, and being frustrated that earlier Irish religions and beliefs are mostly lost).

Looking at it from the smaller scale, it makes a lot of sense that individuals would convert to Christianity but still keep their previous customs, (my non-christian family still celebrates a lot of Christian traditions, like there isn't anything unusual about keeping customs), and because of that being often allowed Christianity managed to spread so easily.

I'm not sure what my point exactly is, but basically Christianity taking other religions' traditions and assimilating them isn't bad. We all know Christianity has a LOT of problems, (similarly to most large and influential institutions), but I don't think adapting to other cultures is one of them.

(Though pointing out the history of such traditions is always good imo!)

(And of course, this isn't too say that there aren't any christian-origin traditions. Obviously the Easter eggs aren't, but I'm sure there's other stuff, I just know very little about religions lol. However, I'd assume that most traditions come from SOMEWHERE, like they rarely just spontaneously start with no prior precedent. Same with Pagan religions, I'd assume that their traditions also date back to earlier cultures.)

Not everything the Christians do is stolen from some anonymous pagan culture. I'm sorry y'all but the Christians did actually come up with a bunch of shit on their own.

[mynqzo]

Since you are an expert on vampires (at least well informed and properly presenting sources), I wanted to ask if it made sense for the term "vampire" to exist in the middle ages, specifically the first half of the 13th century. I'm asking because I'm playing in the VtM setting of Dark Ages, which is canonically set in the year 1242 and I was wondering about that

Thank you for the question! Hopefully I can provide a good response (although remember this information is a grand generalization and sources are linked for you to look deeper)

Okay so for a little backstory of the word vampire - There is not a decided 'canon' for it's etymological origins but a few linguists have delved into it's theories, such as Franz Miklosich (or; Franc Miklošič). He, in his work “Etymologie der Slavischen Sprach” theorized that the slavic synonyms ‘Upior’, ‘Uper’ and ‘Upyr’, are all stemmed from the Tatar Turkic word for witch- ‘uber/ubyr’. Montague Summers states in his book 'The Vampire: His Kith and Kin' -

The most wildly accepted form of the word's origins are however from the Serbian word Bamiiup- Miklosich also relays that this word could be a 'transmittor'

Essentially, a lot of different words went through a lot of different variations and translations as the myth of the unread blood-sucker spread over the greater European continent as well as reached it's way across the sea to the Americas. But most importantly - the word vampire wasn't properly dissected the way it is being in more modern times and it wasn't until the 18th-century that variations of the word 'vampyr/vampyre/vampir/vampire' were used wildly.

Katharina M. Wilson states in 'The History of the Word "Vampires"' (a massive and great source used in many other articles on entomology, I mean seriously I encountered her being used as reference multiple times) "In sum, the earliest recorded uses of the term "vampire" appear in French, English, and Latin, and they refer to vampirism in Poland, Russia, and Ma- cedonia (Southern Yugoslavia). The second and more sweeping introduction of the word occurs in German, French, and English, and records the Serbian vampire epidemic of 1725-32."

The word 'vampire' (written as vampyre), while these vampire epidemics were at their height in Europe, was first seen in English in 1732 actually and began then to be more widely used, here is a 1734 book by Michael Ranft that has it in it's title!

To put a long explanation short, the word vampire was not used in the medieval ages. But other words that signal to us modern folk that certain creatures were vampires were definitely used, all because of the Christian Church.

So during the medieval times, instead of vampire it was a minion of the devil, a revenant, a ghost, an undead, some sinning spirit or corpse. Vampire's weren't internationally associated with drinking blood until later publications of literature, they were more like zombies and spirits who consumed people's life essence or came after them in their undeath, and the soul sucking would sometimes be accompanied by blood sucking, since blood was an integral part of a person's body not just medically but in the sense of religion and what distinguished a human from a demon.

While the word was not use the appearance and disposition of of these creatures was very much what we can tell is the tall-tale sign of the vampire myth solidifying. "The Vampire Myth and Christianity" by Dorothy Ivey uses the book 'Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs' by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow (tried to find the book online myself but no luck so I'm quoting Ivey quoting Lindahl and others) as a source and writes “a revenant, reanimated corpse, or phantom of the recently deceased, which maintains its former, living appearance when it comes out of the grave at night to drink the blood of humans.” and further more “lack of decomposition or rigor mortis, pallid face, sharp protruding canine teeth." the book further describes the traits of a vampire having to return to it's coffin at daybreak and that a person is turned vampire by consuming the creatures blood/being bitten. (remember, me and sources/refs are using the word vampire for convenience, not because it was said or written, they were still creatures/spirits/satan's spawn)

Important to note, the Bubonic Plague raged across Europe from 1346 to 1353, the number of corpses and diseased were so plentiful that a lot of bodies were dumped in shallow graves and given in-proper burials, which spiked the myth of them coming back as vampires. It didn't help that the disabled/impaired were viewed horribly during these times. People who were sick from old age, diseases and chronic conditions were treated with the same disgust and repulsion and those who were seen as 'wrong' in the eye of the Church. The vampire myth was an excellently awful tool used by the medieval Church to further their own agenda and power. Ivey writes it perfectly:

So - demons, revenants, spirits, sinners, undead, sick/disabled people, improperly buried corpses etc were core parts of this 'evil'. An example I remember from this work also hones in on the 'improper' buriel aspects that would turn a person into a vampire. People who were aforded proper christian burials were pious god-fearing folk, those who followed the Churchs rulings and therefore were buried in a Church graveyard. People who were given improper funerals were whose who had sinned, were not christian, were, as discussed above, disabled, 'wrong', had committed suicide etc and therefore were not buried in Church ground and therefore were more likely to come back as demons lackeys and revenants.

The idea of a vampire had widely existed though, from the Greek Vrykolakas to the Nordic Draugr, but in summery, the word vampire did not exist as we know it back during the Medival ages.

And lastly, I feel like this writing by Gemma Hollman in 'Medieval Vampires' summarize the vampire situation during those times quite well

Hope you found this blabbering useful!

Sources:

Justhistoryposts, V. a. P. B. (2024, December 18). Medieval Vampires. Just History Posts. https://justhistoryposts.com/2016/11/01/medieval-vampires/

Matczak, M., Kozłowski, T., & Chudziak, W. (2022). multidisciplinary study of anti-vampire burials from early medieval Culmen, Poland: were the diseased and disabled regarded as vampires? Archaeologia Historica Polona, 29. https://doi.org/10.12775/ahp.2021.012

Ivey, D. (2010). The Vampire Myth and Christianity. Rollins College Rollins Scholarship Online. https://scholarship.rollins.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=mls

Wilson, Katharina M. “The History of the Word ‘Vampire.’” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 46, no. 4, 1985, pp. 577–83. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2709546. Accessed 29 May 2025.

Summers, M. (1929). The Vampire: his Kith and Kin. Notes and Queries, 156(6), 107. https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/156.6.107b

Mutch, D. (2012). The modern vampire and human identity. In Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230370142

Frayling, C. (1991). Vampyres : Lord Byron to Count Dracula. https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA14229568

[lilshoots]

Finished another wip, you could say :P

Context:

In Ukraine, you give a buqet with an even number of flowers only to those who passed away. (the tradition dates beck to the slavic pagan beliefs. Even numbers were the personification of evil, and the even number of flowers meant the end of the life cycle. Therefore, it brought troubles to the family and death.)

My younger self was so shocked and horrified watching foreign movies in which the guy gave the girl he likes a buqet of paired flowers. Like, why would you do this? Do you want her dead??? That's six flowers. Just add one more. Wait... Why are you giving these 4 flowers to your mother??

So, yeah. I thought it would blend well into the Senju/Uchiha cultural differences

P.S. Tobirama clearly knew about these cultural differences. He just believed in Madara's brain too much, thinking he knew them too. He just thought Madara gave him these frowers to mess with him:P

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Ruratanian Romance

Ever been to the European nation of Ruratania? No? It doesn't exist. Ruratanian Romance is a genre that takes place in a typically small fictional European country.

Getting to Know the Genre

The first Ruritanian novel of its kind was the 1894 "The Prisoner of Zenda" by Anthony Hope. Ruritanian Romance usually take place within the contemporary but there is no reason you can't apply it within a historical setting. The common themes of the genre revolve around the lives of the royal family or nobility of the region, culture clash, political intrigue, the balance of love and duty and adventure. The genre tends to feature people travelling to the nation for the first time and finding a romantic partner or the return of a lost/unknown heir and the villains tend to be corrupt nobles or politicians looking to cash in on the nation's beautiful settings or steal the throne.

Building a Small European Nation

The beauty of Europe is that while every country is unique it shares a history and cultural aspects with their neighbour. To build a small European nation, you need to know the history of its neighbours and how it effected your new nation. Ruritanian nations end to be more idealised, focusing on the more romantic sides of Europe - fine historical buildings, beautiful nature and very modern and progressive cultures and governments. You will need to decide what political structure your nation has, what are its symbols, languages spoken, population size, resources, geographical features etc. I have more under my #worldbuilding.

Culture of your Ruratanian Nation

No matter where you are in Europe, you will experience another nation's culture alongside your own. Whether you're listening to German techno in a French nightclub or eating an Irish Spice Bag in Latvia, the culture of your neighbours bleed through to your own. If your nation lies near France, they may share similarities in language or if they are by Italy they may share similar cuisine. If your nation is in the Balkans, they will have a more Slavic culture than the West. But it's not all spice bags and techno beats, Europe is like one big family and every country has its buddies and rivals. Rivalry can be formed by history or differences in culture and it doesn't mean that the countries and their people will be beating each other up. It's rivalry that involves making fun of one another or cheering when they lose a football match (Remember kids, it's not about who wins it's that England lose) . I have a post on culture under that hashtag.

History

You should know the history of your little nation. And because it's surrounded by real nations, you can easily fit that into your new nation. Did Napoleon ever visit? Did they ever get into a scrap with a country beside them? Which country do they have a rivalry with? Why? Pay attention to where you want to place your nation. Genovia - probably the best known of recent examples - is situated between France and Italy on the Cote d'Azur. Genovian history features the Visigoths and WWII. Your history of this nation doesn't have to be complete of course, mainly readers will be sated with a brief mention of a historical event here and there that will suspend their belief a little.

West is West, East is East

The two halves of Europe, the East and West are vastly different culturally though they share similarities. These differences are due to the Roman Empire having more influence in the West and later, the isolation of East and West in the Cold War. Languages in the East have Baltic, Slavic roots while the Western language family derive from the Romance languages. Western Europe has a long historical trend of faster industrialisation and modernisation while the East tended develop at slower rates. East Europe has a much lower cost of living. The West tends to follow Catholic and Protestant denominations while the Orthodox Church has more influence in the East. Infrastructure evolves faster in the West but the East has a strong relationship with its folk history and culture. The Western governments are often divided between two polar opposite schools of thoughts. Some countries of East Europe have had history of corrupt governments and harsh regimes, like some Western countries. The East has a strong work ethic and communities tend to support each other more while in the West individualism is encouraged and the work-life balance is prioritised. There is a distinct feel of East or West Europe that your Ruritanian nation will emulate.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Wilde Leute (Wild People)

From the early Middle Ages to the beginning of the modern era, wild people were anthropomorphic beings in the popular beliefs of the Germanic and Slavic language areas.

Wild men were described or depicted as solitary, immensely strong, hairy, naked, or clad only in moss or leaves. Their way of life was considered semi-animalistic and primitive on the one hand, but also paradisiacal and close to nature on the other. Their preferred habitat was thought to be uninhabited or uninhabitable forests and mountains.

Wild women were also depicted clad in moss or leaves, but had magical properties and were able to communicate with wild animals or bred mythical creatures.

Wild people are human and not transcendent beings. This means that they are not beings from another world, for example the divine world, who can materialize at will in this world and appear and disappear again in different forms. Since wild people are incapable of this, they can also be captured by humans. Although wild people have superhuman abilities, sometimes even something like magical or clairvoyant powers, they are themselves biological beings who are vulnerable and can be shot at and injured. They can have a sex life and a family life. Only in the archaic legends of the Alpine region (primarily Tyrol) do wild people have certain characteristics of spirit beings and nature demons.

Wild People are human, not animal, beings. They have no animal characteristics—apart from their excessive hair growth (hypertrichosis), their great physical strength, and their nakedness, all of which can also occur in normal humans. They have no goat's feet, no tail, and no horns. In depictions and stories, Wild People are almost always barefoot. Wild Men—unlike animals—are often armed with a club or a tree trunk.

Wild people are generally inferior to humans if their great physical strength or magical powers are neutralized. This can be done through sexual seduction, but also through feminine virtue, through alcohol, through magic, through combat with professional military training and weaponry, through long-range weapons, or through other particularly intelligent measures. Afterward, they can be imprisoned and kept in cages like animals, prisoners, or lunatics. However, expectations of uncovering the mystery of their savagery are generally disappointed.

It is no longer possible to reconstruct whether the world-wide conceptions of the Wild Man contain old memories of the times when several species of hominins existed side by side. While it is evident that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis both lived in Europe for about 10,000 years and produced common offspring, the gap of 20,000 years between the extincion of Neanderthal men and the first known mention of Wild People in the Epic of Gilgamesh makes any link highly unlikely.

There are some clues in the Old Testament that support the explanation that the stories of the Wild People are based on the transition period from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, when people developed from hunters and gatherers to farmers and herders. The old biblical stories have a certain significance here, as they originate from the region where agriculture was first developed in the Fertile Crescent). Genesis 2:5-33 deals with the dispute between the twin brothers Esau, the older, instinctive, hairy one, the hunter, and Jacob, the younger, self-confident, fine-skinned, urbane, intellectual, and more cultured, the favorite son of their mother Rebekah. The competition between farming and hunting shows the superiority of the new form of society: the hapless hunter Esau has to sell his inheritance to his agricultural and thus economically superior brother Jacob in order to have anything to eat. Jacob, God's chosen one, thus became the progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel. The hairy Esau, left empty-handed, became the progenitor of a mountain tribe.

In Christianity, wild people stand outside of creation and the divine plan of salvation. They are figures of lower mythology who, in the ecclesiastical understanding, serve to symbolize the virtuous victory over creation and thus over the wild, the base, and the vice-like. In the imagination of medieval people, wild was seen as that which stood outside of human culture, community, custom, and norm. Furthermore, it was considered desolate and undeveloped, confused, and ominous. For this reason, wild people often appeared at carnivals in the late Middle Ages, where they, along with the other fools, represented those distant from God and thus the devil. As these representatives, the Wild Man and the Wild Woman, together with the fool and the devil, can be seen, for example, on a vault console in the Holy Cross Cathedral in Rottweil.

Medieval courtly literature contrasted the knights, who were considered social role models, with various terrifying figures against whom the knights could then demonstrate their ethical and martial superiority. These figures included dragons and giants, as well as Wild Men.

A special form of Wild People are Wild Children. Tales of Wild Children reach back to biblical time (Moses), over the Old Persian Empire (Kyros), the founders of Rome (Romulus and Remus), the Germanic mythology (Dietrich von Bern), to the modern literature with figures like Tarzan and Mowgli. A few cases of children who must have lived in the wilderness for an extended period of time are documented (Victor of Aveyron, Kaspar Hauser), but attempts to integrate them into human society were not very successful, in contrast to the aforementioned legends.

Today, the best known legends of Wild People are Rübezahl in the Giant Mountains in the border region of Poland and the Czech Republic and the Wild Man of the Harz mountains in Northern Germany, where there is even a town named Wildemann. Likewise, a neighborhood of Dresden is named "Wilder Mann". Wild People, mostly Wild Men, are also not uncommon motifs in heraldry. In some places, Wild People are part of folklore parades.

[astra-ravana]

Slavic Magick

Slavic magick, also known as Rodnovery (Native Faith), Slavic Witchcraft, or Vedism, is a deeply ancestral, animistic, and nature-based practice rooted in the folklore, mythology, and spiritual traditions of the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Czech Republic, etc.). It is a blend of pre-Christian paganism, folk magick, and shamanic traditions, honoring the spirits of nature, ancestors, and deities.

Core Beliefs in Slavic Magick

Worship of the Rod and Rozhanitsy (The Great Ancestors):

• Rod is the primordial god of fate, ancestry, and creation, representing the great cosmic order.

• The Rozhanitsy are ancestral spirits who determine the fates of newborns.

Animism & Nature Worship:

• Everything in nature is alive and sacred—rivers, trees, stones, and animals all contain spirits.

• Slavic magick involves working with land spirits (Domovoi, Leshy, Rusalka, etc.) to bring blessings or avoid misfortune.

Duality & Balance:

• Slavic spirituality embraces the harmony of opposites—life and death, light and darkness, masculine and feminine.

• The Zorya (Morning and Evening Stars) embody this balance, protecting cosmic order.

The Power of Words & Blessings (Zagovory):

• Spoken charms, incantations, and verbal spells (called Zagovory) hold immense power.

• Traditional blessings, protective words, and curses were often whispered over water, fire, or herbs.

Slavic Deities & Spirits in Magick

Major Slavic Deities:

• Perun – God of thunder, war, and justice (similar to Thor).

• Veles – God of the underworld, magick, wealth, and animals.

• Mokosh – Goddess of fate, fertility, water, and weaving.

• Svarog – Creator god of fire and the sky.

• Zorya – The twin goddesses of dawn and dusk, gatekeepers of the cosmos.

• Morana – Goddess of winter, death, and rebirth (associated with the burning of effigies in spring).

Slavic Household Spirits:

• Domovoi – Guardian spirit of the home; offerings keep him peaceful.

• Leshy – Woodland spirit, protector of the forest.

• Rusalka – Water spirit, sometimes benevolent, sometimes vengeful.

• Bannik – Bathhouse spirit, must be appeased with offerings of soap and water.

Ancestral Veneration & The Dead:

• Dziady is a ritual where food and offerings are left for departed ancestors.

• Ancestral spirits play an important role in guidance, protection, and revenge magick.

Tools & Sacred Items in Slavic Witchcraft

Herbs & Plant Magick:

• Mugwort (Chernobylnik) – Protection, divination, and connecting to spirits.

• St. John’s Wort (Ivan-da-Marya) – Wards off evil spirits.

• Rowan Berries (Riabina) – Used for protection charms.

• Birch Bark & Leaves – Associated with purity, new beginnings, and the goddess Mokosh.

Ritual Objects & Symbols:

• Rushnyk (Sacred Cloth) – Embroidered with protective symbols, used in blessings and rituals.

• Dolls (Motanka) – Handmade dolls used for protection, healing, and fertility spells.

• Sun Wheel (Kolovrat) – Symbol of Svarog and the cycle of life.

Sacred Water & Fire:

• Water from three different wells or rivers is used in purification rituals.

• Bonfires (Kupala Night Fire) cleanse and bring fertility and protection.

Slavic Magical Practices & Spells

Protective Magic & Amulets:

• Red thread charms protect against the evil eye (sglaz).

• Salt & bread offerings to spirits ensure household harmony.

• Burning juniper or mugwort cleanses a space of negative energy.

Love & Fertility Magick:

• On Ivan Kupala Night, young women place flower wreaths in the river to divine their future husbands.

• Honey & apple rituals are performed to bless marriages.

Curses & Baneful Magick:

• Burying a cursed item under a threshold binds misfortune to the victim.

• Mirror spells reflect harm back to an enemy.

• Zagovory incantations spoken over water can be used for both blessings and hexes.

Weather & Agricultural Magick:

• Burning effigies of Morana in spring banishes winter and invites fertility.

• Farmers would whisper to the earth before planting to ensure a bountiful harvest.

Ritual Calendar & Holy Days

• Maslenitsa (Spring Festival): A pagan Slavic celebration of renewal, featuring fire rituals, effigy burning, and feasts.

• Kupala Night (Summer Solstice): Bonfires, water rituals, and flower wreath divinations mark this festival of love, fertility, and purification.

• Dziady (Ancestor’s Night, Autumn): A time to honor the dead with feasts, candle rituals, and spirit offerings.

• Koliada (Winter Solstice): A festival of light marking the rebirth of the sun god Svarog.

Modern Slavic Witchcraft & Reconstruction

Slavic Pagan Revival (Rodnovery):

• Many practitioners today are reviving pre-Christian Slavic traditions.

• Groups such as Rodnovery, Slavic Heathens, and Folk Witches are keeping the ancient ways alive.

Slavic Witchcraft in Modern Practice:

• Some mix traditional Slavic beliefs with Wicca, Norse paganism, or folk magick.

• Ancestral veneration, nature magick, and oral traditions remain central.

Slavic Witchcraft & Divination:

• Tasseography (Tea Leaf Reading) is a common Slavic practice.

• Egg Cleansing (Osteomancy) detects and removes curses.

• Throwing bones, wax divination, and water scrying are still used.

How to Begin Practicing Slavic Magick

• Connect with Slavic Folklore & Myths

• Read fairy tales, mythology, and folk traditions from your Slavic ancestry.

• Honor the Spirits & Ancestors

• Start an ancestral altar with candles, bread, and personal heirlooms.

• Learn Slavic Symbols & Rituals

• Practice using Kolovrat, Rushnyk, and Motanka dolls in spells.

• Work with Slavic Deities or Nature Spirits

• Meditate with Perun, Veles, or Mokosh.

• Celebrate Slavic Pagan Festivals

• Observe Kupala Night, Koliada, and Dziady with traditional rituals.

Slavic magick is a rich, complex, and deeply ancestral path full of earth-based spirituality, protective magick, and powerful deities. Whether you're of Slavic descent or simply drawn to its mysticism, nature worship, and ancestral wisdom, this tradition offers a powerful way to connect with the spirits, honor the old ways, and walk a magickal path.

[regnumveritatis]

Films made to praise Arsinoe/Perseleia in the Athenide verse

2) Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame part 2

Apologies for the long wait to those of you who were excited for this compilation. Had a lot of work to be done, and now the semester is ending, so I'm using my newly found free time to catch up on backlogged ideas. That being said, I hope everyone enjoys the lore building.

1) The lie of Arsinoe 'simply fading'

On the day where the golden Athenide 'faded' away from our mortal plane despite her cult having enormous success all through the Aegean and Adriatic coasts, the farmers of Athens coincidentally write on how they witnessed large eagles attack then proceed to eat the golden orioles hiding in their olive groves. Athenians of the time took it as a sign of tyrannical delights soon to be defeated at the hands of mighty Zeus. The high priestess of Corinth, however, took this news on an entirely different way and proclaimed,'Reason has been murdered by the State!' For which she was punished and declared insane as no one would believe Zeus capable of murdering the child of his favored daughter Athena. Here, the writers are giving the winning argument to that Cassandra-like woman as Zeus/Jupiter clearly chases and kills his own granddaughter and then attempts to apply roman law to her last kit. Her death also mirrors the historical murder of Princess Arsinoe of Ptolemaic Egypt as she is killed on the steps of Holy Ground by someone who deems her a threat.

2) Styx always takes her due:

Contrary to what the ego of Olympus's king would believe, even Zeus can not break his word or violate the sanctuary of another deity without consequences. The movie chooses to represent Styx as the archdeacon of the cathedral in a historical nod to how places granting asylum to slaves (the real reason the Romani went in large waves to France during this period was escaping chattel slavery in balto slavic countries) to be broken under pain of death shifted from the temple of Hermes and the Athenides to the statue of the Emperor then finally to the catholic cathedral where any who murdered within its halls were doomed to eternal perdition. While Styx can't prove Zeus's role in the murder of their friend, they can force him to uphold the promise not to directly harm his granddaughter's wards unless provoked since doing so will condemn him to Tartarus per his own agreement centuries ago. By this fear, Frollo claims Quasimodo (a name that in this universe is a taunt to Arsinoe as she has left her work unfinished so her son is half-formed) to raise though not without embedding the child with a lie that will falsely indebt him to his supposed benevolence

3) The Roman Mutilation:

The 'future' scenes from the beginning are done from an entirely roman standpoint as far as Frollo/Zeus is concerned. He fully endorses the false tale of Pietas Securitas as it suits his needs perfectly, spreading the word of her cruelty both to eliminate anything corrupt in his eyes and to create belief in his virtue for the mortals. Fides Nerio is also brought low as she is no savior, merely a minor goddess collecting the spoils of war. Jupiter is not the cruel god calling for these barbaric games of slaughter. How can he when he did not even approve of Dionysius's barbaric revelry? By reminding the mortals/demigods still believing in him of the atrocities committed by Rome and comparing them to his care, he causes them to feel guilt over doubting him and thus easily manipulates the situation to his control. Despite all this, people long for something more than what Zeus offers even if they don't know what exactly this entails which brings us to the part you've all been waiting for: the Perpollo shipping.

4) The introduction of Phoebus

Any hardcore greek mythology fan knows what the name of this character references. Shining Phoebus arrives at the city bearing the name of that loathed Trojan Prince humbly, his desire to be part of the people a stark contrast to the previous behavior of other authority figures. His cloak is Athenide blue in deference to his unyielding devotion to Lady Loyalty and his horse is named Achilles in yet another attempt to besmirch the reputation of the demigod who trampled upon Perseleia's blessing with his cruelty as he proves that Achilles makes a better horse than a human. Due to his departure from Galia and anything remotely Roman till after the fall of the Empire, Phoebus does not recognize the layout of the now medieval city. He appeals to the previous rule of xenia by kindly asking the city guards for directions and taking their indifference to him calmly. Their lack of respect is forgotten instantly as Truth's eyes gaze at long last Loyalty, here named Esmeralda.

4) The reclaiming of the name Esmeralda

In the Ancient Greek era, emeralds were sacred to Artemis, the lady of the hunt and twin to Apollo. The connection was done because they were the same color as the woods she so loved. As such, emeralds were traditionally believed to provide protection in the woods, which is why Cleopatra purposefully gifted her most esteemed guests with them to show her sincere hospitality as well as her wealth. The Romans, however, did not wish for Diana to share anything with 'the seductress of Egypt', so they changed the stone's patronage from her to Venus. In Roman mythology, emeralds are then said to bolster fertility and were gifted as tokens of affection and/or fiery passion that could help couples conceive. Even so, a connection to Artemis remained by way of her twin Phoebus as emeralds were also believed to have healing properties (emphasized on the eyes as proven by the emerald lenses created to improve sight) and mystical properties that would aid clairvoyance. By the middle ages, it's romantic symbolism had shifted from Venus' fertility and passion to Apollo even further as mystics like Saint Hildegard commented how they were believed to provide truth among lovers as one could not lie about infidelity whilst holding an emerald per popular belief. By doing so the Christian population unknowingly removed themselves from the grasps of Love in favor of Truth and Loyalty together as they always should have been. The new meaning is reaffirmed in the character who is inspired by Perseleia. We see a further rejection of Roman times in her beautiful dark skin that Ovid considered 'the mark of the poor' and her healthy curves with voluminous black hair that are a far cry from the thin, blonde aesthetic considered a pillar of beauty by the Empire. Esmeralda is loyalty free from the shackles of Fides Nerio as she dances with her sisters' outcasts. Immediately, she is drawn to Phoebus and nods in harmless flirtation that she dare not allow to go farther knowing fully the nature of men.

[writingwithcolor]

WritingWithColor FAQ: Why do I need to be so specific with my character’s identity?

We often receive this question from people whose asks have been rejected because the terms they used were not helpful. Consider racial/ethnic terms associated with regions like:

“Native American” / “Indigenous”

“Pacific Islander” / “Pasifika”

“Asian”

“African”

“Hispanic” / “Latin American” / “Latino/e/x”

“Middle Eastern”

“Slavic” / “Siberian”

“Nordic”

These are common but overly broad demographic terms meant to be used by governments for convenience and record-keeping purposes. In other contexts, these terms cover far too wide of a range of nationalities, cultures, and ethnicities to be informative. For example, while “Native American” is often used as catch-all term for every Native nation across the US, this encompasses a very large continent’s worth of cultural variety. You could not accurately portray a Native person unless you knew their specific tribe’s stereotypes, beliefs, customs, and day to day lives.

These terms can also be relative or vague when used alone. “Indigenous” is even broader, and covers any native inhabitant of a region anywhere in the globe, having the potential to cause confusion if it is used to refer to Native American identities.

---

This Q&A is an excerpt from our General FAQ for Newcomers, which can be found in our new Masterpost of rules and FAQs. If you're looking to send us an ask about your own writing, go there first!

-Writing With Color

[warbliers]

If one were to be writing a patho au with a deep focus on religion, in which Dankovsky is an ROC seminarian, what would be the most appropriate religions to use to research the Steppe religion for writing Artemy?

I find that while playing Pathologic a lot of the themes regarding rationality/logic (and utopianism) versus mysticism and folk practices lend themselves to religious discourse as well, obviously Artemy's medical tradition is inherently religious, but I thought it natural to take it a step further.

In my experience (which is biased due to my Roman Catholic background, hence why I want to do more research on all this), Christianity is somehow regarded as a more "rational" religion, especially as you move within its hierarchies which often work to suppress folk practices or "heretical" beliefs. And often the way Daniil talks about his research reminds me of a theologian. So, I'd like to get better insight into the ROC and it's relationship to folk religion, like what the Steppe religion would be based on.

TL;DR I want to write a Burda fanfic that explores themes of religious turmoil because in My religiously traumatized brain Pathologic reminds me of Christianity and debates on rationalism, the relationship to the body and earth, religious tolerance and pluralism, etc., but I'm not as well-versed in Eastern European/Slavic religion so I'm looking for help/sources.

Thank you if you read this far I appreciate any advice or corrections to my thinking.

[jarqanat]

EVERYTHING WENT VERY WELL!! and we did some errands too, on top of the meeting :D

going to my first library meeting after the move while feeling physically unwell. wish me luck

[psychhound]

worldbuilding in spiritkeep

okay howdy again :) the second place winner of the spiritkeep poll was to talk about worldbuilding!!

for new folks, spiritkeep is a multiplayer campaign ttrpg designed around inducing therapeutic emotional growth

if you want to learn more about the playbook options you can find the write up here and the deep dive into the lonesome playbooks and the minder playbooks here

so … worldbuilding!!

collaborative worldbuilding is actually the first stage of play, even before you make your characters. i took inspiration from yarnspinner by edda mendes and spool by jade ravens especially, as well as the community building aspect of songs for the dusk by kavita poduri

there are a few things about the world of spiritkeep that always stay the same:

1) this is a fantasy world with low/no tech, and medium-high magic (i think some people would call it low magic because the pcs aren't terribly powerful, there isn't a spellcasting system, and also because they're used to thinking of high magic as looking specifically like medieval european fantasy. but there is actually a lot of magic in this world even if a typical human isn't particularly high powered)

2) there are various lineages of human, but all the pcs are human. (a notable exception is the othered archetype, which includes paragons for werecreatures, changelings, and ghosts. these characters are still humanoid though!) the lineages include what we would think of as regular humans and then various kinds of people, diverse in appearance and beliefs, who are descended from humans blessed or cursed by spirits. we'll get more into that next time!!

3) the world is inhabited by humans, animals, and spirits. the worlds of spiritkeep are animist and inspired by nature religions. in particular, i took a lot of inspiration from slavic paganism, shintoism, and various indigenous american religions but most specifically diné religion. in spiritkeep, many aspects of nature and daily life have spirits, from homes to rivers to trees. many spirits have minor magical abilities, and most will stay fairly hidden or out of the way, but there are rarer spirits who are quite powerful. parties will have to interact with spirits sometimes, such as doing favors for or solving problems for them to get boons

4) humans also have their own spirits. there are times when these spirits become independent & tangible enough to interact with. this is how pcs get advancements, boons, and can change playbooks. your spirit can also be harmed, though, so watch out!

5) the game always takes place in a community that is struggling and in need of repair

the rest of the world is up to the players to flesh out during the session zero!!

the session zero includes worldbuilding and community building. players will decide on details about the major cities, cultures, and geographic features in the area. they'll also work together to decide on more thematic elements like conflicts between groups of people, spiritual traditions, or the presence of bigotry within the world (yes, there can definitely be explorations of bigotry in spiritkeep. i am not an ascriber to cozy game escapist fantasy culture and i dont think those work well for the purpose of this game)

after a broad sketch of the world is laid out, the group turns to building the community. here, they'll focus on a few aesthetic features of the community, community values, and a few major features (does the community have a doctor or no? do they have a post office? is this a farming community or do they trade textiles? what are people's houses made of? etc)

i have a general idea on how to make the collaborative worldbuilding process approachable, cooperative, and safe, but it definitely needs playtesting before i explain :) im approaching this with the mindset of 1) players hard no's will have already been discussed in a separate process 2) players might be strangers to each other and might have never played a ttrpg before. i also want it to be feasible both in person and on a vtt. so i'm still working that out :)

so that's the basics! a baseline that all games follow, while the cultures and settings within the world are still pretty flexible

next up i'll be talking about the lineages, or the different kinds of human you can be!!

i also have a bunch of stuff on sale right now to fund spiritkeep in its early stages!!

you can support this sale to fund more promo material like art, and this sale to help me pay to become a certified therapeutic gm!!

thanks for reading :)

[exiledandwanderingfox]

My biggest hot take: I do not believe an author should be using mythology and religion (or even culture) to make things marketable and easily relatable (by popular reference) for a reader. Let me explain:

My biggest problem with SJM is that she continuously takes from religions and mixes and matches them in ways they should never be matched, and will disrespect both religions in the process. She will pass sacred terms off as her own, or use it to fill the holes in shitty world building. Forgive me but I do NOT think that real religions should be filling the holes of fantasy world building.

This is coming from a Pagan of course, but I’ve compiled an entire list of atrocities SJM has put together. This ranges anywhere from combining so religions that should never mix, using a traumatic sacred part of a religion and using it as a plot device in a random fantasy world, or even using something from a closed practice.

I bring this up especially now because I’ve seen certain types of fans who tend to enjoy making fun of mythologies, and dismissing the views of people who practice those beliefs because “they don’t believe in that religion, it’s fake, so why should they acknowledge someone’s frustration?”. I’ve had so many people tell me “that religion isn’t real, get over it, [insert author, usually SJM] is actually a genius for combining these mythologies”! Like I’m sorry, pardon me if I don’t think a creature from closed Indigenous practices should be mixed with Slavic deities and Celtic/Gaelic folklore.

It all boils down to empathy on the end of fans, and it boils down to actually putting in effort when it comes to authors.

And of course this is definitely not to say you can’t have mythology in your stories if it serves a purpose. I just think it’s so incredibly lazy to mix and match mythologies and slap them together and call that your world building.

And for those of you who want to tell me that SJM got a degree in world religions or whatever the hell:

That is not an excuse for lazy fucking writing. Not only is it not an excuse, it’s an insult to authors who also study the same thing, put in the work, and really produce excellent material regarding those mythologies or folklore.

Thjs is why I don’t trust people who say they like ACOTAR over The Folk Of The Air Series. Because what do you mean you prefer a poorly mashed up plot held together by a piece of string than a really fascinating depiction of fae folklore and its effect on humans? Wild to me. Fucking wild.

[whencyclopedia]

German-Soviet War: WWII's Bloodiest Front

The German-Soviet War, known in the USSR and today's Russia as the Great Patriotic War or, in Western Europe, as the Eastern Front of the Second World War (1939-45), began in June 1941 with Operation Barbarossa and ended in Germany's total defeat in May 1945. The German-Soviet campaign involved such key battles as Kiev (Kyiv), Moscow, Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Stalingrad (Volgograd), and Kursk. This particularly brutal front of the war witnessed the largest troop movements, sieges, and battles in history, as well as tens of millions of combatant and civilian deaths.

Hitler v. Stalin

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of Nazi Germany, attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941 with the largest army ever assembled. Despite the two states signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, a non-aggression agreement, Hitler was ready in 1941, having conquered most of Western Europe, to turn his attention to the East. Hitler hoped to smash the Soviet Red Army and grab huge swathes of territory, what he called Lebensraum ('living space') for the German people, that is, new lands in the east where they could find resources and prosper. Of particular interest were resource-rich regions in Ukraine and the Caucasus oil fields. Other reasons for the attack included the belief that the leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), intended to attack Germany's vital source of oil from the Ploiești fields in Romania and Hitler's desire to destroy Bolshevism, the ideological enemy of Nazism. It was also hoped that knocking the USSR out of the war would oblige Britain to sue for peace. Finally, conquest would represent new opportunities to further impose Nazi race theory, since Jewish people and Slavic people were regarded as politically or racially inferior to the Nazis and Germanic people.

Hitler was confident of victory and promised his generals, "We'll kick the door in and the house will fall down" (Stone, 138) in a matter of weeks. The lack of a plan B if this did not happen was a serious flaw in the whole operation. Not for the first time, a Western European army would head into the vast depths of Russia unaware it faced not one enemy but three: the opposing army, the problem of logistics, and the harsh winter conditions. Stalin called the fighting on the Eastern Front (his Western Front) a 'Patriotic War', and he demanded total resistance to the invaders. The Soviet people, both military and civilian, men and women, certainly rose to the occasion.

Key battles of the German-Soviet War included:

Battle of Białystok-Minsk in 1941

Battle of Smolensk in 1941

Battle of Kiev in 1941

Battles of Kharkov in 1941, '42, and '43

Siege of Leningrad in 1941-44

Battle of Moscow in 1941-2

Siege of Sevastopol in 1941-2

Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-3

Battle of Kursk in 1943

Battle of Smolensk in 1943

Battle of Berlin in 1945

Read More

⇒ German-Soviet War: WWII's Bloodiest Front