Character Spotlight: Mythology

Hello, all...I've been gone a while.  Probably going to keep having sporadic updates, because I was recently accepted for a position in China...not sure if will keep blogging, may have to see...anyway, I'm very busy, but I am still writing.  Working on a new chapter that is going to bridge between the last one and the climax for this part of the story.  Gonna get it done eventually.  Anyway, I wanted to do something a bit differently this week.  I'm going to give a brief look at the mythology and the cosmology surrounding the world of Serano and the Chronicles of the Frozen Shade.  Minor spoilers to be included.

I'm heading off to New York, so don't expect much after this until July.  Gonna try and bang out my next chapter before too late in the month, but like I said, busy.  Priorities, as they say...such a cruel mistress.  Well, without further ado, let's talk internal mythos of my story.

Mythology Spotlight

            I touched on this a long time ago, back in 2012, but I figure it bears re-stating.  See, there is an internal mythology to Chronicles of the Frozen Shade, with it's own deities and it's own cosmology.  I gave a brief look into the universe surrounding the world of Serano with a possible introduction, here, however I want to give a bit of a deeper examination.

            I do want to say that this mythological and cosmological examination does have spoilers that would be revealed later, but it's not necessarily about Aeon or Mina or any of our characters.  It's just focusing on the world and the universe that they all live in.  Spoiler warning.

            This is mostly going to be explained later in the series or through casual dialogue, since the characters all understand, or mostly understand, the cosmology, it's just the audience which doesn't, so I don't feel too bad about spoilers.  There aren't many, if you've been paying attention.

            First, everyone in Serano refers to a goddess figure when cursing or when exclaiming.  This goddess figure is named as Shanadia.  Shanadia is the goddess of fate and is heralded as the mother to all things.  She has the ability to manipulate time and by using her body as a conduit, can create life.  Shanadia as she is now, as noted in the introduction, is an emaciated corpse.  Her body is enormous, to the point where the atmosphere of Serano obscures it from sight.  Imagine a humanoid figure whose body is close in size to that of a galaxy, so large that others cannot even comprehend her size.  Her body is largely devoid of flesh, skin, or even bone, because she used those to create the worlds of the universe and the blood of her body to imbue them with the ability to create and sustain life.  The worlds created in this way are strung together using the stream of life and death known as the Void into a bracelet, which spins around Shanadia's wrist.  The Void connects all worlds and the worlds are all watched over by Shanadia.

            Shanadia had six eyes at one point, however she lost them during earlier days, to the point she only has two eyes.  One of her eyes is the sun and the other is the moon, which rise and fall from the perspective of the planets strung around her wrist, as they rotate around her arm and rotate in place.  Shanadia, despite having such intense power as discussed, cannot make use of it due to her weakened state.  What power she has is gone, poured onto the worlds of her children or cried out into the cosmos, so that her tears would become the stars in the night sky.

            As discussed in earlier chapters, there are certain races known as First Children.  There are many different races, who existed since the dawn of time, when Shanadia breathed life into them to end her period of lonely existence in the universe.  Serano's First Children are the Dragons, for whom the world is named, as Shanadia's first Dragon was Seran, the all-father.  Other First Children include the Goetians, the Metronians, the Nihilons, and other races on other worlds that have not been mentioned or shown in the story.  While Shanadia created each of them with something specific in mind, such as order for the Metronians, freedom for the Goetians, emotion for the Nihilons, they are able to create and reproduce on their own.  Her original creations for each race possess a spark of Shanadia's former power and can create as well, which accounts for how Seran created unique Dragons, such as Rudra or Nazon, as well as Dragons that reproduce normally.  The First Children do not all possess a spark of Shanadia's power, that is something that only the ones originally created by her tend to have, however they are usually the ruling class of the planet.

            In the beginning, the First Children clashed with one another due to their differing ideologies and their nature.  Despite Shanadia's wishes, they came to blows and there were deaths, which created a stream of souls of the fallen, with nowhere to go.  This stream became the Void, and was a gathering of the memories and emotions of all creatures everywhere.  It was during these battles that Shanadia lost four of her eyes, trying to calm, appease, or outright stop her children from fighting.  Though Shanadia could have easily destroyed her children and started again, she merely stopped them and decided to keep them separate, giving them each a world of their own and sealing them off to prevent them from crashing.  However, she did not want to completely remove her children from one another, hoping that someday they could understand one another, so she used the Void to string these worlds together and entrusted the Void to the Nihilon, as both their home and their responsibility, as only they had the empathy to look after the souls, emotions, and memories of all things.  In turn, the Nihilon feed off of and are born from these emotions.

            The remaining First Children were placed on worlds forged of Shanadia's own flesh to give each a home so they would not fight.  The worlds were then infused with Shanadia's blood at her core, which held the power of creation within it, so life could flourish on this world, giving food and beauty to those living there.  However, on some worlds, such as Serano, new life began to form from the blood on its own.  On Serano, fish, insects, plants, and eventually humans were born from the blood of Shanadia, known as the Leyline.  Because of their ability to create and alter, taken from Shanadia, some First Children would tamper with this process of life bubbling up.  Seran and the three Dragons he had created to ensure that the gates to his world were secure and protected from invasion tampered with the Leyline to create new races of their own.  This is what led to the five races of humans, vey, apocra, teythens and neeg, with therians being born of mixed human and apocra blood.

            Empires have risen and fallen on each world, some put down by their true masters, who are akin to gods because of the scope of their power, while others merely lived out their life and died out.  Some world have used the races born to them as slaves or as worshippers, while others take an isolationist approach, like the Dragons, who watch and flourish in their high mountains without interacting with the world very much.  To this day, no matter how young or old, any of the First Children who know of Shanadia think of her as their mother and may refer to her as such.  They will tolerate no disrespect of her and will do what is necessary to protect the sanctity of her or anything born of her, such as her flesh, blood, or tears.

            The histories of each world and of Shanadia are passed on through the ruling races.  Dragons are the ones who first passed on the truth of their existence to their creations in Serano, and this created religion, which flourished, spread, splintered, reformed, etc. with different views on how to interpret this knowledge.  In the land of Lucaria, a recent account of only a few thousand years puts one human in the position of having actually seen Shanadia up close.  This being came to be known as the lord prophet, the human who had glimpsed Shanadia, and was chosen as a champion to fight against an oncoming threat from Telnumbra.  Once the threat had abated, the lord prophet vanished, however those that had been touched by this figure kept the lord prophet's writings, accounts, and knowledge.  These people sought to spread and keep this knowledge alive, leading to the formation of the church of the lord prophet.

            On Telnumbra's side, their closeness to the Dragons and affinity for Goetians have led them to a general acceptance of Shanadia and the Dragons as fact, rather than religion.  They are still respected to a degree, however they are not worshipped.  However, some cults and various individuals may take on the idea of worship or manipulation of these forces for their own ends.

            Because Shanadia's blood holds the power of creation, it holds the four elements of creation, namely earth, fire, water, and air, which can be manipulated freely or in tandem with one another, creating the different schools of magic.  Because of each soul's connection to the Void, some have been able to manipulate that stream of souls, which also runs through the worlds in its own stream.  The worlds are blocked off by various barriers, but eternally connected through the Void and through Shanadia.  Occasionally, by happenstance or design, these worlds can intersect, leading to the creation of conjuration to pass through the barriers and open a passage.  Each race on Serano or on any other worlds that was created by one of the ruling races may be tied to the energy of the Leyline and the Void in a different way than those born purely from it, so their uses may differ.

            Shanadia still exerts an inexorable pull on the worlds that turn around her wrist, giving them warmth and light through the sun and moon that are her eyes.  Her very existence allows for time to continue to flow and so long as she is alive, the Leyline continues to flow through her flesh, which makes up the worlds, as if it were still connected to her.  And the worlds turn only because Shanadia has placed them in motion and they stay in motion because she does not stop them.  At present, Shanadia is a watcher of the worlds below her.  She can see, but cannot speak or change or affect.  However it is through her that all things are and continue to be.  So those who know her name have an ingrained respect, for it is through Shanadia that all things in the universe are allowed to exist.

            And there we have it.  That sums up the mythos of Serano and the worlds around it, like Goetia and Metron.  If I can get there, I would like to make a crossover with a different world than Goetia or Metron, with them finding a way to bridge the gap and come to Serano in another way, introducing new possibilities for races, different magic, and what have you.  However, that is far, far in the future.  Right now, we are telling Mina's story and there is no time for that yet.  We have emotions to deal with and a bit of growing up to do.  So, wait until that has finished before we start telling stories about other worlds.

            I hope this has been an interesting read.  This has been my own approach at cosmology and creating a mythos surrounding a fantasy world, with explanations for why the world functions as it does tied to every facet of the cosmology.