Mythos
Writer’s note:
“Mythos” is a fictional tabletop role-playing world I created. This is its speculative website landing page with some summarizing words defining its original fantastical setting and lore, ultimately selling the book detailing it all. For potential players, the prepared world provides a sandbox for imaginative worldbuilding and action-packed tabletop gaming with friends. My copy intends to creatively compose this vision of its world.
Enter the world(s) of Mythos,
where magic is a birthright and power comes in all shapes and sizes, from out of the dimensions of dream and nightmare.
“Mythos” is an original fantasy world created to be played within by tabletop role-players.
Realm.
Welcome to Realm, where diverse human factions of magical and philosophical rivalry battle conscientiously for geopolitical control.
Void.
Welcome to Void, where the vast unconscious of the multiverse manifests in the form of monsters and nightmares, where gods and demons wield untold powers and shape fantastical dreams.
Mythos.
Welcome to Mythos, where dreams and nightmares combine to make new magic and novel destiny. Venture across the landscape, discovering forgotten lore, fighting vicious monsters, and acquiring glorious treasure, of both the material and immaterial kinds, both in the game and away from your chosen table…
Read The Book of “Mythos" and inspire an adventure! A fully fleshed-out fantasy world history, full of characters, monsters and themes for you and your TTRPG group to jump into.
Mythos, a new world / a role-playing game sandbox.
As Manager, build stories throughout this world for your Players to engage in. As traveling adventurers wielding the power of the elements, of the dimensions of spirit or evolution, or of knowledge itself manifested into the world as an agent of change, come together to explore, discover and fight for your chosen destiny within Realm and Void. “Mythos,” a dualistic world mirroring the conscious and unconscious psyche of Mankind, is a brand new fantasy setting created with adaptability in mind from the ground up.
Mythos is a role-playing setting designed for D20 TTRPG (tabletop role-playing) systems. A flexible universe of locales and legends, both defined and dynamic, use the lore in our book to build your own freeform stories within this imaginative and engaging multiverse.
Details:
World of everpresent wonder.
In the world of Mythos, on the continent of Realm, every single person is born capable of tapping into "The Stream." Manifold arcane energies spawn from it, through the peoples of the world, to continuously shape the future with. In Mythos, everyone is magic. With characters of your own making, wielding the far-ranging lore within our book, you can pitch your own verse to the flow.
A realm of warring nations.
On one vast continent in a sea of unseen worlds, Realm consists of seven disparate nations, each wielding magics, interests, and secrets all their own. Venture through their lands, meet their heroes and villains, wrestle with their angels and demons, both seen and unseen. In these communities, their wars may not always be visible - or fought for reasons you can initially understand. With your party's trekking adventure through the lands, work to decipher Realm’s conflicts among her peoples.
Then, decide: do you try to unite nations diplomatically?
Or join in the wars taking place in light and shadow?
Whose side do you pick?
Do you create or destroy?
(Build Realm, or sculpt Void?)
Ten-thousand year history.
Step into a fully realized world housing a history rife with stories to explore - and expand upon. Through your travels, potential questions will abound:
What kind of past civilization peopled these Gaean ruins - and what are the beasts that stalk here now protecting?
What do the Elementalists and Transformists fight over - and why do the other nations back one over the other?
What view of the cosmos do you ally with, that of the Divinists or the Conjurists? Do you believe the multiverse to be benevolent or indifferent to your machinations as mortals?
What are the Magiists searching for? How close are they to finding it? Will you help them or oppose them in their quest?
At the dawn of the modern world - when magic was mysteriously born - who was The Magia, how did he gain that initial power to wield it? And why did he sojourn, gifting the world with the different cores of his power, directly seeding the Traditions of magic into different regions, indirectly drawing the structures, borders, and cycles of Realm’s society as they still stand today...?
Seven bold Traditions of magic.
Within each nation, people are born from The Stream wielding the innate magics of their homeland, seven Traditions in all. Your own player character will hail from one of these lands and will use one of these magics:
Elementalism
The art of earth druids, fire magicians, watermovers, and windwakers. Elementalists wield the motion of the elements. In former eras, they shaped climates and weather patterns, and using their violent power, led quests to conquer swaths of their nemeses' land. Born in Hyperia.
Conjurism
The art of otherworldly contact. Conjurists tap the multiverse's furthest reaches to call upon the silent aberrations between the stars and bring them forth, making them speak their ineffable truths to the airs of Realm. In the initial eras, Conjuriss, the Infinite Walker, bridged Realm and Void for all time, forcefully sowing her tradition into the world forever. Born in Alucinea.
Magiism
The art of scholars. Magiists study the knowledge of magic, seek to understand it, and chronicle it. In former eras, they were the casters of mighty spells from ancient books that are now, unfortunately, dried from their powers for unknown reasons. Born in Arcanua.
Animism
The art of nature. Animists can commune with the natural world, with plants and animals, able to speak to them, control them or transform into them. Animists live in the wilderness and contact its secrets every day. In former eras, The Gaedens - Anima's ancient beasts, feared and revered - trampled the world two times over, returning the continent to the wild, to be rebuilt from there only slowly, with painstaking attention paid to never have the world return to Nature again. Born in Gaea.
Morphism
The art of evolution and mutation. Morphists adapt to the order of Realm while drawing upon the lurching chaos within Void; they can grow new limbs or teeth, wings or even entire bodies from the strange tune of their surroundings and its inner, interconnected consciousnesses. In the initial eras, Morphal, The Overman, birthed from Mankind and set his own mutant forms upon a different evolutionary path. Born in Aetherea.
Transformism
The art of transmuters and telekinetics. Transformists build the world, with architecture and alchemy, with devices of industry and efficiency. In former eras, their leaders spoke into the Maelstrom, allowing for their ancestors to continuously grow in their manipulation of matter and energy toward a kind of godhood, but for unforeseen costs. Born in Pandemonia.
Divinism
The art of spiritual connection. Divinists call to the Gods of the multiverse to aid them with wisdom restored and omens revealed. In former eras, Supernus, ruler of the Gods, cast down curses and boons to his children - justly or haphazardly, no one knows - inevitably shifting the fate of the population, casting bloodlines into glory and despair. Born in Supernia.
The bleed of Void.
Another world, underneath and permeating itself through Realm, is Void. Representing the vast unconscious of the multiverse - that is, every possible universe, dimension, and eventuality through time and space - Void is where monsters are birthed. This “un-Realm” bleeds onto the surface of the Realm's consciousness, one constantly in the midst of its own political and philosophical becoming. Aberrations come in the form of chaotic creatures, volatile magicks, and dangerous events as complex and varied as your imagination! As the players set off on their journey together in this strange new world, know that Realm and Void are slowly joining together, dreams and nightmares are becoming Real. As Manager, use the Void, developing your own ideas as to its physics and physis, to challenge your players and send them new threats, potentially to new worlds...
Environs, Intrigues, and Flows.
Using the established lore inside of our book, focus your energies and get your creative juices flowing as Players and Manager both using the sandbox of available Environs, Intrigues and Flows to get started within the world of Mythos:
Environs
Complete descriptions for the physical settings available to pitch your role-playing campaigns within. Artistic, extravagant and always fantastical flora, fauna, monsters and zones of chaotic magic abound within Realm. Recall that in every story, no matter what, setting dominates every scene. ~
Cut through the forests of Gaea, hounded by garguantuan apex predators and poison flowers...
March the swamps and jungles of Aetherea, watching your shadow dance differently than you in the shimmering moonlight’s reflection...
Mark the chaotic weather phenoms from the thresholds of the Hyperian clifftops, where new elements are violently birthed onto the continent to be actualized and then returned from whence they came...
Traverse the mountains of Pandemonia, where quakes and avalanches and eruptions shift the landscape, rapture peoples, and transform homes into castles...
Wander the temperate plains of Arcanua, seeking out its high towers of knowledge and higher walls of ignorance...
Trudge the tundra of Supernia, praying for insights and hopes in the midst of the cold, the fingers of doubt always clutching for your hearts and minds...
Tread the deserts of Alucinea, digging your body and mind through the dunes and under the world, into the sunken ruins from aeons past...
Intrigues
Adventure hooks and story details to grab the attention of your players, "in media res," or, in the middle of things. Intrigues are ongoing narrative threads in the world's current state - geopolitics and relationships, power structures and systematic battles, the constantly contingent metaphysics of Void amidst the material conditions of Realm.
It is here that your players will be offered directions to the many-faced conflicts of Mythos, wherein they will be able to take their party and behave - and intervene - exactly how they desire to.
The Animists and Morphists battle for the supremacy of the body in Nature, focusing on the capacity for positive mutation in Man, or his inherent, inviolate limitations…
The Elementalists siege the Transformists in a forever war of offense and defense, respectively. While the earth-slingers, water-flowers, wind-walkers and fire-killers cast down the crashing, burning blasts of elementia, the transformists build countermeasures and deterrents; each wielding weapons of mass destruction - the rest of the world watches and intervenes for self-preservation’s sake…
The Conjurists summons daemons while the Divinists pray to angels; both preternatural entities from both pantheons in constant conversation and negotiation with one another while they fight…
The Magiists aid and stymie all other Traditions and their societies, continuously shifting the pieces on the geopolitical board for the sake of prolonged stability, all the while biding their time while they search far and wide through Realm for the keys to infinity…
Flows
General concepts, themes, symbols, motifs, archetypes and throughlines that are present in the world of Mythos. Sliders of power and philosophy both, they are the dualistic attributes of this reality to keep in mind as you build your storylines within this world. They are not exclusive to any nation, faction or tradition within Realm or Void and are everpresent through the universe. Like consciousness itself, they are multivariate and changing / like the unconscious, they come to influence every possible outcome in this world:
Competence-Autonomy-Relatedness
Growth and Regression
Oppression and Self-determination
Tyranny and Community
Rivalry and Companionship
Self-interest and Humility
“Good” and “Evil”
and more!
The D20 System
Mythos, as a fantasy world setting, is outfitted to work in almost any role-play system. But it slots in best using the world-renowned and familiar D20 system {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_System}. Read our lore, populate your world with the people, places and things from Realm and Void, dealing in the magics and conflicts of this unique multiverse - and then adapt the D20 system to dictate the rules and difficulty levels of your campaign’s play and progression.
In the world of Mythos, the most important Flow of all is that of "The Becoming" - the absolute marrying of Realm and Void into one vast and strange land of endless danger, and adventure!