One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods and Alien Gods

One of the great bits of synchronicity of my education back in the late 70s early 80s was my discovery of two very different authors.  The first was Erich von Däniken who had a lot of ideas that appealed to my young self, a self that was fed a steady diet of mythology, astronomy, UFOs, and new-age ideas.  For me, at age 9 to 10, this seemed like great stuff.  It all seemed to fit so well.  Then I discovered the second author, Carl Sagan.  I had seen the various episodes of "In Search Of..." and all the episodes of "Cosmos." So at age 10 there seemed to be a worldview that *could* include both.  I mean, the fringes of science were the fringes, after all. Sagan told me that in black holes, the laws of physics break down.  Maybe there were other places/things/times like this?

"Chariot of the Gods"

It is no stretch of the imagination that Carl Sagan and Cosmos utterly changed my life.  I always had wanted to be an astronomer, and Sagan was the model I wanted to follow.  Too bad I get to a point in Calculus where I stop understanding it.  Thankfully it was enough to help me out in statistics.

And I read, with abject horror and then absolute delight, Sagan's masterful takedown of von Däniken (and Velikovsky). He so utterly destroyed everything von Däniken had said and claimed.  The evidence and case were overwhelming for me; Erich von Däniken was a fraud, and Sagan was the true visionary.  At the age of 10, I tossed out, mentally speaking, all the things that were spiritual or pseudoscientific.  I relegated all my "magical thought" to my new obsession, D&D. 

But I never really let the ideas go away. Even Sagan himself entertained the possibility of ancient aliens, but as always, he met it with his famous standard, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

One of those ideas was about ancient aliens visiting Earth and being interpreted as gods or angels. 

Von Däniken was not the only one to have these ideas. There was Zecharia Sitchin, who gave us, among other things, the 12th Planet and Nibiru.  But the biggest one was Immanuel Velikovsky.  There are more, but this is not a post on pseudohistory or pseudoscience.  This is a post about gods.  I'll try to recover from my self-inflicted irony wound here later. 

The Aliens

I would like to reconstruct the "Ancient Alien" idea with some major changes.  First, since this is a One Man's God post, these are not aliens but actual gods. I am going to present them as such. They can be "Alien Gods" to be sure, but these are Gods in the D&D/FRPG sense of the word.

I will do it, though in such a way as to leave enough doubt in the readers' minds. That "doubt" is really just my wiggle room so I can use them as "gods" in my various D&D campaigns or as aliens in my various modern games like NIGHT SHIFT.

I want to build something that feels like it came right out of the occult-infused 70s.  

Given all of this, it should not be a huge surprise that I will be drawing on many of the same research and literature reviews I did for my April A to Z of Conspiracy Theories.  I am going to include and draw on the following posts (many of which were originally written for an earlier version of this very post):

• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: A is for Ancient Aliens 
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: C is for Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: D is for Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: E is for Extraterrestrials on Earth
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: O is for Outer Space
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Q is for Queen is a Lizard
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Z is for Zecharia Sitchin

I would take a lot of this material and put them together as a group of gods. I have PLENTY of examples. 

Case in point: The Norse Gods and the Nordics.  Take the "alien race," the Nordics, for example. Called such because, well, they are tall and blond. In my take here, the aliens become the Norse Pantheon, essentially what you see in the Marvel Movies with the Asgardians.  

Case in point 2: The entire plot behind the Stargate movie and TV series.

Mine will not be so neat and certainly not so benevolent as those. 

Also, I want to avoid some well-documented racist tropes inherent in the Ancient Aliens as Gods theories. This can best be summarized as "white people couldn't figure it out, so therefore Aliens!" Even in the 70s, I saw this. 

Union of the Snake

The academic work on this is known as the Ophiolatreia: Rites and Mysteries of Serpent Worship. This covers many religions and practices. But it also plays a little loose with the definition of "Serpent." 

Let's try something simpler. There are 1000s of Gods, and there is no way I am going through all of them to find "interloper" gods or ones that don't quite fit with the rest. But I can start with the same resource I have been using this whole time, the Deities & Demigods.

I will work it this way. I'll take all the Gods in D&DG and find the ones that don't fit, and for the most part, I will focus on the reptilian or snake-like gods. I will add a couple more because they fit well with my ideas. 

The Flock

Given the fixation on snakes and reptiles, there needs to be a good representation of those sorts of gods in this new pantheon.  Also, many of these gods will be "sky" gods. While there are archetypes all gods fall into, I am not going to necessarily follow that here like I did in the Roman-Norse Pantheon.   

While the people here are reasonably "Good" aligned, I can't say the same for the gods.  In fact, I am going to have this pantheon of gods be primarily evil.  Their design here is to enslave humans and make them build these giant temples for whatever reason. Conquest? Food? I'll see as I build them.  The humans here are doing what they can to appease these powerful beings in the only ways they know how given their times and tools at hand. This is what makes the process more "Stargate" and less "Marvel's Thor."

So who are these people? This has to be Bronze Age or long before; the Neolithic sounds better. 5,000 BCE feels right.  This also allows me to use some Proto-Indo-European notions of gods.  Indeed I might even reconstruct my own versions of the PIE Gods, not unlike what I did with the Roman-Norse Pantheon.  OR, and here is an idea, the PIE Gods existed, and these "Alien Gods" were the ones they warred with.  This tracks with the common element in many PIE myths of the Hero/God slaying the Dragon/Serpent.  Could the Dragon/Serpent be these Alien Gods?  This is the Chaoskampf of many myths.

Remember, I am not putting together a Master's Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation here. I am building something for the D&D, NIGHT SHIFT, and WASTED LANDS RPGs. I get to bend the rules of proper academic research as much as I like.

I will use these ideas to expand my monsters, Ophidians, and Saurians.

The Gods

Here are some gods that look like they fit my criteria of a snake/reptile/non-human god in a pantheon of human gods. Eastern religions, or, more to the point, non-European ones, have far more variety in their gods. Note: I am also going to get into the subject of Good vs. Evil here. Some, like Queztequotal (Aztec) and Shāhmārān (Turkey) are objectively good figures. Others are not.

While I will focus mostly on the myths as presented in the DDG, there are far, far more. I am going to avoid monsters for the most part, but some will sneak in.  Though I will add more gods that I know as appropriate.

American Indian Mythos

• Snake-Man

Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian Mythos

• Apsu
• Aži Dahāka / Dahak
• Inshushinak
• Ištaran
• Nirah
• Tiamat
• Tishpak

Celtic Mythos

• Caoránach
• Oilliphéist

Central American Mythos

• Kukulkan / Queztequotal
• Huhueteotl
• Tlaloc

Chinese Mythos

• Ma Yuan

I talk a lot about Ma Yuan and Ma Yüan-shuai in my discussion of the Chinese myths, I think I might keep him "as is" for this.

Egyptian Mythos

• Apep
• Flame Snake (monster and enemy of the Gods)
• Mehen
• Nehebkau
• Set (to a degree)

Finnish Mythos

• Syöjätär (a monster, but that is the closest thing they have)

Greek Mythos

• Enceladus
• Gorgons
• Hydra
• Ophion
• Ophiuchus

Indian Mythos

• Bhenswara
• Nagas
• And dozens more

Japanese Mythos

• Ugajin
• Yamata no Orochi

Norse Mythos

• Jormungandr

This could be a pantheon all on its own. Several of these have their own "portfolios."  And there are so many more.

While I am considering this as something to use with NIGHT SHIFT as "Ancient Aliens." In the WASTED LANDS, they could be heroes (still aliens of a sort) that become gods. Though in at least one case, Jormungandr is another name for Yig.

I could revisit these as part of my Deities & Demigods II since this might be my last Syncretism post for a bit while I spend some more time on my Deities & Demigods II ones.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism

• Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn
• Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods
• Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• Syncretism Part 4, Orcus and Dispater
• Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 13

 While within the Necropolis, the party moves near an open temple. As the party approaches, they are surrounded by Shadows moving in. Though before they can attack, a haunting music can be heard. The Shadows move back and surround two elves, a male and a female. The woman is playing a long double flute that looks like it is made of bone.  The man is holding a skull with eyes of balefire.  

The shadows move back into the ground.

When the last of the Shadows have gone, the woman stops playing.

They are dressed similarly and even look the same, obviously related.  They look like the shadow elves you have seen, but their skin is darker, and their hair is lighter.  The woman greets you first.

"Greetings. I am Runu, and this is my younger brother Urnu," she says.

There is a snort from the male, and a "younger by mere seconds." escapes his lips just loud enough to be heard by all.

Runu points to a rune on the ground that one of your shoes has kicked dirt onto. 

"The Rune of Ake keeps the shadows confined to the temple. When you walked over it broke the magic. But no matter." She brushes the dirt away, and the great circle of runes glows briefly and then fades.

They tell you they are Shadow Elves, but they are also Drow/Dark Elves and therefore despised by all elves. More importantly, they tell you they are not under the sway of the Vampire Queen.  

They mention they need a particular jewel from an idol in the central temple.  The idol is that of the Demon Lord Orcus and the temple is his.They causally mention they know they are searching for the tomb of the Vampire Queen. ("Why else are you here? It's not the scenery!")  They also add that the large temple is the access to the lower levels. There is a secret door under the idol.

If asked why they are helping, they will say that the Shadow Elves will kill them on the spot, but the adventurers are a curiosity to them and they have a chance to reach the temple.

If asked why they need it, they will claim it was stolen by the Vampire Queen, and they want to return to their home temple. 

If the party tries to attack them, they use their Rings of Invisibility and sneak away. They do want the adventurers alive to face the monsters in the Temple.

The double flute are "Pipes of the Susurrus" and they require training to use.

There is nothing of note in this local temple.

--

Note: Runu is a Profane Necromancer, Urnu is a Gothic Witch. Most of what they tell you is true. Save for a few details.

- The Shadow Elves will kill Runu and Urnu true, but they will also kill the adventurers. Runu is playing up how many Shadow Elves are here.

- Runu summoned the shadows herself to scare the adventurers. 

- They do need the gem, the Eye of Orcus, but it is far more dangerous than they let on.

- They want the adventures to face the monsters of the main temple. 

- They have no love for the Vampire Queen

Monstrous Mondays: Shadow Elves for Old-School Essentials

I have a couple of things going on this month. First off I am still doing the #Dungeon23 challenge. The level for June is the dead city of the Shadow Elves. Also,  I am waiting for the print proof of Monster Mash II to arrive. So I figure I can do a little for both today and detail the Shadow Elf from Monster Mash I as an OSE Monster listing. 

I have done Shadow Elves before, but not as a proper Old-School Essentials monster. 

Shadow Elf

Tall, thin elves with pale gray to dark gray skin. They have jet-black hair and long, pointed ears. Also known as Umbral Elves. They live in dark cave systems and places where shadows are the strongest.

Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 1* (4hp)
Attacks: 1 × weapon (1d6 or by weapon)
THAC0: 18 [+1]
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Saving Throws: D12 W13 P13 B15 S15 (Elf 1)
Morale: 8 (10 with leader)
Alignment: Neutral (Chaotic Neutral)
XP: 19
Number Appearing: 1d4 (2d12)
Treasure Type: C

• Infravision 90'
• Immune to the touch of Ghouls and Ghasts
• Necromancer spells. A Shadow Elf can cast one 1st level Necromancer spell.
• Leader: Groups of 15+ are led by an elf of level 1d6 + 1. The leader may have magical items: 5% chance per level for each magic item table.

Shadow Elves are often confused with Dark Elves. 

Most Shadow Elves follow the Faerie Lord Scáthaithe, The Umbral Lord.  Others have fallen under the sway of Darlessa the Vampire Queen.

Shadow Elves as an OSE-Advanced Race

Shadow elves have the following requirements and can take the following classes.

Requirements: 15 or greater on DEX
Ability Modifiers: +1 to DEX

• Acrobat: 10th
• Assassin: 10th
• Barbarian: NA
• Bard: 10th
• Cleric: 5th
• Druid: 5th
• Fighter: 10th
• Illusionist: 9th
• Knight: 10th
• Magic-User: 8th
• Paladin: NA
• Ranger: NA
• Thief: 10th
• Gothic Witch: 10th
• Profane Necromancer: 10th

I need to update my twins, Runu and Urnu, to these rules. With Runu as a Profane Necromancer and Urnu as a Gothic Witch. 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 12

To the side of this city is a large burial area.

In this shadow elf necropolis, the party will encounter 1d4+3 Spectres and 1d6+4 Wraiths.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 11

 There are many, many empty buildings here. Most are empty and look like they have not been occupied in centuries or more. There are no monsters or traps, and only small lizards and rodents.

Empty homes (marked as "11") do have the following:

Roll 2d6

2: Small pouch, 2d6 x10 GP
3-4: Small pouch, 1d4 x6 SP
5-6: Small pouch, 1d4 x2 CP
7: Nothing
8-9: 1 Gem, 1d6 x4 GP
10-11: 1d4 Gems 1d4 x5 SP
12: 1 Gem 50 GP

--

There are at least 20-40 dwellings that are empty like this. 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 10

 The passageway opens into a huge open cavern extending for thousands of feet.

There are plenty of what appear to be empty dwellings.  There is a globe floating near top of this cavern that glows with an eerie, eldritch light. It appears to be a large moon. 

Small animals and large insects run here and there, but they avoid the party.

--

This is the former city of the Shadow Elves.

Kickstart Your Weekend: The Wasted Lands

This one has not launched yet, but the sign-up page is ready. 

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Role Playing Game

A tabletop RPG of cosmic horror, swords, and sorcery in a savage lost epoch, 1000 years after the Old Ones fell to their eternal sleep.

I am very, very excited about this one. Although I am not really part of the development, I get the joy of seeing it in development and enjoy it as a fan. Plus this has been Jason's baby for years, my typical nonsense can be added at my table. 

From the Kickstarter:

The Old Ones are gone...

Stories tell of the day when the skies fell in showers of fiery rock, when the world groaned and shifted, the great beasts of the Old Ones died in an instant, and the stars themselves changed, sending the Old Ones into a deep, eternal slumber. Humankind, now free from the cruel grasp of our former masters, now rules the world from the shining kingdoms the Other Gods left behind.

We now strive against the remaining minions of the Other Gods, their remaining cults, and a world ravaged by the energies of the Deeper Dark. Some with names like Isis, Odin, Quetzalcouatl, Bel, Hecate, Minerva, Marduk, and others will forge legends that remain through the ages.

This is the birth of gods.

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age is a game of swords and sorcery in a savage lost epoch, set millions of years ago. You play the all-too-human origins of the gods of classic mythology, whose stories will form our own ancestral memories and civilizations. As you engage with mythology, you gain special powers that will lead you on the path of apotheosis. 

The game is offered as a two-volume set: the Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Role Playing Game, which contains all the rules of play, and The Gazetteer of the Dreaming Age and Campaign Guide, which contains the setting, bestiary, and game master information. Grab one or both!

How can you not be excited about this? 

I hope to post more about this game all month long. I still have some characters I want to make and some adventures to talk about.

This game uses the same RPG system as does NIGHT SHIFT (The O.G.R.E.S.) but it will include conversion guides for Spellcraft & Swordplay (O.R.C.S.) AND Castles & Crusades (SIEGE Engine).

This could also be the non-OGL D&D replacement you have been looking for. 

More to come!