Me, I've always had a soft spot for Nidhoggr. But you can probably tell that. :-)
Once you come up with a general story framework, it seems to be surprisingly easy to slot in elements of world mythology to flesh it out. One thing I'm sad we couldn't find a way to work into the story: When I was doing some background research on Buffalo-the-city, I found that buffalo-the-animal is the traditional steed of Yama, the Hindu god of death. Quoth the indispensable Wikipedia: "In art, he is depicted with with green skin, red clothes and riding a buffalo. He holds a loop of rope in his left hand with which he pulls the soul from the corpse. "
And sometimes the coincidences are just eerie. It wasn't until I'd already written that bit with The First-as-Caleb ranting about Cain and Abel, with the devil "waiting in the dust of the earth, waiting for the warm sweet blood of Adam's child" blah blah, that I belatedly consulted the King James version and read how Cain was "cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." Earth? Mouth? Blood? Hand? You're singing our song, bible-scribes!
World Mythology Deluxe
Me, I've always had a soft spot for Nidhoggr. But you can probably tell that. :-)
Once you come up with a general story framework, it seems to be surprisingly easy to slot in elements of world mythology to flesh it out. One thing I'm sad we couldn't find a way to work into the story: When I was doing some background research on Buffalo-the-city, I found that buffalo-the-animal is the traditional steed of Yama, the Hindu god of death. Quoth the indispensable Wikipedia: "In art, he is depicted with with green skin, red clothes and riding a buffalo. He holds a loop of rope in his left hand with which he pulls the soul from the corpse. "
And sometimes the coincidences are just eerie. It wasn't until I'd already written that bit with The First-as-Caleb ranting about Cain and Abel, with the devil "waiting in the dust of the earth, waiting for the warm sweet blood of Adam's child" blah blah, that I belatedly consulted the King James version and read how Cain was "cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." Earth? Mouth? Blood? Hand? You're singing our song, bible-scribes!
Damn, I like that! That's classy.
I'm glad you approve. :-)