Myth and Roleplaying

Once there was a hero . . .

Who took up arms . . . .

To save the beautiful princess . . .

From the Dragon.


Thus begins the discussion in the video: "Remembering the End of the World."  The video talks about a dozen or so Archetypes that exist in human myth: the Hero, the Princess, the Dragon, the Great and Wise King.

When gamers roleplay, they are taking on the roles of the mythic Archetypes in order to defeat monsters of Chaos -- both real and imagined.


Black Dragon by *BenWootten on deviantART

To say the least, we role-players which to relive the mythic archetypes.  In a strong way, we are re-enacting the stories and the legends of the ancient Mythmakers.  We are the Hero in the story, off to fight powerful chaos monsters such as the Dragon, or the Chimaera, or the Gorgon.  Especially with her long, disheveled hair of snakes.   We act the part of Perseus, Hercules, Achilles, Theseus, even Arthur and Saint George.

We relive these Archetypes.  But where do they come from?  Carl Jung however said that they were deep archetypes, a part of the human psyche that was in borne that couldn't go away.  However comparative Mythologist David Talbot has other ideas.

What if the Hero in the story was actually a planet?  The planet Mars.

In Roman Mythology, Mars was the God of War and Agriculture.  Unlike modern representations of Ares -- as an Evil god who wanted perpetual war and conflict; Mars was was a hero god -- who saved the Princess from the Dragon.

Mars was the prototypical hero.  As for the Princess -- what if she was also a planet?  The planet Venus.  But that still doesn't explain the Chaos Monster or the Good and Wise King.  Let us reveal these archetypes for what they are: a planet and a comet.  The Good and Wise King, the archetype for all kings here on Earth, is a planet.  The planet Saturn.

The Chaos Monster, the Dragon -- a monster who has remained in man's imagination for a very long time -- is a creature that has no basis in the biological world.  Part serpent, part bird, part tiger, part leopard -- the dragon is the combination of all life.  But it has long flowing hair and is associated with Lightning.

To be fair, the Dragon or Chaos Monster is a comet.  A comet of planetary size and proportion . . . once again, the planet Venus.   How can the Planet Venus be both the beautiful Princess and the Chaos Monster?  In ancient times, the Mother Goddess was also the Goddess of Death and Misfortune.  In India, Khali is or was worshipped as the Goddess of Life and Death.  The same is true of Aphrodite, who is the Goddess of Love and Death in Greek Mythology.  According to the Egyptians, the planet Venus is associated with the Goddess Hathor -- who could turn into the terrible lioness Sekhmet.  And the planet Venus is also associated with Isis, the queen of the Gods.

And as for Saturn as the wise and good king of Heaven?  In a revelation to Abraham about the stars and the planets Yahweh (Jehovah) revealed: "These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is ^aKolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest."


--- Abraham chapter 3, verse 3. 


Most Mormons, who have this revelation, believe that the star Kolob is in the Center of the Universe, or the Center of the Galaxy.   However, this tradition is wrong and in error.  Kolob is a planet.  The planet Saturn.  

The word kolob is related to the word qelb, an Arabic word that means to turn around -- to rotate.  According to Yahweh, the planet Saturn was meant to be the lesser light (yes, Genesis says it was the moon).  The star which was the nearest unto God's throne.   It was to be used according to the times and seasons, as one revolution of Saturn's poles was to be as a day unto Yahweh -- one thousand years according to our reckoning here on Earth.  In ancient times, Saturn was worshiped by astronomers who were heathens.


Saturn became Osiris to the Egyptians, Saturn to the Romans, Chronus to the Greeks, Huang-di to the Chinese, and Brahma to the Hindus.  As the unmovable first sun, Saturn became the prototype for all kings on Earth.  The good and wise king, who brought prosperity during Man's golden age -- the Garden and the Time of Perfect Virtue. 

These are the archetypes that satisfy Roleplaying, but lets focus on the Dragon for a moment.

I'm interested in Astronomy and Mythology on how they relate.  When David Talbot talked about the Dragon being a monster that has no place in nature, it clicked when he said that the dragon was a comet.  In China, comets are seen as good luck.  However, in Europe, comets were seen as things of dread.  They are both these things.




I wanted to model my own dragon, my own representation of the comet Chaos Beast.  Although I have the DAZ Eastern Dragon and can use it at any time, modeling my own would be a challenge.  I thought I would base it on the paintings of this man in Nikko.  He draws the dragon with only two arms and a long sinewy tail.  How to accomplish this feat?

By using Pixologic's Z-Brush.  Z-brush allows one to sculpt completely in 3D with an orb of modeling clay made out of energy.  The program works in billions of polygons, allowing one to sculpt in fine detail.  After the initial sculpture is complete, I can paint it (texture it).  Afterword, one can export it to DAZ Studio 4 Pro and use the figure setup tools to set the dragon up and articulate it.  After this is done, I can then save it in DAZ Studio (with DS presets) in order to prepare the model for sale in the Renderosity Marketplace (DAZ Studio only, however enterprising people should be able to set it up for Poser).  Along with it's Maya and Vue counterparts.

The idea is to prepare a creature that represents a comet, seen in the sky.  Although uniformatarists scoff at the idea of Cataclysm or Catastrophe -- these are what the archetypes represent.  They represent stories of Catastrophe from days gone by.