MYTHOLOGY

So far I got most of the greek/Norse/Mesopotamian covered. Still studying Levantine, and Japanese. If RMN is ever looking for monster ideas, and such. I'm the man to ask.

Let me tell you all studying the Deities was incredibly annoying because every local city state had their own version of the same god/goddess, and if it was outside their region that same god/goddess pretty much turns into something else entirely with hints of it's origins, but enough it can be it's own thing for it's own country. For example that a lot of things we know today from most countries came from Mesopotamian myths. I was really surprised to learn how myths overtime transformed from the basic Mesopotamian concept that would later be in Greek/Hebrew/Norse/etc, but Asian mythology does have exceptions since there seems to be some originality.

Monsters on the other hand is pretty straight forward, and I had little trouble figuring that out, but some of them are so obscure that most people wouldn't know about it unless some game/movie out there made it mainstream (example being Krampus recently). Also did you know in greek there was a two-headed snake from one end to the other? A monster I was not really aware of. They did also have a concept of Winged Serpents that guarded specific places which is odd for greek mythology.

There is one other creature I want to mention. This is a odd one from Greek that there was also Gold-digging Ants. I was surprised they had such a idea for a ant monster.

Though according to a blogger:

"Some historians have theorized that this creature didn’t actually originate with the Greeks, but was a borrowed piece of legend from the Mahabharata, one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India." (Though I don't think it should matter too much because even the monsters of myth were borrowed a lot, and had their own twist on it).

It's also good to know that the first original dragons belonging to Mesopotamia were more Lion-like with hints of serpentine qualities. The Dragons we know today came way later.

Also I found out the creatures known as Mermen were also Mesopotamian in origin, and the Mermaids came later in the Levantine Mythology, but as a singular goddess named Atargatis. All mermaid myths pretty much spawned from that one goddess. Mermen on the other hand were represented in a group-like fashion far as I can tell.

Studying Norse creatures was pretty fun. It was easy, and straight to find most of them. I just had not studied Germanic yet which shares with the Norse. It actually made me appreciate Skyrim more because I had no idea just how much they borrowed from Norse/Germanic until I saw the names/etc. I was like "Oh I know that name"!

It was very interesting that Norse didn't appear to have any demon monsters maybe except Garm the Hellhound, and deities associated with the underworld.

The only thing about norse that drove me insane is the concept of Black, and Dark Elves. I came up with the conclusion they were basically the same race of beings, but with a different name.

I touched on Egyptian little bit when studying Levantine. It seems Egyptian and Levantine shared a couple of deities. Mesopotamian shared one deity with the Egyptians too. I'm sure there is probably more, but it has not made it to mainstream yet or lost to time unfortunately.

There was a recent study I was touching on where they found more deities in Mesopotamia. It is practically new discovery from what I can tell. Then I looked elsewhere and found another google book of another study of recent discoveries from other cultures. Surprised to learn there is still stuff coming out of Japan as one place. I should have saved the source, oh well.

There is still more deities/monsters they are finding coming out of specific countries. I assume it is from studies they are just now getting out to the rest of the world for other languages.