mythology
People and Races
Well, there's humans. There's the aliens, who are usually referred to as Mulians when they're not being referred to as "you asshole". And there are the Powers, the spirits native to Earth. All three are roughly capable of interbreeding, so most people are somewhere on the venn diagram as humans with the ability to use external magic like bloodstones and humans with elemental affinities are not uncommon.
While some people like to mess with what works (coughHidekicough) pretty much everyone falls comfortably in those categories.
Okay in fairness to the Mulians, they're only 60% complete jerks. 20% are trying and 20% are dead.
History
I wrote up a long version of this at one point but…
When the world was created there was something ineffable that was like “hey this life thing seems interesting, I’m gonna poke it” and then split itself in two (or three, or maybe nine depending on who you ask) and started poking around at Life. The Two really enjoyed being dinosaurs even as dinosaurs stopped being a thing, and one settled on a draconic form and one settled on a bird form, and the Dragon and the Firebird are the “parents” of the elements (again depending on who you ask but shh religion is complicated). And the Powers intermingled and sometimes helped the life on the planet and sometimes just did their own thing and humanity started to move out of hunting and gathering and it was fine and then…
Well then a research vessel from an advanced 12th dimensional civilization crash landed in the Indian ocean and was rent apart by the physical forces of our reality, and the crew, being so incompatible with existence here without their equipment, did what they had to do to survive, each drawing on one of the basic elements to anchor themselves and create physical forms then they were stuck. And being from a place without time and suddenly subject to Time, well… their mission was supposed to last approximately 28 millenia or something. It was gonna be a long wait for anyone to come get them, so they set about studying the Powers and employing humanity to do their drudgework and figuring out how to get home.
Funny story, it turns out ascended incorporeal beings don’t do well when they’re suddenly subject to stuff like time, even when they have access to a tremendous amount of reality warping power. They began styling themselves “Lords” of their elements. Most of them created children in their approximation of the Powers - beings who were native to this world but made in the image of their parents, built to push and pull and order around energy rather than the more elegant shaping of the native Powers. They had turned the remains of their research vessel into a small continent they called Mu, and put their children in charge of following their orders and maintaining the place and their mortal beings as they figured out how to get home.
It quickly began to look like Getting Home without most of their equipment, and with the necessary transcending of their elemental forms, would be impossible without destroying the world. Most of them were okay with that. They told their children that they would also be able to ascend and come with them, though whether they meant it is up for debate.
Some of the children, unhappy with the way their were treated and distrustful of their parents' motives, decided on another plan. They murdered Tzymir, the Lord of Earth, and used the power released in his bleeding out to turn Mu into a proper attempt at a benevolent thearchy. (This is when Mara was born.)
Aaaaaand we're still like 3000 years ago but it's like 1am so that's enough history, I'm sorry.
"Ragnarok"
was Oc Ha (Surtr)'s attempt to End the World - Wodinaz and Wiljon played a complicated game of secret agent, with Wiljon pretending to be on Oc Ha's side…
Well, Wodinaz and Wiljon conspired to fake a falling-out, and in the process got close enough to a real falling-out that it was impossible to tell the difference. Exactly how much Wiljon actually remained on Wodinaz's side is anyone's guess.
Ragnarok happened but it was incomplete because one of Wiljon's daughters, who was half skygod and half earthgod, had hidden Wodinaz's son, a Light spirit, in the City and refused to release him. It still severely weakened the Aesir-Asura pantheon, however, and led to Mara sealing Arcadia. In some areas, work with the old earthgods re-emerged, and in others, other religions swept in such as the worship of the Mariams.
(4:21:06 AM) Jackperson: Basically instead of Christianity, the religion that came out Judaism is basically a sweet little mystery cult of the Mariams - the mother, the lover, and the… the spirit, or the anima, or something I haven't quite worked out. The idea is that she encompases all the roles and understands the suffering of mortality. (4:24:09 AM) Jackperson: And there's basically a social justice cult within her religion, worshipping not!Jesus, the god of flipping tables. Well, the god of speaking truth to power and the poor rising up and stuff. Like liberation theology + radical anarchosocialism. It's not a very popular or stable cult on account of, you know, revolutions do suck for everyone in the short term, and the people in power aren't going to encourage that kind of religion. Yesha's considered a wrathful god who is kept in check by the Mariams, and when people do pray to him they also give her offerings asking that she look the other way.(4:24:57 AM) Jackperson: The Mariams, though, they've spread through a lot of Europe and made inroads elsewhere, because she's a welcoming-everyone kind of goddesses.
Ymir = Tuisto in Tacitus(Ymir = Yama by cognate)
Tuisto = Tvastar
(Tvastar = grandfather of Yami & Yama)
Tvastar created the dragon Vrtra (enemy of the thunder god Indra)
Vrtra = Veles
Tvastar is referred to as a "chariot-maker" and makes heavenly weapons as well.
"Tvaṣṭṛ is a solar deity in the epic of Mahābhārata and the Harivaṃśa. He is mentioned as the son of Kāśyapa and Aditi, and is said to have made the three worlds with pieces of the Sun god Surya."
Tvastar as the original teacher of being ridden? Do you think Tsymir may have taught the skill?
Summing Up
The short version goes like this: A couple thousand years ago, an extradimensional exploratory vessel landed on an island in the Pacific Ocean and started observing, and then experimenting on, the native populations. They also produced children like themselves, who had their own games to play with the spirits of the planet. Eventually, the humans and nature spirits who had been misused rose up against their creators with the help of their sympathetic children. Their ship, and the island Mu that it rested on, were destroyed, and the extradimensional scientists were stuck here until a rescue would be triggered automatically. Of course, the original project was scheduled to last three millenia, give or take. They had some time to kill, some naughty children to punish, and some humans and spirits to take their anger out on. Over the years, the bloodlines of their children have spread far into the human population - in many peoples, the strains are weak, but they're now common. The spirits that allied themselves with humanity have shifted their opinions pro and con dozens of times. They have almost always come down on the side of helping humanity, bonding with individuals to throw their hands into the course of events. Lately, humanity has pushed ever harder - powering their toys with the very blood of the gods and enslaving the spirits that once worked alongside them. As 2012 approaches, no one realizes what they were waiting for all along - the Mayan calendar had a very specific end date. The day an extraction team arrives to take the ones who started all this home - and they're not going to worry much about whether the playground is left when they're done with their toys.
