Mythology Book Review

[Jacinda Saleeby]

Ifirst read Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton when I was in high school. It is unlikely that I read the entire thing, since it can be assigned in pieces and that is probably what my teacher did. Either way, closet nerd that I am, Mythology sparked a number of extracurricular exploits, or at least flourished them. My friends and I nicknamed each other from the Greek pantheon. We made jokes related to mythology. We spoke in them. Why? They were interesting to us. R-rated stories masquerading as historical text about the roots of literature and story-telling. And it all came across a little bit like personality types in the decades before Meyers-Briggs and Enneagram would take the kids of the 80s by storm.

In conclusion, I always enjoy reading about the Greek and Roman myths and Hamilton is the classic. Mythology is informative, straight-forward, and logically organized. In future (having read it twice), I will likely use it as a reference while I dive into more creative and derivative stuff, including the classic plays and poems. On my list are The Odyssey, The Iliad, Metamorphoses, The Aeneid, Medea, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Circe, Song of Achilles, and maybe even A Thousand Ships, The Penelopiad, and Mythos by Stephen Fry.

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Before we dive in, you can get Cults of RuneQuest: Mythology in PDF from DriveThruRPG (affiliate link), or in hardcover and/or PDF from Chaosium. This article was done with a review copy that was sent to me by Chaosium. Thank you Brian and Dustin!

The Introduction does a good job of, well, introducing how Gloranthan mythology works to the reader. It also addresses a few related general topics, and in doing so we see two problems I have with this Mythology volume.

It starts by explaining that mythology is at its best when you witness it or participate in it, as opposed to simply reading it. Gloranthan scholars will recognize that this text, along with many other bits of texts in this book, comes from Stafford Library notes. But also, Chaosium keeps turning its knife in the heroquesting-rules-shaped wound that plagues our hearts.

I was very disappointed to see that the other pantheons were not broken down in the same way on the following pages. The analysis of the Sky gods was merely illustrative, and the reader is supposed to do go through the same exercise with the other pantheons on their own. Frankly, I would gladly trade the 4 previous pages to get the rest of this treatment.

The next section brings a slightly weird tonal shift to the Mythology book. Until now we were in system-less mythological fantasy land, and all of a sudden we are reminded that this is a RuneQuest book after all.

Apart from general information about the cult write-up format, we get slightly more material and mechanics for lay, initiate, and Rune-level members of a cult. It paints a clearer picture of how a Gloranthan cult functions: worship, temple administration, finances, and more.

Funnily enough, I noted in my review of the Lightbringers book that some of the information seemed incomplete, such as the fact that Rune Priests are limited to DEXx5 for their Manipulation skills. It turns out that this was an editing mistake in the Lightbringers book, because the Mythology book did not carry that limitation over from Cults of Prax. So good news, priests: you now have enough free time to do karate!

On the one hand, we get some baffling repetition from the RuneQuest rulebook, of all things. Temple sizes, skill training costs, common Rune spells, and common Spirit Magic spells are all taking up valuable space without much notable differences.

The Mythology book is a strange, fascinating, confusing beast, just like the topic it takes its name from. It mixes in- and out-of-character looks at Glorantha, setting lore and literary analysis, system-less material and RuneQuest mechanics, all in one beautiful book. It is unlike the vast majority of RPG sourcebooks in existence. It takes it reader seriously, and aspires itself to be taken as a serious piece of literature.

From the get-go, The Offering is somber and atmospheric. It immediately evokes a sense of palpable dread. Even before I fully knew what was was in store, it was evident that director Oliver Park possesses a keen understanding of establishing atmosphere. And for the most part, he does a commendable job of maintaining that. The film takes full advantage of the foreboding nature of the mortuary setting where the bulk of the picture unfolds. The locale inspires a sense of unease that makes even the innocuous feel menacing.

Park employs dim lighting throughout, which is also rather jarring. It conveys the feeling that darkness is always upon the central characters. That combined with the gloomy visuals, muted color palette, and effective depiction of the darker side of Jewish mythology make this a mostly impressive effort.

My only other criticism is that the pacing is a bit up and down. The film starts strong and finishes strong. But there are some dips in between that lessen its efficacy. With that said, The Offering is still very much worth checking out when it bows in limited release (and digital) on January 13.

Fans of comics and superhero movies are well aware of the lives of Thor, Loki and Odin. This is exactly what pulled author Neil Gaiman into the world of Norse mythology and began his inspiration for his narrative collection of Norse myths.

The stories themselves are great. Gaiman makes Norse mythology accessible and fun for newcomers and his focus on Thor, Loki and Odin give fans of those characters a deeper look at their origins and roots.

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Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

Three trolls, four golden battle boars and a pack of wolves have just devastated the last of Thor's town centres, and my gatherers have already moved in to take over their farming network. I am Odin, and my asshat of a thunder god son had the audacity to attack me during the opening 30 minutes of this random map skirmish. This is my petty revenge against Age of Mythology's AI, to send in every single powerful unit I have at the risk of an army of pink centaurs raiding my two settlements from the North while I'm gone.

The ludicrousness of this scenario, as mythical creatures of various origins trundle in over peaceful farmland to murder everyone in sight, was Mythology's strength over Ensemble's Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings when it was released in 2002. Mythology's colourful range of high-level fantasy creatures make the final act of any skirmish much more exciting than units of historical repute did in Age of Kings. Kraken trouble the seas, dragon-like nidhoggs circle the skies and hydra grow a head for every enemy they slay. It's still a heck of a spectacle considering it's over a decade old, but I'm not sure whether revisiting this with enhanced visual effects and Workshop support is worth the Extended Edition's steep $30/23 price.

The upgraded effects of the Extended Edition, most noticeably the shiny-looking water, help contemporise Mythology, but the character models are the strongest signs that this is a decade-old game. AI is a bit of an issue, too. On a moderate difficulty, the enemies attack predictably in medium-sized waves while rarely putting up an overwhelming defence of their own territories. It was made in 2003, and I wasn't expecting this stuff to be rectified, but it's still worth noting if you're going into this for the first time expecting SupCom-level opposition.

The Extended Edition isn't short on single-player content, either. Collected here are the Titans expansion and the shorter Golden Gift DLC campaign, in addition to the original's mammoth story mode. Ensemble went in a different direction to Age Of Kings' truncated array of mini-history campaigns for one surprisingly long affair that snakes its way through Greek, Norse and Egyptian elements of mythology. It's a good way to learn how the paper-rock-scissors countering of unit types work, teaching you that overloading on any one unit type is inadvisable with so many variable strengths and weaknesses in cavalry, archers and warriors. You're still very likely to come out on top in most battles if you raid an enemy city with 15 towering colossi, but countering at least provides another element of strategy to be mindful of.

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