Gods and Cryptiks
Boons and Banes World File
My mind was blank, or rather, full of not so random things.
I’ve written over 30 novel manuscripts by now, not counting fanfiction from decades ago and short stories. In all of those stories, I never bothered with writing gods. Not that I didn’t find myths interesting. They just don’t fit within my world view.
You’ll notice that I routinely tear apart lore, and rebuild it from the ground up in the use of my various ‘supernatural’ races. I want reasons for their existence. They must serve some greater purpose and, above all, their intermingling with the human race shouldn’t be on the level of contamination. So, I don’t even play with nephilim or the like, and probably won’t.
There’s nothing really ‘magical’ about my supernatural beings. They are the results of genetic distribution and mutation. Most are sister races to homo sapiens. In all honesty, I treat them more like people with super-human powers than magical. Magic in my worlds tends to just be technology that is unique to specific DNA and is treated like advanced science. That’s how I like it.
When it came to the Boons and Banes universe, I had zero interest in having gods involved when I started writing it. It wasn’t until about halfway through that I discovered my villain…uhm…he sure does have a lot of creepy charming personality quirks that remind me of a certain annoying god. At that point, I was also working through the whole ‘Is this an actual curse? A person didn’t do this out of their own power…it’s artifacts. Who created the artifacts? If this villain created these artifacts, WHY is he so interested in Verity when he has an entire world of people he can move among and toy with at his leisure.
*Plot twist* :D Actually, there were several that landed squarely at the feet of one, Zeus. Only how to explain him being alive and wandering around as a normal person in 1880s America? That came fast…along with a very annoying REASON that he has so many children, which he has been producing regularly for centuries. They ARE his immortality. Not through reincarnation, but something even nastier…sacrifice.
From there, I realized that oh, there are a lot of little g gods and there’s also a lot of monsters, my Cryptiks. I chose that word because it sounded suitable for the time as it’s actually a very old word. Obviously, it becomes cryptid in the modern world. So ALL monsters are Cryptiks…basically children of gods who are not themselves gods. Sometimes…they’re flawed babies born of human mothers who cursed their thirteenth child… Yes, looking directly at the Jersey Devil which was the missing piece to what they are.
Cryptiks are primarily animals or human-like creatures. Occasionally, they can take human form, but they prefer to exist as animals. One type of animal. They do not change their type and most exist as wild animals doing the bidding of their parents…usually a god who is very attached to them and protects them in exchange for their loyalty.
The difference between a god and a Seventh is that they trace a line back to a thirteenth child. A sacrifice for humanity to stand up against the forces of darkness. They are 100% human but gifted with amazing power…plus the handy ‘immortality’ quirk. Killing a god is almost impossible. However, their numbers are dwindling as few have been born in thousands of years.
Gods themselves can sometimes be difficult to tell from Cryptiks at first. Whatever abilities they have, they tend toward their human sides. They have full control over any shifting they might be capable of. A godchild is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a Cryptik…especially by those who don’t want to see them as monsters, which most Cryptiks are.
They are human, given to all the human vices. Once their original purpose was fulfilled…they took to masquerading as gods in various cultures. They moved from culture to culture, defining aspects of it here and there so that no myth is 100% true, but many are applicable. For instance, gods were supposed to stand with Sevenths to battle Titans aka giants.
Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are still the big three, with Zeus always being on the move around the world. He’s still married to Hera, who resides in her own little kingdom in
Appalachia. Poseidon rules the oceans, demanding tributes to enter into a beauty contest to win the honor of being his wife for five years in exchange for the winning nation to get unmolested passage over the seas. Hades has retreated with Persephone into a hidden kingdom where they’ve burned all the crossroads leading to their paradise.
And there are MORE. Most keep a low profile. Many live peacefully still carrying out their old ways as long as they can. Unfortunately, when they cross a line, it’s up to the Sevenths to seek them out and deal with them.
The only problem with involving gods is that it opened the gates to the greater realms of folklore in general. Especially when I made a connection to Tall Tales…
The first two books of the first Boons and Banes trilogy are available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited!
I like the way you've done this. It allows gods, while keeping the mystery down.
The gods in my stories interact with the Crannic people, but do not reproduce with them.