Research

In order to make the gaming world and plot of my narrative as coherant as possible, I've conducted research in to various religions and aspects of the past.

As the game features "our world" but also Gods and magic in a different world, I looked in to the history of laungage, writing, and various myths of creation, wanting to establish a backstory to this new world which would plausably fit in to modern day knowledge.

I began with researching into old languages used in England as I was looking for a language for the Gods of the other Earth to use, establishing the first form of familiurarity between the worlds. This would also be from where I took the names of the Gods. From that, I looked further back to the beginning of language itself, wanting to find the oldest language known. So I looked into the history of writing. [The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs and Pictograms (Andrew Robinson)]

Through my research I discovered that the earliest forms of writing were in the Mespotomian era. Before Eygpt and the Rosetta stone, the Sumerians were using stone and then clay tablets to carve and impress upon a sequence of pictograms to record and communicate information.

Because clay and stone were a hard substance to work with, pictoforms were developed into a script, cuniform.

 

http://karenswhimsy.com/cuneiform.shtm

This also supports Mespotomia being considered the Cradle of Civilisation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_civilization

Mespotomia consisted of Assyria in the north, Babylonia in the center and Sumer in the south. Although Sumer is the first to use the tablets and Babylonia developed later, I decided to explore Babylonia further as I recalled the story of The Tower of Bable and the reason behind the different languages around the world.

"Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth." - Genesis 11:1-9

The key event recorded in the Bible and used in other pieces of litereature ties in well with the idea I have for the different Worlds. Although the event that happens is different, this is how our Earth has percieved it.

I then looked at the different Gods of the Mespotomian time, taking some of them up as the Gods in my narrative.

(sourced mostly from http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/assyrbabyl-faq.html)

Tiamat - Together with Apsu, she is the original Goddess. She gave birth to the first set of gods after her and Apsu. Apsu wanted to kill the younger Gods but Tiamat would not allow it. However, when one of the younger gods caused the death of Apsu, Tiamat got angry and waged war. This is the basis of the story of creation. When she lost, her body was split into two, becomming Heaven and Earth. Her tears became the two main rivers in Mespotomia; Tigris and Euphrates.
Apsu - Tiamats lover and the other original God. Fathered the other gods with Tiamat but got angry at the "Noise" they made. He asked Tiamat to kill them but she refused. He was captured by one of the younger Gods, put to sleep and eventually died. When he died he became the waters of the underworld.

Anshar -  The Skis born of Apsu and Tiamat. With Marduk as his main warrior, Anshar led the battle against Tiamat in the story of creation.

Ki(shar) - Personification of Earth. Child of Apsu and Tiamat. Sister to Anshar

Gerra - A much younger God, he is the God of Fire.

Enki - God of the Waters, sometimes considered the son of Anshar. He is also the Lord of Wisdom and Incantations. When he speaks of a thing, it will be made. Enki was the one who put Apsu to sleep and killed him. It was Enki who came up with the idea to create Man and educated them.

Adad - God of Lightning

Shamash - The Sun God. Justice and judgement.

Nergal - The god of the underworld. counterpart to Shamash.


Anu - Sumerian for "heaven", a sky god, father and king of the gods. He is the son of Anshar and Kishar. He lives in the third heaven. The Eanna in Uruk was dedicated both to him and consort. His first consort was Antu. They produced the Anunnaki - the underworld gods, and the utukki - the seven evil demons. His second consort was Innina (Ishtar). He is a god of monarchs and is not friendly to the common people. He is a "King of the Igigi". He is assigned the sky as his domain in 'Atrahasis'. His 'kishru's (shooting stars) have awesome strength. He has the ability that anything he puts into words, becomes reality. He is Niudimmud's (Ea's) father.

The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs and Pictograms (Andrew Robinson)
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/ED/TRC/MESO/writing.html
http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/12_early_civilizations.htm
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/writing/home_set.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform
http://history.howstuffworks.com/asian-history/mesopotamia-cradle-of-civilization.htm
http://www.thevesselofgod.com/thefirsteden.html