I don't know if anyone else is having this problem or even is doing anything remotely similar to it, but I've been working on an original fantasy world. One of the ideas I'm integrating. is that depending on when it's going on, it can be either High Fantasy or Low Fantasy or Heroic Fantasy or even Dark Fantasy, spinning out of the basics of the Ages of Man*.

Now, the stumbling block I'm dealing with is that I'm not dealing with/writing only one mythology, but multiples, which are all going to naturally contradict each other. Adding murkiness into the situation is that there will be magical feats or abilities possible with each people with their own mythology, that ties into said mythology. So, while I've got an initial plot to work with that'll not be affected by all that jumping around, I'm concerned about what'll happen if I jump backwards or forwards chronologically. Should I just try and not go back to the "Golden Age" of any one region because I'll end up having to disprove or prove the existence of their faith? Or should I try (even though I'll hate it because it doesn't make sense to me), to make them all true?

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man#Hesiod.27s_Five_Ages

 

Well, that depends on how it affect your tale. If you absolutely need to show these times, because otherwise you can tell that there is a missing piece in your story then you should try to work it out somehow. But if you can do without it then don't bother if it's something you don't want to do.

 

You could take a cue from the Dresden Files - the effects and the dominance of particular Gods or sources of magic change and evolve or replace each other over time, usually co-inciding with a paragim shift among the mortal civilisations.

 

The thought I would have on this would be: Why make it truly more than one pantheon?

Start off with one system of belief, and as times change, you can alter the world view over these people as one sect/cult gains more members... Mirror IRL with the main "good guy" cult having been in power, fall out, and your "dark Fantasy" shit being a more aggressive version trying to take power back and lead everyone away from corruptions and what not. Names could be corrupted forms of whatever, like with D&D how the Drow started off with some other name that, over the years, was corrupted to Drow...

 

Could always do what every powerful, conquering culture has done: when they take over something, they infuse bits of it into itself. So if one system of belief of waned while another becomes bigger, it could pull bits of that overtaken one to encourage people to switch over. Like the Solstice-Christmas thing, or the Roman gods meshing with the Egyptian ones and so on. So you can trace familiar elements back to what was popular at the beginning, if nothing else. Would ultimately make it a clusterfuck of old ideas by the time its done.

Dunno how helpful that idea was, but I always have found it interesting, the overlap.

 

This, mostly.

To be honest, I don't see any problem with having every faith be as real and 'true' as any other religion you have in your worldbuild. All you'd have to do is let the affairs of the divine be as murky as they need to be - contradictory beliefs may coexist and both be true at the same time.

You could look into the faiths of Tamriel in The Elder Scrolls fandom. They handle this idea particularly well.

 

I just read Hesiod's Works and Days, where the concept of the Ages of Man originated (insofar as a textual source is concerned).

As far as I can tell, the idea of the Ages is one of spiritual devolution. The further along a cycle is, the less it should reflect the true nature of the supernatural order. So, it'd be worth considering a Golden Age in which all the later, diverse mythologies were originally unified (because there can only be One Ultimate Truth). In the ensuing Ages, the sacred gnosis would have dimmed, geographical distance between groups would have fractured the original tradition, scriptures would have been destroyed, people's understandings of teachings would have warped and diverged, heresies would have been adopted, etc.

The reason for the differing mythologies being all true in and of themselves to varying degrees despite their differences would be their shared Golden Age heritage. Each tradition could be representative of one aspect of the original, unified Truth. Also, each tribe or nation could, over generations, develop along unique paths, exploring particular aspects of magic and the supernatural. Each group could have its own 'tribal spirit', forged over hundreds of generations. Those of cold and mountainous regions could feasibly have a totally different spiritual/magical character and aptitude from those of the deserts and tropical climes. The arcane arts of learned city folk would differ significantly from the superstitious craft of forest dwelling barbarians. If you wanted to, you could make these differences genetically determined and inherent, so that those descended from one group could only develop that group's powers and abilities.

The magicians or priests or whatever of the Golden Age would presumably have had the most powerful magic in all of history (and prehistory), able to command divine power in its purest state to accomplish almost anything they willed. The devolution of the cycle of Ages would have dissipated that ancient wisdom and power. Dissonance is, after all, the hallmark of the later Ages.

 

I'd address the other stuff, but you actually hit upon a minor theme in the plot that I slightly mentioned in the OP. I've only fully written one region/country's basic mythology set up, but in that one alone I've set up harpies, vampires & zombies, werebeasts, a species similar Swamp Thing or the Ents and regular humans (that theoretically represent everyone outside the country)...

... And at the same time the Swamp Things and Harpies are near-mythical at the point in the timeline I'm working with, with the werebeasts race basically borderline regular humans with only a select few "blessed" enough to become their inner beast, and there being a low number of vampires (for more reasons than one).

Still, the idea both you and others in the thread have suggest of making an initial single pantheon (or merging and splitting them over time) has a lot of merit.