I am not familiar, my splendid friend. Give me the elevator pitch and why it's unique and cool for a ttrpg, if you would be so kind.

>>81216566
Isn't meopotamian mythology that Man was created as a slave so that the gods didn't need to work?

>>81216769
After the last generation of gods, the Igigi, refuses to work anymore, yes.

>>81216664
Yes, Mesopotamian Gods besides Enki were dicks.
>>81216664
Alright cosmology time
>In the beginning there was the infinite and perfect Godhead Arikh Anpin
>for some unknown reason, perhaps to rid itself of the inherent evil present in infinity another being emerged
>The Lamp of Darkness
>The Lamp of Darkness split Arikh Anpin into Abba(Father) and Imma (mother) as it blindly creates horrors.
>Abba and Imma attempt to stop the process but fail making metaphysical stillbirths.
>The lamp of darkness in it's mindless fury reanimates said Stillbirths as the ten kings of Edom who attack their parents
>Kings or Lamp throws a ball of protoplasmic slime which becomes the material world
>From the slime is born three lesser evil powers, Fire, Earthquake and Wind.
>Abba and Imma create Man (analogous to Thoth) who goes in to fix shit
>Adam the primordial androgyne and the collective of all human souls who has seven Seraphs (angel snakes) at his beck and call
>Adam almost wins but fucks up most likely because Lilith and Samael were formed in response.
>Creates the god of Genesis known as Elohim or Ish and the world of the angels who were originally supposed to be robotic servants but malfunctioned enough to see themselves as above mankind because they don't understand we are Adam
>Our universe is created as a cheap and easy fix over the Kelipot (a dimension of horrors surrounding ours) which is surrounded by the blind serpent of the Zodiac
>Said blind serpent if it got loose would destroy the universe
>Ish starts making lower level demons until an aspect of Imma enlightens him on the Sabbath
>normal genesis
>Abel becomes Osiris analogue and briefly king of the undead (Midrash said that the earth would not except corpses until Abel was buried hundreds of years later)
>Fall of the watchers, (Angels who worship Kelipot)
>Ishtar is a woman who tricked a watcher for a divine name and gave us science/An aspect of God bound them long enough for us to learn their secrets.

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>>81217032
>planetary spirits happen, analogous to normal pagan Pantheon led by the Sun
>star spirits, act as ambivalent forces of fertility with Satyr minions
>Enoch becomes Metatron, or no shit the little YHVH (who probably took on the role of YHVH before he became sole god in the Israelite Pantheon).
>Generation of cain make giant statues powered by ghosts and divine essence to rule the world
>earth overrun by Demons who tend to be under the command of watchers
>Enoch's son Methusalah meditates for months, gets a magic sword to fight the demons
>Seals the most powerful demon class in a box
>Patriarch Seth or Enoch realizes a flood will happen, makes pillars of occult wisdom to last forever.
>flood happens, watchers bound
>watcher's human wives become sirens
>King of demons Mastemah makes a deal with Noah that only 1/10th of the demons will be active on earth
>Noah's son Shem becomes merlin analogue Melchizedek
>Cities of Giants survive including Nimrod's Babel
>Nimrod tries to ascend to godhood
>fails, tuned into various ghosts
>Abraham decides to reach out to Ish, whose currently stuck on wrath mode for no fault of it's own
>Jacob, (reflection of the good side of Ish) Born tricks his (potentially vampiric brother) Esav for birthright
>trains under evil sorcerer Laban and good Sorcerer Melchizedek
>Joseph is born of a virgin birth via alchemical processes involving mandrake roots
>slavery happens
>enough Israelite ghosts happen to get divine attention
>Moses happens
>Moses fights evil wizards
>Moses becomes king of ethiopia
>Moses goes to Jethro
>Jethro teaches him about Adam and through Arikh Anpin
>Metatron/YHVH/Adam appears in a burning bush
>gives him a splice of the Tree of Knowledge which allows him to corral Ish
>Moses opens doors to the Kelipot to let his people go
>People let go, but they don't want to worship YHVH they want to worship their old god El Shaddai (Ish) despite all of them being emanations of the same god.

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>>81217297
>Moses battles the angels for the Torah
>kills every giant and monster on the way to Canaan including a tribe of sorcerer ghouls who turn people into animals (Amalekites)
>Moses dies (potentially killed) by Joshua who was vaguely alluded to be "Defective" in the Zohar.
>decides to kill everybody on Angelic command
>literally everybody
>Meanwhile pagan prophet Asclepius/Eshmun mounts an expedition to Eden
>he and his forty followers die
>Israelites form commune
>Saul talks to a necromancer
>David takes Jerusalem
>David gets chased by Kaiju
>Solomon time
>Solomon is tfw too intelligent and decides to summon demons
>has wacky adventure with lawful evil demon king Ashmedai
>nothing happens
>nothing happens
>Sages
>every 1st century sage is an OP wizard,who have laser eyes and can stop or start hurricanes
>A legit reason why many medieval Jews didn't accept Jesus as son of god is that supposedly most Rabbis back then could do all that and more
>Temple destroyed by Romans
>this is bad because necessary objects used in ascension rights used to deal with angels are destroyed or left in diminishing supply with no manufacturing center
>persecution.
>understanding that if the Messiah comes and world isn't ready he'll destroy it
>as always it's mankind's job to fix the godhead.

>>81217512
>>81217512
Alright magic system time

>Universe is an information system a lot like a computer which uses libido or Nefesh as a power force
>also inherently contractual all magic is a contract that must be upheld
>even the most evil entities will not break the letter of a contract
>by learning Torah in special ways, you can figure out these code words to control the spirit world and enact shit done by god like make Golems
>it's just that god is smarter than you, so you're shit will inevitably be a crappy imitation
>all magic besides sympathetic and necromancy is allowed if it is for the purpose of saving lives
>Necromancers are analogous to bards, get their powers from mummified talking heads and musical instruments made of bones
>amulets, talismans and visualization used as shortcuts for entering universe cheat codes
>names are the ultimate cheat code
>ghosts (wicked or righteous) can be used as powerups
>if you get good enough at torah study you instantly get Esp and Astral projection as a passive ability
>also get the ability to summon aspects of past lives
>sometimes said aspects fight with other rabbis aspects if they were hostile to each other when alive
>nefesh or vital souls hang out in cemeteries as ghosts (There's a lot of fucking ghosts)
>the main duty of a saint is to argue with angels not to destroy the world in legalistic manner
>exorcisms read more like something out of a Phoenix Wright game

Religious ideas
>Other pantheons exist, their leaders are angels
>good aligned non Jewish religions are Sabianism (degraded Abrahammic wisdom) and Zoroastrianism
>Islam is neutral, and gets it's powers from what's left of the Egyptian pantheon.
>Christianity is lawful evil with (Thinly veiled) Jesus as prince of werewolves.
>Opinions on Righteous Gentiles vary, some saying they can ascend on their own others say they have to Reincarnate as Jews/convert first.
>God doesn't destroy the world because 36 righteous people.

>>81216566
oy vey bump for interest

>>81217729
The three/four? Legendary beasts.

>Ziz king of all birds
>Leviathan, son of the monster Rahab king of all sea creatures
>Behemoth king of all land mammals
>all immortal, all smarter than you
>Leviathan is most prominent, acts like Poseidon.
>if he allows you to hang out in his palace he teaches you all kinds of cool stuff.
>he's also doomed to die to a worm.

General bestiary
>All flesh and blood nonhuman races are descendants of Cain who live in the Not!Underdark
>some have two heads, some have animal heads or bodies, some are centaurs
>can be converted to Judaisim, or other religions
>the worst those that follow Judaisim will do is try and use B.S excuses to get around religious laws, and scam people.(which is fucking hilarious that Jews depict their own monsters as shysters).
>werewolves are people possessed by dog demons who follow Sirius
>werecats get their power by eating uncircumcised children
>Storm demons are destructive dicks but fight Lilith
>vampire harpies who attack with hair
>Unicorns are huge and hyper aggressive
>The only thing that can kill a dragon is the half human child of another dragon.
>Giant antediluvian mummy zombies called Rephaim

Other than that it's mostly copy pasted from greek myth.

I've wanted to do something Jewish/Kabbalah inspired but lack direction since most (((sources))) on the matter are diluted and twice-removed from just reading their Bible, which itself, is not adequate for applicable monster/magic descriptions. I know Golems and Daemons, but that's about it.

>>81217915
>Twice removed from just reading the bible itself
There's no such thing as too much Exegesis in world building. Without Exegesis the Holy grail wouldn't exist and there'd be no Arthurian myths.

>Can't find sources
Just go to, https://www.sefaria.org/texts, go to the Kabbalah section or just time in shit like spirit or ghost. I also found this is a good starting point.
https://www.sefaria.org/Legends_of_the_Jews.1.1?lang=en

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>>81216566
I see your point. How can we capture the aesthetic without just straight up copying it though?

>>81220210
Some core tenants

>all the super weird shit is leftovers from a pre cataclysm civilization
>world is a mistake but we're here and we should fight for it
>Sumerian/akkadian/ Arabic cultural aesthetics
>all factions including the angels worship the very distant true god just in ways that might be wrong
>the gods need our help more than we need theirs, they just refuse to admit it
>all religions are just organized sorcery
>big focus on contracts, humans reach out to spirits as patrons just as much as the other way around
>said spirits often need us to teach them morality and keep humankind less powerful
>beings have to follow said contracts so humans rules lawyer
>knowledge is fucking power
>distinction between demons who are just dangerous and hardcore chaos monsters
>said demons can be reasoned with and have noble qualities even if they're evil
>one of the major gods is the human spirit itself.
>dominant culture is mildly antagonistic to the pcs
>necromancy is the lowest of the low
>sapient life and non sapient life evolved separately from two distinct sources
>all sapient biological life has the potential to be good or bad unlike spirit entities.
>different parts of the soul
>watery chaos realm between chaos realm of darkness and the habitable world

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>>81216566
>It's underutilized
Not really. Lazily inserting references to Kabbalah or just individual sephirot is a common means of flavoring magic in a lot of media.

>>81216664
Abraham (a)(brahman) - (anti)(holy man) was a priest who initially lived in the wealthy part of Mesopotamia that had been conquered by his chariot riding brethren. He committed some unrecorded transgression and was banished into the desert along with his wife and concubine; there he made a pact with an entity and became the progenitor of a new nation which adopted new rituals to deliberately set themselves apart from their forebears. Their stated goal is the destruction/enslavement of all other nations, but the entity they made their covenant with relishes in their anguish so they are empowered only just enough to make them a source of irritation to the other nations of the world. "Chosen" is therefore entirely accurate, but leaves open the question of "chosen for what?"

>>81216769
Yes. This is a genetic memory shared across cultures referring to the hegemony of the Atlanteans. They were the first people to figure out tech and used it to assert themselves as gods over the rest of mankind. Eventually their system of priestly rule over illiterate masses of tribal collapsed, but there were a few hold outs. The Aztecs and Carthaginians being the two more notable ones.

>>81221081
Based spirit science poster

>>81221005
That's more of another culture's take on Jews rather than Jewish mysticism. Has some flaws.

Also has some issues

>Conquered by his chariot riding bretheren
The Amorites didn't come in Chariots, they were goat herders who rose to the top by intimidating an already failing collection of states.

>Priest
Mid level craftsmen made the idols, his father was a sculptor so he wasn't a priest.

>Destruction of all other nations
In the levant and maybe parts of Egypt, if you read the Abrahammic covenant the vision isn't that big. I doubt they gave a shit about conquering Ethiopia, Shinar, or Elam.

>Brahman
Why are you using Hindi terms for a region and time when Indo Europeans were seen as quasi human barbarians?

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>>81221196
What you're failing to account for is that ancient historical records
It's the eternal reiteration upon the theme. Some asshole is banished from civilized society (the nomadic barbarians of hyperborea); he uses his superior blood to subjugate thousands of swarthy near-men and justifies his decadent excesses as "civilization." Alternatively a horselord gigachad gathers up all the incels to send them off to conquer one of those civilizations.
Atlantis, Mesopotamia, the Indo-Aryans, it's all the same thing.
History doesn't repeat.

>>81221486
>Hyperborean Barbarians

You mean the Tibetan pacifists who worship the twink god Apollo

>Atlantis
Decadent assholes who tried to invade others and got their shit kicked in by the aformentioned 'near men' according to Plato?

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>>81221486
>ESLTARD
>Meme nuhistory

Like pottery,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzimtzum

>>81216566
What do these jew runes say?

>>81220672
tenets, nigga. t-e-n-e-t-s

>>81216769
That's the Annunaki, yes. They came from the planet Nibiru.

>>81217032

Man this shit is so much more fun than the sunday school nonsense of the book of genesis. Wonder why the most boring and tedious narrative won out when you had this JRPG shit running around.

>>81224676
Same reason every YA novel is the same, why 5e is watered down trash and why Marvel movies make billions of dollars.
Lowest Common Denominator. You'd be fucking sick to your guts if you knew how many people function without any imagination. Not even this level of shit, just basic "what will I eat for dinner tomorrow" level imagery and "what should I say if someone talks to me?" social acumen. If that class of people weren't real, we'd be living in space colonies by now.

>>81217032
>>81217297
>>81217512

Where did you get this from? You got me curious and want to see how this all comes about.

>>81216566
>Gnostics
>anything created/thought up/shat out by Gnostics
Disgusting. in the retard Olympics sort of way.

>>81224949
I believe it comes from anime, Symphogear specifically

>>81217994
>https://www.sefaria.org/Legends_of_the_Jews.1.1?lang=en
I thought Jews didn't believe in Hell?

Why stop at the Jews? The ancient world had a half dozen similar religious sects devoted to their own gods. Hell, there's good precedent that many of them were actually worshipping the same entity by a different title (Baal and Molech/Moloch both being an honorific of similar meaning, not a name). Is it many warring gods or one great deceiver? Or all aspects of one great deceiver? Let's get fucking weird with it. Let's get into why the Valley of Hinomm was for years used to sacrifice the children by the kings of Judah, and why King Josiah then decided they had rebelled against god and destroyed their idols and altars and forbid human sacrifice. Was it to end the barbarity of sacrifice? Or safeguard its practice and boons for a select few? Was the Jewish Kingdom rotten to its core from the start, or co-opted by agents of an opposing and dark god? Of all these masters, why then did YWHW--who when asked what he was to be called when his word was brought to the Jewish people, refused to relinquish even his name, who said instead "I am what I am"/"I am to be what I am to be"--why then did only he and his people outlive the crucible of civilization?

If you wanna get this right, you've got to stop with this anime bullshit and start asking the right fucking questions.

>>81221125
"Based" on the dumbest wannabe cult founder ever

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>>81225520
>why then did only he and his people outlive the crucible of civilization?
That is not dead which can eternal lie

What really pisses me off is FUCKING NO ONE uses the demons of the Qliphoth. They are RIPE for weird shit and terrifying enemies - shit like giants with explosions for heads. I think Wikipedia may be lying out the ass, but where else can we get info on these things

>>81216566
The Incal

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>>81216566
ever try project moons works?

>>81225160
It's more like purgatory in that it's not eternal.

>>81224949
The Zohar, and shit by Israel Regardie.

>>81225520
The major problem with this is that even back then Israelite/Jewish religion was a clusterfuck of violent infighting which continued on until the middle ages all the way through the Babylonian exile and second temple. Hell you'd probably have like 5 schools arguing over the proper method on how to sacrifice kids, and several of them reporting the others to the non jewish authorities because they're sacrificing kids wrong and that must be stopped. They might also not be able to sacrifice kids until the temple is rebuilt just like the red heifer offering and at that point it's entirely possible that only the Ultra Orthodox members see sacrificing kids as something that happens at the rebuilt temple, while more liberal ones might suggest pedophilia or see it as a metaphor for enslaving the world or whatever a lot of people on this site think Jews do rather than a literal commandment.

>>81227977
No, is it tabletop or vidya?

>>81228481
vidya with sum homebrew tabletop
the jewish magic is a meme

>>81224184
YHWH

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>>81228469

>and several of them reporting the others to the non jewish authorities because they're sacrificing kids wrong and that must be stopped

Made my day.

>>81217729
>even the most evil entities will not break the letter of a contract
>amulets, talismans and visualization used as shortcuts for entering universe cheat codes
>names are the ultimate cheat code
This is the shit, I always have these in my settings. Daemons when summoned are extremely dangerous because they will try to escape or overpower you with all their might so they don't get bound or leashed by a contract. Trapped daemons are especially fucking dangerous.
The names thing I took from Earthsea/Black Company, where the true name of a person (particularly magic user) grants power over said person

You're a good anon, lots of based lore and ideas.

>>81217032
>>81217297
>>81217512
probably the most based thig I've ever read

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>>81216566
What are some ways that we can spice up golems? I was thinking of using them as magic focus items akin to wands for casting spells.

>>81231667
Different materials, and different functions.
Aluminum labor golems would be nigh-indestructible, but light weight enough to be capable of athletics and acrobatics. Glass golems could work with dangerous materials without breaking down. Lead golems could shirk off most radiation.

To that end, could it be possible to reverse-worldbuild Mimics as just a form of wildly divergent Golem? All you have to do is pick A Object and say The Name at it until it starts to move around. And carve some text on the inside.

>>81227410
Didn't WoD:Mage use them for the Nephandi? Granted they never delved too deeply into that side of the setting. IIRC one of the dev's posted something about knowing people who got in too deep with anti-cosmicism and vetoed any notion of a Nephandi splat

>>81231667
>What are some ways that we can spice up golems?
Give the golem the chance to plead its case in court; the rabbi holds it in bondage in defiance of the realm's laws prohibiting slavery.

>>81216566
I started with a bastardized semetic horror that spiralled off into ecclectic weirdness. The whole world remains an evil husk and baetil cults a well known faction among travellers

>>81217297
Splicing the tree of knowledge is a lovely touch (among the many others).

We don't actually know much about Canaanite or Phonecian mythology after the late bronze early iron age, mostly because all their libraries were burned by the Romans. We do know they sacrificed kids but as said it might've been more of a Christmas and Easter thing rather than a daily occurrence. A lot of it also may have varied from city state. A lot of figures in the Genesis cycle are based on Canaanite gods and sometimes even have their names.

>YHVH is not originally a Canaanite god, he was probably a syncretic mix between Enki, Ninazu and Thoth, who acted like male Athena.
>main leader is El
>El is a horny doddering old man who lives in a tent in the mountains where four primordial rivers dwell
>he and his wife (potentially Asherah) are parents of every god.
>problem is that every time he fucks a good thing into Asherah the next one is a bad one
>fucks the Artemis and Apollo esque gods of Dusk (Shalim) and Dawn (Shahar) into Asherah
>next kids are the ironically named goodly gods, two headed monsters that eat everything in their path
>El is a nice enough guy that he has a hard time harming his kids or picking favorites
>this is a major problem later on
>the worst offender is the long run is Baal Horon/Hillel Ben Shahar/Attar/Azazel
>the god of evil wizards and dangerous animals
>gods make tree of life for reasons never explained
>potentially for their immortality
>Horon being horon decides to make it into a tree of death and cover the earth in Poisonous mist
>turns into a massive snake so no one can get near it
>Sun goddess of Horses Shapsu decides to step up and make the giant Adammu and maybe his wife Kubaba
>Adammu gets bitten by Horon and starts to die
>Both he and Shapsu freak out because they didn't think that would happen
>Horon only stops when he realizes that his snakes will die too
>Horon shrinks down leaving his giant snake monster skin as a mountain range and is forced to guard the Netherworld occasionally acting as El's executioner.

>>81232596
>other than that sticks to himself unless there's a job too dirty for the other gods, or one of the monsters he made in prehistoric times is fucking shit up and needs to be curtailed.
>also the world's first recorded brony as he marries the Shapsu's divine sun horse daughter, after a convoluted plan.
>also has an army of Centaur Archers called Qetubim who fire poison arrows

The other big myth is the Baal Cycle

>Baal Haddad is a rising and dying storm god
>it's hinted at he's not El's kid but we don't know his parents are
>Baa'l despite (maybe) being well liked by mankind. (when he wasn't leader of the undead) was a contentious motherfucker
>he and his even more violent and psychotic girlfriend Anat would pick fights with anyone and everything for no reason
>one day El decides to favor the sea serpent god Yam over Ba'al
>Ba'al won't stand for this shit
>Ba'al goes to work beating the shit out of everything in the ocean and smashes Yam's skull
>El is unhappy but as usual doesn't do anything
>Ba'al comissions Kothar the Hepheastus (complete with limp) analogue of the Canaanite pantheon to make him a palace
>invites everyone over except the god of death Mot (Hebrew Mavet)
>Mot is a huge scary fuck who eats everything and holds the Underworld in his stomach
>Mot shows up
>Baa'l tries to offer him cooked food
>Mot declines
>eats Ba'al
>Ba'al becomes leader of the wild hunt analogue involving dead kings
>droughts occur
>Anat beats the shit out of Mot and grinds him to dust
>Ba'al is alive again
>Kothar makes the palace
>this happens every year

That's about it for actual stories save for people ask El for thing and Misuse it, or Anat ruins people's lives.

Other cool things are

>Resheph, terrifying Archer who symbolizes destructive storms and plague
>the Kotharat, seven birth goddesses who assist pregnant women
>El can randomly make new gods of out clay for one off uses and they stick around like the healing goddess Qadishtu

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>>81232839
Oh shit forgot to mention how fucked up their religious practice was. Though this might just be the ones near Sidon and Tyre and Jewish, Assyrian, Greek and Roman polemic

>had rape temples for young girls, who couldn't leave until they were fucked by a stranger
>burned children alive as sacrifices for Mot, Anat and Ba'al in his undead form
>parents had to wear pic related because they weren't allowed to look sad while doing it
>lesser Cherubs were made with weird full metal Alchemist shit where various animals (and people) would be sacrificed at the same time and their souls fused
>everyone and I do mean everyone gets eaten by Mot when they die
>Baal's priests lacerate themselves constantly and engage in bizarre sadomasochistic rituals
>some priests sew animal skins to their bodies
>one of their gods is a giant fucking Leech

>>81232596
>but if I kill everything that would also step on snek
>whelp guess I better not
based retard horon

>>81227410
By popular demand the Kelipot. A few things to keep in mind.

>One
This isn't hell, a human has to actively do very specific things to get there after death.

>Two

It also isn't hell because that's it's own thing that's a pale reflection of this. Hell can be reasoned with and has it's place.

>Three
There is no set doctrine about it, just some shared tenants. My sources are the Zohar, treatise on the left emanation and some edgy grimoires about it.

>The Kelipot or (Qlipoth) are the shattered husks of previous universes (or the bodies of the ten primordial kings) trying to siphon our life force into themselves.
>in some ways what happens here effects there as a warped reflection, and quite possibly the other way around
>more importantly it's so bad that Ashmedai king of the earthly demons and Qazefoni king of the wind demons actively fight against it encroaching into the world
>once it was a full reverse sefirot but the top three sphere or their rulers are Qamtiel and Belial, (Binah and Chokmah) and Iti'el (Keter)
>the remaining seven are ruled by demon princes, with the semi de facto leader being Sama'el the original angel of death before Azriel or Suriel took his place.
>the only description given are 'alien forms' but some people say the first were draconic and Itiel was insectoid
>Sama'el like many Kelipotic forces is physically incapable of entering our universe at the moment so he has to work through the Elder Lilith
>The elder lilith is some kind of amorphous space blob that shits out monsters
>these guys (possibly) were made by refuges from each three
>Gamaliel, whose some kind of spider and controls shadow spiders called Zachilim
>Nahash'iel whose a snake
>and the Northern one who might be some kind of ox shaped primeval darkness entity with Osiris/Abel/Orion on it's horns
>next are the four demon queens, Lilith, Naamah, Macaloth and Rahab(Maybe?) who pump out more demons constantly

>>81235181
Now for the cardinal angles, this is golden dawn so take it with a grain of salt.

"At the Southeast Angle are placed the Evil Adam, a goat-headed,
skeleton-like giant, and the thousand- headed Hydra serpent; and the Elder
Lilith, wife of Samael, a woman with an ever-changing and distorted
countenance.
At the Northeast Angle is Aggereth, the daughter of Machaloth, a
fiendish witch with serpent hair, enthroned in a chariot drawn by an ox
and an ass.
At the Northwest Angle is a gigantic Scorpion with a fearful countenance, but standing upright as it were and formed of putrefying water.
After him cometh the unnameable one, Abbadon, and his appearance and
symbol are of a closely-veiled, black, gigantic figure covered with
whirling wheels, and in his hand is a vast wheel whence come as it whirls,
multitudes of cat-like demons, Behind him cometh Maamah, like a
crouching woman with an animal’s body crawling along the ground and
eating the earth.
And at the Southwest Angle are a winged lion and a winged horse
drawing in like a chariot the youngest Lilith, the wife of Asmodai. She is
dark, a woman to the waist, and a man below it, and she appears as though
dragging down, with her hands, small figures of men into Hell."

>>81235212
More golden dawn.
>all these are zodiacal
"These are the names of the Twelve Princes and Tribes of the Qlippoth
who are the heads of the months of the year.

1. BAIRIRON — so called because they are derived from the Fourth
Evil Force; viz, Samael the Black. Their colors are dull and black; and
their form is that of a Dragon-Lion.

2. ADIMIRON — whose colors are like dam1
blood, mixed with
water and dull yellow and gray. Their form is that of lion lizards.

3. TzELLADIMIRON — whose colours are like limped blood,
tzelil,2
bronze and crimson. They are like savage triangular-headed dogs.

4. SCHECHIRIRON — whose colors are black, and their form
blended of reptile, insect and shell-fish, such as the crab and the lobster,
yet Demon-faced withal.

5. SHELHABIRON — whose colors are fiery and yellow and their
form like merciless wolves and jackals.

6. TZEPHARIRON — whose colors are like those of earth, and their
form is partially living yet decaying corpses.

7. OBIRIRON — whose colors are like clouds and their form like
gray bloated Goblins.

8. NECHESHETHIRON — whose color is like copper, and their
forms like that of a most devilish and human headed insects.

9. NACHASHIRON — whose colors are like serpents, and their form
like dog-headed serpents.

10. DAGDAGIRON — whose colors are reddish and gleaming, and
their form like vast and devouring flat-shaped fishes.

11. BEHEMIRON — whose arms are derived from Behemoth, and
their colors are black and brown, and their forms like those of awful
beasts, like hippopotamus and an elephant, but crushed flat, or as if their
skin was spread out flat over the body of a gigantic beetle or cockroach.

12. NESHIMIRON — whose colors are of a stagnant gleaming watery
blue, and their forms like hideous women, almost skeletons, united to the
bodies of Serpents and Fishes."

Most sources see them as those closest to our universe besides Lilith.

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>>81232596
>>YHVH is not originally a Canaanite god, he was probably a syncretic mix between Enki, Ninazu and Thoth, who acted like male Athena.
>Jove pronounced in antiquity latin would have sounded like "yo-weh"
>Cherokee's godhead is named YOWA
That name points to something older than the Canaanites.
>>El is a horny doddering old man who lives in a tent in the mountains where four primordial rivers dwell
Fergana valley and the source of the Hyperboreans
>>the worst offender is the long run is Baal Horon/Hillel Ben Shahar/Attar/Azazel
The fucking Atlanteans

>>81235324
>The name points to something older than the Canaanites

Possibly, most scholars see it as "Iah/Ea's will." but there is the fact the word is a pre Vedic loanword for 'divine force' is odd.

>Fergana valley and the source of the Hyperboreans
Probably either Dilmun, Iram or Ararat, all of which were said to be the home of Enki and the Tigris, and Euphrates. Padma Sambahva also supposedly came from there.
It could also be Tibet seeing as the Sumerians may have come from there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_KeHrFghOo

>The fucking atlanteans
I don't really understand this one. Like the ancestors of the berbers who worshipped what would later become Poesidon and the Egyptian gods?

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>>81216566
Well, could Atlantis count? Tying it to either of them should be interesting, right?

>>81236271
Sure, a lot can fit into this cosmology and I'd be interested in seeing how it could be tied in without coming out of left field.

>>81236271
Hellenes were definitely prominent for their reimaginings of the Semitic but unless you want to touch on early Christianity it might be fun to blend Mycenae and the sea peoples or else have the Phoenicians competing with Greek trade colonies imo.

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>>81236321

There's actually evidence that the Tribe of Dan were Mycenean sailors who settled and married local women so it could work. You'd just have to use semitic names for the Greek myths like Melqart for Hercules, and Astaroth for Aphrodite.

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>>81236397
>>81236321
>>81236295
If people want I can lorebump with some Hittite stuff, which is a good bridge between the Levant and Greece.

I'm surprised how many of >>81220672 ended up ticked despite >>81232075 drawing more from my dreams than it ever did from actual mythology. The ones that escape me appear to be:
>spirits out to teach morality and limit power
The morality is often alien at best though limiting power is definitely a trend.
>dangerous and hardcore demons
The lore has yet to be hammered out but muh qliphoth are all about self deception not leaving much room for grades between them. Generally speaking those that embrace their inherently corrosive nature are the most vicious albeit least subtle and shortest lived.
>antagonistic dominant culture
Reality's antagonistic to wanderers because without civilization reminding each other and the world what it's meant to be the world unravels. Cultures are only secondarily unfriendly.
>distinct sapients and non-sapients
The heavens have little to do with the things writhing from fertile mud (in fact they view all water with disgusted suspicion) but mere apes learning fire was the catalyst for most of the setting's history. The idea that something so grand as intelligence could be enkindled from beings so lowly is the only thing keeping some constellations from reducing the earth to slag.
>moral potential
Spirits can be good or bad (though harmonious/dissonant is more apt) but their old rigid minds change at glacial scales, in a creation racing to eschaton they may as well be static.

Anyone else care to shill their own half-baked takes?

>>81236526
By all means your dumps so far have been a pleasure.

>>81236567
Hittites were probably the main Indo European group in the Ancient Near east, and the source of most of what we consider Pre classical Greek culture and were the group the Trojans belonged to.
The first big Hittite myth cycle is Kingship in Heaven it inspired the Theogony.

>Starts off with king of the gods Alalu who shares a name with the first guy on the Sumerian Kings list, and has some connection with Ghouls.
>Deposed by Anu Sumerian sky god and cast down into the underworld.
>Alalu has a son named Kumarbi
>Kumarbi bites off Anu’s testicles and kicks him into space.
>Anu laughs because despite losing his bait and tackle he just impregnated Kumarbi
>Kumarbi is now male pregnant with the storm god Tarhun and starts whining
>huge argument between Kumarbi surrounded by the divine midwives and Tarhun about where Tarhun is going to come out
>Kumarbi is begging him to come out the ass as it’s the biggest hole but Tarhun doesn’t want to because he shits from there.
>Tarhun comes out of his head and promptly beats the shit out of his Dadmom Kumarbi throwing him into the Underworld with his (maternal?) Grandpa
>Kumarbi is pissed and from this point on becomes a cartoon villain whose main gimmick is to make monsters by masturbating
>Cums in a lake, makes a sea serpent which is called Hedammu
>Hedammu beats the shit out of Tarhun and takes his heart
>Tarhun sends his own kid to seduce, ask permission and then marry Hedammu’s daughter to get his heart back
>his son does this, Tarhun thanks him by killing him and his wife, something his son says he should do
>Next Kumarbi cums on a mountain
>Births a giant rock monster name Ullikummi
>Ullikummi is a dumb ass and Kumarbi has to literally hold his hand so he knows what the fuck to do.
>Ishtar analogue seduces Ullikummi
>He dies while Kumarbi presumably falls comedically back to the underworld telling Tarhun he’ll get him next time.

>>81237011
>Kumarbi is begging him to come out the ass as it’s the biggest hole but Tarhun doesn’t want to because he shits from there.
Sublime.

>>81237078
It's on par with that mesoamerican hero-god who fucks several male spirits in female form and gets told by the head deity that "it's not gay if they look like girls".

>>81237011
iirc their whole imperial strategy was Hattusa itself being at the centre of a mountainous waste. The periphery might break away during times of turmoil but they'd never sack the capitol and then after a few decades of regrouping they'd reconquer their empire on a rampage fuelled by seethe at being stuck in their shitty lands. I can't remember if the plaited beards and head hair as supplemental armour was unique to them or more general to the area but the aesthetics are phenomenal.

>>81217032
>>81217297
>>81217512
Wow, no wonder Japan is so obsessed with jewish/christian lore. This shit reads like an anime plot synopsis

>>81237188
Autism will always find an outlet according to the current society's norms. Now weebery on the rise but way back when the done thing was to fast in the desert until visions started dancing before your eyes.

>>81237011
The other main myth that we have is Telipinu which is a lot like Dumuzid, Adonis or Persephone but with a much weaker plotline.

>Telipinu is the Hittite god of Agriculture fucks off for unknown reasons because he’s mad or tired
>Everything dies
>Benevolent witch and mother Goddess Hannahanna banishes his anger to the underworld
>Priests slaughter like 1000 goats and 500 oxen
>Everything is ok
>The Hittites spent a lot of time banishing shit they didn’t like to the underworld, ranging from disease to deities anger
>they did this through necromancy holes that could be as large as 50 by 50 feet.
>this sort of leads to the idea that anger was an alien possessing force at least in gods
Other interesting shit
>Worship a sword, one sword, not a sword in every temple one specific sword
>It’s viewed as an Underworld god with 12 disciples who carry sickles
>Underworld is ruled by the sun goddess of the night, who was a Hittite exclusive goddess, mostly through blood sacrifice
>Her closest analogue is Hecate
>world is supposedly supported by the dreaming god Upelleri, the Hittite Atlas
>This can be interpreted as the universe being his dream as he sleeps
>Apollo was a Hittite god and patron of Willusa/Troy.

Thought of an interesting conflict in the setting based on the "Monstorous underground races" idea. The surface dwellers say they are descended from Seth while those of the underground are from the cursed line of Cain.

>>81216566
>Yezidis
they are middle eastern but their language isn't semitic.

>>81224676
Because this nigger just mashed up like five different religious traditions to make that story. This isn't shit that was cut from the Bible, it's a mish-mash of Mesopotamian mythology, Ugaritic mythology, Yahwist mythology, Second Temple Period apocrypha, and modern Kabbalah and obscure Talmud. Also a dash of Egyptian mythology.

>>81216566
look into zoroastrianiam, particularly Druj

>Stat me Jesus boiling eternally in excrement in D20

>>81235324
>That name points to something older than the Canaanites

This is actually true. YHWH was originally (by which I mean as far back as we have evidence for) worshipped by the Edomites and Midianites. His worship eventually spread from them, to a certain sect of the Canaanites. There actually seems to be a partial acknowledgement of this origin in Exodus, where Moses comes to know God while living in Midian, after fleeing Egypt.

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>>81216566
Because Jews don't like their dirty laundry getting aired.

>>81239216
haha ok

>>81232596
I heard the original Yahweh (not El) was a war-and-storm deity, which makes sense of Abrahamic emphasis on war and rules of engagement.

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>>81216566
What's the whole deal with the Kabbalah anyway? I never really understood that.

>>81240713
kabbalah is complicated to define because most people expect it to be a form of magic, but in practice it's a lot closer to buddhism or hinduism in that it's more about meditation and enlightenment. The jewish twist here is that most of the meditation revolves around the hebrew language and numeral system

that said, there is "practical kabbalah" which could be considered a form of magic. Fantasy makes golemancy the focus but in real life it's mostly about amulets and dream interpretation

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>>81238074
a(Here's my shitty attempt at world building please feel free to add or critique)

"When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the stars of heaven For the Wise One's portion is his people, the line of Seth is his allotted inheritance, and all touched by the sun and moon his domain."
-Opening of the Sefer Ha Nabi the most sacred Nevidim text


>world is a cluster of Iron and Bronze age city states with a few large empires scattered around
>Cities usually form around a specific supernatural patron who gains a sacrifice cult, this can be a demon, an angel, a lesser god, a star spirit, or a powerful ghost. Other deities are also worshipped but the state cult is about the patron.
>Contracts are validated by Beytels, or God houses which are massive stones near the city center with the agreement written upon them
>this religion is mostly dedicated to crop production, salvific and moral stuff is usually done either through groups following 'instructor spirits' or the teachings of a divinized ancestor
>the main conflict is between the children of Seth who live on the surface and the Children of Cain/Ditanu who dwell in vast underground caverns and catacombs.
>Most Sethite cultures that matter are Jewish/Druze esque with Mesopotamian aesthetics
>worship planetary gods analogous to the lower sefirot as bullwarks against the very real Zodiac demons.
>most popular instructor spirit is El-hakam, the angel of wisdom, who has wandering Astrologer priests and law experts
>Cainites are more Mandean and Yezidi with Egyptian aesthetics.
>see the planetary gods as invaders who corrupted the surface world
>Worship Cain as a Two headed god and the heir of Adam
>population is mostly Minotaurs and other Ungulate human hybrids.
>unlike the Sethites they tend to have centralized priesthoods
>the reason for this dislike goes as follows according to the Ben Seth

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>>81216566
I'm looking to incorporate this into my yiddish pone race, op, go full oy vey.

>>81242154
>during the deluge the sons of Seth sought refuge with the sons of Cain
>they gave them technology, and culture
>but this was a trap
>the sons of Cain enslaved the sons of Seth using them to build their cities
>harvesting the Cainites food while they themselves starved
>El-Hakam took pity on the sons of Seth and gave them a Prophet
>a man simply called "Rabeinu" or teacher
>using his magical abilities the sons of Seth ruined their captors cities and escape to the surface
>because of this while Slavery does occur, they have rights and must be freed after a couple of years
>Cainites are also killed on sight
>to them this is a good thing as it allows the soul to Reincarnate into a better form
>the Cainites have a different story
>a group of disease ridden surface rabble came into their land
>and they firmly but fairly tried to civilize them
>yet they were naturally impudent and resentful, stealing from , lying to and sometimes even attacking their benefactors at any oppurtunity
>harder measures had to be taken
>then one of them made contact with a dark god, the soul of all planets and decimated their civilization
>they believe in a gloomy netherworld ruled by Abel which must be escape with secret knowledge, so anything is preferable to death including slavery and torture
>practice mummification in the belief that it puts the person in a state of suspended animation and armed to the teeth to bypass Abel's guards in massive family tombs.

>>81242213
Tell me more, about these hebrewhorses.

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>>81242277
They're based off of golems, gems, and clay. tempted to give them a lightning affinity. Mostly went hebrew because I wanted some level of plausible deniability for the eventual buttfrustration any publishing would cause for me not being part of the cult of woke, and eventually golem because I wanted to make sure the pones could look cute. In general hewbrew has a lot of really good cultural things too, among them the unicorn.

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>>81242258
I'm still kinda unsure on the specific political powers on the surface. The underground is easy because there's an Upper and lower kingdom. So far I have seafaring MInoan/Hittite/Greek ironworkers who worship and follow falling stars who live on the western islands. A civilization ruled by a dynasty a family of powerful sorcerers with no contract who in place of a contract have a massive ever expanding library of spells staffed by golem assistants with Babylonian aesthetics. And a Militant theocratic empire based on Assyria and Persia who worship a dying and rising god who they join upon death (whose secretly a very powerful Antediluvian mummy trying to get a fiefdom in the afterlife.). Might also have a Cynocephali civilization based on Elam near a particularly large gate to the underworld , whose goal in life is to empower it's gatekeepers enough that nothing gets out.

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>>81225614
I beg to differ, anon.

>>81241694
How does it compare to Sufism and general Islamic and pre-Islamic mysticism? I've heard Muslim experts actually say similar things (Kabbalah and Sufism being closer to Buddhism/Hinduism)

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>>81242354
>among them the Unicorn

The Jewish Unicorn is a fucking beast though, supposedly it was so big that it had to paddle alongside Noah's Ark. They also destroy everything in their path to an extent that a lone infant managed to total a path between Joppa and Antioch.

>>81242416
doesn't hurt that I'm making the unicorns the knights instead of the casters.

>>81242443
>Unicorns as knights instead of casters

As much shit as I'm gonna get for saying this, your idea sounds far enough removed from MLP that it shouldn't be a problem. Equine fantasy races have been a thing long before and will probably be a thing long after MLP:FIM.

>>81242505
oh I know, I have things set up that way on purpose. I just have to come up with a production line, setting, novel, video game, campaign. not sure how to best express this creative work to start. that and I'm struggling real hard to define the pegasus. I could make them 100% the same but I'd like to have at least some minor twist. not particularly thread relevant though.

>>81242533
Pegasi are wanderers and explorers, they live, pack and die light. Staying on the ground in one place might actually weaken them or cause them physical pain.

>>81242771
i dont like this as is, but I could look into some nomad cultures i suppose. it would make sense for them to operate like that.

>>81242400
I don't know much about sufism, but from what I understand, sufi practices tend to be more high-energy and active, focusing more on practices like singing and dancing often late into the night. in contrast, kabbalah is more subdued and intellectual, focusing mostly on quiet contemplation (or given that they're jewish, nonstop arguments)

whew buds. may be time to remind yourselves where you are before you take anything in here as accurate without checking sources.

>>81242909
Pretty sure that that’s a stereotype. Anyway, why’d the differences develop like they did?

>>81243140
Fair point, but like a lot of Gnostic or Mystic Abrahamic texts, there aren't a whole lot of sources. I can barely find crap about the Qlipoth demons, and the Wikipedia articles are barren and probably made up.

bump for interest

>>81221486
oh, so like Australia?

>>81243140
The anime bullshit with the mashups is obviously headcanon, but the Canaanite cosmology is accurate to what little we know, including YHWH's place as a lesser god and a first mention in the Rig Veda that might predate the Jews by millennia.

>>81216566
What can anyone tell about the Kabbalah and the Kabbalite Jews?

>>81245879
It's mostly about blood and child sacrifices; to commune with and worship demons and their Prince.

and i thought eso lore was too schizo

>>81225160
They don't believe in eternal damnation with fire and brimstone. Sheol is closer to purgatory. Your soul must be cleansed of its impurities before it can move on the rest of the afterlife. This is naturally a rather unpleasant process and the worse you were in life the longer you have to be there. It's less a punishment and more like a... karmic decontamination chamber.

>>81243826
It is a stereotype but one with a lot more truth to it than most. Jewish theology at times reads more like a debate club or a legal proceeding than a religion. Rabbis were originally scholars, not priests, and that academic mindset has followed them to the modern day. The idea of rational, legalistic debate being a valid form of exegesis has been a part of the religion since the Talmud or earlier.

As for why things ended up that way I can't speak for sufism but after the diaspora Judaism was a culture in exile. Wherever they went they existed at the mercy of foreign rulers and people. It was in their best interest to try and keep their head down and not make too much noise. On top of that since they had no homeland or religious center to turn to it fell to the smaller individual communities to keep the religion alive on their own. Religious knowledge was not solely concentrated among the religious leaders to be passed down to the populace because the local rabbi might get murdered by cossacks and then where would you be? In order to ensure the survival of Judaism the whole community had to be knowledgable of its traditions. Which included among other things being able to read the bible and understand its message. A community with enough people knowledgable on the subject inevitably leads to discussion, which leads to disagreement, which leads to arguments. At some point this became somewhat engraved in the culture modern Judaism was born.

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>>81216566
What about creating a deities for a Mesopotamian-inspired pantheon without just copying them? For example, I know that D&D stole Tiamat for the goddess of evil dragons, but that's about it.

>>81216566
>Why?
Because we're already living in a world ruled by mesopotamian mysticism and all its cosmic horror. It's just too real to be fun right now when temples of child abuse/sacrifice punctuate blood rituals televised for the sake of energetic alignments whilst the sanhedranic followers blast through the air waves at the cattle to mutilate themselves sexually, physiologically and ethnically (towards creating a single race of clay-brown genderless golems indentured in their service).

Like, it IS a cool lore for fantasy. But, since most of my group TTRPG to get away from this being the current reality it's not likely something we'd use.

Holy shit, child sacrifice? Why the fuck? What was wrong with these people? The Aztecs did it, too. What the unholy fuck? Who would worship a god or gods with such sick and demented demands?

>>81249424
I think the deal was they were afraid of the Moloch, which yes, was belief in, but not worship.

>>81243826
>>81248136
As an actual jew, my favorite story of Jewish argumentativeness is the Story of Rabbi Hananiah and the Oven.

So there's a new oven, and the rabbis are arguing about whether or not it's Kosher. Eventually it's all the rabbis in agreement except for Hananiah. The rabbis say if we're right, the trees will prove it, and lo and behold, the trees jump out of the ground and dance. Hananiah says no, trees dancing have nothing to do with the law. The rabbis say if they're right, the walls of the temple will prove them right. Lo and behold, walls start moving and flexing. Hananiah says no, walls have nothing to do with the law. Eventually the rabbis say God himself will prove them right. Lo and behold, God comes down, says the rabbis are right. Hananiah disagrees, and points out God gave the law to humans to interpret, and if God didn't want that he shouldn't have given the laws to humans to begin with. God laughed, said he's been beaten by his children, and left.

Moral of the story is that if you're right, you're right, and not even god can change that.

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>>81249447
All we know about Moloch and its worshippers was written by its enemies. We can't trust any of it, or even truly believe Moloch existed as a deity.

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>>81249175
take em

>>81249528
Get your Tay-Sachs under control first.

Is there lore on how old curses were described? And whether or not they were meant to be survived in the first place? Like,
did they Deserve It? And perhaps, should just, Give Up?

Can someone explain tzaarath?

>>81249630
>everyone I don't like is a jew

take your meds schizo, they're living in your walls

>>81238816
Sorta, in general most post biblical Jewish works focus on one period or chunk of the Torah rather than all of it, like the Zohar doesn't say much about anything after Numbers and the Sefer Yetzirah is all about first genesis. So it's less mashup and more trying to make a coherent narrative around a very bloated and confusing canon. Like the beginning was taken from Chaim Vital's take on the Zohar and treatise on the left emanation, the patriarch Narrative was taken from general trends in late antique and Medieval Midrash. The only Apocrypha I actually used (besides Enoch whose core ideas are still kind of canon) was the Apocalypse of Abraham with Abel judging the dead,

>>81243826
I actually am jewish anon. I know what I'm talking about.

As for why the differences? really, it's hard to say. Judaism has spent most of the last two millennia being practiced almost entirely in secret, and all our texts were popularized after being heavily rewritten by christians. Keeping the original records alive has been necessary to preserve jewish culture so it's no surpise that judaism developed a scholastic legacy

In contrast, Islam was the predominant religion in most places it's practiced, and while scholarship flourished during the islamic golden age it's worth noting that there were completely different pressures. I don't know if it's because alcohol was illegal or because the average person just loves wild parties, but they ended up up with dancing and loud music instead of reading by candle light

>>81245879
Kabbalite jews are not a faction that exists in the real world anon. While Kabbalah does have its traditions it's always been a niche subculture outside of small hassidic practices like dream interpretation or amulet making. Hell, you're not even supposed to get into it until you've been studying the torah in the original hebrew for 40 years. It's not exactly accessible

Another jewanon here.

>>81224184
The big letters say YHWH, the little ones on the right say 'adonai', a Hebrew word meaning 'lord' and a very common epithet/euphemism for God, since saying his name is taboo.

>>81249504
I remember this story the other way, with God agreeing with Hananiah (and the alternative punchline of the rabbis retorting "well, we still win by majority"). Still, also one of my favourite story-jokes, and a good condensation of the Jewish cultural outlook.

>>81252880
To add here, I think your reasoning's fair. Kabbalism in its inception was absolutely an intellectual pursuit, and it didn't turn into reinterpreted ritual later (basically hasidism). That said, it's worth noting that a LOT of non-kabbalistic Jewish ritual is all about noise and action (feasts following almost every festival, congregation doing call-and-response with the rabbi, almost all prayers have a tune, literally the entirety of Purim...), so in >>81243826's defence you can see how the generalisation is wrong, especially since hasids are definitely amongst the rioutous Jews out there, and also simultaneously the most kabbalah-inclined.

>>81252880
>all our texts were popularized after being heavily rewritten by christians
Are you talking about things like the Talmud and the Zohar here, or Torah and Tanakh, or both?

>>81253377
to be clear, I'm talking specifically about the translations of those traditions to the Old Testament. The Talmud, Tanakh and Torah are the "unedited" versions, though even with meticulous rules for transcription there's still 2000 years of playing telephone involved, and half the meaning is in the interpretation

As for the Zohar, IIRC there's no evidence it predates the 1200s

>>81217032
>>81217297
>>81217512
>>81217729
This is a bunch of religious apocrypha and lore slapped together, but it still mostly gets the point across.

>>81249424
The Aztecs did it out of a fear that their gods (whose power was founded on sacrifice) would lose strength and all of reality would get skullfucked by eldritch skeletal she-demons with rattlesnakes for penises. It was well-intentioned, if monstrous.

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What are some plausible changes that we can apply to the Mesopotamian deities?

>>81249175
>all of this is real
>the jews evil god who chose them to rule the world has successfully subjugated it
>i am mad because my god is either a loser or a lie
Might is right, cuck. If their god has the tangible power do give his followers material wealth and influence in exchange for sacrifice, then he's clearly the more powerful and cunning god.

Seethe, cope, then take your meds.

>>81254114
He didn't say the babylonian-talmudic jew gods are real, he said that we're ruled by that mysticism. Also,
>thinking material wealth is proof of superiority

>>81231793
The Nephandi flavor their stuff with Kabbalah, use the terms, but the universe doesn't conform to Kabbalah. I would not be surprised if that's the reason Nephandi aren't made to be playable, tho. At least one guy that works on Mage is a magician and takes that stuff very seriously, even if he's doesn't have the integrity of other magician writers I can think of.

>>81254726
OWOD is actually a lot more Jewish than it is Christian, at least Vampire, Wraith and parts of Mage. Looking back at it there was sort of this trend in 90s dark fantasy media to portray Judaisim as Goth Christianity.

>>81253269
>The big letters say YHWH, the little ones on the right say 'adonai', a Hebrew word meaning 'lord' and a very common epithet/euphemism for God, since saying his name is taboo.
afaik adonai also became holy, so hashem might be a better substitute.

Babylon rises by the might of Babylon
Babylon goes to war with Babylon.
Babylon falls at the hand of Babylon
Babylon rises.

>>81249175
047728191

>>81245526
>jehova in rig veda

>>81254464
>thinking material wealth is proof of superiority
Kek, keep seething poorfag. In the material world, material wealth is power. Spiritual enlightenment is a dead man's consolation.

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>>81216566
isn't that literally the first setting from the DRAMA system Hillfolk?

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>>81252880
>you're not even supposed to get into it until you're 40

That's actually a pretty recent development in response to Sabbatai Zvi and his Simon Magus type shit. Most Kabbalists started training when they were 18-20, they just couldn't teach themselves or apply their knowledge unsupervised until they were 40. In general most of the demystification of Judaisim was either caused by trying to make it less offputting to Christians, or pushback against Sabbateanism.

>>81217032
this just kind of sounds like a weird mishmash of gnosticism and zoroastrianism.

>>81217032
>>81217297
>>81217512
>>81217729
>>81217878
so where does Kabbalah fall into all this? Cause that's a big part of jewish mysticism too i know.

>>81217512
>>understanding that if the Messiah comes and world isn't ready he'll destroy it
so is THAT why christianity kills everything it touches and its followers push us ever closer to cataclysm

>>81242443
>doesn't hurt that I'm making the unicorns the knights instead of the casters.
>built in lance
ya know, makes sense in hindsight

>>81246135
nice try schizo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAE53Jqp5X4&list=PLZ8jvagxnHezXztUVVInz4gmWmiuCauvy&index=15

>>81262102
I mean it is, Zoroastrianism introduced Judaisim, Judaisim introduced Gnosticism. The reason it's the developed is because Judaisim is the one religion where Gnosticism won. Hell most gnostics who weren't Marcionites or Egyptian were Jewish and kept kosher.

>>81262156
Kabbalah in Judaisim is the psychology, and biomechanics of a very mechanistic god. Getting consumed by strict Judgement (Wrath or evil they just didn't like using that word for god) was less like an emotional thing and more of a fuck up in pipes causing a problem with the ratio of one chemical to another. Most of the myths are seen in Judaisim as Anthropomorphizing for the sake of explaining these incomprehensible process like how we call outlets (male and female), use the term master and slave in programming, or use the term Motherboard. The reason Kabbalistic lore is this sprawling epic is because the computer is very big and has a lot of problems.

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>>81246135
literally no one is a satan worshipper. For starters, satan's not real, but even more importantly worshipping your demons is stupid and gets you nothing but suffering. At best, the absolute most benefit and cooperation you can get out of them is to make them offers and then give them the payment promised, like contracting a particularly chancy criminal as a freelancer. If you're eating babies, it's because you offered to eat babies as payment, that's on you for paying for a pack of gum with a stack of benjamins.

At worst, they just get unruly and destructive and you have to banish them, or do shadowwork to dissolve them.

>>81262367
>god machine
huh.

between this and cain being the first vampire, it makes me wonder just how much WoD was based on jewish mysticism then.

>>81216566
do it

>>81262471
Yeah for most of history everyone who worked with demons was assumed to be working for some material benefit or didn't know those were demons. Even the most hardcore witches were thought to only be in it for the sex and would bail the minute it stopped being fun. Ironically the closest thing we get to your stereotypical 2-D modern media satanist is the Jewish or Muslim context of a sorcerer trying to end the world (something which is impossible in Post nicene Christianity without god's consent, or the fact that this is the first world god made) out of Nihilism.

>>81262495
As said earlier Jewish mysticism was a major trend in gothic fantasy works in the 90s. Mostly because it was seen as a darker and moodier version of Christianity so they could use biblical symbolism but not remind the goth 20 somethings too much of their pearl clutching Christian parents.

>>81254726
>but the universe doesn't conform to Kabbalah.
Ehhh... there's a lot of ways to interpret both Kabbalah and the WoD lore.
It's not a stretch to say that, at the minimum, WoD universe does conform to Kabbalah when perceived by people who operate according to that paradigm.

>>81262692
Vampire and Wraith conform to Kabbalah, Mage does too to a lesser extent, mummy can be jammed in there. Really the only one that doesn't is Werewolf, but Werewolf always felt like the odd one out.

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>>81248330
Tiamat is pretty interesting figure if you start pulling from other sources. Marduk slew her and used her blood to make people, making her technically the mother of humanity; this can also be spun towards a resin printing analogy if you want the fantasy-scifi aesthetic.

>>81262772
werewolf follows animism right?

>>81262185
yus.

>>81262863
Werewolf is captain planet, eco fascism and a mix of Hinduism and what those white hippie women think Native American mythology is.

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>>81262772
there was talk on /pol/ how the werewolf myth might be the arrangment of aryan/cor magnum peoples who fought the neanderthal on the full moon using their tamed wolves. In essence, letting a bunch of people commit horrible acts on the full moon using arrows, fire, wolves, and clubs in their competition with the also pretty shitty neanderthal peoples. Since the neanderthal peoples where pushed back out of europe, and the cro magnum came in from the steppes, I'm not really certain how much of which culture was what, but presumably it was a gradient for every race in terms of genetic mixing, except for the israelites, who, apperantly, originated from a culture of people who had strict marriage cultural norms, and there for low genetic drift.

YMMV on weather you believ any of this, since I know virtually nothing about kabahlism, but maybe try comparing werewolf to early protoeuropean mythology and the earliest steppe religions.

>>81263097
>Pushed them out of Europe
>Came in from the Steppes

Homo Sapiens came from either Africa or Southeast Asia, and it seems liked the Neanderthals died to a mix of autism and Sapienchads going after that Neanderthussy. The most convincing theory for me is that a lot of tribes would take the biggest baddest animal in their environment as a war totem who they would try and tap into during battle. Eventually when these people came into contact with their more civilized neighbors the city dwellers reacted with fear and terror as these fur clad howling savages were the epitome of Barbarism. The same thing happened until like 1920 in Africa with the Leopard Man cult.

>>81263236
>Homo Sapiens came from either Africa
your welcome to believe that but I don't really believe so.
>or SEA
seriously?

>>81263334
>SEA
>Seriously
Well Southern China. It at least seems that Homo Erectus went back into Africa after a trip to the east.

>>81263450
Makes sense for where Orangutans are located. They're one of the smarter apes. And they're red haired all over.
Maybe they're closer to the Neanders than they were to us.

>>81263494
>Closer to neander than they were to us
Not really possible, it'd be an evolutionary miracle for there to be enough evolutionary convergence for a derived Chimp and a Derive Orangutaun to produce viable offspring. It might just be that the environment selects better for tool use.

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In this kind of setting would it be ghouls instead of Orcs?

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>>81216566
What kind of fantasy races would be a good fit for such a setting?

Alternatively, what kind of roles would the classic races like elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and so on fill in a setting like that?

OP where can I read more about this? Which source texts? How does this intersect with Christian Gnosticism? (Which I actually know about)

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>>81216566
Besides Ziggurats being around, what are some key features of Mesopotamian architecture?

What are the demons, former angels in jewish culture called in their language? Some guy said it was "shedim" but I looked up and seems like its actually a different kind of creature

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>>81267607
Classic fantasy races can work but it'd be weird to call them germanic names when they'd basically be nothing like elves/dwarves/orcs. Noble savage orcs would be Centaurs and Bull Men based off Persians when they were still subserviant to the Medes or Bedouins. Ghouls would be like Tolkein orcs and be a nocturnal version of the Non Persian second wave Indo European invaders. Elf analogues would either be semi aquatic wisdom bearers like Oannes or plant men like some mythical Egyptian kings. Cynocephali, and Half-giants work too.

>>81267869
Good primary source texts
>Zohar
>Treatise on the Left Emanation
>Louis Ginzberg's legends of the Jews
>Fountain of WIsdom
>Sefer Bahir
>Jewish Magic and superstition
All of these are on www.sefaria.org or free as pdfs. The rest not so much and you may have to pirate or buy.
>Towards an Image of Tammuz
>Treasury of Darkness
>Mesopotamian Creation myths
>Legends of the Kings of Akkade
>Anything by Moshe Idel
>Anything by Samuel Noah Kramer
>Chaos and Creation
>Anything by Walter Burkert

Intersections between gnosticism, mostly the Ophite, Simonian, Perate and early Sethian stuff, especially the Bruce Codex, Hypostasis of the Archons, thoughts of Norea and On the Origin of the world. All of which totally fit with Kabbalah and might be canon texts if you changed the word gods to angels and Jesus to Moses, Akiba or Elijah . The later Sethian, Marcionite, Valentinian or really anything that demonizes the Serpent, Moses, Cain triad is usually a reaction against the Jewish Christian stuff.

>>81268987
Huge thick blue walls covered in monster designs, pillars that look like trees or end in chimaeras in the middle of gardens. Artificial waterfalls and canal systems. Arch ceiling hypostyles and ramps. Beehive houses. In some places there'd just be giant fucking statues in the middle of the desert like in Commagne.

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>>81269642
Demons (Shedim) aren't former angels in Judaisim, they're malevolent nature spirits and wandering incorporeal monsters, a lot of whom are Lawful Evil. Fallen Angels don't have a name besides maybe "watcher" or "evil angel" but there aren't that many of them because they're that op. Some fallen angels might hire, create or use Shedim to get what they want but the Angel will always have the power in the relationship.

>>81216769
Based

>>81237011
It's like if /d/ founded a religion.

>>81269682
>Persians when they were still subserviant to the Medes or Bedouins.
What’s that now? Anyway, what about goblins?

bump

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>>81272584
>What about goblins

Lezim or Ifrits, maybe? Though both are more like imps.

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>>81276028
But anon, one of the most based books in all of Judaism is about Goblins.

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Canaan would be an amazing setting for mythras or somethin like that

>>81269719
wait, aren't shedim just djinn?

>>81278565
Yep, just meaner on average.

>>81221005
>Abraham (a)(brahman) - (anti)(holy man)
This, out of everything in this thread, is the only thing I see qboomers repeat ad nauseaum like they have just discovered the q anon dead sea scrolls.

>>81248330
Between the Rivers by Harry Turtledove does this. Most of the gods are invented wholecloth.

Bronze age collapse rpg when?

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>>81249504
> AN ACTUAL JEWISH FABLE
>ABOUT A RABBI AND AN OVEN.
omegakek

>>81249521
So, basically like what happened with the Norse deities. Everything that we know about them was written through a Christian POV.

>>81282006
>omegakek
Is that a good thing or...

>>81235241
>as if their skin was spread out flat over the body of a gigantic beetle or cockroach
Now that's the kind of crazy occult shit I like.

>>81269719
>>81269642
>Demons are malevolent nature spirits

This, Qlipothic forces are so uncommon as direct manifestations they're just called Acherim (The others) or Tanin'im (Great serpents)

>>81256720
Well, practising reform Jew here, and we definitely still say 'adonai' as a stand-in for God everywhere. The start of every blessing is 'baruch atah adonai' ('blessed are you, Lord'), and its seen as a specifically orthodox thing to say 'baruch hashem' ('blessed is the name') instead. Not foreign, but definitely not standard.

>>81262495
Take a read about Spinoza's conception of God (natura naturans). I have no actual knowledge in kabbalah (even if it's well-known, it's still fringe to all but the hasids), but it's a similar notion of God as the universe's mechanics.

>>81293695
I believe it is permissible to say adonai in prayers and e.g. during studies, but it shouldn't be used wastefully.

>>81217032
GET IN THE FUCKING ROBOT SHINJI

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>>81225109
>I believe it comes from anime

What time period aesthetic would work for jewish/canaanite setting? You think only bornze/iron age works or something later like roman?

>>81228552
>vidya with sum homebrew
*Hebrew

>>81298129
Most people don't differentiate too much between the bronze age and the Roman Iron Age.

Personally I think a Mediterranean focused Cyberpunk setting would be cool.

>Ragnarok happens, but it's all the gods of all the religions
>They all die in a blaze of glory defeating an eldritch shadow-demon
>The Vikings are locked in a forever war in North America
>The Romans are fighting proxy-wars with the Persians
>Egyptians have mega-cities built on the massive-tomb-complexes for their gods
>Minotaurs, Lamia, Harpies go from land-to-land working as mercenaries

I think it could be fun. Could easily work in cyberpunk Judea too.

Not judaism, but I know in Islam, it's said that while the vast majority of Djinn are Muslim, there are a number who are christian or jewish. What do you think a Jewish Djinn would be like?

>>81298234
Correct me if im wrong, but djin can preforme some sort of magick right? I guess a jewish djin could use his abilities as a miracle man of sorts, since jews have those even though its recommanded to stay away from those people

>>81298194
I guess you could incorporate kabbalah geometry into a hacking enviorment like use words and numbers of power in coding to create magic infused machines like cyber golems

>>81298286
I'm not quite sure what the islamic conception of magic is. I do know that Djinn are generally invisible (they can appear if they want, most just don't want to), and they don't actually grant wishes- they can offer them, or get extorted to do them, but it's not so much they wave their hands and do what you ask, it's more they have to use their extraordinary power to accomplish what you asked. Hence why genies are bad wish-givers- even good ones have to work within a lot of confines to accomplish what you ask.

Still they are extremely popular.

Meanwhile, they are otherwise only as good or evil as humans are. Most of the good ones are too busy studying the Quran all day for you to ever bump into them though, so you're more likely to bump into one that's an asshole. Presumably this is also true for non-muslim Djinn.

>>81293906
Sounds plausible. English is my native language, though, so we simply say 'God' to mean, well, God. Like how 'Allah' simply means 'god' in Arabic, even though we use it to mean this one, specific conception of the divine.

>>81298286
My understanding of Jewish 'miracles' are that it's not so much the prophet/magician doing the work (akin to Jesus turning water to wine or healing the blind), but the prophet just having some special connection with God. It's God doing all the lifting; the prophet just tugs on their special connection and asks God to do it (this is made explicit in the Exodus narrative especially). That said, I'm sure that's not the full story, since I have a dim recollection of some stories where angels perform miracles on God's behalf.

The few cases of 'actual' magic/sorcery being performed are derided extensively. Leviticus and Deuteronomy both command against practising magic or associating with those who do.

>>81276539
based

>>81270952
>>81216769
well it's very similar to the jewish myth, except that one is politheistic and one is monotheistic.
>leader of the gods order one god to create slaves
>that god, often represented as a snake, gets attached to his creature and decides to grant him intelligence by having him feed to the tree of knowledge
>leader of the gods is worried that the man would also feed to the tree of life and become as powerful as the gods and banishes him from the gods's gardens, literally just where they got their food


the 3 big monotheistic religions are founded on worshiping the enslaver of humanity and hating the god who loved us.

>>81299613
Not Jewish myself, but I've heard the old jews had a legalistic interpretation of Magic.

The Bible, or rather the Old Testament is basically a blueprint for how god made the world. And if you study it hard enough, reading in between the lines, you'll learn how to copy God's miracles. That said, God's perfect and you aren't, so whatever magic you do will be a bullshit copyright free version of whatever God can do. This is for instance why the jewish Golem lacks free-will, as it's the copyright free version of the creation of man.

>>81299613
God in Judaisim is actually more the prophet than in Christianity, at least according to modern Judaisim and anyone besides the Priestly groups which would become Christianity. The idea is that you learn various actions to imbue yourself with the spirit of god and let that spirit guide you with some suggestions on your part. The idea of sainthood not being something any man (keyword being man) can work towardsas long as they are Jewish or convert is anethema to talmudic Judaisim

I wish judaism had as many character archetypes and aesthetics as every other culture on the planet. It feels more and more like choices for jewish dnd characters are

>rabbi
>nerd
>greedy merchant
>golem

Granted, we have first dibs on the illumnati thing, but that's a villain aesthetic

>>81299613
>>81302465
Acording to my friends rabbi, one can be born with special powers like blessing/cursing people or have a type of divination, but its also possible to unlock it by either studying very hard or by sleeping in a cemetery for 14 nights, which lets spirits enter your dreams to lift the veil of the afterlife from your eyes. But the second method is very frowned upon because its a bit akin to neceomancy andif you are not mentally trained enough you will go insane from seeing things not meant for human eyes. But if you are able to not go crazy, you can develop talents like blessing people with wealth or healing or seeing the future (even though god put a curse on that practice).

>>81302834
You reserch a bit more on the tribes and make a type of archetype for each tribe as classes since each tribe had a purpose
>Judea-leader types so sort of paladin or warrior
>Levi-priestly cast
>Gad- warriors and rangers
And you can also work other classes into them.
i cant remember which, but one of the tribes was known for being left handed assasins. They would tie up the childrens right hand for 2 years so they learn to use the left hand so they can carry hidden weapons on their right side (being left handed in bible times was non-existent). There is one story in the jewish bible iremember where one israelite was sent to assasinate an enemy king, and he entered the kings keep on the guise of a tired traveler who just wants to rest, and stabbed the king on the toilet and left the keep. And no one found out for hours because while thw body started to smell from the hot summer sun nobody wanted to disturb the royal butt cheels from shitting so the assasin got away easily.

>>81304750
Oh yeah Benjamin who might've been werewolves. It gets better if you go pre monarchic and go with the idea they started the confederacy unrelated.
>Dan:
Mycenean proto viking berserkers
>Issachar and non Zadokite Levites
Cleric
>Zebulun
Chaldean Wizards
>Ephraim
Rangers Psions maybe

If you're going more modern or medieval you could do Sicarii Rogues, Rangers who specialize in hunting fiends and the undead with whole flocks of crow companions, Necromancer bards, Baalei Shem Wizards and Kabbalist clerics.

>>81232839
>>Ba'al comissions Kothar the Hepheastus (complete with limp) analogue of the Canaanite pantheon to make him a palace
Worth noting, Haphesteus was depicted as ugly and deformed because blacksmiths in the age of myth worked with Arsenical Bronze, and the arsenic poisoning really fucked them up. That's why it's a recurring theme for Smith gods.

>>81305467
>Benjamin who might've been werewolves
What? Where did it say they might have been werewolves? I nevee heard of that

>>81232959
>children were burnt alive in temples by their parents who were wearing creepy smiley masks
Damn that's some proper cult horror right there.

>>81301349
Why do they say Satan hates humanity in other aspects of the mythology then?

>>81309450
People who maintain a seat of authority aren't going to champion a rebel, as that may inspire those they govern over to rebel themselves.

>>81302604
>Or convert
>Is anthemic to Talmud
So is it legal or isn't it?
The or implied it is

>>81309450
Because Satan is less like Enki outside of Christianity and more like a bratty kid who hates that his younger sibling is getting more attention than him.

>>81309502
>So is it legal or isn't it?

Converting or being a wizard? It's legal to convert unless you were fuck you Ammonite dog I spit on you, Sargon alive in Judea, since pre exilic times. Being a wizard is only allowed by studying hard and meditating.

>>81217878
>>Unicorns are huge and hyper aggressive
That’s a rhino. You’re talking about a rhinoceros.

>>81311173
Rhinos aren't the size of mountains and they don't live in Syria.

Is there just a sort of Semitic Mediterrenean ethnic or cultural affinity for pessimism and despair? I remember the Greeks said about Africans and Northern Europeans that they were big and strong but also cowardly little bitches who ran away if they thought they would lose.

>>81311294
Well ancient kingdoms in the middle east always fought each other and got destroyed a lot so it might have given them a "hit hard or die" type of mind set

>>81311450
It's not just that though, like second wave Indo Europeans thought that if they died in battle they'd go to heaven. Mediterreneans fought even though they thought they'd be stuck in a cave devoid of sensation for all eternity no matter how they died, and would be a potential danger to their loved ones if they weren't.

>>81311294
I've heard people say that the extreme weather of the ancient Fertile Crescent led to a black-or-white view of reality, but that's the kind of thing you can say about anything.

>>81232959
Tell me more about the rape temples, anon. Who went in there, and why?

>>81311612
>Who went there
Random men to fuck little girls
>Why
Ashtartu wanted it or some shit.

>>81267607
>>81269682
More ideas on using Cynocephali even though they're kinda furshit. Mesopotamian gods had different main servants called Lahmu who were thought of us ancestors, Ea's was Adammu or man. Gula's the goddess of healing was the dog headed man Uridimmu. So you could have wandering lawful good Cynocephali healers.

>>81289214
Look, if you are the Jew boy, then
- The olocaust is a lie
- Fuck off from Palestine
- You are chosen of nothing
That's all

>>81314789
Lett me fix your English there buddy, because your phrasing is rather awkward.

>The Holocaust
Unless you're Bri'ish
>You are chosen of Nothing
You aren't chosen/Nothing chose you
>Fuck off from Palestine
Get the fuck out of Palestine

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>>81216566
We already have some idea about Jewish mysticism, but what about how the Mesopotamians viewed magic?

>>81316893
Sure, I was going off the assumption that people were more familiar with Mesopotamian stuff but I can post some obscure and technical bits.

>Magic is based off Me's (sort of like true names) and Auras
>Auras give you a trace of something's me
>Mes give you complete control over something
>They can also be stolen or at least coerced out of someone and sold
>Auras are used mainly for sympathetic magic in which you get a bit of it into a figure
>this is also the basis for idol making so if you want to control an entity without a Me you best make a figure that kind of resembles it
>most chimaeras are these kind of creatures with them being spiritual energy given form via statue
>harpies are for tracking and attack
>Lamassu's for guarding structures
>you can also make entities fight by smashing two figures together
>circles are made with flour not with salt
>everyone has a personal god/heavenly counterpart which acts like a stand
>you can disagree with that stand
>if you and said stand are cool you can use it to attack or heal people, or posses shapeshift into animals
>there's also two kinds of souls the Zaqiqu and the Etemmu
>Zaqiqu are free floating intelligent souls that can cause whirlwinds in mass gatherings used for divination
>you can also trap them in magic bags for wind in a bag
>Etemmu are souls tied to bones used for attack
>they can be stored in lamps
>most spells are poetry and recreating acts done by the gods
>Ea has the ultimate ME which can fuck over everything
>Magic power is signified by black fire called Melammu which causes instinctive terror in non magically inclined mortals
>you can throw shit into the underworld with the Etemmu if you don't like it
>you can also open the gates and the Etemmu will posses their corpses and eat people
>every phenomena has a god/[platonic ideal or patron spirit called a Nam
>they can be things like Sheep, grain, kingship

>>81249504
I love how at no point in this fable do we find out whether the oven is kosher

>>81317782
I mean I don't think it is, he got outvoted 8 to 2.

>>81317865
>2
was there another rabbi on his side or did they count God's opinion?

>>81317865
>So there's a new oven, and the rabbis are arguing about whether or not it's Kosher. Eventually it's all the rabbis in agreement except for Hananiah.
I mean implicitly he's the one saying it isn't kosher but ultimately it doesn't explicitly state which side of the boolean the other rabbis were on.

>Party needs a miracle that can only be accomplished via the expert use of a two part relic
>it's in the possesion of two kabbalists who are the only ones qualified to use their piece
>they have this kind of relationship with each other

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4fx6BjWEqk

I've got to be honest, I hate that after a year ad a half of research, I can safely conclude that jewish culture doesn't exist

How the fuck did we manage to go for 2000 years without developing unique traditional forms of art, architecture, fashion, or folkore?

>>81321299
You’re kidding, right? Have you looked at all?

>>81321317
>art
we have a traditional form of papercraft, a form of calligraphy similar to islamic calligraphy, and decorative religious implements made from silver, only one of which is reasonably common knowledge and not identifiable at first glance unless hebrew letters or a star of david are present

>architecture
there are some syngogues made of wood in the style of churches from the same area that were made of wood. Israel has a unique form of sandstone used in buildings, by the style is no different from surrounding areas. That's it

>fashion
I have yet to find any article of jewish clothing that doesn't look ridiculous

>folklore
the golem and the dybbuk are about all you get. All other mythological creatures are duplicates of things from other cultures. our religion is skeleton for far more popular religions, so we really don't have much to call our own

the simple fact is, I shouldn't even NEED to look to find examples. Not to be a weeb, but every time I watch a youtube video on japanese history and culture I spend the whole time seething with jealousy that I got stuck with the one heritage that has no culture

>>81318775
How do you convince Zebulon to work with the pimp, the scoundrel, the sorcerer?

>>81321528
>All other mythological creatures are duplicates of things from other cultures
Can you give some exemples for what you mean with this?

>>81216566
Oh, you mean modern day.

>>81321299
Lots of persecution? If you're hated by everyone and their mother, to add a little hyperbole in there, for your religion and culture, you're going to want to avoid standing out and try to assimilate more.

>>81325329
Hell, even when Jews are completely assimilated you have cunt-faces claiming they can never truly assimilate and will always be fifth columnists.

>>81299613
Israeli Jew here, Hassidic Jews also do not explicitly say "Elohim" (God) but "Elokim" instead for the same reason as >>81293906.

>>81321528
Fellow Kike. Half the reason there is no cool Jewish folklore is because of the Haskalah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskalah, which is basically when a bunch of assholes decided to suck Protestant dick and destroy everything. The reason it's hard to find is because it's literally been destroyed for everyone but the Orthodox because it's 'embarrassing'. We invented the succubus, the repeating phantasm and have the weirdest spin on the werewolf I've ever seen.

>Architecture
Kinda hard when you're a wandering minority, it'd be like asking to find Mandean, Yezidi, or post destruction Maya architecture.
>Sidenote
Japanese folklore with some exceptions is actually pretty similar to Chinese folklore in the same way Jewish is similar to pre islamic middle eastern.. The fact that European Jewish culture continued to resemble babylonian shit rather than Europe says a lot.
Remember in terms of symbolism and mythology the Japanese are jealous of us.

>>81224676
Brah, the fact that this guy referenced dozens of abrahamic figures, should really spell a red flag for you.

>>81217032
>>81217297
>>81217512
>>81217729
>>81217878
That's all very very interesting and seems like it would make a kickass game. Sadly I only understood like 30% of that, tops.

>>81302465
>the Old Testament is basically a blueprint for how god made the world
This is largely kabbalah. Mainstream Judaism reads the Torah as (divinely inspired/ordained) human writing, and as such is constrained by human language and comprehension. Traditionally, the most perfect of all literatures, but we can hardly compare the WORDS of the prophets like Isaiah to what they actually experienced/understood internally.

>>81302604
Funnily enough, these 'various actions' are literally just good deeds (tzedakah) if we're talking mainstream. There's no 'magic' involved in becoming holy except by acting holy; that is, by acting like God (perfectly good). I would know, having trawled my congregation's mahzor's study anthology earlier today during yom kippur! If it makes it easier to understand, you can draw a parallel to the Christian idea that good deeds are performed by the holy spirit/Christ, acting through you (though not the same theological idea), but it generally stems from the idea that God is immanent and omnipresent, so the only thing holding us back from God is our own (fallible) selves.

Note that this is different from becoming a 'prophet', since prophets are almost by definition chosen by God. One cannot 'work towards' being chosen, like it's some sort of exam, but that isn't to say that being more in-touch with God is a bad thing. Plus, a funny running theme in Judaism is that basically every prophet argues with God at some point, whether literally (Abraham in Gemorrah) or by deeds (Jonah fleeing from duty); the emphasis here also being that prophets are still only men and thus imperfect.

>>81302834
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees

The ones you listed are only the archetypes that others have drawn around Jews. History and folklore is long and complicated; you have plenty to pick from if you know where to look.

>>81304624
This all sounds very kabbalah/mystical hasidic to me. The goal of mainstream Judaism isn't to become a prophet or achieve enlightenment or become 'one' with God or gain magical powers, it's to simply live a good live in awe of God and service of one another, so it doesn't even sound like something that would normally come up. You can live a good, fulfilling, righteous life already, why do you seek for the profane!

As for being born with magic, closest thing I can think of is the tzadikim nistarim: the 36 people for whose sake the world exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim

>>81321528
The problem is that you're specifying 'unique', when nothing is really unique (Ecclesiastes 1 for a citation). The ancient Hebrews were well-connected with neighbouring Egypt, Syria, Babylon, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Yemen... they were at the literal crossroads for near-east trade. Anything they had would be filtered into their neighbours, and anything their neighbours had would be filtered into their own.

>art
Commandment to not create false idols being interpreted as a commandment to not make ANY image, for orthodox people (same reason Islamic calligraphy flourished). You could argue that aniconism is one of the defining, near-unique features of Judaism, and what especially separates it from all its neighbours. However, setting that aside, Christianity doesn't really have any real symbols either besides:
>two sticks
>triangle
>greek letter(s), sometimes drawn like a fish

Yes, there's obviously more you can pull out, but these are the main ones. Similarly, if you want to pull out the main Jewish symbols, you are just left with the menorah, star of David, and Hebrew lettering. There's more out there across the diaspora (sephirot, lulav, dove with olive branch, the literal Torah/tablets of commandments themselves...), plus common motifs that feature in art (pomegranates, hamsa, Aten-style light beams...).

>architecture
Since the diaspora, Jews have adopted local architecture for their own use, which is pretty practical all things considered. Synagogues vary considerably in look as a result, but what you should look at is how they all maintain the same themes, woven into the local baseline they lent from.

>fashion
Ridiculous is something I can agree with, but it's still something. Diaspora also results in Jews, as a whole, changing their clothing to fit once again fit the locals. You can't expect the bene israel Jews of India to be wearing the same clothes as the ashkenazi Jews of Russia!

>>81333513
I wasn't trying to imply holy texts were literally the word of god- just that they are still the holiest texts in judaism that lay out the closest thing to a blueprint to god's workings.

Like I said though, it requires a lot of reading in between the lines.

>>81334208
So to phrase it one way, it's like asking why there's no unique Switzerland folklore and fantasy.

Know I've been essayposting tonight, but I've been really enjoying the thread.

>>81334349
>Like I said though, it requires a lot of reading in between the lines.
If one thing turned me personally away from traditional rabbinic Judaism towards a more fundamental 'essence' of monotheism, it was this reading between the lines. Talmudic commentary often reads like pulling commandments out of thin air! (That said, the debates that follow are entertaining reads, and the resulting culture of discussion is definitely a good thing, so I guess that's something.)

Speaking of which, another mystical Jewish thing not yet mentioned in the thread: numerology/gematria. Quite old and, while not unique to Judaism in concept, has definitely persisted very strongly (especially since Hebrew numerals are literally just letters).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria

>>81334367
Precisely. Obviously you can point to 'Swiss icons', like the alpine horn, but that's also found in the French and Austrian Alps. (Not sure if the shofar, on the other hand, is used anywhere else...)

As a tangential analogue, I've seen people complain at/deride Britain for having no culture (any more), whereas to me it's exactly the same. Sit at the crossroads of cultures (since empire) and your uniqueness is bound to dissipate, disperse, and generally mix with others, until there's not much left that really feels like 'you'. That doesn't make British culture any less identifiable or impactful, it just means you need to change the criteria you're looking for.

>>81321299
A couple extra things I just remembered.

>music
Jewish music draws on local things once again (compare klezmer to traditional slavic music), but it remains distinct and easily recognisable.

>language
Besides Hebrew, you've got off the top of my head Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Tat, Karaim... Diaspora means linguistic diversity, all with some degree of common ground.

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I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but I have an idea for an extremely jewish action hero character that I don't know what to do with. I originally wanted him to be a dnd character but his power set doesn't really translate well into 5e. I have two ideas for stories featuring him, but I want to tell them visually and I can't draw

his name is Levi Cantor. He's a golem made in the image of his creator's son who was killed by german nationalists. Levi is gifted but unimaginative, and due to his nature is a pariah in their jewish community. His only friend is Sully King, the town shyster who roped him into a scheme selling counterfeit art and "aryan artifacts" to the burgeoning nazi party. Unbeknownst to him, King is a kabbalist, and even older than he looks. The man's been waiting for history to repeat himself, and in their little village that time has finally arrived

>>81321528
Can't help but notice you've completely overlooked Philosophy there, boss.
Filo of Alexandria, Maimonides, Spinoza before he got kicked out. And probably a few dozen other wise old assholes that I could remember if I could make sense of half of it.

>>81334208
>(same reason Islamic calligraphy flourished
So they decided to make fancy writing instead of regular art?

>>81321528
>the simple fact is, I shouldn't even NEED to look to find examples. Not to be a weeb, but every time I watch a youtube video on japanese history and culture I spend the whole time seething with jealousy that I got stuck with the one heritage that has no culture
I can't agree more, we have some great base stuff to work with but we never develop anything from it. I wish we had some sort of cultural awakening that would bring out our potential but for now we are not much more then a western satellite

>>81337853
Islamic calligraphy is such a big deal as an artform because, like the Talmud, a few passages of the hadith and various commentaries afterwards warn against depicting living things, both as a result of the rejection of idolatry (how can we worship material things if we don't have any to look at?) and as an affirmation of Allah's creation (any art is but a pale imitation of the actual thing). If I remember correctly, there's also the saying that, upon death, a painter is asked to breathe life into his creations, just as Allah breathed life into his. The painter invariably fails, and is therefore damned to hell.

Basically, aniconism as a doctrine encourages/forces artists to pursue alternative media.

It's obviously a fairly alien concept to most of Christianity (which did have its own iconoclasms but not nearly as widespread), since the entire religion is propped up on Jesus being both God and man. Men can be depicted, thus by depicting Jesus you depict God. Hinduism has a middle ground: one cannot fathom the infinite Brahman, but we can think about a limited, anthropomorphic manifestation/projection of one of Brahman's aspects. So, (hopefully) without forgetting the absolute realness of Brahman, you can direct your thoughts and prayers to an icon, simply depicting part of an infinite whole.

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Bump for my kikebros, this is the most interesting thread in ages.

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So I just read this book and it had some interesting ideas. I knew YHWH wasn't the king of the gods but this implies that he's actually the deified lawful good human sorcerer Enoch. Also learned that Adonai means regent or governor while Ba'al means owner, like in the way you own cattle.

>>81340069
I think even the greeks believed that the Gods were unfathomable in their true form, even causing death upon any who see them this way. But they had no problem depicting them as humans, expecting the audience to understand that it's merely one form the gods can take of many. I believe the Egyptians had a similar stance.

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>>81342537
Egyptian gods are weird robots who all live in the underworld, so it's possible. Greek gods liked looking like humans but it's more like a favored set of clothes.

>>81342610
>Egyptian gods are weird robots
?

>>81342136
Move to Israel, russki. You can celebrate there the victory of your kind in the great patriotic war.

>>81216566

Is this Loss?

>>81344025
lolwut?
It was a legitimate question. What did you mean by the Egyptian gods being robots? Also, while you're at it what has Russia to do with any of it?

>>81346022
NTAYRT but I think he was also NTAYRT

>>81346022
>What did you mean by the egyptian gods being robots

They don't have personalities or really internal agency with the exception of Amun and maybe Horus. Besides that they continued the same functions each year and their sacrifices were for upkeep rather than placation, covenant, etc.

>this thread
So that's where Unknown Armies got all their kooky shit like Archetypes and Personamancy

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>>81217878
>General bestiary
Whats the source for any of this? I have a pretty extensive list of angels and celestial beasts and would love to add these

>>81346758
I think that's a gross misunderstanding of Egyptian Mythology. Egyptian Mythology is famously fluid, owing to being thousands of years old, with Horus being unseated by Isis due to going Senile, and Set being upgraded to god of evil.

The gods of Egypt had boring personalities, because the Egyptians believed that the forces that controlled the universe were ultimately stable and predictable ones- as Egypt enjoyed centuries of relative peace with few disruptions. I mean Apollo does the same thing day after day, he carries the sun across the sky. That doesn't make him a robot.

In accordance with this view, the Goddess Sekhmet. She was created when Horus went senile, and as a result people stopped worshipping him. In retribution he made the Lion Goddess Sekhmet, who then went on a rampage killing all the humans and drinking their blood. The Gods recognizing this to be a problem, got her drunk, and split her into two gods- in some versions Bastet, in other versions Hoth. This resulted in her still being a bloodthirsty warrior, but one who could reign it in when it wasn't time for war.

She was the Goddess of War, and represented how Egyptians viewed it as a fundamentally chaotic force that is hopefully brief and should be avoided as much as possible.

>>81237188
>>81237215
Also, if I recall, the NGE guys specifically pulled from Judeo-Christian imagery because it was NOT usual in Japan, for obvious reasons.

I kind of want to have Asura fight Jewish demons, now.

>>81248136
>>81243826
Just to add: prior to Christ, Satan was more like the Prosecutor for God than a BBEG.

>>81348802
I wonder what prompted the change? Or how people who hold the Bible as absolute truth handle it, for that matter.

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I have a world-building question. This'll probably come across as weird, but I'm trying to shake up the 7 Princes of Hell by swapping three of them out. As they stand, the 7 Princes are:

Lucifer: pride
Mammon: greed
Asmodeus: lust
Leviathan: envy
Beelzebub: gluttony
Satan: wrath
Belphegor: sloth

I'd like to remove and replace Lucifer, Satan, and Leviathan from the list. Can you suggest other demons that would be appropriate in taking their place? And, for bonus points, is it possible to have the names of the 7 Princes each start with a different letter?

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>Jewish Mysticism
Just read Unsong
Either you start to understand how all the weird shit like Grammaton and the Sephirot work from that, or you just nod your head and enjoy the story regardless

>>81348765
>Also, if I recall, the NGE guys specifically pulled from Judeo-Christian imagery because it was NOT usual in Japan, for obvious reasons.
I think there's plenty of thematic reasons for using abrahamic stuff in eva. The most obvious is clear delineation in the conflict, the unknowable and metaphysical are religiously coded, and the mankind's dogged effort is shown through science and engineering. You need imagery with strict dogma, and Christianity has the bonus of being partially associated with conflicts with science. Science vs Buddhism or Shinto traditions wouldnt really work

thats just one, very surface level reason. Sorry about eva autism

>>81349313
Satan was originally just a word for adversary in Hebrew- it'd be like if we created a modern day demon called 'Vil'Lan'. When he new Testament was made into latin and Greek, all these references to an Adversary were lumped together into a singular character- which helps give the bible narrative cohesion as it now has an arc-villain. However, there's still scant few references to hell, demon, and what Satan's job is. That came from syncretization- trying to recontextualize pagan faiths as secretly christian. So now whenever your local myths have a big bad devil, he becomes Satan. This is where Satan gets a lot of his tropes- from former pagan gods, like the goat thing probably comes from depictions of Pan (who while a benevolent god was still meant to be completely terrifying). The idea that he's a trickster and will tempt you into selling your soul comes from pagan trickster gods and crossroad demons.

Satan also gets conflated with Lucifer and the War in Heaven, where he gets a bunch of the rest of his characterization. And naturally since the world will be destroyed following the Rapture, Satan as now the guy in charge of demons gets to do it. However he's also conflated with the Antichrist- AntiChrist is actually exceedingly literal. He's just the opposite of Christ- coming from a priviliged background, being narcissistic instead of humble, greedy instead of generous, professing false beliefs. It's less that the Antichrist is meant to be magic, it's just that when people start worshipping a guy that's the embodiment of the opposite of christ it means the majority chunk of humanity have lost their chance at salvation and it's time for the Rapture.
(cont.)

As for Biblical literalism, that started with the rise of protestantism. In Catholicism and Orthodoxy, readings of the Bible were done by learned Monks- who may have had political leanings about supporting the church, but would read the whole bible and come to the conclusion of 'okay, at least some of this book is fictional or at least metaphorical, but we can 90% agree on which parts happened and which parts didn't, and have a reasonable idea on the rest'. Now of course, they did take things like the earth being only 6000 years old and stuff like the Great Flood as fact, but they also largely dismissed the idea the world is flat.

When the bible became translated in vernacular though, the authority of the priests and monks on the bible was taken away. Part of this was very deliberate to deprive them of that political power, but most doctrine of the Bible staid aside from concepts like predestination and some denominations getting rid of the Eucharest.

I don't know about in Europe, but biblical literalism probably starts in the US with the Puritans. They had a notion that the bible is all you need for a fully functioning society- and as the name implies lived very stringent and rather fundamentalist lives. This is because they had decided they were God's true chosen people, predestined to go to Heaven, while everyone else was doomed to hell. Thankfully though, rather than decide they can sin with impunity with a guaranteed spot in heaven, they were just real snobby about showing off their heavenward asses. But a big part of this was religious education not done by church officials, but by regular teachers (though of course there were puritan priests teaching too).
(cont.)

>>81239216
based

>>81349672
nah it is all cool bro. that and, well, the angels were a really nice twist imo

i loved the shit behind the Chamber of Guf, it was one of the things that really clued me into how weirdly pagan Abrahamic religions could get

>>81349799
This evolved into the Great Awakening movements, a series of religious revivalism often focused on the literal truth of the bible, as you had preachers across the country gathering huge crowds in fields with infamous fire and brimstone speeches. The exact causes of the Great Awakenings aren't known for sure, but they were characterized by concepts of the literal truth of the bible, fundamentalist thinking, and of course, a focus on the end-times. This is also what lead to what's called 'the Great Disappointment' where shortly after the revolution, people started reading the signs and declared that Jesus was about to start the second coming. One man was so certain he jumped off his barn at the chime of midnight where Jesus would grab him in midflight and whisk him away to heaven. This naturally didn't happen.

Much of the secular side of the country looked at the Great Awakening movements with a confused glance, but tended to dismiss them- after all freedom of worship was considered important even in the colonial days, and sure enough after a while they'd dry up in interest and people would move on. But they ended up having deceptive impacts on religious movements in the United States- away from more secular views of faith towards more fundamentalist views.
(cont.)

>>81257161
>>81254114
>>81249528
samefag

>>81249175
I feel yuh brother

>>81349844
The most recent incarnation of this are Evangelicals, who often stress a literal reading of the bible, a religion first view of society, and many other things. Again, I think a part of the issue is freedom of worship in the US- or that is to say there is no official US church, no official stance on this or that issue on the bible. And in lacking that, I think it's led to a bunch of homegrown churches (the catholics and lutherans tend not to be literalists) to come to the determination that the bible is literal truth. To the point that many have tried to sneak religious teaching into US textbooks- one of the more infamous ones saying that Thomas Jefferson (an athiest) based the Constitution on the Bible (the Bible being many things, none of them an endorsement of democratic ideals).

>>81349754
The theologists who posit that Revelations was a prophecy for Rome's fall... that makes the description of the Anti-Christ even more humorous with the excesses of Emperors towards the fall.

>>81349857
I mean personally I see a lot of parallels between Donald Trump being a greedy braggart millionaire born into privilege being lauded by hardcore christians humorous, but that's neither here nor there.

>>81349951
>I see a lot of parallels between Donald Trump being a greedy braggart millionaire born into privilege being lauded by hardcore christians humorous
I can no longer take you seriously after that cringe ass statement mein nigger.

>>81349951
eh, too easy, and i say that as someone who thought orange man bad unironically. besides, we have HAD a lot of asshole braggart millionaire fuckwits being worshiped, figuratively or otherwise. trump wasnt the last rotten dickhead loved by the christian right, after all.

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>>81349960
What is with the reddit tourist lately? If they just didn't type like pic related, then maybe they could fit it.

>>81349991
redditors and other leftist came here after during the 2020 election, because they mistook people shitting on migtards as them supporting there clownworld leftist views. It's been lightning up recently especially on /tg/, I guess they realized that /tg/ was not their safe space so they fucked off back to pleddit and leftypol.

>>81350028
>thinking pol is any less cringe than all that shit

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>>81350280
>>thinking pol is any less cringe than all that shit
correct, despite the spergfest that is /pol/ it is still 4chan and a lot of them are more relatively "down to earth", unpozzed, and practical than those "people". Though /pol/ has one huge problem and it's pic related.

can you all fuck off back to your sewer and take your shit takes with you? this is supposed to be a thread about judaic fantasy

>>81349597
>Just read Unsong
Is the actual story any good, or is the mystical angle the only good thing about it?

>>81352277
It's a fun and good read if you're a fan of Douglas Adams style writing, because there are parts where the story feels like some weird kabbalistic version of Hitchhiker's Guide