Defining Cosmogony

Cosmogony is defined as a theory of the origin or creation story of a world or universe.  This includes myths, religious beliefs, scientific theories, or any kind of study concerning world origins.

The 4 Questions

1) Why does your World Exist?

There are four general reasons why a world might exist.  These have many flavors, derivations, and combinations:

1. Intentional Creation
   1. Real world examples include religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism.
   2. Usually this involves a single god, though it could be a pantheon, who creates the world because He wants to—from a desire for relationship, as a manifestation of good, etc.
2. Emergent Creation
   1. Real world examples include many ancient pagan beliefs such as the Norse, Greeks, Romans, Fertile Crescent cultures, etc.
   2. This involves the world being created from something else. This may be for seemingly random reasons, at least to a modern audience.
   3. It could emerge from chaos, for example, or from the body of someone powerful such as in Babylonian or Norse myths.
3. Iterative Creation
   1. A real world example is Greco-Roman myth.
   2. In a sequence of ages, different deities, powers, or dominant species are each usurped in turn. Often, the current dominant species births or creates the species that will supplant it.
4. Evolving Creation
   1. A real world example is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
   2. All otherworldly and spiritual elements are removed with creation instead becoming random chance.
   3. Since the fantasy genre often includes the spiritual and supernatural directly manifesting in the physical world, this option may have the greatest implications.
      1. If there is no spiritual element to a world then all fantastical elements must have scientific explanations.
      2. The risk is that removing the wonderment, a core foundation of the genre, may render your world lifeless if it isn’t done right.
   4. Combative Creation
      1. Real world examples, once again, include Babylonian and Norse myths.
      2. This reason for creation can easily combine with Emergent or Iterative creation.
      3. A battle between the gods, good and evil, chaos and order, etc. creates the world.
      4. The world comes to be either as a byproduct, accident, unexpected result, or as a weapon.
         1. In the latter example, one or both sides create worlds or races as weapons in a great celestial war.

Bonus Question:  Why are the races that inhabit your world sentient instead of just instinctual or automatons? 

• If God or a pantheon of gods creates sentient races, then there must be a reason why these races were given freewill.
• Freewill means that individuals or an entire race could turn on their creator, making it a risk.
• What makes that freewill worth the risk?

2) How was the World Created?

The answers to this question will be influenced by the answers to the “Why” question.

How powerful is the creator or creators of your world?  Is it an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God who creates the world in an instant?  Or does it take a great deal of mental, physical, magical, or spiritual effort on the part of the creator(s)?  (Questions of this sort will be covered in greater detail in a future video on Religion)

1. Instantaneous Creation
   1. Instant or very-quick creation usually occurs in monotheistic worlds with an all-powerful, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God.
   2. One alternative of many would be instant creation as an unintended consequence of celestial warfare.
      1. This option may be a stretch for audiences looking for more “logical” or “grounded” explanations, but is a plausible analogue to many of our world’s creation myths.
   3. Methodical Creation
      1. This option is a good choice for a pantheon of cooperative or combative deities who are powerful but omnipotent.
      2. In this scenario, one god may have to wait for another god to complete a preliminary project before completing his task (e.g. the seas can’t be filled with water until the basins to hold them are hollowed out).
      3. Rivalry between the deities may result in unexpected outcomes.
   4. Creation at a Crawl
      1. This is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in practice.
      2. Creation could occur under the careful guidance of an Intelligent Designer or as random chance in a godless universe.
      3. Because of the long time-horizon, if this model is used, then it is unlikely that any of the peoples of the world will have Perfect Knowledge of creation (see previous video).
   5. Iterative Creation
      1. Each new dominant power or species adds to, modifies, or otherwise alters creation.
      2. Often in this circumstance, each new iteration is not only different but also weaker than those who came before.

When considering the “How,” you aren’t bound by a single choice.  There could be layers of powers each using a different methodology and/or establishing cosmological laws that ensure the world will continue to adapt and change with time after the major creative work is completed (such as plate tectonics causing a created world to change shape over time).

3) What did the World come from?

1. The World came from Nothing
   1. This often, but not always, corresponds with Instantaneous Creation
   2. Nothing suddenly becomes something
2. The World came from Something Else
   1. This frequently relate to Emergent or Iterative Creation
   2. The world emerges from something else and/or is gradually shaped over time.
3. The World is an Accident
   1. This may relate to Celestial Warfare or Evolving creation, for example
   2. The world wasn’t intended by any grand design but… here it is!
4. The World is Cyclical rather than Linear
   1. Real world examples of this include Hinduism and ancient Greek beliefs.
   2. Concerning beginnings, there are three main options:
      1. Long ago, there was a beginning and the Cycles have perpetuated since then.
      2. There never was a beginning to the world, it has been eternally Cyclical

• The beginning of the world isn’t known by anyone, its origins (or lack thereof) being lost to the turnings of the cycle

1. In a Cyclical world, the “creation” story may become irrelevant, replaced instead by the nature of the Cycles themselves.
2. Cycles may have varying levels of significance. For example:
   1. World-sweeping Cycles where there is an utterly collapse between each Cycle that erases all memory.
   2. Societal Cycles where a realm (or realms) emerges, expands, becomes dominant, decadent, and then collapses before repeating the cycle.

• Individual Cycles that focus instead on individual reincarnation.

4) Can you skip Cosmogony entirely?

The short answer is “no”.  No, you do not need to have a cosmogony.  But failure to address it will result in an underlying weakness to your project. 

A perfectly valid method of addressing Cosmogony is to determine that no one has “Perfect Knowledge” of creation, not even you (see previous video).  With this answer, the societies of the world will develop their own beliefs, faiths, etc. around how they believe everything started.

Failure to address it at all, though, means the world will lack an entire fundamental question of existence.  Beliefs about the origins of the world have a huge influence on the value placed upon life, ordered society, the world itself, and so on.

Creation can be hidden behind a Cataclysm.  However, even in this case it is useful to have at least a rough idea of how the world began.  The reasons why a world began will often endure through a Cataclysm, even if the survivors don’t realize it.

Final Recommendations

1. Give rough answers to the above questions early in your worldbuilding process.
2. You can change your mind later!
3. But your initial answers give you a bedrock to start from.
4. Flesh out inspirations now… refine the rest later.