Thread:ElsaRules!!!/@comment-3270170-20200127014631/@comment-24588058-20200127211918

I don't think it's unworkable, though. Even if we don't make it a 1:1, the idea is that we de-embelesh them. It seems sorta similar, in a way, to what we did with the Duat. Strip away the "mythology" to reveal what it really is.

In that sense, perhaps the Titans are simply humans that discovered immortality? We know that there are some older artifacts revolving around it, either in combination (the Lenape Tribe Elemental Artifacts) or in experimentation (Philosopher's Stone). It is quite feasible that there is a more ancient artifact delving into the same area.

Perhaps, though, this is a side effect of the AEZ? Immortality to all who enter, but only for the duration you live in there - or slows down the aging process for the duration you are in there. The Titans were "the original kings" in Europe, but their children plotted to overthrow them. When all hope seemed lost, they found Hades and retreated there. The children, the Olympian "Gods", were merely humans with a superiority complex. That would be enough to create the Olympian artifacts, I think - or, if we wanted to keep the mystery, we could say that the artifacts appear to be even older than this.

The Children may have been blessed by slower aging than normal, and they created myths that would long surpass their lifetimes. Those early humans who did do things that the Gods didn't like got thrown into Hades - basically, their parents could deal with it.

As the "Titans" grew, they had more children - except this time they were ones that wouldn't betray them. It continued the civilization, and they would take small excursions out of Hades, spreading new myths and bringing new people. But eventually, as civilization evolved, the Titans realized that there was no longer a place for their myths on the surface. They relegated themselves to the subterranean world they had found millennia ago, forced to call it home - perhaps they stay there because certain genetic mutations have made them distinguishable from humans in such a manner that prevents them from returning to the surface without being able to blend in - even something simple like hair or skin coloration would work (or at least, the hair coloration would be a problem right up until hair dyes became more common - not that they would know that).

We could keep the key parts of the mythology - the Rivers and prisons - and boil them down to reason. The rest of it we could explain using certain "events" as the basis of that part of the mythology, which became embellished over time until the event itself is completely different from what actually transpired (a simple funeral at the mouth of the cave for the children turns into all dead going to Hades, for example).

And we could, at that point, keep a dangerous creature or two to cause trouble, and simply adapt the story to have the original "Gods" asking for help from the surface dwellers.