Tree of Savior Forum

Baltic Mythology and Tree of Savior

Off-Topic
#1

As you probably know Tree of Savior draws heavily on Baltic mythology. I say Baltic on purpose cose it often says Lithuanian mythology when in fact most Baltic tribes (ethnic groups and nationalities today) mostly share the same belifes with little difference in between.

Although Balts were christianized pretty late (15th century) the knowledge about their belifes is pretty incomplete. Their mythology is similar to Norse and Slavic (World Tree, similar gods). They warshiped a wide variety of gods and godesses that were personification of nature, weather effects and celestial bodies. Tree of Savior developers took just few (and interestingly only female - early Baltic tribes were matrialchal, but I don’t think thats the reason ^^) dieties:
Laima, godess of fate. She is associated with childbirth, marriage, and death. In Latvian mythology she is one of the three fate goddesses (similar to Greek Moiraies). In Lithuanian mythology she aparentlly doesn’t have sisters but is related to Dalia (also goddess of fate) and Giltinė (goddess of death)

Giltinė, goddess of death. Also known as The Reaper, Maras (Plague), Kolera (Cholera) etc. Her sacral bird is the owl. She has sister called Laimė (goddess of good luck) which is not to be confused with Laima (devs missed this one).

Saulė, the sun goddess. She is goddess of life and fertility, warmth and health, patroness of the unfortunate, especially orphans. She had a daughter with Mėnuo (Moon). Her name is Žemyna (Earth).

Žemyna, goddess of the Earth. She personifies the fertile earth and nourishes all life on earth, human, plant, and animal. All that is born of earth will return to earth, thus her cult is also related to death.

Gabija, goddess of fire. She is the protector of home and family. Gabija could take forms of a cat, stork, rooster, or she could appear as a woman clothed in red. If you piss on fire you piss her off apparently ^^’

Vakarinė, goddess of the Evening Star. She makes the bed for Saulė in the evening.

Other stuff:
Krivis are priests in Romuva, a neopagan religion from Lithuania based on pre-christian belifes of Baltic people. Aukuras is an altar made from pile of stones on top of which is fire lit. People sing Dainas around the fire. Daina (Daino in the game) is a vocal folk music in the Baltic languages, and is preserved in Lithuania and Latvia. Lithuanian dainos (meaning “songs”) are often noted not only for their mythological content, but also for relating historical events.
Žaltys (probably Zalciai), the grass snake (common snake in Europe, Natrix natrix in latin), is a household spirit and a sacred animal of the sun goddess Saulė. It is a guardian of the home and a symbol of fertility.
Žaibas (Zaibas ingame) means lightning in Lithuanian. Lightning is associated with thunder god Perkūnas (similar name to Slavic thunder god Perun and both of those gods connected to Parjanya from Vedic religion).
Melstis means to pray in Lithuanian.

Dievdirbys means “God Carver” in Lithuanian. They were the wood carver that carved statues of Jesus or Christian saints out of one piece of wood with simple tools.**
The Owl Statue is probably connected to Giltinė,
Ausrine is Lithuanian goddess Aušrinė, the Morning Star, Vakarinė’s counterpart (both Morning Star and Evening Star are Venus in case you didn’t know x). Mėnuo (Moon), Saulė’s (Sun) husband had an affair with Aušrinė. He and Saulė divorced but both of them wanted to see their daughter Žemyna (Earth) so that’s why Sun shines in the day and Moon shines in the night.
Austras Koks (meaning Solar Tree) is a usually rectangular pattern that represents world tree often found in Latvia. It symbolises the growth of people that is connected to Sun’s energy and the order of life*. In Romuva religion it is called Twilight Tree (according to wiki article).
*credits to Nekumata from Tree of Savior reddit page
** credits to galguts81

Here are two most known folk stories from Lithuania:
Jūratė and Kastytis - supershort version: sea goddess Jūratė falls in love with young fisherman Kastytis and they live underwater in her castle made of amber. Thunder god Perkūnas gets jelaous and destroys her castle with his lightning and Baltic sea is washing ashore amber to this day (this is true, there’s a lot of amber there).
Eglė the Queen of Serpents - another supershort version: Eglė promises Serpent Prince that she will marry him, her brothers try to trick him but fail and she has to marry him. She lives happily until she visits her brothers with her children after which her brothers kill Serpent Prince.

Additional sites I used:
http://www.lithuanian.net/mitai/cosmos/baltai.htm
Baltic_mythology
Lithuanian_mythology
Latvian_mythology
List_of_Lithuanian_mythological_figures

Feel free to correct me, comment or add something!

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#2

Really nice information about the base backgroud of the game. I really love mythology, even tho i barely read about it. But if i stumble upon some text about it i do read thats for sure.

#3

Hmm, that might be the case. In game, there’s a bunch of them present in the Katyn Forest area. Apparently, they help guide souls or something…? I may have to redo the entire questline on another character to confirm.

#4

On this wiki article there is a short paragraph under “Demonic beings” about Giltinė where it says her’s sacred birds are owls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lithuanian_mythological_figures

#5

while most of the Ragnarok fanbase still views ToS as related to Yggdrasil and Norse Mythology

#6

Nordic, Baltic and Slavic people all have world trees (or at least sacred ones). Yggdrasil is ash, Balts have either oak or ash, and Slavs have either oak or pine.
Well, people who think that probably don’t even care about the backstory anyway, so no harm done ^^

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#7

Its pretty interesting stuff. You can actually see alot of these classes, if not all are and their skills reflect their real life ideals/traditions/roles. The consistency is pretty awesome.

Its cool too skills like Zalciai has the snakes in the skill effect. Among other stuff.

I like the theme alot.

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#8

Thank you for the much needed info! Perhaps there is something interesting to learn about the area names, too? I personally can’t unsee the fact that Katyn Forest is named after the site of a massacre, but maybe it was actually named after something else and the similarity of the name is just a coincidence?

#9

Oh wow, I didn’t know that until now, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence either. Katyn Forest pretty much looks like a haunted forest. The trees move in weird ways, and there’s candles and owl statues that guide lost souls. Most of the quests there involve helping the dead in some way too. There’s no mention of a massacre that happened there though. The place is just simply full of…dead people. :sweat_smile:

#10

Are the translators aware of this? It would be nice if they did so the translations are completely accurate.

#11

I havn’t actually played Tree of Savior so I can’t do much about names in game. Yeah, I knew about that massacre but I forgot the name of the forest and didn’t recognise it… this seems a little over the top - not only is it from near past but it is also a touchy subject. I always tought of that Asians are generally considerete and proper, but this is really disrespectful. It would be a good idea to change the name or at least modify it. But on the other hand maybe no one will care and some will actually learn something ^^

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#12

EDIT:
Dievdirbys means “God Worker” in Latvian.
Added information about Austras Koks.
Removed link to the film about Merya people becose their belifes have nothing to do with Baltic mythology (they seem to have some atheistic belifes) and are only loosely connected to Baltic people (they are either in Volga-Finnic group or in “northwest” group of Finno-Ugric -> Balto-Finnic and Sami).

Credit goes to Nekumata from Tree of Savior reddit page.

#13

Yup.

:tanabata_tree:

#14

Hello. I was curious about all this stuff, goddesses. As myself i recognise as latvian, i was interested in written. How accurate all it is, i can`t confirm atm as i haven’t played the game yet but looking forward to do it. However one i can assure, in latvian there is no such letter as “y”. And google helped me out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dievdirbys
As appears, Dievdirbys is lithuanian word and barely recognised as doing something with mithology.
The biggest disappointment to all (including me), as covjek_elementarna_n mentioned, balts as an ethnic group can be recognised pretty late, influence from west and east made a big mess. This is one of the reasons you can’t read up to date nice books about Baltic Goddesses like books about Greek Mythology, Writing style was changing all the time too. And no hard writing testimony background only mouth to mouth given information.
But Runes is/was pretty strong background where you can recognise presence of deity. I would recommend to dig more that direction :smile:

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#15

Thanks mate! I corrected the Dievdirbys info and gave you the credit ^^

#16

I was so interested in this game just because I live in Klaipėda xD

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#17

My brother searched in google how to get from Orsha to Klaipeda. Imagine his suprise when he got real road map instead of game guide ^^

#18

When I started playing ToS, I had no idea it features Baltic Mythology. I kept playing the game and wondering - Did they really come up with all of these words for this game that are from my own language? ( being Latvian that I am). Then I did a small research and was pleasantly surprised by finding what the game is based onto. :smile_cat:

#19
  • Spoiler -
    In the seventh Revelation there is mention to a supreme God who created both the world and the Goddesses: he should be Dievas (or Dievs), but I’m not sure the rest of the Revelation comes from mythology (with him becoming the world tree and being asleep).
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