What is your favorite mythological figure (of ancient religions only)?

Prometheus

It might seem like a subjective question, but the answer is objectively Prometheus and his replacements in other cultures.

Someone that went against God(s) to give humans knowledge that at the time was considered magical

Like, we talk about how much tech changes stuff today, but fucking fire?

Imagine being alive when your group of humans mastered fire. That shit would have been fucking mind breaking.
- He is the one that have humans fire and was chained to the rock for all time while having his guts eaten by a bird each day which healed each night?
- Being alive in the time fire was invented - well it's hard to say since it was Homo Erectus who did so, some millions of years ago. Modern humans are very different from good ole' Erectus, and we think differently, so... the tale of Prometheus is a good one for sure, but it's also much younger than the actual history of human control over fire.
  
  Source: https://study.com/academy/lesson/how-did-stone-age-man-make-fire-discovery-importance-facts.html

Odin is cool af.

Any trickster god.

Anubis and Thoth weighing the heart of the dead to see if it is as light as a feather before letting them into the afterlife.

I love the idea that there's no "do this, do that", or a concrete set of rules or commandments. But the idea that if you can look back on your life, and if your heart isn't weighed down with the burden of all of the things that you did that know we're just wrong...then you can go on to the afterlife.

It's just no much more of a reasonable, adult approach to morality.

So, the guy who kicked a kitten at age three and still broods about it goes to hell, and the war criminal who feels justified for bombing civilians gets off scot free?
- Actually...yes. At least for the "war criminal". I think the point is that you can't hide your inner feelings from the feather. So if you genuinely, in the deepest depths of your heart, have no qualms about bombing civilians then you're fine.
  
  I think this points out the fundamental relativistic nature of morality and how the feather copes with it. Everyone has some sort of moral compass, and the feather measures how true you were to it. And really, what more can you ask of anyone? Decide, for yourself, what is right and what is wrong and stick to it.
  
  Putting aside the fact that a toddler probably lacks the intellectual or emotional development to have a truely personal morality, I cannot imagine that someone who "broods" all their life over kicking a kitten when they were three is anything other than the nicest most moral person you'll ever meet. I don't think that have any trouble with Anubis and Thoth.
Anub

I'd pick Anubis if I was a furry.

So...Anubis.

I like the various mythologies for psychopomps; Anubis, Charon, grim reapers, Azrael, Vanth, valkyries, etc.

psychopomps?

"Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the 'guide of souls')[1] are creatures, spirits, angels, demons, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.[2]"

cool, thanks.

If you like psychopomps, you should play Spiritfarer, you get to be a psychopomp. and it's comforting.

Mainly, Lilit(h). Not mythological for me, although both Sumerian and Jewish Kabbalah are generally said as "mythological" by historical references.

I believe in a Goddess that extends beyond a single archetype, while I try to blend archetypes and concepts from various religions and "myths" in order to materialize my own understanding of existence and cosmos.

For me, She is Lilith/Lilit (the fearsome Sumerian Goddess of Winds as well as the Demoness and First Woman not banished from Eden as She fled on Her Will), She is Kali (the fearsome Hindu Goddess and Demoness of destruction and transformation), She is the Yin (the receptive Darkness complementing whilst opposing the Yang light) and the Tao (the wholeness and oneness), She is Al-Lat / Allatu (the Pre-Islam Arabic Goddess of War and Fertility), She is Isis and Bastet and Naunet (Egyptian Goddesses) She is Asherah (Hebrew Goddess consort/sister of Yahweh), She is Ereshkigal and Inanna (Sumerian Goddesses), She is Nuit and She is the Scarlet Woman (Thelemite Goddesses), She is Hekate (the Greek Goddess of Magic and Moon) and Aphrodite (the Greek Goddess of Love) and Athena (the Greek Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare) and Gaia (Goddess of Earth), She is Morana (Slavic personification of Death) and a feminine counterpart of Thanatos (Greek personification of Death as well), and so on, but mainly, Lilith Herself, as beautifully multifaceted as She is, both motherly nurturing and darkly reaping, neither good nor evil, just... Her nature.

I believe in a Sacred and Dark Feminine energy that's inside and outside everywhere, reaching scientific and philosophical concepts such as the entropy, the fields (as in electromagnetic field), the primordial soup from the beginning of earthly life, the quantum fluctuations, the apeiron, the Nietzschean Abyss. She's the shining Darkness, infinite nothingness, omnipresent wholeness and the cosmic Oneness.

In summary, the Dark Mother Goddess, often manifesting to me by Her Lilith's archetype.

Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire. Fantasy novel where a group of Berkley students and faculty are manifestations of Diana and other Moon Gods. Evil alchemists, noble golems, the whole schmear.

Demeter is up there.

Her baby father (Zeus), aka the big douchebag, married away her daughter Persephone to his brother Hades. Patriarchy does what patriarchy does. The brothers were aware neither Persephone nor Demeter would approve of the deal so Hades had to kidnap Persephone and force the deal upon her.

So Persephone were abducted and her mother were beyond herself with worry about her absence. Once Demeter learnt about the deal she threw the hissy fit that all hissy fits are measured against. Plants stopped growing, livestock stopped giving birth and the world soon was in a cataclysmic state. Behold a mother's justified wrath and tremble.

Douchebag-in-chief was forced to negotiate but wouldn't anull the whole deal. Only that Persephone would spend half her time with her mother (spring, summer) and the other half with the husband forced upon her (autumn, winter).

This comment alone is making me interested in Greek mythology. I'd like to know more. Any reading suggestions toward that end?
- Not as much reading but I'm taking much of my cues regarding mythology from Red over at Overly Sarcastic Productions (https://www.youtube.com/@OverlySarcasticProductions).
  
  Two related videos
  Wrath of Demeter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhhANZKerug
  Hades and Persephone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac5ksZTvZN8
  
  What I especially like about their content is that there is plenty of source critique. Things are seldom presented as "this is the exact truth". Mentioned in the video about Hades and Persephone is "we don't know the original myth" which I find telling of much of their mythology work.
- Im currently listening to an audiobook by Arthur C Clarke called 'The Greeks' which is about ancient greek history.
  
  Ive also listened to Stephen Fry's 'Mythos' which is about ancient Greek mythology.
  
  I would strongly recommend them both.

The Demiurge. Not that I like the Demiurge itself. But explaining the human condition as being a product of bad design appeals to me. I don't believe the myth and I'm not religious. But as far as myths go, that one is my fave.

Perun. Kinda like Thor, but without whoring for Marvel.

Axe is cooler than hammer as well.

Satan and Dionysus tie for first in my book.

I think Odyssey is a pretty cool guy. Eh trojans hores and doesnt afraid of anything.

Could you mean the book by Homer the poet, The Odyssey?
- Well the Odyssey's MC and title character is Odysseus.

Hands down it's Dionysus for me. He keeps his promises.

Cool story

Talos

Chill out there, Heimskr.

Ganesha

You'd get to hang with a rat too.

The Shintō sun goddess Amaterasu is quite interesting. As is the whole Shintō origin story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_%2B_The_Divine

the tl, dr is that every 90 years a dozen young people become reincarnations of various ancient gods from all over the world. Amaterasu is one of these.

Fun book and worth a look

Lord Enma (or Yama) rules over a pretty cool buddhist hell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)

Diomedes, he got eaten by horses, which sounds metal as fuck.

Mara

NSFW

Ninshubur. Dude is badass.

The ghost of Christmas future

Ezekiel.

That guy want on a peyote trip in the middle of the desert and literally saw God.

Eldad HaDaani (Eldad the Daanite). Not a major figure but he was like a classic bard in D&D. Told of his travels - which are referenced in songs made out of the literature talking about him. Said he had encountered a river that nobody knew where it was and is considered like lore (the Sambatyon). Anyway I always felt like it was a cool story. I never read all that much of him but growing up as Orthodox Jewish he’s mentioned in some things we sang and I always equated him as being a perfect Bard for a D&as campaign.

Baron Samedi

Big fan of The Left Hand Path. It is many things to many people but my understanding is that within the left hand path comes the notion that growth is catalyzed by conflict. If all things align with your morals and situations you have reached stasis. Conflict challenges the self to overcome and grow. Thus I am able to look at a world full of conflict as full of opportunities to grow, and able to understsnd the fact that conflict will always eventually arise as the fact that we will always be able to grow.

Cybele, Mithras, Harpocrates

inb4: the God of the Abrahamic religions hurr durr

Yeah, that asshole is nobody's favorite.
But is it Yhwh or El?
- Ah now that's a trick question, because the Abrahamic god is in fact an amalgam of both, which is why he's so derangedly bipolar in the Old Testament!
- There are numerous names and in fact, there are sources which I cannot recall, that said his full name was like 24 letters long or something like that. Not surprising since he’s a hodgepodge of lots of prior mythos and was probably written of and modified over hundreds of years.