Introduction

Throughout the 20th century, scientists and nations engaged in a race against each other to create the most powerful weapons known to man, nuclear bombs. When the bombs were finally created and tested, it seemed as if man was harnessing the power of a god. But what if instead of these atomic weapons, the world searched out to find the true weapons of the gods?

This storybook will reveal an alternate 20th century, one where the nations of the world search for, find, and use the mythic weapons from Indian myth in an epic tale. It will follow an archaeologist searching for relics in India, an Occult Nazi leader, and a few more in between. The timeline diverges before the Second World War, when the Nazi's find the first of many mythic weapons, resulting in a rapid scramble to find the others that have been scattered around the globe...

The archaeologist will have to face off against the Nazis and the Occult at every turn in order to prevent the weapons from falling into dangerous hands. Lives will be lost, cities destroyed, and at the end, the very existence of our world as we know it.

I hope to be able to take different tales from Indian mythology and weave them into my own tale, mirroring events in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. I also hope to be able to craft an entertaining and engaging story that shows both sides of this epic conflict, illustrating the duality of any war. Finally, I want to be able to mix these ideas with settings familiar to stories featuring a certain archaeologist with a penchant for hats and whips.

This story was written by Callum Maguire for the Indian Epics course for the Spring semester in 2018. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this story and I hope any who see this in the future enjoy it as well.