Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

[Hermit]

"you see, my friends, isn't she marvelous?"

"Bah! The wench is comely enough, Dionysius, but she brought the slaughter to a premature end. It is an insult to me!"

"Oh, piss on your war, Aries. I tell you this one is special."

"This one is mad" another voice says, "I much prefer her other side."

"You would, Athena..."

"She's clearly sided with the so called 'heroes', where is balance?"

"Aries, you only want balance when the sides are against you."

"Make your own champion then, pit her against mine..." Dionysius voice says

 

 

Dear Players of the New Con campaign, you may wish to avoid this thread or risk having some fun spoiled

 

 

Many of you have been of great help in my New Constantinople construction. I thank you, and seek to prevail upon you (and any others) yet again.

 

One of the characters, by the name of Sylph and Maened (any spelling errors mine ) is a character with a split personality of sorts, granted her powers over plants in her more sane form, but all that AND super strength and more in her 'crazier' form by Dionysisus.

 

Those of you who've read the thread know that the God of Wine and Madness has a mortal avatar living in the city. I need now to decide what to do with the other Greek Gods, that I plan to use at least indirectly. Hecate may already have a champion in a villainess of the same name ,but as the post above states, I need one for Aries as well to be an enemy.

 

As it is seabound, perhaps ole Posedian has his eyes on the city. The ole Earth shaker doesn't get enough credit. Zeus or Apollo might mack on the prettier ladies in the town, and who knows, maybe an Avatar of Athena runs a dojo that teaches self defense courses.

 

Any ideas, plot seeds, NPC concepts, etc that are related to the Greek Gods and how they might relate to a city are welcome.

[Cold Steel]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Hercules could be touring the professional wrestling circuit.

 

Ares could threaten the balance by using nukes.

 

Posideon might melt the ice caps to flood the coastal cities in oder to create more of his undersea kingdom.

 

Zeus can take the place of Midas from Dark Champions:TAC.

 

The Titans can make a comeback.

 

Sorry, but that's all i've got for now.

[Hermit]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Nothing to apologize for. I asked for input after all, and you gave me some. Here, have some rep for your help here and on the other thread

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Well, the first thing I did was check The Mystic World to see what mythic gods might be up to in the modern world.

 

According to that, Dionysus has an Earthly avatar named "Dion Bach" who's a major rock star. His concerts tend to be drug- and dance-fueled frenzies, which count as "worship" for him.

 

Hecate has often patronized the Circle of the Scarlet Moon, so perhaps she would have a particular disciple in NewCon who might run afoul of the PCs. As the Circle wields vast non-combat influence, that could cause interesting complications. Hecate also has worshippers among lycanthropes (moon association), neo-pagans, and "seekers of vengeance." Any of these could impact NewCon. OTOH Hecate also cultivates friendly relations with mystic heroes - she likes to play both sides.

 

I noticed an earlier reference on your NewCon thread to the Warlord's interest in the city. Now, the 4E Champs supplement The Olympians suggested Ares leading his own mercenary supervillain team, the Ravagers. Perhaps Ares has a superhuman avatar working as a mercenary around the Pacific Rim, but based out of NewCon. Ares might have an association with the Warlord, everything from colleague to friendly rival; his presence in the city might lead to the Warlord's involvement, or he might be why the Warlord has laid off it up to now.

 

I'll give it some more thought and get back to you.

[Hermit]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Dion Bach is the 'mortal avatar' living in the city I mentioned (It was mystic world that inspired me to give him a manor when he wasn't on tour).

 

I had forgotten about the Ravagers of 4th Ed. I was thinking of just one champion for Aries, but he is the sort to be offered an inch and take a mile, so a whole team under that name might work!

[Cold Steel]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

If you have it, Alien Enemies had a group of enegry beings named after the Roman Gods who possesed people and gave them powers:Jupiter, Luna, Bacchus, Mars, Mercury, and Neptune.

 

Talk about a holy war between the gods.

 

Another thing some of the greek gods such as Hera Or Apollo could oppose the tradtional religions:Catholicism,Judeaism etc. and set up a return to the "old time" faith to those who lost hope.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

I wouldn't necessarily have them all living there. The world's a big place, gods should get use out of it. Ol' Winehead has chosen to keep his vines in New Con, others might be elsewhere. Maybe there's a muse in Los Angeles, Ares bounces around the Middle East and Africa, Aphrodite jets around the world but calls Monaco home, etc.

 

Have Dion as the Olympian in residence, and just have others drop by from time to time to visit, enlist his aid in something, etc. Or maybe this time it's his turn to host the Reunion and they're all in town at once.

[Hermit]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Oh, I wasn't thinking of having them all there, just wondering what you guys thought would be the most likely ones to visit, what few might have avatars there, and what few might have agents there etc.

 

Like the family reunion idea though. That would surely drive my players nuts.

[OddHat]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

If I may briefly pimp my own thread, right now I'm doing up a group of villains based on avatars of the Indo-European Pantheon that eventually became the Greek and Roman gods (if those pushing the theory are to be believed). With a touch of light re-writing, they should work as modern avatars of the Greek gods as well.

 

So far I've posted:

 

BONYENNE - Re writes easily as Atlas or Herakles, the Cultural Hero.

 

YEMOS - Re writes easily as Thantanos, God of the Underworld.

 

DOOMSAYER - Re writes as Zeus, Jupiter, or Vulcan. The Sky God and also the Eternal Smith (proponents of the Indo European Pantheon idea believe that the two roles beame conflated in Finnish Mythology).

 

I'll be posting a parallel to Persephone - Demeter - Athena (Indo European Mythology buffs tend to conflate female divinities quite a bit), i.e. "The Great Goddess" and one to Brontes - Zeus, "The Thundermaker".

 

All you'd need to do is tweek their psych limits to make them loyal to a Greek god (right now they're loyal to the extradimensional being who empowered them) and possibly their SFX.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

The Kong Town film studios are the location for their biggest-budget project yet, starring supermodel/actress Ashley Marlowe, aka Aphrodite. While in NewCon Marlowe takes a shine to a comely PC hero, perhaps wanting him to act as her bodyguard. Aphrodite is used to getting what she wants.

 

OTOH her husband Hephaestus may not be too happy with the hero...

[Cold Steel]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

The Kong Town film studios are the location for their biggest-budget project yet, starring supermodel/actress Ashley Marlowe, aka Aphrodite. While in NewCon Marlowe takes a shine to a comely PC hero, perhaps wanting him to act as her bodyguard. Aphrodite is used to getting what she wants.

 

OTOH her husband Hephaestus may not be too happy with the hero...

 

Not to mention her sometime lover Ares:sneaky:

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Apollo discovers that there's a descendant of the Pythoness, his oracle at Delphi, living in New Constantinople. He decides to start granting her visions of the future, whether she wants them or not. The new oracle could be a DNPC, or even one of the PC heroes.

 

This can be a handy GM tool to get the heroes started in the direction you want, or give them clues when they don't know what to do next. Of course they may first have to convince the oracle (and maybe her family, even the authorities) that she isn't insane.

 

 

 

One of the Greek gods has recently fathered a child in New Constantinople, who is already beginning to show signs of his/her demigod potential. However, the IHA has identified the child as a superhuman mutant and marked it for termination. The god maneuvers the PCs into protecting his baby.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

One of the Greek gods has recently fathered a child in New Constantinople, who is already beginning to show signs of his/her demigod potential. However, the IHA has identified the child as a superhuman mutant and marked it for termination. The god maneuvers the PCs into protecting his baby.

Oooh, when the rest of that baby's extended family hears about this, what they do to the IHA will make the scene from Deliverance look like a Tea Party.

 

TB

[Hermit]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

There's just not enough rep to hand out to LL in one day. :sad:

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

I'd make Hades into a Sher Kahn (as in TaleSpin) style Uber Sophisticated multi-multi-billionaire business man/general shady character.

 

I'd have his back story (in the modern age) be he walks up to the commander of the Fort Knox Gold Repository, says "I'd like to make a deposit" and then promptly makes $100 Billion in gold, silver, and platinum appear. The base commander calls to higher. After some wrangling, the Feds transfer $100 Billion in currency in exchange for the bullion. He is the god of wealth after all.

 

As the world's richest man now, he goes on to build a business empire focusing on Defense, Manufacturing, Chemicals, Mining, and several other heavy industries.

 

However, he does run several service based business such as the highly successful line of coffee houses known as Elysian Fields, a women's clothing store run by his wife called Persephone's Descent and her personal project a 5 star Greek resturaunt known as the Pomegranate Seed .

 

There are rumors that he is deeply involved in underworld activities (heh, no pun intended) Also, there are rumors from witnesses claiming he faught Takophanes (or some other earth shaking Undead Menace) to a standstill in the Oregon wilderness.

 

TB

[Koshka]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

I'm blanking on names right now, I'll have to dig through the bookshelves tomorrow. But, one of the Greek cities was founded by a hero who planted the teeth of a dragon he slew, and the first batch of citizens grew immediately from those teeth. Give a local villain a nice big bag of those teeth, and let your players wonder how that guy got all those loyal combat-trained minions without anyone finding out about the recruitment drive.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

I'd make Hades into a Sher Kahn (as in TaleSpin) style Uber Sophisticated multi-multi-billionaire business man/general shady character.

 

I'd have his back story (in the modern age) be he walks up to the commander of the Fort Knox Gold Repository, says "I'd like to make a deposit" and then promptly makes $100 Billion in gold, silver, and platinum appear. The base commander calls to higher. After some wrangling, the Feds transfer $100 Billion in currency in exchange for the bullion. He is the god of wealth after all.

 

As the world's richest man now, he goes on to build a business empire focusing on Defense, Manufacturing, Chemicals, Mining, and several other heavy industries.

 

However, he does run several service based business such as the highly successful line of coffee houses known as Elysian Fields, a women's clothing store run by his wife called Persephone's Descent and her personal project a 5 star Greek resturaunt known as the Pomegranate Seed .

 

There are rumors that he is deeply involved in underworld activities (heh, no pun intended) Also, there are rumors from witnesses claiming he faught Takophanes (or some other earth shaking Undead Menace) to a standstill in the Oregon wilderness.

 

TB

dayum. He's a favorite of yours then?

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

dayum. He's a favorite of yours then?

Yup, he appeals to my sensibilities.

 

Now get Persephone written up! Please, please, please, please.

 

TB

[freakboy6117]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

how about the NCPD SWAT/suerhuman response team commander being an devotee or avatar of Ares.

[Lucius]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

If I may briefly pimp my own thread, right now I'm doing up a group of villains based on avatars of the Indo-European Pantheon that eventually became the Greek and Roman gods (if those pushing the theory are to be believed). With a touch of light re-writing, they should work as modern avatars of the Greek gods as well.

 

So far I've posted:

 

BONYENNE - Re writes easily as Atlas or Herakles, the Cultural Hero.

 

YEMOS - Re writes easily as Thantanos, God of the Underworld.

 

DOOMSAYER - Re writes as Zeus, Jupiter, or Vulcan. The Sky God and also the Eternal Smith (proponents of the Indo European Pantheon idea believe that the two roles beame conflated in Finnish Mythology).

 

I'll be posting a parallel to Persephone - Demeter - Athena (Indo European Mythology buffs tend to conflate female divinities quite a bit), i.e. "The Great Goddess" and one to Brontes - Zeus, "The Thundermaker".

 

All you'd need to do is tweek their psych limits to make them loyal to a Greek god (right now they're loyal to the extradimensional being who empowered them) and possibly their SFX.

 

Got an online reference for that theory?

 

Hm. I thought the Finns weren't even Indo-European - isnt' their language actually akin to the Turko-Mongolian family?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that despite this, the Finns are somtimes counted among the Scandinavians. Probably because the two groups have been in each other's Lapps for centuries.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

I'm blanking on names right now' date=' I'll have to dig through the bookshelves tomorrow. But, one of the Greek cities was founded by a hero who planted the teeth of a dragon he slew, and the first batch of citizens grew immediately from those teeth. Give a local villain a nice big bag of those teeth, and let your players wonder how that guy got all those loyal combat-trained minions without anyone finding out about the recruitment drive.[/quote']

 

The hero was Cadmus, and the city was Thebes. (I'm a whiz at Greco-Roman Trivial Pursuit.)

[OddHat]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

Got an online reference for that theory?

 

You can always start with Wikipedia.

 

Or you could google.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

This plot seed builds on a suggestion I made on the previous NewCon thread for the region beyond the city:

 

Some twenty miles northwest of New Constantinople sits Mount Cale, the site of a protected Oregon state park. Before the land was protected logging interests attempted to harvest it, but were thwarted by what appeared to be a series of freak accidents. In fact the goddess Artemis had found the area appealing and claimed it as one of her personal hunting grounds, acting to protect it against any who would harm it.

 

Recently a group of poachers entered the park to kill some of the animals there for their body parts, for the lucrative Oriental medicine market. While Artemis doesn't object to the occasional camper or hiker, she has no patience for those who would kill the animals under her protection without permission. As has always been her wont Artemis changed the offending mortals into animals, planning to hunt them at her leisure.

 

The poachers' friends reported them missing (claiming that they're just campers), but park rangers have been unable to find any trace of them. The park commission asks for help from any PC heroes with special sensory abilities (Mind Scan, Detects, Tracking Senses and the like).

 

If the heroes try to find the lost men - especially if they use any obvious powers - they will eventually be accosted by Artemis. Can they persuade or force the goddess to restore the missing men? How will they feel when Artemis tells them what the poachers were actually doing?

[Lucius]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

You can always start with Wikipedia.

 

Or you could google.

 

At last! I understand the transcendent value of PIE!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary suspects Lucius is actually taking a long walk off a short PIER

[Lucius]

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

 

I'd make Hades into a Sher Kahn (as in TaleSpin) style Uber Sophisticated multi-multi-billionaire business man/general shady character.

 

I'd have his back story (in the modern age) be he walks up to the commander of the Fort Knox Gold Repository, says "I'd like to make a deposit" and then promptly makes $100 Billion in gold, silver, and platinum appear. The base commander calls to higher. After some wrangling, the Feds transfer $100 Billion in currency in exchange for the bullion. He is the god of wealth after all.

 

As the world's richest man now, he goes on to build a business empire focusing on Defense, Manufacturing, Chemicals, Mining, and several other heavy industries.

 

However, he does run several service based business such as the highly successful line of coffee houses known as Elysian Fields, a women's clothing store run by his wife called Persephone's Descent and her personal project a 5 star Greek resturaunt known as the Pomegranate Seed .

 

There are rumors that he is deeply involved in underworld activities (heh, no pun intended) Also, there are rumors from witnesses claiming he faught Takophanes (or some other earth shaking Undead Menace) to a standstill in the Oregon wilderness.

 

TB

 

This underscores how deeply complex the Greek Gods (or any Gods, really) are. Everyone knows Hades is God of the underworld, but how many associate Him with wealth? Everyone knows Posiedon is the Sea God, but how many know He is also Earthshaker, God of earthquakes?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary suggests calling on Thalia for a few laughs....