Re: Dimension-Hopping with the Gods
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. We just finished playing.
They appeared at Hecate's crossroads, each of which went nowhere (the guy with super-vision powers saw that way down in the distance of each road, was a "copy" of themselves talking to Hecate; distance and direction senses were also screwy). Hecate agreed to show them the way to Olympus if they each brought her a trophy head from a single beast. When the PCs agreed (actually the PC leader is the only one who could speak Ancient Greek), she pointed down one of the paths and said that it was the way to the Hydra's lair.
While on the path, they discovered that some of their powers did not work -- flight and teleportation would not work, since if they ever left the path, they reappeared at the crossroads. Finally arriving at the Hydra's lair (which even special senses could not penetrate), the entered and fought the Hydra.
The Hydra has nine heads that all could breathe fire, and huge wings. The big surprise was that the heads could detach on their own, and fly individually (still with fire-breathing and biting attacks). Thankfully, the team has a healer, since several folks took some BODY damage from the Hydra. But they eventually got it taken down (the martial artist alien dog got two Find Weaknesses on it, and really whomped). My favorite bit was the power-armored soldier with a choke hold on one of the Hydra necks.
When they returned to Hecate with their Hydra head trophies -- one per PC (only nine of my players showed up today) -- she showed them another crossroad path that led to Olympus. At the base of Olympus, they met their former teammate Herculena, daughter of Zeus, and avatar of wrestling. (Herculena's player took a new job and hasn't been able to play for several months.) It seems she's been gone because she's working off a debt to Zeus. By becoming Olympus's "bouncer" for a year, she'll get Cerberus as a pet.
The PCs had to choose a Champion to challenge her before they could get to Olympus. If the challenger won, the group could pass. If he lost, the group would be sent to a place they did not wish to go. The alien dog martial artist stepped forward as the challenger, but Herculena (as the challengee) got to choose the terms. She choose a grappling contest (grabs, throws, no punches). By the way, Herculena's got a 60 STR with Martial Grab, Martial Throw, and Crush. If she got a grab on the dog, he'd be toast. Any of the PCs would be, actually.
But while Herculena was explaining the rules, Rex the Wonder Dog found weakness on her three times. With his superior CSLs, and alternating Dodges and Bites, he was able to really put a hurting on her (but not quite Stun her, thanks to her Damage Reduction) while she still couldn't land a solid grab on him. After a while of that, one of the players got the idea to help Herculena by attacking Rex -- which would disqualify Herculena from the contest, by a strict interpretation of that rules that she'd given earlier. So, once Rex was close enough to the edge of the ring, Eclipse attacked him, and Herculena allowed them to go see Zeus, which is where we ended for the night.