Greece trip in the works

With Conglomeration in the rearview mirror, now is the time for me to look forward to the next thing to for me to complete: Lexicon in Lexington KY. I submitted games there this year again. Unlike MidSouthCon and Conglomeration, Lexicon is a pure gaming convention. There will be a lot of board games and RPGs. I expect to play some Adventure League OR Shadowrun Missions as I will only have one free game slot to play... Maybe a second one on Friday evening. Maybe.

I will be running two Tyrants of Saggakar adventures, both from last year's Gencon (re-ran at MidSouthcon) but I will have a few other pocket adventures in case I need to make a quick-switch. No worries, I will be ready for it.

I am offering one new adventure, one written for our latest release: Gostor: Olympian, called "A Tyrant Lost". This adventure may be published or it just might be one of my pocket adventures, I have yet to decide. This is an adventure I am having so much fun writing it. Takes me back to my early teens when I would devour the books of mythology at my school's library, of times when I wanted to play RPGs set in that universe but not having any friends who would geek out with me on such topics.

A Tyrant Lost takes place not in Saggakar, not in Rhym, not in Akhamet either! Instead, it is located in a fictionalized version of Greece. I mean, where else would it make sense to set an adventure that feature the children of Olympus.

Now some of you may have learned that for the past two years, I have been taking online classes on a variety of subjects, one of them being about ancient Greek mythology. Well, one of the things we covered extensively were perhaps the two most famous poems in history: Homer's Illyad and odyssey. One of the things that stuck with me was the formula of the introduction to both of those poems.

I copied the introduction from the Samuel Butler translation available through the MIT classics (a great place to find reading material). The titles are links to the full text.

The Illyad Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

The Odyssey Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

You will notice that both begin in a very similar fashion, with an invocation to a divine being. In a sense, Homer sets the stage for what the story will talk about. This first verse gives a resume in a few words. The Illyad is about Achilles' wild mood swings and especially his anger and rage during the Trojan War; while the Odyssey relates the many episodes of Odysseus' travels after the war. Two very different epics, very similar formulaic beginnings.

So now for my homage to the great master himself... The adventure opens with the following verse (translated by me from Ancient Greek, of course)...

A Tyrant Lost Tell us, O goddess, of the tale of [six] sons and daughters of Olympus whose fate was altered by a tiny babe, and of the fury of mighty Hera queen of the gods.

The [six] is to be replaced by the number of PCs. I will give you a short introduction to each of the characters another day. Right now, the muses have work for me to complete.

Oh yeah... I am not going anywhere. This was just the ultimate tease...