HW Ancient Greece?

From: Guy Hoyle <ghoyle1_at_...>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 19:06:48 -0600


Every once in awhile I get the urge to run a game set in heroic Greece, and the bug has bit me again. However, after GloranthaCon, I'm interested in using the Hero Wars system to do this, but obvioulsly some adjustments will have to be made. I haven't really thought this through to any major extent, but I'd be interested in hearing what some of the HW experts may have to say about all this.

Character generation can still use the regular methods of creating characters; the 100-word method should be especially good for thios purpose. However, beyond the regular occupational keywords, I'm a little stumped when it comes to magic systems.

Animism just doesn't really seem to fit to me, nor does mysticism (except maybe for some anachronistic Orphic cultists). Sorcery might, but it would be much rarer, restricted to characters such as Circe, Medea, etc.; they wouldn't really use books, but something more like talismans. Theistic magic would be different, as well. The duties of priests seem to be making and interpreting sacrifices to the gods; to get powers from a god, you have to be of divine blood, and there don't seem to be any one-to-one correlations between the god you're related to and the powers you get. Therefore, just joining the cult of Zeus doesn't get you storm-related affinities and feats. My current thought on this will be to allow the characters to take "affinities" that they can select from a list or make up for themselves, with my approval. There needs to be some kind of folk magic, too, maybe something like the Common Magic from HQ (which I don't know anything about yet).

If anybody else has any thoughts on this subject, I'd be happy to hear them.

Guy



Always choose the option that'll most likely blow up in your own face. You never know when a tribe of werebears is going to want to skin you alive, for instance. Those are the Munchausenesque moments you can brag about over beer for years.

Of course, sometimes you get bitten by vampires infected with bubonic plague, but on the whole, you have a great time.

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