If you were building a setting based on Greek mythology, what are your 'must haves' and what are your more obscure additions? We know the classic hits like the minotaur and the city-states of Athens, but is there stranger things you'd like to see brought out in these settings?
It feels like, for all its ubiquitous in our culture, Greek myth isn't seen as much on the tabletop.
>what are your 'must haves'
Bad endings
Not!Zeus turning into animals and fucking randos.
Not!Hera fucking over rando women out of spite and jealousy despite those women having nothing to do with Not!Zeus.
Not!Hades being a pretty chill bro when compared to the other gods.
Not!Aphrodite being a total slut.
Not!Apollo's kid taking the Sun on a joy ride.
Not!Athena occasionally turning women into monster girls.
Not!Artemis being a total prude but secretly a romantic.
The gods generally dicking around and interfering in mortal life almost daily.
Anything I'm missing?
Hades having the worst rap for being the god of the underworld, but also being the only major god who does his fucking job and not get involved in petty bullshit.
I feel like not!Greece settings get too caught up on the gods and not enough on the weird creatures that inhabit it.
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Weird, I'd assume that Not!Greece settings would get too caught up on all the monster girls, but then again I've been on Veeky Forums long enough to take that as the default assumption.
So...monster girls?
Cyprus is a cool place to add, it was the major source of copper for the bronze age, also cult of aphrodite etc.
the pontic colonies along with the Magna greacia colonies in italy are interesting, syracuse is an interesting city to copy
Macedonia, thrace, sparta, the oracle, minoa (crete) rhodes (with the colosus) and occasional egyptian contact.
Basically all the 'weird creatures' are the result of the gods, too. In fact, I think ALL of them were either created by, were servants of, or WERE gods themselves in some degree. The gods made a lot of monsters because they're dickheads.
>Must have
I like Prometheus, even though that motherfucker Rick Roidan made him a bitch.
There is a lot about ancient greece we still don't know to this day. A lot of stuff survived in one way or another from ancient rome, but a lot less from greece.
I would consider a must have to be complex rope and pulley mechanisms, cool architecture, and mechanical computers. These are all things we know the ancient greeks had.
My only suggestion is that it's not necessary to go full fantasy with mythical beasts and gods. In a greek setting it's easy to mix mythology with politics as greek religion relied heavily on public cerimonies, that often united more cities together. Instead of shoving the gods and their beasts everywhere, I suggest you to look up the mystery cults in Athens or Magna Graecia. It's a good way to use the mythology your players are familiar with, but with a more shady and secret twist to it.
I've always wondered what can you use a mechanical computer for? I bet trying to get solitaire on one is a bitch and a half.
>made him a bitch.
He swapped sides and fucked off when shit was going down, but I wouldn't really call him a bitch for the betrayal - you can only have your liver ripped out so many times before you get resentful, and Manhattan went from "clearly a cakewalk" to "oh shit we're losing" pretty damn fast
Animal sacrifice and mystery cults like said.
Fate needs to be a theme, even a stat. IT affects all, even the gods. Hubris is defying your fate. You can take notes of Miura's Berserk in this. Guts is a greek hero, beneath the aesthetic.
Attempts to reach the level of gods makes gods aware of you. This may the worst thing ever.
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Hydra is A dragon, not a type of lesser monster.
Stay away from Typhon and Achilles.
Try to judge a singing contest between mountains sometime.
The paradise is north, perhaps west. You can reach it by foot, they say.
Galleys rowed by poor freemen.
Slaves.
Heroes are ones that challenge the gods, attempt to make their own fate, not nice or good people. And unless one god patronizes them, they fail. They may fail even with a god's protection. Remember that both Heracles and Midas were heroes.
Everything has a antromorphic personification, even the river east after a day's travel. Every god has plenty of daughters or sons that are representations of things associated with their divine domain.
You can have a race of half-bear giants if you wish.
One of the PCs makes part of a mystery cult, and that explains why he's has wizard powers drawn from ancient texts from wacky eastern or egyptian lands where they do everything different.
Bronze automatons are a thing. Artificers capable of making those may be your only source of magic items that aren't gifts or pieces ripped off monsters that have divine parentage.
The Gods pretty much follow the idea of might makes right and zoophilia isn't a thing.
That is what came up to my mind.
Ops, I assumed you're aiming for fantasy. If that's not the case, read this to get the ideas and themes:
readcomiconline.to
This shit is fantastic.
False prophets attempt to convince people worship giant snakes (ala Glycon) with eerie human faces only to be riduculed by a local stand up Philosopher (Lucius of Samosata).
After disasterous battles one dead soldier rises as a revenant to spout warnings in Iambic pentameter (Bouplagos) about disrespecting the fallen.
Have the sanctity of the Great Oracle be defiled by a heinous individual and their army such as the Phocians under their bandit leader Philomeles in the brutal Third Sacred War of Delphi. He dragged the Oracle of Delphi by the hair through the blood drenched temple and commanded her to tell him what the gods wanted him to do next in his war.
She responded "Whatever you want."
The forests to the north should have dreaded barbaroi who impale intruders as offering to their god below the earth. Their banners imbued with silver wolves heads that howl when they swarm down from the mountains in winter.
Crusty old men sitting in overturned baths in the Agora either dispensing wise words or flipping the bird at passers by, depending on how they feel that day (Diogenes).
Prisoners and enemies of the state are kept as slaves to toil in the quarries to construct the Ominous Citadels of the Tyrranoi, such as Dionysius' Ortygia in Syracuse.
Cruel kings experimenting on their own people with toxins and poisons like Mithridates.
Grand Palaces that echo with the shrieks of their mad rulers hurtling through the corridors from their unseen foes like Attalus the Third of Pergamon.
The countryside with great piles of propped up armour and weapons celebrating an old victory in battle.
Satyrs fall into melancholia after The Death of Pan due to rising urbanisation and the loss of the idealized Arcadia. (Pan actually died during the reign of Tiberius and the Romans had Empire wide funeral rights for the god).
Passing Centaurs invite you to hunt a giant boar.
Hercules married a princess called Pyrenea, got drunk and fucked her so hard there was nothing left but limbs and gore the next day. He felt awful and built a cairn over her remains that became the mountain range. According to one interpretation, he failed to notice a giant serpent she gave birth to after her death escape into the mountains.
Clockwork bronze giants built by half-shark half-dog people called the Telkhines, who built Talos originnally and now want to return and cast down the gods for favouring humanity over them.
The jealous Heliadae (Helios' other children) return to cause trouble.
>Stay away from Achilles.
But within bow range.
Fuck my sides
Could have magic users be followers of Hecate.
She gets way too little love in Greek-inspired settings and vidya.
You should think about the time period you want to represent as well, OP. What you consider Ancient Greece can span as much as two and a half millenia (first settlers of Crete to Alexander).
I feel like people center a bit much on gods and monsters too much with greek mythology, and pass up on the other key themes that were common to tales.
Stuff about hospitality, destiny, and generally what sorts of traits were considered heroic and which were frowned upon.
I'd rather see such a setting focus more upon city states and the cultures and conflicts between them, with the gods and monsters as more of a background detail. Something present, to be sure, but the gods are pretty aloof and work on a grander scale unless you anger them, and monsters are more unique things for heroes to overcome, rather than entire races or civilizations of their own.
"computers" in this case would mean what we call "calculators"
they were used for navigation primarily, other things were less important as the greeks were great seafarers but presumably they would have been very useful for trade records and calculations
(solitaire wasn't invented yet. they had to make do with Pong)
But I want to fight monsters.
Fighting monsters would still be a thing, but it wouldn't be 'Oh, here are the Minotaur tribes, and here are the Harpy Enclaves, and here are the Centaur nomads..."
Most of the monsters from Greek mythology were pretty unique things, so it makes more sense to have the world reflect that and have a lot of weird individual monsters that behave as monsters, rather than having them just be like D&D races.
Oh, you could also do the Greco-Bactrian kingdom
They were basically ancient greeks who settled near Afghanistan and converted to buddhism. Sadly, we don't know too much about them but I'm sure you could do alot with them.