Author Topic: The Basileus is dead!  (Read 18903 times)

Offline Dr_emperor

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The Basileus is dead!
« on: May 03, 2016, 11:56:38 AM »
To the strongest!
 Long live the Basileus!

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Original post below
There are to many subdivisions here and this might belong in homebrew, or general discussion.

So I'm going to do a play by post here, but I don't know which of the three ideas will get interest and should be fleshed out, and I honestly might need help fleshing out a world.

1.  A Greek campaign.  The heroic age never ended.  Everything you learned in history happened way more like 300 than you thought.  The campaign would begin some 30 years after Alexanders death.  Alexander forged the largest empire the world had ever seen.  He scaled Olympus and cast down Zeus and the Olympians, as with Egypt and Persia.  It isnt' clear how he died via poison curse or if his generals conspired against him.  The campaign will take place with 5 kingdoms at war trying to reunite his empire or just survive.

2. The first men.  I've been reading game of thrones and playing the witcher and I thought hey wouldn't it be fun to play a campaign where humanity isn't everywhere.  In this campaign the small amount of human lands have been sacked by orcs? The humans have been taken in by an elven baron.  You'll play the heroes amongst mankind.  Unifying the factions within your race, ally with the elves/dwarves/orcs/goblins to slay the elves/dwarves/orcs/goblins or just become involved in the politics of the elves/d

4. I guess someone could post a fleshed out world with an interesting premise, and I might be willing to DM.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2016, 02:06:22 PM by Dr_emperor »

Offline Rekmond

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2016, 03:04:23 PM »
I like the idea of a Greek campaign myself. Legendary heroes, epic monsters, well known mythos.

Questions though. Would it be a Golden Standard game (all players human) or would we be allowed to rewrite races as god/monster descended? Would there be any form of divinity rules since the Gods have been cast down?
I want to be born. To live. That is all I want. -Aura

Offline Risada

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2016, 03:53:33 PM »
I like the idea of a Greek campaign myself. Legendary heroes, epic monsters, well known mythos.

Questions though. Would it be a Golden Standard game (all players human) or would we be allowed to rewrite races as god/monster descended? Would there be any form of divinity rules since the Gods have been cast down?

+1 to Greek campaign suggestion.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2016, 05:51:40 PM »
Why not both?

The Greek gods are just plagiarized Norse gods so steal Ragnarok. The land & buildings are Greek but barren and slowly falling to ruins. In this post apocalyptic medieval era the remaining humans live near the capital with a group of elves as slaves, forced to endlessly deconstruct their fallen empire to undo the damage they did to the forgotten forests.

There are hints of Humans scattered to the other races. A couple among the dwarves doomed to hit their heads on every ceiling, they make great cooks but poor craftsmen. The Orcs keep a few, the human race is weak and easy to subvert. The goblins on the other hand treat them as food and love to try and buy excess stock off the Orcs whom are dumb enough to think that if the population of humans got to high they'ed become elven wizards and kill them. And for the most part, Gnomes & Halfings have taken to living in the remains of the Greek empire in the more further regions, they were just sitting there empty anyway.

But not all is in total despair. A number of humans ascended as dragonborn and have taken the remains of Olympus. But are they Bahamut's dragonborn or Tiamats?
« Last Edit: May 10, 2016, 05:54:00 PM by SorO_Lost »

Offline Amechra

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2016, 09:28:34 PM »
The Greek gods are just plagiarized Norse gods so steal Ragnarok.

Wait, what?

You're going to have to run that one by me again. Preferably with some kind of link to somewhere reputable - because this does not make sense on multiple levels.



More on topic - I can't play myself, but I think the first one sounds pretty badass.
"There is happiness for those who accept their fate, there is glory for those that defy it."

"Now that everyone's so happy, this is probably a good time to tell you I ate your parents."

Offline FireInTheSky

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2016, 09:38:53 PM »
I was saddend that this game (original recruiting and discussion thread) never got off the ground. :(


Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2016, 12:09:37 AM »
You're going to have to run that one by me again. Preferably with some kind of link to somewhere reputable - because this does not make sense on multiple levels.
I'm not sure if I can find a reputable link in the regards that you are thinking of.

Rome had a deal called interpretatio graeca in which ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths are used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures. It's one of the main reasons Roman mythology is a renamed version of the Greek gods, same stuff but culture appropriated. Norse mythology got the same treatment, like Tacitus was a Roman senator & historian that lived in around 56~117 and he literally refers to Thor as Hercules so badly it got a mention on wikipedia. You can run your own google searches if you like, as you can expect there are people that talk about it (some are idiots and others are better).

tl;dr: Rome took everything over.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2016, 12:11:28 AM by SorO_Lost »

Offline Rekmond

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2016, 01:09:10 AM »
Rome took everything over.

Except Scotland. The Picts were not to be trifled with.
I want to be born. To live. That is all I want. -Aura

Offline Amechra

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2016, 01:35:04 AM »
You're going to have to run that one by me again. Preferably with some kind of link to somewhere reputable - because this does not make sense on multiple levels.
I'm not sure if I can find a reputable link in the regards that you are thinking of.

Rome had a deal called interpretatio graeca in which ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths are used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures. It's one of the main reasons Roman mythology is a renamed version of the Greek gods, same stuff but culture appropriated. Norse mythology got the same treatment, like Tacitus was a Roman senator & historian that lived in around 56~117 and he literally refers to Thor as Hercules so badly it got a mention on wikipedia. You can run your own google searches if you like, as you can expect there are people that talk about it (some are idiots and others are better).

tl;dr: Rome took everything over.

Oh, that. I thought you meant that the Greeks totally stole their gods from the Norse.

Mind you, the Greeks as time-travelling god thieves is an awesome idea, so...
"There is happiness for those who accept their fate, there is glory for those that defy it."

"Now that everyone's so happy, this is probably a good time to tell you I ate your parents."

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2016, 01:54:42 AM »
Expressing interest, although gods know I really don't have that much free time nowadays. But hey, being a PC in a PbP campaign isn't that hard, right?

Greek setting where humans are the minority seems like it would be fun.

Rome took everything over.

Except Scotland. The Picts were not to be trifled with.

And the teutons wiped out 3  legions in a single battle, so that the romans went "nopenopenope" and never went into center-eastern Europe again.  :P

Offline Dr_emperor

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #10 on: May 11, 2016, 11:00:18 AM »
Expressing interest, although gods know I really don't have that much free time nowadays. But hey, being a PC in a PbP campaign isn't that hard, right?

Greek setting where humans are the minority seems like it would be fun.



Well it is after the character is done.  Of course you could just build the fastest character you could build given the rules and have a lot of fun.  I'll find out how much work it is to DM one.

Though right now I have two votes for modified Greek and two for the initial idea.  With an outside tie breaker at the first idea?  I'll wait a few days. 


I like the idea of a Greek campaign myself. Legendary heroes, epic monsters, well known mythos.

Questions though. Would it be a Golden Standard game (all players human) or would we be allowed to rewrite races as god/monster descended? Would there be any form of divinity rules since the Gods have been cast down?

It would not be gold standard.  I was thinking something about 6th level gestalt models heroes well.  It also gives me access to some things in Oslecamo's homebrew like units/mobs.  So you could fight a phalanx singlehandedly.  Or more likely the party.  On the other hand some of that his collection of monster classes would work well for playing god/monster descended. 

Although some of his classes in my opinion are stronger than what I'd like to see for one class but fit easily as a gestalt class. Though if everyone wants to run those...

I actually came up with this some time ago, the original cconception had most people being weak, unnamed people capping at E6, like an elite unit of Hypaspistai, players as gestalt 6 level.  People like Alexander may have gotten to 12th level.  So that the PC's may be outclassed  a little but able to at least attempt to fight anyone/anything

It was going to be low wealth, with some divine upgrades possible. 

Admittedly some of my research comes from video games http://europabarbarorum.com/EB1/factions.html

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2016, 05:13:48 AM »
I'll change my vote for greek campaign, since it'll save our DM the job of figuring out how different bits combine.

So, since I would like to playtest some of my homebrew, which ones would you consider too strong for this?

I have a bunch of character drafts of my work, so building a character from that material is relatively fast/easy for me. At the top of my head was thinking of playing a:

god: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=7008.0
moon agent: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=12575.msg216359#msg216359 (not-Athena)
oni brawler: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16054.msg282342#msg282342 (not-Hercules)
animated object: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16428.msg288741#msg288741
medusa: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1899.msg19660#msg19660
elder titan: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8599.0
storm giant: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5940.0
water elemental: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6411.0
phoenix: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2185.0


Offline Rekmond

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2016, 07:27:45 AM »
I had actually been considering a Champion from the Tome of Radiance as an archer type.
might be taking more than a bit of inspiration from Atalanta's legend with that character.

I have a few back up ideas though.
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Offline Rekmond

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2016, 03:04:03 AM »
It's quiet......too quiet.......

who is plotting something that should never see the light of day? (That doesn't mean it's allowed in Underdark either)
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Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2016, 12:44:58 AM »
I'm not plotting anything that you think I am, unless it's to conquer the world and your sister in which case you're probably psychic and I failed my Will Save.
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Offline bhu

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2016, 12:58:34 AM »
You're going to have to run that one by me again. Preferably with some kind of link to somewhere reputable - because this does not make sense on multiple levels.
I'm not sure if I can find a reputable link in the regards that you are thinking of.

Rome had a deal called interpretatio graeca in which ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths are used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures. It's one of the main reasons Roman mythology is a renamed version of the Greek gods, same stuff but culture appropriated. Norse mythology got the same treatment, like Tacitus was a Roman senator & historian that lived in around 56~117 and he literally refers to Thor as Hercules so badly it got a mention on wikipedia. You can run your own google searches if you like, as you can expect there are people that talk about it (some are idiots and others are better).

tl;dr: Rome took everything over.

Oh, that. I thought you meant that the Greeks totally stole their gods from the Norse.

Mind you, the Greeks as time-travelling god thieves is an awesome idea, so...

Ive always found it weird that the greek and japanese underworlds were pretty similar.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2016, 11:01:47 AM »
Ive always found it weird that the greek and japanese underworlds were pretty similar.
It's probably part of the same deal. If you break it down to a more common level names are inherently meaningless. A Roman can converse with a foreigner and thanks to culture appropriation they both inherently agree on many things, just not the exact names of who did them but titles/nicknames are to be expected.

And they weren't the only ones. You could claim Islam is much the same way, they have called "dibs" and virtually every single significant religious figure in history under the adaptation of their monotheistic deity was the one in charge of it all. All of this roots in the concept of unification. It's just unfortunately that the Christianity/Islam religions are overly excessively violent so it really hasn't ever really worked out.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #17 on: May 17, 2016, 11:17:13 AM »
Ive always found it weird that the greek and japanese underworlds were pretty similar.
It's probably part of the same deal. If you break it down to a more common level names are inherently meaningless. A Roman can converse with a foreigner and thanks to culture appropriation they both inherently agree on many things, just not the exact names of who did them but titles/nicknames are to be expected.

And they weren't the only ones. You could claim Islam is much the same way, they have called "dibs" and virtually every single significant religious figure in history under the adaptation of their monotheistic deity was the one in charge of it all. All of this roots in the concept of unification. It's just unfortunately that the Christianity/Islam religions are overly excessively violent so it really hasn't ever really worked out.

Last time I checked, even Bhudda had armies killing in his name. Those who charge to battle go to heaven. Those who retreat go to hell.

Then the viking religion said only those who died during bloody violent battle could go to paradise.

The greek gods started wars among the humies just for shits and giggles.

And let's not start with all the religions where the gods demanded human sacrifice.

Christianity/Islam are indeed exceptionally peaceful in that you can get your afterlife reward without necessarily soaking yourself in human blood, yours or somebody else's.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2016, 11:19:30 AM by oslecamo »

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #18 on: May 17, 2016, 01:54:21 PM »
I guess I hit a button there, that kind of button that gets a reply of Christianity/Islam isn't as bad as it could be and therefor it has to be good, but that is a button never the less.

And yet, "someone is wrong on the Internet" still gives me the urge to post. Not about Ols's preferred religion, it's clear intelligent discussion has gone out the window there, but of the ignorant repetition that vikings have to die in battle to see "heaven". Only half of the vikings that die on the battlefeild go to Valhalla to help the good guys win Ragnarok. Viking's "heaven" analog is actually called Helgafjell, it's a life++ holy mountain complete with warm hearths, drinks, and other merry people. And entry is based on the moral concept of good as to the Norse clans and is totally independent of requiring war or battle.

tl;dr: It turns out religion isn't an Apple TOS agreement.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Choose a setting 3.5
« Reply #19 on: May 18, 2016, 04:09:59 AM »
You know that "Valhalla" means "hall of the slain", right? Not "hall of good people" or "hall of people who died peacefully". It literally means "hall of the people who died coated in human blood".

Plus the fact that only half the vikings coated in human blood get to the hall of the murderized doesn't change the fact only the vikings coated in human blood get a 50% shot at all to Valhalla to help Odin keep the status quo and stagnation of society.

And then the other half of blood-coated dead vikings goes to Fólkvangr, which for all pratical purposes was paradise #2 with free food and booze, except you get to hang with MILF Freyja instead of an old senile geezer. Also women who suffered a noble death. Hmm, actually that does sound fairly better than the hall of the slain.

Point is, 100% of vikings who die coated in human blood end up going to viking paradise, either Odin's or Freyja's. It's a win-win scenario if you're a bloodthirsty psycopath! But kinda sucks if you're a male who tried to live a peaceful life.

And as a matter of fact Viking society was based on males going around killing, maiming and burning.

tl:dr-There's a reason why there's no renowed viking philosophers/scribes/doctors/philosophers/libraries. Their religion explicitly said following any of those paths would land you out of paradise.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2016, 04:12:13 AM by oslecamo »