To the strongest!
Long live the Basileus!
The heroic age never ended. In this campaign all historical figures have been like Perseus, Ajax, Achilles, Odysseus. The heroes have struggled against each other with the help and hindrance of the gods each topping each other. All until Phillip the Great who united the Greeks, save the spartans. Though Phillp would be assassinated before invading Persia. His "son" Alexandros would slay Zeus and conquer the world, only to die by a mysterious illness/poison/assasination.
Megos Alexandros has been dead almost 40 years. His last words "to the strongest" echo throughout history still. You are heroes in the time of empires now. Alexander's empire was split by his generals and they have been fighting ever since. With the death of Zeus and Alexander the natural world is in imbalance many of the gods were slain as well. Will you strike out to restore balance, to forge an empire, put down the rest of the capricious gods, strengthen the greeks dominance over the barbarian tribes, or just try to survive.
To the strongest
Antigonid Dynasty/Macedon: Macedon should still be spent she has been fighting for almost 80 years of continuous wars. Certainly she has some of the smallest landmass of the Diadochi's kingdoms. Who can say who rules the court of the land that once seized the world. It is known that Alexander's tutor Aristotle still teaches in court, that his mother may lord over court. Rumors say that Alexander's son was raised in a Persian fashion and either is so large that he can not ride or that he ordered his first horse slain when it bucked him off. Alexander's uncle was a general as well most military matters go through him. What the Dynasty does control is several gold mines, the artifacts from a 100 defeated kingdoms, and all the spoils from Olympus and other pantheons.
Arche Selucia: The worlds second largest empire only a fraction of the size of Alexanders is held by one man, Seleukos. A man who held the greatest part of the empire is harsh. He like many of Alexanders family should be nearing his final days and while even some among his large family wait for the day his mind is sharp, and he is still strong. He controls from Present turkey to the Indus river. They say he used whatever is keeping the Antigonid Dynasty alive and may live forever.
Ptolemy/Egypt: Ptolemy was a great general, but whatever keeps the other rulers alive fails in him. He seems concerned only with his place in history, with knowledge. Ptolemy has built new wonders the Library of Alexandria is a marvel. His treasury has grown through trade. Some say the Egyptian merchants take secrets back to Ptolemy and that he deals with those as he can. They also speak of the light house that now protects the Egyptian cost destroying enemy ships for a hundred miles from Alexandria.
Epirus:"you technically don't know this" Pyrrhus of Epirus has won a great victory. The young general rules a new empire with a new strategy. The Romans took a great host against him and won outside Tarentum. They took many prisoners inside of Rome. Only to have them freed as they took the city. The senate of Rome has named him King. Pyyrhus has called a great council next year at the Olympics (now held to honor mankind overthrowing Zeus). To every Greek city it has gone out as he calls for an alliance of the Greeks, to at last conquer the rest of the world to turn against the barbarians and to place them under heel for greater Greece. (As surmised he wants to have Macedon turn north into Thrace and along the amber route into Germany, for Arche Selucia to take the land along the Indus and expand its northern border, for Egypt to Conquer Africa including Carthage, and for himself to conquer Spain, if he counts the Konion Hellonon the islands of the Mediterranean or perhaps Gaul, the Bosporan Kingdom has greek influence so perhaps that area).
Konion Hellonon/Greece: The Greeks have rebelled. They are no longer under the sway of Macedon. The Greeks are led by three main cities, Rhodes, Athens and Sparta. They have returned to there old ways and are setting up trade with unallied old Greek provinces and cities. It is said that there ships are even sailing under different flags to governors of such provinces asking or forcing aid.
The Barbarians
Carthage: Carthage isn't really a contender for strength in this area and time but Phoenician merchants trade in every port. Many times Phoenician hire mercenaries in order to fight pirates or settle trade disputes.
Fair warning. I haven't DM'd in a little while. I'm open to core and homebrew, but these are the old character optimization boards and my friends weren't that great at that even when I was DMing. So we may need to adjust during play. That may include me giving other party members an upgrade it may mean toning some things down.
We are going to do a 6th level gestalt game.
I will be allowing 1 homebrew class per person at most.
32 point by
3/4 hit die so d4=3 d6=5 d8=6 d10=7 d12=8
Pathfinders condensed skill list. So don't add flight, but the skills they removed were good choices.
The Greek's had a thing for history and uniting themselves to legends some of the cities Alexander founded payed poets to write poems attaching there founding or area to legend. I'd prefer if the characters generated were linked to some legend or deity. As said before any hero/diety out of Greek/Egyptian/Persian myth would be great. If you instead pulled inspiration from outside Alexanders empire and linked me to a Phoenician, Thracian, Indian, or Galllic myth and played up being a little outsider that would be cool too.
I'm open to any homebrew that makes spears a better weapon in general just due to well the fighting style of the times.
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.