Post/Author/DateTime	Post
darkiz 06-12-07, 06:03 PM	Hi I'm gonna set up an adventure for my group that takes place in ancient greece around 1500-1000 bc and have some quirks to work out adapting it to fantasy and D&D First of i want to have a evil necromancer as one of the villains and was wondering if there are any mentions of undead in greek mythology? also i need a temptress of some sort to mess with the group, a succubus would be perfect though succubi is something that existed in western medieval myths are there any good equivalents that would fit in this setting? its gonna be played out mostly inland so sirens wont work i'm afraid
Altar_Boy 06-12-07, 08:01 PM	1) No corporeal dead. I'm not sure if the Greek cremated their dead, but the rugged coastline certainly doesn't give space for burials. The Odyssey does mention Homer travelling to the land of the dead, where "shades" of the dead live. Hence, ghosts, spectres, wraiths, etc. would be plausible, provided someone ferries them back to the mainland. It would be a good excuse to throw in the ferry running Yugoloth from MM2 and the 3-headed hellhound from Savage Species to protect the Underworld. 2) I believe nymphs were the archetypal temptresses of Greece. Fey in general would best replace outsiders in the pre-Christian Greek setting.
Heros_Backpack 06-12-07, 08:01 PM	I believe Hades was always quite insistant that the dead, once dead, stayed firmly in his kingdom (no undead/spirits to be had). If you're looking for inspiration for a fantasy Greece, you might want to try David Gemmell's 'Lion of Macedon' (Magic and demon manipulation leading up to Alexander the Great)
Seeker95 06-12-07, 09:48 PM	Undead in ancient Greece? There's Charon, the ferryman. Possibly a skeleton. Possibly a skeleton warrior. And weren't there skeletons in Jason and thr Argonauts? Or am I thinking too much of Sinbad?
Zousha_Omenohu 06-13-07, 12:35 AM	The skeletons in Mr. Harryhausen's movie version were pure invention, but they were based in the myth. In the actual story, Jason was required to sow a field with teeth taken from the serpent Cadmus (the founder of Thebes) slew. When the teeth were planted, powerful warriors called the Spartii (no relation to the Spartans) rose from the ground. The king hoped that the Spartii would kill Jason, but Medea had already told Jason what to do. He threw a large rock into the midst of them, and the Spartii all began fighting as to who threw the rock. In the end they all killed each other, and Jason was put to another test (can't remember what it was). While I thought Deities and Demigods handled the Greek gods okay, Hades's alignment bugged me. None of the Olympians were inherently good or evil. They could be very generous if you pleased them, but if you angered them they made your life miserable. I personally think if you had to tack on an alignment to Hades, it should be Lawful Neutral, given his uncaring attitude towards the pleas of mortals and the fact that all mortals are equal in his eyes. Also, I don't think the myths ever describe Charon as a skeleton. In all the interpretations I've read he's usually just a thin and pale man with a grim look on his face. Homer was the "author" of The Odyssey (he never actually wrote it down). The story itself is about Odysseus, the wily king of Ithaca. One thing to be careful of is that the monsters in the Monster Manual were unique in the stories. There were only three Gorgons (what the Monster Manual refers to as a medusa), and Medusa was one of those three. Also, the description's a bit different. Medusa and her sisters weren't just women with snakes for hair. They also had golden wings and bronze claws, and asps sprung up where Medusa's blood touched the earth, not to mention that when it mixed with sea foam, the legendary Pegasus was born. Medusa's head would be the equivalent of a major artifact. If you're going to be accurate to the myths, there may not be much to fight. If you don't care about that kind of thing, then just go for it!:) (If you've got any more questions, please ask. Greek mythology is something of a specialty of mine.)
darkiz 06-13-07, 04:23 AM	k thanks for the answers I wanna be as true to the setting as possible but the undead are a pretty big part of the adventure, my plan from the start was to use incorporeal undead but not to any great extent Also getting in and out of Hades seems to have been possible by drugging or otherwise getting Cerberus to sleep(even if only a handful succeeded), so i'm thinking thats what my necromancer antagonist did and now he's back causing problems that the pcs have to handle For mythological creatures i'm mostly gonna use various Fey and a tribe of centaurs, will not be using anything to spectacular like gorgons or the gods themselves Lastly what sort of wild animals would one expect to find in ancient greece?
Steely_Dan 06-13-07, 06:49 AM	Lastly what sort of wild animals would one expect to find in ancient greece? I'm not positive, but maybe wolves, goats, boars, horses, cows/bulls for a start.
Zousha_Omenohu 06-13-07, 09:27 AM	Yes, it's actually remarkably easy to deal with Cerberus. I can't remember exactly who it was that drugged him, but I know Orpheus sang him to sleep, and Heracles simply rassled with him until he gave up. Thing is, all these people were headed in, not out. Cerberus wasn't the only thing keeping the dead into the Underworld. Each part of the Underworld had a different method of keeping the dead in as well. The Elysian Fields was a beautiful place where every need was tended to. Who'd want to leave that? The Asphodel Fields were gray and dull and the souls there were very apathetic. They wouldn't care enough to leave. Tartarus was guarded by an assortment of beings, including the Furies and the Hecatoncheries. Also, I think if need be, Hades himself would try to prevent one from leaving his realm. This necromancer would need to be very powerful or very clever to be able to escape the Underworld after he's already dead, and even more powerful if he can yank spirits from there to do his bidding. It does make for an interesting campaign setting.
SkyOdin 06-13-07, 02:11 PM	Lets see here, myhtological Greek monsters. There are the archetypical monsters: sphynx, pegasus, chimera, hydra, medusa, minotaur, centaur. There are also many others, such as Scylla and Charybdis that as far as I know, have no D&D stats. Mixes of various different animals or humans and animals are pretty typical. Also, fey as D&D knows them are based on the nymphs, dryads (technically a nymph subtype), and satyrs of Greek myth. However, these beings are usually in the role of followers and attendants to more powerful river, forest, or sea gods, than as stand-alone protectors of nature. Giants are also feasable enemies. Cyclops, multi-headed or multiarmed Giants, and Titans all appear in Greek myth. Dire and Legendary animals are also appropriate. The Nemean Lion, man-eating horses, and legendary bulls have a prominant role in Greek myth. Dragons could also work. There are myths that talk about multi-headed dragons guarding trees of legendary golden fruit. However, talking, spell-casting dragons may be a bit of a stretch. Of course, strange humanoid cultures and sorcerors also work. What doesn't really suit Greek legend: most undead, abberations, oozes (argueably I guess), goblinoids or orcs (again, might work if adapted well), demons, devils, celestials, elementals (could maybe work), etc. Constructs I am unsure about. They don't really appear in Greek myth as monsters per say, but Hephaestus in some myths did supposedly create three gold automatons in the shape of women.
darkiz 06-13-07, 04:30 PM	Damn, almost too much info here cause it seems i'm gonna have to kill my darling, the necromancer, because my players will begin at 6th level and encounter the necromancer at about lvl 7 or 8 and based on what i've found out here it seems its gonna take more then a 8th lvl character to get out of hades No disaster though i could replace him with some other type of wizard, a conjurer perhaps, i now think i've got a pretty good idea of how to handle the setting I really appreciate all the help i've gotten here, it'll be fun to see how it all turns out, we're having the first session this monday
Altar_Boy 06-13-07, 04:44 PM	Good luck. :) My last piece of advice would be taking a menu from a Greek restaurant and watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding for further inspiration. :P
_Jayne_Cobb_ 06-13-07, 05:17 PM	I believe Hades was always quite insistant that the dead, once dead, stayed firmly in his kingdom (no undead/spirits to be had). Which would make for some interesting plot-layers, as anyone bold enough to raise the dead would instantly be a sworn enemy of Hades and his church. Smart PCs could turn that to their advantage.
_Jayne_Cobb_ 06-13-07, 05:20 PM	Good luck. :) My last piece of advice would be taking a menu from a Greek restaurant and watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding for further inspiration. :P And rent this: http://www.disneydvdmovies.com/images/dvds/herculesge-large.jpg
Zousha_Omenohu 06-13-07, 07:12 PM	Technically, churches wouldn't exist, and most characters wouldn't serve one Olympian specifically unless they bleonged to one of the mystery cults or was a member of Dionysus's entourage. There's another very useful enemy for this setting though...people! Many Greek heroes fought with ordinary mortals as much as they did with monsters. Heracles was known to have killed many men just because they ticked him off. Heck, for all we know, the PCs could wind up on either side of the walls of Troy, depending on when you decide to set the setting. Just so you're aware, the Trojan War sort of marked the end of the Heroic Age of Greece. While the Odyssey did take place after that, anything after that really isn't that clear until we come to the Aenid (Aeneas was the last surviving Trojan, and he too went on a long sea voyage (including into the Underworld) until he landed in a place called Latium. His descendents included Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome). Also...:rant: Dammit I love and hate that movie! While it's a fun movie to watch, they don't stick to the myths very well, if at all! Hades was not a satanic villain with delusions of grandeur, he was a lonely killjoy who couldn't care less about the world beyond his realm! Megara was Heracles' first wife, and he accidentally killed her! Hera was not his mother! *gasps* And finally, IT'S HERACLES, NOT HERCULES DAMMIT! (Hercules is the Roman name.)
Tempest Stormwind 06-13-07, 07:31 PM	It could have been worse. (http://www.tvparty.com/herc.html) What about undead is necessary to your game? The mechanics, or the fact that they are the dead people themselves? You could simply say that instead of restless shades of the dead, this "necromancer" has discovered a way of making the corpse itself move, perhaps through a particularly powerful curse or even a pact with Hades or similar. Do note that he's NOT setting the dead free or anything; this has NO connection whatsoever to the original person, except that the body is used (this particular necromancer is no Heron of Alexandria and can't assemble his own articulated bodies, so he steals those of soldiers slain in battle. Why let all that muscle go to waste?). In concordance with Hades, he might have to burn the person's face off or something (so no one believes the dead person is who he was when he was alive), but the point is the spirits of the dead stay in place while this necromancer somehow animates the bodies. (This keeps Hades firmly out of the picture, as he's not raising the dead or disturbing the afterlife in any way).
darkiz 06-14-07, 03:38 PM	Well the undead werent extremely important so i replaced them with a snake-loving conjurer but that animate-dead hook was kinda cool Tempest, if my players like this adventure maybe i can make it into a campaign and use it later on So for now my antagonists are a conjurer and his sidekick enchantress who have a pet cyclops (which i'm gonna use hill-giant stats for, couldnt find anything better) and they'll be getting up to various non-good things, nothing spectacular but i'm sort of a newbie when it comes to DMing so i'll start simple and work my way up i think hmm something occurred to my with all this talk of undead and such, how would raise dead spells work? would it be possible to bring back the soul from Hades and restore the life of a creature or would one expect to encounter some problems there?
celestialkin 06-14-07, 03:49 PM	As mentioned above a Nymph would be the best option for a temptress. However, Nymphs weren't really evil (to my knowledge), so maybe something like an Unseelie Nymph (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20020112a) might be more appropriate for you campaign.
anothermullen 06-14-07, 03:58 PM	Just wanted to add more food for thought. A little while back Sean K. Reynolds wrote up stuff from his home campaign set in Mythic Greece. D20 Mythic Greek Adventure (http://www.seankreynolds.com/skrg/products/002TNA/)
Iddig Ap Nil 06-14-07, 04:17 PM	The old 2e AD&D Historical Reference "Age of Heroes" may help you, and I'm sure that there was a GURPS Greece, both will help you in setting up the setting to your liking as far as background stuff and it shouldn't be hard the extrapolate from there.
Holy_Beholder 06-14-07, 10:58 PM	Also getting in and out of Hades seems to have been possible by drugging or otherwise getting Cerberus to sleep(even if only a handful succeeded), so i'm thinking thats what my necromancer antagonist did and now he's back causing problems that the pcs have to handle greece? Put contact poison on the coin under your tounge, so Charon falls asleep, then run and hope Cerberus is really busy. Remember, Cerberus was born from Typhon and Echidna, and was of the same brood as the hydra, the chimera, and the sphinx, so he would be a really nasty opponent. Also, the higher up dead did get to go to Elysium, the field for heroes. The other problem comes from the 3 fates, they wouldn't bee too keen on you escaping Hades, and if Hades does show up you are regally screwed. Although Hades wasn't evil, because death was associated with the natural order of life, so he might be merciful enough to avoid screwing you over too bad. Otherwise, theres a rock to roll up a really high hill that keeps rolling back down whenever you get to the top. Cerberus would be hard to drug too, so you might want to avoid undead and take on some mythical monsters. Namely medusa, after getting a mirrored shield to avoid being turned to stone(No will save for you) the sirens, if you manage to avoid their song, the chimera and the hydra(and those guys would be tougher now, they are unique) maybe even the Nemean Lion, and possibly the giant boar(although it wasn't really a group on one, it was everyone swarming it while it cut great warriors apart like butter). Could be fun.
Zousha_Omenohu 06-15-07, 12:05 AM	The Fates didn't live in the Underworld from what I remember, but there were three judges that decided the fates of the recently deceased. Minos (the former king of Crete), Aeacus (a king whose island home had been decimated by plague, so he prayed to his father Zeus (surprise, surprise) for warriors to defend his home. In response, Zeus turned the local ants into people, who later became the Myrmidons, whom Achilles commanded during the Trojan War), and Rhadamanthus (Minos's brother). Rhadamanthus judged the souls of Easterners (Asians), Aeacus judged Hellenes (Europeans), while Minos had the deciding vote. Despite Cerberus's fearsomeness, he wasn't that hard to deal with. Here's a list of the people who got by him and how they did it: Heracles: Actually was looking for Cerberus so he could display him to King Eurystheus and finish his famous twelve labors. He wrestled with Cerberus until the big dog cooperated. Orpheus: Sang Cerberus to sleep. Hermes: Used water from Lethe, the river of forgetfullness to make him fall asleep. The Sibyl of Cumae: Fed Cerberus drugged honeycakes when she guided the Trojan hero and Roman ancestor Aeneas down to the Underworld. Psyche: The fiancee of Eros, she also fed Cerberus drugged honeycakes when she was ordered down to the Underworld by Aphrodite. He wasn't that hard to get past as long as you weren't trying to fight him or anything. Thing is, all the people who did these things were living (or in Hermes's case, divine). Those already in the Underworld wouldn't have access to those kinds of things, and Cerberus probably would already be aware of any shade trying to escape. Mr. Holy Beholder, would I be correct in assuming that the boar of which you speak is the famed Calydonian Boar? There was another famous boar called the Erymantian Boar that Heracles was tasked with catching. He caught it by driving it into a deep snowbank where it got stuck and he was able to hog-tie it.:D The thing to remember about those mythical monsters is that in the world of Greek mythology, these beasts were unique. There are two gorgons left (Medusa's sisters Stheno and Euryale), but they are immortal and can't be killed. The most common monsters one would run into would be monsters of which there were known to be more than one. The only ones that fit that description that I can remember of the top of my head are the Harpies, the Cyclopes and the Centaurs. Satyrs may be possible, but they really wouldn't attack humans. Also, a lot of the most fearsome beings in the mythological world weren't beasts, but humans with supernatural abilities, like Antaeus, a giant of a man who had strength rivaling that of Heracles while he was in contact with the earth, but became extremely weak when separated from it. Heracles defeated him by holding him in the air until he died.
Holy_Beholder 06-15-07, 10:15 AM	Honestly I don't care if it was the Calydonian or Ermyntian boar. The point is giant boars are awesome combatants. I personally would be more than willing to fight both. The fates don't live in the underworld, but they still wouldn't be pleased about it, neither would the judges, or any of the gods. Hercules was half divine, Hermes was divine, and a god of trickery with one nice cha score. The Sybyl was sneaking people in anyways, which I think would go over a little better. The rest were lucky. Anyways, I think cerberus knows not to eat honey cakes offered to him by people he doesn't know by now.;) Orpheus would have been targeted more, and wouldn't have been able to get a lot of people out. So the undead idea doesn't work particularly well. Cyclops could be fought, but centaur would usually be good, as would satyrs. Minor gods could be fought too, but you would mainly fight humans.
Zousha_Omenohu 06-15-07, 01:17 PM	Well, Orpheus was only trying to get one person out of the Underworld (his dead wife, the nymph Eurydice), and he did get permission from Hades. It was his own fault for losing her when he looked back just before he crossed back into the land of the living. Of course, he got to see her again and stay with her forever after the Maenads tore him apart.:rolleyes: Frankly, as I said, satyrs wouldn't be very agressive, but I could see one or two harassing the party with jokes or something. Centaurs are more plausible, since they were more war-like, especially when they got their hands on some wine. NEVER invite centaurs to your weddings!
_Jayne_Cobb_ 06-15-07, 02:08 PM	Technically, churches wouldn't exist, and most characters wouldn't serve one Olympian specifically unless they bleonged to one of the mystery cults or was a member of Dionysus's entourage. Technically the gods, necromancers and the undead would not exist, either. I assumed that since this was a fantasy version of ancient Greece that one would not need to adhere to historical reality with the zealotry of a historian. My bad.
Zousha_Omenohu 06-15-07, 07:28 PM	Well said, Ms. Cobb. I just felt that the campaign world should be modeled after ancient Greece to at least a decent degree, otherwise it's just your average, vanilla campaign setting with specific monsters. Greek society was inherently different from the D&D norm.