Warren Merrifield

It’s a roleplaying game where you play a commitee of Gods in Ancient Greece, trying to decide on which city-state should next host the Olympic Games. To do this, each God guides their Champion to steal Artifacts important to the other Gods in order to win Renown and therefore the games. But the success or failure of a quest depends more on the “backroom deals” between the Gods than the strength of a mortal’s sword arm or similar.

Background

The Ancient Greek World, during the Age of Gods and Men: Zeus, father of all the Gods has decided that he wants a new religious festival for the Mortals to honour him. He has declared that it will be known as the ?Olympics? and shall be held in the most worthy city?state in all of the Greek World ? anywhere from Iberia to the Black Sea.

But there are more city?states than Zeus can be bothered to remember, so to discover which is most worthy, he has chosen a number of his Godly offspring to do it for him. They will be known as the ?Mount Olympus Committee?, and will report back in four mortal years, or Zeus shall rip all of Creation asunder.

Now, each of these Gods has a particular city?state where they are worshipped more than the others, and they want ?their? city?state, and by extension, them to receive Zeus? favour. So, to come to an agreement, the Gods each summon a Champion to champion their city?state, and then the champion who completes the most heroic tasks shall win the right for his city?state to host the Olympics.

But Gods cannot stop themselves from meddling in Mortal affairs, and the Committee is no different. They bicker, bribe, lend favours, call in favours and persuade the others to set ever greater challenges in the way of the other champions whilst doing the same to grant Boons to aid their own champion. The city?state to receive the games will have less to do with the exploits of champions in the mortal world, and more to do with the deals happening at Mount Olympus.

You have got everything you were told you ever wanted. Nice house in the suburbs, loving partner, 200.4 smiling children, white-picket fence, the works. But you aren’t happy. In fact you hate yourself for having all this stuff, and as such, the perfection appearance doesn’t represent the reality. Maybe your kids are off the rails, maybe you can’t afford the mortgage repayments, and maybe there is infidelity in the marriage. You were managing, just about, living in quiet desperation, until the scandal erupted.