Preview: Antagonists
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 08:03:08 AM
Hey Argonauts,
One final quick sneak peek at Chapter 7 before it comes your way on Tuesday. It can't always be easy... and now we're going to look at some potential antagonists for the heroes in the stories we create.
One final quick sneak peek at Chapter 7 before it comes your way on Tuesday. It can't always be easy... and now we're going to look at some potential antagonists for the heroes in the stories we create.
Antagonists: Gods and Monsters
Ambrosia represents a tempting glance into divinity. Anyone who encounters it can say that they have witnessed the grandeur of Olympus, dipped a hand into the rushing waters of the River Styx, or heard the echoes of Khaos’s sleeping murmurs. Its existence compels philosophers, architects, poets, generals, and monarchs to abandon all of their previous pursuits. What is this divine liquid? What is its true nature? Can it be controlled? Can it be exploited? Can it at least be weaponized?
Smart warriors know not to rely on untested blades, but ambition often trumps caution. In the bloody waters of the Aegean, no potential advantage can be ignored. Scientists and philosophers seek to understand it and direct it toward noble pursuits. Its arrival brought forth horrors and wonders in equal measure, could humanity use the latter to address the former?
Monsters created by ambrosia often become violent and aggressive, but this is not because ambrosia twisted their minds: the trauma of transformation and dysmorphia of a twisted body can warp kind souls without proper support and assistance.
Unfortunately, this is not a world of understanding or patience, and sometimes a person’s new form is dangerous to be around. These tormented souls are doomed to lonely lives away from their families, their humanity a half-remembered dream.
Champions, Olympians, and Oracles are no different. While their newfound skills and powers come with few downsides, excellence can be isolating in its own way. As they find new success, they are sought by hopeful devotees, would-be worshippers, and jealous rivals. Strangers seek their divinity, not their humanity, while those close to them grow embittered by jealousy or simply find themselves forgotten as the Inspired revel in their newfound glory.
As their power reveals who they are, those exposed to ambrosia set out to right the wrongs they’ve suffered and reshape the world to their wishes. Sometimes their causes are just and righteous, but even the best of intentions and noblest of pursuits can lead men down dark paths. Just revolutionaries overthrow their oppressive rulers and find themselves becoming a new tyrant to enforce the peace they fought for. Soothsayers refuse to dispense their wisdom to those they deem unfit or unworthy. And above all else, they destroy any potential threat to their new power with extreme prejudice.
Antagonist-Only Edges
Storyguide characters may select the following Edges in addition to the options available to player characters, representing capabilities or properties inappropriate for player use or abstractions of more complex suites of abilities.
Elusive Target (•-•••)
The antagonist may create a Complication each session at this Edge’s value during the first combat or action scene they appear in. If it’s not overcome, this character escapes the scene, forcing the characters to give immediate pursuit in a chase scene or accept they’ve lost track of the antagonist.
Eureka! (••)
The antagonist may use their most applicable pool to create improvised super-science items. They gain their Enhancement value to this action.
Skirmisher (•)
The antagonist is skilled at moving through combat. Whenever the antagonist makes a mixed action with a sprint and an attack, they use the higher pool. This includes making sprint actions in the air and underwater.
Example Antagonists
Mortals
Ambrosia has changed the world, but it has not been fairly distributed. Not everyone who has access to it wishes to suffer the horrifying transformations it can cause. There are vastly more ordinary humans in the world than all the Champions, Oracles, Olympians, and monsters combined. Their hearts are just as resolute, their wits just as sharp, their will just as indomitable.
Mortals are kings, patrons, commoners, pirates, generals, wives, soldiers, and often many of these things at once. They can challenge Champions, teach Oracles, and humble Olympians. Someone who underestimates their tenacity risks losing everything.
Sea People Raiders
Raiders terrorize the coasts of the Aegean. They ransack towns and villages and are so prevalent some of their victims rebuild farther away from the coastline to provide an extra layer of defense against invasion from the water.
The Sea People are not a unified culture: they are the desperate and dispossessed who have turned to piracy. They avoid combat unless they feel they have an advantage and flee to seek easier prey if the tide turns against them. Subjected to the horrors of war, famine, and disease, Sea People are slow to trust but consider the Atlantean imperial navy their primary threat. While not keen to pick a fight with Atlantis’s superior technology and weapons, they would be a useful ally for anyone who considers the empire an enemy.
Primary Pool: 7 (piracy, navigating the Mediterranean, evaluating treasure)
Secondary Pool: 5 (finding targets, gossip)
Desperation Pool: 3
Enhancement: 1
Defense: 3
Health: 4
Initiative: 3
Edges: Breath Control, Demolitions Training, Fame, Sniper, Weak Spots
Atlantean Soldiers
Conquerors and raiders in the service of King Atlas III, Atlantean soldiers leap into battle wielding horrifying mystic weapons, clad in impenetrable golden armor, and possessed by an unending appetite for conquest. At the core of their being is a belief that the destiny of Atlantis is to rule the seas through the might of their spears.
Atlantis strictly controls the secrets of orichalcum technology and its soldiers are expected to make regular journeys home to recharge and repair their weapons and ships. They do not linger where they land, and they closely track their gear. Soldiers hunt down any missing equipment and kill anyone unwise enough to interfere.
Primary Pool: 8 (cruel tactics, boarding actions)
Secondary Pool: 6 (sailing, operating orichalcum devices)
Desperation Pool: 4
Enhancement: 2
Defense: 4
Health: 6
Edges: Danger Sense, Fast Draw, Precise Martial Arts (Spear) 1, Skirmisher, Small Unit Tactics 2
An example of a Champion-level antagonist.
Theseus of Troezen
Theseus was raised by his mother, Aethra, in the region of Troezen. He grew up believing that his father had been claimed by Poseidon, dead in a shipwreck. When he was a young man, while exploring the shores of his home, he witnessed a falling star crash into the beach. From within the crater, he drew a length of sharp metal unlike anything he had ever seen, and felt a surge of divine purpose.
When he showed the blade to his mother, and told her that he intended to set out and make his name as a hero, she revealed to him that he was actually the son of Aegeus of Athens. Rather than shake his resolve, he decided that Athens would be his first destination, and set out on foot on the Saronic Gulf.
Primary Pool: 8 (combat, forced marches)
Secondary Pool: 6 (sailing, spelunking)
Desperation Pool: 4
Enhancement: 2
Defense: 4
Health: 5
Initiative: 5
Edges: Fast Draw, Precise Martial Arts 2, Striking
Source: Inspiration 4
Gifts: Anathema, Cutting Through the Knot, Infuriating Gibe, Vision of Argus
An example of an Oracle-level antagonist.
Circe of Ea
The island of Ea is a nexus of ambrosia. It collects in and infuses the soil, the life that grows from it, and the springs that provide it with fresh water. The witch Circe rules this mythic place. She is also the sorceress Circe, who sprouts ambrosia from the soil. And she is the goddess Circe, daughter of Helios, who reshapes flesh with herbal brews and magical incantations.
To trespass upon Ea invites harsh retribution. No creature is safe from Circe’s power: mortal sailors are transformed into swine, nymphs are transformed into terrible monsters, kings into birds. She is known for pettiness and jealousy, but also for mercy and honor. As a patron, she offers a chance to study ambrosia from the safety of her traveling domain, and her knowledge of potions and alchemy is second to none.
Despite her power, she is loath to leave Ea for too long, but there is much in the world that attracts her attention. Artifacts empowered by ambrosia are tremendously valuable to her, and she will favor anyone who can provide her with a steady supply.
Primary Pool: 10 (brewing potions, mystic presence)
Secondary Pool: 8 (cultivating alchemical reagents, wrath of the gods)
Enhancement: 5
Defense: 5
Health: 8
Initiative: 6
Edges: Animal Ken 2, Eureka!, Fame 3, Indomitable, Intense Focus
Source: Inspiration 6
Gifts: Balm of Healing, Fast Travel, Hyper Intelligent, The Food of Transformation, Vision of Panoptes, Voice of the Wild
An example of an Olympian-level antagonist.
King Midas
Is there a greater tragedy about the short-sighted greed of kings than the tale of King Midas? Who wished that all he touched would turn to gold and starved himself when his food and drink turned to gold with everything else?
Midas begged Dionysus to undo his wish, and washed the power of his boon-turned-curse into the Pactolus River. Unbeknownst to history, Midas retained his power, but it was weakened in exchange for control. Regardless, he rejected his wealth and dedicated himself to the god of fields and satyrs, Pan.
His troubles were not over, however. By chance he met a group of celebrants during a Dionysian festival and joined them. Three days later he awoke with the ears of a horse. He hides his mutation with a large headdress and hopes to cure himself of his affliction.
Primary Pool: 9 (impulsive decision-making, scholar of Orphic lore)
Secondary Pool: 7 (pan pipes, musical connoisseur, throwing parties)
Desperation Pool: 5
Enhancement: 4
Defense: 4
Health: 6
Initiative: 5
Edges: Fame 2, Striking, Wealth 3
Source: Inspiration 5
Gifts: Transmute (The Midas Touch)
The Midas Touch: Midas may spend 1 Source to transmute a creature or object that he touches up to Size Scale 0 into solid gold. This only affects what he is touching directly: clothes or weapons become gold if he doesn’t touch a person’s bare skin, subjecting the target to a Complication. The transformation is permanent, but can be undone. Submerging the subject in the waters of the Pactolus River or applying a salve made with ambrosia will transform them back, and Midas can reverse the effect by touching them and spending another Source. Theoretically, he could do this to other beings affected by a similar curse.
Minoan Bull
Found mostly on the island of Crete, these bulls have been empowered by ambrosia with armor-like hides, horns like iron, massive wings, and a lust for violence.
Primary Pool: 9 (charging threats, bellowing warnings)
Secondary Pool: 7 (clumsy flight, irascible temper)
Desperation Pool: 5
Enhancement: 4
Defense: 4
Health: 6
Initiative: 5
Edges: Adrenaline Spike, Iron Will 2, Powerful Martial Arts, Skirmisher
Source: 5
Powers: Enhanced Attack (steel), Enormous Size, Flight, Hardened Skin 2, Natural Weapons (horns)
