Greenfield
Adventurer
We had some fun in our game last week, and it seemed worth sharing.
In our game world, the gods are pretty actively involved in... something... that keeps them from answering the phone. Spells like Divination and Commune that call upon the gods for information stopped working years ago. No spell or ritual has been able to get a response, or even a clue about what's going on.
Because the PCs have been very actively involved in trying to deal with the ... something ..., they've had a very few close encounters of the divine kind.
They have, for the most part, kept these occasions to themselves. I don't think they were deliberately keeping mum, or trying to maintain any kind of security or anything. It just didn't occur to them to tell anyone what they'd learned, or from whom.
Well, the cat is out of the bag. They attended a feast with the Celtic deity Vandos, who is the Master of the Wild Hunt. Simply put, he's the Celtic version of the Grim Reaper, the deity tasked with collecting the souls of the dead.
At this feast they asked what he knew of the Roman Empire. He showed them a vision of armies at war. He explained that, being a Celtic power, his only contact had been when the Romans tried to invade. Lots of killing and death when that happened, so it was kind of his busy season.
When pressed for *current* news, he showed a different vision. Again, it was of an invading army, Persian this time, and again he told that that since killing and death were more or less his domain, that was the event most visible to him.
Now they're talking to important people, trying to convince them that there's a Persian army coming. When asked how they know, they casually said that the god told them.
Priests were called, rituals were performed, Detect Lie was cast, as was Zone of Truth. Even word from a barbarian deity from the far end of the Empire was news, and far too important to ignore.
So they were questioned. And the number of divine contacts they've had began to come out.
They've spoken, in person, with Apollo/Helios, the Roman/Greek sun god and patron of oracles. They've spoken with Vandos, the Celtic collector of souls. They've spoken with Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Justice, and they've spoken with Thoth, (Ma'at's husband), the scribe of the Egyptian pantheon and their god of Knowledge. They've also spoken with the gate keepers of "Death's Door" for a dozen pantheons, and with an Avatar of Ra, the Egyptian sun god (and again, their collector of the souls of the dead.)
One of them recently returned from Olympus, where he conferred with Zeus/Jupiter and his wife, and several other deities as well.
They have a remarkably clear picture of what the real problem is, whose behind it, and what needs to be done about it.
And they passed every available test regarding the truthfulness of what they were saying.
The high priests almost collapsed in shock, and military commanders began making plans, plans which run counter to what the provincial governors want.
Some of what they reported was kind of like playing "telephone", in that what they said was sort of kinda like what they had learned, but not quite on target. Still, because it was what they remembered and believed, it passed all the tests.
What upset the priests the most was that the gods who gave the most useful and complete information were all foreign deities. Zeus and Hera were having a domestic quarrel, and Apollo gave almost nothing beyond personal advice to the PCs.
The Egyptians gave the most complete overview, and the Celts gave the most immediately useful.
What will rile the priests, when they take time to think about it, is that gods didn't choose to deliver this vital information to their own priesthood, but to outlanders, savages and the "uninitiated" (i.e. not of the priesthood).
What has the military commanders at a boiling point, aside from the incompetence of the politicians, is that the PCs have apparently had a lot of this vital information for *years*, and it never occurred to them to tell anyone. It just sort of slipped their minds.
And then the party slipped away on their mission, without telling anyone where they were going, or when they'd be back.
Since that time, concentrated foodstuffs have been rolling into the city by the ton, courtesy of the PCs who've been raiding supply caches laid out for the Persian army and shipping them back to Thebes, but it's always a teamster or freight hauler bringing it in, and never the people that the priests and military are desperate to talk to, to get more information from.
I mean, if they had all of that casually available, what might they come up with if they actually took time to think about it?
Some will start to think about torture and/or sacrifice.
I'm going to have fun with this. These almost casual revelations will turn our game world upside down.
In our game world, the gods are pretty actively involved in... something... that keeps them from answering the phone. Spells like Divination and Commune that call upon the gods for information stopped working years ago. No spell or ritual has been able to get a response, or even a clue about what's going on.
Because the PCs have been very actively involved in trying to deal with the ... something ..., they've had a very few close encounters of the divine kind.
They have, for the most part, kept these occasions to themselves. I don't think they were deliberately keeping mum, or trying to maintain any kind of security or anything. It just didn't occur to them to tell anyone what they'd learned, or from whom.
Well, the cat is out of the bag. They attended a feast with the Celtic deity Vandos, who is the Master of the Wild Hunt. Simply put, he's the Celtic version of the Grim Reaper, the deity tasked with collecting the souls of the dead.
At this feast they asked what he knew of the Roman Empire. He showed them a vision of armies at war. He explained that, being a Celtic power, his only contact had been when the Romans tried to invade. Lots of killing and death when that happened, so it was kind of his busy season.
When pressed for *current* news, he showed a different vision. Again, it was of an invading army, Persian this time, and again he told that that since killing and death were more or less his domain, that was the event most visible to him.
Now they're talking to important people, trying to convince them that there's a Persian army coming. When asked how they know, they casually said that the god told them.
Priests were called, rituals were performed, Detect Lie was cast, as was Zone of Truth. Even word from a barbarian deity from the far end of the Empire was news, and far too important to ignore.
So they were questioned. And the number of divine contacts they've had began to come out.
They've spoken, in person, with Apollo/Helios, the Roman/Greek sun god and patron of oracles. They've spoken with Vandos, the Celtic collector of souls. They've spoken with Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Justice, and they've spoken with Thoth, (Ma'at's husband), the scribe of the Egyptian pantheon and their god of Knowledge. They've also spoken with the gate keepers of "Death's Door" for a dozen pantheons, and with an Avatar of Ra, the Egyptian sun god (and again, their collector of the souls of the dead.)
One of them recently returned from Olympus, where he conferred with Zeus/Jupiter and his wife, and several other deities as well.
They have a remarkably clear picture of what the real problem is, whose behind it, and what needs to be done about it.
And they passed every available test regarding the truthfulness of what they were saying.
The high priests almost collapsed in shock, and military commanders began making plans, plans which run counter to what the provincial governors want.
Some of what they reported was kind of like playing "telephone", in that what they said was sort of kinda like what they had learned, but not quite on target. Still, because it was what they remembered and believed, it passed all the tests.
What upset the priests the most was that the gods who gave the most useful and complete information were all foreign deities. Zeus and Hera were having a domestic quarrel, and Apollo gave almost nothing beyond personal advice to the PCs.
The Egyptians gave the most complete overview, and the Celts gave the most immediately useful.
What will rile the priests, when they take time to think about it, is that gods didn't choose to deliver this vital information to their own priesthood, but to outlanders, savages and the "uninitiated" (i.e. not of the priesthood).
What has the military commanders at a boiling point, aside from the incompetence of the politicians, is that the PCs have apparently had a lot of this vital information for *years*, and it never occurred to them to tell anyone. It just sort of slipped their minds.
And then the party slipped away on their mission, without telling anyone where they were going, or when they'd be back.
Since that time, concentrated foodstuffs have been rolling into the city by the ton, courtesy of the PCs who've been raiding supply caches laid out for the Persian army and shipping them back to Thebes, but it's always a teamster or freight hauler bringing it in, and never the people that the priests and military are desperate to talk to, to get more information from.
I mean, if they had all of that casually available, what might they come up with if they actually took time to think about it?
Some will start to think about torture and/or sacrifice.
I'm going to have fun with this. These almost casual revelations will turn our game world upside down.
Last edited:
