Nostos - On Odysseus' trails

Explore a thriving and dangerous Mediterranean in search of Odysseus' secrets to save Greece from the threat of Xerxes.

Presentation

In the streets of Athens, the victory at Marathon over the Persian army of Darius, King of Kings, is celebrated. The joy is interrupted by the arrival of three messengers from the Great Oracles of Greece; each bears a fragment of a dark prophecy: the Persians will return, and only the multifaceted ingenuity of Odysseus can save Greece.
A group of heroes, from every Greek city, follows in Odysseus' footsteps. You are one of them. Can you follow the trail of a man returning from an epic and terrible war, across a 5th-century BC Mediterranean as fascinating as it is hostile?

Tone and Atmosphere

Adventurous, epic, didactic, heroic, mysterious, historical.

Themes

Freedom, cunning, clash of civilizations, subterfuge, diplomacy, past and present.

Inspirations

The Odyssey, the Iliad, Herodotus's Histories, the Aeneid, the novels of Valerio Massimo Manfredi.

Overview

It's 490 BC. Athens has just repelled the invasion of the King of Kings Darius at Marathon, and all of Greece savors a victory that seemed impossible. But the joy lasts only one evening: while Athens celebrates, messengers from Delphi, Dodona, and Didyma reach Themistocles of Athens with a single, terrible prophecy, pieced together fragment by fragment. Darius has fallen, but his failure gives rise to his son's obsession: Xerxes will return, with an army as large as Asia, and nothing will stop this wave except "the multifaceted ingenuity of Odysseus"—five signs scattered along the routes of his legendary return from Troy, which only those who find them can reassemble.

A few days later, on the Areopagus, Themistocles of Athens summons the Greek cities. Only Athens, Sparta, and Thebes have any real weight in this fragmented Greece, and it is their representatives—himself, Queen Gorgo of Sparta, and the ambitious Attaginus of Thebes—who discuss what to do, while suspicions of treachery already creep through the streets. It is Gorgo of Sparta who proposes the solution: not armies, not explorers, but heroes—one for each polis that still cherishes its freedom.

The world they will traverse is the real world of the 5th century BC as narrated by Herodotus: rival cities, colonies, trade routes, expanding empires—Carthage to the west, Persia to the east, a Latin settlement still unaware of its future greatness. But beneath the surface of history, echoes of the Odyssey still linger: the divine no longer intervenes openly as in the Homeric poems; it manifests itself in omens, prophecies, and the names men give to their fears. The heroes will find no Cyclopes or sorceresses awaiting them—they will find tyrants, merchants, spies, and the temptation to become, like Odysseus before them, that which they despise.

Principles for Players

• Consider your role in this looming war: what are your motivations? To save your city, to defend the freedom of Greece, to achieve fame and immortality as a new Achilles? What are you willing to sacrifice?

• The Odyssey describes a journey that brings a war hero back to his homeland. You will travel the reverse path, but you still don't know whether the war will bring you victory or defeat. Will you be the one to decide, as Odysseus did?

• Odysseus set out with his companions and returned alone, the sole survivor. Here, a group of individuals travel the reverse path. Will they know how to become a crew? Who will be their leader?

• The world of the Odyssey is mythical, full of magic and monsters. You live in a historical present, but the gods are still there, intervening in the lives of mortals. The divine and the monstrous exist, but they are more hidden, and sometimes manifest themselves beyond the material. Act accordingly.

Principles for the GM

• The campaign has an educational value: let the story unfold through the players, but don't allow historical reality to be distorted or, if necessary, highlight it.

• The party moves in a historical world yet full of faith and superstition, with the sense of a divine presence that is ever-present but ever-elusive, never tangible.

• Instead of divine acts, you weave the plot of the story through the principles of classical Greek culture: philosophy, mythology, theater, and politics. These are all aspects that the players can also use to develop the narrative.

Communities

The nine poleis of the campaign correspond exactly to the nine Communities.

Note: If a player has a home polis connected to the visited destination, their interaction should be affected, for better or worse (Ithaca→Ismara; Sparta→Taranto; Corinth→Syracuse, etc.).

Ancestry

The world belongs to Mortals (Humans), favored by Prometheus, who represent about 80% of the population. Among them, other lineages walk, not easily recognizable. How, where, and when this lineage becomes apparent will be decided by history itself.

During the campaign, if narratively coherent and agreed upon by the GM, a Mortal (Human) can discover their Olympian lineage through the Transformation: Demigod card (Hope & Fear expansion)—not a creation choice but a revelation that develops in-game.

References for Nymphal and Cursed Lineages

The tables below are intended solely as inspiration to give the player a starting point for character development. The lineage doesn't need to be defined at the beginning, but it can emerge over the course of the story. Players can suggest other mythological references to the GM.

Cursed Lineage

Nymphal Lineage

Classes

Allowed classes: Guardian, Bard, Wizard, Druid, Fighter, Outlaw, Warlock, Ranger.

In the first session, the GM should help players connect their character to Greek mythology, perhaps by delving into the origin myths or letting them do so before the first session. This will help them find insights and connections in the story that will emerge over the course of the campaign.

Distinctive Elements

• The Artifact: "Odysseus's multifaceted ingenuity" is composed of five boxes shaped like Platonic solids, each associated with an element and found along the way. The contents of the boxes, how they fit together, and how they can influence the looming war are mysteries that history itself will have to unravel.

• The Ten-Year Window: The campaign takes place between the First Persian War (Marathon, 490 BC) and the Second (Xerxes, 480 BC)—the same length as Odysseus's nostos.

• The Two Timelines: The party isn't sure whether their actions truly matter. At the end of the session, the GM recounts a fragment of the actual Persian War; the two timelines rejoin only at the final climax.

• The Journey Graph: The path is not linear—at each stop, the party chooses between multiple possible destinations, but no location is ever lost forever; the real stake is time.

• The Cost of War: The actions of individual characters and the group affect the consequences of the war on their communities and their social bonds. There is no direct and determined connection, however, because everything is mediated by the ineluctable action of Fate (Ananke), to which even the gods must submit.

The Triggering Event

The Council of the Areopagus: Themistocles of Athens, Gorgo of Sparta, and Attaginus of Thebes discuss the Persian threat and the prophecy. Gorgo proposes the mission—one hero per polis. The PCs are summoned before the council.

Campaign Mechanics

• End of Session Debriefing: The GM recounts an episode from the Second Persian War. He never clearly connects the events to the characters' actions, but leaves them to draw conclusions between the inevitability of fate (Ananke) and human action.

• Demigod Transformation (Hope & Fear): the mechanical path for a Mortal to discover their divine origins.

• The Cost of War: Each community represented by the players has a global counter that starts at 20, except for Thebes, which starts at 12. When the counter reaches 10, the city leaves the Hellenic League and sides with the Persians (medism). The counters are updated at the end of each session using the procedure described in the following paragraph, and the GM presents this information narratively.

War Counter Update.

• At the end of each session, each community's counter is reduced by 1, as a result of the inevitable attrition of war.

• If the group has interacted (or believes they have) with divine beings, the GM can decide whether this is a favor or disfavor toward one of the characters or toward the entire group. The GM doesn't have to give a detailed explanation but leaves room for suggestion and doubt.

• In the case of divine favor, the GM excludes the city of the favored character(s) from further effects on their counters.

• In the case of divine disfavor, the GM applies the effects only to the cities of the disfavored character(s).

• In the absence of favor or disfavor, the GM randomly determines the affected city.

• The counter of the selected city(s) is reduced by a value from 1 to 4, at the GM's discretion, based on the characters' behavior. The GM must translate the chosen value into a narrative. Use these questions as inspiration: How did the party develop the stage's theme?, How focused was it on the overall mission?, How much did the party embody the spirit of the campaign?, How much did the story highlight traits of Greek history, mythology, and philosophy?

• The GM updates the counter and narrates its effects according to the table. Athens and Sparta will always follow the Hellenic Variant, Thebes always the Medist Variant. For the other cities, the choice can be made at the table with the players for the most epic story possible.