Lords of Olympus Campaign Session #3!

Today, once again, a play report from the third session of our Lords of Olympus campaign, which is written not by me but by one of my players (who has taken on doing play reports as a means for bonus points).  So here it is:

On the Hadean Road:

Ralph and Paneb were following Roman, as Ralph was contacted mentally by a strange womanly spirit.She told him to keep quiet about her, and he obeyed.

Paneb, desperate to get answers from Roman, grabbed him by the neck and tried to force him to answer; but when Ralph came to try to separate them, a huge mental energy surged from the mysterious womanly spirit to both Paneb and Roman, and they got knocked unconscious.

The spirit told Ralph to take Paneb and Roman and move to an indicated place, but should he find danger, he should prioritize his life at all costs.

Following the orders, Ralph used his Elementalism to form a wall of earth and escaped with both Paneb s and Roman s unconscious bodies from the attack of multiple Shadow Demons.
Knowing the wall wouldn’t last long, he left the Hadean road, falling to an unknown earth s subway.

There, a talking dog with a Jamaican accent named Bob Shoggoth guided him through a crowded city, telling him he would take Ralph to the Great Lady. After a few awkward cab rides with talking dogs, Ralph found himself amongst many of this "Great Lady"'s disciples, who seemed rather jealous that the Lady decided to tall to Ralph directly. They made a magical ritual in an asphalt crossroad, and Ralph, after a rather trippy experience, got transported to the Underworld to meet the Great Lady Witch, Hecate, Goddess of Magic.

It turns out that Hecate planned for this all along. Knowing Hades would likely try to kill Paneb anonymously before becoming immortal (He likes his sons better when he can control their undead bodies), she decided to have Ralph " Rescue" Paneb from the attacks of the Shadow Demons, bringing him to the Hadean court, where Hades would be unable to kill him without Persephone, his wife, knowing about it, and he would be forced to grant Ralph the boon of immortality for his "valiant rescue" of the Hadean son.

And so he did.As Ralph and Paneb were presented to the loyal husband and socially awkward Hades, he granted both the boon of Immortality. Paneb discovered that while he was in fact Hades's son , he was not Persephone's. He was conceived in a previous relationship, before Hades's marriage. Even then, Persephone didn't seem to mind, receiving Paneb with open arms.

On the flip side, this left Paneb wondering who his real mother was. Asking Hades, he used his mental powers to read through Paneb's memories. He was born from a mortal mother named Julia, who Hades described as something of a 'witch' and that last he heard she was living in some kind of feminist commune.

Thankful for the information, Paneb tried convincing Hades that he should be the one to question the captured Roman to discover who he worker for, but Hecate, telling Hades that Roman had magical mind barriers that were even hard for her to decipher, convinced him that Paneb should stay put. Both Paneb and Ralph therefore decided to stay with Hecate and study magic directly from her. As Ralph was told of the incredible powers of Primordial Magic, he decided to start training with Hecate to unleash his own power of Metamorphosis, something that is required to tap into the power of the primordials. While Paneb was left wondering what he should do next, knowing Hecate would do as much as he could to have him stay in the underworld.

On Atlantis.

As Arrit and Seagoat (Briareus) arrived to Atlantis, they found out that Poseidon was not there, and had allegedly gone away to do “some nonsense”. They therefore met with Amphitrite, the Queen and ruler of Atlantis, as she had been left in charge since Poseidon parted on an adventure. Amphitrite, a lesser known Goddess, is a very frustrated woman, constantly complaining about his husband’s infidelities. As Sea Goat convinced Amphitrite of letting Arrit stay protected on Atlantis while they figured out who her parents were, Arrit asked if Amphitrite was constantly being cheated on by his husband. This led to Amphitrite getting highly offended, hysterically screaming that even the most wild and uncivilized girls didn’t knew about her, but surely knew about Poseidon’s infidelities. As Briareus told Arrit “She done fucked it up”, they planned on having her apologize to the queen. Meanwhile, Arrit was rather worried with just getting some fish from the palace for her tank, even though some of the fish were food, some other citizens, and some other straight up government employees.

Meanwhile, Elon, Guillermo, Fito and Brontes arrived in their Tesla submarine to be confronted by Triton and an army of Merman. Triton revealed that Elon was likely working for the rebellious god Dionysus, who desired to change the entirety of Olympian society, and that they would not allow them to get close to Arrit, but Brontes, on the other hand, having been a long term friend of Triton, and having made his own trident, asked for an audience with queen Amphitrite as a favor for his past deeds, so the team was allowed to see the Queen.

They arrived just in time, Arrit was talking with Amphitrite and had managed to convince her to forgive her, and Amphitrite had even taken a liking for Arrit, finding her to be this poor, also suffering woman, just like her, who instead of having a terrible husband, had drugged and runaway parents and was in dire need of education in proper manners and a loving home; but Elon tried convincing Arrit otherwise, telling her that she had to make a choice. While Arrit was more inclined towards staying in Atlantis as “she would have all the fish she wanted”, she was worried sick about Fluffly, Elon’s genetically modified cat.

As Fito tried making a comment, Aphitrite noticed him, and she started screaming as she seemed to think that Fito looked just like Poseidon, and that this was the last straw. The group started running, and the undecided Arrit, taking some fish with her, decided that Amphitrite was too crazy for her taste (and that she missed Fluffy too much), so she escaped with Elon , Brontes, Guillermo and Fito, leaving Amphitrtie and Briareus behind, to the Queen’s repeated displeasure.

When they got to the submarine and escaped, they found out that some of the fish that Arrit took with her were actually messenger fish, which carried telepathic messages in Atlantis. One of them had a message from Poseidon to Amphitrite, in which he apologizes for leaving, but insists in that he is on a necessary and very important mission: Avenge Aquaman’s death with the help of Jacques Cousteau.

Determined to find Poseidon, knowing he might be Fito’s father, the EM Men go on their submarine trying to track him…But they suddenly get attacked by a giant sea water dragon!
While they find that most of their attacks are ineffective, even Elon’s Eco-Powered Guns and Brontes Elementalism, Fito and Guillermo take the nuclear generator of the almost destroyed submarine and pass it to Arrit, who manages to put it on the dragons mouth. In a desperate act to save de Godlings, Brontes places himself in front of the Dragon and uses his Elementalism to hit the generator with fire magic. A great explosion ensues, which ended with Arrit and Brontes both unconscious, Brontes being gravely wounded, and the Dragon running away with most of his face blown off.

Now stranded and with no submarine, the EM face the great perils of the Atlantean roads by themselves.

On the Architect’s City

Corey and Helena started both communicating and taking leadership of the City’s Liberation Movement and the Resistance respectively, and they managed to break a truce between the two factions. Going to an abandoned warehouse of the liberation movement, they decided to meet with each of the group’s champions as to determine the next move for the liberation of the city.

While Helena used the Resistance’s sewers to move, Corey had to make the difficult decision of going with just a few of the CLM henchmen through the city to the rendezvous point. As she was stealthily guiding the group through the streets, she found a large yellow eyed creature hiding in the shadows of an alleyway, but decided to ignore it in fear that it was the monster who made people disappear that everyone was talking about.

In the meeting, they both decided they needed plans of action, but they didn’t have enough information to attack. They knew Aetos had gathered information on the ministers and their meetings, but since he was taken by the science ministry before he could relay his intel, and he had to destroy his cellphone to not get tracked, they couldn’t communicate with him (Helena had a way, she could have used her Scrying to talk directly to Aetos through magical means, but she decided not to, as many people had been very afraid of her power when she discovered it in her own earth, and she believes she must be careful in not revealing her abilities, especially in the presence of other powered individuals).

So the search for Aetos started, but when the night came, Corey decided to go peek back into the alley. The creature did not seem aggressive towards her, and as she approached, she found out it was the Minotaur. He escaped from the science ministry thanks to Moon girl and now was looking for a “Male children of the gods”, likely referring to Aetos. Corey though of killing two birds with one stone, so she persuaded the Minotaur to join the liberation movement, as they too were searching for the person he wanted.

Aetos, meanwhile, had extracted all possible information he could from both the scientist and the judge, gaining knowledge of the exact layouts of the science ministry, the minotaur’s escape , and the weapons they were trying to use for capturing him back. He also got the general direction of some of the minister’s houses from the judge’s mind.

Not willing to commit another mistake, Aetos left the judge in a coma, and severed the scientists hand as he left him unconscious so he could enter the science ministry with his fingerprints. He hid both of the mortals in the woods as for to not be tracked and went into the Propaganda minister’s personal house. There, using his metamorphosis to transform into one of the City Guards, he read the mind of the Minister of Propaganda’s wife, finding out that he was working late hours to calm down the population from the recent incident at the science ministry that Aetos had created.

Seeing an opportunity for revolution, Aetos flew in his eagle form and went to the office of the Propaganda ministry, who was…having sex with his secretary. After a long and grueling wait, the secretary left the room and Aetos managed to get a hold on the ministers mind by catching his attention in eagle form. Hiding him in a closet, he transformed to mimic his form and scoured through his mind and paperwork, finding a list of all of the ministers contact information, including directions and phone numbers, as well as their family members.

He called for a worker of trust of the minister to do a special announcement broadcaster in every single television, radio and media communication on the City, and just before the broadcast commenced, he put the camera men unconscious and changed back to his true form, leaving a great speech for the public, calling them to revolt and return their to their freedoms, telling them that he was there to take them out of the city, and that “When the sky burns in flames, they would have their chance to strike back” and finally escaping with the Minister of propaganda to the skies.

Someone decided this was enough, and he shut down the power grid for the entire city, leaving it in a full blackout. But the internet saved us again, as some people had already recorded the speech and were now sharing it all over, it quickly became viral. The coalition between the resistance and CLM started sharing the video, in hopes of also helping find Aetos quicker.

The day of the Minister’s reunion with the architect, the power came back on, and Aetos managed to find back Corey’s and Helena’s number on the hotel they were staying by transforming into a guard. He contacted them both and set up a meeting point decided by Corey, a whorehouse close to the port of the city. Flying in his eagle form, Aetos had to leave the captured minister on a stray boat on the sea close to the port and disguise as a guard. When they left, they went back to the CLM s base.

As soon as the Minotaur saw Aetos, he charged towards the Godling for no apparent reason. Aetos was grappled, but clinging to the minotaur’s strong hand, he managed to enter his mind and stop him. He read his mind and discovered that it was Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War, that had sent him to test Aetos in a fight to the death. This would help the Minotaur repay a big debt she had to Athena for sparing his life. Seeing him as an honorable creature, Aetos spared his life.

As the group just started talking about their plans to escape and liberate the City, a black line of forced suddenly had the minotaur disappear. The group was completely flabbergasted as a new line of force came again into the room, this time trying to take Aetos. He was unable to dodge, and only managed to throw to Corey the papers of the Minister of propaganda that contained the personal information of the rest of the ministers.

Suddenly transported to a mountain top, Athena showed herself with the minotaur kneeling at her feet. She was impressed by Aetos actions for the City’s liberation and the defeating of the Minotaur, and therefore, he was found worthy of being trained by the Wise Goddess.

The CLM still had a burning hope, now having the information of the Ministers and with their spreading of Aetos revolutionary speech, they could definitively start a coup in the right time; but for the Resistance, this was not as easy. They had taken Helena to a place where they could meet the Moon Girl, and as they found her, she told Helena that she must make a choice between going to meet her divine parents or staying in the City, as the resistance’s goal all along was to take Helena out of the realm. Helena opted to follow Moon Girl, and left Corey alone with the CLM to free the City.

Can the EM Men find Jacques Cousteau and avenge Aquaman’s death? Did Hades have a mullet when he was young and conceived Paneb? What will happen to the poor Propaganda minister who is now just laying unconscious on a unmanned boat on the sea?

Only fate truly knows.