Path to Godhood Session 12: A Flame Extinguished

Characters:

Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths

Reunion

Neilos woke up in a fancy bed in the Metaxas estate, and this time he got a slave put the shards of the mirror in a sack instead.  He checked in with Pan, then teleported back up to the sun and down to the outskirts of Syrinth; when he was in the sun, he felt a presence similar to his own.  Neilos then walked back into town and found the other gods at the place they'd been staying.  Happy they wouldn't have to wait a week, Ajax suggested they go find a smith to turn the mirror shards into weapons.

They found one easily, a woman named Lyssa who took care to stay clean despite the dirty work, and Neilos started the conversation oddly by reciting the Circle's End code phrase.  From her perspective, this man just seemed unhinged.  When she saw how careful they were with the shards, she asked what was going on, and Neilos informed her of their divinity (thought not which specific gods they were).  Lyssa agreed to make a backspike for Steidis' hammer, and told them it would be done in two days.  Neilos tried to volunteer Steidis to assist with her work, but he refused ("My honor!"), and she wasn't interested at any rate.

To prepare for dealing with the beguiling lights, Ajax and Neilos wanted Steidis to make a mirrored shield, in the hope that the lights' hypnotic power wouldn't work through a reflection.  He bought the required bronze, but failed to use his powers to create it instantly, and stopped when they realized it would take several days.

Changing plans, Neilos convinced the others that they should just lie to Agathi the astrologer and tell her that her assistant Rini was dead.  He bought some grain at the docks, which he intended to instantly grow into a small harvest which he would offer to Agathi in exchange for her help with their prophecies, then they headed to the observatory.  For some reason, the callous and emotionless Neilos was the one to inform her of Rini's "untimely demise" at the hands of the "swamp beast", and the astrologer grew even quieter than usual, staring off into space.

Neilos went and planted the seeds, then caused them to bloom into harvestable grain, and returned inside to inform Agathi of his work.  She snapped out of her shock, and acknowledged that they'd done their best, then offered her assistance in helping to decipher the meanings of the stars.  They gained the following clues:

• The "Weeping Man" in one of Ajax's prophecies matched a constellation of the same name, which depicted a formerly great artisan who had put down his tools in despair.
• "The Rose" in one of Steidis' prophecies was an alias for Nephele, goddess of the ocean and prophecy
• The "Remains of the Wind" in one of Neilos' prophecies referred to the organs of certain things associated with the wind and sky, which would be used to perform haruspexy; what those things were was another question

The Weeping Man

Steidis asked if Agathi had met any other gods, and she affirmed that she had; the old woman she'd told them about.  She had been accompanied by a group of followers or possibly a family, but was otherwise an unremarkable Syrinthian.  As Ajax was behind on prophecies, they decided to look into his first, and asked after a famous artisan who was now sad.  He was in luck, as the great sculptor Simon had returned from a prestigious job on the Temple of the Oracle in Urbos after hearing news of his lover's death, and had now closed down his shop.  They headed to the shop and found a variety of sculpted masterpieces, mostly in white stone.

A soft weeping could be heard from inside, and they followed it through the workshop to a closed door.  Ajax knocked, and a soft voice asked for them to go away, as he was in mourning.  Steidis did not care, and pushed the door open.  Inside was a teary-eyed man kneeling in front of a stone plinth, which was displaying a man's body; it had clearly a while since death, as the stench could not be covered by perfumes or incense.  Ajax declared that they were gods, and perhaps they could do something about his dead lover.

Simon bitterly asked why, if they were so powerful, had they let "Appollon" die?  Ajax didn't really have a good answer, but didn't care.  He needed to give Simon a "fortune beyond kings" for "all that [Simon] had", and so told Simon that if he swore to give up his life here and to never pick up his tools again (Neilos whispered that he should take his hands as well, to make sure), Ajax would bring Appollon back from the dead.  After only a moment's hesitation, he agreed.  Ajax asked if he could have some others present for the ritual, as he is uncomfortable when in small groups, but Simon obviously refused.

To compensate, Ajax drew on excess godly energy, and pulled Appollon's soul from the starlit desert, then shoved it into the corpse's mouth (everybody knows that's where the soul goes!).  The newly alive man sat up, and seemed deeply disoriented, while Simon wept tears of joy at his lover's resurrection.  Ajax glowed with a golden light, and remembered more of his godly abilities.  He could now speak with the dead, and would no longer age, but he gained a fear of wide open spaces.  He also had forgotten something that had been important to his mortal self, but didn't know what.  With a reminder for Simon to remember his oath, the gods left.

The Second Flame

Steidis wanted to find out what the other Steidis was up to, but found that mortals were unwilling to talk to the charred beef-jerky man, and had Ajax ask around instead.  They heard a rumour that he was trying to specifically searching to wed the goddess Nephele, then inquired about the hydra and learned that it dwelled in the deep swamps.  Deciding they didn't have a good lead, the gods decided to wait until the next day to pick up the godkilling hammer from Lyrissa.

Unfortunately, at the smithy the next morning, Lyrissa informed them that she had failed.  She had been unable to shape the shards into anything usable, and apologized profusely.  Ajax asked if she could just wrap a handle around the shards to make shanks, and she did, but because she couldn't work the shards themselves, they were incredibly fragile.  Neilos suggested Steidis make himself a prosthetic arm to be able to hold the shards without hurting himself, but they feared what might happen if the arm itself got "contaminated".

The gods went to go meet with one of the merchant princes, hoping to exploit the tension of their main source of income (sources of light) being disrupted by the return of the sun and the other Neilos.  On the way, however, they discovered a parade of livestock tailed by fine carriages, where they learned that the princes had decided to offer sacrifices up to the other Neilos.  Ajax figured they could still capitalize on the relationship, but they'd have to wait until the princes were finished.  Neilos noted that the other Steidis still wasn't present.

Now that they had a 3:1 advantage, they decided to assassinate the other Steidis, and went to go stake out the place where he was staying.  Apparently he'd kicked some family out of their home, and taken it over to hold his "interviews", and a line of young women (foolishly) seeking to marry a god stretched down the block.  There was some initial discussion of tactical arson, but the building was stone, and the roof was made of slate tiles.  There were probably wooden supports underneatah everything, but that'd be tricky to get at stealthily.

Before acting, they decided to go check in on how the merchant princes were getting along with the other gods, and headed back to the square where the other Neilos had set up.  The various princes gave speeches expressing support for the other gods, which the gods interpreted as merely formalities.  Ajax in particular figured that the princes didn't really have any other good options.  Satisfied that action against the other gods wouldn't bring mortals down on them, they returned to their assassination plotting.

More staking out of the "bang house" gained them little; women entered, stayed for a length of time, and then left, not necessarily in the order in which they'd entered.  As far as they could tell, the women weren't being beaten or anything.  Several hours later, the other Chelak barged in and got in a shouting match with the other Steidis, but it didn't escalate beyond words.  Some of the potential brides left, but most stayed.  Chelak shortly left, and the procession of women continued.  Ajax tried to ask some what was going on inside, but they weren't telling, so Neilos Revealed Secrets.

The other Steidis was having women strip and show off their bodies, then asking them a series of questions about what they could bring to a partnership.  A couple of questions stood out to the gods as subtly trying to determine if a woman was a goddess, and another confirmed to them that he was trying to marry "the rose", aka Nephele, in particular.  As far as the mortal women, it looked like he had no greater purpose, and was taking advantage of his position to get sexual favours.

While the gods continued the stakeout, Steidis got another vision, this time of a pregnant woman's belly, but nobody had a clue what it could mean (Neilos: "If only there was a god of prophecy who could help us").  Neilos asked around about the revelation of the gods in Syrinth, and learned that it had been a private ceremony.  Religious officials would have been present; however, because the gods hadn't existed for quite a while, those roles had been rolled into political offices, all of which the merchant princes had swindled their way into held legitimately.

Ajax and Steidis went to one of the princes' (surprisingly modest) estates to set up a meeting.  After Steidis bent some bronze into the shape of a horse in front of some guards with tabards depicting a lantern, and a clerk in fancy robes was fetched; a meeting was arranged for the next day.  Meanwhile, Neilos was keeping watch when the other Steidis had come out into the street and declared that auditions were done for the evening, then took three women back into the building with him.  The women who hadn't been "auditioned" grumbled as they walked off, complaining about having to line up again.

The regrouped, and Neilos got them up to speed.  Steidis demanded blood, so they plotted their assassination attempt.  They donned hoods, and Neilos used his powers to remove the light from around their faces, making them impossible to identify (except for Steidis, who is still a beef jerky man with one arm).  They broke in, interrupting the ...fun that the other Steidis and the three women were having, and went for the kill.  He tried to launch fireballs at them, but Steidis countered it by controlling the flames.  Neilos and Ajax fired lasers and death rays at him, respectively, while the women ran off.

The other Steidis was knocked out, and Ajax tried to give him "the succ" but failed, so Neilos jabbed the shard-shank into his neck, killing him and breaking the shank.  Blood flowed out of the wound, and poured toward Steidis.  He let it approach, and it crawled up his body and into his mouth while he gave a battle cry; he felt more invigorated.  Not wanting to leave any evidence of the shards, they grabbed the entire body and ran off into the night.

Notes:

Prophecy Scoreboard:

Neilos    4

Steidis    2

Ajax       2

Missing Memories:

Neilos     Family, Mortal Name, The Last 5 Years, Childhood

Steidis    Mortal Name, Family

Ajax       Mortal Appearance, Most Precious Memory (His First Hunt)

Ajax Life Expectancy: 8 days

Originally, they actually acquired the metal to make the mirror shield by extracting bog iron from the swamps.  Only problem is that the furnaces required to smelt iron haven't been invented yet.  I should really have caught this.

I only ever referred to Simon's "lover", but the players all immediately started referring to his "wife".

Neilos was very insistent on taking Simon's hands.

There was actually much, much more discussion and planning of how to kill other gods than is presented here.  In particular, the worst loss the PCs can take is 5d damage distributed across the whole group how they see fit; is the same true for other gods?  The answer is "kind of".  Even partial gods are much, much harder to kill than normal people, so it takes something special to actually secure a kill.  The ones they have that they know of for now are Ajax's Life Drain (which is resisted by gods), Ajax's Create Disease (resisted and at large penalties to be lethal) and, obviously, the mirror shards.

Ajax rolled Speak With Dead at the very end of the session and rolled a natural 3, meaning the other Steidis will not be able to lie to them.