[Lords of Olympus] Making Eris the Villain

[RPGPundit]

Lords of Olympus: Making Eris the Bad Guy


There are some old gods who have been given a bad name over the years, and there are others who have been given a vastly nicer interpretation than they ever got back in the old days.

Eris is one of the latter, largely thanks to the discordians in the 80s, and of course due to our decadent civilization's idea that chaos is a really exciting and cool thing, and stick it to the man, and merry pranksters, and you can't tell me what to do, and all that. So Eris was re-envisioned as a goddess of "chaos" in the sense of going to a college protest or writing a monty-python sketch, and not what she in fact was to the Greeks, and this has stuck ever since.

In Lords of Olympus, I've sometimes played along in my Deities section with the post-modern pop ideas about the gods (Morpheus is a bit of a goth, Heracles is known to hang out in superhero worlds sometimes), but with Eris there was just way too much potential for villainy to have her wasted on the sophomoric philosophical stupidities of the discordian bible.  Instead, I went all old-school on her: she is the Goddess of Discord, Strife and Hatred. She spreads conflict and woe wherever she goes.

In the Olympian myth, all the gods are descended from Kaos, who is a primordial.  Eris is not quite the goddess of Chaos, she's the goddess of Discord, and in fact has a very difficult relationship with the other gods. She is not seen as some kind of neutral figure, or a funny or liberating figure (like modern discordians want to imagine) or like some neil-gaiman-esque hipster; she was seen by the Greeks as an Evil.

On top of that, she has a whole family of villainous children to back her up: Dysnomia (spirit of Lawlessness), Ate (spirit of Ruin), Ponos (spirit of toil), Lethe (demigoddess of forgetfulness), Limos (spirit of Famine, mistress of the Scythian Plain), The Algea (spirits of Sorrow and Grief), Horkos (aka Orcus, Daemon who brings the strife caused by the breaking of oaths), and the Hysminai (Spirits of Brawl), Makhai (Spirits of Battle), Phonoi (Spirits of Murder), Androktasiai (Spirits of Manslaughter), Neikea (Spirits of Quarrel), Pseudologoi (Spirits of Lies), and Amphilogiai (Spirits of Disputes). She has used all of her children to spread discord on countless worlds.

Zeus dislikes Eris and her brood, and has even banished some of the children of Eris from Olympus, though Eris has alliances with Hades (who's underworld is filled with the dead brought to him by Eris' actions), Ares, and secretly Hera.

In Lords of Olympus, Eris gets a full treatment, and it would be easy to imagine an entire campaign built around the PCs as opponents to Eris' villainy (or insanity, if you prefer). Opposing the evil that she brings to the world would certainly be a full-time or major theme for any Lords of Olympus game; just take my advice and don't make her the cutesy-poo prankster modern interpretations want to make her out to be.  The Greeks didn't see her that way; if anything, a much closer comparison would be to Heath Ledger's Joker.  He'd have fit right into the discordian family.

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[Tolknor]

Snicker...
I think someone read Illuminatus!! and wasn't entertained!  

I've run Eris elsewhere as the prankster you mentioned but with a wicked edge.  Sort of a funny, lecherous, and happy trouble maker.  This lured the players into her little games.  They played along, used the stuff she gave them, and thought they were on the hot streak to big powers.  Then suddenly discovered they were in deep, tucked in tight, and had to go all pulp fiction medieval to get loose.  Cost them big time getting out from under it, just barely able to manage it before getting sold off to other evil creatures.  

A couple of the characters never did get totally cut loose.  I was able to make them do terrible things from time to time to keep the other players from discovering that they had not cut their ties to Eris.  Fun game.  

Boy did i have a pack of seriously pissed off players.

[Spike]

Curiously enough I was going over some of the more obscure corners of greek mythology not long ago and one of the things that was frustrating me was my inability to find any good depictions, either classic or modern interpretations, of the  Androktasiai.

Seriously.

[Tolknor]

Curiously enough I was going over some of the more obscure corners of greek mythology not long ago and one of the things that was frustrating me was my inability to find any good depictions, either classic or modern interpretations, of the  Androktasiai.
Seriously.

Not a cuddly crowd to be sure.  Imagine their family feasts?  The Makhai could compare to Valkryie to some degree.  They are a hard crowd to see in a good light.  Though from my reading, admittedly cursory, i was not sure if they caused things or were around when they happened.  Its been decades since i read the fables.  In game play though would they be bad guys or creatures that showed up afterwards?  Or creatures that lure players into troubles?

[Spike]

Interestingly enough, there is a knife being made (Spartan Blades) called the Horkos.

[RPGPundit]

Snicker...
I think someone read Illuminatus!! and wasn't entertained!  

I did read the Illuminatus trilogy, and the Principia Discordia too, and I was entertained. The problem is when some people: a) think this is a realistic and meaningful thing to base a belief system on, and b) think this is an accurate reflection of what Eris represented in Greek Religion!

I've run Eris elsewhere as the prankster you mentioned but with a wicked edge.  Sort of a funny, lecherous, and happy trouble maker.

See this is the thing, Eris wasn't a funny or "happy troublemaker".  She wasn't momus, or even Pan or Dionysius (who could be scary as all shit but had their lighter moments too).  Rather, she and her "family" represented the embodiment of what the greeks felt were the Existential Threats to their Civilization.

 RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Curiously enough I was going over some of the more obscure corners of greek mythology not long ago and one of the things that was frustrating me was my inability to find any good depictions, either classic or modern interpretations, of the  Androktasiai.

Seriously.

I don't know if there is a good description. We know they're women, that's about it.  If one had to hazard a guess, I'd figure three of them, and they have wings, because that was your standard model (but there are plenty of non-standard models too).

The good news is that the lack of source material would leave it wide open to make them seem like what ever you want. I would go with perpetually blood-soaked warrior women.

RPGpundit

[Tolknor]

I did read the Illuminatus trilogy, and the Principia Discordia too, and I was entertained. The problem is when some people: a) think this is a realistic and meaningful thing to base a belief system on, and b) think this is an accurate reflection of what Eris represented in Greek Religion!RPGPundit

I loved those books.  Even the later ones were fun reading though i lost track of his later stuff in the early 90s.  I always thought of his stuff as tongue and cheek funny stuff.  I steered away from people who took a lot of wacky things too seriously.  I had my own wacky interests to keep me distracted.   And believing it was in anyway an accurate portrayal of Greek mythology seemed about as reasonable as new age druids who base their belief systems on dubiously historical sources and speculative theories of ancient druidic practices.  I get some grief from my wiccan friends but they know i respect their right to believe what they like, regardless how silly i think it is.

See this is the thing, Eris wasn't a funny or "happy troublemaker".  She wasn't momus, or even Pan or Dionysius (who could be scary as all shit but had their lighter moments too).  Rather, she and her "family" represented the embodiment of what the greeks felt were the Existential Threats to their Civilization.

 RPGPundit

I see your point.  They do seem sort of archetypal.   I bet family gatherings were something of a downer.   In game play would you allow such beings to be killed? Or just defeated?

[RPGPundit]

I loved those books.  Even the later ones were fun reading though i lost track of his later stuff in the early 90s.  I always thought of his stuff as tongue and cheek funny stuff.  I steered away from people who took a lot of wacky things too seriously.  I had my own wacky interests to keep me distracted.   And believing it was in anyway an accurate portrayal of Greek mythology seemed about as reasonable as new age druids who base their belief systems on dubiously historical sources and speculative theories of ancient druidic practices.  I get some grief from my wiccan friends but they know i respect their right to believe what they like, regardless how silly i think it is.



I see your point.  They do seem sort of archetypal.   I bet family gatherings were something of a downer.   In game play would you allow such beings to be killed? Or just defeated?

I think its better, for the sake of the game, rather than operating as if certain gods just can't die, to instead assume ANYONE can die in a LoO campaign, but that in some cases the consequences could be enormous (for example, a radical restructuring of reality, if not the End of Existence as We Know It).

So there could be some theoretical way to Kill Eris.  In her sake, as a primordial who tends to go around in a humanlike form, her form is probably fairly easily destroyable but that doesn't really kill her, she can just reform later. But there should also be some way (some really mythical way) to truly and completely destroy her.

The question a GM then has to ask is: What happens then? What does a multiverse without a Primordial of Discord actually look like (or, what or who takes Eris' place)?

RPGPundit

[Tolknor]

I think its better, for the sake of the game, rather than operating as if certain gods just can't die, to instead assume ANYONE can die in a LoO campaign, but that in some cases the consequences could be enormous (for example, a radical restructuring of reality, if not the End of Existence as We Know It).

So there could be some theoretical way to Kill Eris.  In her sake, as a primordial who tends to go around in a humanlike form, her form is probably fairly easily destroyable but that doesn't really kill her, she can just reform later. But there should also be some way (some really mythical way) to truly and completely destroy her.

The question a GM then has to ask is: What happens then? What does a multiverse without a Primordial of Discord actually look like (or, what or who takes Eris' place)?

RPGPundit

I am reminded of a series of books by Piers Anthony, Incarnations of Immortality.   In them the incarnations of Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil and Good could be killed and though i don't remember the details i think the person killing them replaced them.  Sort of like Tim Allen in that dopey Santa movie.  Perhaps when the immortal in question is killed the killer takes their place.  Really encourages imprisonment instead of outright homicide.  Or some other mortal, with their own baggage and vendettas takes the place.  Makes for a rough game, but heck, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

[RPGPundit]

I am reminded of a series of books by Piers Anthony, Incarnations of Immortality.   In them the incarnations of Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil and Good could be killed and though i don't remember the details i think the person killing them replaced them.  Sort of like Tim Allen in that dopey Santa movie.  Perhaps when the immortal in question is killed the killer takes their place.  Really encourages imprisonment instead of outright homicide.  Or some other mortal, with their own baggage and vendettas takes the place.  Makes for a rough game, but heck, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

I think its an extension of a longstanding Amber-ethos, that its usually better when PCs (and NPCs, for that matter) don't die but suffer.

[Tolknor]

I think its an extension of a longstanding Amber-ethos, that its usually better when PCs (and NPCs, for that matter) don't die but suffer.

Ya, that was my motto for sure.  In both my games only one PC died and that was by mutual agreement, and it was the last act of the campaign.    We also didn't kill off any elders.   I did put them through the grinder though.  Fun and games.

[RPGPundit]

Usually by the end of my games at least a few NPCs or PCs are dead.  Most, however, just had at least one or two moments where they wished they were.

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