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Too much?
Hellas is a science-fantasy (heavy on the fantasy) space opera game where the human Hellenes, and their numerous alien allies, strive to achieve Glory in the eyes of the universe. Gods and mystical powers exist alongside high tech energy weapons, as well as vessels that can enter another dimension to achieve FTL travel. Hellenic culture has fought and conquered and allied with numerous worlds and star systems, but now a race of once human beings known as the Atlanteans are returning to destroy it all. And as the game begins with the destruction of the world of Sparta, your characters may be the only ones who can save the Hellenes. Or perhaps doom them. (It’s always good to have options.)
Prologue (6 pages) – Nothing too special in this part of the book, just a broad overview as to what the game is about and sources of inspiration for playing the game. There’s also a nice glossary and pronunciation guide. All in all it helps people dip their toes into the game and start to get a feel for the Hellas vibe, while serving as a bit of a “what is an RPG” without saying as much.
Chapter One: Final Words from Sparta (18 pages) – A fairly vast timeline is presented in this chapter, covering the awakening of the Twelve (the Gods of the Hellenes) and their guidance of mankind from primitives to space travel in 450 years. Wars break out, the Twelve disappear and reappear, and mankind colonizes numerous worlds. The Hellene home world is lost, the blue skinned Amazorans are encountered, and FTL travel through Slipspace is mastered. This is the First Age, and it ends with the Twelve pulling away. The Second Age is a time of more secular politics and wars and expansions. Machina (robots built by the Hellenes) revolt en masse, the gods return, and more alien races are encountered. At this point, the Atlanteans and Hellenes declare war against one another (for reasons that are made clear much later on in the book) and the Atlanteans are chased away into the realms of history. More wars, more changes, and more interventions and abandonments by the Twelve. The Second Age becomes the Third Age. And then the Atlanteans return, and where they go the planets and stars alike are destroyed as a threat to all others. With the destruction of Sparta the game begins
Honestly, it’s not a bad chapter, but it’s a bit overwhelming and only scratches the surface of a lot of things. That said it’s trying to cover 2100 years in less than a century a page, so it’s going to cram a lot of stuff in those pages.
Chapter Two: Hellenic Society (36 pages) – Hellenic society is a republic of sorts. Each system shares a common set of laws, as handed down by the Twelve to humanity (or by the Hellenes to aliens), but each system also has its own sort of government. Food, education, religion, sex, military structure, and technology, are all mentioned in some detail. Perhaps the most unusual aspects of Hellenic culture to contemporary Western gamers are the Hellenic attitudes towards nudity (it’s neither sexual nor interesting when a Hellene walks around in the buff) and technology. Technology is approached at an almost technophobic level; Hellenes would rather travel to the Goregon world or invite a Goregon minstrel to their city than run out and listen to a digital recording. Tech seems to be something the Hellenes use only as necessary, seeing other uses as frivolous or slothful or simply un-Hellenic (meaning that horses are preferable to bicycles). Each system is acknowledged to have its own localized customs and such, but covering unique cultures for dozens of different systems (and races) would be beyond the scope of any single chapter or book. Plus, there’s always the throwback of this being a setting where god-like (if not actually divine) beings are real, and they actively shape and judge (and smite) societies and individuals.
The Delphoi Legion is also covered in the chapter, and they’re basically an excuse for PCs of different backgrounds to work together, travel to different worlds, and have heroic adventures for the betterment of all. They’re the classic “good guy group for the PCs to be a part of, as a running plot device” trope you see in a lot of games. That said, there’s no reason that a GM has to use the Delphi Legion in his games, and it’s possible they’re all dead (or soon to be) by the time a game begins.
Chapter Three: The Panthalassa (26 pages) – Providing an overview of the strange, haunted dimension that is Slipspace, as well as a quick glance of numerous star systems and planets in the setting. And since this is 26 pages, you won’t get a lot of fine detail on anything, but you do get a nice broad overview of a lot of stuff.
I would like to focus a bit on one of the more odd elements of the setting. Slipspace reminds me a lot of the classic Underworld from the Odyssey. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew sail a boat around the afterlife, dealing with the souls of the dead. How he and his crew breathe and survive in what must be a hostile environment is never explained, and the reader is expected to just go with it. Here we have a similar locale in the Slipspace. People can exit their ships, breathe freely, and walk about. If they spend too many weeks in Slipspace, they’ll begin to forget their past lives and turn into shades (hints of the river of Styx perhaps?). As a science-fantasy setting element it’s really weird and mystical, and borderline goofy. As a science-fantasy element for a game tied to Greek mythology, it works pretty well. You want your heroic ship captain unfurling sails, as he and his crew rides across the Underworld, looking for lost treasures and new trade routes while fending off the attacks of hungry shades and worse? It’s in there.
Chapter Four: The Hero’s Journey (64 pages) – Characters in Hellas come from one of several races. Among them are:
- Amazorans – They are blue-skinned people who have left the larger Zoran culture (enemies of the Hellenes) seeking freedom and matriarchal power.
- Goregons – Possessing a tail instead of legs, the barbaric snake-like Goregons were once slaves of the Atlanteans, but have since found allies amongst the Hellenes.
- Hellenes – They're humans, only taller, stronger, healthier, and better looking. Not that they have other humans to compare themselves against.
- Kyklopes – Taller than Hellenes by half-a-meter on average, the Kyklopes have found a way to remove a gland from their brain to harness psychic power at the cost of normal vision. It’s a seemingly good trade.
- Myrmidions – Ant-colonies, united in a hive mind, taking the form of the Hellene culture and people they so want to emulate.
- Nephali – These are mysterious, ethereal, winged people who seem above it all. And they’re mysterious. Honestly, the Nephali are a neat idea, but there's too little depth for players and GMs to really use without making up a bunch of stuff on their own.
- Nymphas – A twin set of androgynous, beautiful, alien races that emit powerful pheromones and have a tie to either water (Oreads) or plants (Naiads).
- Zintar – Small octopus-like aliens that use their engineering and “kybernetic” skills to craft bodies for use.
After choosing a race, the player then rolls on a multitude of Life Paths, a Calling (adventures he’s already had), chooses a Profession and a God and so forth. While it’s very interesting and allows for some quite impressive randomly generated backgrounds, it’s also very Hellene-centric. I wish more options were given for Myrmidions or Nephali for example.
Mechanics for skills, Attributes, Glory, and Hero Points (a mechanic for players to modify rolls) are covered. A character’s Fate is also explored in this chapter; before you’re done with creating your character, you’ll know how the Gods expect for him to die. (Try not to disappoint them.) There’s also a mechanic for Epithets as well, so that when you want your Eagle-Eyed PC to see something, she’s almost certainly going to see it.
Chapter Five: Dynamism (10 pages) – What’s a space fantasy setting without magical powers? Jedis have the Force (excuse me, they have magical microbes that give them powers) and the characters in Hellas have Dynamism. Dynamism consists of multiple powers called “Modes”. Modes cover Attack, Illusion, Influence (i.e. mind control), Kinetic, Manipulate (i.e. alter matter), Sensory, and Shield. Ultimately, Dynamism is pretty low-to-mid range in terms of power. Characters can move a person with Kinetic, but a car is likely out of the range of all but the most powerful Kinetics (if even they can perform such a feat). Dynamists can spend Hero Points to increase their power tenfold, but the rules are contradictory as to how many Hero Points it costs (it’s either 5 or 10 depending on which sentence is right). Dynamism Traditions are also introduced. Delphonian, Shamanistic, and Zoran Sorcery traditions are presented, and serve as examples of different ways to modify the mechanics and “culturize” Dynamism a bit.
Chapter Six: Gods of Sun & Stone (22 pages) – Hellas uses the Greek Myths for inspiration, but decided to rename all the gods that form a major part of the setting. Instead of Zeus you have Heuson, Athenia instead of Athena, Artesia instead of Artemis, etc. etc. Honestly, I suspect this was a lose-lose situation for the writers. Either the writers go with goofy new names for old familiar deities, or they use old familiar names and make their setting seem just a tad bit less unique. At first I didn’t care for the change, but it’s really such a minor difference and ultimately makes Hellas feel a bit more special for it.
Anyway, in this chapter the Twelve are covered. Their roles, their quarrels, and (most importantly for some) the blessings they give their chosen favorites (including the PCs). As the PCs rise in Glory, their patron deity bestows new blessings on them. Of course, being capricious and petty gods, some of these blessings are anything but. Agnostics also receive some attention, but Atheists aren’t covered (likely because in this setting they are the equivalence of people who think the Earth is flat). Interestingly, the Twelve are the only deities covered. Other races have come to accept (or always worshipped?) the Twelve, just as the Hellenes do. There are mentions elsewhere in the book of Titan worship, but that isn’t covered here.
Chapter Seven: Equipment (42 pages) – A huge amount of stuff gets touched on here. Currency, fashion, services and their costs, weapons and armor, personal force fields, vehicles, zintar carapaces (so the squids can run around in horse-like body armor and actually resemble centaurs), medicine, kybernetics (for those pitied souls who have lost a limb, not for people who want to become superhuman), machina (intentionally dumbed down robots that may not mimic anything the Gods have created), and spaceships. Lovely, lovely spaceships. There’s not a lot of space craft listed here, but there’s enough for a start, and several pages of customizations and modifications to play with. This chapter really hammers home the idea of Hellenes going into battle with bronze chest armor, an heirloom steel blade, a personal force field, and energy assault rifle.
Chapter Eight: Core Rules (26 pages) – Hellas uses the Omni system, and so those familiar with it may find the next few paragraphs to be “old hat”. Everything is based around the roll of a d20 in Hellas. Skill checks are rolled on the Omni table (basically, anything rolled over a 6 is at least a partial success), with modifiers like skill levels or Attributes applied to the roll. Critical successes and failures are possible, but have more to do with modifiers than strait dice rolls usually (favoring the heroic nature of the game).
Combat plays out like any other Omni skill roll, with any roll over a 6 doing at least some damage. Combat maneuvers like Dodging or Fleeing are covered, as are rules for automatic weapons. Vehicular and aerial combat, and relevant maneuvers, are also included. Rules for drowning, exposure, and diseases are also present. Lovely, lovely diseases, including classics like leprosy, the plague, and gonorrhea, as well as a couple I think are based more on myth than history.
Chapter Nine: Game Master Advice (18 pages) – While there is a lot of traditional advice to new GMs here, there’s also sections on gaining and spending experience, gaining Glory (as befits a faux ancient Greek hero in space), changing the universe (or at least a world), gaining and postponing Fate (the inevitable march of your hero to his ordained doom), and passing the torch on to your next character. Honestly, for a game so invested in building legacies for the PCs, there really isn’t a whole lot that makes this feel like a generational game. Ars Magica and Pendragon both have a better sense of progression from one PC to the next and stronger game mechanics to back such progression up in my opinion.
Chapter Ten: Adversaries (30 pages) – Aliens, and monsters, and robots. Oh my! This chapter is a great blend of traditional mythic creatures and sci-fi foes, blended together to produce a funky and fun flavor. My only complaint is that there’s not very many adversaries offered here. However, the “Lore of Echidna” helps with this some, giving stats for mundane animals along with rules and modifiers to suitably alter them into threats for PCs to face. Of course, the true stars of the chapter are the Atlanteans and their monstrous servants (which are a wonderful horror-themed take on traditional mythic monsters). A single Atlantean Prince would make a great long-term foe for a party, as well as a challenge for an experienced group in combat. And that’s without considering the vast resources at their command. Be afraid.
Chapter Eleven: Vengeance – A Hellas Campaign (22 pages) – Spanning 25 years, this campaign provides snapshots of the growing war between the Atlanteans and Hellenes. Honestly, it’s not that good. It’s just a series of snapshots that I think a good GM will ultimately use by chopping to pieces and then using the bits he wants in his own game. That said, there are some very good bits and pieces to be had here, I just didn’t think the final product offered a very cohesive (or good) campaign.
Chapter Twelve: Mesos: Other Adventures (26 pages) – Much better than the previous chapter, this collection of thirteen different adventure seeds is bound to have something for every GM running Hellas.
We’ve also got a fairly robust three-page character sheet, and a page of ads as well as a one-age index.
Style: Hellas deserves a solid 4 I think. The illustrations are good, with none of them striking me as bad. There are also a lot of wonderful pieces inspired by ancient Greek vase art. The editing is generally okay, although there are a few mechanical bits I caught that needed correcting. The writing is otherwise fine. And the book tries to do something uncommon by printing in landscape rather than the traditional portrait layout. The index is too sparse to be very useful, but I think GMs will be able to look stuff up easily enough otherwise. The worst I can really say is that I have a sense that Hellas is an overly cluttered book. But I hate to penalize someone for trying to cram too much in a book. So yeah, a solid 4 sounds about right: Hellas looks good, reads well, has a few mechanical editing mistakes, and can feel cluttered at times.
Substance: For Substance I’ll give Hellas a just over the line 5, with one big catch. Over half-a-dozen alien races, numerous worlds and star systems, centuries of history, and more are all part of this game. And it tries to cover it all in one book. What’s impressive is just how much Hellas manages to actually cover, and that it covers it well. But there’s still tons of room for more information on just about everything. And that’s my catch: Hellas is one of those games that GMs will need to expand upon to really play or else buy supplements. Similar to games like Fading Suns and Exalted, I can easily see Hellas becoming a game that really takes off with a few more books, but is also good with just the core.
How does Hellas compare with Dogs of Hades? Yes, there are two games about ancient Greeks in space, serving at the bequest of mythical god-like figures. Hellas is the more “over the top, has everything including the kitchen-sink” game of the two, by far. But I think Dogs of Hades has better story ideas, is more fitting for someone who wants more sci-fi and less sci-fantasy, and also offers some great ideas for aspects of Hellenic culture that Hellas doesn’t explore. I’d rather play Hellas, but I think Dogs of Hades makes for a better “idea mine” in general and a great one for Hellas.
Conclusion: Hellas is a little rough in places, but has a fun (almost goofy) energy that really grabs me and makes me want to play a game.
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