It is the dawn of a dark, new Age for the Hellenes and their allies. An ancient enemy has returned from beyond the stars, threatening to destroy everything the Hellenes hold dear. Facing insurmountable odds against dark foes who can smash entire planets, the peoples of the known worlds have raised their voices to pray to the Twelve Gods.
The Gods have answered.
You are one of the Heroes who has been chosen to drive back the dark menace that threatens the galaxy. With heroic resolve, strength, and skill, you will win the war and be placed among the stars for all to see your Glory!
HELLAS: Worlds of Sun and Stone is a roleplaying game of epic Space Opera in the style of ancient Greek culture and legend.
This roleplaying game contains examples of:
- A God Am I: Hellenes are perpetually flirting with this trope, considering themselves a race of demigods at the very least, while still attaching great social stigma to someone explicitly claiming to be akin to a god. It's okay if other people say you are, though.
- A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...: The game makes it clear that it's not set in any kind of distant future of our own world. The Hellenes are a different species that just happens to be Human Aliens.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The hope of every Hero is to join their patron god in eternity.
- Asshole Victim: The game timeline starts with the planet of Sparta being destroyed by the Atlanteans. Which would be sadder if it wasn't in direct retaliation for Sparta doing the same to the planet of Atlantis back in the day, and if the Spartans hadn't spent pretty much their entire history cheerfully waging war on everyone in sight. The simultaneous death of the Kyklopes homeworld seems rather less deserved, though.
- Bee People: The Myrmidons are an interesting variation. They are normal-sized insects with a hive mind, that gather together to take humanoid form in imitation of the Hellenes (of whom they are huge fangirls). The queen lives in the "head" and can gradually regenerate any damage to the "body" as long as she remains unharmed.
- Blind Seer: When a Kyklopes comes of age, they will either permanently block or even remove their physical eyes to instead rely on an exterior artificial eye orbiting their head which gives them superior powers of perception.
- Came Back Wrong: The Erinyes are implied to be the result of the Atlanteans trying to restore long-dead Atlanteans to life and half-succeeding.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Or at least the Hellenes think so. "Kybernetics" exist, but most Hellenes would rather go without a limb than desecrate their divine bodies by attaching cold dead prosthetics to them. Some other species, like the Zintar, are more positive towards such technology, but Zintar notably have the lowest cap on their Dynamism scores of the playable species, implying that maybe the Hellenes are on to something.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: While it's a little softened around the edges to make it more palatable to play out, the Hellene morality is heavily based on ancient Greek morality. Fealty to the gods takes precedence over personal compassion, slavery is perfectly acceptable, marriage is about continuing the family line and not about romance, and of course War Is Glorious.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: The Nymphas appear to be a One-Gender Race at first glance. They aren't, though, it's just that their males and females both look a lot like Hellene women (they both have breasts, rounded hips, etc) aside from their actual genitals.
- Dying Race:
- There are, at the start of the timeline, exactly ten surviving Atlanteans.
- The Spartans are somewhat better off, but they're still down to a few remaining thousands that were off-world when Sparta was destroyed, and the vast majority of them male. It's noted that while they might make it a few more generations, they're pretty much not coming back from this.
- Either/Or Offspring: Different species normally can't have children with each other, but Heroes are so awesome that that rule doesn't apply to them. However, any child a Hero has with a member of another species will be either the Hero's species or the other parent's species, not a crossbreed.
- Exact Words: Push your luck too many times and your Fate will come to pass just as predicted. The precise circumstances may come as a surprise, however. The fluff sections of the core book demonstrates this with the character Iolaus who is Fated to "die alone and unarmed." He ultimately does, but he does so as a Heroic Sacrifice saving his friends (including the woman who is carrying his child); he dies alone, because he is covering their retreat, and unarmed, because he threw his spear to take down an enemy who was going after them.
- Generational Saga: The intended style of play. Eventually every character will need to be retired, and the player will create a new one in the form of a relative, apprentice or other suitable heir.
- Glory Seeker: The more great and glorious deeds a Hero perform, the more blessings he receives from his patron deity. With enough Glory, he will ultimately ascend to sit by the patron's side in immortality, thus escaping his Fate.
- Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Downplayed. The upper levels of the Panthalassa, the "shore," are relatively safe to travel. However, if you want to go really fast you need to descend lower down into it, and the lower you go the more ghosts, storms and hyperdimensional nasties you'll risk running into.
- Immortality Immorality: The Atlanteans' Pandora elixir was able to great increase the lifespan of those who regularly took it. Its manufacture involved feeding Hellene corpses - given to the Atlanteans for an honourable burial - to genetically engineered beasts. The Spartans absolutely flipped their shit when they found out, and none of the other Hellenes were particularly pleased either.
- Insufficiently Advanced Alien:
- The Hellenes have advanced technology, but they stubbornly restrict its use to things that absolutely cannot be done without it (like travel to other planets) since they consider it to take away from the satisfaction of doing things "properly." For example, they can and do make televised broadcasts, but they'd much rather travel a thousand miles to see a play performed in person than sit around watching it in their living room. And even for someone poor enough to not be able to travel, it'd still feel necessary to watch the broadcast as it happened to at least be that close to the experience - the idea of taping it to watch at your leisure would feel insufferably lazy.
- Even aside from the above, the Hellenes can come across as decidedly incurious about a lot of things in their universe, just accepting them as part of how things are. This might be explained in-setting by them having been uplifted by the Twelve Gods rather than having had to develop their advanced science on their own.
- Jack of All Stats: Hellenes have a starting score of +0 in all Attributes, making them the baseline.
- Jumped Off The Slippery Slope: While the Atlanteans weren't entirely blameless in the olden days, their crimes were limited to things like breach of contract and desecration of corpses that it's easy to feel didn't warrant the "kill them all, even if they try to surrender!" reaction of the Spartans and the Delphoi Legion. However, upon their return they start by blowing up two populated planets, and then go on to set up concentration camps where they melt down prisoners into black goo. At that point they're pretty hard to root for.
- Magic by Any Other Name: Some people practice "Dynamism," which includes things like telekinesis, telepathy and divination. The Hellenes and the Nephelai are the most naturally gifted at it, but all the playable species are capable of some of it.
- The Magnificent: Every Hero has some boastful epitat as part of their name, and once per session they can succeed at some outrageous feat that demonstrates it. For example, if you are called "Swift-Footed Attica" then you might run fast enough to catch up with a speeding car.
- Meta Plot: The game is supposed to take place over the course of about a hundred years, with the core events detailed in supplements.
- No Nudity Taboo: A realistic version. Hellenes are proud of their bodies and see nothing inherently wrong with showing them off, but they still consider it appropriate to wear clothes under most circumstances.
- Octopoid Aliens: Zintars are effectively squids riding around in (usually four-legged) robotic suits.
- Organic Technology: The Atlanteans specialise in it. The other Hellenes find it all terribly squicky and just one more reason why they need to be exterminated.
- Prefers Raw Meat: Goregons prefer their meat raw and preferably still wriggling. Other species attending Goregon dinners tend to end up thoroughly grossed out.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Hellenes, with emphasis both on "proud" and on "warrior." And the Spartans are so much this that even other Hellenes think they could stand to take it down a notch.
- Rated M for Manly: Albeit with an ancient Greek view of manliness more so than a modern one. The Hellenes are all about displaying their prowess and virility, and of course no one has more of those than their Heroes. Fighting a horde of vicious monsters, bare-chested and with a sword in one hand and a blaster in the other, is perfectly routine in this game.
- The Reveal: At the end of the final adventure in the core book. Hellenes (and to a lesser extent the other species) are partly divine, which is the reason why they can use Dynamism and ascend to godhood with sufficient Glory. The reason why they're so warlike is because they're perpetually at war with themselves, their divine side against their mortal side. This also means that the Atlanteans were right that immortality is the Hellenes' ultimate destiny rather than something it's blasphemous for them to aspire to, though the Atlanteans may have gone about seeking it the wrong way.
- Roleplaying End Game: Max out your Glory and it's only a matter of time before you leave the material universe behind to join your patron god. Max out your Fate and it's only a matter of time before your foretold doom catches up with you. Either way, it's time to pass the torch to your child or protege.
- Science Fantasy: It's Greek mythology Recycled In SPACE, after all. Science and magic are not even considered different fields in the setting - the gods unambiguously exist and humans have souls of some kind that can ascend to godhood, or linger as restless shades, or even be extracted from the body through technological means.
- Screw Destiny: Each Hero has a dark Fate that has been foretold for them. It's the Hero's job to make sure it never comes to pass.
- Semi-Divine: Every Hero is assumed to be either the offspring or a descendant of a god, thus explaining their superior abilities. This does not in itself make anyone impressed with them, though, since the Hellenes regard themselves to collectively be the children of the gods.
- Slave Race: The Goregons used to be one to the Atlanteans, and the Nymphas used to be one to the Goregons. In the present day, the Atlanteans still make use of numerous genetically engineered creatures like harpies and lamia to fight their war for them.
- Space Pirates: A ready source of antagonists. The Atlanteans have also recruited some to do their dirty work for them.
- Winged Humanoid: The Nephelai have a generally angelic appearance. The harpies and Erinyes also qualify, though they look rather less pretty.
- World of Action Girls: The Amazorans, true to their name, are a species of fierce warrior women and their meek male helpmeets.
- X Meets Y: Classical Mythology meets Space Opera.
