I have a basic plan for the game, but FATE works best with a back and forth discussion between the GM and the players.  In this thread we can discuss details of the setting, people and groups that the characters would be involved with, and their relationships with each other.

Magic

The first subject I'd like to discuss is magic.  This is a fairly low magic setting.  For simplicity I want to keep it mostly narrative in nature.  A player who wants to play a magic user should have an aspect which states the type of magic they use.  The magic itself would mostly be flavor for a normal skill check.  A wizard could use the shoot skill to shoot a fire ball from a wand.  A shaman could use contacts to commune with the spirits for aid.  More powerful magic would involve long rituals, and quests to find rare magical components.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:38, Tue 14 June 2022.

Name: Katerina
High Concept: Greatest Warrior In The Making

Katerina has proven to have a great amount of skill as a soldier. Some say that one day she can beat the mightiest among the army. Maybe even bring peace once and for all.

Trouble: Estranged Father

Katerina wants to one day rekindle her relationship with her father. She wants him to understand that this is her choice. But sometimes her emotion gets the better of her and she would get unfocused or worse, become more rash in her decision.

Hi all! My idea is dependent on the setting choices a little bit but the rough idea is a charismatic warrior from the losing side of a major battle or war, partially inspired by Mal from Firefly. He is a Thebian who fought on the Persian side on the last battle of the second Greco-Persian war.

Character Name: Nikandros of Thebes
High Concept: First spear, Ghosts of Plataea
Trouble: (something like “I will survive” I need to workshop it)
This message was last edited by the player at 14:00, Sun 19 June 2022.

Hi! I figured I'd go with a sort of very low-key wizard type, who's got insights and skills that are probably just poorly understood science but might be just a tiny bit more. I initially pictured him as a druid, but since we're going with ancient Greece, let's put a bit of Socrates in him. :)

Name: Chiatracles of Urcadia

High Concept: The Wisest Man in Urcadia

Chiatracles is a natural philosopher who has spent his long life studying the world and reading the works of all the great thinkers who came before him. As a result, he has a great store of knowledge that sometimes seems to verge on the magical.

Trouble: An Age of Fear and Superstition

Chiatracles was driven from Urcadia by his enemies, who accused him of trafficking in matters that belonged to the gods and leading the city-state's youth astray. To his sorrow, he has found that other places are much the same - everyone fears a man who seems to know more than he should, and are quick to blame him for any stroke of ill fortune.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:55, Sun 19 June 2022.

Hello everybody! Glad to be on board. As a (casual) Ancient historian I can dig the Grecian theme and I was waiting to see what cultural norms we preferred as a group before naming my character, so that's one piece of the puzzle sorted!

Name: Orekles

High Concept: Superstitious Farmer

Orekles is a peasant farmer with a level head, good practical sense (and skills) and a healthy respect for the supernatural, arcane and spiritual. Not, perhaps, as powerful or quick as any soldier but he does have the brute strength and boundless endurance of someone able to wrangle cattle and labour all day under a blazing sun. Likewise, he's not quick of thought or well educated, but he is methodical, persistent and has a wealth of practical farming lore.

Trouble: Pestiferous Ancestors

Orekles is convinced the spirits of his ancestors follow him around, interfering and advising him on what they think of him, his actions and what he should do next. Despite their allegedly good intentions and occasionally good, even prophetic advice, he often gets frustrated at their constant nagging and frequently speaks to them in harsh outbursts; a habit that ostracizes him from those that perceive his "madness".

Well, it looks like my concept is going to dovetail rather nicely with y'all...  I'd originally had a more tribal/nomadic-based character in mind, but she's malleable.

Name: Sophia

High-Concept: Huntress on the Path of Harmony
Sophia is an huntress, deriving true enjoyment from the entire process: the plan, the discovery, pursuit and eventual triumph of the hunt.

She is a fervent believer that everything is inter-connected, that the material world and the spirit world are reflections of one another. The best way to do anything is to work in harmony with the world around her.

I want The Path of Harmony to be a cult of some sort.  (though I don't like the modern negative connotations for the world "cult").  The Path of Harmony advises looking for the big picture before acting... patience means impulse-control.


Trouble: Prophecies of Peril and Praise
She has had vivid dreams all of her life.  Through the Path of Harmony, she's come to believe that these dreams are--in fact--prophetic, and are a call to action.  But prophetic dreams are never clear and concise.

I have more ideas for other Aspects... things that will make it more personally involved.  But, for right now, this covers the really big elements of who she is...

Chiatracles     The Wisest Man in Urcadia         An Age of Fear and Superstition
Katerina        Greatest Warrior In The Making    Estranged Father
Nikandros       First spear, Ghosts of Plataea    I will survive
Orekles         Superstitious Farmer              Pestiferous Ancestors
Sophia          Huntress on the Path of Harmony   Prophecies of Peril and Praise

I think that magic should always come with a narrative price.  I don't mean fate mechanics, I mean story.  We're going low-fantasy, right?  This kind of reminds me of Harn.  People will always talk about magic even in a non-magical setting.  But it doesn't mean that magic is actually a thing in that setting.

Between Orekles and Sophia, it sounds like we do have active spirits.  Orekles with the ancestors, Sophia with the spirits of... well, anything... (my inspiration was actually a first year philosophy prof who claimed he'd proven that chairs have consciousness).

Orekles' ancestors brings up some interesting things for the existence of an after-life...  I look forward to eventually discussing that in-character!

I think we're off to a pretty good start.  I had to do some research already on what pestiferous means, and on the battle of Plataea.

For game purposes, there was an invading army who found am ally in the city of Thebes, but were driven off by an alliance of local city states at Plataea.  The Battle of Plataea will be an aspect of the setting, I haven't figured out what to do with it yet. You all can decide if and how it might have an impact on your character, but it could work as an inciting incident.

I have a couple aspect notes

For player 1, I will need a bit more information on the estranged father, and what kind of impact you want it to have.

For player 2, Ghosts of Plataea could be a good trouble aspect on its own, then you could expand the high concept to something like "charismatic officer from Thebes."  Just an idea.

Really, right here? Okay then.

Katerina's father is the king of Urcadia, (or at least a kingdom with a more militaristic society), and a lot of people don't know about the fact that she's the eldest daughter of the king or that they had a falling out. Only her closes comrades and lover would know. Despite her skills in war, she's not as good in politics and she knows she'll never be. However, it doesn't stop her to prove her worth to the king. Often that action tends to lead to more reckless approach.

Is that a good enough impact? What else should I add?

In reply to player 1 (msg # 10):

Thank you. That clears it up for me.

So, this isn't just a melieu based on ancient Greek.  We've got Thebes, Urcadia and Plataea.  So, I'm guessing we're cleaving to the geography and politics of the time?

What are the boundaries of "low-fantasy" here?  Here's what I'm taking my cue from.  ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LowFantasy )  How accurate does this depict what we're using as our setting?

The Persian War was Iron age, this is Bronze age. I had intended on simply using Greek themes to make it easy to visualize.  We can use the geography too for reference, but It's not real world Greece.

It's more heroic fantasy than low fantasy. Think of Clash of the Titans, or any of the Hercules movies or shows as examples.

Oh good.  I know next to nothing about classical Greek culture, let-alone timelines and politics.  But I suppose wikipedia can help.

Okay, heroic fantasy.  Same question.  How much does ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pm...p/Main/HeroicFantasy ) capture what were going for?  For me, it'll help me figure out how deep and how angst-ridden my character might be.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:01, Wed 22 June 2022.

This about what I'm thinking of.

Thanks, that helps me immensely.

So... Orekles!

It sounds like your Aspect introduces the fact that this setting has A Vibrant and Active Spirit World.   I love that he's got one or more ancestor-spirits following him around offering unasked for advice, etc.

I have a basic ideas for a cosmology that says that there are four "worlds"

• The Physical World - the one we're in
• The Spirit World - the "behind the curtain of reality" side of things
• The After-World - Not certain whether it's wholely separate or simply a facet of the Spirit World.
• The Godhead - Where the Gods reside and, perhaps where you go when you dream...

I don't expect this to be a major story-point but a common general understanding at the player level would help, I think.   Any thoughts on this?

That sounds pretty good to me, yeah, I'm all board with this.

I like a "layered" cosmology and the notion of "depth" you get like an ocean:
- On the surface you have people in their boats or swimming around. Nothing unusual and little unexplained. It's nice.
- Just beneath the surface you have some divers and other creatures that interact with people all the time. It's familiar, the inhabitants include actual people and things that are kinda like people if you squint a bit, even some that can go to or interact with the surface for a time. Which is not to say it doesn't have its dangers. Sometimes something from deeper will come up to see what the craic is, but not very often.
- Deeper still things get scarier and inexplicable and weird by human standards, but most of all they get...bigger. The natives here can't really get to the surface, let alone interact intelligibly with it. Likewise they're not going to understand (let alone tolerate) something as fragile and out-of-depth as an unprepared human and why, outside of really very specific reasons, would a human be down this far anyway.
- Then in the very depths, you get the stuff that really isn't in any way comprehensible; it's dark and inhospitable and the things around you are the stuff of nightmares. And then there's the Gods of this domain; the prehistoric leviathans that are the uncontested rulers of this domain and all others, because who's going to mess with them in any of the realms they deign to visit? Plus, if it weren't for these deities of the deepest and darkest places, none of the rest of what exists above would survive (because that's how ecology works, folks!).

If you're reading this with the impression that I'm presenting a cosmology that's a little more sinister than the usual "getting closer to the gods, who are benevolent and kind, is a good thing"...that's as intended! I like gods to be unexplained and mysterious and the afterlife to be something that should be a little more unsettling than the "sunshine and lollipops" of Elysium (or heaven, or whatever you want to call buddying up with your fave deity). Is that an angle anyone else is on board with? i.e. that the afterlife is not only "vibrant and active", but also (for want of a better word) spooky, dark and mysterious (in the truest sense of the word).

Sure, I can live with that. :) Might mean that the Urcadians weren't entirely wrong in exiling my characters for trying to delve into the deeper world, mind...

Of course, even sages with the aid of magic would likely only see just beyond their own world.  Is that a shadow of reality? or a completely new world?  What do dreams mean? Is dream a separate world? Are dreams crafted by the gods to communicate with mortals? or are they crafted by mortal minds to shield them from harsher realities?

People would surly tell stories to explain these mysteries.  Some would speak of an upper and a lower world, and spirits that flit about on the edge of human awareness.  Others might tell stories of a world made of layers which grow ever more frightening the farther you went.  Still others could say the world is made of the stories gods tell each other, and though most people never leave their safe homes, great heroes of legend delve into the wilderness to face the horrors beyond.

I'm easy.