Gods of Olympus Final


Gods of Olympus

 

by John Kirk

8/31/09

 

Gods of Olympus is a board game for 2-6 players where every player portrays a Greek god vying for the greatest prestige in the eyes of his or her fellow deities. Heroic quests, horrific monsters, the rise and fall of civilizations, and backstabbing play out on a map of ancient Greece.

 

Long ago, Zeus decreed that mankind should be cursed to compensate for the gift of fire that Prometheus had bestowed upon them against Zeus' specific orders. Zeus ordered that the first woman be fashioned, and that she should be beautiful, curious, and deceitful. Pandora was her name. She was given a box for safekeeping and told never to open it. However, curiosity got the best of her and she opened the box to see what it contained. Inside were all the evils of the world, which escaped as soon as lid was lifted. As soon as Pandora saw what was happening, she slammed the lid shut. But, the evils were too quick for her. Pride, Anger, Lust, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, and Despair had all been loosed upon the world. Only Hope remained in the box.

 

At first, the gods were concerned. What was to become of mankind? Would the evils consume the world? Would the crops be blighted and the cities burned? Would today's divine feast in Olympus be delayed?

 

Rather than being the disaster they feared, the gods soon realized that inflicting the woe's of the world upon mankind was actually quite amusing. Forever is a long time to live, and after a millennium or two, things start to get repetitive. This was something new. Men could be easily manipulated through the evils and made to do all sorts of bizarre things. Sure, the blood, gore, and screaming got tedious rather quickly. But, at least there was finally something novel to do.

 

 

 

The rules, cards, map, and tokens can be downloaded from the following links:

 

http://legendaryquest.com/olympus/Olympus8.pdf *

 

http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/olympus/Cards7.pdf

 

http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/olympus/Map7.pdf

 

http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/olympus/Tokens7.pdf

 

* I modified the rules on 9/6/09 concerning the Apple of Discord to take into account blind-test feedback indicating it lengthened games too much.   Also, I added more color to the rules to further emphasize the association between the colors, icons, and game resources.