The Achaean Age Campaign - Session 1: A Final Obligation

We open in the great coastal city of Argos. Argos is the main port for travel and trade with the island of the minotaurs and is quite prosperous. It is also the favored city of Posiedon, which doesn't hurt either. Three of our party members are newly arrived from Minos (Crete) and have spent their first day in town looking for equipment for exploration and travel. Talking with a like-minded Artificer they met in the agora, they are approached by a slave from the temple of Hephaestus. Jordon, the Artificer, knows him and welcomes him to the table.

The slave has bad news - the last priest of Hephaestus in the city has died and his final wish is to be buried in the shrine of the smith god outside of town. The slave knows where it is but no one has gone there in decades and the countryside is crawling with bandits and monsters. He knows he would never make it alone and asks Jordon (and his friends) if they would escort him on this journey. After a brief discussion the party agrees and they plan to meet at the main landside gate at dawn the next day.

Meeting up without incident the group sets forth, 4 adventurers and a slave pulling a cart with the body of his former master. The shrine is about a day's travel away and for the first hour things are uneventful as they follow the main road north, which is now in a sad state of disrepair. Then a pair of ragged-looking men step out of the woods on either side of the road and signal them to halt. The bandits then demand payment or they will attack. The party refuses as all good Acheans should and the fight is on.

The two bandits find themselves quickly outmatched when they are rushed by Spartakos the warrior and Jaak the minotaur berserker. Then 5 more bandits step out and hurl javelins and for a moment things appear to be more even. That's when Kettenbar charges them as Jordon unleashes some of his magical concoctions and in a short one-sided fight the bandits are slain to a man.

The heroes take a short break, toss the bodies to the side of the road - scum like these do not deserve burials like honorable men - and continue on their journey. Hours later as the sun sinks low they spot the shrine ahead.

It is a simple stone construction - a raised stone platform with columns surrounding a central altar. It appears it might once have had a roof but it does not any longer. The whole thing is set in a quiet open area though the grass and scrub are brown and withered despite the onset of spring. Approaching cautiously they realize the shrine is not uninhabited.

Atop the platform they spot 1...2...3...4 scorpions! Man-sized scorpions! Briefly discussing a plan the heroes decide to open fire with missiles and let the beasts come to them. Spartakos heaves a Javelin at them, while Jordon pulls a man-like framework off of the cart and sends it marching towards the shrine. Jaak charges, clearly understanding the plan. Shrugging, Kett charges after him.

Jaak reaches the steps of the shrine and is seized by one of the beasts, discovering that besides being man-sized these things' claws generate some kind of lightning effect, blasting him even as he is caught in their grip - Stormclaw Scorpions! Could they be a divine agent of some kind?

The rest of the party charges forward to support the minotaur and a melee fight breaks out along the steps of the shrine wit hall four scorpions engaging all 4 heroes as the slave guards his master's body. Jaak breaks free as hits are given and taken between the two sides. Spartakos comes around one side of the steps and rams his spear up into the softer underside of the one scorpion, slaying it. Jaak and the automaton team up on another one, killing it as well. Jordon blasts one with a cold blast then Jaak goes berserk and kills it and cleaves into another, setting it up perfectly for Kett who plunges his fullblade into the thing's back, ending the fight.

After catching their breath, Jordon mentions that the traditional burial place for priests is somewhere under the shrine. He fiddles with the stone altar and finds a movable block, which allows the altar to slide back smoothly, revealing a stone stairway down into darkness. After discussing options the heroes slide the altar back into place, deciding to rest for a night and venture downward in the morning.

DM Notes: This was fun and the boys really got into it, working together fairly well and not arguing at all. Normally I like to give players multiple choices when it comes to adventuring options but to start this off I wanted to take a firmer hand, thus the slave's request for aid. The artificer's divine connection to Hephaestus played right into this so it was a done deal from the start. It also emphasizes the decline of the gods in the region which will be a theme for the campaign, at least early on. 


The combats were short and clean, lasting 3 rounds and 5 rounds respectively and not a kobold in sight!  We were all pretty happy with the game and are looking forward to the next run sometime after spring break.

The Achaean Age Campaign - Session 0: Set Sails!

Well we managed to get the Greek mythology campaign started over the weekend and it went pretty well. Once again Apprentice Red and Apprentice Blaster stepped up to take the plunge after agreeing to scrap the Impiltur campaign to do it and after almost choosing 1st edition TOEE they decided they wanted to play 4th this weekend, specifically the mythological campaign.

I set some pretty limiting guidelines (only Humans, Minotaurs, Automatons (warforged), and Wilden for races, no Primal classes) and let them make up two characters each. Not monitoring them closely I was a little surprised when Blaster came back with two fighters, one human and one minotaur. Red came in with an artifcier (human) and a wilden avenger, which are fine, but I told Blaster that next session he's not bringing two of the same class.

This also caused me to review the rules on companion characters in the DMG 2. These are the rules for player-controlled NPC's in this edition so they're basically 1E henchmen. The rules look pretty good so this is what I'm going to do next session: allow each player only 1 character, but allow them to also bring 1 companion along as well. I may also let them have some minions too.

The reason I do this is the source material. From the original Odyssey and Iliad to the Argonauts to Clash of the Titans, the heroes of Greek myth tend to be surrounded by nameless spear-carriers who die like Star Trek redshirts to illustrate the danger to the hero. Some games like AD&D, GURPS, and Savage Worlds have mechanics for this when creating a character and even 3rd Edition D&D had the leadership feat. The new edition does not really have mechanics for acquiring sidekicks but it does have mechanics for building simplified NPC-types so I'm going to use them. I think each hero is going to have 1 "sidekick" type companion and a renewable band of expendable minions -if they want them- to accompany them on their journeys. This should add to the flavor and make it feel that little bit more distinctive from standard D&D.

But that's for next time. This session we begin with 4 characters:

Spartakos, Human Guardian Fighter who is strong, tough, and was raised by Minotaurs on the island kingdom of Minos.

Jaak, Minotaur Battlerage Fighter who is even stronger and is very nasty in battle even though he was raised as a farmer.

Jordon, Human Artificer who is very smart and was blessed by Hephaestus - clearly he is destined for great things. He also uses some outlandish weapon he calls a "hand crossbow" that may be unique amongst all Achaea*

Kettenbar, the Wilden Avenger of Pan**, who is wise and skilled in the ways of the natural world.

We decided that Jaak's family had raised Spartakos from childhood and that Kettenbar had been on the island as well, training with minotaur tutors in the ways of the greataxe. They decided to head to the mainland for adventure and to see the rest of the world and encountered Jordon when they were looking into magical weapons before heading out into the countryside, and this is where Session 1 will pick up.


*Yeah I forgot to put "No crossbows" in my instructions to them and he really wanted it so I decided the gadget-builder class  would have one if anyone would. I let him keep it.

** He started off with Ares then I asked him if he really wanted his plant-like character to be tied to the war god. We talked a bit and he decided to go for Pan. I decided that was OK as Pan strikes me as the type of god that would have a lot of descendants, especially Wilden descendants, even among the Olympians. I mean when you eventually get tired of playing your pipes, you look around and see all these wood and water nymphs hanging around, well...

Megadungeon Awakening

So after thinking about it a bit I made some decisions:.

• 1st Edition AD&D will remain as an option with Temple of Elemental Evil ready to go, but it's not the "Mega" campaign
• 2nd Edition AD&D will be on the bench with Greyhawk Ruins ready to go. Looking through it again (first time in probably 10 years) I am a lot more impressed with it than I was. More on that later.
• If someone wants to try one in 4th Edition, well, since I'm already running in the Realms then I will use Undermountain. Not doing a lot of planning on it right now but it is an option.

So the final solution is to place the Megadungeon in my Dragonport campaign, where we're already doing some Basic/Expert adventuring anyway. I had already outlined a location known to be where the King of the Stone Giants rules - Skullcrusher Mountain! Added partly as an in-joke due to the song  that the apprentices and I love so much (especially in Rock Band) it now will take on a somewhat more important role. I have ideas for several levels and monster groups within and I will put out more about it in a different post. We may not touch it for some time but that means I'm not under any pressure to get that first part mapped out. I consider it my training effort so I'm going to go fairly slow. 

One other good thing is that the brain cycles spent on it have led me to think that it's really would not be that hard to do for 4E either. I think the core of the megadungeon experience is exploring, fighting, and sneaking through hoping to not have to start fighting, and 4E can handle those just fine. A lot of the crazy stuff from the earliest days like gates to other planes and pocket universes would work just fine with 4E. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself as that's at best the second one down the road.

Now that I have a place and a system I can start getting the concrete parts down and actually think about running it.  Time to dig out the graph paper.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 19: Hulk Smash!

Picking up where we left off the party is exploring a chamber in the tomb of the ogre king far beneath the ruins of Phlan when orcs and ogres in archaic armor and dress materialize out of thin air and begin attacking.

Three ogres and three orcs appear in the room and rush the party. Scattered throughout the room the team is vulnerable and things look pretty dangerous. Two ogres charge the fighter, while another engages Mikal who is all by his lonesome at the other end of the room. The orcs move in to support their brethren  and combat breaks out all over.

The orcs go down fairly quickly but the ogres are much tougher customers and the fight goes on for some time. gradually the newcomers are beaten down and slain but it's not an easy fight. After pausing to bind their wounds, the party opens the inner door and moves down a hallway of worked stone.

Emerging into a new chamber the party sees a huge ogre berserker and two ogre spearmen, apparently laying in wait for them and a fight breaks out before the team can even enter the room. The big ogre blocks the doorway, pounding on Kordan and Uthal, while his allies throw javelins really hard at the rest of the party. The fighter manages to knock the huge beast down at one point but it recovers and then in a devastating whirlwind attack with its flail knocks almost the entire party down, severely injuring some of them. Things appear grim as the rampaging brute continues to assail Kordan but mighty magics are unleashed and the party recovers, pushing back into the room and blasting the ogres into oblivion.

This new chamber features a huge skull mosaic inlaid into the floor, the symbol of an ancient ogre god, long ago devoured by Bane. Two huge braziers of everburning flame light the room and a passage leads out into unknown darkness.

DM notes: There was less setup this time and more straight-up combat. Both fights went for 8 rounds and were very exciting (ogre warhulks in confined spaces are fun) but there's not a whole lot else to tell. There is a trap and a curse in the room but they did not have a huge effect on the fight. It's still only 2 encounters but maybe next time we will make it to 3.

Megadungeon Dreams

It's something that afflicts many of us even after decades away from the core of the game it represents. Even after disastrous episodes with near-megadungeons in 3rd edition it still calls. It causes us to go search through the garage and dig out that Undermountain boxed set, that copy of Greyhawk Ruins, those scattered handwritten pieces of graph paper and think about those campaigns that never quite got off of the ground, and wonder...

So I've decided to start writing it down. Ideas for monster and levels and parts of levels have started to appear in my brain lately and I need to put them somewhere else. Some of the notes will show up on the blog - when I feel like I have something worth sharing anyway. Some points:

Why not run one I already own? Greyhawk Ruins is 26 linked levels of dungeon that I never got to actually run and I probably still have my notes on it in a binder somewhere. . It's even written for 2E, still old-school enough to run quickly and feel different from 4E. I still might do this, just to have a drop-in option with the Apprentices' tricky schedules.

But...I have found recently that developing your own area of play means that you don't have to worry about contradicting stuff someone else wrote, or forgetting about the secret door that links Level X to Secret Level Y, or just keeping up with the details that someone else wrote.I ran into this a lot running Tomb of Abysthor and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil where a lot of the details were hard to spot and tricky to keep in mind in the heat of play. Undermountain has the same problem in that it has a ton of mapping done, but only part of the levels are detailed, so I'd be going in and filling out someone else's map - in some ways the worst of both worlds. For myself, stuff that I write makes sense to me and means I'm not going to lose track of it during the game, so I'd like to write it myself.

Plus there is the challenge factor - it's something I haven't done before, so let's try it.

There is also the ownership factor - if I write it from scratch it's mine, no one else/s - no apologies, no remorse.

Now what system would I use? Clearly some version of D&D is called for, though I might be able to scratch my Greek itch by using Mazes and Minotaurs instead. Seems kind of silly though to finally sit down and do a megadungeon after all these years and make it for a different game system. Maybe if I used Mazes & Minotaurs creatures but used the Undermountain maps...

Anyway, system: Probably not 4th edition as combat is too complex to really get the old-school MD feel. Basic D&D/Labyrinth Lord is a little simple and I already have a game of that going anyway. I could do 1st Edition but I was kind of wanting to run them through Temple of Elemental Evil then Against the Giants then the Drow adventures if we sat down to do that. Heck, 2nd edition may win out here after all.

And yes, the Apprentices (and Lady Blacksteel) have been fully outfitted with a copy of Basic D&D (Moldvay), 1st edition PHB (Wizard cover because that's what I found for sale), 2nd edition PHB (rider cover because that's what I found), 3rd edition PHB, and 4th edition PHB so that they are prepared for any game of D&D they happen to run across. They also have d6 Star Wars books (Second Edition), despite my mixed results with the system. The extra copies of Fasa Star Trek and Champions await in the garage.

So we have version options. To fuel the proper MD exploration and motivations I think it requires early editions' usage of gold for XP, so that's in regardless.

What campaign world? Does it matter? There's the Town, some Wilderness, and the Dungeon - we're not going on a world tour here. I suppose it affects the gods and maybe some races but it's not a real big part of this kind of campaign for me - it's very much a "local" story.

Hmmmm, maybe I mix in my West Marches itch and run this as an Open-Table Mythic Greek Megadungeon! Solves all my problems at once! Or maybe not.

I'm a little worried about overloading the players with multiple systems but if we only play any particular system once a month then it's not exactly overloading anything.

So I've laid out that I clearly want to do it, now I just need to nail down some details. The next post on this, whenever it occurs, will probably cover those.

Systems and Mechanics and Decades

When I was doing my retrospective on games I have played I noticed some patterns and decided to share:

 The Original Way: 3d6 for stats, different dice, non-unified mechanics. That's D&D and just about everything else that happened back then. Some are still popular today - Palladium and the retro clones come to mind.

The System of the 80's : Percentiles - Runequest, Rolemaster, Call of Cthulu, Star Trek, Twilight 2000. I can't think of any current games that still use this as a core mechanic other than CoC and other BRP games.

The System of the 90's: Dice Pools -  Star Wars, Shadowrun, Vampire. I know Star Wars got started a little bit earlier but it clearly started a trend. Many of these are still going today.

The System of the Oughts: I think it has to be d20 which dominated everything for most of the decade. Simplified, unified mechanics is the signature of this trend even if it's not pure d20 such as the Decipher Star Trek game.

The System of the Teens: I think that it will be "lighter" systems. d20 can get pretty heavy with a codified answer to every question so this may be a reaction to that approach. I think Savage Worlds started it early but with Mutants and Masterminds 3E moving in this direction, Cinematic Unisystem following a similar trend, ICONS, retro-clones, Mongoose Traveller, and even D&D 4E going this way (simplified skills, simplified modifiers, trimming out unique sub-systems) I think it's the biggest trend I can point to. Pathfinder sort of bucks this trend, but I'm not sure it negates it - I think it merely illustrates how so much is moving in another direction. Think of the new games launched in the last 5 years - how many of them have big thick rulebooks full of crunch? Pathfinder, Hero 6th. Aces and Eights. That's about it and I'm not sure those last two are "major" anymore.

I think some of it is that a lot of the cool new games are coming from smaller, mostly online publishers and are developed for more casual games than the traditional lets all sit down once a week and play for six hours scenario. They tend to have fewer rules, smaller rule books, and unified mechanics. They also tend to be easily adapted to other types of games.

As a parallel to this it's interesting to me that companies have also shrunken their game lines down dramatically from previous years. At one point TSR had the following game lines in print:

• Basic D&D
• AD&D
• Gamma World
• Star Frontiers
• Gangbusters
• Boot Hill
• Marvel Super Heroes.

Now all of those games had different mechanics, enough so that supporting materials had to be published separately for each game. There was some potential for crossover between say the D&D versions and maybe Gamma World or Boot Hill, but the others were dramatically different. Can you imagine any modern company trying to keep seven distinct lines of RPG's afloat simultaneously?

It wasn't just TSR either. During the 80's GDW had the following games:

• Traveller/MegaTraveller
• Twilight 2000
• Traveller 2300
• Space 1889

All of those were in print at the same time and all of them used wildly different mechanical systems. By about 1990 T2K second edition came out and then the relentless unifcation of GDW's roleplaying lines began with T2K, Traveller the New Era, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Merc 2000, and Dark Conspiracy all using the same system with the space of about 4 years. Then GDW went under. 

Fasa did it too with Mechwarrior, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and for little while Star Trek overlapped with those too. None of them shared mechanics.

West End had Star Wars, Torg, Paranoia, and Ghostbusters all with different mechanics too.

Even Iron Crown did it for a while in the 90's publishing Rolemaster and Hero System at the same time.

It seems so strange looking back now at how companies used to have such wildly different systems in-house and most of them didn't appear to see it as an issue.  Current day producers seem to assume from the get-go that they're going to use one system. Green Ronin looks like the only one that still puts out mechanically different games at the same time and I like a lot of their output. Maybe it's not as terrible an idea as was once thought. I'm not sure there are real economies of scale at work when we're talking about a product like RPG's. At least, I'm not sure there's enough at work to justify shoe-horning games from radically different genres into one master system. I see the attraction from the business side, and to some degree from the player side - I like Hero and I liked the d20 run for the most part - but when I saw people trying to come up with d20 Shadowrun I just shook my head. Not everything is a good fit and sometimes the system is just so in-sync with the setting that it needs to remain its own thing.

I think from the baseline of original D&D we saw a reach for realism in the 80's and percentiles provided the most granularity that could be easily achieved and used in play. In the 90's story became king and hard mechanics were a little less in favor, so dice pools came into vogue by allowing a broad comparative rating of "this is better than that" without getting bogged down in tiny elements of realistic detail. Classes and levels, the other favored mechanic of the 80's, were a victim of this as well. Then we get to the 2000's and the unified mechanical system becomes the thing of the moment and classes and levels come back, largely driven by d20's popularity - maybe it's a "practicality" movement - "no they aren't always realistic but they work and when combined with a unified mechanic they make for a good playing experience" would be my take on it.

Now as we move into the next decade I think the unified mechanics aspect will remain as it's almost essential to a game that's mechanically lighter. I think classes and levels though are due for another pendulum swing and will fade some outside of the retro game collective, Pathfinder, and D&D - large though that crowd may be there are other games in the universe.

So it's an interesting time. I'm looking forward to whatever is next. Even if I don't like it things will roll in a way I do at some point, and until then I still have more games to play.

Postscript: It's sometimes easy to tell when someone came into roleplaying. Show a 70's - 80's gamer a new game that uses classes and levels and they're probably OK with it. Show it to a 90's recruit and they typically will use words like limiting, outdated, straightjacket, and the like. Then show it to someone that started during the d20 wave and they're probably fine with it. It's funny how things come and go then come back like that. This next decade will be interesting for sure.

Motivational Monday

Special Muppet Edition

Random Campaign Idea of the Day

This

plus this

equals a whole lot of potential. If you aren't familiar with them they are a lot like this:

Which seems like it would make for a pretty slick campaign. I may have to make some notes. No idea when I would run it but it's worth a bit of thought. System-wise I think Savage Worlds or maybe Icons for lighter mechanics  M&M or Hero if I want to go nuts.

Atomic City - The 1950's

Atomic City was incorporated in 1949, bringing together the docks, the living areas for the workers, and the area around the main roads linking them to the government facility. With the war over, the postwar drop had slowed the economy, but by '49 things were starting to move again and the incorporation set the stage for massive growth and expansion.

The major features of Atomic City at the start of the decade are the port and the reactor and some would say the air force base nearby. There are no monuments, no amusement parks, no shopping malls, no museums. Between the two major centers of activity all that a visitor would see are homes and small businesses serving those homes. The population is about 50,000 people, about a third of whom arrived during the war.

In 1951 Atomic City University is founded. This is the first local institution of higher learning and though it starts small it grows very quickly as it is linked to the facility that gives the city its name.

Giovanni "Johnny" Sorvino came to the city from back east in the 1940's. Originally born and raised in Italy he came to America and fell in with the New York families.  Following a disagreement with his boss he came west, started working on the docks and then started his own family business. By the early 50's he had complete control of the city's criminal underworld, small though it was at the time. Because of this he is a regular target of the city's early heroes, though he manages to outlive most of them. loosely connected to the Sorvinos are the local gangs including the Pharoahs and the Jets.

The local newspaper, The Beacon, began in the late 19th century when the local area was a rural backwater. Run as a family business, it was comfortable and familiar but many of the new arrivals saw it as decidedly small-town.  As the docks ramped up and more and more workers arrived and The Eagle was founded in  1946 by a returning veteran with a more activist and cosmopolitan outlook and competition soon took off with most of the older families favoring the more conservative Beacon while newer citizens and the students of the university favored the Eagle. Throughout the decade the papers dueled for exclusives and scoops in a stiff if cordial rivalry.

Television also came to the city in the 50's with Channel's 2, 5, and 7. Late in the decade a local public broadcasting channel also came about, largely run by and based at the University.

Radio was already well-represented in the area but really took off in the 50's with no fewer than 8 different stations in operation. Competition was fierce and some of them were allied with a TV station or a newspaper as the decade came to a close.

The Joyland amusement park opened in 1954. It quickly became a major local tourist attraction and an occasional battleground between heroes and villains as well. recreational options besides this included swimming pools, skating rinks, and drive-in movie theaters.

This is also the decade when the core of downtown was built - City Hall, Police Headquarters, the Central Fire Station, and many of the storefronts on Atomic Way date from this time. Much of the central city's infrastructure was built at this time too - roadways, sewers, power lines, rail lines, and water towers. Most of the major parks were laid out at this time too. Burns Field is also constructed, the city's first commercial airport.

Along with this development an electric trolley system is built that runs from downtown to the university and the facility, including many middle class neighborhoods. Plans are made to extend the line to the dock area but this line is never completed, leading to some resentment and bad feelings from that neighborhood. This does not appear to be serious at this time but it does plant some seeds that will come up down the road.

Major businesses that set up shop during the 50's include General Products, Axis Chemicals, and National Calculating Machines. Great Western Aircraft built an engine plant in the city to produce jet engines and was the largest single employer by 1957.

By the end of the decade Atomic City is a "working" city known mainly for advanced thinking and research and some advanced industries. The population is now 100,000, about 1/3 pre-war local families and 2/3 recent imports, making the 50's a time of major cultural change. It is often tagged nationally as "The CIty of Tomorrow" which is eventually adopted as the city's motto and painted on the sides of police cars and the downtown trolley cars. It is not a tourist destination nor is it a very large city, but it is well known and regarded as a blueprint for the future.

The 4E Greek Mythology Campaign: Classes

First a note on power sources:

• Martial, Divine, and Arcane all fit very well as-is. I see no need for changes.
• Primal is a little problematic with its references to the wolf spirit and the great serpent and the like. I'm really leaning towards just not allowing them for now as it's easier to add them in later than it is to remove them.  
• Psionic is one that I was going to ban altogether but I can see it coming from a scholar/philosopher school of thought brought to a combat-worthy point. It would be centered in the most civilized parts of Achaea and would be relatively new, having been developed since the Trojan War. I can see Athena being associated with it and some of the other gods being jealous of this new power and making moves to squash it, fueling some of that divine competition that is such a part of the myths. 

Classes by Power Source

Martial

• Fighter: The core of any good adventuring party. Sword or Spear and Shield is a popular choice for Achaeans and Achilles would be the best ever. Hercules is the greatest Brawling fighter of all time. Since I'm trimming out the primal classes the Battlerager fighter takes that role for barbaric types. The "Knight" from Essentials becomes the "Hoplite" for Achaeans and instead of sword or hammer it becomes sword or spear for the special power choices. The Essentials Slayer is also there for more barbaric types. This class might represent soldiering time or just training and natural talent, especially for the nobility.
• Ranger: The country cousin of the fighter. Lighter armor, more mobility. Two weapon use is not strictly historical for Greeks but we can roll with it. Bow rangers fit right in. Marauder and Hunter rangers work alright as well. Beastmaster rangers are probably shepherd types from the pastoral areas - yes, in these dark times it takes a ranger to protect the sheep. 
• Rogue: The light-armored, sneaky hard-hitting type. This might be Jason or even Theseus depending on how you interpret the stories. In any case it has a place in the campaign. The Essentials Thief fits in especially nicely here. I would think this would come from natural talent and maybe some criminal backgrounds.
• Warlord: The fighting leader, I might nominate Odysseus as a possible Bow Warlord. Patroclus in the Iliad is the ultimate warlord, sacrificing himself to give Achilles a rage bonus to defeat Hector! All types are welcome here. I see this as mainly nobles and a few military leaders.

Divine

• Cleric: Should play a large role in the game although I see them as mostly human in the campaign world. I would think that Melee clerics would be more common (especially for Athena and Ares) but Laser clerics have a place, especially for Apollo. Aphrodite and Demeter could have mostly Pacifist clerics. Zeus and maybe Posiedon would have a fair number of Storm Warpriests from Essentials while Apollo might also use Sun Priests from this as well. I envision these as being based out of a temple in a particular city but free to wander as needed to spread and reassert the faith, especially of a god commands it.
• Paladin: Less common but I may use this to represent the divine-blooded fighter. While Martial types could be favored by a god, Divine types other than clerics might be directly descended from a god which would explain their unusual power. The Essentials Cavalier Paladin would be there for the Paladin player who does not want to be of divine heritage while the other Paladin types cover the godblooded fighter type.
• Avenger: The divinely birthed stealth fighter or rogue equivalent. They can call upon the power of the gods and hit people with sharp things as well. I can see Hera, Artemis, and Aphrodite all having a fair number of these. 
• Invoker: The godblooded origin for magical types, especially blasty magical types. They still might have gone to a school to train their powers, they just work a little differently. Zeus and Apollo might favor these, and even Hephaestus might get in on the act.
• Runepriests: not allowed. Wait for the Norse Campaign.

Arcane

• Wizard: The learned magical scholar type fits in well in many ways. The Essentials Mage fits in here too. I see these mostly arising from cities where there would be small schools devoted to magical learning rather than solitary master-apprentice pairings.
• Warlock: I almost want to leave these out as some of the pacts really don't fit the flavor of Mythic Greece but if we look at them as deals with minor non-divine powers then I think I can get my head around it. It's "forbidden" magic and as such this is the one that would have a master and apprentice relationship carried out in towers and ruins in the wilderness rather than learned in the cities. The Vestige pact seems especially appropriate for tapping into forgotten powers from before the rise of the Olympians. The Essentials Hexblade seems especially inappropriate for the game but I'm willing to give it a chance for now - maybe they are swordmages who went to the dark side. The Fey pact options for Warlocks might work for Wilden or Satyrs or Centaurs as tapping into the essence of nature, filling in nicely for some of the Primal classes and powers.
• Sorcerer: These are basically another flavor of wizard in this campaign - they still would train at a school but have a slightly different focus than wizards. They represent a split in the philosophy of arcane schooling and train more for combat than the traditional scholarly wizard does. 
•  Swordmage: The Arcane Fighter which I see as mostly a non-human profession. In fact I see it mainly as a Minotaur thing though I will not restrict it to them only. It's a fusion of martial and arcane training that should be fairly rare in the campaign world. 
• Artificer: This one is an arcane leader type from Eberron which I have zero experience with but it really seems to fit. this class is the tinkerer, alchemist, and potion-brewer type of wizard where most of their magic is tied up in "stuff" rather than throwing fireballs. I see this as almost exclusively human, representing the dabbler/inventor/genius type of character who often goes along on heroic expeditions. Hephaestus could be widely revered among these types.
• Bard: Certainly a fit for Heroic Greece this class is made up of wandering storytellers who form their own community within the nation. Reputations spread far and wide among bards and they will often accompany heroes on quests to gather stories for their own epic works. Bards generally do not form schools or training centers, but those who show an aptitude will often be taken under the wing of an older bard and shown the ropes. In these dark times they have learned to use their knowledge to defend themselves and their companions even though battle prowess is not their main focus.

Psionic

• Monk: this one is the most like other classes and can represent the ultimate development of the wrestling (Pankration) that was so common in ancient Greece. Some of the power names aren't really in tune with the flavor of the game so we will change them when they come up. I'm thinking this might be associated with Sparta and largely restricted to schools there. It would also be largely human but other races might have learned the techniques from a human teacher outside of the school.
• Ardent: I envision the whole psionic power source as starting from one school in Athens where discipline and focus lead to a breakthrough and result in the psionic powers present in 4th edition. The teachings of the school slowly spread to other cities as students travel and by the time of the campaign there are schools in several cities but Athens is still the center. Ardents are the leader types who also tend to be the biggest teachers of the Way and the ones doing the most to spread its teachings to others. I see it as mainly a human thing but the school would accept students of all races who show promise so if someone wants to be a Minotaur Psyker they can do it. 
• Battlemind: the fighting psionics, these would have come about the first time the School of the Way was asked to help repel an attack on the city. Students developed new abilities and put them into a separate training program for warriors.
• Psion: the academics of the Way spend a lot of time philosophizing about this new power but rarely go out adventuring. Their powers tend to be less about damage and more about doing things at a distance with the mind. These are the core faculty and often the leaders of discovering new techniques within the school.

 That's where it stands right now. We will likely start with these options for class and the race options from my other post and get the game going, leaving further refinement for after we start things off. I'm going to have a little more input for this game on classes and races to try and come up with a party that makes sense. If we can work it in this weekend I will share the results next week.