Ulysses

A live roleplaying game for 14-18 players.

Dedicated to Ruth Harper.

© Stephanie Pegg, 2019. Published by the Flying Monkeys Collective.

Sample file Smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. —Alfred, Lord Tennyson In the year 3029, Star Seeker returned to Habitat after twenty years of journeying, slew the many suitors of his faithful wife , and restored himself to the throne and obligations of ruler, spouse and father. Now he calls to him the comrades who were left behind on his long journey home; to set forth on one last expedition, beyond the Western Stars of the Spiral Arm: to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Will you join him? Or will you remain in the world of women: the housekeepers and wives, the daughters, the thought-sibyls, the goddesses, the technomancers... Do you want to? Will they let you? Ulysses is a classical Greek tragedy IN SPACE!!! for 14-18 characters, written by Stephanie Pegg. Note: Ulysses is a larp inspired by ancient Greek epics—there are a lot of big feelings, like rage, love, and hate, and family disputes typically don't end until someone is bleeding on the floor. There is a strong gender divide, and the game has no gender-neutral or ambiguous characters. Cross-dressing is welcome. The game has cultural norms consistent with the canon, such as slavery, violence, and a sexual double standard. There are some background non- graphic incidents of non-consent or dubious- consent sex that may be discussed in the game, but not roleplayed. Much of the game is thinking about what life is like living in a different time, what it means to be transgressive, and dealing with the consequences of your actions. Sample file For the Organiser

Contents Introduction ...... 4 You’re Reading This And You’ve Never Larped Before ...... 5 You’re Reading This And You’re Unfamiliar With ’s ...... 6 Staging Notes ...... 7 Casting ...... 7 Printing and Props ...... 8 Physical Setup ...... 9 During The Run ...... 10 Game Mechanics ...... 11 Special Abilities ...... 11 Consent Issues ...... 13 Plot Overview ...... 14 The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships ...... 14 The Long Journey Home ...... 15 The Death of the Suitors ...... 15 The Republic of Women ...... 16 The Cattle of the Sun ...... 17 The Gods ...... 18 Pollution ...... 18 The Greek Ideal ...... 18 Credits ...... 20

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Introduction The first time I heard Homer’s Odyssey , I felt like I’d been punched in the face. This was not the first time I had heard of it— is one of those cultural osmosis texts that permeate Western culture. But I knew it as an adventure story with a chorus of colourful monsters, the loose outline of a quest to get back to a loving family that is a common design pattern in popular culture, and as the inspiration for some literary texts that felt like they would be a lot of work to read. I heard it for the first time in 2018, shortly after a lot of fuss was being made about Emily Wilson’s newly published translation. Wilson had made poetic choices to use frank contemporary language and tightly written verse, to help the reader feel as an ancient Greek might when listening to Homer’s archaic and stylised language; more than that, she is a translator who is also a woman. A friend of a mine staged a group reading of the new text, and what I had thought of as an adventure story turned out to be a sordid family drama with an absentee father, a housewife struggling to hold on to her home, an angry young man frustrated because his life does not match his ambition, servants choosing sides with blood on the line, hero-kings who needle each other, cocks of the walk torn between self-interest and following their own nature, women who follow the rules and are possessions, women who flout the rules and get away with it, and the eternal contradictory whims of the divine, by whom any action, no matter how chaotic or malignant, can simply be waved away as “a God put the thought into my head.” Over everything is a model of consumption, of eating or being eaten up, in a world whose values are both alien and familiar. There are two other primary sources. The poem Ulysses , by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is another of those cultural artefacts that I had the wrong idea about—eminently quotable verse at the end of the poem about a hero’s journey, against the backdrop of a man who has struggled for a long time to get to his home, finds it dull, and immediately wants to leave again. The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri Tepper is a work of angry feminism that I had struggled with as a teenager. I understand it better now that I have a working knowledge of Greek tragedy under my belt: she writes a future where a peaceful human society is possible only if men and women live Samplestrictly separate and regimented lives.file As a young girl living a reasonably happy life in a modern democracy, Tepper’s premise seemed overblown to me; as an older woman better able

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For the Organiser to take Homer on his own terms, having reached an age in which #MeToo is just another sally in the gender wars, the casus belli of the novel becomes more explicable. Three confronting texts that cannot agree with each other make the perfect basis for larp, an artform where there is no such thing as a unified point of view. So travel to Ithaca. Embrace what you find there and accept the gifts your host may choose to give you. Honour your own and others’ gods, pour the libation from your cup, make peace with your loved ones or do not. And then leave.

You’re Reading This And You’ve Never Larped Before Live roleplaying (larp) is a way of acting out stories. The participants take on characters who have a history, an emotional life and relationships with the other characters in the game, and then act out what feels right for the character. As an art form, it is more immediate than theatre; as a roleplaying form, it is held more in the body and more in the moment of time than the ‘tabletop’ kind where you simply narrate what your character is doing. Larps can be silly or serious or anywhere between. Ulysses uses the form to give up to 18 players a role in the world of The Odyssey one week after its hero has finally reached his home. The game takes about three hours to run, with two hours of in- character time, and pre and post-game workshops to help people get in and out of character. There are rules that govern how characters can engage in physical conflict without anybody getting hurt in real life. The game has a two-act structure. The first act is a regular day in the lives of the characters in which they can talk or have minor scuffles, after this is a five-minute break in which the characters are ‘resting’ for the night; this is followed by the finale—a fateful day that the gods are witnessing: all fights are mortal, all oaths are significant, and the ships of Ithaca will sail out to the Western Stars (which heroes Samplewill go is for the players to decide.) file

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You’re Reading This And You’re Unfamiliar With Homer’s Odyssey The Odyssey and its companion text The Iliad are two of the oldest works in Western literature. They were written around the 8 th or 7 th century BCE, combining the new literacy with a rich oral tradition that seems to recall the lavish fallen courts of and Crete, and perhaps an even earlier memory of nomadic life on inland steppes. Homer’s works (there is scholarly debate about whether the author referred to by archaic Greeks as ‘The Poet’ was an individual or a team) quickly became a collective identity-forming canon shared across the Greek speaking world; they were admired and incorporated into Roman literature; from there they have been continually repeated, translated and adapted into the 21 st century. The stories of The Odyssey have been translated in literature, art, and film for thousands of years, with each adaptation drawing on the individual perspective of the translator and providing a different lens into the original work. The core narrative of the story—the journey home of the trickster, hero and pirate —is bookended by the disarray of his home Ithaca in his absence, and the bloody mess of his return. In between, we have a tangled web of adventures with fantastical beasts, recountings of the fall of Troy and what became of the Greek warriors who fought there, young girls doing their laundry, the eloquence of bards, acts of generosity and of murder, condemnation of women who betray their husbands, tourism through the wondrous sites of the ancient Mediterranean, and the fickle will of the gods. In the final scene, just as Odysseus and his allies are facing the enraged parents of some young men he has killed, just when the final confrontation seems likely to leave most participants dead: the goddess shouts a great cry and demands that they all just stop. Much of the text is confronting, and much of it presents the words of an unreliable, self- interested narrator. In this larp, I do not presume to present the whole of the text. Rather each character has a point of view and wants to act on it, a bare week after the Sampleevents of The Odyssey are over. Thisfile game is a science fiction adaptation, partly because it gives people more wiggle room to fudge their Classics knowledge, partly because it lets me as author

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For the Organiser bring in some of my own ideas about ‘another way it could be.’ The biggest change in this adaptation is the character of Helen—in Homer’s original she seems happy to be returned to as ’ wife, all bygones forgiven, possessed of a special potion that makes the drinker forget their pain, rage, and all the evils that afflict them. In the larp adaption, she is allowed to be angry. Some characters vary more than others from the original: the most difficult events and points of view are all straight out of Homer. The larp provides materials which present some shared facts: the timeline of the events in the twenty-five years before the game is set, the map of the universe as the protagonists know it, and a shared understanding of the cultural values that are active in their community. Players with their own knowledge of Classics (or good imaginations) are encouraged to bring in their own ideas and demand to all comers that only their own viewpoint is the correct one. Encourage people to be loud, emotive, and vengeful, and to weep over each other; through their actions they perform the conflicting values of their society.

Staging Notes Casting When you advertise the game, make the “Casting Questionnaire” available. You may wish to email this as a Word document, or code it into a web form. There are a number of leading questions that are designed to give people a feel for what the game will be like. Their answers will give you some guidelines for who will be a good fit for which character. In general, this game is designed for mature people—previous roleplaying experience isn’t required, but a sensible outlook and understanding one’s own limits is important. It will help you to read through the Plot Overview below and the character sheets first. Ulysses should be played by someone with experience roleplaying or acting, as this character has key relationships with everyone else, a lot of details to remember, and will need to cope with people having a (legitimate) reason to be angry with him. Several characters have a lot of reasons to be angry, especially Helen , Eurylochus , Aegyptius , and . and are troublemakers looking for mischief. If you are short of players, you don’t have to cast all of them, but try to put strong willed people in at least some of these parts as they will drive Sampleplot for everyone else to react to. file You may have some unavoidable absences or have a run that is not fully subscribed. If your run is lower on players, omit a whole group (Sparta, or Phaeacia); if short by only a few, drop one or two characters from the Ithaca or Wanderers group. 7

For the Organiser Use handouts from the “Absences” sheet to explain missing characters during the pre-game briefing. The game is very binary about gender; the closest it gets to non-binary is the character /Athena who begins the game in the guise of a man but is expected to bring a female goddess costume. Anyone who is OK with crossdressing may do so. Some characters are more problematic than others—see the section below on Consent Issues for a discussion. When you have completed casting, email the PDF version of each character sheet to each player, along with the “For The Player” document, and the full list of who has been cast as what (these are in the “To Email” directory). The “Casting” tab of the “Organiser Sheet” spreadsheet gives you a pronunciation guide and brief description of each character. Printing and Props The full prop list is given on the “Gear List” tab of the “Organiser Sheet” spreadsheet. At a minimum, you will need a physical representation of a key to give to Penelope, a fan (or other token prop) for the pre-game workshop, two ceremonial chairs or thrones for Ulysses and Penelope to hold court from, some kind of gate or archway for the final departure, and some cushions for people to sit on. You should include some extra chairs for accessibility reasons, but keep them at the edges of the room: Ulysses should expect to have everyone below his eye level. There are printables in the “To Print” directory. Print the star field pictures (“NGC 4881 Star Field A1” and “Andromeda Star Field A1” in as high a resolution as you can, and the map in a largish size. For the other documents: Character Sheets: A5 booklet All character sheets in a continuous file, print on double sided A4 then fold For The Player: 1 sided, A4 Has the sections “Setting”, “Timeline”, “Culture” and “Game Information”. Stick to wall in game area Signs: 1 sided, A4 Mark areas of game Suggested Layout: 1 sided, A4 Show to helpers during setup phase Name Tags: 1 sided, A4 Cut into rectangles and hand out with the character sheets. Calchas/Poseidon and SampleMentor/Athena get two name tags.file Absences: 1 sided, A4 Cut into strips, hand out as necessary to handle missing characters.

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Physical Setup You will need a reasonably sized hall in which to run this game. The “Suggested Layout” tab of the “Organiser Sheet” spreadsheet indicates a reasonable setup. (The hearth in the middle of the room and the water bowl on the side table are symbolic for players who want to show respect to the gods in the game, and to ritually purify themselves.) If you can, partition off a couple of private areas: Ulysses’ and Penelope’s private quarters, and an Armoury which is accessible by the key Penelope owns. In the Armoury put some larp-safe weapons (for example, padded toys and Nerf guns)— these will not have a mechanical effect in the game, but they let Penelope as the mistress of the household repeat a fateful decision from the canon text. You may wish to set up some spotlighting effects for the final scene of departure through the Samplearchway. There should be room for the players to stage fight safely. file Place the dense starfield picture behind Ulysses’ throne, and the sparse starfield picture on the wall on the other side, near the archway. Tape the map and the “For

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For the Organiser The Player” sheets to the wall. (This is a setting heavy game, and it will help the players to be able to check details before the game start.) There are signs for the partitioned off areas. Take reasonable precautions when setting up: tape electrical leads down or run them along the walls; use sandbags to stabilise any fixtures that are unstable; manage any other trip hazards; keep hot things away from flammable materials; point out any remaining safety issues, the fire exits, earthquake/tsunami procedures, and the location of the first aid kit in your pre-game briefing. The game rules include out-of-character calls Caution and Timeout to let people know about real life hazards. When handing out paper character sheets, give everyone an individual pep talk: “This game was written with your character in mind—everything is about you and your feelings, and everybody else should just shut up and give you some empathy.” (They may take you less seriously after they’ve overheard this speech a few times, but it is no less true.) Run the pre-game workshops described in the “Game Information” section of the “For The Player” document:  “Is This Your Fan?” is a short exercise that helps people feel like their characters and get comfortable with improvising backstory;  “Proactive and Reactive Consent” is an exercise to help players manage the escalation level of a verbal conflict: they practice raising the stakes, de-escalating, and using the ‘look down’ technique to signal that they need to opt out of the encounter. Get everybody to group themselves by the faction on their nametags. Everyone in the Ithaca group starts in the game area; send everyone else outside and ask them to walk inside the game space in character. The Spartans, Pylosians and Phaeacians should arrive in their groups; the Wanderers can arrive as individuals as they feel appropriate. During The Run Act I: Tell Your Story (1 ½ hours): In the first act, your main job will be to keep the water jugs full and answer the occasional question. Give Penelope a five-minute warning before the end of the act, let her announce that night has arrived, and then Sampledim the lights. file Interlude: Rosy-Fingered Dawn (5 minutes): In the five-minute rest period, go around the room and ask if anyone has any question or wants to set up any actions for the second act. Brighten the lighting when ready. 10

For the Organiser Act II: Set Your Hand to the World (1/2 hour): In the second act, encourage people to work out their grievances with as much noise and pretend violence as they like. Give people a five-minute warning before the end of the act: this is the finale in which the ships of Ithaca will sail to the Western Stars. Several characters have motivations to be on that journey, several others have strong feelings about who should and shouldn’t stay; if things go well, you will get a big final battle and people giving speeches over the corpses. Wind Down: Give people a few minutes to be excited and tell each other about the game, lead a group cheer or hug, then call them into a circle and get them to debrief. My suggestion is to go around the circle and get people to talk about a moment in the game that was important to their character’s values, or something about the game that they want to leave behind them, and get them to wash their hands in a bowl of water. Pack Up: This goes faster if you have a prewritten list of clean up chores to be done. Ask everyone to pack up their own gear then check in with you about what task they will do.

Game Mechanics Every character has a skill at Force and Arms that adjudicates who will win in a combat. Get the players to quietly compare totals, work out who the winner is, then mime out the fight. People joining the fight add up their total skills as a group, and face the consequences as a group—don’t allow anyone to get tricky and announce that they alone will take the injuries for another participant or some other loophole. Larp-safe weapons (like padded toy swords and Nerf guns) do not give a mechanical bonus, but are nice to have for flavour. Special Abilities Each character has a special ability. This is to help the players get a feel for how their character thrives in the world, but they also provide ways to put information Sampleinto the game and steer the game in unusual ways. When handling Informationfile abilities, be generous about the information you give them: if a player has asked a question where the technically correct answer is not very interesting, volunteer some related information that they will find useful. 11

For the Organiser Some characters have abilities that they might want to use in the world outside the habitat: Calypso can control gravity, the gods are beings from the hearts of stars, Helen can communicate with the creatures in the stars, and the human characters have resources of ships, provisions and men. If the players want to narrate out a conflict in space, get anyone who could plausibly be involved to narrate their actions and whose side they’re on, decide the winner based on their combined Force and Arms skills. When in doubt, follow The Rule of Cool: if someone’s idea sounds like it will make the game more interesting, think of ways to say Yes to it. Information Abilities May ask the organiser for compromising information on another character twice during the game. May ask other players to tell her truthfully about something significant that they have done or what they want ( three times per game). May ask the game organiser for more information about a character or an historical event relevant to the current story. Telemachus If he sees another player talking to the game organiser, he can ask the organiser what they were saying. Ulysses May ask the game organiser three times what their opinion of other people’s intentions are (the organiser will answer to the best of their abilities but may be incorrect.)

Physical Abilities Athena May increase one character’s skill at Force and Arms to 20 until the end of the current Act. May shout to stop one combat and demand the participants swear oaths of peace. Calypso Can weave gravity streams e.g. change the orbits of small objects in space (up to a small moon). Circe Has three potions (physically represent with plain water) that will turn another character into an animal until the end of the Act, or until fed an Sampleantidote by her. The affected player file should roleplay the mannerisms of the animal, but may speak.

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For the Organiser Demodocus Skilled in oratory and song—the player is requested to prepare a performance piece. Eurylochus When he loses a mortal fight, instead of dying he is gravely wounded but can rise again. (His skill at Force and Arms halves each time this happens.) Helen May ask the creatures who dwell in the Sun of Ithaca a significant favour, for instance requesting a solar flare at a particular time that will make the entry into hyperspace impassable, or triggering the sun into a supernova. Poseidon May increase one character’s skill at Force and Arms to 20 until the end of the current Act. May create or calm a storm in the Aether at will.

Resource Abilities Aegyptius Modest wealth and the ability to raise a small warband. Master of ships. May gift or loan a wondrously swift grey ship. Eurycleia May provide resources of food and clothes to speed a traveller from Ithaca. Menelaus Has considerable wealth—may present characters with in-game gifts, and arrange for an after-game action that requires considerable resources, for example, creating a new colony, sending a fleet of ships somewhere, or starting a major research project. Penelope Can create fine cloth for garments, or the great light sails that men need for their ships. Can create minor biologic alterations in the livestock and plants that inhabit Ithaca. Starts the game with the key to the Armoury. Pisistratus Can commit the resources of Pylos to an enterprise, whether it is a new colony, ships for an adventure, or money and gifts to entertain guest- friends. Sample file Consent Issues The canonical world of The Odyssey is violent and sexual assault is a normalised outcome of losing a battle. Marriages are usually arranged, and elopements or

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For the Organiser abductions are considered a transgression against the woman’s father or husband. The game is not about rape and so does not have a formal mechanic; if players want to go there, tell them there is no space in the rules for it to happen “by the will of the gods.” If players want to have their characters engage in a consensual sexual encounter, tell them to agree the ‘movie rating’ level of the encounter first, then get them to narrate (not mime) what happens. Either party can opt out at any time. Remember to be kind; this is a subject that can be very triggering to people. The characters with non- or dubious-consent or coerced marriages most notably in their background are:  Helen – is in an arranged marriage with Menelaus and was abducted by/eloped with Paris.  Ulysses – had affairs with both Circe and Calypso in which they had power over him and consent was dubious; he canonically raped and murdered (unnamed) women whose shades he spoke to at the Gates of Hell.  Circe – seduced Ulysses as a means to control him and enjoy herself. In the year he spent with her, she would sometimes drug him insensible and change him into an animal.  Calypso – held Ulysses as a guest/prisoner/lover for seven years, with the expectation that he try hard to please her.  Penelope – was in an arranged marriage with Ulysses (apparently happy), but has spent the last four years putting off young men insisting that she marry one of them.  Telemachus – is angry with his mother for not sending the suitors away. He secretly desired one of the slave girls who has been hanged for sleeping with the suitors.  Eurycleia – a slave bought by the father of Ulysses (who could have kept her as a concubine but didn’t). She nursed Ulysses as a baby and is very attached to Telemachus. She was complicit in the deaths of the slave girls who had been sleeping with the suitors after Ulysses’ return.

Plot Overview The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships 25 years ago, the beautiful Helen came of age. She was married off to one of her suitors Menelaus by lot, on the promise of a mutual defence pact by all the hopefuls Samplefrom the Argive region. Five years later she was abducted (or seduced, file depending on who you ask) by Paris of Troy, and taken away up the Spiral Arm to Fortress Ilium in the Troy system. Menelaus called in all the oaths of the former suitors to get her back. Ulysses was reluctant to go and feigned madness until Menelaus put Ulysses’ 14

For the Organiser infant son Telemachus in danger so that Ulysses had to drop the act and save him. The war lasted ten years and was ended by a trick: a great golden spaceship in the form of a horse apparently dedicated to Poseidon that the Trojans took inside their defences. The heroes from the Argive region of space were hidden inside and took the fortress. Menelaus, Nestor and Ulysses were all captains in the siege of Troy and its Fortress Ilium. Demodocus was present at the fall of Troy. Helen was taken home by Menelaus with a ‘no questions asked’ policy about her own actions—she had helped Ulysses return to his own side after she found him scouting in disguise in return for mercy to the Trojans; she had also tried to lure the Argives out of the Horse by singing in the voices of their wives. The Long Journey Home All of the surviving Argive captains had troubles on their way home. The Goddess Athena was upset about the capture of the girl Cassandra when her Temple in Troy was destroyed, and kicked up an enormous storm that separated many of the ships. Nestor was able to return home quickly despite the storms and parented his son; Menelaus took a while trekking through rich regions and acquired a lot of guest gifts along the way – he also received a warning from the minor god Proteus that his fate lay beyond the Western Stars in far Elysium; Ulysses took a full ten years to drag himself home. Some of the encounters he had along the way were:  with the whom he killed, angering the god Poseidon ;  with the technomancer Circe who turned his men into pigs and took him as her lover for a year;  at a black hole called Hades where he sacrificed at the event horizon in order to speak to the seer ;  being becalmed in the great sun of Thrinacia (see below);  becoming shipwrecked and rescued by the nymph Calypso who kept him as her unwilling lover for seven years;  and as a guest-friend of the Phaeacians, Alcinous, Nausicaa and Demodocus who treated him kindly and delivered him, finally, to his home in Ithaca with many gifts. The crewmember Eurylochus is the only other survivor of the 12 ships that sailed from Ithaca and is very angry about the dangerous situations that Ulysses dragged him and his comrades into. SampleThe Death of the Suitors file When Ulysses returned from his 20 years away, he found many young men of Ithaca and its near neighbours were living in his house, eating his food, and pestering his wife to marry her. Penelope had been putting them off for years, including 15

For the Organiser stratagems such as weaving a shroud for Ulysses’ father, , and unpicking it at night. Ulysses arranged an ambush with the help of his son, Telemachus . With the young men dead, he cleaned his house, executed the slave girls who had slept with them, and conducted a series of loyalty tests on his family and servants to see who recognised him. Eurycleia , the housekeeper, passed the loyalty test by recognising Ulysses from a distinctive scar on his leg; she had sided with his wife and raised his son from a young age. Eumaeus , the swineherd, passed the loyalty test by feeding Ulysses and lending him a cloak, despite believing that his visitor was lying; he had withdrawn from the household but did not prevent the pigs he raised from being eaten, and he has taken a grandfatherly role in Telemachus’ life. Penelope set a loyalty test of her own by saying in front of Ulysses that their marriage bed should be moved—it had been carved from the living rock of Ithaca, which only Ulysses would have known and when he commented on this, she believed that he was really her husband. Aegyptius is the grieving father of one of the suitors, while his older son went away to Troy and never returned. Athena , in the form of Mentor , gave a great shout just as the grieving families of the suitors attacked and insisted that all sides swear oaths of peace. The Republic of Women Helen of Sparta is furious at the deaths of her sister Clytemnestra and niece Iphigenia, and thinks the only real solution is to send away the Heroes who desire glory (and bloodshed) and form a Republic of Women which desires peace instead. She may be looking for allies. Penelope is the model of an ideal wife, but spent a long time waiting for her husband to come back, at which point a lot of people were killed in her house. Nausicaa is the model of an ideal young woman interested in finding a husband. She is in a position to see the pros and cons of fitting in with societal expectations. Circe and Calypso are unruly women who flout the gender Samplenorms of Argive society andfile get away with it.

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For the Organiser The Cattle of the Sun In the vast supergiant of Thrinacia, Ulysses’ ship was becalmed for some months floating in the cooler outer shell, waiting for the superwind of the star to push them into Aether. While there, they saw the Cattle of Sun, great beasts that lived in the star. Ulysses had been warned by the seer Tiresias as well as his hostess Circe to leave them unmolested, but eventually the starving crewmen seized and ate one anyway. A great flare from the sun destroyed the last ship, and most crewmen died, leaving only Ulysses’ and Eurylochus as shipwrecked survivors. Tiresias told Ulysses that if he sailed away far to the west, to a dry land where people do not know the sea, where they call the light sail Ulysses bears a burial shroud, then he may sacrifice to Poseidon, and experience a gentle death. Menelaus was given a similar prophecy by the minor god Proteus; that he would be required to leave all his wealth behind and travel into the West.

Sample“There, sacrifice to Poseidon, and a gentle death will be permittedfile to you.”

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For the Organiser The Gods The gods in this setting are hugely intelligent beings who dwell in the stars and travel the Aether, superior to the more humble beasts and creatures who are local only to one sun. Helen is not entirely human—she was created by her mother, Leda, a genemancer, from human DNA and that gathered from , the god ruling the sun of Sparta. The gods have their own concerns, and they treat the humans who travel about in their dinky little ships as playthings, pets, and annoyances to be put down. Two gods, Athena and Poseidon , have taken sides in the travails of Ulysses , and have turned up at this meeting—Athena delights in Ulysses as a liar, braggart, trickster and pirate of some note; Poseidon is furious because Ulysses killed his son Polyphemus the Cyclops, and is strongly motivated for Ulysses to complete his final quest into the West to make a sacrifice of atonement—if Ulysses complies, he will die a gentle death; if not, he will lose everything he ever loved. One of the humans, Helen the child of Zeus, is able to communicate with the creatures in their nearby star, cousins to the gods. Nausicaa is a Thought Sibyl and has an awareness that Mentor and Calchas (the human personae of Athena and Poseidon) contain the simmering hearts of stars. Circe and Calypso are lesser powers in their own right and want the two major gods, Athena and Poseidon, to show respect for them. Pollution On Ulysses’ return, his and Telemachus’ actions in killing the suitors, getting the slave girls to clean the blood, and then slaying them in turn, can be interpreted as an instinctive desire to cleanse his house of the intruders. At the time the mass deaths have left their own taint: Eumaeus is concerned that denying the dead a proper burial by feeding them to the pigs will bring pollution onto Ithaca; so is Penelope who fears doom on the house of Ulysses because of this unclean act. The Greek Ideal A number of characters exemplify ideal traits of Greek society, and their existence in the game interrogates both other characters’ behaviour and the challenges in fitting into societal expectations. Penelope is an ideal housewife and loving mother, but has defied everyone’s expectations (including the direction of her husband when he first left for war) by remaining in her husband’s house after her son has reached adulthood. At the same time, her faithfulness and fidelity has preserved Ulysses’ household and defines her value as the best of wives, in contrast to the slain adulterous Clytemnestra of Mycenae (sister to Helen and married to the brother of SampleMenelaus .) Nausicaa is a young girl considering marriage and felt veryfile flattered when she first met Ulysses, and her father Alcinous treated Ulysses very generously, a virtue—but they quietly sat out the away from the fighting and believe that Poseidon sent a severe asteroid strike that killed Alcinous’ son as punishment 18

For the Organiser for being so generous to their visitor. Their bard Demodocus is well-travelled and witnessed many of the key battles, performed for both sides in the battles, and witnessed the deaths of many women and children when the Fortress Ilium exploded. He wants most of all to become The Poet, the exemplar song-stitcher for whom the deeds of heroes are but fodder. Telemachus is the son of the King of Ithaca, but does not have the prestige and support of the other householders to clear away unwelcome guests. Both Nestor and Menelaus , kings and friends of his father, have been needling him about this but have provided little assistance to him. Menelaus’ most successful ability is to acquire and retain wealth. Nestor is known for his diplomatic and eloquent advice—though his advice, while always well-spoken, has not always been good in the final outcome. Pisistratus , the son of Nestor, is an ideal young man who was raised by his father from the age of 12—he was raised listening to the tales of the war and longs for a band of comrades of his own. Poseidon loves the kingdom of Pylos, the home of Nestor and Pisistratus, for their great herds of horses, and likes the Phaeacians for their swift grey ships. Ulysses is an exemplar of cunning, much loved by Athena for this trait. Eumaeus and Eurycleia are ‘ideal’ slaves and servants. Eumaeus (born a prince and sold into slavery as a child) was raised in relative ease and luxury as a companion for the sister of Ulysses, Ctimene. When she was married off, he was sent to the outskirts of Ithaca to raise pigs. Eurycleia was treated with a lot of respect by Ulysses’ father Laertes (he could have kept her as a concubine but did not), and is strongly aligned with Telemachus’ interests in the household. Aegyptius is a grieving householder, whose first son was lost in the Trojan War, and whose second Eurynomus was one of the young suitors who transgressed on the hospitality of Penelope and Ulysses and was recently slain. Eurylochus , a returned comrade of Ulysses—the sole survivor of the men who left for the Trojan War—is notable for his caution and failing the ideal of heroic might. Sample file

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For the Organiser

Credits Written by: Stephanie Pegg Beta Readers: Ivan Towlson, Ged Pfeifer, John Fouhy Photography: Stephanie Pegg Playtesters: Ana Clarke, Callum Upton, Charles Jackson, Cheryl Frederick, Chris Donham, Ciarán Searle, Courtney Parnell, Dion Rabone, Donna Giltrap, Frank Pitt, Frida Berg, Ged Pfeifer, Jaron Peek, Joe Warmington, Karen Wilson, Lee Patrick, Malcolm Harbrow, Mel Duncan, Michael Melanger-Taylor, Morgan Atkins, Naomi Guyer, Nicholas Eddy, Norman Cates, Prema Cottingham, Rebecca Harris, Serena Owen, Thomas Joychild, Toby Stewart, Walter Hamer First run in September 2018 in Wellington, New Zealand. “Is This Your Fan?” workshop activity adapted from The Demon Gate by Catherine Pegg. “Proactive and Reactive Consent” workshop activity adapted from “Negotiating for Drama: Consent Driven Narrative Roleplay” by Ericka Skirpan. Licence: You are licensed to share the game materials electronically and on paper for the purpose of producing a run of the live roleplaying game Ulysses . You may make fair use reproductions of the text for the purposes of review and criticism. Astronomical Images: Andromeda Galaxy, M31, Hubble Space Telescope, https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/ , NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington, USA), B. F. Williams (University of Washington, USA), L. C. Johnson (University of Washington, USA), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler. NGC 4889, https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1602b/ , NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2, Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin. “Grand Swirls from NASA’s Hubble”, https://images.nasa.gov/details- GSFC_20171208_Archive_e001059.html , NGC 1566, European Space Agency Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Flickr user Det58. SampleNo endorsement by NASA or the European Space Agency is implied. file

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For the Organiser Fonts: Title Font: Sinkin Sans Family, by Keith Bates, ©2014, www.k-type.com , licensed for commercial use under the Apache 2.0 license, downloaded from www.1001fonts.com. Body Font: Corbel. Bibliography Aciman, Alexander. “Recapping Dante: Canto 26, or You Can't Go Home Again.” The Paris Review , 22 Apr. 2014, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/04/21/recapping- dante-canto-26-or-you-cant-go-home-again/ . Alighieri, Dante. “Inferno: Canto XXVI.” The Divine Comedy , translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Race Point Publishing, 2015. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “Ulysses.” Poetry Foundation , 2018, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses . Anouilh, Jean, and Lewis Galantiére. Antigone . July 2017, Wellington, Gryphon Theatre. Aristophanes, and The Bacchanals. Lysistrata. June 2015, Wellington, BATS Theatre. Campbell, Mike. Behind the Name , 1996-2018, www.behindthename.com/names/gender/masculine/usage/ancient-greek . Bryan, Van. “Kleos: Death and Glory.” Classical Wisdom Weekly , Classical Wisdom Limited, 22 Sept. 2015, classicalwisdom.com/kleos-death-glory/ . Elliott, Ian. “Greek Domestic Religion.” Household Paganism , 1 Oct. 2011, householdpaganismandwitchcraft.blogspot.com/2011/10/greek-domestic- religion.html . “Greek Concept of Pollution.” Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 2018, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100335171 . Homer, and Emily R. Wilson. The Odyssey . W.W. Norton & Company, 2018. Kirk, Geoffrey S. “Homer.” Encyclopædia Britannica , Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 15 Dec. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Homer-Greek-poet . SampleMcDevitt, Jack. A Talent for War . Ace Books, 1989. file North, Anna. “Historically, Men Translated the Odyssey. Here's What Happened When a Woman Took the Job.” Vox , Vox, 20 Nov. 2017,

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For the Organiser www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/20/16651634/odyssey-emily-wilson-translation- first-woman-english . North, Anna, and Emily Wilson. “What Beto O'Rourke's Love of the Odyssey Says about Him.” Vox , Vox, 28 Mar. 2019, www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2019/3/28/18284158/beto-orourke-odyssey-emily-wilson-2020-buttigieg . Pegg, Catherine. The Demon Gate . Flying Monkeys, 2017, www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229069/The-Demon-Gate . Skirpan, Ericka. “Negotiating for Drama: Consent Driven Narrative Roleplay.” The Space Between Stories, 8 Aug. 2018, spacebetweenstories.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/negotiating-for-drama-consent- driven-narrative-roleplay/ . Tepper, Sheri S. The Gate to Women's Country . Bantam, 1989. Wikipedia , Wikimedia Foundation, 2018, en.wikipedia.org , (general reading).

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