Lemurians Never Use Simple Names

The Lost Continent of Lemuria is returning to the World and bringing with it storms and tidal waves that threaten to destroy or devastate thousands of miles of Pacific coastline in Asia, Oceania and the Americas. What might be even worse for the world is the Mad Empress who wants to use her army of undead Muons to regain the Lemurian Throne. What horrors could she unleash from the ancient cities of Lemuria? What unknown marvels do the ruins of that empire hold?

Our Heroes are going to find out as they race towards the Palace of Ninety Trillion Pearls to stop the Mad Empress, who has possessed the body of their friend Izzy, before she can bring her plans to fruition. In their way stand the Cake of Lies, the Flowers of Discontentment and the Birds That Sing Songs of Doom. Along with an army of death and metal, the ancient Muons who serve the Mad Empress.

The Band has already defeated the Deadly Butterflies of Agony, but more challenges await!

How Time Flies

The very first session of Lost Atlanta was one June 1st, 2011. In about a month, we'll be bitting the one-year anniversary of the chronicle. That's a fairly impressive benchmark as far as my games go. The player roster changes from time to time, and the character roster changes faster than that. The story, though, marches on.

What has the Band done in a year? They've defeated a corrupted Scion who helped the Titans kidnap the Goddess Nemesis. They accidentally unleashed an Avatar of Death, resulting in the transformation of Roanoke Island into a wasteland populated only by the undead. They saved Mexico City from a similar fate by foiling a Camazotz ritual that would have unleashed a second Avatar. They travelled to the Slavic Underworld to return a friend to life, only to find Buyan under attack by armies of specters. While there, they defeated Koschei the Deathless forever, saving the ghosts of the Underworld from his malice. They've faced down the Dodekatheon to win freedom for one of their Bandmates when he was found collaborating with a Titan (he had good intentions).

What are they doing now? Now they've travelled to the Lost Continent of Lemuria to prevent it from destroying most of the coast and islands near the Pacific Ocean when it re-appears in the World and save their former ally Itzel from the grips of an evil Empress bent on regaining control of the Lemurian Empire.

Results of the Trial

Well, things were close there for a while. Marti bribed Ares into swapping his vote and Athena came up with a compromise that got Apollo and Artemis to agree. Finally the Dodekatheon decided not to throw Garreth into Tartarus, just to arrange things so that if he works with the Titans again, he'll instantly die.

More problems resulted from the bribery than the trial itself. Marti's bribe to Ares was starting a civil war in North Korea, dedicated to the War God. The rest of the Band, including Garreth, took exception to the callous decision and a big fight broke out.

As a result of that and the on-going tension between Boris, Johnny and Marti, Marti will be leaving the Band. His replacement (since his player isn't going anywhere, we like him) is going to be a Polynesian Surfer God. We'll see how he works out, but he seems like far less of an abrasive dick than Marti. Should be fun!

Randall is still settling in and getting used to everyone, as well as letting people (Boris) get used to him. It's an on-going process.

This could go so wrong in so many ways.

Like, this could go wrong is so many ways.

First off, Ares is going to try to embarrass Johnny into oblivion by flaunting what he did to him in front of the big twelve. Because of this, Marti may just try to force Johnny to step down, and stay home. Something that I am not super excited about, but if Marti can convince Johnny of it, I am ok with it. Although if Marti decides to use powers against Johnny to force him to stay home, someone will end up dead.

Second, I am guessing we, right off the bat, have three votes against us. Although A thinks I am wrong with these, so take it all with a grain of salt. I believe there is no way in hell we are getting Ares to vote for us, no way in hell we are getting Artemis to vote for us, and either Zeus or Hera will vote against us because they can never take the same side on jack shit.

The Trial of the Century

Everyone is getting ready for Garreth's trial. I don't know that it's really going to be so much of a "trial" as just trying to convince enough Gods not to kill him. There aren't laws or anything and there's no objecting when people get out of line.

This is really gunna test the social characters to see what they can do. Oh, and Garreth of course, to see if he can bend far enough to make his Pantheon think he's more than just a crazy, dangerous lunatic.

Now, some of you may be asking: Did I push Garreth into this situation to punish him? No. Not really. I did push him into this situation to force some growth, though. He's set himself up in an incredibly vulnerable position. He doesn't have any allies among his Pantheon. None of the Dodekatheon have any reason to like him that much, since he thinks very lowly of them and makes no secret of it.

What's it with people stabbing kings in the back?

Hey folks, I'm Johnny's player.

So, after that session, having his his third most trusted friend turn out to be trying to keep a Titan Avatar as a house pet, and having his second most trusted friend just up and leave, Johnny is a walking combination of conflicting virtues.

He wants to just summon Strife and sic him on Garreth and the rest of his organisation for being so damn stupid, but he also would hate to see the Greek brutally murdered.

So, he is just storming off to Ireland to take the middle road. He is still telling on Garreth, but he is going to a Deity who won't just up and murder Garreth without thinking. He's off to Tara to try to speak with Danu. And to check that he can be Ard Ri.

In a nutshell, he is blindingly pissed at Garreth, but his loyalty prevents him from just having his head taken off. Added to the fact that the last two-ish weeks have been really difficult, he is just storming off to Ireland to make himself king in a attempt to cheer himself up.

I'd say it won't work. And things are just getting worse for him over there. Artan is attacking him because he broke a Geas, he is expressing feelings for someone (although I don't know if that will last) for the first time in what is close to ever, and he has to speak with a family member. Even though it's Danu, talking with the Tuatha never seems to end all that well. Hell, speaking to any God/dess never ends well for him.

Should be cool to see where this goes.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Hey everybody!

Izzy's player here.

So, the question is, why did Izzy flat out leave?

It's a rather complicated affair.

First of all, the obvious answer is that Garreth betrayed her, and therefore she couldn't stand being around him. This is true, but it doesn't explain everything. To add to this, Izzy entered a Virtue Extremity. Her Duty to protecting the world countered her loyalty to the Band exponentially. Therefore, thanks to both the stress of the situation, and the utter zealous belief that she had taken over her mind, she became very, very irrational. This in turn lead to a psychotic break thanks to the stress and the conflicting Virtues at play.

In the end of her farewell scene, I tried to write it as if her mental block was breaking, but by that point she'd made up her mind. There was no turning back by that point.

From a story perspective, her leaving did make sense. From a gameplay one it was... an odd experience.