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CHARACTER INFORMATION
GOD(DESS): Zeus
DOMAINS OF POWER: King of the Gods, Sky and Weather, Fate, Law & Order, Patron of Hospitality/Guests, Patron of Businesses, Keeper of Oaths
FULL POWERS: Cast lightning bolts, change his form (human or animal), cause people/demigods/gods to die, be reborn, turn into constellations, be permanently imprisoned, etc… pretty much anything he wanted, except he was not omniscient.
ITEMS OF POWER: Lightning Bolts, Golden Eagle, The Aegis (a breastplate so beautiful, yet so awful to behold, that no mortal could survive seeing Zeus in all his magnificence) However, he gave it to Athena, who made it into a shield and had to stick Medusa’s goddam head on it to make it remotely as cool as it was when Zeus used it. Just sayin’. CURRENT STATE OF POWERS: Affect Weather: He can affect wind and storms. If its already cloudy, he could make it rain/thunder fairly easily. Trying to create a thunderstorm on a clear sunny day would take way more energy than he would want to use under normal circumstances. Generate Electricity: he could generate the level of a static electricity shock at will, but bigger amounts take more energy. If he tried to generate enough for an actual lightning bolt, he would be in a coma for months (unless he finds a major source of power). Read Soul: Zeus was the patron of (among other things) Hospitality and Guests, Merchants and Business, and Oaths. While he no longer has the power to instantly be aware of transgressors, he can still tell if a person has mistreated a guest, cheated in business, or lied or broken an oath (or otherwise done something bad that was somehow involved with his areas of patronage). Since the overall concepts remain the same, but details change over time, this can sometimes be troublesome. Once he got the sense that a nearby man had mistreated guests. The man had, in fact, run a craigslist scam where he rented the same vacation house (which he did not own) to 20 families for the same week. It still qualified as a transgression against Zeus’s patronage, but Zeus was really confused for a while. He must be within 20 feet of the person to “feel” their transgression. It’s sort of like a tingle that tells him “someone nearby has transgressed”. Once he gets that tingle, he must concentrate for several minutes to narrow it down to which person and what exactly they did.
SKILLS & ABILITIES: Liar, Cheat, and Con Man Extraordinaire. Zeus was used to getting what he wanted, by any means necessary. When he no longer had the power to do so, he developed more mundane ways to influence others.
Having practiced the fine arts of the confidence scam for centuries, Zeus is very very good. Over the years he has learned all of the well-known scams, as well as their variations and permutations. He was a master of the Pig in a Poke scam in Medieval England, ran Spanish Prisoner scams throughout France, and frequently pulled the Barred Winner outside Vegas Casinos. In addition, he has learned many ways to cheat at cards and dice games, as well as the subtle art of pickpocketing. He has worked with magicians to learn sleight of hand and the art of distraction. He spent time in theater troupes learning makeup and costuming to disguise himself. He has an assortment of wigs, fake beards, makeup, and outfits which would allow him to pass for anything from a young man in his 30’s to an elderly woman. He has also practiced changing the sound of his voice. He has read the works of well-known psychologists, for understanding how people react to a situation helps show you how to take advantage of them. For a while in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, he considered getting into internet scams, but decided against it. He doesn’t like the idea of being traced through the web, and he currently does not know enough about fake accounts, proxies, and the like to fully feel comfortable. But he is reading up on the subject. And finally, and most importantly, he has continued practicing the most important skill of all… picking up women. After all, even gods need the occasional booty call.
MORTAL ALIAS: many names for many different scams, but generally uses Alex Kyros when not assuming a name for a scam job
MORTAL AGE: 60’s
RESIDENCE: Blackwood Apartments, top floor corner unit (he still likes living up high and surveying his “domain”
OCCUPATION: hustler, gambler, and con man
PLAYED BY: Sam Elliot
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: An older man, but still in good shape. He looks like a tired and weather-beaten old man, yet you still get the nagging feeling that he could beat you in a fight. Longish graying hair, brown eyes, usually wears some form of facial hair.
HOW HAS LIVING AMONG MORTAL AFFECTED YOUR CHARACTER?:
Immediately after the Fall, Zeus went into a state of shock. Going from the most powerful being in existence to common schmuck was hard. He spent years in seclusion, expecting to die like a pitiful mortal, until a realization hit him. He had gone into a village for supplies after a period of years, and was astonished to discover that he recognized no one, and the village was vastly different. After some discreet inquiries he determined that, whilst he sat in a funk in a cave in the hills, over 100 years had passed since he had come to town. With the realization that while he was no longer the all-powerful being he once was, he was still more than mortal, he began to have hope for the first time in years.
Since that time, Zeus has moved around the globe, seeking power from mortals. He has learned that in the 2000 years since the Fall, humanity has really not changed all that much. They are still driven by the same base desires and petty needs, and are still willing to do almost anything to get what they want. In a way, Zeus has become more like them than he ever expected. As he tested the limits of his powers, he realized that that he would have to learn other ways to accomplish his goals. If he could not command obedience, he would use trickery to get what he wanted. If mortals no longer gave gold and riches at his temples, he could still get these things by guile and cunning. Zeus still takes his duties seriously, as his time among mortals has shown beyond a doubt that they need someone to watch over them. He still considers himself a patron of hospitality, business, and oaths, and will attempt to punish those who transgress in these areas. The fact that he will attempt to punish an oath-breaker in the morning, then break an oath himself in the afternoon in order to get what he wants, is not a contradiction to him. The rules of mortals do not apply to gods, after all. Overall, his view of mortals has not changed all that much. He understands them better now, and is sometimes even surprised by their ingenuity, but he has never truly lost the sense that he is superior to them all.
PERSONALITY: Zeus is still very much the King of the Gods. While he fully understands that he is a shadow of his former self, and that a return to his previous level of power is virtually impossible, old habits die hard. If someone crosses him in some way, his first reaction is still that of an insulted god; How Dare They? While the centuries have taught him that there is really nothing to be done (killing everyone who pissed him off would cause problems even for him) he must work to control his temper if he is blatantly insulted (or even mildly inconvenienced if he’s in a bad mood).
He still feels that as Zeus, he should have whatever he wants. The only difference is that now he must work for it instead of just making it happen. He has no qualms about lying, cheating, stealing, or worse to achieve his goals. After all, he is Zeus, and whatever he wants is his by right. The funny thing is that mortals get along with him much better than gods at this point. He knows he depends on mortals, and so there is a certain restraint. With other gods, he fully expects the status quo. As far as he is concerned, he is still the King of the Gods, and the others had better treat him as such.
PERSONAL HISTORY:
As mentioned above, Zeus spent a few hundred years in seclusion in a cave on Crete (the same one he was raised in) after the Fall. Once he began to understand his capabilities better, he began moving around Europe. Discovering that Greece had fully embraced the Church of the Jewish Carpenter, he moved on into Western Europe. He spent most of the middle ages building small cults of followers, as starving serfs beset by raiding armies and plagues will turn to the worship of anyone who seemed like they could help.
The Renaissance found him in Italy, where the rediscovery of ancient Greek works brought his legend back into everyday conversation. He continued bouncing around Europe, gaining worship where he could and scamming others when he couldn’t, before eventually taking a very big step. Abandoning the world he knew, Zeus came to the New World in the late 1890’s, settling in Chicago among the thousands of Greek immigrants who came there. As he learned the ways of this strange new city, he began to set up a real home. The new immigrants held the worst jobs, and many worked in the numerous slaughterhouses across the city. Soon a number of these buildings featured small bits of graffiti in out-of-the-way places. Since it was written in Greek, the foremen never understood it, and besides, even if they could read the words, they would have dismissed them as superstition of uneducated immigrants. How could any rational person believe that the deaths of all the cattle were being dedicated to an imaginary god of a far-off land? Zeus settled into his new home, gaining what power he could from the Greek population and returning to his old schemes and scams. Over time, he came to enjoy Chicago, especially when a number of buildings with classical Greek styling went up in the early 20th Century. By the mid 20th Century, however, the slaughterhouses were disappearing and Zeus began to consider moving on. He spent time in Detroit, Boston, St. Louis, and New York, all places where there was a significant Greek population. He tended to stay in large cities, where it was easier to hide his cons. A little over a year ago, Zeus decided to head back to Chicago. Of all the cities he had lived in, Chicago felt the most like “home” He lives well, but is careful to husband his resources just as he husbands the power he gains from mortal worship. While he lives in a nice apartment and dresses well, he could arrange for the use of a North Coast mansion or a South Side crack den with equal ease, given a few days notice. He is familiar enough with Chicago to really view it as his city. As such, all that it has is his for the taking. But just as a hunter knows that killing all the prey now will mean none in the future, Zeus takes only what he needs. If he were to become more powerful, however, he might be tempted to take a bit more. He has never actively gone looking for the other Olympians. He shouldn’t have to. They should come find him.
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