Baby Mama Drama

Question: My character had the... let's say "misfortune" to hook up with Aphrodite in our game and unfortunately rolled a 9 on the reproduction chart. If Ares finds out hes going to kill my character. What would you do in this situation? My character doesn’t yet know shes pregnant. How can I attempt to keep my character alive? And yes, my ST says there would be a death if there is a direct conflict with Ares.

We agree with your Storyteller. He is totally going to kill you if you are in the room when he finds out about this. We don't know what Legend your character is, but there's really no level of Legend where anyone is "safe" from Ares, anyway. We'll try to help anyway, though!

First of all, you can try to hide all this, but it probably won't work. Unfortunately, hiding a pregnancy like this is going to be next to impossible. Anyone with Assess Health (Apollo, Artemis and Hera at least, probably several others) will see that she's pregnant immediately - probably before either you or she knows, in fact. Even if she uses her Epic Appearance to avoid being visibly pregnant, folks with Ultimate Perception (again, Apollo and Artemis at least) will still know. She could go far, far away and not come back until the baby's born, but then everyone's going to want to know where she went and why, which means you need an amazing cover story and someone who can lie about it so fantastically that said people with Perception above won't immediately see right through it (not to mention somewhere for her to live for these nine months!). And even if you pull all that off, all it takes is one guy with Mystery to blow the lid off the whole thing, and you've got a ticking time bomb of a child running around who will almost certainly be a problem late ron. And remember that other gods from non-Greek pantheons may also run into her, and many of them may also find out about it and tell other people.

We'd also like to point out that other people besides Ares are probably going to be pissed off about this. You might get lucky, but there's a very good chance that a large number of Greek gods are now angry with you. Hephaestus, in particular, is a dangerous one; I don't know if your ST plays him as still married to Aphrodite or not, but even if he isn't, he was not pleased by all her cheating on him ever before and he probably won't appreciate that she's now sleeping with lowly Scions, even. His revenge is apt to be a lot more creative and difficult to see coming than Ares', and you'd better plan how to deal with the possibility of it before you end up in a throne-prison or wearing a cursed necklace or any of the other things he does to people he's mad at. Also, remember that Aphrodite is the belle of the ball on Olympus, and that all the other gods absolutely want to bang her and used to actively fight over her before she got married, so you're looking at a lot of gods - Apollo, Poseidon and Hermes are all named as her suitors - who will probably trigger jealous rages at the idea that not only did she turn them down, then she went and slept with you, who are basically a nobody. They may want to punish you, especially with Vengeance egging them on. And, of course, Hera is the goddess of faithful marriage, so she's not going to like this, and Ares is her son and may ask for her help, so Justice boons just came to the party. You may want to stay far, far away from the entire pantheon if you can.

Before you do anything, though you need to find out what Aphrodite's doing. It sounds like you have no idea what her take on the situation is or how she plans to handle it, which may be very literally fatal for you. Mystery can help, or you could simply try going to ask her (and hoping that she doesn't lie). She's not an idiot, so she will probably be figuring out her own plan for how to deal with this; she might abort the baby (basic Health powers make that pretty easy), use her Epic Appearance to hide evidence of the pregnancy so that Ares at least can't physically see it, claim it's Ares' kid, claim it's someone else's kid, claim it's immaculate conception, or even throw you under the bus by claiming that you assaulted her. She's definitely not going to just sit passively around and not try to make this come out the way she wants it to, so you need to find out what she's doing. If you come up with a brilliant plan to hide the whole thing, and then she just goes to Ares and tells him about it, you're 100% boned in spite of all your hard work. On the other hand, if she likes you enough, she might help you out. You'll never know until you try.

Once you know what she's doing (and assuming the answer isn't "I told him you attacked me, go draw up a will"), our next best suggestion is for you to go out and find a powerful protector. You know you can't survive Ares on a rampage, so start kissing butts - find somebody who can maybe protect or hide you, or convince Ares (or Ares' pantheon, so they can stop him) that killing you isn't worth it or isn't an option right now. The other Greeks may not be great choices, since they are all terrible vengeful people, but if you can find someone powerful enough in another pantheon and throw yourself on their mercy, they may be willing to help you in exchange for your services.

...what services those will be depend on the god, but be ready to have to do unpleasant tasks, talk to people you don't want to talk to, fight stuff, be experimented on, or whatever else they want in return for saving you. No one's going to do it for free, and they probably don't want anything you want to give. But hey, it beats being dead, right?

Other than that, we can only suggest that you be good at hiding. We would assume that Ares, or other offended parties, are going to find out about this sooner or later, so do your best to have a panic room/escape route/contingency plan. Ares isn't great at finding people, so you may be able to elude him for a while. Try to go somewhere he can't or won't chase you, or maybe create distractions or disturbances that cause him to veer off instead of pursuing you single-mindedly. Your life is all about survival right now, at least until this blows over, and your band will probably be along for the ride, since it's all too likely they'll get caught in the crossfire at some point.

Good luck, man. At least you'll have a very beautiful memory to keep you warm on those cold nights of hiding in the wilderness, hoping no one can find you.