#aegialus

[masterofthewarcry]

diomedes and aegialus is “our lives touched only briefly but when they did they doomed me to become you”. and diomedes and sthenelus is “we have lived the same life so deeply, you understand me like no one else, we are made of the same pieces”. and diomedes and odysseus is “what the fuck. what the fuck is wrong with you. god youre such an asshole”

[rgraves1]

Clytemnestra Hesitates Before Killing The Sleeping Agamemnon by Baron Pierre Narcisse Guerin (1817). Source: Superstock

Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

It is said that Zeus gave power to the House of Aecus, wisdom to the House of Amythaon, but wealth to the House of Atreus. Wealthy indeed it was: the Kings of Mycenae, Corinth, Cleonae, Orneiae, Arathyrea, Sicyon, Hyperesia, Gonoessa, Pellene, Aegium, Aegialus and Helice, all paid tribute to Agamemnon, both on land and sea.

Agamemnon first made war on Tantalus, King of Pisa, the son of his ugly uncle Broteas, killed him in battle and forcibly married his widow Clytemnestra, whom Leda had borne to King Tyndareus of Sparta. The Dioscuri, Clytemnestra’s brothers, thereupon marched on Mycenae; but Agamemnon had already gone as a suppliant to his benefactor Tyndareus, who forgave him and let him keep Clytemnestra. After the death of the Dioscuri, Menelaus married their sister Helen, and Tyndareus abdicated in his favour. (Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, The Greek Myths by Robert Graves, pp 413-418).

The contours of the Trojan War cycle were therefore set. Atreus, son of Pelops, took the Kingdom of Mycenae and his son, Agamemnon, succeeded him. His forced marriage to Clytemnestra made it a loveless union and Agamemnon’s younger brother, Menelaus, eventually succeeded the throne of Sparta by virtue of his marriage to Princess Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.

The tensions implicit in these arrangements would ultimately result in war and murder and will be described later, following the story of the Trojan War. Graves takes the tragedy of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Cassandra and Aegisthus out of order so he can tell the full story of the House of Atreus.

[holy-mother-of-whumpers]

(has no money)

TAKE MY MONEY!!!

But the tutorial is quite long because you are Tydeus. Three missions.

One.

During the normal tutorial spar 'click [button] to attack' your opponent insults you more every time you get to hit him. Initially you just reply to the insults (TYDEUS MUST BE FUNNY trust me it's important) Until you unlock something like 🐗'boar rage'🔥 and you pound him good.

He doesn't get up, people murmurs, and it turns out you accidentally killed him - twist of that videogame logic that you can beat the shit out of the tutorial dummy without consequences.

You are exiled from Calydon and beat up Polynices. If you win, he becomes a romanceable npc lmao (but I have a plan). Cutscene you two marry Deiphyle and Area and grow friends.

Two.

The peace mission in which you have to kill those 50 people, a tutorial for how to turn use speech options, sassing the king (again Tydeus MUST be funny), and on how the surrounding in your favor (climbing that peak) and melee fight - opposed to duel fight. Athena pops in to help (hold you back from fighting all of Thebes in 🐗boar rage🔥) you start to suspect this rage is not good because Athena, a goddess, has to put an effort to calm you down.

Soft scene with Polynices the wives and the kids.

Three.

Sieging Thebes. You are mortally wounded. 🐗Boar rage🔥 is off the charts and you attempt to devour your enemy - shown or implied depending on the rating. For drama we could have Tydeus hit Athena and her taking away her blessings.

Polynices dramatic breakdown over your corpse.

...

...

Only then you start with Diomedes, and everybody around you keeps talking about how great Tydeus us.

You ask, why the long tutorial? Because Tydeus was funny and, especially at the start, stronger and cooler than Diomedes. In most of his speech options he straight up talked over people, while Diomedes gets talked over until he just nods or grunts.

Your mother Deiphyle always tells you to make Tydeus proud and your sister protests that you should be careful to stay safe instead, but Deiphyle doesn't agree with that, or say anything.

You play as Diomedes, but since he doesn't talk at the start, you don't really get his pov. You, the player, are meant to mourn Tydeus like all the other npc. In fact when people go on about Tydeus you are with them, not with Diomedes that tries and fails to stir the conversation away. Maybe even a bit of a pushover at the very start, always obeying. When later in the game Diomedes will open up about how he always felt a stranger in his own life you should feel guilty because at the start you also preferred Tydeus to him.

Only Aegialeus listens to you so it's sadden when he dies lmao

The first moment we have Diomedes open up a bit it's when, before the Epigoni, he packs up and tries to run away. Thersander finds you and tells you how he feels like a shadow of his father doomed to walk into his footsteps with no life of his own. You still have no dialogue options, but Diomedes is looking up at Thersander with big eyes, and when Thersander tells you that you two can inherit the love, not only the burdens, you can stop him from kissing you... or not. Yes this is your cousins but this is ancient Greece.

This of course only if you romanced Polynices as Tydeus. If not, Thersander finds you trying to run away and takes your sword, telling you that if you run away you are a prince of Argos no more and you should get used to wielding the shovel instead, and obligatory mention of how Tydeus didn't run away from 50 people. When you join him the day after, he gives you your sword back.

The war missions are with one or more Epigoni each, so you get to know your squad leaving the stage to them and once again Diomedes behind it. They have each their own powers/skill that you can combine. They must be super fun and you are meant to love your pack of fatherless lovable disasters. Aegialus is the tired parent and Sthenelos is grumpy. Thersander is solemn and duty bound and Euryalus is a joker - that slays like the batman's joker.

The sons of Amphiaraus should be in their own dlc or they are going to hog the spotlight.

Then the triumph of the Epigoni, you think you overshadowed your father but the final cutscene is you and Thersander in a ceremony for Polynices and Tydeus again, because now they can rest easy. Perhaps you get to kiss again, but if that fades to black, the camera remains on a Tydeus and Polynices stone relief.

You kinda run away to Sparta to try and win Helen so you can live far away from Tydeus-land. You don't and when you come back you are forcibly married to a princess of Argos you leave the morning after the wedding to put grandpa Oineus back on the Calydonian throne, and once again people are always talking about Tydeus, who grew up here - maybe you get to play Tydeus in a few flashback scenes, still pressing on that nostalgia.

You are offered the throne but you skedaddle out of there, letting your aunt have it. Bonus points if I'm the throne offer they accidentally use the wrong name. "Tyd- ides, Diomedes, the throne is yours if you want it."

Then when the Troy expedition starts you join enthusiastically, happy to get away, all the way until Thersander dies in Mysia. You are crying over his grave and, both that you romanced him or not, when Sthenelos tries to comfort you, you burst into maniacal laughter and tell him that now the legacy of Tydeus is really dead. You unlock 🐺wolf rage🔥 because you finally believe you can be your own person (wolf because it's a pack animal and you grew up with the Epigoni, opposed to Tydeus the individualist).

Then you go back to crying over your fellow and possibly beloved. Behind Sthenelos, appears Athena.

End of the Tydeus storyline.

Diomedes Trojan storyline later, this is long enough😉

Muse sang to me about Diomedes RPG so here it goes

Tutorial mission would be going to Skyros to fetch Achilles, combat tutorial would be with Achilles as he goes to murder you and Odysseus

Epigoni are your default party option

The main quest is something cheesy like: surpass your father's shadow

You can choose different weapons to use, but if you click on a bow, Diomedes audibly scoffs and refuses

Nestor quest locks you when you accidentally pass him, and you're stuck in a dialogue (monologue) for the next half an hour

Odysseus would be that npc who keeps on having quests for you, and if you think you can avoid them, you have been cruelly lied to, because the main quest would be mysteriously locked until you finish (you're forced to finish) an Odysseus quest

You can unlock many different horses (including the Threcian ones)

You can pat the horses

You have an option to grunt during conversations (but that’s it as far as your dialogue options go /j)

Getting hit on the battlefield creates scars on Diomedes’s body

With every third level you get a ptsd flashback as a treat

His ultimate is when Athena comes down and gives him a hand

Euryalus and Sthenelus are these sort of npcs that start running after you with exclamation marks above their heads when they spot you

People found a way to glitch the game and stay in the god vision mode even outside of the battlefield

Other kings can challenge you for a kill count competition on the battlefield, and based on which of them it is the difficulty can be easy/intermediate/hard/arestia

There are multiple endings: ascending to godhood, being killed by king Daunus, being killed by your wife and her lover, dying of old age, Odysseus killing you during the Palladium theft,...

You choose the people with whom you want to drink, hang out, or go on missions with

You can get drunk

You can give gifts to different characters (the range of gifts is wide, from stolen armor to Dolon's head)

Loading screen has different myths on it

Idle animation: sharpening spear/sword

Saving Nestor that one time is optional (no one kicks you awake later in the game) (but not saving him is not a popular option either)

[masterofthewarcry]

you know how people are just amalgamations of traits from their loved ones? yeah i think diomedes got aegialus’s facial expressions. that serious frown that means anything from he’s thinking to he’s trying not to laugh? yeah that’s from aegialus. and i think he talks with his hands when he’s mad because sthenelus does. he’s quick with a comeback because he would watch his sister comaetho absolutely rip anyone who got on her bad side to pieces. he cant take a break to save his life because adrastus never did. he’ll never let anything go because his mom doesn’t. he can’t rest if he hasn’t cleaned and sharpened his weapons before bed because euryalus can’t either. the booming laugh? tydeus. but he’ll never know it.

[masterofthewarcry]

thinking about aegialus again. thinking about young diomedes at thebes whos so nervous but its okay because aegialus is there, and hes helping diomedes as they rush the city walls, reminding him to stay on his feet, to grip his spear the correct way, guiding him with a gentle hand into his first kill. they take the city, and diomedes feels a huge weight lifted off of his shoulders now that his fathers legacy has been avenged, but aegialus has disappeared. thinking about young diomedes finding aegialus's broken body in the chariot collision with the prince of thebes and realizing that aegialus wasnt actually with him the whole time.

thinking about athena only appearing to diomedes in the body of aegialus, even after hes long dead. all throughout troy, athena appears to him as aegialus. its athena in the form of his dead brother that gives him the power to take on the gods, its athena in the form of his dead brother that drives his chariot to face ares. in a way it feels like aegialus isnt really dead. but at the same time it doesnt even feel like he was ever alive. thinking about diomedes memories becoming tainted - did athena or the real aegialus say that? what did he sound like when it wasnt a goddess using his voice?

[masterofthewarcry]

something about diomedes and his adoptive brothers just OUGH.

like at first, when he's young, its aegialus - his sister's husband, heir to the Argive throne. aegialus teaches him how to use a spear. how to calm a horse. how to speak in a way that men will listen to what you have to say. diomedes is easily the youngest of the epigoni - he feels more at home when aegialus takes him under his wing. saves a seat for him amongst the older boys when they eat. makes sure his bedroll doesnt end up too far from the fire. aegialus braids his hair for him before they seige thebes.

but then aegialus is gone, ripped apart in a chariot wreck with the theban prince laodamas. diomedes almost is the one to put aegialus out of his misery, but then sthenelus is there, tugging him away from the carnage.

sthenelus, who is so excited with the summons to aulis comes. talking about glory and honor and trojan gold. and diomedes is older, more capapble now, and it feels good to be on the battlefield with his brother. for a while. yet suddenly its been a decade and the infighting is ridiculous - but he can vent to sthenelus about it and sthenelus hates it too. sthenelus still braids his hair before they dive into battle so that it doesnt get too matted with blood. diomedes brings back the horses of aeneas almost as a gift to sthenelus, to make their chariot faster, better. they watch each others backs. sthenelus sits in silence with diomedes after odysseus tries to kill him in cold blood.

sthenelus volunteers to go in the wooden horse since diomedes and odysseus had a falling out.

sthenelus is mortally wounded by a son of priam in the sacking, and its diomedes who has to finish him off so that he doesnt die slowly and painfully.

and its just. what if you had two brothers who taught you everything and kept you safe and were there for you even though they werent really your brothers at all. and what if they died. and what if you almost had to kill one and did have to kill the other. and then after that you find out your not-nephew usurped your throne. OUGH.

[masterofthewarcry]

the diomedes & aegialus relationship can actually be so important to a guy (me). its aegialus teaching diomedes how to properly hold a spear and promising deipyle and comaetho that hes going to watch out for him on the battlefield at thebes, and then dying. and then its diomedes slowly having to turn into aegialus and fill the shoes he left behind, ruling argos until little cyanippus is older. and then you add on athena appearing to diomedes AS aegialus?? so theres another layer to the haunting?? vomit inducing. im throwing up /pos

[masterofthewarcry]

thinking about Comaetho. thinking about Aegialus. they could only have been married for like two or three years before he died at Thebes. thinking about Diomedes having to tell his sister that her husband is dead. thinking about pregnant Comaetho at Aegialus's burial, standing between her mother and her brother, utterly lost. she will not raise her own son how their mother raised Diomedes, but she still wants vengeance for her husband.

thinking about Adrastus, who dies after the news that his son is dead reaches him. thinking about their burial mounds being next to each other. even though there is no body in Aegialus's, Adrastus is still buried with his hand reaching out towards his son.

thinking about Aegialia, who lost her other half when her brother went to Thebes. they shared a womb, a birthday, a face. and now she's alone. alone, and being asked to marry Diomedes, a boy who she only ever had thought of as a brother. being asked to rule the city with him (through him - he's too young to know how to be king, but she remembers her father). hating him because he returned from Thebes and Aegialus didn't. hating that she hates him because he's only doing what he's asked.

[masterofthewarcry]

i challenge you to make me insane about diomedes. ive read the iliad and im getting through the aeneid right now (i know he's in it i just haven't gotten to that part) and i like diomedes and i feel like heshould be right up my alley as a character but he just hasn't clicked with me yet (I am prompting you to infodump as much or as little as you'd like)

okay walk with me here. imagine you’re a boy and the only things you know about your father is what other people tell you. you know he was great, you know he went to battle at thebes, you know your mother and your older sister loved him very much. you’re a boy and your mother pets your hair and tells you that one day you’re going to avenge your father and you can’t really imagine it but your mother says it so it must be true.

you’re a growing boy now, and your sisters husband aegialus teaches you how to hold a spear. how to lower your center of gravity to avoid being pushed over, how to aim your sword for the gaps in the enemy’s armor, how to clean your weapons once you’re done. you’re a growing boy and you love aegialus because your sister loves him and you’re grateful that he shares the same destiny as you because secretly you’re a little scared of the thought of thebes.

you’re a boy who’s a little bit grown and now you’re at thebes and destiny is real and here. any step you take on this ground could be the very place your father died. but it’s alright because you know how to hold your spear and aegialus is here and you’ve made new friends too in the sons of the other fallen soldiers- sthenelus is loud and raucous but he helps you plait your hair so it keeps out of your eyes, and euryalus is kind enough to strap you into your armor.

you’re a man in the dust of thebes and aegialus is dead. they are saying that he died early in the fight, when he raced forward to meet the prince of the city but that can’t be right because he was with you the whole time, urging you forward and prompting you into attack. you only notice the version of aegialus that was with you has gray eyes after he tells you that he’s your fathers patron, wisdom herself. athena does little to console you other than promise you greatness. you’ve been promised greatness before.

you’re a man and now adrastus is dead too, leaving the throne of argos empty. with aegialus gone, there’s worry about the succession until your mother suggests you marry aegialia, so you do. they name you king and you think this is the greatness athena promised, a reward for avenging your father well. being king is more difficult than remembering to clean your weapons when the battle is over and aegialus did not teach you how to be king - either way, you’re quietly grateful when trouble comes.

your fathers father gets overthrown and you set off to set things right. the battle gives you good experience for what’s to come (though you don’t know that yet) and meeting your paternal grandfather gives you a glimpse of what your own father could have been. it doesn’t bother you as much as you think it should, but it’s hard to be attached to the flat image of a man you never even knew.

you return to argos full fledged in your manhood and you think it’s over, at least for a while. but you couldn’t have been more wrong- helen of sparta is stolen and the oath is invoked. it’s an oath that you yourself aren’t subject to, having been far too young to contest for helen’s hand, but you know honor demands that the argives aid the cause anyway. so you gather your commanders and your men, and sail for aulis.

you’re a man, but they treat you like a boy. agamemnon is prideful, and most of the other kings are used to the hierarchy of age. you know well enough not to press too hard at it, at least not this early on, and do the best where you can, using your own battle experience to help plan, and start making connections with the other kings. to anyone else being treated as an errand boy would be demeaning, but you’re just glad for something to do.

you befriend odysseus on your quest to retrieve achilles. he tells you he was expecting an arrogant young king and is pleasantly surprised by how humble and grounded you seem- it’s the first compliment you’ve gotten from any of your peers that doesn’t mention your father. you find that you work well with odysseus, even if his scheming isn’t how you would go about things. you find yourself less than endeared to achilles, the arrogant princeling odysseus was expecting.

you return to aulis. agamemnon holds a hunt in honor of achilles arrival and the imminent departure for troy, and things are progressing towards leaving until they aren’t. a sacred boar is dead and artemis demands recompense. you help hold the girl down on the altar and her blood sprays up your arm when the knife comes down. it feels like a bad omen.

the beaches of troy are blocked by trojans in glittering armor, and this you know how to do. sthenelus and euryalus by your side, you cut through the masses to make room for more ships to land on the beach. it feels like coming home even though you couldn’t be farther from argos; it feels like purpose, like destiny. after spending nearly your whole life with a spear in your hand, battle comes naturally.

years pass. you grow into more of a man. the camp sprawls over the beach. walls are erected, the surrounding villages are razed. most days you take to the battlefield and bathe in the blood of the enemy. despite your efforts, troy remains unconquerable. you fantasize about killing hector as odysseus rambles about ithaca, you dream of taking the city alone.

achilles withdraws from the battle, scorned by agamemnon. the men fear the worst, but you only see opportunity. you take to the field in achilles wake and let yourself rage; hard enough that the gray eyed goddess grants you more strength to do it. she gives you sight to see immortals- you fight the gods themselves and win. sthenelus champions your deeds in front of the hearth with a frenzy in his eyes.

even at your best, the army decays without achilles. the men are uninspired, the trojans are emboldened. they creep towards your camp, taking more and more ground of the battlefield each day. you and odysseus take to the night to try and stop the press to little avail- an injury to the foot from that coward archer gives you a front row seat to watch the trojans storm your camp, lighting ships aflame.

you fight as best you can while injured, but inside you think that this might be your end. the goddess is absent now and there is only so much you can do to stem the flow of trojan soldiers. but just when you think all is lost, achilles flies past in his chariot. the men rally, the trojans are pushed back. achilles takes to the field again.

you find out later, when menelaus brings the body back, that it was not achilles at all.

achilles grieves in a way that makes you think you’ve never tasted true love before. hector never stood a chance before him. it’s disgraceful, what he does to the body, but instead of judgement, all you can summon up is pity. in truth, achilles was never so different than yourself. it stings in a way you weren’t expecting when he dies.

things stall in the days after achilles death. new prophecies are given, and you sign up for the tasks, odysseus by your side. you sail back to skyros to fetch achilles son, and find a reflection of your younger self instead- a boy who will only ever know the destiny his father left behind, never the man himself. you gently correct the way he holds his spear when you return to troy.

you retrieve the bow and philoctetes, much to your own surprise (you hadn’t expected him to be alive). odysseus crafts a plan to sneak into the city at night to steal the statue, and under the cover of darkness you slip past the walls. it’s strange, seeing troy from the inside, and being behind enemy lines has your mind focused elsewhere than your companion- you don’t even see the betrayal coming.

you live (because he was a fool, really, to think that he could kill you). you bring the statue back to camp and receive agamemnons praise before slipping away to your tent. tired. it’s as if the past decade has only just now caught up to you. you’re a man and you’re so tired, but the war isn’t over yet. the war isn’t over yet, which is the only reason you let odysseus live. you fantasize about taking the city with sthenelus, just to be done with the whole ordeal.

all the items of prophecy in place now, things begin to move again. odysseus spins his plan, the horse is constructed out of the husk of one of the ships. you wait inside for hours before night falls, and then longer as helen tries to tempt you out of hiding, but you won’t give up now. not when you are already so tired.

troy falls. you slaughter as many of priams sons as you can find. the sun rises on the husk of a once great city and for the first time in years you feel satisfied. men claim their spoils, the camps are stripped down, the ships are loaded. victorious, you return home.

aegialia waits for you outside the gates of the city, holding her pregnant stomach, sthenelus’ son by her side. you were a fool for thinking that fighting the gods themselves wouldn’t have consequences.

whatever satisfaction you gained from troy vanishes. there was never a home for you to return to- what then was the point? rage fills you then, and you can see the next battle before you; sthenelus’ son is just a boy. it would only take a matter of weeks to overthrow him, the men of argos are loyal to you, not him. but you’re just a man. and you’re already so tired.

you leave with your spoils. the men that are loyal to you follow.

you leave greece behind for italy. with your name in the poets mouths when they sing of troy, it does not take long for a king to ask for your services. you take to battle again. it’s been years since your heart was in the fight. yet you fight anyway. he gives you a daughter to marry; she gives you sons. you teach them how to properly hold their spears.

you’re an old, old man when the goddess appears before you again, still dressed in aegialus’ skin. she gives you what she took away from your father; immortality. and you thank her, but you are so, so, tired.

[masterofthewarcry]

and if i created odysseus and aegialus parallels?? what then.

[masterofthewarcry]

thinking about adrastus dying after aegialus is already dead and leaving argos in the hands of a bunch of kids, essentially. imagine how much all of them were dealing with; i mean comeatho has just given birth to cyanippus and now has to raise him both without aegialus AND to become the next king of argos someday, aegialia has just lost her father and her brother AND is now married to her much older sister's kid who she doesn't really know (or would have wanted to marry anyway likely), and diomedes now is forced to play king AND husband AND uncle/father figure in between running around for all the wars. my poor babies :((

[plinyknowsbest]

Aegialus, he laid down birds in the world.

[plinyknowsbest]

Vetulenus Aegialus, he exercising their gems; others have prolonged coughing, while, and afterwards when a crash, leaping