High in the Olympic range, among peaks where the Gods cavort with thunder and lightning, and the snows still linger in patches even as spring bursts forth, the Clan of Ursus, the Great Cave Bear, have emerged from a lost ice plateau in search of food.
Zeus, angered by this un-worshipping force trampling in the God’s Garden, has summoned legends and mortals from the sparkling coasts to destroy the interlopers.
Stealing through the trees, following the shambling death-faced bear, were a band of fur-clad hunters, a pack of wolves and, glimpsed in the green shadows, a Sabre-toothed tiger. From somewhere nearby bellowed a mighty mammoth, mighty, shaggy and mystical - and there crackled a living fire - an elemental summoned from the wintry embers of a cave-hearth and whipped into a frenzy of flame by shamanic rituals.
The Clan of the Cave Bear come down from their icy plateau:
Staring at them across a frozen stream were a small phalanx of six Hoplites, clad in bronze for an early season of fighting - Herakles in his Nemean Lion skin, and nearby tottered a drunkard band of Centaur archers. In front of them snorted and stomped the Minotaur, swinging the broken end of the heavy chain which had so recently entrapped him in some Cretan dungeon - now freed yet again as a pawn in Zeus’ great game.
The Minotaur rumbled forward, and stooped under a shadowed bole to be met by the flaring fire elemental and the Sabre-toothed tiger snapping at his hooves. There was a fierce struggle, the chain whooshing through the flames, firelight on tiger skin, dark-adapted eyes then silence as the cat padded away: a whiff of burned flesh filled the glade - both fire and man-bull had destroyed each other…
A clash of legends
Opposite where the melting ice chuckled and tinkled into a sunny meadow the Mammoth plodded forward. From the long grass, anchoring a line of hoplites, strode Herakles, his club held poised. The mammoth’s tusks cut the crisp air, and the Legend ducked beneath shaggy legs, solid as tree-trunks. Bone snapped, the mammoth blared and rolled, sinking into the dead grass and crushing ice and flowers as it fell defeated.
There strides the mighty Mammut...
...until she is felled by peerless Herakles:
Ursus strode forth, hunters trotting at one side and wolves at the other. Zeus surveyed the scene, turned and hurled lightning at the tiger, it leaped clear as a bolt churned clods of frosty earth only inches away…
The Sabretoothed tiger dodges the wrath of Zeus:
Enraged - the cave bear reared up and swung a massive claw at Zeus. The Greek God reeled back, roaring in anger, bleeding lightning and flickering to nothing. His mortals shrank back, lunging away from the hunters who surged forward. At the moment of triumph Ursus paused, giving the hoplites time to utter the invocation which returned Zeus, striding forward arrogantly as if nothing had happened. The battle lines closed again, the wolves and the hunters beseeching their Beast-God forward, the hoplites surging forward across the icy stream.
Gods and Mortals clash upon the springtime meadows:
Once more a clash of immortals loomed - this time Zeus stepped back - and Ursus did not swipe, but, stepping into the sun, she uttered a primeval animal curse which sent shivers of terrifying fear into among the Greek lines - conjuring images of forgotten star formations, death and oblivion from æons before man first threw up marble temples: a hoplite shrieked and collapsed, three centaurs dropped an writhed and were still:
the Weak were Culled.Ursus turned her deep set eyes upon Zeus, and leaped forward. The Gods clashed: tooth and claw; bronzed limb and lightning - but Zeus’ wiles were no match for the raw energy of the Pliestocene, and the she-Bear grasped his bronzed neck and crushed it. Zeus vanished like a receding mountain thunderstorm.
Herakles, heroic, stepped forth but was swiped aside, and the Hoplites staggered backwards - their neat phalanx falling apart as they were chased from the field by Ursus and her whooping and grunting band of hunters....
Herakles stands between Athens and oblivion:
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OGAM at
Perth Miniatures Gamers Group last night.
I hope you are entertained as we were.
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 19, 2024, 09:57:22 AM
