1) We're going to call the XWP character Ulysses by his proper Greek name Odysseus; our excuse can be that eastern Greeks from Amphipolis, Poteidaia and Troy spoke a very different dialect from western Greeks in Ithaka, Calydon and Aetolia - hence the difference in what he's called. (In actuality, "Ulysses" is the English version of the Latin name for him, "Ulixes.")
2) Xena and Gabrielle were at the sack of Troy and helped Helen escape; Helen was then guided by Gabrielle's future husband Perdicas back to Sparta, where she reunited and lives happily with her husband Menelaus.
3) Hercules and Iolaus fought alongside their comrades Ajax, Diomedes, Achilles and Odysseus during the first year of the Trojan War, but left, realizing that Greece, without its finest kings, generals and soldiers, was open prey for warlords and the minions of Hera. Xena and Borias had laid siege to Corinth (where Jason was still king) and the Horde was running amuck as well. The existence of a 10-year war is the perfect excuse for Greece to fall into the chaos we see on XWP and HTLJ.
4) Odysseus wandered for an indeterminate number of years, losing all his men and having affairs with Circe and Calypso (and *possibly* Xena during the commercial break!) but we'll give the guy a break and say that yes, he thought his wife was dead. If we want, we can picture him as Kirk Douglas or Armande Assante, or even Sean Bean, and not as John D'Aquino, the thin, yuppiefied actor who played him on XWP.
5) Xena and Gabrielle were instrumental in his defeat of the suitors for his wife's hand - nobles from local families and neighboring islands. The angry fathers and brothers of the slain men, however, are out to depose him now, claiming that this man is an impostor, who was set on the throne by the notorious Xena, Destroyer of Nations after all potential rivals were murdered.
NOTE: This is where our plot commences: Diomedes, Xena, Gabrielle, and anyone else interested are going to travel from Calydon to Ithaka to render whatever assistance they can to their friend, the rightful king. We're going to need people to play various supporting roles on both sides of this brewing civil war.
In case anyone is interested, in this game, just like in mythology, Agamemnon was indeed murdered by Clytemnestra, old Nestor is still happily ruling sandy Pylos, and Achilles, Hector and Paris all died in battle as depicted in The Iliad and The Aeneid. Ajax, however, died on the island prison near Corinth as he did in "War Wounds," and Aias of Locris ("Ajax the Lesser") drowned when Poseidon zapped his ship and sent it to the bottom of the sea. Diomedes found his kingdom had been turned against him by the wrath of Aphrodite, and now his remaining loyal followers search the Mediterranean for a new home under the leadership of his cousin Sthenelus, while Diomedes travels with Xena.
Other interesting info: at Troy, Agamemnon commanded the troops of Mycenae and neighboring Corinth, and was "high" king both by common consent, and because his contingent was the largest - 100 ships, almost 10% - while his brother Menelaus controlled another 60 ships from Sparta, another 5%. Nestor brought the next largest contingent from Pylos, 90 ships, followed by Diomedes from Argos and Idomeneus from Crete with 80 each. Achilles, Ajax and Aias were included among the leadership primarily for their fighting skills, and Odysseus for his wisdom (he and Ajax only brought 12 ships each, being from tiny islands.)
Game Webpage, with Rules, Guidlines, and Available Character List:
http://www.oocities.org/xhlist/welcome.html
Character Descriptions:
http://www.oocities.org/xhlist/
Plot Update:
http://www.oocities.org/xhlist/plot.update.html
Map of Ancient/Mythological Greece:
http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/images/bigmaps/greece.gif
Map of the Greece *this* game takes place in:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/images/weather/nzmap.gif
Website with Cool Links to Other Xena-related Sites:
