Welcome, dear readers, to Forged Bonds! I am your humble narrator, Calliope, here to talk you through our show. Starting out with what this is: Forged Bonds is a myth-bending retelling of the story of Aphrodite and Hephaestus. In traditional mythology, they are forced into a marriage together leading to Aphrodite cheating with Ares. What if Aphrodite and Ares were best friends forced into a political marriage? What if Aphrodite started to fall in love with Hephaestus? What if Hephaestus was a trans woman who had been isolated from Olympus in the attempts to protect her own heart? This show strives to answer all of these questions while also taking a look at the love stories and politics of Olympus as a whole.