Trollheart

Pantheon: Mexican (Aztec/Maya)
Class: God
Level : Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Tezcatlipoca

The plumed serpent god of Central America, Quetzalcoatl was the giver of breath and the god of the winds. He was also a creator god, who descended into the land of the dead, Mictlan, where he fell like one dead. On his recovery, he gathered up the precious bones there, returned to earth and, sprinkling them with his own blood, turned them into human beings.

Quetzalcoatl's enemy was Tezcatlipoca, a chief warrior who tricked the god into taking his form. Quetzalcoatl was then consumed by drunkenness and sensuality, and after a mock death in a stone box, he ordered the abandonment of the city of Tollan. He burned his palace, buried his treasures, and, putting on his insignia of feathers as well as his green mask, he departed in great sorrow. Reaching the seashore, he sailed away on a raft of serpents, declaring that some day he would return to reclaim his throne.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Native American (Navajo)
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good/Evil (he is a trickster god, but not as inherently dark as for instance Loki in the Norse myths)
Linked with: Rattlesnake, Wonomi, Kuksu, Laidamlulum-kule

The trickster god of southwestern North American mythology, Coyote and his dog Rattlesnake came up out of the ground, and Coyote watched Wonomi create Kuksu, the first man, and Laidamlulum-kule, his wife. But when Coyote tried to make people too, he laughed and his creations had glass eyes. Coyote watched the easy life that Wonomi had given man, and decided that it would be more interesting to add sickness, sorrow and death.

The Trickster was even happy when the first fatality was his own son, bitten, by Rattlesnake. Coyote tried submerging the body in a lake, as Wonomi had instructed man to do, in order to shed years, but this failed to restore his son. In the end, Kuksu buried the body, declaring that to be the way things must be done, until the world was changed. Coyote eventually killed himself, and roamed the Earth as a spirit.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Greek (Roman equivalent Pluto)
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Evil
Linked with: Demeter, Persephone, Zeus, Cerberus

Also known as Aides, he was the dark, grim god of the underworld, and ruled supreme there. He was a son of Rhea, and like his brothers Zeus and Poseidon, demanded a share of the Earth following the overthrow of Kronos. The three siblings cast lots, and to Hades fell the world below. His domain was a bleak one: the rivers running along its environs were named Styx, Acheron (the river of eternal woe), Pyriplegethon (the stream of fire), Kokytos (the river of weeping and wailing) and Lethe (the river of forgetfulness). Once someone had passed over into the realm of Hades, there was no return (except in the case of Orpheus). Charon, the aged boatman of the dead, ferried the souls of the departed across the river Styx, which flowed into Hades, and once there they were received by Hades and his wife, Persephone.

(Persephone and Hades at their wedding)

The lord of the dead had carried off Persephone from the world above, smitten with her beauty and deaf to the cries of her mother, Demeter. Indeed, when Demeter finally found her daughter, Persephone explained that she had eaten of a pomegranate that Hades had given her, and could never return to the upper world.

(Cerberus, the terrible triple-headed guardian to the Underworld)

The entrance to Hades was guarded by the triple-headed dog Cerberus, and for those who had led reasonably righteous lives, the afterlife in the underworld was a sort of shadow of their former life, where they could continue to perform the labours and carry on the occupations they had in life. Occasionally, a shade might be allowed to return temporarily to the world above, as a ghost, to their friends, or even summoned by the sacrifice of blood which, when drank by the shade, restored to them partial speech and consciousness, so that they could discourse with the living.

But for those who had led wicked lives --- or who angered the gods --- there was the realm of Tartaros, where all the sins and evils the departed had practiced in the world above were punished, usually in a manner symbolic of their crime. Cases in point here were Tantalos, Ixion, Sisyphos, Tityos and the Danaides, all of whom will be written of and linked to later, so we will not go into their specific punishments here.

There also existed in Tartaros Elysion, where the happy and the blessed were received, and which approximates as closely to the Christian ideal of Heaven as is possible, showing that Hades, though dark and forbidding, was not all doom and gloom, punishment and revenge.

Hades and Persephone were also seen to be judges of the dead, and in this capacity they were assisted by three heroes whose earthly deeds had identified them as great in wisdom and justice. They were called Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeakos, the last also being the gatekeeper of the lower region of Hades.

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The Batlord

Nice to see you writing about your contemporaries.

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Trollheart

So you're saying I'm legendary and godlike? Thanks man!

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Greek
Class: War
Featured: Achilles, Paris, Priam, Hector, Helen, Agamemnon, Menelaus

It was the abduction of Helen, the wife of King Menalaus of Sparta, by Paris, prince of Troy, that began the war that lasted ten years, and took so many lives, resulting in the total destruction of the city of Troy, and the surrounding countryside, and the end of its dynasty.Paris, promised by Aphrodite the most beautiful woman on Earth as his wife, was told by the goddess to go to Sparta, where he met Helen, with whom he soon formed a strong bond of friendship, and then something more intimate, culminating in the eloping of Helen and Paris. The fugitive couple fled to Troy, where Helen married Paris.

Meanwhile, Menalaus sought the advice of the wise Nestor, who told him that the only way to regain his and Helen's honour was to mount a war-party to attack Troy, and endeavour to take his wife from them by force. Acting on this advice, Menalaus set about forcing the other suitors for Helen's hand before him to make good on the oath they had sworn, that they would all rise to Menalaus' aid, should he need it, and mounting a great warfleet, sailed for Troy.

Agamemnon, Menalaus' brother, was elected to command the fleet, and they assembled at Aulis, over one thousand ships in all, the largest fleet ever mounted. While at anchor in Aulis, they observed a strange phenomenon:a serpent coiled itself around a plane tree, on which was a sparrow's nest with nine young birds therein. The snake devoured the young
birds, but on attacking the mother, was instantly turned to stone. Kalchas, the high priest, divined this omen as proof that they must fight nine years around Ilium--or Troy--and on the tenth take the city.

The Greek fleet then set sail, but landed by mistake in Mysia, where the king, Telephos, resisted the invaders fiercely. There he received a wound from Achilles, which would not heal. The Greeks returned to Aulis, and
Telephos, following them and being cured of the wound by Achilles, offered to lead the fleet to Troy, an offer the invaders gratefully accepted.

Finally reaching Troy, the Greeks met the defending forces, led by Priam's eldest son, Hector. They beat back the Trojans, but suffered considerable losses, and Agamemnon, seeing that the Trojans would not willingly hand over Helen, prepared to lay siege to the town. During the many raids that the Greeks mounted on the surrounding territories, they captured in particular Chryseis, a daughter of Chryses, a priestess of Apollo, who
appealed to the god for assistance. Apollo sent a plague to ravage the Greek forces, and Agamemnon, enquiring of Kalchas how the god could be appeased, was told that the beautiful Chryseis must be released. The Greek commander, however, accused Kalchas of being in league with Achilles, to which the Greek hero responded by withdrawing all of his forces from the Greek camp.

Thetis, the mother of Achilles, begged Zeus to decree that as long as her son remained at odds with his allies, the Greeks would be defeated in every encounter, and so it came to be. The Trojans, emboldened by the retreat of Achilles and their repeated successes, sallied forth from their city walls, and succeeded in driving the invaders back to their ships, where the Greeks took refuge. Agamemnon, realising that he needed
Achilles, sent emissaries to the hero's pavilion, imploring him to reconsider and rejoin the siege, promising that Achilles should have his own daughter's hand, and seven towns as a dowry. But Achilles would not relent, and the tide of battle continued to turn against Greece.

The end seemed in sight when the Trojans, under Hector, had stormed the Greek camp and set some of their ships on fire, but Patroklos begged
Achilles to loan him his famous armour, and thus clad he went against the
Trojans, pushing them back from the camp, back to the walls of Troy. But not satisfied with this, Patroklos pursued Hector himself until, in single combat with the Trojan prince, he fell. This was the spur to action that Achilles needed. Reconciling himself to his countrymen, the Greek hero strode forth, bringing his forces back to the battle.

Under Achilles' sword Hector fell, and the Trojan ranks fled in disarray, but
unappeased by the death of the hero of Troy, Achilles bound the corpse to his chariot and dragged it around the walls of the city three times, before casting it face down in the dirt, in the Greek camp. The gods were not happy with such dishonourable conduct, and they took care of the body of Hector, also softening the heart of Achilles, so that when King Priam came to respectfully beg the body of his son, Achilles gave it willingly and with great reverence. Patroklos was buried with all due honours.

As the Greeks and Trojans mourned each their fallen heroes, an army of
Amazons arrived to fight on the side of the defenders, and their leader, the beautiful Penthisilea, met Achilles in single combat, and by his hand was slain.He, however, practiced none of the indignity on her body that he had on that of Hector, praising her valour and strength, and handing over her body for decent burial to her people. There was one in the Greek camp however who felt no such kinship with the Amazon. He was called Thersites, and he stabbed Penthisilea through the eye as she lay on the ground. For this act Achilles killed him on the spot.

Diomedes, however, a relation of Thersites, was aggrieved at this treatment of his brother, and demanded of Achilles the usual sum of money, in reparation for the killing. Achilles, incensed at this, took umbrage and once again abandoned the Greek cause, taking ship to Lesbos, to which Odysseus had to be sent to bring him back. On Achilles' return, a new hero entered the Trojan camp, Memnon, son of Eos. He met and fought in single combat with the Greek hero, and as the two fought
on Earth, their respective mothers on Olympus each petitioned Zeus for victory for her son. Zeus, weighing the fate of each in the balance of Moera, found that Memnon was fated to die. Flying to the battlefield, Eos found her son already dead.

But it was not long before Achilles himself died, shot by an arrow drawn by Paris.The body of the great hero was carried back to the Greek camp by Ajax and Odysseus, fighting all the way, and buried with great pomp and splendour. Achilles' armour was offered to one of the two heroes who had brought back his body, and it was Odysseus who received it, Ajax, thinking himself unworthy, fell on his own sword and died.

Meanwhile Helenos, the son of King Priam, was captured by the Greeks and forced to tell of the manner in which the city might be taken. Helenos, like his sister Cassandra, had been endowed with the power of prophecy, and he told under duress that three things would be needed to compass victory for the Greeks. These were the bow and arrows of Hercules, at present held by Philoktetes, the assistance of Achilles' son, Neoptolemos, and the possession of the Palladium, the image of Pallas-Athene, which stood in the citadel of Troy.

The help of Achilles' boy was no problem:the youth was willing and eager to take part in the war and prove his manhood. The bow and arrows of Hercules, on the other hand, meant that Odysseus had to travel to
Lemnos, and convince Philoktetes to return with him, where the first of the defenders to fall to the Greek hero's arrows was Paris. The Trojans, afraid now to come out and face the fearsome arrows of Philoktetes, shut themselves up inside the walls of Troy. Then Odysseus stole into the city, and daringly stole the Palladium from under
the noses of the Trojans.

Victory now within their grasp, the Greeks had now to devise a method of entering the city, and for this they turned to Odysseus, who in turn
consulted Athene. The goddess suggested that Epeios, a famous sculptor, should construct a fabulous horse of wood, which would be hollowed inside, with room for a complement of Greek soldiers. This model was built, and the Greeks left Sinon bound in the attitude of a sacrifice, the horse standing outside the gates of the city, and pretended to sail away in defeat.

Although warned by Laokoon not to accept the gift, Priam had the Wooden Horse brought into the city, and also Sinon, whom he freed, and the Trojans spent the night celebrating and toasting their victory over the
superior force. Sinon it was who, when all of the Trojans had fallen into a drunken sleep, released the catch on the side of the horse and welcomed his countrymen into the city. The Greek soldiers (Odysseus and Diomedes among them) then silently opened the city gates, signalled to the ships lying off the coast, which returned. The full Greek force entered the city, descending savagely on the surprised and bleary Trojans, and slew most of them, King Priam himself falling to Neoptolemos, the Greeks torching the city and carrying off the women and riches.

Menalaus, reconciled to his now contrite wife, took Helen back with him, the other Greek heroes taking the more beautiful or noble Trojan women, and the fleet returned to Sparta. Thus ended the ten-year Trojan War, and so came to pass the prophecy made by Cassandra at the birth of Paris.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Irish
Class: Hero
Level: Top tier
Lineage: Human
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Ferdia, Maebh, The Morrigan

Son of Lug, Cuchulainn began life with the name Setanta, but after he had killed Conchobair Mac Neasa's favourite guard dog, as it had attacked him, he vowed to take the place of the dog, guarding the pass into Ulster, and thus became known as the Hound of Cualainn. (Cu is Irish for hound)

Cuchulainn's great heroic strength was mostly due to his 'warp spasm', a violent, unnatural occurrence that channeled the power of Danu, the earth goddess, through his body, twisting and contorting his body into impossible shapes:his heels and calves stood out in front, one eye receded into his head, the other hung huge and red on his cheek. His hair bristled like spikes, with a drop of blood on the tip of each hair-spike, and from the top of his head arose a thick column of dark blood, that spouted like a geyser.

(The statue of Cuchulainn that stands in the GPO (General Post Office) in Dublin, depicting the death of the great hero. The war goddess, the Morrigan, is represented by the crow on his shoulder).
While the Men of Ulster were 'in their pangs', Cuchulainn held the pass into Ulster against hundreds of fighters, with the condition that only one man per day should come against him. All who fought him he slew, but he almost met his match in his brother Ferdia, and the two heroes fought for days before Ferdia was finally defeated, Cuchulainn himself the worse for the wear.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Indian
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Mortal/Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Gautama Siddartha, Vishnu, Mara, Yasodhara Devi, Chandaka, Ananda

The founder and father of the Buddhist religion, Buddha was said to have been an Avatar of the great god Vishnu. Gautama Siddartha, who became the Buddha, urged his followers to isolate themselves from worldly life. In order to attain Nirvana, the highest possible and most desirable state in the religion, adherents of Buddha were required to completely extinguish their ego, free themselves from avarice and desire.

Before he was incarnated as Gautama Siddartha, the Buddha resided in heaven, and told his followers that he had been Indra thirty-six times, and many hundred times ruler of the world. As the time approached for his birth, earthquakes and miracles occurred on the Earth. In Kapilavastu, on the Indo-Nepalese border, his earthly mother, Queen Maya, experienced a vision in which she beheld the Buddha come down into her womb as a white elephant. This was interpreted as the birth of a world saviour, and when the time came for Maya to give birth, she went to a grove, where the child was born, emerging from her right side without causing her the slightest pain.

The child was almost instantly endowed with the power of speech, and every time he took a step there appeared on the ground before him a lotus. Instantaneously was born his wife, Yasodhara Devi, his horse Kantaka, his charioteeer Chandaka, Ananda, his chief disciple, and the Bo Tree, under which he received Enlightenment.

Maya, however, died seven days after the Buddha was born, and he, having attained to supreme knowledge, ascended to the Trayastrimsa
heaven and preached there to his mother for three months. Although his father, King Suddhodana, did his best to insulate the young Siddartha from the outside world (for fear that the youth would become a great sage, rather than a great ruler, should he become mindful of the injustices of the world), Siddartha encountered a corpse being carried to the cremation ground and, seeing the evil things of the world come to life before his eyes, he abandoned throne , family and offspring, and became a wanderer, a hermit, seeking enlightenment. This did not come until six years later, however, when Siddartha paused for rest under a Bo Tree, received Enlightenment, and became the Buddha.

Neither the attack of the demon Mara, nor the attraction of his daughters, nor the rush of an army of hideous devils could sway Buddha from his meditations, and when Mara used his final weapon, a fiery discus, and flung it at the monk's head, it turned into a canopy of flowers. For five weeks Buddha remained under the tree, while all his previous lives were revealed to him, and then the mighty tempest occurred, but Muchalinda, king of the Nagas, protected the monk by wrapping his serpentine body around the youth.

Having attained Enlightenment, the Buddha was now faced with a choice:he could either enter Nirvana, or forsake this, and instead travel the world preaching the law. Mara urged the former course, but the Buddha chose the latter, on the advice of Brahma.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Babylonian/Sumerian
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Evil
Linked with: Ereshkigal, Laz

Babylonian god of the dead, Nergal gained this position by the use of an escort of fourteen demons which followed him around; he descended to the netherworld and forced its mistress Ereshkigal to agree to be his consort, and give him dominion over not only her, but her realm also. Nergal was represented as wearing a crown and waited upon by the fourteen demons through which he had gained admittance to the underworld. He was the god of plague, pestilence, fire, battle and the desert.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Greek
Class: Goddess
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Uranos, Gaea, Zeus, Apollo

A daughter of Uranos and Gaea, she was the personification of that divine law of right which ought to control all human affairs, of that highest and noblest sense of right which is subject to no human influences. She was also viewed as the goddess of the rights of hospitality. She gave the power of prophecy to Apollo, having held the post at Delphi before him. Zeus wooed her for a long time before she consented to become his wife, and to him she bore the Horae, Moerae and Astraea, the goddess of justice.

Because of her great integrity and sense of justice, all the gods consulted Themis when seeking advice. Even Zeus sought her counsel, being warned by her that he should not marry Thetis, as the son who would spring from the marriage would grow up to overthrow his father. Taking her advice, Zeus gave Thetis to the mortal Peleus as his wife.

Themis was represented as a woman of mature age, with large, open eyes, holding a sword and chain in one hand, with a balance in the other, to indicate the severity and the accuracy with which justice is to be meted out and administered.

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