Trollheart

Pantheon: Sumerian/Mesopotamian
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Ninhursag, Ninsikil, Utu

The water god of Eridu, Enki was a creator deity, who provided Dilmun, the garden of Paradise wherein all dwelt in harmony, and sickness and death was unknown. The only thing lacking was sweet water, which Enki provided by his union with the earth mother. A quarrel arose, however, when Enki devoured eight plants grown by Ninhursaga. She pronounced on him the curse of death, which took its toll, sickness attacking eight parts of his body.

The other gods were aghast, and Enlil was powerless to arrest the disease. All seemed lost, until the fox offered to bring Ninhursanaga back to Dilmun, providing there was suitable reward. This happened and the earth mother created eight deities to heal her consort's afflictions.

Another legend concerning Enki relates how the gods, grumbling at how hard it was to get food, woke Enki from his slumbers, and he created for them servants out of clay. But the gods, having tired of their mortal servants, decided to drown the Earth, and Enki warned Ziusudra, the king of Sippar of the impending deluge.

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The Batlord

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Trollheart

Do you really think this will be a problem? It's a painting for fuck's sake! If mods think I need to get a more (um) family-friendly picture then let me know. I doubt this is going to bring civilisation as we know it tumbling down, especially as it's used in a piece supposed to educate. I posted worse during Metal Month II...

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The Batlord

Was a joke.

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Trollheart

Ah. Can never be sure with Google...

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Hindu
Class: God
Level: Top tier
Lineage: Mortal
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Das-Ratha, Brahma, Vishnu, Ravana, Kausala, others

One of the incarnations of Vishnu, Rama was born in response to the threat of the demon Ravana, who had attained extreme power due to severe penances and austere devotion to Brahma. Appearing to Das-ratha within the sacrificial fire, Vishnu gave the king a pot of nectar, directing that his wives should drink it. Das-ratha's wife Kausalya drank half of it, then gave birth to Rama.

The young Rama was approached by the sage Viswamitra, pleading his help against the folk of Ravana, and Rama, overcoming his aversion to fighting a woman, slew the female demon Taraka. Later the sage brought Rama and his brothers to the court of King Janaka of Videha, where Rama met and married the king's daughter, Sita, in response to the king's challenge to bend the bow of Shiva. Rama not only bent the bow, but broke it.

When the time came for him to become the successor to his father, Bharata's mother prevailed upon Das-ratha to install her son as king for fourteen years, and send Rama into exile. Although Bharata declined the throne, and asked Rama to return, the god asked him to remain as regent, while he completed his exile. Taking his wife and his brother, Lakshmana, Rama travelled extensively, rebuffing the advances of the female demon Surpanakha, who in revenge had her brother Ravana carry off Sita.

In their pursuit, Rama and Lakshmana slew Kabandha, a headless monster, whose spirit advised them to seek the aid of the monkey king, Sugriva. Assisted by he and Hanuman, they invaded Ravana's stronghold, slew the demon, and reclaimed Sita.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Germanic, then later English (when the Vikings settled England)
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with:Sigmund, Arthur, Merlin, Hervör, Nidud, others

The smith god of the Anglo-Saxons, originally a Germanic god whose legend the Norsemen brought with them when they invaded and later settled in England, Wayland and his two brothers married swan princesses, and lived in peace until one day Wayland's wife left him, and Nidud, the king, captured Wayland and set him to work on his island kingdom, fashioning wonderful items for him and his family. To ensure that the smith did not escape, the king had his men cut the sinews of Wayland's legs, thus crippling him.

But Wayland had his revenge on the king, by slaying his sons, who came to visit the smith, and making of their skulls fine goblets, which he gave to the king, and fashioning their eyes into jewels, which he gave to the queen. He fell in love with the king's daughter, fathered a child on her and escaped from the island. Nidud's daughter had already extracted a promise from her father that he would not hurt her son, so the king could do nothing about Wayland's baby son.

Among the fabulous swords Wayland is said to have fashioned are Gram, Sigmund's magic weapon, and the legendary Caliburn, also known as Excalibur.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Greek
Class: DemiGod
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Human/Divine (Human mother, divine father)
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Athena, Zeus, Hera, Artemis, Odysseus, Achilles, many others

Technically, I should be calling him Heracles, as Hercules is the Roman name for him, but I've always called him Hercules and so I will continue. It's only semantics anyway. Hercules is perhaps one of the most well-known of the Greek heroes, and even those with only a passing knowledge of, or interest in, mythology will have heard his name. It has passed into common parlance, from being taken for the name of a dependable aircraft to providing television audiences with some harmless adventure fare to keep them amused, and has become identified with things strong and large, a Herculean task, and so on.

Born as the result of one of the many liaisons of Zeus, king of the gods, with mortals, Hercules was hated by Hera, Zeus's wife, for obvious reasons, and she did all she could to make his life miserable, from actually trying to kill him as an infant by sending two snakes into his crib --- both of which he slew with his own hands, presaging what would become his legendary strength --- to causing a madness to fall upon him, which resulted in his killing of his wife and children. Visiting the temple of the Oracle at Delphi, he explained that since the deed he had been unable to sleep, and the Oracle advised him that he must make amends for his crime. This resulted in the famous Twelve Labours of Hercules, which we will come to in due course.

The hatred Hera bore Hercules was also born out of the fact that she knew she had been tricked into allowing him to suckle at her teat, which gave him a god's powers; Athena, his half-sister and the protector of heroes, had found him left exposed on a hillside. His mother, Alkmene, fearing the wrath of the gods, had left her child to be taken by nature and the elements, but when taken by Athena to Hera, the mother of the gods did not recognise him and allowed him to suckle; he in fact bit hard and she pushed him away, enmity already growing between them.

Hercules/Herakles had many adventures though, and some are recounted in Roman mythos only, while some are exclusive to his Greek heritage. In this article, I'm going to mix them and not clarify which is from which, as this is after all just a small article about the hero, and not a scholarly thesis. The first of the tales concerns Cacus, a fire-breathing giant. One of the sons of the smith god Vulcan, Cacus terrorised the countryside by capturing victims whom he would eat, nailing their skulls to the outside of the cave in which he lived. When Hercules passed by with a herd of cattle he had stolen, Cacus decided he would help himself and while the hero slept the giant appropriated a number of the cattle. On waking, Hercules was furious and made to enter the cave but Cacus, terrified of the mighty hero, blocked the entrance with a great rock, forcing Hercules to throw tree branches and large rocks at the cave while Cacus belched fire and smoke at him. At length though, Hercules's patience snapped and he leaped into the cave and strangled the giant.

THE TWELVE LABOURS OF HERCULES

Surely the best known and most celebrated of his adventures, this story concerns the penance Hercules had to perform in order to attain forgiveness for the earlier slaying, while in the throes of madness, of his family. He visited the Oracle at Delphi, asking how he might make amends, unaware that the Oracle swore her fealty to Hera, who was by now his arch-enemy and determined to destroy him. The Oracle counselled him to travel to Tiryns, to the court of his cousin Eurystheus, and to place himself in his servitude. She also prophesied that, once he had served out his indenture, he would be made fully immortal, a god himself. Again, Hercules was unaware that Eurystheus had been placed on the throne of Tiryns by trickery worked by Hera, and he was in that regard her pawn, a pawn she fully intended to use to the maximum.

Eurystheus hated Hercules on sight. He was a slight, ineffectual man who, despite his power, had no bearing or charisma and standing beside Hercules seemed as an ant beside a lion. He decided to set the hero the most difficult, impossible tasks he could, and for twelve years Hercules worked to fulfil the whims of this weak king, whom he could, had he wished to or been allowed to, break like a twig. But he had sworn to serve him, and a man's oath was his bond.

The First Labour: The Nemean Lion

A great lion was terrorising King Eurystheus's realm and he thought sending Hercules to deal with it would be a quick and easy way of getting rid of the hero. This lion was no ordinary one; it was huge, and the bones of its victims littered the ground outside its lair. Eurystheus tasked Hercules to kill the lion, and as proof to bring him its hide, said to be proof against any weapon. Imagine his terror then when Hercules reappeared some time later, quite alive and wearing the lion's skin as evidence of his victory! So scared was the king that he ran and hid inside a large jar, from which he refused to emerge. Later he declared that all of Hercules's future labours must be shown as completed outside the city, as he would no longer allow the hero in.

It was said that Hercules had severe trouble killing the lion, whose hide, as I have mentioned, was impenetrable to all weapons. Of course, when dead it made a great suit of armour, but before it was stripped from the animal it provided it the perfect protection against Hercules's weapons. In the end, some accounts say that he shot his arrows into its soft mouth, and then strangled the beast in its lair. He had however difficulty removing the skin, which again resisted all weapons even to cut it, until Athena appeared and told Hercules to use the lion's own tooth, which allowed him to easily skin the beast and don its pelt.

The Second Labour: The Lernaean Hydra

Realising that, fierce as it had been, the Nemean Lion had after all only been a wild beast and was therefore too easy a task for Hercules, and advising the hero that each labour would be more difficult than the last, Eurystheus pronounced the second of what were to have been originally ten labours, but which became twelve in the light of the result of this next one, and the king's pettiness and rage at Hercules's continued successes. The Lernaean Hydra was a huge water serpent, said to be immortal, and indeed Hera herself had raised it for the sole purpose of slaying Hercules. Realising he might need some assistance with this second Labour, as the Hydra had nine heads, Hercules accepted the help of his nephew, Iolaos.

When they came to the Hydra's lair they found it hard to entice it to battle, as it stayed out in the middle of the swamp, but Hercules's arrows, though ineffectual against the monster, drew its ire and it moved towards shore. As it came within reach, Hercules swung his mighty club (which he had fashioned from a tree during the previous Labour) and struck off its heads, but to his horror and dismay, for each head lopped off, two more grew to take its place, so that defeating the beast seemed indeed an impossible task.

Then Iolaos, inspired by Athena, hit upon the idea of cauterising the stumps, so that no new head could grow back once struck off. This worked well, and Hercules was finally able to drag the Hydra out of the swamp, lop off its middle head, which was the only one that was immortal, and so, its stump sealed with the fire from Iolaos's torch, the gruesome beast shuddered in its death throes and breathed its last. Hercules dipped his arrows in the creature's blood, thus turning them into deadly weapons against which no foe could stand.

On their return to the city, Hercules and Iolaos were greeted not by the king, who had again taken to hiding in his jar at word of the approach of the two, but by his servants. Gathering courage, Eurystheus declared that this Labour was null and void, as Hercules had had help carrying it out, and the Twelve Labours were his to complete alone. Rather than push the point, the hero acceded and resigned himself to the fact that, though he had grappled with one of the fiercest beasts he had ever encountered, he had yet eleven Labours to perform.

The Third Labour: The Augeian Stables

King Augeias, whose realm was hard by, had stables that had not been cleaned out in, it seemed, ever. To Hercules fell the task of scrubbing them out. The stench was indeed strong and he encountered it long before he even came in sight of the stables. He went to the king and declared that he would clean out the stables if Augeias would give him one-tenth of the cattle therein as a reward. The king agreed, and Hercules set to work, cutting deep channels through the stables and then diverting two rivers to make them flow through the muck and grime, and in a short time they were clean again. Hercules redirected the rivers to their original course and rehoused the cattle in the now pristine stables.

However, when he went to claim his reward he was refused by King Augeias (who had assumed the task was beyond any man and so had no real intention of honouring the bargain anyway), who told him that as Hercules had already been ordered to clean the stables by Eurystheus, he was not entitled to any reward. This did not deter his tormentor from also discounting this Labour, on the basis that he requested, although did not receive, a reward.

The Fourth Labour: The Ceryneian Hind

Having established that it was useless to try to have Hercules destroyed by monsters, as he had already bested the strongest she could put in his path, Hera ordered Eurystheus to decree that Hercules should have to catch the Ceryneian Hind, the most fleet-footed deer in the world, and more, an animal sacred to Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. This put the hero in a no-win situation: if he failed to catch the deer, the Twelve Labours would not be completed and he would be in disgrace, to say nothing of being unable to cleanse his soul and attain immortality, but if he succeeded, Artemis would be angry and would probably kill him. Either way, it looked bad for the hero.

It took him a full year to catch the hind, pursuing it every day, never once stopping to catch breath, eat or sleep, and eventually he wore it down, trapping the great animal. But as Hera had planned, as he trudged back to Eurystheus with the deer over his back, Artemis appeared and swore to punish him for defiling her animal. Hercules fell to his knees and explained the compulsion he was under, and promised only to take the deer to Eurystheus, to show him that the Labour had been carried out, after which he would return it to its mistress. Relenting, Artemis agreed, but when Hercules got back to the city Eurystheus wanted to keep the hind in his zoo. Hercules agreed, on condition that the animal be surrendered to the king personally. But when Eurystheus approached, Hercules let the hind go and it ran off like the wind. Artemis had been satisfied, the bargain kept, and Eurystheus could do little but admit that the Labour had been completed.

The Fifth Labour: The Erymanthian Boar

Not so interesting for the actual capture of the animal, which was fairly basic: Hercules drove it into deep snow and wrestled it to the ground, thereafter bringing it to Tiryns. However this Labour takes in also a visit by Hercules to his friends the Centaurs, half man half horse, one of whom had taught him as a child. Thirsty from his journey, Hercules asked his friend Pholos for some of the wine the centaurs brewed up here in the mountains. Pholos knew that his people tended to go wild if they drank wine (so why they made it is unclear but anyway) but Hercules insisted until finally the centaur opened a jar. However the smell alerted the other centaurs who, being denied the wine, attacked Hercules. He drove them off with his poisoned arrows, but one accidentally fell on the foot of his friend, and Pholos died. Hercules buried him on the mountain before continuing on to his quest.

The Sixth Labour: The Stymphalian Birds

Next Hercules had to rid the land of the dread Stymphalian Birds, which were maneaters with beaks of bronze. They had taken the nearby jungle for their lair, and rested low on the branches of the trees therein. But the undergrowth was so dense that Hercules could not cut through it, and seemed resigned to fail in this latest of his Labours. Just then, the goddess Athena came to him, and using brass cymbals she clashed them together (another legend says she gave Hercules a rattle made by Hephaestos; there are differing accounts. This other version also states that the birds were on the shores of a lake. I don't know which is correct, and I suppose it doesn't really matter that very much) which startled the birds and like any of their species they took flight, enabling Hercules to shoot them with his arrows. Some escaped though, and would later attack the Argonauts, see next post.

The Seventh Labour: The Cretan Bull

Another somewhat uneventful Labour. Hercules was to capture the great bull and bring it back to Eurystheus, which he did, but when the king tried to sacrifice it to Hera, she refused the honour, as it was proof of her hated enemy's having completed another Labour, and being more than half the way towards claiming his position as a full god.

The Eighth Labour: The Mares of Diomedes

More man-eating beasts, the horses had been trained to eat human flesh by their savage owner, the king of Thrace. So when Hercules loosed them the king's men came after the hero. Leaving his companion Abderos in charge of the horses while he fought the king and his men, Hercules was dismayed to find on his triumphant return that the boy was dead, eaten by the horses. He bound their mouths so that they could be transported without trouble, but not before he fed Diomedes to them. Again, there are conflicting legends and stories as to what happened to them afterwards.

The Ninth Labour: The Girdle of Hippolyte

She was the Queen of the Amazons, tall, stately, fierce warrior women who had never bought a book online in their lives, and lived in service to no man. This is quite a tragic Labour, for Queen Hippolyte, impressed with Hercules and unwilling to make an enemy of him, offered to hand over the girdle, but Hera disguised herself as one of their kind and spread the rumour that Hercules was planning to ride off with their queen, whereupon the Amazons attacked. Thinking that it had been a trap, Hercules killed Hippolyte and took on the Amazons, routing them.

The Tenth Labour: The Cattle of Geryon

A monstrous giant with three bodies, Geryon was attended by the two-headed hound Orthos, whose brother Cerberus guarded the entrance to Hades. This dog leaped at him when it saw him approaching, but Hercules struck his two heads off with his mighty club. On the way, Hercules had had to cross the desert and in irritation at the blistering heat had shot an arrow at the sun. This had so impressed Helios, the sun god, that he gave Hercules his golden chariot in which to ride. This was the same chariot that he used to ride across the sky from day to night. Hercules fought Geryon, shooting him through the forehead with one of his poisoned arrows, and killing the beast. He then stole some of Geryon's cattle, which led to the incident with Cacus related earlier.

In frustration at his having had, at this point, almost completed the Twelve Labours, Hera sent a gadfly to attack the cattle and bite them. He had to gather them back together when they ran off, and it took him a year. Then Hera flooded the river, so that Hercules could not cross with the cattle, but he piled massive stones into it to lower it and thus safely crossed, and made his way back to Tiryns.

The Eleventh Labour: The Apples of the Hesperides

Nymphs of the evening, and daughters of the titan Atlas, the Hesperides guarded the golden apples Hercules had been tasked to retrieve. Knowing how dangerous the Labour was, Hercules sought out Atlas, and asked him if, in return for Hercules's shouldering his burden, the world, Atlas might ask his daughters for some of their apples. Atlas agreed, but when he returned with the apples he found that he preferred to remain at liberty and not take up his post again. Hercules, seeing that all he could do was trick the god, agreed but asked Atlas to take the world back for but a moment, while he adjusted his clothing. Of course, once Atlas had the world back on his shoulders Hercules legged it, and there was nothing the titan could do.

The Twelfth Labour: Cerberus, Hound of the Dead

The final and Twelfth Labour was the most dangerous, and the most seemingly impossible. Hercules was to descend to Hades, the Underworld, and there bring the dread three-headed guardian back to the surface. He went down into Hades, where he encountered Persephone, consort of the Lord of the Underworld himself, for whom that realm is named. She told him that, provided he could subdue Cerberus himself without any help or weapons, she and her husband would allow Hercules to borrow the Hound of Hell, as long as he returned him. Grabbing Cerberus by his middle neck, Hercules made it impossible for the huge dog to bite him, and slung him over his back. On returning to the upper world he made his way to Tiryns, where Eurystheus, so in terror of Cerberus, advised Hercules his Labours were at an end, and Hercules triumphantly went to return the dog to its master and mistress.

(To be continued...)

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Christian
Class: Angel
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Evil
Linked with: Jesus Christ, God

In Hebrew, the word Satan means 'adversary', and indeed the myth built up by the Christian belief of Satan, the Evil One, is that in the beginning he was an angel - God's servants and messengers - who resided in Heaven with God, one of his more favoured ones. But attempting to seize the throne of Heaven for himself, Satan was defeated and he and his followers thrown out of Paradise, down into a specially-prepared domain where Satan ruled. The demesne was called Hell, and here the Adversary plotted and schemed how he might pay God back for the insult and the ignominy he had suffered.

At last he saw his chance:having created Paradise on Earth, the Garden of Eden, God set the first two humans, Adam and Eve, as caretakers of this place, charging them to eat anything but the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Satan, sliding into Eden as a snake, convinced the woman Eve to taste the fruit of the tree, telling her that she and her husband would be as God himself if they did so. Eve gave in, tasted the fruit, and passed some to Adam. For breaking the only rule God had set them, the pair were cast out of Eden, and Satan had his revenge.

But that was only the beginning. Ever since then, Satan has been seen in Christian belief as the antithesis of all things good, as the perpetual enemy of God and his children, and as the tempting force that would lure Christians from the path of goodness, dragging them down into the evil Satan represented.

Indeed, Satan (whose other names are numerous, including Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Father of Lies, the Tempter, the Adversary, the Dark One, Prince of Darkness, the Devil, and so on) even tried to tempt God's son, Jesus Christ, when the Saviour was fasting in the desert. According to Christian belief, of course, Jesus resisted and cast Satan out. Ever since his Fall from Heaven, the Evil One has been all about perverting his former master's favourite creation, twisting and warping Man with his evil, whispering into his ear in the dead of night, curling up in his heart and leading him into wars, murder and all sorts of sin.

Christian mythology has it that on the final day, when Jesus returns to Earth to gather all the loyal souls to him and take them to Heaven, there will be a climactic battle called Armageddon, and in this battle, the godless will take the side of Satan, who will then strive against the hosts of the holy for control of the destiny of men. In this guise, Satan will be known as the Antichrist, the opposite of everything Jesus is. Only the faithful will be saved; those who fall in league with Satan will be cast, with him, into the Pit for all eternity.

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Trollheart

Pantheon: Greek
Class: Goddess
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Persephone, Hades

The goddess of the Earth, in its capacity as a fruitful, growing thing, Demeter (also known as Ceres), was a daughter of Kronos and Rhea, and was looked upon by the Greeks as the all-nourishing mother of the Earth. The way life evolves from the seed which is cast into the ground and allowed to rot was the principle tenet of the belief in her. The seed was in the keeping of her daughter, Persephone, Queen of Hades, and the life that sprang forth from that seed was Demeter's. In this way the two goddesses were inseparable, and were styled as 'the two in one', or 'the great deities'.

When Hades carried off Persephone, to make her his bride, Demeter, with a mother's grief, mounted her car drawn by winged snakes and travelled through all lands searching for her, leaving traces of her blessing, in the form of instruction in the art of agriculture, wherever she was kindly received. But the person who treated her with the utmost hospitality was Keleos, in the district of Attica, where she in return taught him the use of the plough, and on departing presented Keleos' son, Triptolemos with the seed of the barley, plus her snake-drawn car, so that the boy could travel the lands, spreading the knowledge of agriculture to all men.

In Arcadia, in Crete, she bore to Jasion, the first sower of grain, a son, Plutos, while in Thessaly she battled Erysichton, 'the earth upturner', or 'the ploughman', and Aethon, the personification of famine. When Poseidon threatened to manhandle her, she turned herself into a horse and fled, but the sea god pursued her, turning also into a horse. He caught her, and together they produced the winged horse Arion. Horrified at this deed, Demeter hid for a long time in a cave, finally emerging to purify herself in the river Ladon, and rejoining the other gods and goddesses.

Demeter's sigils were ears of corn and poppies, and her sacrifices were cows and pigs.

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