Hercules
| Hercules | ||
|---|---|---|
 Lion's head |
||
| Alignment | Chaotic Good | |
| Divine Rank | Demigod | |
| Pantheon | Greek | |
| Portfolio | Adventure, strength | |
| Domains | 3E: Chaos, Good, Luck, Strength 5E: Tempest, War |
|
| Home Plane | Olympus (Arborea) | |
| Worshippers | Adventurers, athletes, warriors | |
| Servitors | Athletes, fighters | |
| Favoured Weapon | Greatclub | |
Heracles, better known under the Roman name 'Hercules', was athe Hero of Greek myth (the word hero directly having three out of the first four letters of his name is probably no accident), being the son of Zeus and Alcmene- the latter of whom was the Granddaughter of Perseus. Which means, yes, that his great grandfather was also his half-brother.
After his death, there was a large amount of debate as to weather or not he was a god. The Athenians were quick to worship him a such, but many of the other Greek cities refused to do so. Large quantities of ancient art and poetry depicted Heracles entering Olympus after his death, but the common man saw him more as a hero than a god. We'll leave it to the GM's discretion to decided whether he is a god or not, seeing as actual historians can't even agree on the matter.
Heracles' character is defined by his extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sex drive. His life, from the moment of his birth, is mired with attempts on his life by the ever-angry Hera, who hated him for being the bastard child of her husband. In fact, Heracles was originally named Alcides, but was renamed to 'Heracles' (literally meaning 'pride of Hera') in an attempt to stop Hera from trying to murder him all the time. It didn't work very well. In his childhood, he beat his music teacher to death with a lyre, then moved off into the mountains to tend to animals. Here, he was approached by the allegories Vice and Virtue, who offered him an easy and unimpressive life or a hard and glorious one, of which he of course chose the latter. In his adult life, Hera, continuing her streak of perpetual bitch-ness, drove Heracles to kill his own children though insanity.
Heracles has a long and impressive list of deeds, no doubt extrapolated on and added to by every culture that told stories of him. These include, but are not limited to the "Labors of Heracles" he performed for Eurystheus at the behest of the Oracle of Delphi when asked how he could atone for his murder of his children:
- Slaying the Nemean lion: A lion who was impervious to bladed weapons. He strangled it to death, then wore its pelt, which makes his statues easier to recognize. Hercules was also enough of a rules lawyer to realize the only way to skin the lion was to use the Lion's own claws.
- Slaying the Lernaean Hydra: A big fuckoff lizard sent by Hera to kill him. When he killed it, he used its blood as a poison for his arrows. This is also the where the Cancer constellation came from since Hera also sent the crab Karkinos to distract Heracles while he was fighting it but variably just crushed it underfoot/kicked him so hard he flew off into space Team Rocket-style and either way the constellation came about after the crab's demise. This labor was invalidated because he had help from his nephew Iolaus, who burned the stumps when the heads were decapitated, and Hercules had to perform an additional task.
- Capturing the Golden Hind of Artemis: Catching one of Artemis' animals. Turned out to be really fucking hard, as he chased it for a full year until it had to realize it could not outlast Heracles.
- Capturing the Erymanthian Boar: Pretty much the same shit as the last one. Skip.
- Cleaning the Augean Stables: He was tasked with cleaning a cattle barn containing 3000 cattle, which was so literally full of shit that it made the Garden of Nurgle look pristine by comparison, and he had to do this all in one day. He accomplished this by changing the flow of a river into the barn. One assumes that the cost of living downstream went down for quite a while afterwards. This labor was invalidated because Hercules asked for payment to clean the stables, even though he would've had to do it anyway as one of his labors. Once again, he had to complete an additional task as a result.
- Slaying the Stymphalian birds: He slew a bunch of giant bronze-feathered man-eating birds by distracting them with a god-rattle then sniping them with his bow.
- Capturing the Cretan bull: He captured the Cretan bull (father of the famous minotaur) and released it near Marathon, where it continued to be an asshole until Theseus killed it.
- Stealing the Mares of Diomedes: No, not that Diomedes. He was tasked with capturing a bunch of man-eating horses, which he accomplished by feeding king Diomedes to them before binding their mouths shut while they were distracted.
- Obtaining the Girdle of Hippolyta: This one should have been easy, except for Hera's interference. She told Hippolyta and the Amazons to stop him at all costs, which they (usually) didn't.
- Steal Geryon's cattle: Tasked with stealing a herd of cattle belonging to Geryon, a giant with three fully-formed torsos joined together at the hip who had a habit of throwing mountains at people. Heracles went ahead and beat Geryon's dog to death with a stick then shot Geryon himself with the poisoned arrow from the Hydra.
- Steal the golden apples of Hesperides: These apples were under the protection of Hera, so it went about as well as you can imagine. During the trip, he saved Prometheus from the bird that had been eating his liver for the last few thousand years, and then either tricked Atlas into helping him get the apples which involved Heracles having to hold the entirety of the heavens for a little bit from Atlas or instead also freed Atlas from his confinement by creating the Pillars of Hercules to hold up the sky in his stead.
- Capturing Cerberus: His most challenging task by far, he was sent to the gates of the underworld to capture Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog. Hades agreed to let him try, so long as he did so without the aid of any weapons. He succeeded, and proceeded to scare the shit out of Eurystheus with the thing.
Other less famous but no less Awesome deeds include him sacking Troy with 12 other guys in a few days while the famous Trojan War story involves basically all of Greece having to fight for a decade to achieve the same, inventing Pankration (proto-mixed martial arts), being made to knock up 50 Amazons which he does in a single night, and wrestling Thanatos into submission (the Greek personification of Death) in the play Alcestis. For extra /tg/ relevance, one tale makes him the OG monstergirl fucker when he sleeps out in the wilderness but wakes up to find his horses have been stolen by a variably-named woman whose legs go into a snake's tail from her thighs. She refuses to give the horses back without him giving her sons, Heracles rolls with the sexual extortion, and she ends up giving birth to three sons of which the youngest becomes the first king of the Scythians. As well, his most iconic look (seen below), a huge, buff bearded fellow with a club not wearing too much aside from his lion hide, could easily be mistaken for any old Barbarian to those unknowledgeable of him and he's very well probably inspired plenty depictions thereof.
Eventually, Hera decided she was done bearing a grudge against Heracles, and he at some point settled down and got remarried. So, happily ever after, right? Wrong. To put a long story short, a centaur tried to make off with Heracles' wife and got shot by one of his poison-arrows for his trouble. As revenge, the centaur dipped some clothes in his own blood and told Heracles' wife that if her husband was ever less-than-faithful to her, she should get him to wear the clothes and he'll fall back in love with her. Being a gullible fool, sometime later she did this and, surprising no one, the bloodstained clothes did nothing but poison Heracles with the same poison that killed the centaur. To make things even worse, by this time Heracles had become immortal, leaving him in horrible agony and unable to die. It was so bad that all he could do about it was burn himself alive at the pyre in order to ascend and take his place among the gods on Mount Olympus. So ends the legend of Heracles, a man so badass only godhood could take him out of the picture.
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Shown here with the battered remains of the previously mentioned lizard.
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And here with Cerberus in tow.
