Hephaestus

Ήφαιστος





Hephaestus (Ήφαιστος in Ancient Greek, also spelled Hephaistos) is the god of forges, fire and blacksmith to the gods. His Roman counterpart is Vulcan. His symbols are the axe, hammer and fire. Hephaestus can change his appearance and turn into his Roman counterpart, Vulcan. As Vulcan, he becomes more disciplined, warlike, and militaristic. The Greeks envisioned Hephaestus as a benevolent and clever being. To the Romans, Vulcan was the god of volcanoes (which were named after him), giving him greater power than his Greek aspect.



Due to Zeus' giving birth to Athena, Hera was angry at his actions. She then gave birth to Hephaestus. He was an ugly and deformed child. A rumor was spread by Hera that Zeus threw him from Mt. Olympus at birth due to his ugliness, when it was really Hera herself. Another story makes the claim that Hephaestus stepped in between his mother and father's argument and sided with Hera. In rage of his son's actions, Zeus seized Hephaestus by the legs and threw him from the top of Mt. Olympus, which caused his drastic injuries. After being nursed to health, Zeus (in a rare act) apologized and welcomed his son back with open arms.

The goddess of love, Aphrodite, was causing a lot of problems in Olympus due to her radiant beauty. Zeus decided to wed her to Hephaestus to keep her off the market, though she still had multiple affairs with Ares,the god of War. Though these days the affair is considered old news and every one just accepts it but Hephaestus still tries to find ways to publicly embarrass his wife and her lover in front of the other gods with elaborate traps and tricks. The most famous one and the first one was when he caught the two lovers in a magical net and then invited the other gods to come and laugh at the unfortunate sight.

He also took part in creating the metal giant Talos, the Trojan Horse, and other various automatons.



 Powers and Abilities 

He is god of the forges and can forge anything in a short amount of time. He is a master blacksmith and can make anything with the materials around him. He is the god of fire so can control fire and lava. Like the other gods he can teleport using super-fast air travel and is probably very strong due to working in the forges all day. He has a pirate radio set that he uses during emergencies such as when Zeus closed Olympus in The Lost Hero when he uses it to contact Leo. He presumably possesses the standard power of a god.

 Physical Description 



He is a huge lump of a man with his shoulders at different heights and a huge, bulging, misshapen head and his leg in a steel brace, with a wild brown beard that sparks fire from time to time. He is the only Olympian to show such extreme physical injuries; however, he is also muscular from working in his forges. Inside his workshop, he wears a jumpsuit smeared with grime and oil with the name Hephaestus embroidered over the chest pocket. When he is on Olympus, he is clean and elegant.