Archived:Pancratius

  Pancratius

Son of Hades Member of Liberi Superum (This Character Belongs to Wolf

 Pancratius was born a long time ago, in ancient Greece. He was the son of a poor farmer’s daughter, whose beauty was known far and wide. The rumours even reached the ears of gods, and several of them came to court her.

Hades, God of the Underworld and the riches of earth, brought a tiara of gold, with diamonds as large as a fingernail on it. Poseidon, God of the Sea and horses, brought a mare as white as snow. And finally Apollo, god of the Sun and Medicine, brought a simple bag of salves and mixtures. Those were the epitome of his ability to heal, his finest work. They could heal almost anything.

She was, of course, very flattered, and she made the gods stay for three days and three nights, during which they did their best to impress her. And every night, she took one of them to her bed. But what she didn’t know; was that Hades used his powers to take the form of the other two when she came to get them, so in reality she only slept with him.

9 months later, long after the gods had gone, she gave birth to a boy, whom she named Pancratius, meaning “All power”, after his godly parent: For she knew exactly who had come to visit.

Pancratius grew up to be a soldier and rose quickly through the ranks of the army of Sparta. Eventually he stood as the second in command of the King. He was trusted by the king, having fought and bled beside him in the war against the Athenians.

Pancratius, however, was not satisfied by being second-in-command, and eventually murdered the king, crown prince, crown princess and their unborn son. He blamed it on the younger son, who was a pathetic drunk, and had him publicly executed, together with the rest of the nobility of Sparta, which he accused of having conspired against the king. He gave them exactly ten seconds to defend themselves publicly before he had them drawn and quartered.

After that he gave the royal council a choice. Either they support his claim to the throne, or he would have them executed like the rest. Suffice to say they didn’t go against him.

The gods, however, were disgusted by this son of Hades, and convened to decide on how to punish him. Ares and Athena were particularly angry with him, Ares because it was his king and Athena because Pancratius was a veteran of the Spartan-Athenian war, in which Athens lost many good men, and at least fifty of them were the victims of Pancratius.

In the end they decided on a very strict punishment. They created two peaks on a mountain not long from Sparta and suspended him between them with chains of celestial bronze. They then placed an immortal snake over his head to drip a mild acid on his head. At last, they made him immortal, so he could watch the kingdom which had for a short time been his grow, but not be able to influence anything, or even converse with anyone, for if mortals went to see the place he was, they would only see a statue where he was.

Every once in a while, a god would come to gloat and tell him about how the world was progressing. There was only one Olympian who only came once. That was Hades, his father. He simply came to see this son of his who had grown into a monster, which many gods thought to be worse than Kronos.

And such passed a few thousand years, until two demigods stumbled upon a man with hair reaching the summit of the mountain from 10 meters above it, with a snake dripping acid on his head. They cut him down, thinking it was the work of a monster.

He let them do that, and let them nurse him back to health before he stole their weapons and murdered them while they slept. He then stole their equipment and left. Recently one of the gods had told him of an organisation known as the Broken Covenant, so he set out for their headquarters.

Thousands of years strung up, however, had taken their toll, and it was months before he was back to something resembling his old strength and endurance.

Eventually he reached the place, after having had to kill several demigods to find out the location.