Achilles
Physical Description
Special abilities
Achilles is one of the most formidable beings to ever walk the Earth, combining divine blessings with mortal ingenuity. His abilities reflect both his supernatural origins and his intense training as a warrior:
- Near Indestructibility: Thanks to the blessing of the River Styx, Achilles' body is nearly impervious to harm. His skin cannot be pierced by mortal weapons, and he can withstand incredible amounts of physical and elemental damage. The sole exception to this is his heel, left vulnerable during his immersion in the Styx.
- Super Strength: Achilles possesses strength far beyond that of any mortal or demigod. He can lift, strike, and grapple with forces that rival the mightiest of gods, making him a fearsome presence on the battlefield.
- Super Speed: Achilles moves with blinding speed, able to outpace almost any opponent. His reflexes and agility allow him to maneuver through even the most chaotic combat scenarios, delivering precise strikes before his enemies can react.
- Unparalleled Tactical Mind: Beyond his physical prowess, Achilles' greatest asset is his mind. He is a master tactician, capable of analyzing battlefields and devising strategies that maximize his strengths and exploit his enemies’ weaknesses. His leadership during the war against Atum is a testament to his strategic brilliance.
Specialized Equipment
Achilles wields a legendary spear, crafted by the god Hephaestus himself, imbued with extraordinary abilities that make it a weapon of unparalleled power:
- Recall Ability: The spear has the unique ability to return to Achilles when he calls for it, ensuring that it is never lost in the chaos of battle. This feature allows him to maintain control of the battlefield and strike with precision even when disarmed.
- Enhanced Damage Against Monsters: Hephaestus forged the spear to be particularly effective against monsters, dealing extra damage to creatures of unnatural origin. This ability made the weapon invaluable during Achilles' campaigns against mythological beasts and in his defense of humanity.
The spear is forged from godmetal, a material known as Adamantine to the Greeks, prized for its durability and magical properties. However, the use of Adamantine was outlawed on Olympus following the gods' war with Chronos, as weapons made from it were capable of killing gods themselves. The existence of Achilles' spear is a testament to Hephaestus’ defiance of this edict, creating a weapon that could stand as a tool of protection rather than destruction.
Achilles’ spear is more than a weapon—it is a symbol of his unique position as a mortal blessed by the gods, a warrior whose loyalty to both humanity and Olympus transcended divine law.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
The Blessing of Styx
Achilles was born during the height of the Greek Pantheon, an era when gods and mortals coexisted in a precarious balance of power and favor. His mother, Thetis, a sea nymph of extraordinary grace and influence, sought to ensure her son’s safety and greatness in a world where the divine often dictated the fate of the mortal. The Fates had foretold the arrival of a being who would bring the downfall of the gods—a figure later known to history as Atum, the Godbutcher. In the shadow of this prophecy, Thetis was driven to seek a way to protect her child from divine retribution while granting him the strength to survive in a turbulent world.
It was Hades, the enigmatic ruler of the Underworld, who offered Thetis a solution. Unlike the other gods, Hades had a unique perspective on mortality and eternity. He presented Thetis with a gift that would shield Achilles from the attention of Atum while bestowing him with extraordinary abilities. Hades granted her the Blessing of the Underworld, a ritual that would make Achilles impervious to harm by submerging him in the sacred waters of the River Styx. The ritual would imbue him with the strength and resilience of the gods without marking him as a divine target, thus sparing him from Atum's wrath.
Thetis carried out the ritual with utmost care, holding her infant son by his heel as she dipped him into the dark, cold waters of the Styx. As the liquid enveloped him, Achilles' mortal flesh was transformed, becoming nearly indestructible. However, the heel by which his mother held him remained untouched by the waters, leaving it as his sole vulnerability—a detail that would later shape his legacy. She believed this remaining aspect of mortality would protect Achilles from the wrath of the foretold Godbutcher.
Growing up, Achilles was raised as both a mortal and a being touched by the divine. His father, Peleus, ensured he was trained in the arts of war, while Thetis imparted the wisdom and caution necessary to navigate a world shaped by the whims of gods and men. Achilles became a warrior of unparalleled skill and strength, his name destined to echo through history as one of the greatest heroes of ancient Greece. Yet, the shadow of the prophecy and the lingering vulnerability of his heel served as constant reminders that even the mightiest are not without weakness.
The Arrival of Atum
Only a few decades into Achilles’ eternal life, the prophecy of the Godbutcher came to pass. Atum’s forces performed the intricate ritual required to manifest his physical presence in both the realms of Earth and Olympus. The Greek Pantheon, alongside their mortal and demigod allies, rallied to defend against this unprecedented threat. Achilles was appointed to lead the Earth-side forces in humanity’s stand against Atum, taking command of the armies of Greece in what was to become a war of attrition and devastation.
Despite Achilles’ unparalleled strength and strategic brilliance, the war quickly turned grim. Within weeks, Atum’s overwhelming power and his army’s ruthless efficiency devastated the defenders. Achilles watched as his comrades and allies fell one by one, the gods themselves proving no match for Atum’s might. By the time the dust settled, Achilles was the last surviving member of the Earth-side defenders, battered but unbroken. He clung to the hope that Olympus, the seat of divine power, might have fared better in their struggle against the Godbutcher.
Achilles’ hope was short-lived. When Atum sought him out, he brought Achilles to Olympus itself, revealing the full scale of the devastation. The mountain of the gods had fallen even faster than the forces on Earth, its once-proud halls reduced to ruin. The sight crushed any remaining hope Achilles had, as the destruction of Olympus confirmed the totality of Atum’s victory over the Greek Pantheon.
Atum’s fascination with Achilles grew as he grappled with a singular question: was Achilles truly a god, a demigod, or simply an extraordinary mortal? The answer eluded him, for Achilles defied the categories that Atum used to justify his crusade against the divine. Unable to decide whether Achilles fell within the scope of his wrath, Atum resolved to spare him—but not without consequence.
As a testament to Achilles’ indomitable will and as a reminder of his vulnerability, Atum drove a spike through Achilles’ fabled heel, the only part of him untouched by the divine protection of the Styx. Immobilized and weakened, Achilles was bound within one of Atum’s personal tombs, a massive pyramid in Egypt. There he would remain, a prisoner of Atum’s will and a symbol of the Godbutcher’s dominance over even the mightiest of mortal champions.
Mental Trauma
Despite his near-invincible body, Achilles’ mind bears the deep scars of the immense hardships and tragedies he has endured. The prophecy of the Godbutcher loomed over him from the day of his birth, burdening him with the inescapable weight of fate and the inevitability of conflict. His transformation into a nearly indestructible warrior brought with it immense responsibility, but it also alienated him from the ordinary joys of life. Marked as a being who existed apart from both mortals and gods, Achilles often felt the crushing loneliness of his extraordinary existence.
The war against Atum only magnified these struggles. Achilles witnessed the annihilation of his comrades and allies, one by one, until he stood as the lone survivor of Earth’s defenders against the Godbutcher. The memory of leading the Earth-side forces, only to see them utterly decimated, haunts him relentlessly, a constant reminder of his inability to save those who trusted in his strength.
The sight of Olympus in ruins—the sacred mountain reduced to rubble, its gods slaughtered—delivered a devastating blow to Achilles' psyche. This visceral confirmation of Atum’s unstoppable power crushed any remaining hope Achilles had, reinforcing the fragility of the world he had sworn to protect. For a warrior who lived to shield others, the realization that even the divine could fall left him grappling with profound feelings of helplessness and inadequacy.
Achilles’ imprisonment by Atum marked the deepest source of his trauma. Bound and immobilized within a tomb in one of Atum’s pyramids, he was stripped of all agency and forced to confront his failure to protect both the mortal and divine realms. The spike driven through his heel, the lone remnant of his mortality, became a physical symbol of his defeat—a painful reminder of the cost of his resilience. Worse still, Achilles remained aware of the world beyond his prison, sensing each time Atum returned to Earth to destroy another pantheon. Helplessly, he bore witness to the fall of other families of gods and humans, enduring the knowledge that he could do nothing to stop it.
Though his body remains unbroken, Achilles’ mind is a battlefield of grief, guilt, and lingering despair. Yet, even in his darkest moments, a flicker of hope endures. The same strength that allowed him to stand against Atum, even when all others had fallen, suggests that Achilles’ story may not yet be over—and that redemption, though distant, may still be within his grasp.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Achilles is driven by an unrelenting desire to bring an end to Atum and the Godbutcher’s reign of terror. Having witnessed the complete annihilation of the Greek Pantheon—a thriving society of gods, mortals, and demigods—Achilles struggles to comprehend the justification behind Atum’s crusade. The senseless destruction he witnessed, including the fall of Olympus, has left him haunted and determined to ensure that no other pantheon suffers the same fate.
Achilles' motivation is deeply rooted in the injustice of Atum’s actions. The idea that there may be countless gods, pantheons, and cultures erased from history by Atum’s relentless campaign weighs heavily on him. Each forgotten deity represents not only a lost figure of worship but also the obliteration of stories, cultures, and the people who depended on those gods.
For Achilles, defeating Atum is not merely an act of revenge—it is a mission to protect what remains of divine and mortal existence. His eternal life, once a gift he was unsure how to use, has found its purpose in opposing the Godbutcher and preventing the erasure of all that the gods and humanity have built together. This singular focus drives him forward, even as the weight of his own trauma and Atum’s overwhelming power threaten to break his resolve.
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