Arkantos

Arkantos is the main protagonist in the video game Age of Mythology and it's remake, Age of Mythology: Retold. He appears as a playable character in the Fall of the Trident campaign, and later appears as a supporting character in The New Atlantis campaign. He was an admiral of Atlantis who sought to protect his home, facing a great challenge of preventing the Titans’ release, and later became a god.
His voice actor was Dan Riordan.
==Biography==
===Background===
Before the events of the campaign, Arkantos was born during a time of turmoil. Fighting became a normal part of his life at an early age, and he proved to be a formidable warrior, earning himself the rank of admiral. He led his soldiers countless victories to the point of cementing the reputation of Atlantis as a mighty force to be reckoned with. The only threat he had to deal with was the occasional pirate attack, led by Kamos, which previously resulted in the death of his wife.
===Fall of the Trident===
Arkantos is first seen leading some of his soldiers to take down a pirate camp, encountering a cyclops along the way. Afterwards, he sails home, and finds himself dreaming of battling his old enemy Theris, and Athena appears to speak to him. They reflect on how Arkantos’s bravery and efforts have eradicated Atlantis’s enemies to nothing more than mere pirates. She warns Arkantos that there will be a threat like no other, and that he will be needed to thwart this, before he wakes up.
After arriving home, Arkantos and the theocrat leader Krios are in disagreement on whether he should fight in the Trojan War. Krios believed that he should go, in order to appease an unhappy Poseidon, the god they call for favor. Arkantos wanted no part, feeling there would be no gain from participating. Suddenly, pirates and krakens approach the island and attack, but are repelled when the Atlantean army is called to assist. Krios further cements his point of Poseidon’s displeasure as the krakens helped the pirates, before Arkantos realizes the trident of the Poseidon statue was stolen. He finally agrees to go to Troy, but not before retrieving the trident. He finds the island base in which the trident was taken, and confronts Kamos, who cowardly runs away, before heading to Troy.
===Greek Arc===
Arkantos arrives at Troy to find Agamemnon and Ajax, who are struggling to resist the Trojan attacks. They start by destroying two nearby docks to weaken their naval strength. He then meets with Odysseus and teams up with him to siege the main gate and rescue Helen, who is the wife of Agamemnon’s brother. They are successful in taking down the gate, but Ajax’s camp is ambushed and Arkantos is forced to order his men to retreat. As Arkantos and Ajax destroy the Trojan base adjacent to the camp, Agamemnon’s camp is attacked.
Just as Agamemnon contemplated giving up, Arkantos reconsidered his tactics, and Odysseus suggests building a great wooden horse to sneak behind their walls. They succeed in doing so, and Arkantos, Ajax and Odysseus steal siege weapons to raze the gate. With the security undermined and the element of surprise on their side, Agamemnon storms his army inside and they are successful in saving Helen.
Arkantos prepares to head home, but finds his ships are unfit for sailing. Ajax takes him to a port in Ioklos to get them repaired, only to learn from an old man that bandits had invaded the city, and their citizens had been taken hostage. The heroes succeeded in retaking the city, and rescue a centaur named Chiron, who tells them that the remaining prisoners had been taken north. They investigate, and find multiple fortresses, walls and towers on the way, and find the remaining prisoners being forced to dig a passage into Erebus, the underworld. Here, they meet the cyclops Gargarensis, who Arkantos is totally unafraid of and willing to fight head-to-head. Gargarensis retorts that any further pursuit of him will result in the deaths of Arkantos and his son Kastor, as well as the destruction of Atlantis, before dropping a meteor shower on his men.
The heroes follow Gargarensis into Erebus to find that he has built a giant ram to hammer an even bigger gate open. Unwilling to risk allowing the unknown threat that lies behind it to be released; they agree to destroy the ram. Gargarensis is not troubled by this, and escapes Erebus easily before tunneling the entrance with countless boulders. Arkantos decides to search for another route out, and his men are assisted by Shades, who are inhabitants of Erebus. They fight monsters on their journey, and are led to temples honoring Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. Chiron suggests that he pray for help, and Arkantos looks to the Poseidon temple to do so. Unresponsive, he proceeds to pray to the Zeus temple and a flight of stairs appeared before them, allowing him to escape.
===Egyptian Arc===
As Arkantos reaches the surface, they are clueless as to where they are, before being approached by Egyptian soldiers led by a mercenary named Amanra. She informs Arkantos that they are digging up a relic and needs his help to buy time to obtain the relic before the Set worshippers do. The relic is revealed to be the sword of the Guardian, and Arkantos accompanies Amanra to return it, rescuing enslaved villagers along the way. Amanra reveals that the Guardian is needed to defeat Kemsyt’s army, a name Chiron recognizes as the warlord who led the bandit attack on Ioklos. They are successful in returning the sword and defeating his army, and they find an artifact nearby which Amanra discloses it is a piece of the god Osiris.
While Arkantos helps to escort the Osiris piece to the city, Amanra explains that Set had his body cut to four pieces and scattered across Egypt, and that he can be revived should they be brought back together. They are ambushed, but succeed in securing the piece, where it is taken to Osiris’s kingdom. As Amanra went to search for Setna, Kemsyt appears personally with a small force and takes Arkantos, Ajax, Chiron and their men to their offshore prison. In the prison, they meet Setna personally, and gather some important information. Gargarensis realizes that Arkantos is not fully aware of his motives, and arrived in Egypt with assistance from the gods. He flees when Amanra’s forces arrive. They proceed to assault Abydos where Kemsyt’s forces have once again stolen the Osiris piece, and are successful in taking it back. They take it to a small camp, and Arkantos falls asleep.
Arkantos meets with Athena in his dream once more, who commends him for his efforts and prepares to explain the motives of Gargarensis. She explains that the Greek gods went to war with the Titans, Kronos included, and imprisoned them in Tartarus. Currently, the only way Kronos can be released is through a mortal, and Gargarensis intends to do this, expecting he will be made immortal as a reward. Due to Poseidon’s jealousy of Zeus’s status as chief of the Olympian gods, he pledges to assist Gargarensis in releasing Kronos, believing he too will be rewarded. Arkantos finds himself needing to fight his way out of the underworld once more. Upon escaping, he fights alongside Gargarensis and Kamos, and they raze a city that resembled Atlantis. Athena used this to make a point that Atlantis will meet the same fate should Gargarensis be successful in his plans.
When Arkantos awakes, Amanra invites him to discuss with Setna their plans to seize the remaining three Osiris pieces. Given that the destruction of a single Osiris piece would result in no hope for his revival, there was limited time, forcing the heroes to split up. Arkantos and Ajax took their troops to secure the piece in Kamos’s possession. On the way, they rescue some Greek slaves who willingly provide the duo with heavy myth units. They steal some pirate ships and ally themselves with Egyptian refugees who assist the heroes in assaulting Kamos’s base. Arkantos directly confronts Kamos, and defeats him in combat.  They bring back the piece to Osiris’s pyramid alongside the others, and Osiris is revived just in time for Gargarensis’ army to arrive. He easily defeats them; preventing Gargarensis from reaching the underworld, but he manages to escape and set sail.
Due to Chiron having allied himself with Norse soldiers at conflict with Gargarensis, Arkantos deduces that Gargarensis is heading to the Norselands. He sails on the same ship as Ajax, who notices a shipwreck belonging to Odysseus on a Mediterranean island along the way. They stop at the island to investigate, and are approached by pigs behaving unusually, just before they are transformed into boars by the sorceress Circe. They explore the island and rescue more pigs, protecting them from villagers along the way. Eventually, they find a temple honoring Zeus, and they are transformed back into humans. Arkantos and Ajax build up their forces to take on Circe’s main fortress, and defeat her. They rescue and convert back the remaining pigs and Odysseus, who thanks them before going home.
===Norse Arc===
Upon setting foot in the Norselands, they find that Gargarensis has left nothing but destruction in his way. He shortly appears, and unveils his trap: an avalanche that splits the heroes. They reunite, and destroy the nearby temples summoning the attacking monsters, and head towards Midgard. On the way, they are met by Eitri and Brokk, two dwarf brothers who need help in retaking their forge that was recently seized by giants. Although Arkantos is reluctant, he learns that they can reach Midgard from the forge, and agrees to help in exchange to be guided to said location. In Midgard, they meet an old man named Skult, who claims he has a flag that can help to unite Norse clans. They escort him, barely managing to slip through a canyon of giants, and encounter three Norse clans in battle. Upon presenting the flag, they immediately turn hostile towards the heroes. Arkantos suggests to take out each of their clan leaders, and the surviving soldiers join him. He confronts Skult as to why he was attacked, before laughing and vanishing.
He is approached by Reginleif, a Valkyrie, and explains that the flag represents Folstag, a savage giant who pillages Norse villages, which is why the clans were angered. She also explains that Loki was the mastermind behind the scheme. Arkantos proceeds to unite more Norse clans by rescuing kidnapped dwarves from trolls, defending a village from giants, and rescuing a chieftain’s daughter: Greta Forkbeard. With his newly-acquired army, Arkantos takes the fight to Gargarensis’ stronghold and finds there is a Well of Urd: the passage into the underworld. Upon entering, he finds that Gargarensis is already sieging the gate. He takes his army to battle the guards around the giant ram, but reinforcements arrived and they are forced to retreat. On the way, Chiron kicks a boulder wall in the way but ends up killed, much to Arkantos’s grief.
Uncertain on what to do next, they find Brokk, who explains that he is building a new hammer for Thor, as his previous one was destroyed by Loki. They protect dwarves who are crafting a haft from a taproot, and expect to meet Eitri with the hammer head shortly. Just as the boulder wall was broken through, they are successful in building the hammer, which Thor uses to seal the gate seconds after it is opened. Arkantos and his army are sent back to the surface. He learns that Gargarensis plans to launch a counterattack to kill them once and for all. They set up a base in Draupnir, and make a final stand when Gargarensis’ army arrives. Odysseus makes a miraculous arrival with a giant army, and the tables are turned as they are successful in overpowering the enemy forces, and capture Gargarensis. Not wanting him on his soil, Arkantos orders Ajax to execute Gargarensis.
===Return to Atlantis===
During Arkantos’s journey back to Atlantis, he orders a soldier to bring Gargarensis’ head and hang from his mast. It is then revealed that the head was in fact, that of Kemsyt’s, and Loki is heard laughing. Gargarensis had in fact, left the Norselands with Kemsyt assuming his appearance as a decoy, thanks to Loki’s magic. Consequently, this bought time for Gargarensis to occupy the city of Atlantis, imprisoning their citizens. Arkantos proceeded to rescue and evacuate the citizens in pursuit of Gargarensis, who had reached the great temple. On the way, Arkantos reunites with his son and Krios after rescuing them, explaining the true reason Poseidon wanted him to fight in the Trojan War. Meanwhile, Gargarensis prays to Poseidon to help him reach the final gate, bringing a statue of Poseidon to life, which proceeds to shatter the ground, revealing the final gate underneath. Arkantos implores Ajax and Amanra to evacuate the remaining citizens, to which they reluctantly agree, leaving him to handle Gargarensis.
Realizing he was outmatched by the strength of the living statue, Arkantos proposed to build a monument to Zeus as a plea for a blessing, with the assistance of his Norse and Egyptian allies providing him with an army. After the monument was built, Zeus transformed Arkantos into a demigod, which gave him more than enough strength to take on Gargarensis’ forces and the statue. Arkantos successfully defeated the statue, much to Gargarensis’ shock, who was then impaled by the trident upon the statue’s collapse, killing him. As Arkantos fled to the beach, Poseidon destroys Atlantis out of wrath, leading to the sinking of the island. Athena finds Arkantos unconscious and grants him divine status, while his friends sailed away, unsure of his survival.
===Godhood===
Arkantos was a reluctant god who sought to observe and oppose the actions of other gods who would use their powers for malevolent and self-serving purposes. Over the next ten years, he had limited interaction with the surviving Atlanteans who struggled to rebuild Atlantis, including his son Kastor, who unknowingly became a pawn of Kronos in his new plan to escape Tartarus. Arkantos caught wind of this as the Atlanteans started to worship the Titans and attack the Olympians and their allies. Although shocked, he immediately recognized that he was being deceived.
Not wanting (or unable) to interfere directly, he warned Amanra to be prepared for an Atlantean attack, to which they were unsuccessful in preventing. Arkantos tells Amanra to meet Kastor in Greece, where she finds Ajax. After rescuing Kastor from the onslaught of the Titan Prometheus, Arkantos appears before the crew, and Kastor expresses remorse for his actions. Arkantos orders Kastor and his team to kill the lesser Titans in Egypt and the Norselands to prevent further damage.
When Kastor’s team returns to Greece, Arkantos informs them about Gaia, a benevolent Titan who is willing to assist in defeating Prometheus. Kastor is commended by Arkantos for his efforts in succeeding to defeat the lesser Titans, but Arkantos warns that Kronos remains a threat with the Atlantean army under his control. He is then finally seen after Kronos is defeated, promoting Kastor as new leader of Atlantis.
==Quotes==
==Gallery==
arkantos-1.png|Arkantos during the prologue.
arkantos-2.png|Arkantos discussing the Trojan War.
arkantos-3.png|Arkantos planning to build the Trojan Horse with his men.
arkantos-4.png|Arkantos's first encounter with Gargarensis.
arkantos-5.png|Arkantos in prison with Setna.
arkantos-6.png|Arkantos killing Kamos.
arkantos-7.png|Arkantos and Ajax being turned into pigs by Circe.
arkantos-8.png|Arkantos entering Midgard.
arkantos-9.png|Arkantos conversing with Skult.
arkantos-10.png|Arkantos before "Gargarensis" is executed.
arkantos-11.png|Arkantos after rescuing Krios and Kastor.
arkantos-12.png|Arkantos defeating the Poseidon statue.
arkantos-13.png|Arkantos being revived by Athena to godhood.
arkantos-14.png|Arkantos's first appearance in The New Atlantis.
arkantos-15.png|Arkantos setting Kastor on the right path.
arkantos-16.png|Arkantos promoting Kastor as new Atlantean leader.
==External Links==
*Arkantos on the Age of Empires Wiki
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