Hades

"*For the wealth of this world and the next.*"
— Famous occult chant
**Hades** is a god or spirit prominent in the religion of the Old Ways on Aquila. As the entity associated with the Beyond as well as the riches hidden under the earth, he has long been worshiped as the patron of the dead and of material wealth in the form of gold and precious gems. He has historically been associated with the various occult sects of Aquila; in ancient times he was revered as one of the most important gods of man, guiding the ventures of the overworld's miners, merchants, and lost souls on their trek to the void. Modern religion holds him as the primary deity of the Old Ways, with cults such as the Acolytes of the Beyond devoting significant resources to complex ritual sacrifices in his name while orthodox sects such as the Templars denounce him and his minions as sowers of chaos and evil. While usually referred to as a god or god-like figure in colloquial terms, his origins are distinct from the much older descendants of Moros whose gods belong to an entirely separate religious pantheon.

The entity known today as Hades was born approximately 6,000 years prior to the founding of the Aquilan Empire in the ancient civilization of Celephais. Called *Ithax,* he was the victim of a brutal ritual sacrifice perpetrated by the Elder mage council of Celephais who were compelled by the old gods to offer up the mortal soul of one innocent child as recompense for their degenerative heresy. He was condemned to an eternity of suffering, his very being warped and twisted beyond recognition until his divine torment, combined with the collective anguish of his people, corrupted him into an entity not of the mortal world. Thereafter known only as Hades, the mages who survived his subsequent vengeance upon Celephais pledged themselves to his worship in order to quell his wrath, leaving wreaths of white roses within his tomb as assurance that his sacrifice would never be forgotten.

Over the ensuing millennia, legends of the being known as Hades diffused throughout the rest of Aquila, joining a growing mythology of dozens of spirits to whom the mortals of the world turned to in times of suffering, offering up their prayers and tributes in the hopes of divine succor. Due to the intervention of the titan Dantalion, Keeper of Precepts and traitor to the Ancient Fear, these prayers slowly began to manifest their subjects, risen up by the prayers of their most faithful supplicants whose devotion to their invisible gods would result in the first recorded applications of magick in Aquilan history. Hades was counted as arguably the most powerful of the gods from the start, with his associations towards death and wealth offering comfort to his many followers who sought prosperity both in the mortal and immortal worlds. Whether the Hades known to the world today is truly the same entity as the one created by the anguish of Ithax and Celephais, or if an entirely new spirit was risen up by the prayers of the ancient Aquilans, remains a mystery; the apotheosis of Hades nonetheless serves as a testament to the true nature of the Old Ways and magick as a whole - the tools by which the downtrodden and oppressed of the world can make their will be heard through the awesome, if destructive, manipulation of quintessence.

Presently, Hades is worshiped by cults throughout Aquila, all envisioning him with largely universal features with some notable deviations depending upon the sect. Supplicants generally offer up gifts of wine, gold coins, and jackal blood to curry his favor, which often manifests in the form of greater material fortune and strength of spirit. His worship was widespread in the pre-Imperial era when what is now the "Old Ways" was common practice among all mortals, only becoming a figure of evil in the eyes of the masses when magick was outlawed by the Mad King.