Thanatos

**Thanatos** (*Θάνατο*) is the god and personification of death, son of Nyx, twin brother of Hypnos. Depending on the source he may only be responsible for overseeing peaceful deaths while the Keres oversee violent deaths. Surviving art from the period depicts him as a clean-shaven and beautiful young man, usually with a sword and wings. No epithets he may have once had have been recorded but symbols associated with him include the character theta, poppy flowers, butterflies, swords, and inverted torches.

Thanatos is present wherever his purview demands he be in some way. He can be present and conscious in multiple places for work as long as Thanatos Prime could be there — thus him needing Ares to bail him out of Sisyphuys trapping him in Tartarus.

In later periods the sheer volume of work and span of time has scattered him; he's still doing what he's always done but he's no longer conscious of it all because he can't process all of it. He still exists in a quasi-omnipresent state but he only properly manifests as Thanatos Prime. He still does all the work but he's no longer able to observe or remember the things that he does as non-Prime Thanatoi.

To an extent I think his slumber between time periods has more to do with finally working himself to exhaustion than anything else, and he stays asleep for so long because all of the non-Prime Thanatoi are still doing all the work while Thanatos Prime rests.

## Titanomachy

**Thanatos** is a workaholic psychopomp. It's hard to have a work-life balance when one is the embodiment of an abstract concept. Always on call. Never at rest. It's worse when the relationships to those who pass for peers are mostly mutual animosity. There's a few to like better: mom, dad, dear brother, the one who bailed you out of a jam even if it was really just because he was bored.

There's a lot more to like worse: most of what passes for peers are afraid even if they're forever out of reach, and their simpering bastards receive special treatment and are plucked away as well. One of those in particular is irksome; there's only been two that have ever truly stopped the work, and one of them was him. The other's serving an eternal sentence to hard and pointless labor. Funny what Olympian demigods can get away with that would damn even the children of their lesser counterparts.

But the work requires professionalism, so those old hatreds and concerns are put aside during working hours: every hour of every day. Death comes to each mortal impersonally, because he is the work and the work is him. There is little that is personal in what he does, just business.

Except for those close to the one that stopped him. He visits friends of Heracles with a smile. After all, being married to the job doesn't mean it has to be as loveless as most other divine marriages; sometimes even Death must enjoy himself.

## Sun Court

**Dieudonné de Morvan** is an aristocratic cavalry officer from a middling noble family. He's just important enough to belong but just invisible enough to be beneath the notice of much of the court.

## Roaring 20s

**Mortimer Tod** is a bootlegger and contract killer. **Mortal Identity:** Mortimer Tod, a bootlegger and contract killer. subtlety is dead and he killed it because he goes by Mortimer Tod, even if the surname isn't pronounced in quite the same way as the German "tod." When he's not doing his real work he monetizes his hobbies by bootlegging for hire and contract killing among the City's criminal enterprises.

## Notable Appearances in Myths

* **Sisyphus** - The king of Korinth tricked Thanatos into his chains in the Underworld in his first act in defiance of his impending doom. This had the side effect of stopping everyone from dying until Ares got bored and came to bail Thanatos out of the jam he'd gotten into. After being brought back to the underworld and persuading Persephone to return to his wife because he had not had a proper funeral, he was finally forcefully brought to Tartarus by Hermes.
* **Alcestis** - In the course of his Twelve Labors, Heracles stopped over in Pherai to catch up with fellow Argonaut King Admetos. Admetos had been suffering a lethal illness, but convinced the Moirae to allow a willing volunteer to take his place; the only person willing to die for him was his wife, Alcestis. While staying with Admetos, Heracles waited for Thanatos to appear and claim Alcestis in order to challenge him for the queen's survival. Following a wrestling bout in which the demigod proved triumphant, Thanatos retreated and both royals of Pherai were granted a new lease on life.

## Locations

### Titanomachy Locations

* **The Underworld** is where the soul goes, brought by psychopomps after your death. It is a large place, one of darkness made for the dead, where the soul is judged and accounts are settled. Five rivers wind through the realm: Styx, where Charon ferries the souls across; Acheron, the river of misery; Pyriphlegethon, the river of blazing fire, leading into the depths of Tartarus; Cocytus, the river of wailing; and Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.

### Roaring 20s Locations

* **Mortimer's Apartment** Mortimer's second floor apartment is small but well appointed, and certainly reflects its tenant. The decor was about one World War out of date with a preference for art nouveau over the rising art deco — the iron sculpture of a skeleton in the corner seemed particularly out of time. There are only two armchairs in the smallish sitting room, but an entire wall in his kitchen is devoted to a monster of a stove. The dry bar in the sitting room looks like it had been made in a set with the icebox in the kitchen, both oak-paneled.

There's a single bedroom, and rest assured - he skimped on central heating.

* **The Docks** are where goods and people come in and out of the City. A number of characters work and live here so tread carefully, lest you end up in their territory.

1. ↑ Wikipedia - Thanatos [1]
2. ↑ Theoi - Wikipedia [2]
3. ↑ Discord - Investigating Mortimer Tod [3]
4. ↑ Discord - A Cold Winter's Night in St. Petersburg [4]
5. ↑ Wikipedia - Greek underworld [5]