AVERNUS

Avatar: The Godhead

INTRODUCTION

The underworld of the Greek pantheon is a dark place filled with wailing souls and marked by the eternal sounds of rivers lapping up on muddy shores. The shades of the dead here are wispy things, their extremities fading out of sight and their bodies seeming to be tatterdemalion bits of smoke and gauzy nothingness. The normal dead wail endlessly and piteously, though not loudly. They are barely existent, so they make little sound.

Hades is not kind to normal, average souls. Only those who lived existences of great heroism, creativity and excellence have any kind of solid existence here. Mediocrity is rewarded with more of the same, and the souls of the pathetic dead are themselves hardly worth considering.

THE OUTER SHORES

The River Styx separates Avernus from the World, flowing in a circle around the lands of the dead. Across the Styx, however, flows the Phlegethon, a river of dark-colored flame that burns with no fuel. In truth, it is easy to mistake them for being a single river, for no bank separates the Styx and the Phlegethon, which runs parallel to the Styx’s dark waters as they surround Avernus. Practically speaking, this results in there seeming to be two barriers between the land of men and Avernus: a river of water, then a river of fire.

The ferryman Phlegyas poles his barge across the Styx, picking up any soul that wanders the mortal side of that black river, whether they are living or dead. His duty is not to keep any soul in or out of Avernus, but merely to provide means by which they might cross.

This circle of water and fire is broken by another two rivers: the Cocytus and the Acheron. Phlegyas travels up the Cocytus, dropping his charges off on the barren lands between the Cocytus, which means “the river of wailing,” and the Acheron, which means “the river of woe.” This stretch of swampy land is haunted by the souls of the dead, waiting for Charon in his barge. According to burial customs, the dead were buried with either a coin over each eye, or a coin under the tongue, that they might pay Charon for passage into Avernus proper. Those who have no funereal coin are forced to wander the swampy lands that lie between the Cocytus and Acheron for 100 years, wailing their misery for all to hear.

All the rivers in Avernus are vast, and the land itself is quite dark. It is impossible to see very far, even through the use of supernatural means. The ferrymen of Avernus find their way through the gloom more by knowledge of where they are than by actual sight. Mortals and many Scions become lost quite easily here, and sometimes, lost souls can be found who have gone astray, floating listlessly in the river or wandering nearly blind along a marshy shore.

THE FAR SHORES

Those set onto the swampy shore of the other side of the Acheron are met first with the smell of flowers in the air — the scent of asphodels. The gloom gradually lessens, and the soul finds himself walking the Fields of Asphodel, a vast rolling plain. This plain is covered with blossoming asphodels, and there are many forms that wander its length and breadth. The souls of heroes and Scions might be found here in strong relief, appearing as they did in life, if a bit paler. About them, flitting like moths to a torch, are the souls of the unremarkable dead, those who did not bear up the Virtues of the Dodekatheon. Such souls seem wispy and tattered here, for those lacking in the excellence (the “arete”) the Greeks and Romans held in such high esteem are practically non-existent. It is easy to be overawed by the sight of the Field of Asphodel, with the tall, basalt towers of the Palace of Hades in the far distance that one does not notice the stealthy approach of Cerberus.

The terrible Hound of Hades, with its three heads, and a tail and mane made up of writhing serpents, finds all who cross the Acheron. The dead are nudged on toward the Fields of Asphodel. Those who demonstrate any hesitation to continue onward are growled at and prevented—by force, if necessary—from withdrawing back across the Acheron.

The living are warned away with a growl, their passage impeded. Cerberus does not permit the living — not even Scions of the Gods — to pass into the lands of the dead any further. Heroes in past ages have overcome Cerberus, for it is Fated that he shall impede those of living or dead nature, but not the divine. Yet—as is appropriate for the Greeks and Romans—the divine beings must prove themselves through great feats.

The heroes of the past have overcome him in a variety of ways. Where Heracles wrestled him into submission, most of those who needed to pass him found a means of lulling him into sleep. Orpheus played his fine music, relaxing the ever-vigilant hound, while Hermes caused the beast to sleep by tricking it into drinking water from Lethe. Moreover, both the Sybil of Cumae and Psyche tempted it into eating drugged honeycakes, taking advantage of the sweet tooth with which the beast seems cursed.

Woe to anyone who slays Cerberus or deals him lasting harm. Striking the beast with intent to slay, or even simply maim, invokes the wrath of Hades and his bride, who are unkind in their demeanor and will seek vengeance. There is no question that most demigod Scions can slay the hound Cerberus. Yet it’s a true test of a hero’s skill to demonstrate his ability to bypass the great beast without slaying it.

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