So I've been having a lot of thoughts about HoO characters that I'm never going to get around to Actually Writing, so here we go:
The 7 demigods of prophecy being an uneven mix of Greek and Roman annoyed me, so here we have:
Greek: Percy, Annabeth, Piper
Roman: Jason, Hazel, Frank
His character arc is him unknowingly becoming a god, slowly drifting away from the mortal perspective, burning up his mortality faster and faster, sacrificing the last of it to strike the finishing blow to Gaea.
Keeps the Achilles Curse and we get to see it acting as a curse, how it cripples his stamina outside of active combat with adrenaline to keep him going. Needs so much more sleep and food, but while on the streets takes ambrosia/nectar to keep awake and moving. Amounts that would kill any other demigod, that he would never take if he had his memories.
Starts ending fights faster becauase he can't afford to draw them out with talking or negotiation, so falls into lethal intensity survival mode very quickly.
Arrives at Camp Jupiter earlier (timelines are messy anyways, but he should spend more time at Camp Jupiter before the Quest). I just want actual description of the bathhouse, the infrastructure, the routines and attitudes. I want to know what makes the Greeks and Romans different!
Goes by Perseus, because that's what monsters and gods know him as. Also for fun omens about being The Destroyer.
Camp Jupiter assumes they're being tested at first, but then assume that he's a god made mortal so Reyna claims his service for the Legion. She sends him on the Quest under Frank as his Task.
Becaue he's Greek, a very powerful unknown demigod older than the usual initiative and unknowingly becoming a god, he's uncomfortable with the crowds of Roman demigods and legacies, so spends a lot of time in the Temples and quiet places talking to naiads and fawns. Put into trainign as a priest for Neptune, to appease the god and keep Percy out of the way. Builds the understanding of Octavian's huge political power as Augur.
The Powerless Demigod, the Strategist.
The only one without a clearly divine power, but she's spent her life training to make up the difference. Athena Cabin pours over battle plans and mythology books, anything to get an edge. She doesn't get magic weaving powers, but they all learn and practise weaving to honour their Mother's domain. Big ephasis in Athena Cabin of Athena always being the best and the wisest and Right and that whould never be questioned (which drove initial conflict with Percy in first series over parent's rivalry). Put a lot of stock in making Athena proud of her.
Character arc: after being disowned, forced onto a suicide quest that's killed countless siblings before her while on a world-saving deadlined Great Prophecy Quest, with her only magic support disenchanted... Annabeth becomes disillusioned with Athena as a goddess and a mother (because love and respect are earned, not entitled by blood... and with the example of Sally during interactions while searcing for Percy...). She disavows herself as a Child of Athena.
After Gaea: maybe she becomes a priestess to Percy after designing him a temple. Joins Jason as architect to his Potifex Maximus duties, eventually made Immortal as Architect of Olympus (because there's no way she finished redesigning Olympus in the months between the Titan War ending and Percy disappearing).
Tartarus: during the fall, she blindly sews together some of Arachne's tapasteries in the pitch blakcness to make them a parachute to halp survive the landing.
Maybe she never got taken to Camp, maybe she did and immediately ran away from it that night or the next day rather than stay at the Hermes Distaster Relief Shelter Cabin. Either way, she gets picked up by the Titan Army cause. People who help her, train her, sympathise with feeling abandoned by the gods to the mercy of monsters. They don't have much, but they're fighting for a better world. They're family. Then things start to change; Luke becomes more Kronos and demigods start to go missing, some on Missions, some to shadowy corners and the satisfied grins of the monsters who were also angry at the gods and should be their allies. Maybe she even met Selena a few times for Charmspeak training and listened to her sister share her worries and doubts about the Cause... then the Princess Andromeda blows up and she realises the other side are aiming to kill opposing demigods just the same as monsters. She'll find no mercy with them or their gods. She runs before the Battle of Manhattan.
In Lost Hero, she doesn't get immediately Claimed at Camp and knows exactly why. While no one is looking, sacrifices something precious to her to Aphrodite, one of two metal WonderWoman-style bracelets/cuffs, the first and only gift from Silena. She is very, very afraid of the gods.
Character alteration: Janis type Mean Girl. She puts on a defensive mask of snide nastiness, learned for the cameras and honed under the expectations of the Aphrodite Child stereotype. Knows how to act and use body language to sell a lie as well as Charm. Runs cons with Leo as the face of the opperation, uses perfumes to hide their demigod scents.
Arc: learning to let down her walls and trust the team to have her back. Also, an earned (on both sides) reconicilliation with Aphrodite.
Embodies Aphrodite Areia, the war aspect of her mother's domain. Uses a spear and wears her cabin's enchanted pink armour. Maybe she also gets Katoptris, but parallels of Selena by training with Clarisse with a spear. Received enchated metal bracelets (Wonder Woman style), pink from Aphrodite cabin secret technique for enchanting protections on it. Learns to fight with her remaining one as a small, localised shield.
Abilities: Charmspeak, empath & emotional manipulation, voice mimicry and minor visual shapeshifting ability (ie. also noted in Silena) for physical features (semi-involuntary with emotional surges, anger makes her teeth sharpen and nails grow points etc.). Innate sailing affinity as part of Aphrodite's ocean heritage, a way to connect with Percy.
A messy mix of feral wolf and absolute rule stickler. Was raised by Lupa and then learned how to be in human society through the Legion, through the lense of that being human pack dynamics. Human: polite, controlled, often wearing a small smile with no teeth, opperates by strict rules with Reyna offering the more flexible alernative. More than a bit OCD.
Puts the expectations of others above his personal desires and is pushed to be a puppet of the gods. Hera's Champion, Eagle Child of the God King Jupiter, Wolf Cub of Lupa (claimed as her child like Romulus and Remus, calls her mother). Blesing of Lupa gives him slightly pointed ears and teeth.
Appearance: platinum blonde hair that's almost like white lightning, electric blue eyes that glow when using powers, always carries glasses in a special armoured case and is farsighted (because he focuses too much on the bigger picture to see the immediate),
Arc: learning to live life outside of the rulebook. Letting out more wolfish behaviour and being comfortable in himself.
Conflict with Percy as caught between human knowledge of 'powerful stranger of a foreign pantheon' as a threat to protect the Pack against... and wolf instinct subconsciously recognising Baby God with Roman conditioning to kneel in deference.
She came back to life, but spent decades dead and in Asphodel, so different from two-second deaths of Gwen and Jason. Hazel is a dead soul in a living body.
Physical: cold to the touch and always absolutely silent. Someone next to her hears her take a breath before speaking and is unsettled to realise they heard it because it's almost like he wan't breathing before (she was, but less than a normal human and completely inaudibly). She watches others with an like a owl-like unblinking stillness, a dark form with glowing eyes like an inverse of her father's sacred barn owl. I kind of also want her skin to be cracked through with veins of immortal gold, because her body was remade to return to life, not just resiscitated, so she would have early practice with manipulating the Mist to look normal.
Emotional: Quiet and kind but ruthless, strongly justice-oriented. Visciousness is its own mercy, especially in combat. Makes a judgement and cannot be swayed from her ruling, but is fair in learning all the contextual information before making decisions about people. A step out of rhythm with the rest of the living.
Hazel's Curse: Thanatos' chains are made out of Stygian Iron and Stygian Ice (frozen Styx water), which tries to rip her dead soul from her living body, freezes her hand to the chain. Frank sacrifices some of his life to her (via stick) to melt her hand off the chain, lighting up her gold-veins with blinding light and breaking her Curse (I just want them holding hands and glowing the gold of gods, this couple of a mortal and a ghost).
Abilities: Pluto domains over earth riches, death and agriculture. Cannon abilities, but after SoN wears cuff bracelets inlaid with gem shards that she can pull out and whip around like a deadly ribbon of shrapnel. Being semi/formerly dead, Hazel has a heightened sense for living things, extending to something agricultural (idk, but would be useful against Gaea, yeah?).
Weapon: Scythe, weapon of Proserpina (Persephony) and death connotations. Would just be cool to have her on Arion with a scythe like a golden Grim Reaper and it diversifies the weapons in the 7.
Frank is a 4th gen Legacy whose paternal Great Grandfather was a demigod son of Mars, but also secretly Legacy of Neptune by his ancestor marrying Neptune-demigod Shen Lun. Each generation has strived to earn patronage of Mars, but the blessings passed by blood have gotten weaker every generation, indicating losing divine favour. Family blames it on the dishonour of Shen Lun and his Neptune-blood sullying the bloodline.
Frank is essentially mortal, but high social class from heritage of Mars-bloodline-favour and lineage service to Legion.
He can't have any amborsia or nectar, but can carefully use the Roman alternative cures like unicorn draught.
Frank has been trained since childhood to be able to keep up with first-gen demigods in combat and uphold (secretly, to regain) the honour of Mars to the Legion. Would not be an outcast if he wasn't friends with Hazel, but he chose friendship with her over social standing/reputation.
Ended up in 5th Cohort through Octavian's machinations to 'improve the cohort standard', actually a subtle blackmail message that he knows about the fading Favour.
The stick: since Shen Lun (and his dishonourable Legion discharge), every member of his line has been born with one. Using the shapeshifting ability directly correlates to it 'burning' by dissolving in golden light. It also turns strands of hair white like the effect of holding the Sky.
There's not enough divinity in his body to handle the power in his blood. Every use kills him a little bit more, but is it dishonourable to prioritise selfish survival over the safety of his comrades? The survival of the Quest?
The Fading Spirit, the Healer.
Leo is a daimon (immortal spirit with power varying from satyr to minor god like Thanatos), a rustic fire spirit called a Dactyl (insert dinosaur jokes here). Predate satyrs and oreads, male counterpart to Hekaterides and often conflated with Kouretes. Species has almost entirely Faded into extinction.
Dactyls are ancient smiths and healing magicians, mostly associated with Hephaestus like satyrs are with Dionysus, but some individuals with others (like Paionios with Asclepius) always in a supporting role. Children of Anchiale, titanness of the warming heat of fire.
Over the centuries, he quietly protects demigods, finding them and leading them to a satyr/camp. Due to Fading, a lot of memories are hazy, difficutly monitoring the flow of time.
Pretends to be a demigod, disguised by Piper's perfume from Coach Hedge, after praying to Hephaeustus gets Claimed by him as a patron. Leo is Sammy and knew Hazel, protected her from monsters, left Alaska after her death, still has the diamond she gave him.
Abilities: metalworking, fire, maths, cannon abilities, healing and wild dancing.
Role: support role and essentially non-combatant, as no natural fighting ability/instinct like demigods. Engineer on the Argo II and team healer
Calypso: Leo has a lot of life experience all around the world, remebers Olympus being in different places and can catch her up of the world she's missed. By the end of the Quest, Leo is no longer in danger of Fading, Calypso is still immortal and their being together is a more equal deal.
List of Immortals by the end of the series:
Percy (god), Annabeth (similar to Ariadne), Leo (daimon, but partnering with Calypso would become more level with minor god than satyr).
Other characters: Calypso, Grover (Lord of the Wild), Thalia (Huntress), Tyson, Bob and Damasen eventually.
Possibly Hazel and Frank, acting as soul guides/ psychopomps, otherwise Elysium. Possibly Jason for services as Pontifex Maximus in reviving belief of minor and/or Fading gods and daimons, but he'd probably prefer going to Elysium than staying with the Gods forever. Piper... I can't think of a significant divine link, so probably to Elysium. The immortal among the 7 would visit the Underworld souls, of course.
Romans: Become more inclusive, social development. Opening to trade with Greeks and through them also the Egyptians etc.
Greeks: Become more stablished, societal development. Colonize Ogygia (Calypso tethered it to Long Island) as a safe haven to live in full-time, start building a full Greek society.
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