Melinöe
I call upon Melinoe, saffron-cloaked nymph of the earth,
whom revered Persephone bore by the mouth of the Kokytos river
upon the sacred bed of Kronian Zeus.
In the guise of Plouton Zeus tricked Persephone and through wiley plots bedded her;
a two-bodied specter sprang forth from Persephone's fury.
This specter drives mortals to madness with her airy apparitions
as she appears in weird shapes and strange forms,
now plain to the eye, now shadowy, now shining in the darkness—
all this in unnerving attacks in the gloom of night.
O goddess, O queen of those below, I beseech you
to banish the soul's frenzy to the ends of the earth,
show to the initiates a kindly and holy face.Hymn to Melinöe, Translated by A. Athanassakis & B.Wolkow
Goddess of Madness & Nightmares, a chthonic deity some think of as an alternate name for Hecate, while others see her as part of the Erinyes. She is neither. Melinöe is far worse.
Meant to be a psychopomp for the recently deceased, Melinöe instead twisted into the terrifying and insanity inducing scourge of the slumbering mortals who paid her no homage.
Divine Domains
Madness.
Nightmare.
Artifacts
Oily black smoke.
Tenets of Faith
One does not worship Melinöe unless they are already insane or on the way to utter madness. One placates this goddess. Leaves offerings to avoid her.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
Spread madness among the living and create chaos & frenzy across Midgard & Olympus.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
The eye catches when seeing Melinöe, one moment shadow the other an emaciated skeleton of a woman, then a whole woman, the next weird shapes and strange forms.
Body Features
The shadow and the smoke of an ever shifting form.
Facial Features
When one does see a glimpse of Melinöe's true form, it unsettles and horrifies.
Special abilities
The penchant for causing madness & insanity.
The ability to give nightmares.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
While in the Orphic tradition, Melinöe is the child of a disguised Zeus and Persephone Kore Chthonia, this is incorrect. The true parentage of Persephone's daughter is a mystery. What we do know to be true is this:
One of the deities from another Realm used trickster magic to pretend to be Persephone's beloved husband Hades Pluto Chthon. After the ruse was revealed, Melinöe was thoroughly along the way. Upon her birth she was tossed into the river Styx, where Styx (a Titaness as well as a river) plucked the goddess up as per prior discussion and took her to the banks of Acheron. One of the strangest adoption stories in the history of the Realms.
There, Melinöe immediately took to the depraved and nightmarish goal of spreading madness and frenzy.
She is not a goddess to be trifled with, and spreads her madness to the living with the aid of shades who did not cross over soon enough on Charon's boat. At one point, Melinöe became aware of Daedalus's sons Leander and Icarus Areides among said Shades, and devised a special afterlife for the drowned boys.
Finally succumbing to her service, Icarus and Leander became the builders and orchestrators of nightmares, perpetually hidden from outside glares or godly stares by a jealous and maniacal desire to keep the brothers for herself.
Needless to say, somehow the possession slipped, Daedalus became aware and he used the luck of Athene Minerva Olympia and Persephone Kore Chthonia's high stakes card game to connive the shades of his sons away from the Underworld and out of the grasp of Madness' Maker.
Gender Identity
Female.
Sexuality
As the stuff of madness and nightmares, I guarantee you do not want to know.
Education
The dead were her teachers, the living her study and test.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Spreading madness, terror and the horrors of nightmares.
Morality & Philosophy
Depraved.
The Cuckoo's Daughter
Divine Classification
God
Current Status
Spreading Madness & Nightmares
Current Location
Species
Ethnicity
Realm
Children
Pronouns
She/Her
Sex
Female
Gender
Woman
Presentation
Feminine
Eyes
Black
Hair
Black
Ruled Locations
Comments