Zeus

Zeus was an interloper deity of the sky who originated from another plane of existence and was the head of the Olympian pantheon. There was no evidence that this deity was directly worshiped in the Realms.

Description
His avatar typically took the form of a robust male human with regal bearing, dressed in a white tunic. He had white hair and a full, long white beard, and stood  tall. His avatar was not seen to wear armor, for he disdained it.

Possessions
Zeus possessed an +5 enchanted shield known as Aegis, made from a goatskin with golden fleece, that depicted the head of a beautiful medusa. It had a chance to induce a fear effect upon those who gazed upon it and at his command it could act as a cloak of displacement. He sometimes loaned Aegis to the Olympian goddess Athena or to favored mortals.

History
Zeus was among the first six Olympians, born to the Greater Titan Cronus. After a curse was placed upon him by his mother Gaea, swearing that one day his children would usurp him as he had done to his father before him, Cronus proceeded to swallow each of his first five children  as they were born. These first five children were Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon. On their sixth child, Cronus's wife Rhea tricked him into instead swallowing a stone in swaddling clothes, thus allowing Gaea to smuggle away the one who would later be known as Zeus and leave him in the care of nymphs. When he reached adulthood Zeus disguised himself as a cupbearer of Cronus and gave him a potion that induced him into vomiting up his five siblings. Zeus then led his siblings in a united effort to overthrow their despotic father and waging war upon the rest of the Greater Titans. A few Greater Titans allied with them in this war, such as Prometheus, and thus were spared the fate of their fellows.

After this war concluded, Zeus drew lots with his brothers Hades and Poseidon to determine which of them would govern the portfolios of sky, the sea, and death. He ultimately became the lord of the upper air and general ruler of the Olympians.

In the years that followed Prometheus deceived him on multiple occasions. One such incident involved him mentioning a prophecy he foresaw, one in which Zeus mated with a woman who would bear a son that surpassed him. Zeus would try pry the specifics of this prophesy from him by many means, but ultimately nothing worked.

The final straw for Zeus was when Prometheus circumvented a prohibition he made of bestowing fire upon their pantheon's worshipers by stealing it from the sun. For this Zeus had him chained to a mountaintop, the summit of the colossal Mount Aetna in their home plane of Olympus, with magical chains that were virtually impossible to break unless Zeus willed it.

History of Affairs
Following her divorce from his brother Poseidon, Zeus's wedded his sister Demeter and bore the goddess Persephone. This child would later be abducted into the Underworld by their brother Hades, after Zeus gave him permission to marry her without Demeter's knowledge.

Some time after this they parted ways and Zeus married his sister Hera, who bore him the deity Ares. Zeus then went on to have many affairs while married to her that bore more members of their pantheon. With the Greater Titan Leto he had the twins Apollo and Artemis. With a minor goddess by the name of Maia he had the son Hermes. With a mortal named Semele he had the son Dionysus.

At some point Hera found out about these and many other affairs he was having and so in retaliation created Hephaestus wholly from her body. When Zeus discovered this he was enraged at her insolence and hurled Hephaestus down on to the Prime Material plane. Some time later Zeus would reconcile with him and make Hephaestus a welcomed member of the Olympian pantheon.

Some time after this he mated with a woman named Metis. After being told a prophecy that she would bear a son who'd kill him, Zeus went on to follow the example of his father and swallowed her. This eventually led him to develop a horrible headache, which Hephaestus sought to relieve by splitting Zeus's head open with an axe, from which the Olympian goddess Athena emerged.

He was also alleged to have bore the Olympian Pan to an unnamed woman, but this was only of three alleged origins for that deity.

Relationships
Out of all his children Zeus doted upon Athena and Dionysus, much to Hera's chagrin in the latter case as she viewed that deity as a reminder of Zeus's many affairs.

Worshipers
The priests of his faith typically wielded spears as weapons. Their priestly vestments and holy relics incorporated his favored animals or plants. They had access to spells from the animal, combat, divination, elemental, healing, protection, and weather spheres. They particularly had access to the spells lightning bolt and polymorph self.

He was worshiped by members of the Fraternity of Order and Sign of One.

In Greatspace he was worshiped as the crystal sphere's creator, whose inhabitants believed they were created by him to be his most highly prized worshipers after he grew tired of the petty actions of his mortal followers in some other sphere.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dead Gods
 * Card Games
 * Blood Wars
 * Blood Wars