*i made a little aesthetic for hades*
Hades, AKA my absolute favourite Olympian/Greek God. When they divided territories, he got the short end of the stick, and ended up with the Underworld as his domain, and although dark and gloomy, he eventually grew to love it.
Hades was God of the Underworld, the Dead and Wealth. Notice how I said the Dead, because he is not the God of Death. That is a common misconception, many people think that Hades is the God of Death, but he is not, that role goes to Thanatos, son of Nyx.
Hades was the first son of Kronos and Rhea, and so was the eldest of the three brothers, but he came out of Kronos last, so he was considered the youngest.
The Cyclops' fashioned a helmet for him, and this helmet was called the Cap of Hades or the Helm of Hades. It has the power to turn him invisible, and send terror towards whoever he wanted.
Hades never had a seat at the Olympian Council, at first it was because Zeus said people would be scared of him, and that he should just stay in his home in the Underworld. But eventually, Hades grew bitter, and he didn't even want the seat anymore, nor did he want to leave his home. He liked it, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life there, avoiding his family, Olympus and the outside world basically.
But let's talk about the Underworld; it would eventually be renamed into 'Hades' after it's ruler. The Underworld had been around for way longer than Hades had been alive, and it was originally named Erebus, named after the primordial of Darkness.
Five rivers flowed in the Underworld;
1. Cocytus: this was known as the least dangerous of the 5, and was the River of Wailing. It was dark blue, and if you got close, you could hear the wailing of tortured souls in it. It was fed by the tears of the damned, so touching it was not advised, simply being near it would send you into the worst depression ever
2. Phlegethon: this was the River of Fire. It ran through the Underworld filling the air with smoke and fumes until it dropped into Tartarus. Touching it would not kill you, even if you were mortal. It was designed to keep it's victims alive so that they suffered forever.
3. Acheron: this was the River of Pain. It starts off in the mortal world near a temple of the dead in Epirus, then it ran until it dropped into Erebus, and there it split into two rivers; Cocytus and Styx.
4. Lethe: this is the one river that looks harmless, but actually isn't. The Lethe is known as the River of Forgetfulness. It's a soft milky-white, and while it might look harmless, one drop would wipe your short-term memory. Drinking a full mouth-full of swimming in it would erase everything from your mind.
5. Styx: the worst and most famous river in the Underworld. The River of Hate, the Styx. It flowed through the deepest, darkest parts of the Underworld, and it circles Erebus completely, so to enter, you pretty much HAVE to cross it. It was dark, and corrosive to mortals
There were four parts to the Underworld after one crosses the river Styx.
1. Fields of Punishment: these fields are for those who have committed crimes, and this is where they are assigned their punishment that they must do for all eternity.
2. Fields of Asphodel: these are for those who did no good and did no bad, they just were there- grey. So they just wander these fields, no pain and no memory of anything.
3. Elysium: this is where the good people go, this is where they can continously relive their life, and every time it gets better, but they have no memory of their life before going to Elysium. If Elysium got boring, they could drink from the Lethe and be reborn into a mortal life.
4. Isle of Blest: if the person has lived three lives, and in each life was granted access to Elysium, they get to go somewhere even better; the isle of blest.