Name: Thanatos Erebus.
Suggested Occupations: Fixer for Khton Corporate.
Age: 32.
Gender & Pronouns: Demi-man, he/they.
FC Suggestion: Christian Yu.
Can be seen: Flicking a knife through his fingers, perched on Elysium’s rooftops with Zagreus, disappearing into an unmarked aircraft, writing coded texts to Hades, relaxing between missions in Hypnos’ lab, stalking the decks of Pontius, exiting rooms that were surely empty, cleaning up others' messes, restoring balance, coming to collect.
Influence ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Charisma ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Protection ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Information ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Experience ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
There are many born in Taratrus who dwell in death - but there are a precious handful who can claim to know its language. Through the past decades I’ve watched Tartarus' children wrestle with the question of mortality, and saw how they grow up twisted and thorny in death’s constant shadow. In all that time, I've only borne witness to a few who could make death into a tool, a way to further their means. Perhaps the best of these is Thanatos.
If Thanatos had parents, I never saw them. He might have been born starving and thrashing from the aqueducts themselves. All we know for certain is this: one frozen night, Nyx discovered the wisp of a boy wandering through the catacombs. He was a nameless thing, wild with some unspoken history that bit at his ankles. Nyx had to show him a life beyond the depths, rather than through them. I doubt she ever imagined he would amount to more than a lost soul. But he did, and he followed her with a fierce, bone-bent devotion.
I do believe Thanatos never ceased seeing her as the righteous hand that guided the darkness - but he understood Tartarus is more than meets the eye, and that sentiment is no placeholder for truth. Perhaps he understood too much. Growing up, I watched him study the realm’s complexities, writing them down in some silent chronicle of his own. How in Tartarus currency could supersede glamour, power, even love. How it was a world that rebelled against Gaia, yet depended on it to survive. How it had rewritten the lines of history, and created neither void nor utopia, but a mechanical microcosm where everything has its price.
In the world of Hades, all things are bartered. For the topsiders and tourists flocking to Elysium, this price is usually coin: thin chips exchanged for gleaming black purses, the heavy wheat-gleam of the obol. Sometimes it meant stories, secrets, door left unlocked. I imagine Thanatos realized he would be a fixer early on, for there was no other name for what he wanted to do - and nowhere he could put his brilliant mind to work. I think he gave up too soon. He went into this life as a foregone conclusion, a matter of duty and debt. He could’ve followed Hypnos into a simpler future, or even settled with Achilles’ guard. There might’ve been other alleys, even in Tartarus; there might’ve been other lives.
I doubt Thanatos enjoys the killing. I doubt he enjoys the degrees of violence - cold, lukewarm, searing - his position often requires. But I do think he savors the puzzle. The smallest joints in human nature - the longing and the needing, the mistakes made once, and twice, and once again - are only keys. And Thanatos can use them. When there are places neither brilliance nor subterfuge can reach, he retorts to the diplomacy of the knife. And everyone who’s had the honour - and the horror - of seeing his work agrees. Never since the days of the Pithias, that mob of killers, have efficiency and brutality gone together.
These days, his missions often take him beyond Tartarus, chasing new traitors and old ghosts. He may not agree with Hades’ decisions at times: like punishing Eurydice, rather than putting the blame on someone else; like letting Sisyphus walk free. (And don’t even mention Theseus). But he follows the orders, as that boy in the catacombs once followed Nyx’s life. One does not ask the knife why it commits its gruesome work; neither does the knife question why it is a knife. By blood or by coin, Thanatos ensures the House’s clients pay... and its enemies serve as example. But enemies and friends are hard to tell apart - now most of all. What if someone close falls short of Hades’ mercy? I fear what will happen when his loyalty clashes with his soul. So far, no one in Tartarus emerged with both unscathed.
Familial connections: Nyx (mentor, the backbone of Tartarus). Hypnos (family forged by choice, fiercely protective, endlessly exasperated).
Professional connections: Hades (employer & overseer). Charon (direct superior, dispatches him to collect the skulls... proverbially). Alecto, Tisiphone & Megara (friends; coworkers, they coordinate on matters of secrets and finances). Achilles (security counterpart, mentor; amicable relations, but dislikes the mournful advice). Theseus (coworker despite common sense; sets them regular traps to keep them alert). Mino (coworker; though technically under Achilles’ command, he uses him for some dispatches).
Social connections: Dusa (Asphodel member, unlikely but strong friendship). Eurydice (Asphodel member, easiest person to talk to about... things). Orpheus (former Asphodel member; considers activating them as a spy... mostly just likes their album). Sisyphus (traitor, undercover target on Pontius; possible assassination mark). Zagreus (that’s just... Zagreus).
