Monsters & Characters from Greek Mythology
Races and Random
Monsters/Creatures
Horse body with torso and upper half of a human.
Centaurs are often ill temptered savages.
Chiron is the most famous Centaur (and a good guy). He was immortal and known for his wisdom.
He was Achilles’s mentor and appears in other stories.
Hercules accidentally kills him.
Centaurs
GIANTSGiants: Huge, savage
men/women. In the battle between the
giants and the gods, Hercules played a huge part in defending Olympus.
Pan – Fauns/SatyrsGoat legs with upper
half of a human.Live in the woods.Merry folk, play
music on pipes, etc.PAN is the most
famous – he is Hermes’s son.
Head and wings of an eagle, body of a lion.
Griffin
Pegasus: Winged horse born from the blood of Medusa when Perseus killed Medusa.
Perseus did NOT get Pegasus.
Bellerophon did.Eventually, Bellerophon
tried to fly to Olympus, but Zeus struck him down.
After that, Pegasus went to Zeus’s stables.
Pegasus
Pegasus
Has three heads: lion, goat, and dragon, and its body is a combination of those three animals/beasts. It can breath fire.
Chimaera
Killed by the hero Bellerophon who rode on the winged horse, Pegasus. He stuffs lead into its mouth which melts so it suffocates.
Chimaera
Medusa & Gorgons
Medusa and Gorgons: Snake-like women who could turn someone to stone if they made eye-contact.
Perseus kills them, decapitates Medusa, and keeps her head (even though Medusa was dead, eye-contact could still turn someone to stone).
Medusa
Sphinx: head and chest of a woman, body of a lion, and wings like a bird.
Hera sent it to plague
Thebes. It asked a riddle of all who wanted into the city and it ate all those who answered incorrectly. Oedipus answered correctly and then the Sphinx killed itself.
Sphinx
The Riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?
Sphinx
HarpiesHarpies were originally said to be half-woman, half-bird, but in later stories are horrifying winged monsters.
The MinotaurMinotaur: Half man,
half bull. See story of Theseus!
The Stories of Hercules
Nemean Lion
Nemean Lion: A huge lion that cannot be harmed.
Hercules strangles it, then uses its own claws to cut it and skin it.
He then wears its hide as a souvenir.
3 headed dog. Threshold guardian of the Underworld.
CerberusHercules takes him prisoner, but then returns him later.
A nine headed serpent. When Hercules cut off a head, two grew in its place. His cousin helped out by using a torch to sear the necks closed after Hercules cut the heads off. Hercules then used the Hydra's blood to make his arrows poisonous.
Hydra
The Odyssey
The Cyclops are some of the oldest and most powerful monsters.
They helped Zeus and co. defeat Cronus.
The most famous is Polyphemus, who appears in the Odyssesy = Odysseus blinds him so some of the crew can escape.
Cyclops
A witch who can turn men into animals. She encounters Odysseus who is immune thanks to an antidote Hermes gave him. She then fell in love with Odysseus.
Circe – the Witch
Syclla & Charybdis
Scylla is a six-headed sea monster that lives in a strait near a whirlpool called Charybdis. We see them in The Odyssey.
CalypsoA sea goddess who keeps Odysseus prisoner/as her lover for several years. She loves him, but eventually lets him go.
The Sirens were sea nymphs who sang beautiful songs, luring sailors/ships to the rocky shores where the boats crashed and men drowned.Odysseus has his crew put wax in their ears.
The Sirens