Beautiful Death

This week, I've been working on character sheets. To be honest, I hadn't done much work on Hades; even less on Charon. BD is Isabella's story and I spent the most time understanding her. But I sat down this holiday and began filling in some of the blanks for Hades. Immediately, I realized I needed to know more about where he came from prior to the story.

I also decided this week to concentrate more on the non-romance, non-erotic elements of my stories. I like the way the relationships are unfolding in this story so far, so I'm not monkeying with that. But I do want to strengthen the plot and worldbuilding of BD to make this more than a simple erotic story.

Since I'm using Greek mythology as the basis for BD, I wanted something focused and related strongly to my existing framework. I decided to use an enemy of Greece. I googled ancient Athens, read about the rise and fall of the City State, and found--

Macedon. Hade's world.
Thrace. Macedon's enemy, Charon's world. Known as barbarians, fierce fighters who preferred rural settings in the forests of their land, the Thracians were conquered by Philip II of Macedon. Later Philip took over Greece, too.

So guess what Hades' name was before he came to Earth? Philip. [Most people took new "Greek" names when the Olympian Cities were formed. e.g. Isabella Zeller became Isabella Thanatos. Dr. Richard Zeller became Zeus. Amelia Zeller became Persephone.]

I knew I wanted the leader of Macedon to be a woman. Now Philip had many wives, but one of his "worst mistakes" according to one site was marriage to a fellow Macedonian, Cleopatra. She became my Megaskyr, a term meaning "Great Lord." I also knew I wanted a rival for Hades, someone who conspired to get him sent to Earth, and later exiled him there to keep him out of the political picture of Macedon. Enter Pausanias, the man who assassinated Philip II.

Cool, huh? Or maybe I'm just a geek.

Most of this is stuff that is important but not immediately in BD. I need to know where he came from, why he left, why he might have wanted to go back, why he's with Charon, how their bond formed, etc. so I can flesh out the conflicts in BD in second+ draft(s). This is still Isabella's story, but now I can add more depth with Hades and Charon.