SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: A giant wolf and son of Loki, Fenrir was prophesied to be the murderer of Odin. Should he have carried out the act of killing the All Father, monstrous beast would have began Ragnarök, the expected apocalypse of Norse mythology. The ensuing war would have seen the death of Thor, Tyr, Freyr, Heimdallr and Loki. Fenrir would have gained little but his own death at the hands of Víðarr, a son of Odin’s. The calamity would not have left the mortal realms safe. Various natural disasters and an ultimate flood would have made sure only two lone humans would survive.

Fenrir wasn’t just the beginning of the end. Loki’s furrier child was renowned for his strength. The great wolf broke numerous bounds as he continued to grow from the daily meals at Tyr’s hand. After two failed bounds, Leyding and Dromi, Odin had the crafty dwarves complete a third fetter, Gleipnir. The Aesir promised that if a bind could hold the great wolf he’d be freed for posing no threat. To be sure Fenrir wasn’t sandbagging his effort Tyr chose to place his hand in the beast’s mouth as a pledge that he was trying his hardest. Tyr’s loss of that hand marked Fenrir’s freedom and one of the best known tales of Norse mythology. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Ne Zha, or Nezha as his name is most commonly spelled, originally came to Chinese folklore as a Taoist protection deity in Buddhist mythology. The boy was born as such after gestating in his mother for three and a half years. Upon his unusual birth his father,  a powerful military commander named Li Jing, assailed his son with his sword in fear of creating a demon. Unphased by the cut, Ne Zha sprang from the ball of flesh a boy grown, fully capable of talking and walking at birth. This would not be Li Jing’s last attempt on his son’s life.

Ne Zha is best known for his roles in the popular culture Chinese mythology of Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West. It’s not his competition and later friendship with Sun Wukong, or conquering of the sea that gave Ne Zha his identity as a protector. It’s his work against the summons of Ao Kuang for boys and girls of his home province, Chentang Pass, that the Third Lotus Prince is held in such high esteem. After hearing that his minions had been defeated, Ao Kuang arranged a meeting with his family and that of Ne Zha. The embarrassed Dragon King threatened to flood the entirety of Chentang Pass. To save his family name and the people of his hometown Ne Zha committed suicide, returning his body to his parents. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Aphrodite, by all accounts, is incredibly attractive. The Greek goddess of love, procreation, beauty and pleasure is so desirable that the rest of her pantheon feared that godly rivalries for her hand would result in war. This is despite her being born a full adult from the mutilated genitals of Uranus. Ehem. Origin aside, her beauty resulted in an arranged marriage to Hephaestus, the ugly and deformed equivalent of the Roman smith Vulcan.

Being a deity in the Greek pantheon means such a social chain as marriage wouldn’t stop her from messing around. Aphrodite had the pick of any man she desired, gods and mortals alike. The rotating consorts caused as much strife as Zeus and the other leaders likely feared. For instance, her union with the violent God of War Ares bore Phobos and Deimos, the personifications of Fear and Terror that road to battle with their father. Continue Reading

SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.

Lore: Neith is a complex goddess due to her age in ancient Egyptian mythology. An early god mentioned as far back as the First Dynasty, Neith was first known as the Goddess of War. Like the Greek Goddess of the Hunt, Artemis, Neith is routinely depicted with a bow, her weapon of choice. In later periods Neith’s name, meaning water, allowed her to take on a creationist role seeing her morph in the embodiment of primordial waters of creation. Water being highly valued and respected in Egypt. Later, her hieroglyphic use of a loom morphed the water aspects to that of one as a weaver of fates creating the world anew each day.

Not as well known to Western cultures as the likes of Ra or Anubis, Neith is the mother of the former and his brother Apep. In her later interpretation as the water goddess it was said that the “Nurse of Crocodiles” was the mother of Sobek, the father likely being Khnum, the god and source of the Nile. Continue Reading