Fun fact for Theros: in MTG lore past the book, it’s actually Heliod who’s the butthole bad guy, who kills his champion because she was too awesome… so she came back from the dead to whoop his ass, and he gets Atlas’d by erebos for a while. Subversion!
That alone is the perfect example of how fragile Heliod's ego is... his champion, Elspeth, was killed for being a Planeswalker, not due to how powerfull they can be, but because she could travel to other planes outside of Theros, something Heliod is incapable off and saw as a Threat, wich is similar as to why he despises Kruphix... the main diference here is that Heliod could kill Elspeth, but he cannot even harm or even bother Kruphix in the first place.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned: the gods were created by mortals in Theros. The lore holds that Nyx mingles with the dreams and beliefs of those who live beneath it, and it brings them to life, sometimes imbuing them with divine power. There was a satyr who figured this out and became a god after convincing enough folks to believe in him. It’s also implied that Nyx itself may have a will of its own, therefore making it the only true divinity of the Theros setting.
The deal with as you say it ‘mommy goddesses with thick thighs’ being fertility goddesses is because they tend to be related to anything about new life and fertility so growing food, spring, child birthing, etc are all under their domain
Yeah. Modern society has “empowered” women. But part of that has resulted in masculinization of our understanding of women’s power. Which misses what the power has been in mythology. Children. New life itself. Renewal. First fruit. It’s a whole other kind of power. As potent and necessary as power comes. I feel like one ought know men cannot but participate in the endeavor. Come from the endeavor. They cannot control it though.
@@chickenmonger123 I understand you put the word perception in there, deliberately, but I want to lead off a clarification for the benefit of others who read this. It's much less that power held by prominent women is masculine, but that most of world culture regards feminity as weak and ignorant. And the reigns of power have been held by men for so long, that our societies don't have another frame of reference. Patriarchal thinking has so thoroughly eliminated the concept of non-male representation, in the existing halls of power, that women who get involved in everything from chambers of commerce to congress, can easily see the old boy's networks and the big signs saying no girls allowed. It's not formalized in most systems of law-anymore, at least-but the social norms created, under the masculine first and only doctrines, has left women struggling to redefine what feminine power looks like, and everyone else rejecting it every step of the way. The other part, of what you said, that I find interesting is the scare quotes around the word empowered. Yes, women eventually got certain types of parity with men (e.g. voting, bank accounts, credit scores, being just by their gd selves in rare moments), but those things might still be an issue in certain parts of the world, and even in patches of rural space in developed parts of the world as well. And the primary thing that's caused women to seek professional work isn't just because they can; to use the US as an example: here it's because the single mean income-even if we leave the gender pay gap out of the conversation-isn't enough to live on virtually anywhere. Most adults in a 2 parent household HAVE to work in order to meet their own needs, and the needs of their dependents. The primary reason women have any work rights in the US, as anemic as they are, is because we couldn't have an ultrarich caste and maintain a single worker in virtually every household. At the same times that momentus legislation made room for women, black folks, the disabled, and all the other minorities that have received a modicum of legal protections, the rich were speaking into the ears and pockets of politicians to make it happen as well. To them, liberating half of the population means 200% more workers and consumers to exploit for profit. I'm not saying that women wouldn't have created something like capitalism had they had a say in the conversations that birthed it; I'm just saying that our economic systems might not have stalled, or even had the opportunity to grind to a gd standstill, over the last 50 years. It's an idea worth pondering as we untie our ideas of power and masculinity to allow for expressions from the entire spectrum.
@@chickenmonger123 Men can absolutely participate in having children, what are you talking about? There were plenty of male fertility gods in mythology, like Sobak (Called "Lord of semen") Dispater (Literally: father of bounty), Dagon, Priapus, Pan, Min, Cernunnos, etc...
« He’s Hades but with Money. » Gonna be that guy for a sec : ACTUALLY, Hades was also the god of riches as all precious metal and rocks are coming from underground... so, he was definitely the most loaded lol
@@loop1789 Underworld gods scared the shit out of the Greek, Pluto is just a surname (between MANY) for Hadès because saying a god's name attract their attention, and like I Say, Underground gods are Scary as fuck
It should be noted that Heliod is the main or secondary bad guy in all the Theros stories and card sets. He even gets Compleated in March of the Machines.
6:35 the reason they're "still doing that" is because the lore for this book is coming from an entirely different writing team who actually don't stop creating it. Even if, like maybe sometimes they should have. Hope you like what happened to heliod recently.
To be fair, the race he criticized most recently for being a 3 sentences on a sticky note was also from that same writing team (or at least the minds behind it).
the CR's they give are bad anyways just as the DMbbump up the damage or health/give it some extra legendary actions or some friends and itll be plenty hard
The typhons of Theros aren't the godkiller of myth, that role goes to the Titans who don't even have a statblock. You could argue that WotC should have given a better name to what is essentially Theros' Pit Fiends but eh
I ran a theros campaign where heliod finally snapped and killed erebos once and for all. The party had to a) find a replacement for erebos, and b) kill heliod who had gone mad with power. They had to find elspeth in elysium to get the shadowspear and make heliod mortal so they could kill him. One player became the new God of light and another became the new God of death. It was a blast
I have no dog in this race....but I think you and Jacob should advertise each other's products by pretending to roast it like you did in this video. I think it'd be a pretty funny running joke
He was upset that a mortal was trying to become a God. When his champion killed said new god, he gave her a spear! A really nice spear! Literally his Divine Weapon! It was stabbed into her gut, by the way. He killed her.
I know you mainly do offical settings and such, but I personally would love to see you do a video about a 3rd party setting. Like Humblewood, or maybe even that new book "Delver's Guide to Beastworld"
1:47 I say, sir! HOW DARE YOU! Sinbad was my jam! Edit: Also, in some stories (namely Percy Jackson) Hades is portrayed as the god of wealth as well as death, so Erebos, turns out, really is _just_ Hades.
Now I won't let you disrespect Ephara like that, the lady squared up against a invasion and the fellow gods, she almost made me consider putting blue on a deck.
One tiny tidbit a lot of people miss: the plane name Theros is a portmanteau of "The Heros", being _the_ plane of Heroes. Some _very_ important notes on Kruphix and Klothys: they are siblings and are the two oldest Gods; and being the oldest gods that were created when Nyx itself was, means they are actually disconnected from the reliance on mortal belief that all other Theros Gods need to exist and grow stronger. Basically, if a Theros God loses all their followers, they will cease to exist and the plane will then retroactively erase all memories of that God ever having existed, except these two. In fact, Klothys was in the underworld jailing the Titans for so long that no mortals had any memory or records of her existence, but she still survived and is still one of the strongest. And Kruphix knew about other planes and the multiverse and such even before the New Phyrexian invasion. Also, Ephara got a huge roll in said invasion, since she is also the god of shelter, so when people's friends and family and even their own Gods got compleated, they turned to Ephara for protection. Kruphix is also neat because Theros is physically a discworld with a literal Edge of the World you can fall off, and Kruphix's temples are, being the god of horizons, typically right on that edge of the world. Keranos isn't really a dick, he's more the god of inspiration. "Getting a jolt of inspiration" or "struck by inspiration, as though by lightning" type of thing. Pharika is more self-perpetuating than you'd think since, even though she's the god of medicine, she isn't really balanced between that and poison. She's a lot more poison and only a little medicine really. Heliod's the biggest dick of the lot though. He has the biggest ego, and wants to kill anything that could potentially threaten his self-proclaimed position as top God. So when he found out the truth about his champion Elspeth - that she was a planeswalker that could travel to other worlds, while he could not - he felt so threatened that he stole her spear-sword and killed her with it himself. He also hated Erebos because earlier in that story, Elspeth had to travel to the Underworld (a mortal going there without dying is only allowed by undertaking a terrible trial by one of the Gods to gain a favor), and instead of taking the free win and boosting Heliod's power (Elspeth was becoming very well known to all mortals of Theros) she instead took Erebos' trial and passed it even though Erebos' was arguably the hardest possible one for her to pick.
I had a character who was from a tribe that worshipped both Iroas and Mogis who are both war domain - they were once seperate tribes but then they joined each other because they realized that as Therosians living in The Forgotten Realms, they should stick together so they could survive in The Backlands of The Savage Frontier. Anyways, he was a joke character who pretended to be human when in reality his mom wad a minotaur and his dad was a centaur.
"He's Hades but with money". Dude Hades owns basically anything that's far enough underground. He rules the entire Underworld not just the place where dead people go. As far as I know the greek underworld is a place you can physicaly go to it's not a different dimension. And it includes all the riches that exist under the earth. The realm of Hades is like the underdark if you replace the drow, deep gnomes etc. with dead people. Hades is loaded.
I love Theros, it's easily the most compatible MTG setting for D&D that they released. Greek mythology (well at least heavily inspired by it) is also just a nice flavour to have for D&D. There's also a third party campaign module called Odyssey of the Dragon Lords that's also based on Greek mythos as well that's pretty cool.
"Hades but with money" is funny to me, cause Hades actually *was* the god of wealth in the ancient Greek religion. The land of the dead was thought to be deep underground but they also associated the underground with gems and precious metals, so that was a big part of Hades' authority as well.
6:46 It was not until this moment (Banishing stone, or something like that, a card I personally use from the Theros sets) that I realized that this was an MTG lore video
Poor Hades. Dude got turned into a stand in for Satan, as well as being made envious of Zeus for ruling Olympus and the skies, when he was originally perfectly fine with ruling the underworld as everyone would eventually be his subject. Poseidon was the envious prick, who constantly interfered with Zeus plans.
Erebos: "He's Hades but with money"... Dude, Hades didn't just rule over the afterlife. He ruled over everything that was under the ground. So basically every gold nugget, every precious gem, every silver vein that wasn't dug up by mortals belonged to him. Hades was by far the wealthiest mofo in the whole greek pantheon.
I swear things being even Greek adjacent suddenly makes everyone hornier... like I think this is the first time Runesmith has been this thirsty in a main video.
This seems like Theros is basically the sandbox lord of D&D as its literally "make up whatever drama you want for the players to have to solve. There are tons of options because there are 15 gods stirring up *&^%*&^ against each other all the freaking time." And the best part is it all feels like high stakes stuff because its literally the gods ordering you to do stuff.
Erebos and Pharika are my favorites for a couple different reasons. Erebos is like Hades in that he manages the dead as a divine duty that needs to be done. Also Hades himself is pretty dang wealthy, he owns everything that's underground including the valuable minerals and ores. Pharika is an interesting dichotomy of both healing cures and baleful poisons as well as snakes. I like snakes and think them being mixed in this way is neat. She encourages both healing and harm for the sake of knowledge of the world's many secrets. I wanna play a devotee of hers whose out to learn the ultimate poison as well as it's cure.
Hades does have money, he defended the right of the dead to due burial. Hades was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals. Basically, if it’s in the ground - it’s his
I literally searched "basically theros" yesterday to see if runesmith had already done a video on this... and i was bummed out he hadn't. then he fucking did it. Im manifesting this shit. gonna go search for other shit i want
Ephara the God of the Polis and Beating Ass! In MTG so far we've seen her kill Cacophony, the newborn God of Cities, and beat a corrupted version of Erebos. When all the mono-colored gods got corrupted, died or ran away she endured!
I fucking love Theros, since I'm a huge Greek myth nerd. Still looking for a story I want to tell so I can run a campaign there one day, but I don't want to just do one of the classic myths, with or without subversions.
As a guy who RELIGIOUSLY loves Theros and has the book and the mtg cards, lemme tell you, The more you learn about Klothys and Kruphix, the more you gotta love 'em. They don't require mortal worship and are the original gods of the plane of Theros. Kruphix holds dominion over ALL other gods by closing their effects on the mortal realm... and this is by default. Mortal belief doesn't do jack shit against this god. They're the STRONGEST beings on the planes outside of planeswalkers.
I picked up the Akadia sourcebook a couple years back, which is basically a bunch of classes, spells, monsters, etc, based on Greek mythology. Not sure why they didn't just use the greek names for everything. Just about everything in the book was reskinned/renamed. I'm pretty sure Zues doesn't litigate copywrite infringement.
I never got to finish this but there was a person in theros' lore named Agnomakhos who was called the Tyrant. Since this is apart of the lore and he was basically a demi-god I was planning on doing an Oblivion sort of thing where people are actively trying to summon him to Theros. That was my party but they didn't realize it, either because of Deus Ex Machina style charms or they never looked into what they were doing but really I was forcing them to do it in a way. We never finished the campaign but basically the players would summon Agnomakhos by unsealing him throughout the world as he was sealed in multiple places. The would have been some epic fight where players had to choose if they fought with Agnomakhos or against him. We never got that far so I dont know what they would have done.
Dmed once a Captain in Theros and to be honest it was very interesting making heliod in to the evil Gut and showing how Bad True Order can be BY THE WAY interesting idea for a Final villain in theros, someone who angered the gods and Mate To Suffer for eternity, Then escaped and now hunts gods
Random Trivia No One Asked For - 5:26 - The reason we associate thick-thighed women as goddesses of nature and fertility comes from cultures like Greece, Scandinavia, and the Celts. They held the belief that Spring was the time of rebirth, so therefore women, who are the epitome of creation and life, who carry the wombs of the Earth, should be the goddesses that connect them to the season. So when Spring comes around, goddesses like Ostara (Eostre), Demeter, Persephone (Kore), Isis, Renenutet and Freya (Frigga) appear to literally give birth to the cold, harsh lands of winter. In order to hold so much birthing power, they had to be built for that purpose, to represent the strength and power of the world they create - thicccc.
Great video! Any chance you could do one on the Returned while you are doing Theros races? They may not be a playable "race" but I think they'd be interesting to talk about.
I saw a video from like 4 months ago where you asked for ideas. I think you should do summaries of Non WOTC 5e books. Start with your own and then branch out and give us the gist of all these third party awesome books.
No Xenagos or mention that Phynax used to be mortal but ascended to godhood by doing a big prank? Also, while the gods like to mess with mortals, Thassa REALLY likes to. Check out the flavor text mentioning her and even the merfolk who live in the sea WITH HER pray to her for safe travels because she fucks with anything and everything that passes by, even her own worshippers, to remind them who's boss. There's also this hilarious one where it mentions the gods CAN issue a summons or telepathically tell you their message but Thassa CHOOSES to create a swarm of hands in the water and drag your ass all the way to her without a word of warning. The lady's crazy.
Fun fact for Theros: in MTG lore past the book, it’s actually Heliod who’s the butthole bad guy, who kills his champion because she was too awesome… so she came back from the dead to whoop his ass, and he gets Atlas’d by erebos for a while. Subversion!
It's one of the reason I raised an eyebrow at some of the god alignment in theros. Heliod ain't a LG but he sure Mono-White lol
He also gets turned into a phyrexian and then gets killed
@@TheLoraxshadenough Kek.
@@TheLoraxshadenough Was he only got this happenned to or did they get some others?
That alone is the perfect example of how fragile Heliod's ego is... his champion, Elspeth, was killed for being a Planeswalker, not due to how powerfull they can be, but because she could travel to other planes outside of Theros, something Heliod is incapable off and saw as a Threat, wich is similar as to why he despises Kruphix... the main diference here is that Heliod could kill Elspeth, but he cannot even harm or even bother Kruphix in the first place.
"sinbad, that one movie no one remembers."
and that's another knife in my soul. thank you for that
I kinda liked the DreamWorks adaptation.
That was heresy of the highest order, that's my second favorite movie
(After Road to El Dorado)
@@mimicmey YESSSSSZ
He's not wrong though 🤷♂️
Dreamworks Animation hits different
One thing that wasn’t mentioned: the gods were created by mortals in Theros. The lore holds that Nyx mingles with the dreams and beliefs of those who live beneath it, and it brings them to life, sometimes imbuing them with divine power. There was a satyr who figured this out and became a god after convincing enough folks to believe in him.
It’s also implied that Nyx itself may have a will of its own, therefore making it the only true divinity of the Theros setting.
Neat, the Kuo-Toa would have a a blast there hehehe
Kua toa that shows up to Theros could probably beat all the gods
Or get overwhelmed by the rapid rate of godlings they create.
And the main 15 would probably be like "HEY! HEY! What are you little turds DOING?!"
"This is OUR turf! Giddout!"
yup, kinda wish the theros book mentioned xenagos, love that guy
The deal with as you say it ‘mommy goddesses with thick thighs’ being fertility goddesses is because they tend to be related to anything about new life and fertility so growing food, spring, child birthing, etc are all under their domain
Yeah. Modern society has “empowered” women. But part of that has resulted in masculinization of our understanding of women’s power. Which misses what the power has been in mythology. Children. New life itself. Renewal. First fruit. It’s a whole other kind of power. As potent and necessary as power comes. I feel like one ought know men cannot but participate in the endeavor. Come from the endeavor. They cannot control it though.
Also cities of feminazys
@@chickenmonger123 I understand you put the word perception in there, deliberately, but I want to lead off a clarification for the benefit of others who read this.
It's much less that power held by prominent women is masculine, but that most of world culture regards feminity as weak and ignorant. And the reigns of power have been held by men for so long, that our societies don't have another frame of reference.
Patriarchal thinking has so thoroughly eliminated the concept of non-male representation, in the existing halls of power, that women who get involved in everything from chambers of commerce to congress, can easily see the old boy's networks and the big signs saying no girls allowed. It's not formalized in most systems of law-anymore, at least-but the social norms created, under the masculine first and only doctrines, has left women struggling to redefine what feminine power looks like, and everyone else rejecting it every step of the way.
The other part, of what you said, that I find interesting is the scare quotes around the word empowered. Yes, women eventually got certain types of parity with men (e.g. voting, bank accounts, credit scores, being just by their gd selves in rare moments), but those things might still be an issue in certain parts of the world, and even in patches of rural space in developed parts of the world as well. And the primary thing that's caused women to seek professional work isn't just because they can; to use the US as an example: here it's because the single mean income-even if we leave the gender pay gap out of the conversation-isn't enough to live on virtually anywhere. Most adults in a 2 parent household HAVE to work in order to meet their own needs, and the needs of their dependents.
The primary reason women have any work rights in the US, as anemic as they are, is because we couldn't have an ultrarich caste and maintain a single worker in virtually every household. At the same times that momentus legislation made room for women, black folks, the disabled, and all the other minorities that have received a modicum of legal protections, the rich were speaking into the ears and pockets of politicians to make it happen as well. To them, liberating half of the population means 200% more workers and consumers to exploit for profit.
I'm not saying that women wouldn't have created something like capitalism had they had a say in the conversations that birthed it; I'm just saying that our economic systems might not have stalled, or even had the opportunity to grind to a gd standstill, over the last 50 years. It's an idea worth pondering as we untie our ideas of power and masculinity to allow for expressions from the entire spectrum.
@@chickenmonger123 Men can absolutely participate in having children, what are you talking about? There were plenty of male fertility gods in mythology, like Sobak (Called "Lord of semen") Dispater (Literally: father of bounty), Dagon, Priapus, Pan, Min, Cernunnos, etc...
@@chickenmonger123 This reads like a political take.
« He’s Hades but with Money. »
Gonna be that guy for a sec : ACTUALLY, Hades was also the god of riches as all precious metal and rocks are coming from underground... so, he was definitely the most loaded lol
It was more Pluto nah? Idk if for Greeks the guy was already the richest 🤓
@@loop1789 eh if I remember correctly one of Hades’ epithets was Pluton which means “he who brings wealth”
@@loop1789 Underworld gods scared the shit out of the Greek, Pluto is just a surname (between MANY) for Hadès because saying a god's name attract their attention, and like I Say, Underground gods are Scary as fuck
You don't know about the pax deorum do you?
No, the name Pluto comes from the Greek title for hades, Pluoton, wealthy
It should be noted that Heliod is the main or secondary bad guy in all the Theros stories and card sets. He even gets Compleated in March of the Machines.
In the Battle that turns into the blue white law lady one, it's implied that the 5 base colours got Compleated.
@@VulcanHeStan I came to say this. But also Ephara's got something similar to greek fire apparently.
He also gets killed by Kaya unceremoniously in a single paragraph during the wrap-up
YEEEESSSSS FINALLY AFTER ALL THIS TIME, THANK YOU!!! I am, indeed, very happy. I can rest in peace
Too bad the rest of us are haunted by the ghost of Ferrus Mannus...
Good job bro !
Good for you bro this was great
GET HIM. BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HIM.
6:35
the reason they're "still doing that" is because the lore for this book is coming from an entirely different writing team who actually don't stop creating it.
Even if, like
maybe sometimes they should have.
Hope you like what happened to heliod recently.
Wouldn't wish it on most people
That fucker specifically however...
To be fair, the race he criticized most recently for being a 3 sentences on a sticky note was also from that same writing team (or at least the minds behind it).
I’m a big fan of Heliod’s Compleation personally
Khm, Khm, Waar of the Sparks novels khm, khm
I wish Typhon was a far higher CR make it feel like a real god killer like thr myth
True
the CR's they give are bad anyways just as the DMbbump up the damage or health/give it some extra legendary actions or some friends and itll be plenty hard
I wish CR was better. A Rakshasa will unmake a full party of casters but gets cut like rice paper in front of the signature anime character.
The typhons of Theros aren't the godkiller of myth, that role goes to the Titans who don't even have a statblock. You could argue that WotC should have given a better name to what is essentially Theros' Pit Fiends but eh
Solution: make the number bigger
I ran a theros campaign where heliod finally snapped and killed erebos once and for all. The party had to a) find a replacement for erebos, and b) kill heliod who had gone mad with power. They had to find elspeth in elysium to get the shadowspear and make heliod mortal so they could kill him. One player became the new God of light and another became the new God of death. It was a blast
Man I hope no multiversal shenanigans kill any of these cool gods
To shreds, you say.
shenanigans of the multivers you say intresting way to kill a god
I have no dog in this race....but I think you and Jacob should advertise each other's products by pretending to roast it like you did in this video. I think it'd be a pretty funny running joke
Fav aesthetic of the plane, those born of Nyx don't show shadows on their bodies. They essentially show windows to the swirling night sky.
This is one of my favorite crossover settings! Gods are exciting and have presence
heliod seems like a decent and trustworthy guy, bet he gives you all kinds of rewards if you do quests for him
He was upset that a mortal was trying to become a God. When his champion killed said new god, he gave her a spear! A really nice spear! Literally his Divine Weapon!
It was stabbed into her gut, by the way. He killed her.
I know you mainly do offical settings and such, but I personally would love to see you do a video about a 3rd party setting. Like Humblewood, or maybe even that new book "Delver's Guide to Beastworld"
1:47
I say, sir! HOW DARE YOU!
Sinbad was my jam!
Edit: Also, in some stories (namely Percy Jackson) Hades is portrayed as the god of wealth as well as death, so Erebos, turns out, really is _just_ Hades.
In Greek Myth Hades is already the god of wealth.
@@jackyoh971 i believe that's more Pluto, the romanized version of Hades.
@@ez_theta_z9317 Nope the Greek version was already the god of wealth.
He was god of the underworld so god of the mines (Gold silver etc...)
@@jackyoh971 aight, fair enough. seems i misremembered my myths
Another amazing banger of a video, just in time for me to kill some time after work
Kruphix drempt of another plane and took a rock from it that he liked, he is the coolest god of Theros
Phenax is actually really cool. To sum his lore up, he was a normal dude who escaped the underworld and became a god.
Now I won't let you disrespect Ephara like that, the lady squared up against a invasion and the fellow gods, she almost made me consider putting blue on a deck.
One tiny tidbit a lot of people miss: the plane name Theros is a portmanteau of "The Heros", being _the_ plane of Heroes.
Some _very_ important notes on Kruphix and Klothys: they are siblings and are the two oldest Gods; and being the oldest gods that were created when Nyx itself was, means they are actually disconnected from the reliance on mortal belief that all other Theros Gods need to exist and grow stronger.
Basically, if a Theros God loses all their followers, they will cease to exist and the plane will then retroactively erase all memories of that God ever having existed, except these two. In fact, Klothys was in the underworld jailing the Titans for so long that no mortals had any memory or records of her existence, but she still survived and is still one of the strongest. And Kruphix knew about other planes and the multiverse and such even before the New Phyrexian invasion.
Also, Ephara got a huge roll in said invasion, since she is also the god of shelter, so when people's friends and family and even their own Gods got compleated, they turned to Ephara for protection.
Kruphix is also neat because Theros is physically a discworld with a literal Edge of the World you can fall off, and Kruphix's temples are, being the god of horizons, typically right on that edge of the world.
Keranos isn't really a dick, he's more the god of inspiration. "Getting a jolt of inspiration" or "struck by inspiration, as though by lightning" type of thing.
Pharika is more self-perpetuating than you'd think since, even though she's the god of medicine, she isn't really balanced between that and poison. She's a lot more poison and only a little medicine really.
Heliod's the biggest dick of the lot though. He has the biggest ego, and wants to kill anything that could potentially threaten his self-proclaimed position as top God. So when he found out the truth about his champion Elspeth - that she was a planeswalker that could travel to other worlds, while he could not - he felt so threatened that he stole her spear-sword and killed her with it himself. He also hated Erebos because earlier in that story, Elspeth had to travel to the Underworld (a mortal going there without dying is only allowed by undertaking a terrible trial by one of the Gods to gain a favor), and instead of taking the free win and boosting Heliod's power (Elspeth was becoming very well known to all mortals of Theros) she instead took Erebos' trial and passed it even though Erebos' was arguably the hardest possible one for her to pick.
oh my god perfect timing, i just decided to start running a theros campaign and was having trouble explaining all this to my players
I had a character who was from a tribe that worshipped both Iroas and Mogis who are both war domain - they were once seperate tribes but then they joined each other because they realized that as Therosians living in The Forgotten Realms, they should stick together so they could survive in The Backlands of The Savage Frontier.
Anyways, he was a joke character who pretended to be human when in reality his mom wad a minotaur and his dad was a centaur.
Runesmiths videos are basically a good time. 😌👌
Sinbad was my favorite Pixar movie as a kid, I would watch it on VHS every other day
"He's Hades but with money". Dude Hades owns basically anything that's far enough underground. He rules the entire Underworld not just the place where dead people go. As far as I know the greek underworld is a place you can physicaly go to it's not a different dimension. And it includes all the riches that exist under the earth. The realm of Hades is like the underdark if you replace the drow, deep gnomes etc. with dead people. Hades is loaded.
I love Theros, it's easily the most compatible MTG setting for D&D that they released. Greek mythology (well at least heavily inspired by it) is also just a nice flavour to have for D&D.
There's also a third party campaign module called Odyssey of the Dragon Lords that's also based on Greek mythos as well that's pretty cool.
"Hades but with money" is funny to me, cause Hades actually *was* the god of wealth in the ancient Greek religion. The land of the dead was thought to be deep underground but they also associated the underground with gems and precious metals, so that was a big part of Hades' authority as well.
"-and Sinbad, that movie nobody remembers." *holds up DVD of Sinbad* How dare you?
Literally just started up a Theros campaign, so now I expect a video on each of the races.
I think it would be funny to have Nicol Bolas or something turn Heliod into a god-eternal.
6:46 It was not until this moment (Banishing stone, or something like that, a card I personally use from the Theros sets) that I realized that this was an MTG lore video
This was a bad time to make a Theros video, now that Heliod is canonically dead.
But that's the best time, since Heliod was the biggest dick of the lot.
Still waiting for major historical events to end in my country to get those wooden dice, a plush and a book of taverns from you Logan.
Poor Hades. Dude got turned into a stand in for Satan, as well as being made envious of Zeus for ruling Olympus and the skies, when he was originally perfectly fine with ruling the underworld as everyone would eventually be his subject. Poseidon was the envious prick, who constantly interfered with Zeus plans.
Shout-out to Ephara for being an absolute boss in the latest Magic set.
Erebos: "He's Hades but with money"...
Dude, Hades didn't just rule over the afterlife. He ruled over everything that was under the ground. So basically every gold nugget, every precious gem, every silver vein that wasn't dug up by mortals belonged to him. Hades was by far the wealthiest mofo in the whole greek pantheon.
Can't wait for Basically Ravenloft (Would love to see recognition for my personal favourite setting that we barely get anything about)
I swear things being even Greek adjacent suddenly makes everyone hornier... like I think this is the first time Runesmith has been this thirsty in a main video.
This seems like Theros is basically the sandbox lord of D&D as its literally "make up whatever drama you want for the players to have to solve. There are tons of options because there are 15 gods stirring up *&^%*&^ against each other all the freaking time." And the best part is it all feels like high stakes stuff because its literally the gods ordering you to do stuff.
Erebos and Pharika are my favorites for a couple different reasons. Erebos is like Hades in that he manages the dead as a divine duty that needs to be done. Also Hades himself is pretty dang wealthy, he owns everything that's underground including the valuable minerals and ores.
Pharika is an interesting dichotomy of both healing cures and baleful poisons as well as snakes. I like snakes and think them being mixed in this way is neat. She encourages both healing and harm for the sake of knowledge of the world's many secrets. I wanna play a devotee of hers whose out to learn the ultimate poison as well as it's cure.
Duck you dude! I love that Sinbad film. Have you even seen the bonus Cyclops island mini episode.
Had to pause it so I could laugh my ass off when Arin’s video game boy sound bit came on. That shit never gets old.
Hades does have money, he defended the right of the dead to due burial. Hades was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals. Basically, if it’s in the ground - it’s his
Man, this Heliod guy seems very cool! I will now see what he's up to in the current Magic: the Gathering story- OH GOOD HEAVENS
I don't think those heavens are doing very good at all, actually.
Yeah, he seems a bit strange... it's probably nothing.
@@Ritokure More of those strange gods... it's probably nothing.
Getting a grumps reference anywhere else on the internet always throws me for a loop.
I love that I recognized the source of the portal at 7:08 because I'd rewatched that episode today. Classy!
I love Sinbad that was probably what influenced my interest in mythology
Fun thing with the Leonin, they are basically Theros's Roman tribes of ancient Greece.
Thassa and nylea are my favorites and your descriptions where on point ;)
I literally searched "basically theros" yesterday to see if runesmith had already done a video on this... and i was bummed out he hadn't. then he fucking did it. Im manifesting this shit. gonna go search for other shit i want
One of my favorite cards was printed there, love the lore there!
Also rip heliod, the phyrexians got him.
You should do a “Basically Leonin” video, after all, you did cover both the Gnolls and the Tabaxi
Ephara the God of the Polis and Beating Ass! In MTG so far we've seen her kill Cacophony, the newborn God of Cities, and beat a corrupted version of Erebos. When all the mono-colored gods got corrupted, died or ran away she endured!
I fucking love Theros, since I'm a huge Greek myth nerd. Still looking for a story I want to tell so I can run a campaign there one day, but I don't want to just do one of the classic myths, with or without subversions.
As a guy who RELIGIOUSLY loves Theros and has the book and the mtg cards, lemme tell you,
The more you learn about Klothys and Kruphix, the more you gotta love 'em. They don't require mortal worship and are the original gods of the plane of Theros. Kruphix holds dominion over ALL other gods by closing their effects on the mortal realm... and this is by default. Mortal belief doesn't do jack shit against this god. They're the STRONGEST beings on the planes outside of planeswalkers.
3:00 honestly reminds me more of the triple faced goddess, Hecate.
1:46 I remember Sinbad. I remember it fondly.
Iroas and Mogi as half half of each other, but they're both half bull and half human
This feels very Warhammer actually 😳
damn, that's crazy bro, Purphoros has a blimp on a stick.
I picked up the Akadia sourcebook a couple years back, which is basically a bunch of classes, spells, monsters, etc, based on Greek mythology. Not sure why they didn't just use the greek names for everything. Just about everything in the book was reskinned/renamed. I'm pretty sure Zues doesn't litigate copywrite infringement.
You answered your own question. With these fancy new names Wizards can litigate for infringements.
I was not expecting Arin "The Videogame Boy" Hanson to show up!
I wonder what a return to Theros would look like. since they went through some things recently and 10 to 13 of the gods are gone.
Could break out the rest of the titans.
@@GiftOfKnowledge-np9vg they could bring out the other two. If Klothys let the others out to fight phyrexians.
Using Arin "the video game boy" Hanson sample in your DnD video about an MtG world is tight.
Babe wake up new Runesmith vid dropped
"He's hades but with money" SOOOO hades. Or more specifically, he's Pluto
there was also another god who took the place of klothys, Xenagos the god of revels. Then he died
Purphoros : the one the other gods except Kruphix is afraid of.
Then March of the Machines happens and Phyrexians pour oil all over the pages
im gona send my players this video instead of a lore dossier when i eventually dm a theros campaign
The fact that almost nobody knows about Auroboros: Coils of the Serpent makes me feel every type of pain
I never got to finish this but there was a person in theros' lore named Agnomakhos who was called the Tyrant. Since this is apart of the lore and he was basically a demi-god I was planning on doing an Oblivion sort of thing where people are actively trying to summon him to Theros. That was my party but they didn't realize it, either because of Deus Ex Machina style charms or they never looked into what they were doing but really I was forcing them to do it in a way. We never finished the campaign but basically the players would summon Agnomakhos by unsealing him throughout the world as he was sealed in multiple places. The would have been some epic fight where players had to choose if they fought with Agnomakhos or against him. We never got that far so I dont know what they would have done.
Yooooooooooooo, I've just had my memories of the old animated Sinbad movie unlocked from my subconscious like someone just said my activation phrase.
Keranos fucks around, dishes out wisdom, refuses to elaborate, leaves.
Well thanks for putting this up and making me laugh.
Fertility gods are protrayed as fertile and are often given spring/summer vibes because Spring is when the babies happen for a lot of animals
Dmed once a Captain in Theros and to be honest it was very interesting making heliod in to the evil Gut and showing how Bad True Order can be
BY THE WAY interesting idea for a Final villain in theros, someone who angered the gods and Mate To Suffer for eternity, Then escaped and now hunts gods
Thank you for killing them with your mad ax skills. Thank you for your service
I like how he casually mentioned he killed Blaine simple during the ad segment
Honestly Heliod spends as much time as Erebos being the bad guy, if not more.
Random Trivia No One Asked For - 5:26 - The reason we associate thick-thighed women as goddesses of nature and fertility comes from cultures like Greece, Scandinavia, and the Celts. They held the belief that Spring was the time of rebirth, so therefore women, who are the epitome of creation and life, who carry the wombs of the Earth, should be the goddesses that connect them to the season. So when Spring comes around, goddesses like Ostara (Eostre), Demeter, Persephone (Kore), Isis, Renenutet and Freya (Frigga) appear to literally give birth to the cold, harsh lands of winter. In order to hold so much birthing power, they had to be built for that purpose, to represent the strength and power of the world they create - thicccc.
Great video! Any chance you could do one on the Returned while you are doing Theros races? They may not be a playable "race" but I think they'd be interesting to talk about.
"He's Hades but with money."
So... exactly like Hades, the god of the dead and riches?
Hades does have money though, it's one of his primary traits that gets forgotten
Love playing as Leonin. Please do more independent-backed settings like Sina Una.
Theros has so much fun lore and was my first MTG set and I'm super excited to see this vid!
Frickin HILARIOUS time to put this out, directly after Heliod, Thassa, Erebos, Purphuros, and Nylea all die in mtg lore
I saw a video from like 4 months ago where you asked for ideas. I think you should do summaries of Non WOTC 5e books. Start with your own and then branch out and give us the gist of all these third party awesome books.
No Xenagos or mention that Phynax used to be mortal but ascended to godhood by doing a big prank?
Also, while the gods like to mess with mortals, Thassa REALLY likes to. Check out the flavor text mentioning her and even the merfolk who live in the sea WITH HER pray to her for safe travels because she fucks with anything and everything that passes by, even her own worshippers, to remind them who's boss. There's also this hilarious one where it mentions the gods CAN issue a summons or telepathically tell you their message but Thassa CHOOSES to create a swarm of hands in the water and drag your ass all the way to her without a word of warning. The lady's crazy.
i wanna make a campaign where the party’s goal is to find the weakness and kill each individual god
Love this. I wish there were more awesome setting books like Mythic Odyssesies of theros
Long have I awaited this day. And I was not disappointed. Well done, sir. Well done
this video is nine months old now. If any infants were concived around the time it was uploaded, they've been born by now.
Main takeaway, and the only one I care to have at 4 AM, is that I too believe in aloof green huntress supremacy.
Bruh you missed the best of all the gods: xenagos God of revels. He's just here to party!!
Fun fact, in the magic the gathering story, Heliod is more of the bad guy, not Erebos and Ephara is a bad ass
This world is bascially ancient greece with slightly more original pantheon and honestly I dig it.