Apollo

Son of Zeus, brother of Artemis, Apollo is defined by his youth — vigorous, active, ambitious. Like his sister, he wields the bow and arrow with deadly accuracy, and where his arrow lands plague fells those mortals who have displeased him — but when called upon to heal, Apollo’s powers are no less great, and he exchanges his deadly bow for a lyre, his favored instrument of all in the musical realm (of which he is also the primary patron among the Theoi). More than any of the Theoi, Apollo is given to prophecy, inspiring a kind of controlled madness in mortal seers and priestesses — many of the most famous oracles in the ancient World served him.

Unlike the other Theoi, Apollo took on no new name among Romans — tradition holds that they were consulting his oracle at Delphi as far back as the kings of distant antiquity, who were overthrown in favor of the republic that collapsed into empire.

It is Apollo’s way to kill from afar; mortals have learned well from the young God, pleasing him little. The modern World teems with means of dealing death from a great distance, from cruise missiles to tailored pathogens. Little angers Apollo more than the idea of biological warfare, for he sees it as hubristic intrusion upon his domain and has been known to punish mortals for it — perhaps this, more than anything else, has kept it from ever being used on a large scale. The World has given him one thing to be glad for, though — far more music, and of a greater diversity, is being created than ever before in human history, and Apollo is in the thick of it. One of the easiest ways to get his attention is to invoke him following a really amazing guitar solo.