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