Pantheon: Greek
Class: God
Level: Top Tier
Lineage: Divine
Alignment: Good
Linked with: Hera, Apollo, Athene, many others
Known to the Romans as Jupiter, or sometimes Jove, Zeus was the father of all the gods on Mount Olympus, although he was not the eldest. Afraid that his sons would overthrow him, Kronos, his father, ate each of his children as they were born, and had consumed five of them before his wife, Rhea, gave him a stone shaped like an infant to eat, and spirited the baby Zeus off to Mount Ida, where he grew up, unbeknownst to his father, and later returned to defeat the rebellious Titans, oust Kronos from the throne of Olympus, and persuade his father to yield back the five children he had consumed.
Thus Zeus became leader of the gods, and with his two brothers, Hades and Poseidon, divided up the Earth between the three of them. Zeus married Metis, but under the same paranoia as Kronos, he swallowed his pregant wife before she could deliver the child that gestated in her womb. This child, however, burst forth from the very head of Zeus, and was Pallas-Athene. Next Zeus married Themis, siring Astraea and the Horae. But it was the goddess Hera that really captured his heart, and though he had to pursue her for a long time before she gave in to his advances, Zeus finally married her, and from their marriage came Hebe, Ares and Hephaestos.
Zeus did not remain faithful to her though, siring many other children, as in the case of Persephone, whom he had by Demeter; Apollo and Artemis, who were the children of Leto; Aphrodite, by Dione; the Muses, by Mnemosyne; the Charites, by Eurynome; Dionysos, of Semele; Hermes, of Maia, and Hercules, who was borne to him by Alkmene.
Having defeated the Titans, Zeus now faced a new uprising: that of the Giants, who had come into being from the blood of Uranos. Their leader was Porphyrion, who Zeus and Athene struggled against, while other gods fought others of the rebels. The mother of the Giants, Gaea, had made her sons proof against all weapons of the gods, but not by those of mortals, so Hercules was called forth, and broke their power.
When the golden ages had passed, and men struggled to overcome each other for gain, Zeus was angered, and let loose a terrible flood on the Earth, destroying everyone on it, except Deukalion and Pyrrha, whom he saved to procreate the new race.
Zeus' favourite sacrifice was a bull, and his sigils were the eagle, oak and olive.