Cerberus: the multi-headed hounds of Hades

The Cerberi were a race of fierce multi-headed hounds, most of them bred as the beasts of Hades and loosed to guard the Underworld. Kratos crossed paths with them again and again across his long road, from the breeders that haunted Pandora's Temple to the monstrous Mole Cerberus that had swallowed Jason whole.

Hounds of the Underworld#

The Cerberi were a beast race of multi-headed hounds, fierce and dangerous, most of which were kept as the hounds of Hades and set to guard the gates and depths of the Underworld. Not all answered to the lord of the dead, however, for some lived on their own in the wild, as did those that prowled the Island of Creation. The race was not a single creature but a kindred of several distinct kinds, varying in size, color, and power.

Among the most common were the Cerberus Breeders and the smaller Cerberus Mongrels. The Breeders laid down Cerberus Seeds, which would swiftly mature into more Breeders if left alone too long, so that a single beast could give rise to a whole pack. The Mongrels, smaller and weaker, could be beaten into submission and turned against their own masters.

The many kinds#

Kratos encountered the Cerberi across much of his life. The guardians of Pandora's Temple were Breeders and their Seeds, multiplying as he fought through their ranks. On the Island of Creation he met more of the same protecting the Sisters of Fate, and there too he faced a singular white horned beast, the Wild Cerberus, whose three heads bore horns and whose maw breathed flame. It set upon him alongside a pack of rabid hounds before he tore its heads from its body one by one.

In the deeper realms he met the Hades Cerberus, far larger and stronger than the rest, its hide cracked and glowing like magma. Smaller one-headed hellhounds of the same stock ranged across Olympus itself. The brothers Deimos and Kratos also met the beasts in their youth, encountering a Cerberus in the Veiled Bog as they searched for Vasilis.

The Mole Cerberus#

The strangest of all the Cerberi was the Mole Cerberus, an enormous beast that made its lair in the Bog of the Forgotten. It had laid waste to the Argonauts and had killed and swallowed their leader Jason, who bore upon him the Golden Fleece. Kratos hunted the creature down and slew it, cutting the Golden Fleece free from within the dead beast and claiming it for his own.