Typhon

Typhon was a Titan with power over wind and storms, the youngest child of Gaia and the only one fathered by the primordial abyss Tartarus. Known as the Father of Monsters, he challenged Zeus himself after the death of his Giant brothers and was sealed within a mountain for it. Ages later, Kratos descended into that frozen prison to claim Typhon's Bane, blinding the embittered Titan in the process.

Birth and the Father of Monsters#

Typhon was the youngest child of Gaia. After she and her Titans fell from power in the Great War, the Earth Mother conceived Typhon with her dark counterpart Tartarus, the personification of the abyss. Their only child became a mighty storm Titan of extraordinary power, rivaling and likely exceeding his elder half-brothers born of Gaia and Ouranos. He lived beneath the earth with his beloved wife, the serpent-woman Echidna, and was close to his mother and his Giant brothers. As the Father of Monsters he counted his many children as his family and loved them dearly, among them the Nemean Lion and the Hydra.

The challenge to Zeus#

Gaia's designs against the Olympians were not finished, and at her urging the Giants waged war on Olympus, ending in failure and their death at the hand of Zeus. The loss of his brothers enraged Typhon, who then went, again at Gaia's behest, to face the King of the Gods himself. The details of that battle were scarce, but Typhon's challenge was a serious threat. It ended in his imprisonment within Mount Etna, where he was embedded into the very bedrock of the mountain, unable to move. Standing victorious, Zeus offered the defeated Titan a bargain: in exchange for his continued non-belligerence, Zeus would spare Echidna and their family, leaving the monsters as challenges for future heroes. Typhon accepted, and the bow named Typhon's Bane, infused with his storm and wind powers, was set into his left eye.

Some time afterward his nephew Prometheus was chained to Typhon's hand on the outside of the icy mountain, condemned to be devoured by an eagle each day for giving fire to mankind. With the passing centuries Typhon grew bitter, hating the Gods and blaming his mother Gaia for the schemes that had doomed the Titans, counting himself the child she had burdened most.

Kratos in the frozen mountain#

When Gaia guided Kratos toward the Island of Creation, she sent him into Typhon's cavern. The Titan refused to see him and, as if the mountain itself had come alive, seized Pegasus in his hand, forcing Kratos to descend. Angered by the appearance of an Olympian, Typhon tried to kill him, but with his arms trapped in the stone he could only blow gusts of icy wind to hurl the Spartan into the caverns below.

Kratos picked his way along the rocky paths, avoiding the storm Titan's breath, until he reached a path to Typhon's face. He leapt to the left eye, stabbed it repeatedly, and tore out Typhon's Bane, a wind bow that held the Titan's powers. When Typhon tried a final blow, Kratos shot his other eye with the Bane and blinded him. Even blinded, the furious Titan kept trying to blow the Spartan away, cursing him and vowing he would pay for what he had done. Kratos then used the Rage of the Titans to free Pegasus from Typhon's grasp and flew on. The novelized account of their meeting adds that Typhon refused an alliance even with one who shared his hatred of Zeus, fearing that any aid given to Kratos would cost his wife and children their lives.

Fate#

Typhon did not join his fellow Titans in the assault on Mount Olympus, remaining trapped in his cave with no clear knowledge of the events outside. Whether he perished in the chaos that ravaged the world or simply ceased to be, his ultimate fate was never made certain, and it remained possible that the storm Titan endured within his mountain still. Among the children of Gaia he was reckoned the most powerful in his prime, able to challenge Olympus after Zeus and his kin had already established themselves as rulers of the cosmos.