Hephaestus was the god of fire, metalworking, stone masonry, forges and the art of sculpture. He was the son of Zeus and Hera. 

t was said that the goddess Hera was so disgusted that she threw him out of heaven. The fall alone would have killed him; however, he was found and nursed back to health. There, on the island of Acropolis, he grew to be a skilled blacksmith.

He was a smiting god, making all of the weapons for Olympus and acting as a blacksmith for the gods.He had his own palace on Olympus where he made many clever inventions and automatons of metal to work for him. Later he was married to Aphrodite by Zeus to prevent a war of the gods fighting for her hand. Hephaestus’s ugly appearance was the reason Zeus chose him to marry Aphrodite, but despite this she had many affairs with both gods and men.

He created magnificent equipment for his

brothers and his sisters, yet, he still was not permitted to stay in the company of the gods themselves. Unloved, the god dreamed of a time when he would hold his own child and vowed that they would never know shame or be unloved like him.

Soon, the god had his wish, and a mortal woman bore him babes. Yet, it seemed the three fates had cursed his children as well as they did him. All of the babes were deformed, hideous in appearance.

The god screamed in anger and wept as he held his sons. They would be an outcast to society and shunned by humanity. Shaking his head sadly, the god took his deformed children to the caves, into the earth, where they would be protected from human cruelty forever, and he taught them everything he knew about making the finest equipment.

Soon, only those that threatened or tried to obtain justice for humanity would come to know of Hephaestus’s children. They would not be known as the scourge of humanity, but as the small folk, wielders of magic and metal…