Amazon

The Amazons of Themyscira are a race of women created by several of the Goddesses of the Olympian pantheon.

Amazons are universally female and superficially diverse, bearing a resemblance to virtually every ethnicity or cultural group imaginable. Amazons are not truly immortal, but they age at a glacial rate. They are extraordinarily hardy and strong, taller and more powerfully built than many humans. Most Amazons can lift twenty tons over their heads and can easily outrun street traffic. They are virtually without peer in the realm of close combat, with blades or bare hands. Amazons can understand and be understood by all creatures native to worlds connected to the Demiurge. Amazons are quite intelligent and most of them have a talent for music, poetry, or the arts. As long as an Amazon stands on the soil of Themyscira, she cannot be claimed by death-- the dead lay in state for a day, and then new bodies are shaped into life by Athena.

History

They were brought into life approximately 1600 BCE, and their first home of old Themyscira was founded at the foot of Mount Olympus. The Goddesses of Olympus saw a need for Amazons to help preserve humanity against a cataclysm such as Ragnarok. Warriors to fight on behalf of the gods, but also to protect and preserve ancient knowledge and wisdom.

In 1400 BCE, the Mad Queen of Nimrud, Semiramis, convinced Hercules to steal the Girdle of Hippolyta as part of his 12 Labors for King Eurysthes. Foolishly, he agreed, unaware he was being manipulated.

On a condition of the gift, Hippolyta set many challenges before Hercules, who met them all triumphantly. Impressed, Hippolyta agreed to give Hercules the girdle as a gift from one cousin to another.

That night, Ares convinced Hercules that the Amazons would make a better gift for his half-brother King Eurysthes. Akhlys, Goddess of Poisons, gave Hercules a sleeping draught and he drugged the Amazons during a farewell feast. They awoke in chains and were forced to watch as the armies of Eurysthes sacked their home and razed it.

The Amazons prayed for release, and Athena delivered it to them. Hippolyta and two-thirds of the Amazons took Athena's offer, who broke their chains and spirited them away to a hidden island, newly christened Themyscira. There, the Amazons enjoyed immortality as long as they remained on the island. They trained relentlessly, honing themselves into warriors of legend, and were given a new mission: To guard Doom's Gate against anyone, mortal or magic, who attempted to pass through it.

Antiope disdained Athena's offer, and she and her sisters used their broken chains as weapons and overtook the city around them. Striking out after Hercules' forces, the army of Amazons blazed a path of destruction from Argos to Nimrud, where they confronted Semiramis. Their retribution caused the downfall of the Mycenaen Empire, the onset of the Dark Ages of Greece, and the death of Semiramis. The panther-goddess Bastet led them to an ancient, abandoned fortress-city in the deserts of Syria, a remnant of the Hyborean Era. They settled there and named it Baina-Mighdall.