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Card V of XVI · The House Below

CBHKHades PolydegmōnThe Unyielding Keeper

aka “Leaves You on Read”MBTI crossover: ISTJ

You don't chase anything. Everything arrives at your door eventually.

The one god no gift or prayer can talk round. Your message was delivered. Iliad 9.158–159 ↗

You are steady, private and very hard to move. You keep the rules of your domain without apology, hold what is entrusted to you, and don't bargain with people who only appear when they need something.

Ἅιδης · Hāidēs · Roman Pluto. Polydegmōn means “Receiver of many”: Homeric Hymn to Demeter 17 ↗

Draw your own card Hades's family tree
KNOW A HADES?
UPRIGHT · POWERS

What the CBHK brings

  • Holding a boundary that does not move
  • Keeping confidences and hard truths safe
  • Patience on a scale other people find unnerving
REVERSED · SHADOW

Unyielding hardens into unreachable.

Agamemnon says mortals hate Hades most of all the gods because nothing moves him. A boundary nobody can ever cross is just a wall.

YOUR QUEST

One thing to practise

Open one gate on purpose: tell someone a thing you usually keep below.

Myth check: Hades is neither the Devil nor Death itself. He is a ruler with a fixed office and a queen beside him, and his myths are about boundaries and the difficulty of return, not evil.

WHY HADES SITS HERE

Four letters, four pieces of evidence.

Each placement points to the passage it rests on. Where the call is an editorial judgement rather than a plain reading, the note says so.

  1. C

    ChthonicRealm · Of the earth below

    When the sons of Cronus draw lots, he receives the murky dark below.

    Iliad 15.187–191 ↗
  2. B

    BiēMethod · Force

    “Hades is implacable and unyielding.” He takes what is his without disguise or debate.

    Iliad 9.158–159 ↗
  3. H

    HearthGround · The fixed centre

    He rules a fixed house and rarely leaves it; an earthquake above makes him leap from his throne in alarm.

    Iliad 20.61–65 ↗
  4. K

    KleosPurpose · Renown

    His share of honour is fixed by the lot, as much his own as Zeus's is.

    Iliad 15.189–193 ↗

THE SPREAD

Allies, opposites and neighbours.

Your antitype flips all four letters. Your neighbours differ by one, so a single choice could turn one card into another.

Ally · CMRX

Persephone Epainē

Rulers of the underworld together; he promises her power over all that lives and moves.

Homeric Hymn to Demeter 360–369
Antitype · OMRX

The Last Kingdom

In Ovid's Roman retelling, Venus sends Cupid to shoot the god of the dead so that the underworld will no longer stand outside the rule of love.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.363–379 (Roman, 8 CE)
Flip realm: OBHK · ZeusFlip method: CMHK · GaiaFlip ground: CBRK · PoseidonFlip purpose: CBHX · Hestia

COMPATIBILITY

Hades with every other card.

Sorted by shared letters. Each pairing has its own page on how the two work together, where they clash and the myth behind it. Open the full chart.

Hades Polydegmōn divine type card poster, CBHK

SAVE THE CARD

Your Hades poster.

A tall 2:3 version of the card, sized for Pinterest and phone wallpapers.

Save to Pinterest Download the poster

SOURCES

Read the originals.

Translations differ in line numbering by a line or two. The family relationships are mapped in the Hades family tree.

Find your divine type See all sixteen cards