Heliod's History
Heliod is the God of the Sun on Theros. Heliod represents the law, justice, retribution, and the bonds of kinship. Heliod presides over matters of family honor, questions of morality and virtue, speeches, marriages, acts of protective bravery, dawn meals, and self-sacrifice. Heliod's name is often part of legal proceedings, and sacrifices to him are made in times when the greatest aid - or the strictest justice - is needed.
It was Heliod who armed
Kytheon (later known as Gideon) and sent him after a Titan that
Erebos had sent rampaging across Theros. This event led to the death of Kytheon's companions and his ascension as a planeswalker.
In the Theros Block storyline, Heliod is a key character, acting as a secondary antagonist to Xenagos' tomfoolery. In the first section of the storyline, his desire for praise and glory placed him in conflict with Purphoros, and while neither god could slay the other, they fought savagely. In the battle, Purphoros' weapon, a blade infused with chaos itself that could destroy Nyx, fell from the heavens and was taken by a frightened
Elspeth. Years later, when Elspeth returned to Theros and tried to understand its gods by praying to the Sun, Heliod was displeased with her and tried to burn her alive with his rays to acquire her sword, but was prevented from doing so by her own power. Instead, he saw fit to make her his "champion", and converted the weapon into a spear called Godsend. Across the rest of the novel, his conflict with Purphoros escalated to a war among the pantheon, and Kruphix saw fit to prevent the gods from interacting with the mortals, in an act known as the "Silence".
When Xenagos achieved his apotheosis, Heliod was quick to blame Elspeth, and once again tried to kill her, and failed. Across the second part, his hatred and jealousy of Elspeth increased, and to make matters worse he came to understand what a Planeswalker was, fearing that she could rise to godhood like Xenagos and threaten his power. So he waited for the right chance and struck when Elspeth was exhausted after her final battle with Xenagos. He glared his blinding light, taking Godsend away from her and stabbing her with it, taunting her in a final desire to humiliate his own champion as she died. He gave her corpse to
Ajani Goldmane, telling him to take her out of Nyx and let her soul be captured by Erebos, as she had previously agreed with the dark god to exchange her life for that of Daxos. With this, Heliod departed.
As the gods went to war against each other again, Heliod sought to become the sole god of the pantheon. At a great cost, he fully resurrected Daxos (previously a Returned) and made him a demigod, but at the expense of being Heliod's champion. As Elspeth escapes, she spread stories about her newly acquired weapon, the Shadowspear, that it was the true Khrusor. As her legend grew, Heliod's weapon became weaker and when the pair fought at the borders of the Underworld, Elspeth was able to overpower Heliod and shatter his spear. Erebos, pleased with the defeat of his long-time rival, allowed Elspeth to leave and chained Heliod into the Underworld beneath a giant boulder.
