The Monstrous Broods

Echidna's children and Tiamat's spawn are two answers to the same narrative need, a genealogy for monsters, so that heroes fight not incidents but a family with a mother and a grievance and a line of succession. Kinship holds this group twice over, once in the authored descents of the myths themselves and once in the shared vigilance of many heads and unsleeping eyes. The broods persist; the heroes rotate.

What binds them

• Multi headed body · 9 of them
• Fire breathing · 5 of them
• Devouring · 3 of them
• Mother of monsters · 2 of them

Drawn from 6 groups of traditions: European 10 · African 2 · None 1 · Slavic 1 · East Asian 1 · South Asian 1

16 members

• Ajatar
• Amphisbaena
• Ash-hrau
• Baba Yaga ≈ at the edge of the family
• Cerberus
• Chimera
• Echidna
• Geryon
• Hydra
• Kiyo
• Ladon
• Nemean Lion
• Sesha
• Sphinx
• Stihi
• Typhon

≈ marks a figure at the edge of the family.

Resemblance is not descent; descent is drawn only as the gold lines on the constellation. All families.