Gilgamesh

Not part of Riordanverse The following article/section is from the Sikander Aziz series continuity under Rick Riordan Presents and not the Riordanverse canon.

Gilgamesh
Biographical information
Full name	Gilgamesh
Gender	Male
Alias	King of Uruk (formerly) Pacifist Gardener
Family	Lugalbanda (father) Ninsun (mother) Anu (maternal grandfather) Uras (maternal grandmother)
Residence	Uruk (formerly) New York City
Item	Abubu, the Sky Cutter
Status	Immortal
Physical description
Eye	Dark
Hair	Bald (dark beard)
Height	Over 7 feet
Species	Demigod ("two-thirds divine and one-third mortal")
Behind the scenes
Appearances	City of the Plague God Fury of the Dragon Goddess (mentioned)

“	I can, and I did. And if I can, so can everyone else. I plow. I seed. I grow. In this small way, I try to make amends for all the damage I caused. This dirt on my hands is there cover the blood. I concern myself with creating life now, not ending it.	”
–Gilgamesh to Sik and Belet on becoming a pacifist in City of the Plague God.

Gilgamesh is a half-god half-human hero in Mesopotamian mythology and the semi-mythic king of the city state of Uruk. His tales are recorded in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest surviving great work of literature.

History

Early Life

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian gods decide to humble the proud and arrogant king by sending him a wild man, Enkidu. After a fierce duel, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become best friends, and the two set on a quest to find and kill Humbaba, the demon of the Cedar Forest. This heroic feat attracts the attention of Ishtar, the goddess of love, who tries but fails to seduce Gilgamesh. In a fit of rage, she sends the Bull of Heaven down to destroy him. Enkidu came to his friend's aid and managed to slay the beast, but in doing that he offended the gods who condemned him to death.

In his grief, Gilgamesh suddenly recognizes his own mortality, and contemplates the meaninglessness of life and human accomplishment in face of inevitable extinction, and thus sets out on his famous quest for immortality. He sets out to find Utnapishtim, who give him two tries at gaining eternal life. First, he challenged Gilgamesh to stay awake for six days and six nights. The king fails, and Utnapishtim then mocks him for seeking to overcome mortality while he cannot even conquer sleep. He gives him a second chance, instructing him to find a boxthorn plant at the bottom of the sea that will at least make him young again. Gilgamesh manages to get the plant, but unfortunately a serpent eats it while he bathed. Weeping at the futility of his attempts and his loss of his shot at immortality, he is rowed home by the ferryman, Urshanabi, where Gilgamesh starts to write his story, all his old vanity and pride cast away.

True Ending of Immortality

The truth is that Gilgamesh did attain immortality by consuming a petal of the plant, the flower of immortality. However, the rest of the flower entirety was consumed by the serpent by accident, its seed excreted by the serpent in the arid land later known the desert of Basra.

Upon noticing he was immortal, Gilgamesh faked his death and allowed the false Epic of Gilgamesh to be created to hide himself. Gilgamesh has also forbidden himself to use weapons again, becoming an Immortal pacifist gardener, a nurturer who beloved the earth due to being inspired by his closest companion Enkidu. He choose this path as an Immortal to repent for his crazy wastefulness of slaughter and wars as the King of Uruk. Gilgamesh also bequeathed his personal royal seal, a king and golden lion ring, to Ishtar as a future free request by goddess if she needed it as well as confiding his Immortal status to her. He also kept in touch with several Mesopotamian gods throughout his immortal life.

Several centuries before the twenty first century, Gilgamesh served time in Kurnugi under Erishkigal's watch because of his immortality. There he met old friends. As he lives, he also changed his greatest weapon of all creation Abubu into his personal gardening shovel.

Helping Civilians in the World Wars

During the two world wars, he did whatever he could to keep the civilians in war zones safe. During the Warsaw Uprising in 1942, he saved several Jewish children. After Hiroshima was hit by the atomic bomb, he dug through the rubble for survivors.

Sikander Aziz series

City of the Plague God

4,000 years later after killing the Bull of Heaven, now working as a gardener in Central Park. During an outbreak, he meets Belet Amari and Sikander Aziz after they find his ziggurat and return his ring. They enlist Gilgamesh's help to save Manhattan from Nergal, but he declines. He tells them how he became immortal and that he gave up violence. He also reveal that Sik's brother came into possession of some seeds of the Flower of Immortality and sent them home, and that Sik somehow got the plant into his system. Sik says the plant is in the community garden. Gilgamesh warns the teenager of the law of balance, he may have to go to Kurnugi for cheating death, and presents a quest to his junior Immortal to retrieve the flower of immortality to aid repelling Nergal's plague invasion.

Two weeks later Sik returns with the original flower from Kurnugi and he goes to make an antidote to put in the City's water supply just as Nergal finds them. As the demons demand their surrender, Gilgamesh demands they leave. After the demons mock him for becoming a pacifist, he unleashes a lightning storm with hurricane level winds to scare them away. After the demons get the flower and Sik runs away with an injured Belet, he is overpowered by demons. However, he ultimately survives and Sik is able to spread the cure by seeding Gilgamesh's hurricane with the perfume Mo's Promise made from the desert hybrid flower.

When the deli is about to reopen, he has Belet deliver flowers and his king seal to Sik.

The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes

The Loneliest Demon

Sik now owns Abubu and has a statue of Gilgamesh in his room that he keeps Gilgamesh's royal seal on. After seeing it, Rabisu complains that Gilgamesh was a big bully. Sik recalls his anger, disappointment and betrayal at meeting Gilgamesh while fighting Nergal and finding him to be a pacifist, however, Sik has since realized that Gilgamesh had a grander perspective than most.

When Sik and Rabisu meet Petar, he calls Gilgamesh the OG superhero. Petar reveals that he's working on writing The Further Adventures of Gilgamesh: Volume 12 which covers all of his activities in the 20th century during both world wars. Petar reveals that Gilgamesh took the side of the innocent and helpless in both wars and rescued families in Warsaw and Hiroshima as well as helped to dig the United Nations building with Abubu. As Gilgamesh's seal allows the bearer passage through his kingdoms and he was once the ruler of Kurnugi, at least for a little while, Petar comes up with the idea of using it at the UN building to return Rabisu home where Gilgamesh had installed a portal in the elevators. However, the threat of the Anunna forces them to abort the plan.

Fury of the Dragon Goddess

It's mentioned that at some point after the defeat of Nergal, Gilgamesh gave Abubu to Sik. After finding Rabisu with Sik, Belet Amari complains that Gilgamesh gave him the most powerful magical weapon in all existence and Sik didn't use it to kill the demon.

After learning that someone is expecting him at Kew Gardens, Sik thinks that it's Gilgamesh who had left New York after Nergal's defeat. However, it instead turns out to be a resurrected Mo who was brought back by Sik inadvertently altering destiny.

After learning that Lugal is resurrecting Tiamat, Sik tells Dumuzi to find Gilgamesh and contact Marduk so that they can get the proper heroes involved. However, the god informs Sik that Lugal has anticipated that and used the Tablet of Destinies to erase them all from existence.

After Tiamat's death and the Tablet of Destinies is wiped clean, Gilgamesh and everyone else that had Lugal wiped from existence are all restored.

Appearance

Gilgamesh is a muscular man with a bald head, dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a thick, wiry dark beard tangled with twigs and leaves. The skin of his upper torso is covered with patches of green moss. He is shirtless and wears olive-green overalls, with one pocket having gardener gloves. He also has a broad utility belt holding pruning shears, twine, a hand rake and a trowel.

He towered over Sikander Aziz and Belet Amari, at least seven feet tall with biceps the size of cannonballs. He also has massive pectorals.

Gilgamesh also smells strongly of earth, the dampness after the rain.

Personality

In his younger days, Gilgamesh was a devoted adventurer, always out to seek glory. In his later years, he has become more laid back.

Abilities

• General Abilities
• Demigod Abilities

• Multilingualism: As the former King of Uruk, Gilgamesh is a master expert of cuneiform (ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian). With his wandering as a gardener for over 4,000 years, he has mastered several other languages such as Arabic.
• Leadership: As the former King of Uruk, Gilgamesh had lead and won many wars for Uruk.
• Fighting Skills: As a ancient warrior hero with a battle record of no losses, except for Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh has mastered many combat abilities and weapons.
  • Swordsmanship, Polearmsmanship, Knifemanship, Axemanship, Archery etc...
• Tactician: King Gilgamesh was known to have great skill in battle planning and leadership. He skillfully manipulated Humbaba during the quest for immortality to lower his repelling aura to allow Gilgamesh the chance to behead him with Kasusu on Earth.
• Hallucikinesis: As the former King of Uruk and long-lived Immortal demigod, Gilgamesh has the ability to perform illusions with magic and hid his glass ziggurat in Central Park for some time.
• Immortality: Unlike the ending of his Epic, Gilgamesh did attain and eat a piece of the Flower of Immortality, becoming an Immortal and has lived for over 4,000 years. However, as a price of imbalance, he will subconsciously or through the environment be sent to Kurnugi for escaping death several times during his immortal life. He can serve time and return to Earth once he 'died' long enough. Gilgamesh consumed the original flower of immortality, therefore, no longer needing sleep or getting tired, while bruises and cuts healed within seconds. His vitality was also higher.
• Culinary Arts: With his lifetime as the King of Uruk and over 4,000 years as an Immortal, Gilgamesh has built a skilled repertoire of cooking. His specialty is natural Vegan pastries. In City of the Plague God, Gilgamesh served Sikander and Belet thick slices of sugar-free 100% Vegan date nut cake, as well as delicious cookies, tarts and rose water.
• Botany: After becoming an Immortal, Gilgamesh became a gardener for over 4,000 years and even cultivated his own species of flowers, herbs and trees.
  • Natural mutant Venus Flytraps: Venus flytraps that can fight asakkus and poxies
  • Ishtar's Heart:
• Society's Shadow Connection: Due to his long life, Gilgamesh has many deep connections to all nations and governments, allowing him to work as a gardener where he wishes.

Atmokinesis: When using his demigod powers, his eyes will glow. As the demigod grandson of Anu, the Mesopotamian supreme sky god, through his mother Ninsun, Gilgamesh can easily generate and control all weather phenomena and its relative abilities. However, he has a limited range of influence on the ground and also uses Abubu as an external conduit.

Physically Enhanced: As a demigod born with close direct ancestry to the chief Mesopotamian god Anu, Gilgamesh is stronger than most top half-bloods.

• Superhuman Durability: Gilgamesh can easily survive under a mountain size legion raid of poxies and asakkus while using atmokinesis to create a storm to deliver Mo's Promise around Manhattan and end Nergal's plague.

Tools

• Abubu (formerly): The Sky Cutter (Shovel form). He later gives it to Sikander Aziz.
• Gardener's Utility Tool Belt and Tools
• Kasusu (formerly): During his reign as the King of Uruk, Gilgamesh wielded the adaptable ancient sword Kasusu until the day Enkidu died. Kasusu was passed down through many heroes until being wielded by Belet Amari in the 21st century.
• Gilgamesh's Royal Seal (formerly): A golden ring fashioned with the seal of a man and lion, worn by Gilgamesh during his reign as the King of Uruk. After becoming an Immortal, Gilgamesh gifted this ring to Ishtar as a future free request item. After over 4,000 years, she later gave it to Belt and Sik to allow the pair to obtain aid from the former King of Uruk during Nergal's plague invasion. Gilgamesh later had Belet give the royal seal to Sik as a gift at the end of the City of the Plague God.

Trivia

• Many claim Gilgamesh to be the first hero. As he was known as 'two thirds divine and one third mortal'. He is often said to be the first demigod.
  • Ishtar reveals that Gilgamesh's "two third divinity" was a falsification and he's a half-blood demigod with a higher divinity quality. Ishtar specifically states that "Gilgamesh was only part god, on his mother's side, though he pretended otherwise."
• Sikander Aziz is Gilgamesh's immortal junior through the same process of becoming an immortal; eating the flower of immortality. However, Sikander's immortality required double dosage to attain the same level of Gilgamesh's because Sikander's source was a hybrid flower of immortality, unlike Gilgamesh's original from the Sea of Tiamat.
  • However, unlike Gilgamesh, Sik doesn't retain any other special powers as he was a regular mortal before becoming immortal unlike Gilgamesh who was a powerful demigod.
• He has tried Baghdad sauce at Mo's, the spiciest sauce on the menu, and says anyone who can eat a meal with the sauce on it is a hero to him.