History Main / Medusa

* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': Gorgons are children of humans and ethereal spirits -- which can include anything from animate dreams to efreet and valkyries to the surviving pagan gods -- who changed to be born as warped, terrifying monsters. In essence, they're the ethereal equivalent of the celestial-born {{Nephilim}}. Like the Nephilim, most live in isolation, hunted by angels, demons, and humans, but they're not more inherently evil than any other mortal.

* ''VideoGame/{{Smite}}'': Medusa is playable and, for once, able to go toe to toe against the ones who caused her misery: Poseidon and ''especially'' Athena (ironically, she's also an excellent partner to play with Medusa). She's not a Goddess, but gets the pass for being one of the more famous monsters in mythology (when they have already included monsters like Scylla or Demigods like Hercules). Medusa is portrayed here with a porcelain emotionless mask over her face that hides a more snake-like face underneath it. Like in ''Film/ClashOfTheTitans1981'', she makes use of a bow (but can also [[AbnormalAmmo loose vipers with it]]). Her snake heads can also spit out acid, and her ultimate is removing her mask to cause her signature effect to enemies, which damages and temporarily stuns all enemies facing her as she does it (doing less damage and slowing enemies facing away). Being killed by her ultimate leaves a statue of the dead god behind -- these statues can be broken, interacts with her acid spitting by helping spread it over a larger area when it hits them, and even potentially (though it's very difficult and not very likely) break the line of sight for Medusa's ultimate for players to avoid it in a future situation.

The ancient Greek origin is that she and her fellow Gorgons were simply created/born that way. In this origin, the Gorgons are typically three sisters, the other two being Stheno and Euryale. Their progenitors are not always specified, although Hesiod had them as the primordial sea gods Phorcys and Ceto. The Greek word "gorgon" means "horror". Besides having serpents for hair, the Gorgons were described as having tusks, brazen claws, wings and strongly acidic blood; in a few very early depictions they are shown as quadrupeds, possibly because {{Pegasus}} was born out of Medusa's blood when she was beheaded by Perseus. Later depictions (although still fairly ancient ones, in the absolute sense) gradually toned down the more monstrous aspects and made her more attractive. Note that the Erinyes (Furiae) were depicted very similarly as hideous snake-haired women.