Paladium

Connections

• The god of Elysium who sent Zariel to investigate and take note of Odin's "motly crew"

Context

There are a lot more references to this name that I originally thought. The Brawlhalla deity's name is spelled a little differently from his namesake, the chemical element palladium. It is a rare, silvery-white metal that looks like platinum. The name for the mineral comes from the Latin Pallas, the name given to an asteroid that was found just before the metal was discovered. It is also the metal once used by Iron Man.

Alternatively, the word has Greek roots, from palladion, a reference to Athena (sometimes called Pallas Athena, due to her role as protector). Over time, by the turn of the 17th century, the word palladium came to be used to mean anything that provides protection or safety. There are a couple of pages I found that talk about palladium in this sense, but the summary seems to be that the word went from Athena and the Greeks to the Romans to Christianity, becoming generalized into the basic protection definition.

Platimum, protection, palladium. Elysium, celestial, holy. It all works quite well to give us an idea of what kind of a deity Paladium is, and what his realm is like. There seems to be no god in mythology (or anywhere in fiction that I've found) named Paladium.