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» History: Anubis is one of the most recognizable Egyptian deities, even to this day. Despite this there is actually not that much in terms of background and story for the jackal-headed god.
Anubis was born to Nephthys and Osiris. It was said he was the son of Set, but it was actually shown to be that his mother was a crafty so and so and pulled a quick one. He was regarded as the God of Underworld and would place a person's heart on the scales to determine if they were worthy or not.
It wasn't until the death of Osiris that Anubis's role in Egyptian mythology changed. As he helped to embalm Osiris and prepare his funerary rites, a switch took place. Osiris usurped Anubis to become the God of the Underworld. Despite this Anubis actually continued to be one of the most known and important figures in Egypt; though now known as the God of Funerary Rites. Whenever anyone passed, he was the one that would be present for the preparations.
» Reincarnations: Anubis has been reborn quite a few times, most of them in time for natural disasters or tragedies that require a lot of clean up work and funerals afterwards. Oddly enough despite being the deity of funeral rites, Anubis seems to never make it past thirty years old when he does get reincarnated, usually subject to the fall out of the disaster he was cleaning up. Here are the more recent ones that Anubis was a part of, the earlier ones no longer remembered. It gets hard to keep up.
Great Plague: 1665- London, England. At the age of twenty five, Anubis was already well into his field of mortuary sciences working for one of the best funeral directors in London. The plague killed over 100,000 people by the end of the year, an exceptionally busy time for Anubis and the parlour he worked for.
Great Fire: 1666- London, England. On the back of the plague came the great fire of London. This fire swept through London from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666 and whilst the death toll is unknown, it is said to have been large due to the conditions of the people living in London. Another busy time for Anubis, but also an unlucky one when the funeral parlour finally burned down with the twenty-six year old in it.
After those two events, Anubis's reincarnations slowed down, or rather stopped until Lisbon, Portugal.
Lisbon Earthquake: 1755- Lisbon, Portugal. This event was massive, even for Anubis. Once again working as a mortician and funeral director, this earthquake killed an estimated 900,000 people. Out of all the events Anubis remembers, this one definitely stuck out as one of the worst. Two weeks later Anubis was killed by falling debris at the grand old age of twenty-eight.
October Storm: 1893- Louisiana, US. On the night of Sunday, October 1st, 1893, the history, economy, settlement, and ancestry of Cheniere Caminada and all of Southeastern Louisiana was struck by a large hurricane. This killed nearly two thousand people. It wasn't until after the clean up had started that cholera started to spread, adding Anubis to the list of the dead.
RMS Titanic: 1912- Atlantic ocean. At the younger age of seventeen, Anubis happened to be on the vessel leaving from the UK to the US with his parents at the time. On the 14th of April, the tragic ship struck an iceberg and consequently sank. 1,517 died. Oddly enough Anubis was not one of them, retrieved from a life boat and consequently taken to the US to carry on with his life. Due to the fact only 300 or so of the bodies were recovered, Anubis had very little to do with the rites for the victims, turned away from helping due to his young age.
Influenza epidemic: 1918- Kansas, US. Having survived the Titanic episode, Anubis carried on with his life as normal. He finally settled down in a military camp in Kansas, helping to bury the fallen soldiers. It was on the morning of March 11th at Fort Riley that the influenza started. This super flu swept the entire world and an estimated fifty million people worldwide died from it. Anubis had a month of work to do, helping to bury the victims before finally catching the influenza and dying at the grand age of twenty-three.
Once again, Anubis's reincarnations slowed down. He missed out on both world wars (something he was somewhat sour about when finding out about them) and other disasters of the 21st century, and this is now his most recent life since the Influenza outbreak.
Born in the late eighties to an Egyptian father and an American mother, Anubis's life was what could be described as quiet. Born and raised in Manhattan he was a sombre child, normally preferring the company of himself even from the youngest of ages. Whilst his parents didn't mind this so much, saying Hal was more reserved than anything, they did mind the interest in the afterlife that started to manifest in his early teens during high school. Memories of other lives soon followed the interest.
Books, videos, anything Hal could get his hands on regarding the afterlife and the many rituals needed for different countries- all of it was on the teenager's wanted lists. His mother eventually declared that boys would be boys. Hal's father was not as impressed, keeping an eye out for the first sign of eyeliner that would put his son in with an unsavoury crew. It wasn't something Hal would budge from though, and once he hit eighteen years old and started his college courses his father finally decided it was good enough. His son was nothing but respectful of the dead and hadn't turned in to a goth.
During Hal's two years at college a few courses were taken to break the monotony of mortuary sciences, this time taking a course in embalming and another in anatomy. Still reserved in personality he sailed through the courses, making him popular with the professors but not so popular with the student body who found his choice in subjects just odd. Enough to avoid him in the corridors anyway which was just fine with the teenager.
Once done with is courses, Hal went straight out to find a job. However unlike his previous reincarnations where an apprenticeship could be found at a young age, Hal found that the world had changed it's attitude towards death a lot. Age discrimination was rife in the industry and it surprised Hal (not to mention irritated him) that he couldn't get a job straight away, feeling as if he was banging his head against a brick wall. Not only that but the attitude towards death was different, somehow making it more glamorous than it ever had been.
Right now Hal is still looking for that job, determined that if he doesn't help out at least, nothing good will come of it.