Niccolo Di Angelo

Nico di Angelo was born in or around 1932 in Venice, Italy, before World War II (before Hades and his brothers took an oath to have no more demigod children) to Hades and Maria di Angelo, their second child together, the first being his older sister Bianca di Angelo. He was raised in a conservative catholic home.

Hades rarely made appearances in the household, in fear that the other gods would notice that he had a son and a daughter.

As a child, Nico was obsessed with pirates and the game Mythomagic, which caused him to find the knowledge of being a demigod very exciting. At around the age of six, Nico visited Diocletian's Palace in Split, Croatia.

Nico had a warm relationship with his mother, as he remembers her smiling down at him while they both walked by the Venetian Grand Canal.

In elementary school, he studied Dante.

At some point near the beginning of World War II, Nico and his family left Italy for the United States, where they stayed at a fancy hotel in Washington, D.C.. Around the age of eight, shortly after arriving, Nico was playing Mythomagic with another boy his age, Henry Whittaker, and he mentioned that Ares was pretty. Henry said that was weird and they stopped hanging out.

One day, as Hades was begging Maria di Angelo to store Nico and Bianca somewhere safe as Zeus was planning to kill them. Shortly after, she died when Zeus struck the hotel they were staying in with lightning in an attempt to kill the siblings, since he thought they would be too dangerous. However, they were protected by Hades as he erected an impenetrable wall of black energy to shield them from Zeus' bolts, but Hades was not able to protect their mother in time.

Afterward, a devastated Hades ordered the Fury Alecto to take Nico and Bianca to the Underworld and bathe them in the River Lethe, in order to wipe away their memories, and told her to give their mother the Ancient rites. The lord of the dead also swore revenge on Zeus. This later caused him to send monsters to attack and try to kill Thalia Grace, Zeus' daughter.

In The Titan's Curse, Bianca says that she and Nico had no memories of their mortal parent and told by a lawyer (Alecto in disguise), in Washington D.C., that their parents were dead, and had left a bank trust for them. This "lawyer" would come by once in a while to check on both of them. During this time, Nico and Bianca were enrolled in a boarding school. Meanwhile, Bianca familiarized herself with the city's subway system. In The Blood of Olympus, Nico sees a brief flashback from this time - his sister Bianca, laughing as she pulled him across the National Mall. After some time had passed, Hades, hoping that one of his children might one day become the "child of the Eldest Gods" (referred to in the Great Prophecy), decided to place them in the Lotus Hotel and Casino, and tasked Alecto with the job. Once again disguised as a lawyer, Alecto had Nico and Bianca leave the boarding school, and took them all the way to the Lotus Hotel, in Las Vegas.

After what the siblings thought was a month in the Lotus Hotel (which turned out to be 70 years), they were taken out by Alecto, this time disguised as a different lawyer. Alecto drove Nico and Bianca back east, through D.C., and then up into Maine. They were brought to a military school called Westover Hall, paid for by Hades using what Nico and Bianca thought to be a trust fund left to them by their parents. At this point, Nico became once again obsessed with Mythomagic. It was later revealed that Nico had been obsessed with pirates even before he started collecting Mythomagic cards. Bianca mentioned that the summer before she left Westover Hall (during the events of The Sea of Monsters), she and Nico visited Washington D.C. once again, and were very surprised to see several subway stations that had not been there before. Bianca mentions that during their visit, several monsters (disguised as mortals) attempted to attack them in an alley. Nico also mentions seeing a bus driver (most likely a satyr in disguise) with ram's horns, though Bianca had not believed him at the time.

Nico eventually found the entrance to the Labyrinth and found Minos. Minos manipulated Nico and the two traveled together, with Nico barely eating at all. Nico became very depressed during this time and his anger only grew bigger, and he became convinced that he would never belong at Camp Half-Blood because he was a son of Hades. He even abandoned his Mythomagic cards. Nico became very strong during his months away, learning to summon ghosts. He also got his Stygian Iron sword. Nico also learned how to shadow travel but ended up in China many times. Nico and Minos would camp out in the Underworld where Minos would try to manipulate him into doing a soul for a soul to bring Bianca back.

Nico's appearance also changed. His hair grew to his shoulders and his skin went from olive to as white as snow. He also donned his signature outfit of his aviator's jacket, black jeans, and a skull shirt, with a sword on his side. He became very skinny and bony due to his meager diet.

While Nico was gone, Percy, Grover, and Annabeth searched for him the entire spring with no luck. Percy thought about Nico a lot and the crack he made, which, was still at the Dining Pavilion.

Nico never goes anywhere without his Stygian iron sword, which sucks the life force out of whatever living thing it stabs.

ADHD: Like most demigods, Nico possesses inborn supernatural battle reflexes and senses. Dyslexia: Nico's brain is "hard-wired" for divine Ancient Greek instead of modern languages. Fighting skills: Initially, Nico shows more skill with his powers than his fighting skills. However, this might have been due to his majority lack of formal combat training at Camp, but he shows great skills. As revealed in a flashback in The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure, Nico got overeager while first training with a sword, and scarred his own leg. In The Demigod Files, Nico showed decent combat skills when he was able to keep up with Percy and Thalia in a fight against a group of Keres. Not only did Nico emerge unscathed from the battle, but he easily defeated the Keres he fought, even quickly taking down the Keres who blitzed Percy. Later, Nico even fought the Titan Iapetus alongside Percy and Thalia (but he was quickly incapacitated). In The Last Olympian, Nico fights in the Battle of Manhattan, and emerges unscathed, implying excellent fighting skills, which impress even the Ares demigods. In The Son of Neptune, Hazel mentions being impressed the first time she saw him fight, suggesting that he honed his skills between the two series, possibly during his stays at either Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter. Nico was even able to fight Gaea's army in Tartarus itself, though he was eventually overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. In The House of Hades, Nico fights the enormous monster army of Gaea, while holding the Scepter of Diocletian high, and emerges unscathed after the battle is won, implying excellent swordsmanship. During that battle, Nico single-handedly overwhelmed the entire group of mighty Earthborn, slashing them into mounds of wet clay with his sword. In The Blood of Olympus, though somewhat weakened from shadow-traveling, Nico is still able to single-handedly quickly overcome 6 Roman legionnaires (while protecting Will Solace), and it should also be noted that Nico was not even fighting to kill, only to knock them out. He later makes short work of Octavian's elite guard (6 huge dog-headed cynocephali). In the final battle with Gaea's troops at Camp Half-Blood, Nico fights at the front lines, managing to defeat numerous other monsters before being forced to leave in order to confront Octavian at one of the onagers.

In The Titan's Curse, Nico is ten years old. He enjoys playing with his Mythomagic cards that none of the others truly seem to understand. The Blood of Olympus reveals that he was obsessed with pirates even before that. He is clueless and very inquisitive. He likes Percy a lot as a big brother figure, but The House of Hades reveals that Nico had developed secret romantic feelings for him. Young Nico annoys Percy with his ceaseless questions, especially when he asks if Annabeth Chase was his girlfriend, which makes Percy consider "stuffing him in a meat-flavored sack and throwing him to the wolves." He is excited about finding out that he is a demigod (immediate response: "Cool!") and starts to compare monsters to Mythomagic creatures. He feels abandoned when his sister Bianca, who practically acts as his parent, becomes a Hunter of Artemis. When she goes on a quest, Nico makes Percy promise to protect her. After her death, he develops a long-lasting grudge toward Percy for letting her die. Once he realizes that he is a son of Hades, he casts away his childhood interests and runs off on his own.

In The Battle of the Labyrinth, Nico becomes grim and solitary, and considerably more powerful. He says, "only the dead respect me... and only out of fear." His attitude may have changed both because of Bianca's death and Minos' manipulations. He believes that he will never be accepted by the living or Camp Half-Blood, much like how his father Hades feels out of place on Olympus. Nico is wanted revenge for Bianca's death, which he blamed Percy for. However, Nico forgives Percy after Bianca's ghost tells him that it wasn't his fault that she died. He also accepts the small figurine of Hades that Bianca wanted him to have.

He is so naive and gullible that he believes that Minos was actually helping him resurrect Bianca. Nico cares deeply about his sister, and his constant attempts to bring her back show that he would not give up without trying. Nico is very loyal to the Olympians, as he could have easily joined Kronos and the Titans but chose to fight on the Olympians' side.

In The Last Olympian, Nico is quite sincere in wanting to help Percy with the prophecy and the war. However, he once tricked Percy into coming to the Underworld so he could gain answers about his mother, but he wasn't planning on Percy becoming imprisoned. By standing up to both Kronos and Hades, he reveals his bravery and boldness. In fact, the only time Nico is ever portrayed as terrified is in The House of Hades, when he was forced to face Cupid, implying that Nico's greatest fear is exposing his conflicting feelings. He prefers to be on his own and does not want help from anyone. He keeps to himself, and his secretiveness causes plenty of problems throughout the series. Nico wants to help Percy and is very miserable at the thought that Percy did not trust him after his dad tricked him as well. By the end, they were back to a brotherly relationship.

He has a very tired pale face, with dark circles under his eyes. He also has deep, dark brown eyes, which can look almost black at times. He's always wearing an aviator jacket, some form of dark jeans, and shirt. He does have strong muscles, even if he's deathly thin from a life on the run and in the Underworld. Nico has black hair that always looks like he just got out of bed (messy and shaggy) and olive skin. By The Battle of the Labyrinth, his skin has paled to white, and he takes to wearing black clothing with skeletal designs, a Stygian Iron sword and a silver skull ring (by the end of the book). By the time he meets Hazel Levesque, she describes his fingers as ghostly white, like their father's. Percy stated that Nico has his mother's eyes, but it has also been said that they have the wild glint of a madman in them, too, just like his father. According to Percy, Nico's hands are "as cold as ice."

By the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth, he has a silver skull ring which was Bianca's last gift to him and is said to belong to his father (as stated by Hazel). He also has a Stygian Iron sword always by his side in his chain belt. He is also mentioned on several occasions wearing an aviator's jacket, most likely because he was originally from WWII. Nico wears a black trench coat when he attempts to bring back Bianca, as shown in one of Hazel's blackouts. In The Last Olympian, Nico wears black battle armor with a skull-shaped helmet. In The Son of Neptune, Nico is seen wearing a black toga when Percy goes to talk to the senators (the reason being that togas are only worn on special occasions, like meetings). In The Mark of Athena, Nico appears weaker, thinner, and even paler than usual, while his eyes are described as "looking like shattered glass," due to his ineffable experience in Tartarus.

Days later, in The House of Hades, Nico has begun to recover and regain his strength, but is still described as "painfully thin," with his black shirt and jeans hanging loosely from his "skeletal frame." His dark hair is longer and frames his face. However, the area around his sunken eyes is very dark, while his complexion is even paler than before," a sickly greenish white, like the color of tree sap." Being a demigod from another era, Nico radiates "a kind of old energy - a melancholy that came from knowing he didn't belong in the modern world." Nico is also the only one whose skin doesn't get tanned in the hot northern African sun, and if anything, looked even paler than before, according to Jason.