Athena's 88 Saints

Athena's 88 Saints are the goddess Athena's personal warriors. Saints are warriors who fight for the Goddess Athena. They represent one of the 88 constellations and exist to protect the peace on earth. There are 29 Constellations in the northern sky, 47 in the southern and 12 for the Zodiac.

Everything on Earth were created by the Big Bang, which had taken place several centuries ago. Therefore, everything on Earth consist of atoms. In each humans' body, there is a small galaxy, which is called Cosmo. Using their Cosmo, Saints split those atmos, which ability is said to enable them to shatter the ground and to tear the sky apart.

Despite their superhuman power, their bodies remain human. It was dangerous to fight with those power against opponents with their bare bodies. Therefore, Athena has granted them armours, which should protect them during their battles - Cloth.

There are three ranks among the Saints, which are also represented on their cloths - Bronze, Silver and Gold. The Bronze Saints are told to be the weakest among the Saints. There are 48 of them. There are 24 Silver Saints. The strongest among the Saints are the Gold Saints, which represent the twelve Zodiac Signs. Athena's 88 Saints

The Saints were the main fighting force of Athena's army with the duty of protecting the goddess and defending the Earth from mythological threats. According to the Hypermyth the Saints came into being after the god Poseidon had decided to conquer and take the land for himself. With the help of his armored soldiers called the Marina, the warriors of the land didn't stand a chance. Athena felt sad for the warriors that had stood up for her domain and asked the Lemurians to create armors for her protectors. These new warriors were named Saints and managed to defeat the forces of Poseidon. The armors used the 88 constellations as blueprints and were named Cloths. They were split into three categories, starting from the weakest the Bronze Cloths, then Silver and lastly Gold. To protect Athena's shrine, they built the Sanctuary around it, with each of the Gold Saints protecting a temple on the way to the shrine. In the mythological era there were 13 Gold Saints, but the Gold Saint of Ophiuchus committed heresy against the gods. He was punished with death and his presence almost erased from history. The Ophiuchus Gold Cloth was also demoted to the rank of Silver and the Ophiuchus Temple in Sanctuary was destroyed. The Hypermyth gave the number of Cloths as being 12 Gold, 24 Silver and 48 Bronze, which meant there were 4 Cloths of an unknown rank. The Hypermyth also reveals that Black Cloths were also created by the Lemurians for unknown purposes, but none of the Saints wanted to wear them, so eventually they were taken by outlaws of the Sanctuary.

Bronze Saints
The Bronze Saint are the guardians of Athena's Sanctuary, they supervise the footsoldiers and patrol the borders. Like the Silver Saints, several of the Bronze Saints have special tools and roles for their duty in Athena's army. The Caelum and Sculptor Saints have the roles to repair damaged Cloths, and the Andromeda Saint has chains.

Black Saints
The Black Saints are a renegade group of trainees that didn't become Saints, in their anger they turned to the Black Cloths that were on Death Queen Island. Each Black Cloth is a copy of one of the 88 Cloths, but there exists more than one of several copies so their exact number is impossible to determine. According to the Hypermyth the Black Saints were sealed on Death Queen Island by Athena and couldn't leave until Phoenix Ikki eventually arrived and defeated Guilty who wore a mask that acted as the seal.

Silver Saints
The Silver Saints are the main taskforce, that is sent on missions or to train new Saints. Several of these Saints have special roles or tools for their duty in the Sanctuary. The Altar Saint is for example meant to act as a decoy for the pope, and the Cerberus Saint has iron chains made to hold the real Cerberus. Algethichar 01.png

Gold Saints
The Gold Saints wear the strongest of the 88 Gold Cloths, they were initially 13, but one was demoted to Silver in the mythological era. Among these is the Libra Cloth which stands out with its 12 weapons that are only allowed to be used by the permission of the Libra Saint or from Athena herself. Their main task is to protect their respective house in Sanctuary.

Pawns & Soldiers
Pawns These are the soldiers of the Snactuary, they guard buildings and gateways. Many are trainees that did ot reach Saint hood or simply lacked the necessary qualities.

The 4 Unknown Saints
These four Saints are at the best considered theoretical the moment since their existance was deduced by the number of Saint Cloths show in the Hypermyth. Other Saints in various media

Shadow Saint
The Shadow Saint was a contest winner to appear as the final villain in the NES game Saint Seiya: Ōgon Densetsu, with its design refined by Masami Kurumada himself. The Shadow Saint is a bodyguard for the evil pope, and will protect him from harm. Shadowsaintchar 01.png

Saints in the anime adaptation
In the anime adaptation, there were several additions of Saints. They were added as filler characters as the manga had not gotten far enough for the anime to progress properly. There were two cases were a certain character had not been revealed yet so the staff of Toei invented them, such as Crystal Saint and Cepheus Albiore. Most of these Saints do not have a constellation, though the last additions, Pavo Shiva and Lotus Agora has.

Saints in Gigantomachia
In these two novels we are introduced to three new Saints, the Altar Silver Saint, the Bronze Sextant Saint and the Coma Bernice Saint of an unknown rank. The latter cloth is used as a seal to imprison the titans in Sicily.

Saints in Episode. G
In episode G we see the introduction of two new Saints, one Silver and one Bronze.

Saints in Saint Seiya Omega
The world of Omega follows the anime continuity and introduces a grand change in how the Saints and their Cloths function. Stemming from a crashed comet, the Cosmo is now bound to six elements, and the Cloths can now only be summoned via gems called Cloth Stones. This is latter changed as the Saints develop a high enough Cosmo.

Saints in Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho
In Santia Sho we are introduced to a new faction of the Saints called Saintias. They are the personal handmaidens of Athena, and are as of yet from Bronze and Silver rank.

Saint Seiya: Awakening
In the game Saint Seiya: Awakening there are placeholder characters for such characters as Yuzuriha from The Lost Canvas and Katya from Saintia Sho. These placeholder characters does not look like any of the characters and do not wear any armor. There are also more personell in the Sanctuary army and for the Black Saints. Filling out roles for different types of guards and priests.