>
> It seems that the values of heroes are such that they are not shared
by the
> vast majority of their people, nor by the players who guide their
lives in
> campaigns. In this sense, they become unplayable. They serve
Eternity, that
> is Ideology and Meaning rather than people per se).
>
A long time ago there was an article titled "in defence of superheroes" or somesuch explaining why the heroes and superheroes of WB&RM were quite so awesome and it suggested ideas along these lines.
A hero embodies an idea or concept that is important to an entire people, for the Argraths I would think that this is the concept of liberation. There is a lot of power to be gained by becoming the embodiment of a concept but it does seem to me that the person taking on that power is as likely to become the puppet as the puppet-master.
>
> So how do we deal with this dark heart of herodom?
>
Personally I would just give Argrath an ability of Liberator and set its rating according to the support charts and the number of people who associate him with the idea of Liberation. If that overwhelms his other personality traits then play it accordingly. Any action that is not intended as Liberation takes a negative augment, any Liberating action takes a positive augment and so on. The nature of heroquesting is transformative and anyone questing as the Liberator gets to be Liberation whether they really intended this outcome or not.
Superheroes associate themselves with such universal concepts that it transcends cultures - even their enemies accidentally grant them additional power by the association. A superhero would need incredible strength of character to retain much personality or humanity, which is perhaps why there are so few superheroes throughout Gloranthan history.
As for how human heroes are, I think they must have sufficient strength of character or ties to others to retain some humanity and to continue to act. Otherwise the concept that they embody would simply overwhelm them, to an extent this may be what happens when a hero achieves apotheosis - their struggle to retain their humanity ends.
Your vision of what the heroes are may of course differ, I think I may have a rather non-canon viewpoint!
-- Nic
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