> Sir Ethilrist? He doesn't age, his basements are rumored to go all the
> way down to the underworld, he has performed heroic quests, and he has
> a 'cult' of followers that perform some of his rituals (Black Horse Troop);
> I'd say he's a hero.
So would he. Mind you, he's hardly the most modest man in Glorantha...
> I don't like the direction naming Delecti a hero would lead in....next
> comes Ralzakark!
Who is undoubtedly a Hero. Though I do *not* intend this to mean that an equivalence can be drawn between the game-mechanical stats in D:LoD and the true level of Heroic power.
But what are we gaining from this discussion? A sense of who the most powerful and important people in Glorantha are or have been? Isn't this a bit academic ("Could Avivath the Avatar of Antirius have gone ten rounds against the Twins of Tarsh, assuming they retained their Earthquake Powers"?). Do all the interesting powerful folk of Glorantha fit into one of three categories? For my next trick, I'll produce a listing of every Gloranthan we've ever heard of, ordered by number of legs...
> It's not that the amazing characters in these books [Dumas, et al.] are
> able to "break" the bonds of their culture -- they don't. The culture remains
> very important at all times.
Cabell can be very similar. His gentleman poisoner, Satanist and heroquester, Florian de Puysange (hero of "The High Place"), is wonderfully hemmed about by the ritual constraints of eighteenth-century French noble life.
Jim Chapin seems to have missed the point. Like poor old Dara Happa, the cultures on Sandy's list are generally *considered* dull and boring and monolithic and unchanging and patriarchal and hereditary and hierarchical. This does *not* mean they have no dynamic potential, or are not undergoing rapid change, or are bad places to set interesting and exciting stories. Happy, now?
BTW, I happily withdraw Yanafal's claim to Superherodom: on reconsideration, it was the LUNAR History that made this claim for their first Warlord. Silly old Nick, should have known better than to trust Moonie propaganda.
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