RE:Onslaught stats (eck, talk about dangerous threads...)

From: Dan McCluskey <daniem_at_microsoft.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 18:14:02 -0800


Alex in response to my "defense" of O:
>Not sure what you're getting at. I didn't say "You can't give Onslaught
>HW stats"; I said, he doesn't correspond to my conception of a
>Humakti Heroquester in particular, or a Hero in general.

I guess that my point was that Onslaught is a very obvious char to play in Hero Wars. And as the main idea behind Hero Wars is to play Heroes, it makes some sence that the most obvious HW chars would be the most common Gloranthan Heros. It's kind of a lame argument, but it shouldn't be entirely discarded. At least in Playtest, Hero Wars tended to push people into very Onslaught-ish dependance on a single ability, which you then would round out with followers. On one level, O is just a canny PC who put all of his points into close combat. This may be a rules artefact (like all that RQ2 blade venom) but it's going to be a common one.

If your objection is that you can't be a hero without followers, then you are right, but that doesn't necesserily make him invalid within the context of glorantha, just "notahero". (though isn't Androgeous(sp?) pretty much a solo hero? -- I don't really remember)

If not, then what is it that keeps him from being a HeroQuester or Hero? As I see it, his life is essentially one long heroquest to become the Sword of Humakt. He is attempting to incarnate the moment of Death. As a psychotic Loner, he doesn't have any real cult or community to back him up, so he is not nearly as powerful a hero as, say, Argrath. But he is still a hero. Beat-Pot Alewin is not a typical heroquester or hero, but I havn't seen anyone argue that his multiple masteries in "shag the hell out of JarEel" isn't enough to qualify him as a hero.

I could also accept the argument that Onslaught is actually more of a "Wandering Monster" than a hero. Hell -- he's not even all that bizzarre by that standard ;-)

The most important thing about Onslaught in Glorantha is that someone cares enough about him to write actual stories. Martin could satisfy his "must... worship... Conan" urge in any old fantasy world, but I'm glad he stuck to glorantha, becaus as Tony Likhite said so eloquently...

"there's just too much high quality fiction set in Glorantha floating around"

danm

(after all, the only decent gloranthan fiction ever attributed to me turned out to be written by Mikael Raaterova... hmph)


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