> Surely in Hero Wars, heroquests should be a necessary route to
> power, not merely an optional one.
I quite agree. If we look at the implicit qualitative dividers at the upper end of the published scale (HW p.118):
Four Masteries (Harrek/Jar-eel) -- superheroes who have completed many unique experimental heroquests, have personal relationships with their culture's chief deities, and shape the fate of Empires.
Three Masteries (Argrath/Ethilrist/Gunda) -- heroes who have completed unique quests, inspire cult-like devotion among their followers, possess unique secret powers, and lead their nations to war.
Two Masteries (Wind Lords, cf. ST p.13ff.) -- disciples, the living embodiments of their god, who have completed their religion's most challenging heroquest: "as close to a god as a mortal can be".
And, for completeness, one Mastery ("journeyman") -- everyone and his dog.
It seems fair enough to me to turn the heroquest-ish bits of these descriptions into prerequisites: maybe you need to have completed a Big HeroQuest to get up to two wibbles, and possess a Unique Secret to have three wibbles. Certainly, I'd be pissed off if Glorantha started to fill up with Argrath-equivalent characters who *hadn't* done anything out of the ordinary.
(In passing, let's look at suitable opponents per HW p.120: a basic Wind Lord is apparently about a match for a good Heortling clan champion, whose key abilities range up to 10w2; but he'd be easily twatted by a good Rokari sorcerer, whose key magical abilities can trump them by a Mastery. Hmmm...).
Cheers, Nick
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