This isn't a question to be answered of course: Glorantha is primarily about getting in there and consciously birthing a hero, then dealing with the terrible beauty and the terrible choices it brings. As usual though, exploring the territory suggests new paths and new choices.
So no, I'm not envisioning game mechanisms or 'dark side' points. Ian seems to have pinned it: making the choices as conscious as possible for the hero character. Bringing home the impossible burdens of power.
It does seem the king/hero axis is pretty central to Orlanthi myth. The prime template is Orlanth/Yelm of course, Good Rebel vs Evil Emperor (from the Orlanthi perspective), but then the rebel becomes a king himself. And by the principle of mythic inversion the figures of Bad Rebel and Good King have a particular potency. And of course any king anywhere should fear a hero. Orlanthi kings can be a type of hero themselves, and that's what the Durengard Scrolls (and my themic essay) are exploring.
Peter clarified the different uses of the term 'hero', in particular the person who achieves enlightment/illumination vs the one who incarnates the powers and perspectives of a deity (Storm, Death, Balance, Destruction ... ). Perhaps Greg could expand on his vision of the differences between these?
Certainly Harmast seems a prime example of someone struggling to successfully maintain his links with humanity: by contrast Arkat embraced the full and terrible consequences of transformation (and is as much reviled as worshipped). More speculatively, Sartar and Argrath seemed to follow well-established cultural and mythic patterns that balance eternity and humanity in different ways; larnsting and liberator. Harrek is perhaps, until his final transformation, an example of the terrible power of herodom unrestrained by obligation.
There's a third definition of course (and a fourth, and a fifth...): a hero is someone who faces change and transformation to bring a boon to his or her community; the wider definition that applies to every player character. And this wider type of herodom can be the antithesis of the other types.
All else is counting the cost and measuring the consequences.
Terrible beauty.
Cheers
John
Powered by hypermail