> By that logic, why publish any stats at all?
>
I think the answer has sort of been touched on by others, but the answer depends on the purpose of the book. A book of published Stats for "named Gloranthan Heroes" is, on it's own, I think, pretty useless, since it doesn't really provide any information other than to compare one with another. It doesn't really help you much in using these characters in your own campaign beyond the benchmarks already given. (From memory, a (capital H) Hero is in the W4 range, so a book full of heroes should be a book full of characters with abilities in the W4 range)*. The danger is, shorn of the context of adventures to frame these abilites they either end up being way above, or way below the levels the characters can attain. While the same may be true of the NPC's in "Champions of the Red Moon", because these are not the "Big Name Heroes" it is easier to adjust their scale, or allow them to be crushed without worrying about the effect on maintianing parity with "concensus Glorantha" (We are in the paradox of all agreeing that our Gloranthas will vary, but wanting to have 'Published Stats' to vary from).
A book of adventures, or a campaign book, or even a book full of adventure seeds to some extent, on the other hand should have stats for it's NPCs. While some people will just mine these books for ideas, and others will be happy to supply their own stats, we have to assume at least some people will be buying these books in order to get something they can use in play with a minimum of additional work. I would expect such adventures to include some sort of benchmark, which will reveal what sort of level the author expects characters who are interacting with these characters to be. (And if, therefore, my campaign has ended up a mastery or two higher, I have some idea of what adjustments I'll need to scale the writers Glorantha to fit in with mine).
*so Stats for Jar-Eel would start off
Lunar Heroine (keyword) 15W4
Inspiration of Moonson (keyword) 15W4
Beatpot Aelwrin (follower - sidekick) 10W3
What might be fun would be a "Describe Jar-Eel in 100 Words" contest (or a slightly wider "Describe any famous Gloranthan in 100 Words" contest)
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