List of superheroes (including dead ones)

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

So I was thinking about the different between superheroes and heroes that Jeff laid out in recent Facebook posts and it got me thinking about who is a superhero, so I tried to make a list:

Jar-Eel

Sedenya, prior to becoming the physical red moon

Arket

Harrek

Yelmgatha

Belintar

The Only Old One

Godunya, or maybe we should count him exclusively as a dragon?

Sheng Seleris 

Zzabur, was/is definitely one but would have achieved it through very different means

which are the ones I am missing and/or mistaken on?

Edited June 22, 2022 by FlamingCatOfDeath
Correction

[Jeff]

Yelmgatha was definitely not a superhero.

[Darius West]

Is Garundyer a superhero?

[JRE]

The OP list is missing Androgeus.

I think great heroes, the ones that merit a counter in a wargame are rare. Superheroes are more rare yet. From the few we know, Superheroes have reached a kind of summit, and they do not change from there. So if Arkat is a superhero, I would say it is only after the Tower of Dreams, and he could not return as such, which is why there will be many small ones rather than a big one in the Hero Wars. Change is very hard once you reach infinity. Arkat as a hero avoids having to make Palangio a superhero, as I do not think he merits it.

Remember that a demigoddess controlling a dragon, Cragspider, is quite less than a superhero, though more than a Hero.

Belintar does things in a different way. I do not think he would have a 20!! counter, but he touches infinity without having earned it, and that burns up the bodies.

I also think that Garundyer is a regular Hero, though from the little we know, Ardinyar Kocholangsson could become a superhero. He certainly surpasses Garundyer and his father.

The Talar of the West, after his marriage with Seshna, could have reached Superhero status, if we see him as a doer rather than a ruler. His death is not recorded when his armies are beaten, which is at least heroic.

Killing dragons looks like a superhero job, but maybe Alakoring just instructed a forgotten superhero, rather than being one himself.

[Shiningbrow]

3 hours ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

So I was thinking about the different between superheroes and heroes that Jeff laid out in recent Facebook posts

Would you care to C&P for those of us without access to FB?

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would you care to C&P for those of us without access to FB?

It’s on the well of daliath https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/jar-eel-again/

[Shiningbrow]

8 minutes ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

It’s on the well of daliath https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/jar-eel-again/

Ta muchly!!

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

2 hours ago, JRE said:

The OP list is missing Androgeus.

True! I was thinking about them by relating them to each other (Sheng must be a super hero because he was close in power to Godunya) and so I totally forgot about him/her. Thank you for reminding me.

2 hours ago, JRE said:

Remember that a demigoddess controlling a dragon, Cragspider, is quite less than a superhero, though more than a Hero.

The stats we have are from a long time ago, we don’t know if the revelation about her true origin/nature has changed how she will be stat-ed in the new edition of WB&RM https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/personalities-of-glorantha/personalities-of-glorantha-cragspider-the-firewitch-1999/

(i just realized that if she was willing to reveal that she is a spirit she could have direct influence over a lot of troll shamans by making spirit cult relationships with them) (unless I am missing something obvious)

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Belintar

The Only Old One

These two really count as gods or demi-gods, not superheroes.  

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

Errinoru was likely a superhero.

[Bill the barbarian]

Androgynous (sp?) seems to be missing...

Edited June 22, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[French Desperate WindChild]

Lokamaydon ?

[Jeff]

Most of those listed are not superheroes. I'd have a very short list -

Arkat

Errinoru

Yanafal Tarnils

Harrek

Jar-eel

Androgeus

And that's probably about it. The Only Old One, Belintar, Godunya, etc. are not superheroes. 

[AndreJarosch]

19 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Most of those listed are not superheroes. I'd have a very short list -

Arkat

Errinoru

Yanafal Tarnils

Harrek

Jar-eel

Androgeus

And that's probably about it. The Only Old One, Belintar, Godunya, etc. are not superheroes. 

The first three are lost in history (became gods). 
The latter three are all around for the HeroWars (and are part of the Hero Wars in Dragon Pass)!

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

Most of those listed are not superheroes. I'd have a very short list -

Arkat

Errinoru

Yanafal Tarnils

Harrek

Jar-eel

Androgeus

And that's probably about it. The Only Old One, Belintar, Godunya, etc. are not superheroes. 

That's interesting.  Why only Yanafal Tarnils and not the rest of the Seven Mothers?

Thanks,

David.

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Most of those listed are not superheroes. I'd have a very short list -

Arkat

Errinoru

Yanafal Tarnils

Harrek

Jar-eel

Androgeus

And that's probably about it. The Only Old One, Belintar, Godunya, etc. are not superheroes. 

Does this mean that Harrek would have won in a fight against Seng or am I misinterpreting it? The issue might be that I was thinking about the definition of Super Hero as being immune to most magic while the real definition is achieving that through a specific path. My understanding is that Godunya has the same immunity as a superhero by way of being a True Dragon. I am sorry for my ignorance.

[Akhôrahil]

It seems that the tricky bits is differentiating between hero and super-hero, and between super-hero and demigod. Especially the latter - people like Belintar, Takenegi, Sheng Seleris, Godunya and Ralzakark are up there, but count (for reasons that aren’t immediately obvious to me, but also kinda make sense) as demigods instead (or maybe Godunya is not that either but a dragon?). I would not hazard to provide a definition of the difference.

Was Hon-eel a super-hero? She feels like a candidate, at least?

Edited June 23, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

18 hours ago, JRE said:

Killing dragons looks like a superhero job, but maybe Alakoring just instructed a forgotten superhero, rather than being one himself.

Alakoring feels possible to me. Not because of “mere” dragon-slaying (something other decidedly non-super heroes did as well, like Iddi Scorchbane), but because he provides a full cultural, history-changing package in one person.

How should we think of super-heroes when relating to real-world mythology? Presumably Heracles is the only candidate in Greek mythology? Norse mythology doesn’t have one? Indian probably has a few (not my area)?

Edited June 23, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

9 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Lokamaydon ?

Supervillain? 🙂

But yes, surely the most powerful Orlanthi hero pre-HeroWars? Not that this is necessarily enough.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Mark Mohrfield]

I believe that Sandy Petersen has claimed that Elamle-ata was a Superhero.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Mark Mohrfield

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I believe that Sandy Petersen has claimed that Elamle-ata was a Superhero.

I think that particular exchange was a bit of crossed wires.  One person was asking why all superheroes were aggressive and Sandy responded with the example of Elamle-Ata as the example of a pacifist hero.  

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

It seems that the tricky bits is differentiating between hero and super-hero, and between super-hero and demigod

Without having a standard definition which we all agree with, this thread is meaningless.  

I could, literally, plug in any name from RQG, and be quite right in asserting that they are a "Super-hero" - by having my own definition.

Jeff believes he's right when he says categorically yes or no - but again, without having a definitive meaning of the terms, it has as much relevance as any names I suggest (eg, Josephus the stickpicker - born 1610, died 1625 - never left the woods in his life).

However, once definitions are set, then identifying those who fit the characteristics becomes a lot easier... (not perfect, because people may disagree with those definitions)

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Josephus the stickpicker - born 1610, died 1625 - never left the woods in his life

That's an extremely interesting prompt. 

IMG at that level there are multiple distinct routes to power. Maybe a few routes culminate in the "superhero" state with the immunity to conventional magic, heroic escape and so on . . . but there are others that lead other places, some of which didn't show up in the existing board games. You can become all kinds of things if you work hard enough and you have a little luck or fate on your side. Maybe we call some of them saints or archmages, awakened mystics, monsters, demigods, dragons, engrions, nagual, chimera, supreme idiots, scary creeps, thin white dukes, dharma bums and so on. If Josephus had lived a little longer, he might have become a pompatus of love, whatever that means.

Most of these theoretical people of power have evolved along very different lines from the superhero. They accumulate different tricks and habits of being. Maybe some of them still bleed. Maybe others are even tougher. Either way, if one of these parallel paragons were to interact with a "superhero," you'd naturally generate sparks and other strange phenomena . . . but they might never interact directly at all. It's unlikely, for example, that Godunya and Jar-Eel ever end up in the same room. They're both busy and their personal "magnetic fields" slide away from each other when they orbit too closely.

I suspect that as the rules clarify these advanced questions, the esoteric distinctions will become more familiar terms of art. For now, we know a tiny bit more about what makes a "superhero." Like any well defined state of being, it's as much of a prison as a power trip. Karma's a bitch that way. Even a slow wheel turns.

[Eff]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

That's an extremely interesting prompt. 

IMG at that level there are multiple distinct routes to power. Maybe a few routes culminate in the "superhero" state with the immunity to conventional magic, heroic escape and so on . . . but there are others that lead other places, some of which didn't show up in the existing board games. 

And of course, in the board games we have some interesting distinctions- the superhero units are neither spirit magicians nor physical magicians nor do they possess any exotic magic. To contrast, the demigods Ironhoof and Cragspider do have exotic magic (and Cragspider is a spirit magician), the Red Emperor is a spirit magician, the... whatever... Argrath has exotic magic as well, Ethilrist effectively has exotic magic that's tied to separate chits, unlike Ironhoof and Cragspider's abilities. Indeed, Ethilrist is also the only non-superhero in DP to have two leadership !s, and he has a reduced True Dragon-esque unit with the Hound, and his own semi-Dragontooth Runners with his Goblin chit. Possibly this is a question of whether you "concentrate your magic" into being a single little cardboard square in a single hex or whether you spread it out some, and the former keeps you more united, and the latter spreads you thinner. 

(And all it takes is a successful Disrupt on that ranged weapons table or from the plague events to take out that immunity to battlefield-scale magic...)

[svensson]

And all this is why I maintain that RQG Player Characters are not playing in the same league as 'Heroes-with-a-capital-H'.

PCs are not Aragorn, or Conan, or the central figures in the story of the Hero Wars and the defeat of Red Goddess. They are the side characters... They are Legolas or Palamedes [one of King Conan's loyal barons]... or Merry and Pippin.  If Queen Leika Ballista, Prince Kallyr Starbrow or Jarostep Prince-Killer are not Heroes, than PCs definitely aren't. Fazzur Wideread isn't a Hero, and he's spent 30 years playing a quarter of Genertelan continent like a puppeteer!

Maybe this will change when we get the official Heroquesting rules and when the Hero Wars supplement comes out. It would be nice to see the players able to go toe-to-toe with the big kids in the yard. But as things sit right this minute in 2022, that's just not the case.