[GB] Let's settle on heroes

[Mike]

Okay. I have to let Atalanta go. She's an expansion hero. She belongs to Artemis.

Zeus takes Heracles.

Of the heroes we have, Hera would take Argus.

Medusa is most closely connected to Athena, but maybe we want to reserve Medusa for a legendary card (like poor Pallas).

Perseus is most favored by Zeus, but I don't think he can replace Heracles. He's vaguely connected to Hermes and Athena, but only because Zeus forced them to help Perseus.

Circe could potentially claim connection to Poseidon, but ultimately she is best suited to Hecate.

Hippolyta is the daughter of Ares. Expansion

Achilles could reasonably go to Hera if we wanted, and remove the "monsters" from our heroes.

More soon.

[Mike]

Hermes is the father of Pan. He watched over Odysseus, the ultimate traveler. Father of Hermaphroditus (Although, Aphrodite is his mother and has equal claim). Father of Tyche, the lesser goddess of luck.

I'm currently leaning Odysseus.

[Mike]

Aphrodite is mother of Hermaphroditus and also Harmonia (lesser goddess of harmony). She was with Adonis for eight months out of the year. She also has Eros (Cupid), and a handful of other lesser winged love gods who made up her posse.

[Mike]

Poseidon was the father of Theseus... that's a good one. And also (in some accounts) Orion the hunter... I like that one a lot. Recognizable and easy to pronounce are significant qualities here.

Poseidon has lots of kids. We have plenty of options.

[Mike]

Obviously we have gender balance among the gods, and I would like to continue that with the heroes, but we're going to have to work for it.

[Mike]

Side note on terrain: regardless of who the heroes are, I was planning to assign favored terrain as...

Zeus, Hera -- mountains
Athena, Hermes -- forest
Poseidon, Aphrodite -- water

So it would be cool if chosen heroes made sense with those choices, so that they will still make sense when we publish the hero expansion, and they are separated from their patrons.

I'm not married to the above, but I think it feels good.

[Mike]

Interesting female figures we might consider as heroes. I just don't know where.

Sparte (Sparta): wife of one of the first kings of Sparta. The city is named for her. Little is known of her except that she was exceedingly beautiful and "worth fighting for". She could be a nymph or descended from one (who isnt?) She is ultimately descended from Oceanus, the titan god of the sea before Poseidon. We can cast her as a wise tactician who tempered her husband's more warlike nature and guided him to victories. She could be connected to any god we choose to make up a connection to. She is very similar in character to Gorgo, the Spartan queen from the movie 300.

Andromeda: the daughter of Cassiopeia and Cepheus, chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster, saved by Perseus. The bulk of her history involves being a damsel in distress and then mother to a great line of kings, and eventually ancestor of all Persians. Interestingly, according to Ovid, Andromeda was black while her husband Perseus was white. Her strongest connection is to Poseidon, but I'm sure we could find/create something else if needed.

[Mike]

More women:

Calypso
Daphne
Medea
Pandora

[Mike]

Helen would also work for Aphrodite.

This gender balance is hard. Hera doesn't tolerate other women, and Aphrodite is often at odds with women as well.

Aphrodite - Adonis (Helen? Echo?)
Athena - Medusa
Hera - Achilles (Argus?)
Hermes - Pandora (Odysseus?)
Poseidon - Calypso (Circe? Orion? Theseus?)
Zeus - Heracles

Still just thinking. Sorry if I'm rambling.

[FlameBlade]

[Eliahad]

He is both. I think the Hero should be water, but his seed terrain one each of water and mountain.

[Mike]

As far as I'm concerned each god can put out whatever type of seed terrain they want. It's just the hero that has to have a favored terrain, and I wanted to make sure they were evenly divided.

Seriously... "Hey Zeus, you get any two terrain tiles you want to start the game."

"I can pick any of them?"

"Yup. But Heracles is only immune to mountains, if that affects your choice."

Most gods will choose their hero's favored terrain, but not always, depending on powers and opposition.

[Mike]

Bonus heroes. I'm thinking...

Odysseus, water
Orion, forest
Hippolyta, mountain

[Eliahad]

What do you think about associating Perseus with Hermes (Hermes did give him the sickle that slayed the Medusa), and switching out Adonis for Helen (she is slightly more recognizable) to pair with Aphrodite?

That keeps the parity for male and female and leaves Pandora open to be with Hephestus later.

[Mike]

Yeah. I'm with you. I have this vision of it being perfect and balanced with obvious and sensible links from mythology, but women are so poorly treated. Hera and Aphrodite mostly can't stand other women, especially mortal women, and even Aphrodite's "help" to Helen was to win a beauty contest and inadvertently start World War 0. Hermes connection to most mortals is either as messenger, delivering gifts at the behest of other gods, or rape. Hermes children are all either gods or satyrs. Hermes is really the hardest of all of them. But Perseus has a connection, and they FEEL like a match, don't they?

But ultimately, this whole hero-matching thing is just a way for me to keep doing mythology research and avoid harder work, so I have to stop. All that's important is that the heroes have some sort of connection to the god in question and that there isn't a better, more obvious link to some other god. After the hero expansion, matching heroes directly to gods is going to be a moot point anyway.

Aphrodite - Helen
Athena - Pallas
Hera - Achilles
Hermes - Perseus
Poseidon - Calypso
Zeus - Hercules

This set feels good to me. I think Pallas is the best fit, and the idea that the Palladion is a tribute to Pallas doesn't bother me. But if we have to go back to a queen of Sparta, I'm fine with that too.

[Mike]

Oh yeah... and should we change Heracles to Hercules?

[FlameBlade]

More common spelling. While on the subject, why not herkules jerkules

[Mike]

Fitting. I'm on board.

[Eliahad]

One is Greek (Heracles) and one is Roman (Hercules). We've been (pretty) good about sticking with the Greek, since we've been calling them Greek heroes from the beginning. I also think (off the top of my head) we have been using Greek names for the Gods. So the question is whether we care enough to keep it as consistent as possible, or if we just go with the idea of common knowledge and use the more common spellings of things. I think Achilles, for example, is also the Roman spelling.

[Mike]

I'm with you on the process here. The purist in me says Heracles, but I also know that Disney has established that Hercules is the son of Zeus, and 97% of our players will call him Hercules regardless of spelling.

I say leave it at Heracles for now, but keep this discussion in mind.