Godbound: The threat of Mortal Heroes

This isn't so much a post about new enemy stats and gifts so much as thoughts on the mortal enemies a Godbound can and will face.

Why A God Should Fear A Man

Mortal Heroes are no joke, even if they aren't remotely the most dangerous foe in the 'monster' section of Godbound. True, there reach a point where a Godbound can deal with them relatively easily but such a point is something only reached at higher levels. The 'Minor Hero' is a 4HD monster and the 'Major Hero' is an 8 HD monster, while the 'Skilled Mage' is 6HD but a bit more Gift-oriented thanks to it's higher Effort. Meanwhile, the 'Hero of the Order' in the Ancalian book stand at a whopping 12 HD with auto-hit attacks. These are no joke, especially at lower levels for a Godbound. But raw stats isn't just what would make Mortal Heroes such a threat, assuming the higher end of these amazingly gifted people stand around the level of the Ancalian Hero. So why are they such a threat?

This is why.

The Mortal Hero doesn't represent a 'high level human' in Godbound, although they certainly overlap (Ignoring the rules for playable Mortal Heroes, which I consider optional and altered for ease of play). Each of them is very much implied to stand well above the ordinary warrior or even, to some extent, mages or user of some supernatural power. Some of them might even be talented mages of some kind, as Godbound's take on magic is distinct from the image we have in D&D of the physically weak Wizard. Men of such caliber do not exist in a vacuum. These aren't your town guards (unless they are very humble and fine with a lower position in spite of the power they could wield) or something along those lines: each of them is an extraordinary individual of great skill, power, connection and resources with a long life history behind them. Now does a GM need to flesh it out entirely down to every detail? Not even close but it's worth understanding what the Mortal Hero of 8+ HD represent. Each of them has years of experience dealing with seemingly impossible odds, fighting off foes stronger than they are, braving life-threatening dangers or leader armies into battles. Think of them as likes of mythological heroes who are either fully mortal or those whose divine heritage merely translate to 'is a badass'.

These people aren't just some random encounter. And odds are, should a pantheon come to be on the opposite side of these people then they can expect some serious problems, especially if the mortal hero is not defeated right away. Of course, that's not always an option especially if the party isn't filled with murderous sociopath who smite anything which isn't deemed a Lesser Foe along their way just in case. Not only is each mortal hero ridiculously skilled, often to a near-supernatural level or low supernatural level (if magically empowered in some way) but each likely has a ton of contacts and resources, possibly even some of almost-as, equally or even slightly-more powerful friends who might just be willing to side with them if they need to fight the Godbound. Some of them might even have access to an artifact or something along those lines.

Unless the pantheon is fighting a reckless and foolish mortal hero who will leap into action and maybe deal a few points of damage before being swatted aside, things will become dangerous and escalate really, really quickly. These people will mount an offense and/or defense and odds are they will be willing to throw everything they can at the pantheon and worst of all? It's likely they won't be scared no matter the odds.

Not only that, but killing these mortal heroes may be worse than fighting them, because while some may be wandering heroes only known in legends, like some knight-errant or youxia, others are established people of great political, military and/or even religious power. These people could be feared tyrants who only keep worse forces at bay, respected and loathed in equal measure or they could be a squared-jawed, baby-kissing goodie-two-shows pompous-yet-impossibly-heroic-Paladin. And then what happen when people see their broken bodies?

Dealing with the death of these figures could be more complicated than defeating them head on!