Ye Olde Inn

This topic came up in the Artifact pricing topic, so I thought I would make it its own thread.

Basically, what is the relationship of the Heroes to the Emperor, the Empire at large and even to Mentor himself?

I'll start with Mentor as he is the character about whom we know the most (or do we?). According to the lore, it seems this wizened old man is personally responsible for training up the four Heroes, and others as well, including the Empire's hated enemy Morcar/Zargon. Yet he claims he cannot intervene directly with the knowledge he gains from Loretome, lest the world end or something. Why did Mentor choose to train these greenhorn Heroes at all? Is he really feeble from his old age, or a powerful wizard in his own right? How has he lived for so long? (It can be inferred the Mentor is much older than most normal humans, as he personally trained M/Z in the age of Rogar and Co, which was over 1,000 years ago.)

Then there's the Emperor and Prince Magnus, the latter of whom I assume is the crown prince and the heir to the throne. We see both royals enlisting the Heroes' services for a few various Quests in the base set Quest Pack, and pay the Heroes some gold in exchange for their work. How much sway does the Crown hold over the Heroes? They are probably not part of the general army, as they do not have any commanding officers over them. And while the Emperor does occasionally gift the Heroes with sums of gold, titles and laurels (the latter of which generally have no in-game effect), he does not usually allow them to take anything from the imperial armory except by paying for it. Against the Ogre Hoard does contradict this mentality somewhat, since Mentor gifts the Heroes with twenty Potions of Healing before they leave to fight the Ogre Lourde, but I can't think of any other examples offhand.

Finally, we consider the Empire at large. The imperial army is busy fighting against M/Z, of course, but how does the rest of the Empire fare? Are they reasonably prosperous, even with Chaos literally at their doorsteps, or has the war ground them down such that even a decisive victory is likely to turn Pyrrhic? Is the army itself well-trained or rag-tag? Why do the Heroes never meet any other groups of traveling heroes?

These and other questions, if answered, can provide much inspiration for the writing of Quests. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the community thinks.

It's interesting. I've enjoyed reading how others have interpreted the HQ back story as well. It was something I never really thought too much about until I started reading the posts here.

For me, my view just evolved over time as I grew up and had a more adult view of the world.

I view the Heroes as mercenaries as much as anything. There are a few quest intro that have something to the effect of: "The emporer has decreed that a band of heroes....". I alway felt this to imply that there are individuals, groups large or small of people who read the emporers proclamations and think "I can do that task", for me, our 4 Heroes are one such group. The other groups of adventurers never have entered my stories...yet. I think that as they comlete quests they gain gold and notiriety, so that maybe a few quests the Emporer personally requests them.

For Mentor, I always thought of him as having "That one guy you go to when you need something." relataionship with the Emporer/Empire. I view him as an Old, but powerful wizard. When the empire announces some quest/mission/objective Mentor calls these Heroes he's trained and tells them what the empire is looking to have done. Somehow, I always took it that the Quest introduction to mean the Heroes agreed to undertake the quest for the reward. Maybe Mentor gets a cut from the Emporer for finding someone to finish the job. In my mind I always assumed the Heroes to be independent thinkers with minimal obligation to be at Mentors beck and call. Hence in most of my homebrew quests Mentor is barely mentioned and the quest intro serves as the plot/background. That also explains why Mentor doesn't give the Heroes supplies.

Never having thought of it, and not having any sort of background in the Warhammer lore, I viewed the Empire as *The* land of goodness and alw and order, wanting peace but being ready for war to protect it's people. Probably quite naive, but I started at what...10ish? I figure that they are in good economic and military condition as most of the fluff seems to indicate that the last major wars with Chaos were a thousand years in teh past.

Just my 2 cents.

I made "Quest" cards and give out a selection of them partway through the Basic System, letting the Group choose which quest they want to go do next. Completing some opens others. I've never taken one away and said another group completed it, though I suppose I could.

edit: I typed on a silly phone, forgive autocorrects and bad puncutations. lol....I think autocorrect is set to correct emperor to emporer.....

I agree with clmckay: The heroes are basically mercenaries. They received training from Mentor and as such is more inclined to undertake the quests he gives them.
I see them as partly in it for the money yet still willing to go the extra mile out of loyalty to the Empire.
The heroes are one of many groups of willing adventurers. YOUR heroes just happens to be very successful and as such they get to go on the harder quests such as rescuing the Emperor in KK.

Mentor is indeed a powerful wizard. But his powers lie not so much in destructive battle magic, but rather in his knowledge and connection with Loretome.
He is capable of foreseeing the paths of the universe, but at the cost that he himself cannot interfere. Why not? That's just how his magic works *insert convoluted explanation here*.
Also fraggle "Mentor and Morcar is the same" fan-speculation. It's fun but 100% tinfoil hat.

Assuming the world of HeroQuest is the same as the world of Warhammer, any info on the Empire is fairly easy to acquire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_(Warhammer)

Interestingly enough, one of the emperors is called "Magnus the Pious" - As in Prince Magnus ('s gold)?
http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Magnus_the_Pious

My take:

Mentor is old. So darn old that it is a challenge to get out of bed and take a whiz some mornings. He is however extremely powerful when it comes to magic. The fact that he can only sit back in a city to provide support does not take away from his ability to cause great events to take place. He is committed to the Royal Family, but he is wary of the Emperors ever expanding reach into the affairs of all nations. He has a war with a former apprentice that has spilled over into war with the Empire.
Loretome is an impossibly complex mystic book with tons of information. But the information must be read, understood and committed to memory. Finding anything in it could be a serious challenge, just because one owns Loretome does not mean you have all the information in your head.
The excuse the old man gives that it would destroy the world to directly involve himself may be for one of two main reasons. 1} He has seen a sequence of events unfold due to his personal intervention that causes ultimate doom, no matter how he maneuvers.
And the one I prefer to believe... 2} It is just easier to tell a white lie to the heroes about his involvement. He is too old to leave the city. Finding anything in Loretome is a bitch. Just discovering the best recipe for scalloped potatoes could eat up a month of reading time before he found the information he is looking for. He is very busy providing mystical services to the Empire and the rich and powerful of Empire City. He doesn't have time to waste delving into Loretome for information when it may be too late by the time one finds the right information to put it into play.
Training up heroes and giving them intel and in the case of the Ogre Horde storyline potions is involving himself directly. He sits back and plays lord and master over the lives of the heroes in so many ways.

The Emperor is a crusty old bastard with a plan for global domination and power. He has teams of "heroes' scouring the badlands for mystic power, weapons and esoteric arcane things. The heroes in play are just one team of special operators out doing black ops for the crown. On top of that he has an ongoing war with the 'Forces of Chaos', which takes up allot of the Empires resources. Often our heroes are thrust into this war as a black ops team.

Prince Magnus is the Crown Prince, an adventurer and a fair minded man. He is vastly wealthy and well equipped. He does however know his limitations and understands his need to preserve the family line. So he often will send the heroes out on missions.

I certainly don't see the heroes as mercenaries. I think of them as heroes - just as they are described...maybe like
what we see near the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings, where all the lands heroes meet to figure out how to
keep the lands safe. Sure, they like getting the money, but they have hero status to live up to. It's in their blood.

As for Mentor - I kind of think of him as similar to Yoda. He is powerful and can fight and cast magic when he needs
to, but it's more his duty to stand in the back, train the heroes, make the plans, and try to figure out what the bad
guys would do next. If the Empire lost him, they would be lost entirely. He is just too valuable.

The Empire is just that...the Empire. The heroes, and Mentor himself, work for the Empire...they are loyal to the
Empire...both because it is the Empire and because of the justness of the Prince and the Emperor. The peoples of
the Empire like the heroes, but don't have the resources to help them constantly. Even the Empire itself cannot
bail the heroes out everyday. They must make their own way, to some extent.

And just a personal note of opinion...I've looked at warhammer stuff before, and I could never
really get into the actual warhammer lore and history. Just looking at the second link GK left,
about Prince Magnus. That is just horrible...maybe it is a problem with whoever wrote it up
on the wikia...maybe it is just horrible because of GW writing it. I don't know. But it is horrible.

One of the biggest problems...Emperors are not elected. This never would have happened. Even
though it is fantasy, if it uses a real-world governmental system, it has to stay true to that or
the reader is not going to believe it. And I don't. Perhaps, by "elected", the writer means that
everyone just decided to follow Magnus as their Emperor. If that is the case, that needs to be
rewritten.

Second...Magnus cried blood? Really?

Third - when Magnus was initially growing his forces. People followed, partly, because they were
afraid to refuse the growing forces? Sorry - that doesn't sound like someone the people would "love"
and someone they were overwhelmingly "vote" to be Emperor. Too inconsistent.

Then there is the whole part about how the Elves helped the peoples of the Empire learn magic safely.
If magic was so looked down upon, and those who worked magic were so feared and despised, how would
someone like Mentor, or someone like Morcar, learn the levels of magic that they did by this point in history?
It would have humans of the Empire a lot longer to really pick up in their learning and teaching of magic,
even with the help of Elves. Again...not very consistent.

Stuff like that ^^ is why I go with my own back stories.

The Emperor is Emperor because his father was Emperor, and his father before him was Emperor, and likewise his father before and back unto 20+ generations.
What used to be a Fife became a Barony, then it became a Principality then it became a Kingdom then an Empire. And the Emperor is the master of all the Humans and most of the Elven lands.

Chaos seeks to unseat this great Empire and it is doing a fine job of it so far. If not for the oft times deadly sacrifices of stalwart heroes defending against the mechanizations of Zargon and the Dragons, the Empire would surely fall. (or at least that is the propaganda the heroes get told...)

Nah… Mentor won't leave the capital because he is Zargon/Morcar and is secretly destroying the empire from within. The rest of the war is just a game to keep everyone distracted from the primary objective.

He recruited the heroes to become heroes and join what will be the future rebel alliance as trusted partners (thank you Loretome). At which point he will use them to leak the plans to his "fully operational space station" and lead all of the alliance leaders into a trap and crush them. And Admiral Ackbar will declare "It's a trap!"

torilen wrote:One of the biggest problems...Emperors are not elected. This never would have happened. Even
though it is fantasy, if it uses a real-world governmental system, it has to stay true to that or
the reader is not going to believe it. And I don't. Perhaps, by "elected", the writer means that
everyone just decided to follow Magnus as their Emperor. If that is the case, that needs to be
rewritten.

Yeah, I don't think they mean an actual election...

cynthialee wrote:The Emperor is Emperor because his father was Emperor, and his father before him was Emperor, and likewise his father before and back unto 20+ generations.

Just pointing out that in the real world, royal lines have historically been broken lots of times.
Rulers have been disposed of, and not uncommonly the powerful upper class has chosen who to be the new ruler.

Big parts of Europe had been united under "Charlemagne". His son was weak. Soon after his death, under his son, Europe broke apart again.

Before, in the Roman Empire, same story: repeated civil wars for the leadership or against the slaves made them weak, and provinces used the opportunity to go away.

My portrait of the Empire is not hat far from it. The today's emperor united it like Charlemagne did, partly with presentation of overwhelming forces, partly with constant warfare against rebel provinces. At the same time, the Chaos presses on, so it's not getting easier. What is good for the emperor is that Mentor decided to use Loretome in his favor. It is like the super secret service. You are not sure about the loyalty of duke Backwood? Let's see what Loretome says about this Guy. And his family. And about this connection to the orc war last year. See that! It is him hiding away this artifact. Too bad the army is just now at the other side of the Reich. So we don't declare anti rebellion war right now. Send some mercenaries to get that artifact out without official connection to us. That's the hero's.

So yes, why ever Mentor works for the emperor, the Hero's are some kind of special ops team loyal to Mentor not the emperor, sent to do dirty work. Sometimes official, sometimes not, and sometimes they work on their own. Mentor keeps training rogues, because if he uses too much magic, Zargon or Morcar may detect it and use the temporary weakness for some swift counteraction.

I imagine them three fixed in a Mexican stand off. If Mentor fights one of them, the other one wins. That shall not be known, therefore he ever tells any group of heroes only about one of them, never about both. But it provides a good reason why he teams up with the emperor. The Empire might distract one of them long enough so that he can fight the other one. It did not yet happen, but Mentor has time to wait....