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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6668481" data-attributes="member: 7635">The problem with Myth is that its heroes tend to by Supermen. That's why they are our myths. As you pointed out, a story of a mundane hero is probably history, a story of a great hero is myth, and great heroes need a reason why they are great. Blood of Kings. Divine Ancestry. Blessings of the Gods. Magical Items. Myth often espouses the idea that "leaders are great men" rather than "great men become leaders." Hell, even the Fellowship of the Ring is full of royal scions (Legolas is son of Thranduil, King of the Northern Elves. Gimli is of Durin's line and thus connected to dwarven royalty, Frodo himself is a noble among hobbits. Boromir's fall is partially due to being the son of the Steward of Gondor who was an improper or false ruler, lacking the noble qualities of true royal blood). Mythic heroes don't go from "Zero to Hero", they are literally BORN heroes! Name a myth, I'll name a hero born with the blood of Kings, Angels, Demons, or Gods in them. Which goes to the next obvious question: are all D&D fighters born better than common men? Do they all harbor some hidden bloodline  or blessing in order to justify their high ability scores, supernatural abilities, and advanced training? True "Everyman" heroes are rare; those plucked from the common folk are scant. Simply put, most ancient storytellers created reasons why these heroes were superheroes and most of it came down to birthright. D&D puts no such restriction on its heroes, so its much harder of them to emulate the genre of mythic hero unless you're willing to give them mythic origins. (Kinda like Exalted).[As an aside: Magic is usually the pervue of rare bloodlines themselves. Merlin, Circe, Medea, Cassandra, Gandalf, even Harry Potter get their powers from supernatural births or bloodlines (or in Gandalf's case, being a frickin angel) which makes them poor examples of wizardry in D&D. Clerics almost epitomize the "blessed by the Gods" trope. In fact, the only class that consistently comes from low birth and rarely has extraordinary birthrights is... rogues.]</blockquote>

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