The Hero
The word “hero” has a lot of associations with moral uprightness and helping the weak and upholding justice and truth. This is a product of modern romanticizing. The original meaning of “hero” is “one born of the blood of gods.” One could be a hero and do great evil as well as great good. Indeed, the farther back one looks at myth, the more dark and bloody the heroes become. Succeeding ages layered on glosses of virtue and decency, making the stories toothless instructional fables for children instead of profound moral puzzles for adults.
Strip away the years of people editing myths to make a point, and you’ll find something violent and confusing. The Hercules of myth slew his best friend in a rage that is chillingly familiar to any Kindred who’s entered anger frenzy. That’s a long way from the figure adorning toys and T-shirts.
In the Circle, a Kindred becomes a Hero when he enters into a fuller realization of what he is, what he has become. This initiation happens when he kills. No longer The Fool who lacks the most direct experience of the Requiem’s core, no longer a Trickster dodging his own Beast like a caped matador, the Hero has blood on his hands and can never go back to what he was.
Another name sometimes given to a Circle Hero is “Outsider,” which carries far fewer connotations of decency and warmth. What both names have in common is the essence, however. Both clearly show someone who is outside the norm, who is beyond ordinary, who is set apart forever. The Hero in myth is thrust away from his society, travels and endures terrible dangers, often enters the realm of death in order to return with knowledge that makes his culture stronger. When the Outsider returns and saves his people, he is no longer an exile, and becomes a leader.
The Circle finds that many Kindred follow this roadmap exactly, without needing a single word of instruction. The journey begins with the Embrace, as thorough an expulsion from normal Humanity as one could desire. With murder, the Hero is truly set apart and comes face to face with the Beast that rides him.
In stories, this creature is externalized as the brute Minotaur or the cunning Sphinx, but Acolytes know the secret, that the enemy is within. The mythic Hero faces death and returns, just as Kindred walk the living realm despite their own corpse-nature. Finally, the Hero returns to society, bettered by his learning and able to lead. For Acolytes, the Hero Embraces and becomes a Father (see p. 54). He does not stop wandering to lead the people from which he came, but to partake in leading Kindred society.
Strip away the years of people editing myths to make a point, and you’ll find something violent and confusing. The Hercules of myth slew his best friend in a rage that is chillingly familiar to any Kindred who’s entered anger frenzy. That’s a long way from the figure adorning toys and T-shirts.
In the Circle, a Kindred becomes a Hero when he enters into a fuller realization of what he is, what he has become. This initiation happens when he kills. No longer The Fool who lacks the most direct experience of the Requiem’s core, no longer a Trickster dodging his own Beast like a caped matador, the Hero has blood on his hands and can never go back to what he was.
Another name sometimes given to a Circle Hero is “Outsider,” which carries far fewer connotations of decency and warmth. What both names have in common is the essence, however. Both clearly show someone who is outside the norm, who is beyond ordinary, who is set apart forever. The Hero in myth is thrust away from his society, travels and endures terrible dangers, often enters the realm of death in order to return with knowledge that makes his culture stronger. When the Outsider returns and saves his people, he is no longer an exile, and becomes a leader.
The Circle finds that many Kindred follow this roadmap exactly, without needing a single word of instruction. The journey begins with the Embrace, as thorough an expulsion from normal Humanity as one could desire. With murder, the Hero is truly set apart and comes face to face with the Beast that rides him.
In stories, this creature is externalized as the brute Minotaur or the cunning Sphinx, but Acolytes know the secret, that the enemy is within. The mythic Hero faces death and returns, just as Kindred walk the living realm despite their own corpse-nature. Finally, the Hero returns to society, bettered by his learning and able to lead. For Acolytes, the Hero Embraces and becomes a Father (see p. 54). He does not stop wandering to lead the people from which he came, but to partake in leading Kindred society.
Perception
Purpose
Expectations
Heroes go on quests. Everyone knows that. At the same time, the Outsider’s motivations are never expected to be purely virtuous. Knowledge, power and freedom from a curse are the most common motivations for mythic hero quests, and it doesn’t take much to see them operating among Acolytes of the modern nights.A Hero of the Circle in Provençal might agree to murder a local Gangrel in return for Crúac lore, or a cash bounty or simply because the Hero’s sexually hungry for the woman who makes the request. He might agree to break into a werewolf’s lair under cover of darkness and steal the monster’s magic stones in return for instruction in how they’re used. He might step in to defend someone’s mortal cousin from an abusive boyfriend in return for a kind word in the Prince’s ear about the Hero’s indiscrete feeding.
The quid pro quo approach is accepted not only because it fits the myth, but because it works. The higher the Hero’s Status, the more he asks in payment and the more Resources he brings to bear. That could mean he knows other Acolytes who owe him favors, or it could mean that in typical epic fashion, he’s about to rip someone’s leg off.
History
Mythological Examples
Greek myth is particularly rich with descendents of gods who represent governing virtues, whether cunning (Oedipus, who out-thinks the Sphinx before returning to govern Thebes), popularity (Theseus becoming beloved by slaying the bandits on the perilous road to Athens before becoming its king) or brute strength (Hercules destroying the Nemean Lion before bodily traveling to heaven as a full god).On the Celtic side, Finn fills the shoes of the Hero admirably, both from the human and the Kindred perspectives. He lives outside civilized society, but because of his divorce from the mundane he is a seer and poet, able to touch deeper truths. From the Kindred perspective, he has a close association with animals, even to the point of having two of his nephews as hunting hounds. Furthermore, in some versions of the myth, his greatest foe is called Aodh, meaning “fire” — an enemy all the undead can fear and appreciate.
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