Help: Folk Heroes.

[Weldun]

Re: Help: Folk Heroes.

 

Here is a wonderful idea that will rapidly fill most if not all the possible slots for this character - GrecoRoman Mythology. By studying their mythology for a few minutes will give you several brick, speed, agility, mental, etc type characters that one could use. The most common of these would be Hercules (brick), Ares (manuplator), Mercury (speed), and Aphrodite (mental). However their panthion numbered in the thousands, most who have been lost in the annuals of time, so feel free to "discover" some new gods to fill the unfilled roles.

 

If you do not will to go the route of the famous GrecoRomans then the Celts, Norse, Franc, Mongals, Orientals (several here), and many other cultures have created panthions every bit as large but not as well known in American literature, so feel free to have fun with the character's "discoveries" in these areas.

Actually, maybe not gods, but heroes from within the legends of their interactions with mortals. I just have to make sure that they're not too obscure within the modern descendants cultural identities.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Help: Folk Heroes.

 

There were some folk hero-mages in the Middle Ages. Avram Davidson used one, Vergil (as Vergilius Magus) in a book I never quite got around to actually reading. I saw some of the same stories told about Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus with powers such as levitation and teleportation occurring prominently. Mind reading, clairvoyance and healing would be a dime-a-dozen in figures such as Saint Theresa of Avila or Saint John of the Cross. Actually, given Saint John's emphasis on the way that direct knowledge of God is linked to real "scientific" knowledge [now that is how to use scare quotes!] he could even be a gadgeteer. Or you could use Galileo in that role, or, cliched as it is, Leonardo da Vinci.

According to Umberto Eco, anyway, William of Ockham was actually Sherlock Holmes. Ned Kelly had an armour suit, so powered armour isn't that much of a stretch.