[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Didn't really know where to put this, but this cropped up from an offbranch of discussion in the now-frozen The Hunt thread... Completely apart from all of the interplayer issues in that thread, there were a few very good points brought up.

A good many players (myself very prominently included) don't hear anywhere near as much about the characters who have reached Epic status in-game, as our characters do over a pint, or a campfire. We don't know what our characters should know, and, as such, most of us treat our characters as if we didn't know.

This is a problem.

The best example of an Epic character I can think of is Jain Farstrider, from the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Were he alive at the present point in the storyline, he'd be about fifty-five, by my reckoning, and yet he is already the subject of books of The Stories everyone hears about as children. The Travels of Jain Farstrider... That's Epic. That's what Epic means - You are the stuff of legends, literally. It's not just like folks from 11-20, who're likely famous in thier own rights. Epics are almost beyond belief.

To give you something of an idea of how Epics are seen... (Possible WoT Spoilers ahead.)

Jain Farstrider traveled all of the mapped world, and then some, able to cross vast distances in half the time it would take any other rider. His horse (something in Jordan's Old Tounge meaning Sword) was faster than any other, and was fabled to be as sharp a wit as most men. The stories of Jain Farstrider are many and varied, ranging from his dealings with the mysterious Sea Folk, to his battles with the shadowspawn Trollocs. Yet... Little is actually in the stories about his origins; each story simply links itself to an earlier adventure.

In truth, Jain Farstrider was Malkieri; a man from a country since swallowed by the Blight of the Shadow. The Malkieri were the strongest against the Shadow, and every man's life in that land was pledged against it. And yet... Jain didn't stick around, and kill shadowspawn. He ran off, doing various dealings that are quite apart from his role in the stories. In fact, Jain Farstrider was a Darkfriend, who contributed to the fall of Malkier. All of this was in secret, however, so the only tales children hear by the fireside are the like of Jain Farstrider visiting all of the Ogier Stedding in a week's time, taking messages and relics back and forth between those good people.

So...

Everyone knows about Jain Farstrider in Randland (not the place's real name...). What do we know about the Epics of Layonara?

A comprehensive list would be so incredibly helpful, because half of us don't know what we should, and shouldn't know about the Epics, and thusly have no idea how to act towards them.