---
title: Heroes
description: Reference for Eagle heroes, stats, professions, and battlefield roles.
---

Heroes are named characters who lead factions, rule provinces, command troops, perform strategic commands, and appear as units in Shardok battles.

The player-facing hero model is `HeroView`. It includes identity, faction membership, profession, core stats, personality stats, vigor, loyalty, abilities, portrait path, and backstory text.

## Core Stats

- **Strength** affects physical power and contributes to combat-oriented commands.
- **Agility** affects mobility, scouting-style competence, and some profession eligibility.
- **Constitution** sets a hero's endurance profile and is closely tied to vigor.
- **Charisma** affects leadership, loyalty, diplomacy-flavored actions, and some profession eligibility.
- **Wisdom** affects knowledge, magic-flavored actions, and some profession eligibility.

Stats can also have XP values. Strategic commands often spend vigor and grant XP in the stats connected to that action.

## Personality Stats

- **Integrity** represents trustworthiness and moral reliability.
- **Ambition** represents appetite for power or advancement.
- **Gregariousness** represents sociability and ease with other heroes.
- **Bravery** represents willingness to face danger.

These values help drive hero flavor, AI decisions, and story generation.

## Vigor

Vigor is a hero's current energy reserve. **Constitution is the hero's normal strategic vigor cap**; vigor and Constitution are related, but they are not the same stat.

### Strategic vigor

Many Eagle commands require an acting hero and spend vigor. The command reference lists each cost. A hero with too little vigor is not offered as an actor for that command.

Vigor recovers over time and through deliberate recovery:

- Each new month restores 5 vigor.
- [Rest](/commands/#rest) restores up to 15 vigor to each faction hero in the province.
- [Feast](/commands/#feast) restores up to 10 vigor to each faction hero in the province.
- Recovery cannot raise strategic vigor above Constitution.

Strategic actions that spend vigor also grant Constitution XP. Constitution can rise through normal stat advancement, increasing the hero's future strategic vigor cap.

### Vigor in a Shardok battle

A hero enters battle with the vigor they currently have after strategic costs such as marching. That value becomes the hero's **battle-start vigor** and the recovery ceiling for that battle. A tired hero can therefore enter with a battle recovery ceiling below their Constitution. The ceiling does not fall as the battle proceeds; current vigor falls and rises beneath it.

Tactical vigor affects what a hero-led unit can do:

- Higher current vigor contributes to the unit's maximum Action Points. A normal unit's maximum is 5 plus rounded `vigor / 25` plus rounded `morale / 25`.
- Spending Action Points normally spends 0.5 vigor per AP, and some profession abilities have additional vigor costs.
- Combat damage and battlefield effects can reduce vigor.
- Ending an activation with unused AP, [Rest](/shardok-commands/#stop-or-rest), and effects such as [Holy Wave](/shardok-commands/#holy-wave) can restore vigor, but not above battle-start vigor.
- Below 10 vigor, most ordinary tactical commands are unavailable. A few cleanup or required commands are exceptions.
- At zero vigor, the hero-led unit is resolved as captured. Its surviving battalion does not remain on the map as an independently acting unit.

While the hero remains active, their stats affect the battalion's combat swing, they add personal damage, and their profession can unlock special commands. Low vigor does not directly scale those contributions down point by point; it reduces AP and command access, with the decisive removal occurring at zero.

When a tactical display shows `current / battle start`, the first number is current vigor and the second is the battle-start recovery ceiling—not Constitution. Enemy details may be hidden by battlefield knowledge. An absent or hidden enemy value must not be interpreted as an actual zero.

## Loyalty

Loyalty measures a hero's attachment to their faction. Feasts, events, captures, faction bias, and story consequences can move loyalty over time.

Loyalty is not faction bias. Loyalty describes an affiliated hero's current attachment; bias helps determine whether an unaffiliated or imprisoned hero will join a particular faction.

### Loyalty Departure

Any hero with low loyalty (below 50) may leave at any time. The game checks for departures automatically during the **Hero Departures** phase of each strategic round, before players and vassals issue commands. Lower loyalty means a greater chance of departure.

When a hero leaves, they stop belonging to the faction and become an unaffiliated traveler in the same province. They do not take gold or food with them. If other faction heroes remain, the province and its supplies remain with the faction. If every affiliated hero leaves, the province becomes unowned and its stored gold and food are lost.

## Professions

Professions give heroes special command access, bonuses, and tactical identity. Some effects are Eagle strategic effects, while others apply only when the hero is attached to a Shardok battle unit.

Several Shardok profession commands also depend on the attached battalion type. For example, many magic commands require a battalion type that allows casting, and stealth commands require a battalion type that allows stealth.

### Mage

Eagle effects:

- Unlocks **Control Weather** for a mage in the acting province with enough vigor.
- Can start or end blizzards and droughts in the acting province or a neighboring province.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.
- Makes the hero naturally capable of starting fires.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Lightning Bolt** when attached to a casting-capable unit.
- Unlocks the multi-round **Meteor** command chain: start, target, cast, and cancel.
- Unlocks **Freeze Water** on adjacent water when attached to a casting-capable unit.
- Improves **Start Fire** odds when the unit can start fires.
- Changes hero melee damage from physical damage to magical damage: lightning, cold, fire, and aether essence.
- Can influence AI water-crossing evaluation because Mage can freeze water.

Profession gain:

- Wisdom is the qualifying stat for Mage.

### Necromancer

Eagle effects:

- Unlocks **Start Epidemic** for a necromancer in the acting province with enough vigor.
- Epidemics can target the acting province or neighboring provinces, excluding friendly provinces that already have an epidemic.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Raise Dead** when attached to a casting-capable unit and not already controlling a unit.
- Unlocks **Fear** against eligible enemy units when attached to a casting-capable unit.
- Raised dead and fear use the hero's charisma and wisdom in their odds.

Profession gain:

- Charisma is one qualifying stat for Necromancer.

### Engineer

Eagle effects:

- Is recommended first for **Improve** when an engineer is available.
- Adds the configured engineer bonus to province improvements and devastation repair.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Build Bridge** from non-water terrain onto adjacent water.
- Unlocks **Repair** for damaged bridges and castles.
- Unlocks **Blow Bridge** while standing on a bridge.
- Unlocks **Reduce** from a castle or fortified position against enemy units or castles.
- Unlocks **Fortify** on fortifiable terrain.
- Can influence AI water-crossing evaluation because engineers can create and destroy bridge access.

Profession gain:

- Agility is one qualifying stat for Engineer.

### Paladin

Eagle effects:

- Improves **Alms** by multiplying the support gained per food given.
- Is sorted first in the **Alms** hero list when eligible.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Holy Wave** when the paladin has enough action points.

Profession gain:

- Charisma is one qualifying stat for Paladin.

### Ranger

Eagle effects:

- Unlocks **Recon** for a ranger in the acting province with enough vigor.
- Recon can target provinces not ruled by the acting faction, as long as that faction does not already have a pending recon there.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Scout** when attached to a stealth-capable unit.
- Unlocks **Hide** when attached to a stealth-capable unit, outside enemy zone of control, and with multiple hideable positions.
- Allows defending rangers with stealth-capable units to use hidden placement during setup.
- Gives a bonus to **Brave Water** odds when the unit can brave water.
- Reveals adjacent hidden enemies while moving.
- Prevents adjacent enemies from hiding or remaining hidden when the ranger has enough knowledge to be identified.

Profession gain:

- Agility is one qualifying stat for Ranger.

### Champion

Eagle effects:

- Is recommended first for **Train** when a champion is available.
- Adds the configured champion bonus to training gained by trainable battalions.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Challenge Duel** against adjacent enemy heroes outside castles.
- The target must have an attached hero and must either have enough known vigor to accept or be insufficiently known to rule that out.

Profession gain:

- Strength is the qualifying stat for Champion.

### Warden

Eagle effects:

- Improves prisoner recruitment over time. At new round processing, prisoners in a province with a ruling-faction Warden gain additional faction bias toward that province's ruler.
- Counts as a profession for general hero power and riot-crackdown hero power.

Shardok effects:

- Unlocks **Evacuate Prisoners** when the warden's unit can flee, has enough action points, and hostile captured hero units are present.

Profession gain:

- Constitution is the qualifying stat for Warden.

### NoProfession

Heroes with no profession have no profession-specific command unlocks. They can still lead, fight, train, improve, march, use many normal strategic commands, and gain a profession later.

## Profession Gain

Only heroes with **NoProfession** can gain a profession. At the end of a round, heroes with enough XP can gain stats. If a no-profession hero gains one or more stats, the game checks for profession gain:

- The hero gets one profession-gain roll for each stat that increased.
- A stat must be at least **85 after the stat gains are applied** to qualify a profession.
- Eligible professions are based on all post-gain stats at or above 85, not only the stats that increased that round.
- Strength qualifies **Champion**.
- Agility qualifies **Engineer** and **Ranger**.
- Wisdom qualifies **Mage**.
- Charisma qualifies **Necromancer** and **Paladin**.
- Constitution qualifies **Warden**.

### Progression example

A NoProfession hero earns Agility-related XP from strategic actions. During end-of-round progression, enough XP may increase Agility. If the hero's Agility is at least 85 after that increase, Engineer and Ranger are eligible. The hero receives profession-gain rolls for stats that increased; the player does not directly choose between eligible professions.

If several stats increase together, each increase can create a roll and all post-gain qualifying stats participate in eligibility. A hero who already has a profession does not roll for a replacement.

### Planning progression

- Commands award XP in stats associated with the action.
- Stat increases and profession checks happen during end-of-round processing, not when XP is awarded.
- Reaching 85 in a qualifying stat makes its profession possible but does not guarantee a particular random result.
- Choosing which eligible hero performs a command influences who receives its XP.

## Faction Leaders

For a side-by-side explanation of direct control, province turns, and vassal automation, see [Who You Command](/concepts/command-authority/).

Every faction starts with a **faction head**. The faction head is the hero who defines what the faction represents: its political identity, its public story, and the starting point for its leadership.

Factions can gain additional faction leaders through **Swear Kinship** with another hero. The candidate must already belong to the faction, must have at least 95 loyalty, and must be in a province with the faction head. When the command succeeds, that hero becomes one of the faction's leaders.

Faction leaders are directly commandable. Vassals, by contrast, lead provinces and make their own choices when their province acts. Promoting a loyal vassal into leadership gives the player more direct control over that hero.

Faction leaders also provide succession. If the faction head is killed, another available faction leader can take over as the new faction head.

## Vassals

A **vassal** is a hero who belongs to your faction and rules one of its provinces, but is not a faction leader. You cannot command vassals directly. Instead, their provinces act during the Vassal Commands phase, when each vassal chooses an action based on the province's standing orders and immediate needs.

Vassals can be given standing orders with **Issue Orders**, promoted to faction leaders with **Swear Kinship**, or removed from the faction with **Exile Vassal**.

## Unaffiliated Heroes

Unaffiliated heroes can appear in provinces before joining a faction. Their province entry includes name, profession, status, leader flag, and recruitment information.

Common interactions include recruiting them, divining more information about them, declining their quests, or responding when they ask to join.

## Battle Capabilities

Hero views expose whether a hero is archery-capable or start-fire-capable. Those capabilities affect Shardok command availability when the hero is represented in battle.

- **Archery-capable**: the hero needs at least 75 agility.
- **Start-fire-capable**: the hero is always capable if they are a Mage. Otherwise, they need at least 70 agility and at least 70 wisdom.
