Heroes

Heroes are characters you can recruit in game to help you with battles and quests. The hero that leads your army for battles and quests is called a General. Please note: Heroes are not army members or soldiers (units).

All heroes need to be "recruited". Some heroes can be recruited from the "Heroes" tab below the Castle Age banner. The heroes here cost gold to recruit, and may or may not require an upkeep. As you unlock new areas, you will find more heroes to recruit on this page. All generals needed to gain influence on quests can be bought here.

You can also get generals by using Favor Points and pulling them out of the Oracle treasure chests, or by buying one directly if it is the "hero of the month". All the generals gathered this way are never used for quests, but are useful for the PvP and Monster Hunting aspects to the game.

Some heroes can be recruited by creating them through Alchemy. The ingredients required to make them can be obtained from various places. They can be from monster loot, gifts, treasure chests or some other parts of the game. There are also some who can be obtained by simply gathering enough friends.

A-Z photo gallery at Heroes Gallery

Active General
While you may recruit many heroes, only one may be your "Active General" at a time. Your Active General contributes their Attack, Defense, and any special abilities when attacking (also dispelling and fortifying) a monster, invading another players army, or questing.

To switch Active Generals: Your Active General determines whether or not you will gain influence while doing quests. They each have different Attack and Defense stats which helps determine your battle power in duels. And they each add their own special ability, which can do a number of things.
 * Click "Heroes" (under the Castle Age Banner) and then "Generals" and then click on the hero that you want to be your new Active General.
 * or click the picture of your current general located within the Castle Age Banner and then click on the hero that you want to be your new Active General.
 * or click the picture of a general by a quest and click the Select Hero button to select that one as your Active General. (You can also purchase the hero this way if you don't have it yet, which automatically selects it as your Active General after the purchase).

General Levels
As time goes on, each general can become stronger. If you have them selected as your Active General, they will gain experience whenever you do quests, participate in PvP, and when you fight monsters (Note: you will earn experience as well from these activities, but the amount you earn will be different than the amount your active general earns). Weaker generals earn experience faster than stronger generals. You can start leveling your generals once you reach level 10.

When a general gains a level, his/her/its attack and defense will increase, and their special ability improves. Every general begins at level 1, and eventually reaches level 4. Obtaining Hero Medals will allow specific generals to raise their max level cap. Heroes purchased with gold will retain their level and experience if you sell them and then hire them back at a later time to avoid upkeep costs.

Experience gained by a general is correlated to the amount of resources spent while they are active; not on the amount of experience the player gains while they are active. In other words for any particular general it will take the same amount of (energy/stamina) to level regardless of how you spend it.

There are some parts of the game however that don't give generals experience towards leveling. These are: Call to Arms, Epic Quests, Guild Battles, Guild Monsters and Arena (if there is one being held).

This is a spreadsheet that lists all the heroes and their stats and abilites from level 4 up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoRDy0j8eSFHdGhZTmlQZjZ1VVdZa0hFdTVoQlZoVnc#gid=0

General Specifics
There are a lot of generals. Each general has its own stats. They also have an ability. They can also level up and change their stats and the strength of their abilities. Because of this, there is a bit of a disagreement on how to display this information. If you wish, you can browse our General General Tables (which carries general information on the generals). If you wish to know absolutely everything about a General, please browse that general's individual page. (Note: if you are wondering what happened to all the information that used to be on this page, it has been moved to the General General Page)

Generals
As of May 24, 2012, there are a total of 176 heroes, 8 of which can no longer be obtained (Eternal Alystra, Dexter the Drunk, Memnon, Angelica, Elin, Noktar, Persephone and Gabrielle). Kilgore can be obtained at any time although he is only available to select players.

Alchemy Heroes
Though neither of them are available through the store, Keira may be considered the general of the Demon Realm and Cartigan may be considered the general of the Underworld.

Oracle Monthly Specials

 * Most of these can be purchased using Favor Points. Each Hero's viability is dependent on your current level.