You don't create them, you hire them (click on those wandering NPCs and take up their offer of surface (or not)).

... since when? imbue just gives magic to heroes. doesn't make heroes out of a grunt.

there's no such thing as creation.

well... aside from having kids...

Heroes cost gildar to hire but have zero maintenance cost.  So there is nothing stopping you fro hiring all of the wandering NPCs you run across.  In fact I strongly recommend you do so, especially the ones that provide +1 to a resource or +X% to food or production in a city.  If you have the money to hire them (and don't have another better use for it) it's nothing but good to hire a hero.

And to the OP: As others have said you don't "create" a hero or champion.  They are simply the wandering named NPCs you can hire.

You should be able to create new heroes outside the game, using the XML files. Create a Sovereign and edit the XML to make it a Champion. There is a tutorial by Frogboy somewhere. But inside the game? Nooope.

Recruiting as many Champions as posssible...

The pic doesn't include the 3 with my Sovereign (2 Channelers and a close combat specialist) and a few that I recruited some turns later.

I consider vital those with Food and Tech bonus. Gildar ones are also nice (go Janusk, go!). Combat Champions with Crushing Blow are the most interesting ones if you plan to use them in non-magical combat.

Of, of course you can create heroes. Just search for a nice hero of the other gender, get married (by clicking propose in the menu) to the nice SO and start creating. And some 72 seasons after birth, there is your newly created hero.
You can even get a nice boost to diplomacy if you arrange a diplomatic union with the offspring of other factions (which will make you lose your daughters to other factions but sometimes have her offspring in turn leave to you, with sons their wives will join your faction and your grand-kids might leave for another faction...).

The faster and more plentiful way of course is to wander the wastelands and hire the already grown-up heroes walking there as the others here have mentioned. For a price..


As to: ...but how do you actually create them? I'll spare the forums the details, having heard that people from across the big pond are a bit touchy around explicits of that subject.

Just curious--is this in the 1.1 version? I have only been able to play beta 1-2 hours a day--have to wait til Monday night to get some real time.

As others have said there is no maintenance cost. This is actually a part of the game that slightly annoys me...there is no decision making process involved in hiring wandering NPCs. You just go around hiring everyone and you do it without thinking. There are no constraints or risk/reward type systems in place either (like maintenance). I hope this will be looked into because it is yet another example where a game mechanic was not fully thought out.