Heroes are your main combatants in the game. Their efforts can be supplemented by the intervention of gods, small citizen armies recruited from your towns and summoned monsters. Players can fight alongside or against monsters such as the hydra, kraken and dragons. On the more prosaic side, you've got skeletons, wolves and plain old elemental titans. Although we didn't get to see too much of the combat interface, it's a lot like the Baldur's Gate interface.
Heroes are also the agents of technological growth in the game.
Rather than relying on traditional tech trees and research routines, Pantheon uses a quest based research system. Scattered across the map are sage huts. Here you will find individuals willing to trade technology for services. Let's say you've stumbled across a hut and the guy inside says he'll give you the science of farming if you'll recover the magic stone tablet from a nearby satyr. At this point you can choose to return the tablet and receive your reward or , if the tablet is really powerful, you can keep it for your own use.