As far as heroes starting up, I think one (or several in the Walkers case) should act as an initiator - sending out the call of 'hey we should all meet up at this place and do this World Heart thing', and then maybe start at the initial meeting. If we want to speed things along, we could always just say they've had that meeting and they know what they're doing, while we work it out in here.

EDIT: I'm down to clown with Elise being the initiator if we go that route, given her long-term goals, but I'm more than willing to let someone else take that up.