Well, some of the history fluff indicates that Magic was possible during the downtime but required lengthy rituals and significant effort for a high chance of failure; that Magic only became easy (comparitively) after the Awakening.

Aye, I don't really have a problem with magic still being possible, my problem is that the other immortals in the Fourth Age had to go dorment because of the mana levels but the IEs were spared the fate simply ... because ...



Also it raises my hankles somewhat when it's implied that most of the great achievements of recorded history were the result of IEs either directly or indirectly.

*EDIT*

As a clarifaction, I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with the IEs staying active if they had to mantain power nodes of Mana throughout the downcycle, although of course I'd also expect to see a dragon or two and maybe even a handful of Spirits that had the same idea...

I believe they are pretty much like regular elves but they sparkle in sunlight. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I hate you so very much.

As has been stated, the immortal elves are just elves with the additional immunities listed. They're only so powerful because they've been around for such a long time (most since the 4th world) to amass wealth and experience. It's been implied that some influential people throughout history have been IE's. Not very many, but a few. Also, it's been implied that some of the IE's have been behind the scenes influencing things during important times in history. It's also been stated in the novels that some magic was possible during the 5th world, but not very much at all, and at a huge cost to the IE's doing it.

Basically, the IE's are like Great Dragons, except less powerful individually. They're not a monolithic entity acting with uniform intent. They're not all-powerful and the IE's CAN be killed. They're just a lot more powerful than most player characters ever are. And for some reason, a lot of the people on Dumpshock just love to hate them.

Actually, IIRC at least some IEs come from the 2nd World, AKA Age of Dragons, which would make them 14,000 years old or so.

Citation Needed

IIRC it was strongly hinted in various Earthdawn books.

Aye, but I remember the hints as being the same as Earthdawn's "Shadowtalk" and being kept vague so either way a DM went would be "canon".

If I remember correctly, the IEs were first created during the Second Age though, but there weren't any known survivors.

So I'm new to Dumpshock admittedly- but i've got a big pile of 1st and 2nd ed SR books a handful of 3rd and all of the 4th. I feel sort of behind because I don't remember ever coming across anything about immortal elves. What books actually mention them?

It's mostly implied between the lines.
Tir Tairngire has some Earthdawn crossover easter eggs hidden in the text and introduces the concept in general.
Aztlan Sourcebook has extensive shadowtalk between (supposedly) Dunkelzahn, Alachia, Harlequin, Ehran and a couple other immortals (you can find extensive annotations for this in the Ancient Files here on ds).

Anything with Harlequin in the title will have reference to them. I am pretty sure that the adventure "Harlequin" was where the IE concept got its start, tho I could be mistaken on that.

Also, some novels have them in there too.

I did run into this after seeing the links in stahlsteels sig

http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/Immortals.htm#36

Thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction.

Yeah Uncle Ancient is about the most awesome sauce you can have for your fluff ^^