Immortality, A modest proposal (aka pushing buttons) Options

[Big D]

You are correct, but a little extra karma after being freed will allow the spirit to initiate and pick up powers it didn't have access to as an ally. Even Karma Drain is possible, albeit a *much* less useful version than what you would get from a muse or succubus.

[Riley37]

Immortality that works *forever*, or just through the Sixth World? Do you get to keep the benefits during the low-magic Seventh World?

(shrug) NPCs seeking immortality might be good patrons/employers for Shadowrun. But how many SR PCs actually get played long enough to be affected by aging?

How do immortal elves feel about Leonization? Do any of them see it as competition and wish it to become unavailable?

If I happened to own a Leonization clinic, I'd add some psychotropic conditioning to the process. Influential, wealthy people are my *favorite* subjects for post-hypnotic triggers!

Good novel on life extension technology and social effects: "Buying Time" by Haldeman.

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Well can't you trade a dream pact with a spirit for immortality? I mean hells if its a high force spirit you are pretty much truly a 24/7 corporate machine. Anyways remembering that elves live centuries, and have been around for years at this point, some corps already have officers that are pushing sixty, and still out doing the junior partner.

[Buster]

Just as an aside, I don't think the Immortal Elves like Harlequin were elves at all, I think they were free spirits. The Harlequin and Harlequin's Back adventures said they had Essence 8 and they had all kinds of spirit powers, including some sort of teleportation that looked suspiciously like astral metaplanar travel. All this is easily explained if they were free spirits instead of high-initiate mages. Of course, maybe there's a level past initiation (ascension?) that transforms the initiate mage into a free spirit.

[hobgoblin]

deus ex machina...

[Fortune]

[Ophis]

Earthdawn spells cover most of it, but not sure on the essence, maybe they're bodies are just easier to heal (as it never says he has 8 essence just that you treat him as such).

[hobgoblin]

[Fortune]

[Ancient History]

"Ray, when someone asks if you're a god, you say YES!"

[raggedhalo]

The teleporting is a Lightbringer power from Earthdawn, no?

[Wanderer]

Apart from him being a high-end double-digit mystic adept with dozens of vanilla metamagic, spells, and adept power, pretty much all the special powers that Harlequin shows in HiB may be recognized as Lighbearers powers. It was a Fourth World high-power crusader mystic adept magical group which specialized in fighting Horrors and drew power from the life-force of Earth. No need whatsoever to think of him as a free spirit (and even if it were, a mystic adept with millennia of experience could easily have all kinds of free spirit powers from standing spirit pacts).

Combining Dream Pact with another Spirit Pact with the same spirit, if at all possible, is a very clever thing to do, since it provides a nifty way to provide for all the Karma needs of the spirit (except for the Life Pact costs, which are mandatory) and reap goodwill at zero cost for the mage, plus giving the mage a powerful bodyguard. The only issue is that the character will occasionally have to deal with the messes created by the spirit's lack of familiarity with metahuman issues.

I'd hypothesize that an immortlaity sustained by a spirit pact might lose effectiveness during the low-mana parts of the Cycle, as free spirits typically retreat from Earth, but it's not a sure thing. Some especially powerful free spirits were known to roam Earth during the downcycle (e.g. cfr. Thais, the half-Horror entity that taught Native Aremicans the original Ghost Dance in the 1890s). It might well be that such Pacted immortals go into hibernation during the downcycle like dragons. As a matter of fact, I were to run such a case in a story (e.g. a Fourth World magician NPC sustained by a spirit pact), I'd probably use the hibernation solution.

Anyway, it may well be that in the future of the Sixth World, the combination of advanced genetics and advanced thaumaturgy will be able to crack the secret of the immortality gene which dragons, and their hybrid dragon-metahuman progeny have. We know it works during the downcycle, too, so it is not magical in nature.

[Buster]

So to play SR4, in addition to learning SR3, we have to learn Earthdawn too? Blech. :dead:

[hobgoblin]

only if you want to play a SR2 adventure using SR4 rules ;)

that is, if i got my editions right.

still, you dont really need to learn any of the older versions to play. its just that they help when it comes to the frame of reference the writers where working under. and you only need that if you require a explanation for why things are like they are, rather then just accepting that they are that way.

[Fortune]

[Earlydawn]

First and foremost, if Free Spirits are anything, it's arcane. The motives of even the most human-ish spirit are fairly unclear. If they ever enter into an immortality pact, it's for shady scheme that even magicians would probably have trouble conceiving.

Second, I get the impression that Free Spirits aren't exactly "common-knowledge". The extent of the average Sixth Worlder's magic knowledge ranks in somewhere around "It exists and I see it on trideo during primetime!". Now, if you figure that corporations have a more developed, albeit functionally biased understanding of magic, then you still have a very small pool of people that know jack about Free Spirits.. much less how to subjugate one.

[Wanderer]

[Big D]

And there's bound to be some mage who goes onto Shadowland during the '40s or '50s and says "Hay gusy, I'm immoral now!" and proceeds to brag about how he did it.

[Riley37]

[Big D]

Oh, I'm certain that individual would rapidly discover that immortality is not the same thing as invulnerability... but all it takes is for the knowledge that it can be done to get out on the DDH, and you'd never get the genie back in the bottle again...