Immortal elves, any mandatory powers? Options

[hermit]

Hey all!

Since people around here seem to be rules buffs, here's one question I have been pondering for a while:

Do Immortal Elves have some mandatory powers? I know Erhan, Harley and all the other named ones are basically Named Greats in terms of power aqnd stats, but what about unnamed ones, maybe smaller ones? For all I know, a small percentage of all elves is immortal, and thus, there's bound to be a bunch of them canon doesn't cover.

If so, what is the minimum of Edges/Flaws/Critter powers one would have to assign to them?

I read somewhere that that'd be immunity against aging, immunity against disease, and immunity against pathogens, but I want to be sure about this.

Thanks in advance! :)

[Demosthenes]

[bitter]
Ignore common sense.
Invoke Deus Ex Machina.
Spout useless drivel about "The Enemy".
Make PCs Feel Useless.

733t-n355
[/bitter]

I'd say you have a fairly good start, to be serious for a moment.
I've only seen stats for one immortal elf, and that's Frosty in Harlequin's Back.
She's a hermetic mage with the immunities you mentioned, and an initiate.
She'll be terrifying and 733t in about 4,000 years...

:S

[Smed]

I seem to remember Harly having an Essence of 8, not the normal rating of 6. I think that was in the Harlequin's back Adventure.

The young ones wouldn't be much if any more powerful than normal PCs. The IE's power comes from living long enough to gain enormous amounts of karma, not any innate powers other than the immunities mentioned in the first post.

The ancient ones like Aina, Halry, or Ehran would have enough karma to be extremely high grade initiates with massive karma pools, large numbers of skills, high force spells, quickened and anchored magics that can handle a variety of threats, plus possibly Metamagics that they knew from the Fourth Age that haven't been discovered or developed in this age yet.

[hermit]

Well, thanks then ... I was thinking of making an insane immortal elf, who also is a burnt out mage. A really downtrodden, un-l33t immortal. A squatter NPC who always hangs around in the PCs favourite runner bar, drinking cheap soybeer with his many prescribed pills, and moaning about how he had once been a Knight of Atlantis.

You know, during the fifth world, he tended to end up in asylums and be pumped full of all kinds of medication, treated with all kinds of stone-age 'therapies' and drugs to get him off that weird 'I am immortal' trip. Now, with his resistances, I'd guess he'd not be burnt out because of this (but possibly because of his 400 years in the Vatican's dungeons, where he was kept to be studied by generation after generation of exorcists). I'd use him just as a running gag and possibly later, a plot hook.

Also, possibly, my main character might be one (never, ever partake in magical rituals in caves below Ayers' Rock), so I want to give the current GM of my campaign these abilities, and let him decide whether or not he will follow this through. I don't care, and unless a dragon or another immortal tells her, she will be played like any normal elf.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Tanka]

Gauseous Reflection?

...Ewwww...

[Smed]

There's probably a Meta-Magic that covers it, a cobination of Filtering and Reflecting.

[hermit]

Ewwww.

[mintcar]

I love your idea hermit. I´m going to meditate on that before running Harlequin. Nothing says that joker hasn´t been through some of that. Not that it matters much, but I think you should always have in mind the enormous amount of background that follows a character thousands of years old around, when trying to play one as a NPC.

It also reminds me of how it would be great to run a Call of Cthulu/mystery style campain in the Vatican and the Ukrain. Were the characters find out old secrets and discover the real history of the fifth world, and some stuff about the fourth.

[mintcar]

Demosthenes: Sure I guess that might be the general effect of IE´s. Making the players feel small can be a problem, if done all the time. But it can also add mystery, thrills and a sense of danger. There´s an enormous amount of stuff going on over the characters heads in Shadowrun. Once in a wile I think it´s good to let them have a taste of it. Then they can go back to doing what their good at and feel big and bad dealing with local corps and syndicates.

[hahnsoo]

We had a street sam character who survived D wounds so many times, we joked he was an immortal elf. :D He knew every DocWagon tech and ambulance driver by first name...

[Mortax]

[Mortax]

Oh, fogot about a couple of things.

1. Dragon kin are all born with a flaw. It's a physical one that gives away what they are to someone who knows. Weird eyes, scales ect. something like that.

2. Dragons aren't allowed to make dragonkin anymore, in fact it's one of the few things that will get a dragon banised from draconic sociaty. The dragon refered to as the outcast? Yeah, that's why he's called that.

3. Reason dragons hate IE: Durring the second age, dragons used dragon kin like they use drakes in the 4th age. Baisically slaves, though some dragonkin were better treated. It depended on the dragon. Hell, some treated them like children. Since the elven DK were immortal, they lived through the whole of the 3rd age. while the dragons slept, some IE went on a little dragon hunt. This is why dragons got pissed when they woke up, and banned the practice. (One of the Outcast's children was the mage who created the first hydra in the 4th age. Yet anouther reason for the dragons to be pissed....)

The dragons book from earthdawn is great. :-)

[FrostyNSO]

[Mortax]

Yeah, worst flaw in the world, hu? :-)
especially after SURGE. hehe

Of course, some dragons will kill you on sight if they find out. And if you're anything than elven, they know a dragon has been doing things they shouldn't. It is passed down, but after 2nd or 3rd generation, it's less than a 50/50 that you'll be one.

[fistandantilus4....]

didn't Harlequin once say he had socks older than Ehran?



Random and unhelpful I know, but funny

[Mortax]

And his eye color vaies based on the weather, his mood, the tightness of his shorts.... :-)

This is why I love Cambul Har' le 'Quin :-)

[hermit]

I thought IE and Dragonkin were a different thing?

And, for all I take from a piece of the Aztlan dialogue, there was another instance of down-cycle hunting in the 5th world, though the dragons have no clue who did it that time. They, of course, suspect the IEs, but won't confront all of them at once, and rather want to find out the guilty only and take those apart (slowly).

As for the whole siring dragonkin elves thing ... it is forbidden to them, on threat of being branded an outcast by other dragons? So that's what Hestaby meant in DotSW ... guess I gotta read the ED dragons book. Is it still up for download?

Oh, and do dragons always choose a metahuman form of their own sex? I don't see why they have to ... and it would perfectly obscure their true nature. Who'd expect Lofwyr to take the form of a dwarf woman?

[Ancient History]

[Sandoval Smith]

Hoo-haa! Gather round the fire and bring s'mores. Unkee AH is gonna tells us a story!

[hermit]

Yay! *unpacks sausages and marsh mallows*

[torzzzzz]

*leans forward with anticipation!*

:D

[Ancient History]

Once upon a time...

... the Great Dragon Alamaise settled in his demense, the Wyrm Wood. After a time, he desired servants...children born of his own blood and that of the elves that laired in his wood. So he forged a deal with two great and powerful spirits who were concerned with love, fertility, and growing things, and took on the form of a male elf and mated with the elven women.

His seed bore fruit, and his first daughter was called Caynreth, the First Listener of Harmony in elven legend

[ Spoiler ]

"First Listener of Harmony" equates to "First Elf." Caynreth might indeed by Sperethiel for "First Elf" (reth == elf)

. Over time, Caynreth and Alamaise' childer grew great in power, and rebelled against their father, sending him fleeing from his Wood, though at great cost.

Now, the thing to understand is that Great (or Immortal) Elves are not normal dragonkin. Normal dragon-kin elves have at least one aberrant feature, and will live no more than a century or so beyond the normal elven span. Through some process, these dragonkin are both Immortal and bear no unusual flaw.

Now, Caynreth was not the first dragonkin. Others existed before her, both in Indrisia and the Western Kingdoms. The Great Elves were altered, whether by the favor of powerful spirits or dragon ritual magic, into their present genetic state. Rarely, they can pass this trait on to their offspring, who in turn become immortal.

[Foreigner]

[Ancient History]