OK, I just caught up on the flamefest that was another posters thread asking about the ED crossover, and why all the complaints. While reading it, I actually thought about a number of things...

First: Has it ever been explicitly stated how the Immortal Elves became immortal? Or how they stayed active, with enchantments, active during the downcycle? My personal pet theory is that they are not truly immortal. I believe that they live as long as normal elves, but use something to store magic up from mana spikes and such that they can keep their lives going, and use things similar to the Draconic Memory Crystals to basicly force their memories onto someone, after they store them. This is why the Dragons and elves did not like each other. Because the elves essentially used a perversion of Draconic magics, and maybe Allachia's hunting the dragons during the down time was for something needed to maintain the crystals, or, because they were an easy source of Mana during the Downtime...easier to go kill a sleeping dragon then go trying to find a mana spike somewhere, while other IEs used combinations, depending on their inclination and knowledge, of killing dragons, or finding where upwellings could occur, or massive blood sacrifices. I also think they were more likely found at the ears of kings and queens then on the throne. I think the Tirs were set up by the I.E.s because they wanted to return to their remembered greatness, but...well...they were not as great as they thought they were, and what kept/keeps the IE's hanging on is this stubborn refusal to accept or, really, deal with change. It's why Tir Tairngire eneded up getitng its council kicked out and on the run.(And, you know what: if anything says the I.E.s are beatable, that does...Is there a single IE on the current Tir Tairngire Council of Princes? I do not think there is...)

Second: For me, and my GM, we have always seen the IEs and GDs handled a certain way..and that was the plotting, pawn using not very nice people. Where the plots, you might never see them directly, and things were always so layered that you never really knew who you were working for.

Third: Where is the impression that PCs never get to directly be involved in the universe. I know from my GM, for isntance, that the game we are in, eventually, as part of the final act of the story, the PCs are going to be hired to create/encourage the riots, interefere with the police, etc that caused the Emperor to tell one prefecture head in Neo-Tokyo that he could not handle an area, and make it independant.

To illustrate how these all kind of work, a recent run: the PCs were hired by a person claiming to be a representative from Mitsuhama extract a guy from a supposed renraku reception at some conference. While the Runners were doing their infiltration work, and getitng ready to do the extraction, the conference was hit by what looked like a Saeder-Krupp Strike Team(complete with heavily cybered troopers with Miniguns firing flechette rounds into unarmoured business people, an armoured truck with AAA on the roof, and the Helicopter on the roof with two guays with Thuderstruck Gauss Cannons, and one maning a Great Dragon Anti-Tank missile launcher). Personally...I am amazed we managed to survive...However, the thing is, the GM revealed in the news the next day a scene with the Emperor speaking out against the action, and an old man in a formal kimono with silver dragons on it was seated next to the Empress behind the Emperor. The Emperor was speaking out about how horrible it was that Saeder-Krupp saw the need to attack a conference of scientists working to find an effective treatment for AIPS, and that, for now, Saeder-Krupp Assets in The Empire of Japan would now be under tighter scrutiny, and that the Imperial Government will no longer cooperate with them on matters..blah-blah-blah... COuld that have happened without the PCs? Sure...do we know for sure who was behind it? Not at all. Do we suspect that Ryumo might have set something up with the help of Shiawase and the Imperial Japanese Government? You bet your sweet bippy we do!

To be honest, I always figured that the IEs were so long lived because they sucked souls or something to keep themselves going (if they didn't just come out of stasis when the magic came back). There really is no accurate, unbiassed history from the previous magic age so the idea that they worked for the Horrors and then sold the Horrors out at the last second to rule it for themselves only to have magic disappear on them (DOH! *smacks forehead*) is far from impossible.

In fact, think it sounds one hell of a lot cooler than the "frolicking through time and history like nymphs of infinite knowledge" story that seems to be prevalent in a novels and previous write-ups.

As far as I know (could be wrong) they have been created as the servants of the great dragons in the fourth age by the mating of a dragon with a name-giver (the earthdawn name for "intelligent" races). This didn't end very well, so the dragons started making drakes instead - the practice of creating dragon-kin was forbidden.

See the Earthdawn "Dragons" sourcebook for this:

"Drakes have been the finest servants we could ask for, far better than those of the past, in my opinion" (Vasdenjas, Master of Secrets, another great dragon)

(And of course, the dragon-kin chapter). Makes the most sense, imho.



Imho, nope: It's purely genetical. They can survive without magic.



Afaik, it's because the IEs were really awfull servants

My favorite theory on how they are immortal is that elves in general just do not age. I.E. they are all theoretically immortal, but almost all of them eventually tire of life and let go (at which point they do age and die).

So the ones who last longer than a few hundred years are the ones who have both the tenacity to stay around, and the skill set to survive a hostile world. For people who lived with magic, the Fifth World must have been pretty dreary, and so almost all elves who survived the fall of magic-dependent society let themselves go after passing on their practical knowledge to the new human cultures.

In so doing, the elves in question became the non-draconian "gods" from the poly-theistic religions. So the various pantheons were in fact elves.

Anyway, once those cultures no longer needed the elves and/or the elves had little left to teach, they let themselves go. So tho only elves left after say a thousand years were those few who had the determination to survive 4,000 more years without magic and then face another scourge all over again. Of that population a large portion would later be killed by humans who now thought of them as witches, evil mystics, etc.

So by the 21st Century, only the hundred or so who had both the tenacity to not just let go, the various skills to survive us (Fifth World humans), and the Machiavellian skills to survive each other, were left.

That presumed background is why it never bothered me that their skill set was in a league above that players could reasonably achieve.

MY favourite theory is that Alachia has a throne somewhere and every day, their henchmen sacrifice 10.000 psykers to...no really, I never cared. It's all magobabble to me anyway.

I believe it was the Second World.

One thing to remember is that Mana does not totally disappear during the odd numbered Ages. It is just harder to access, requiring much more effort and ritual. What might take a fraction of a second of thought in the Sixth World could take several days of ritual in the Fifth. Therefore the Immortal Elves would not be totally cut off from their main powers, but merely inconvenienced in how they are used.

Think so too.

Wait - so Harlequinn is actually from the Second World? That makes him much older than I had thought!

I'm going to have to bump his stats!

It says, that the practice has been forbidden since the dawn of the fourth age, but that doesn't mean, that it has to be something from the 2nd - pehaps it only means, that it has been done at the beginning of the fourth age and not later.

Keep in mind hes a high 2 figure innate 60+.

While I still like the theory I based things on in the past (see above), Earthdawn: Dragons (page 70) makes it pretty clear that Dragon's did in fact create Immortal Elves (elves with humanoid-form dragons in their ancestry) during the Second World.

For the curious the book also describes the dragons themselves (and other name-givers) being created by a unique anti-horror horror named Nightslayer at the end of what was apparently the Zeroth World. (I presume 0th since it was also called "Age of the Dark One", and preceded the first departure of the horrors, which preceded the Second World, also called the "Age of Dragons".)

The book also implies that the Immortal Elves of the Fourth World do not know the truth of their Second World ancestry.

I'm feeling lazy today. Somebody else be a dear and dig up the Alamais(e) Conspiracy 3.0, would you?

Done: Alamais(e) Conspiracy 3.0

Wow!

*head explodes*

Question: AH's topic implies that IEs were created at the beginning of the Fourth World, but Dragons talks about the Great Dragons sleeping for thousands of years after the creation of IEs in "The Age of Dragons", and that by "The current age" even the IEs no longer know the truth of their creation. Hence my belief that "The Age of Dragons" was the Second World, and that "The Age of the Dark One" was the "0th World".

SIDE NOTE:

According to the detailed Wikipedia article a World lasts 1,872,000 days. According to Ehran the Scribe a high-mana World is 1,871,970 days and a low-mana World is 1,871,270 days. While the RL answer is that Jordan Weisman and/or Tom Dowd used some out of date books and/or faulty math, the SR answer is that Wikipedia is wrong.

Based on the above one can calculate the following start dates for each age: (JDN is Julian Day Number, while all calender dates are Gregorian.)

n/m

Danke.

The first question is then do you accept everything Earthdawn as canon material for Shadowrun?

The Short answer is:

I assume that everything is from an IC perspective, and that the Truth can be wildly different from anything we have seen in either set of RPGs

Well then the Earthdawn answer according to the Dragons sourcebook and taken in-character by the word of a dragon prone to exaggeration and megalomania is that Dragons made the Immortal Elves just as Dragons made everything of signifigance.

The Shadowrun answer is that we don't know. Only a few people in the world who aren't immortal realize there are immortal elves. I'd say only the ancients honestly know where they came from. For all anyone knows in Shadowrun, EVERY elf is immortal and survival through ages of magic and non-magic has some great darwinian selection giving you only the best and most powerful IEs.

Dragons are all immortal and simply sleep out or wander off during the low mana cycle. Keep in mind the whole ED canon (again per the Dragons sourcebook) stuff is itself taken from the in-character perspective of being what Western Dragons believe. The Eastern (Cathay in ED) Dragons said their species actually traveled from the stars and other dragon breeds had their own beliefs.

How did you come to that conclusion? Elves were born not until 2021, so the oldest are ~50 at SR4-timeline.

Barring the occasional Spike Baby, Elves (and Dwarves) started to be born in 2011. It was Goblinization that began occurring in 2021.

Ah, I always get those two dates mixed up.

I think he reaches the conclusion because: Can you prove that the elves born starting in 2011 are going to die of old age?
Show me an Elf that has died of old age..oh, wait...You can't because...the oldest are 60 or so, not counting spike babies. We really do not know if Elves die of old age or not. The POSSIBILITY that all elves are inherently immortal is just as valid as the possibility that elves live 400-500 years. He stated a theory, which is as valid as any other. If it is not, could you please show proof based on Shadowrun that elves do, indeed, die of old age?

On top of immunity to age, Immortal Elves are also immune to disease and the like, to which normal elves have no such resistance. Proof enough.

That is exactly the measure one can use and is disprovable. Plenty of Elves in Shadowrun die of disease all the time. But none have yet been known to die of old age. VITAS anyone?

Some of the "Immortal Elf" stuff might just be an anti-aging propaganda scheme where the operators are trying to cash in on everyone's fears of dying before Elves realize it is one thing they don't have to worry about (as opposed to car accidents, disease, violence, etc). Immortal Elves are more traditional to high (Tolkien-esque) fantasy that Shadowrun is based on and so personally I've always liked this option.

It is of course up to every GM how they want to play.

Umm, it is my understanding that in the Fourth World as well as the SIxth World Immortal Elves are immune to disease while normal elves are not, so at the very least the Dragons gave their pawns immunity to diseases.

Now with that said, having all elves being ageless in Shadowrun is preferable to me over the crap IEs we have now per canon.

One cool thing about both Shadowrun and Earthdawn is that almost all information is presented as in-universe knowledge, meaning that almost anything could be the truth.

A summary of my knowledge on the subject:

• No elf has died of old age in the Sixth World.
• Some elves being immortal is still considered to be rumor and/or conspiracy theory by almost all in the Sixth World.
• There are in fact some elves that lived through much of the Fourth World, all of the Fifth, and into the Sixth.
• Dwarven records from the Fourth World, generally considered to be very accurate, state that elves have a lifespan of 300–400 years.
• In speaking amongst themselves, Great Dragons of the Fourth World personally recall the creation of the first Immortal Elves (as the offspring of normal elves and Great Dragons).

So there is pleanty of room for a GM to take any of the following positions:

• The Dragon's story is true, the Immortal Elves are a genetic minority of elves.
• The Dragon's were right, but the Immortal Elf genes are now in most of the elven population, and they conceal this though deception.
• The Dragons only think they are right, but all elves are immortal unless 1) killed, or 2) they let themselves go having tired of life (usually after a few centuries, hence the dwarven records).
• The Dragons were being deceptive and there is some conspiracy by them to wither most elves, and only those that have resisted are immortal.
• Almost any other GM idea that fits the details from the first list.

Are we SURE Imortal Elves are immune to disease, though? We just know we havenever seen a depiction of one getting sick. Now, if you live long enough, you might easily have caught a cold a whole bunch of times, and developed immunity through exposure to all the various strains of the common cold. If they are the failed servants of the dragons, what probably happened was that the Great Dragons gave them a broad-spectrum immunization, but them being "immune to disease" is not enough evidence to go "Well, all Elves cannot be efectively immortal, since these guys are immune to disease, but these other, younger ones, are not."

You will have to ask Ancient History for the reference but it is my understanding that yeah, we do know that IEs are immune to disease where-as normal elves are not. We also know that in the Fourth World the lifespan of elves were recorded and a known fact.

And I'm sorry, but the idea that someone can live long enough to become immune to diseases because he has caught the common cold an untold number of times has got to be one of the stupidest theories I've ever heard because like all living things the fragging cold virus is always evolving into new strains.

*EDIT*

Of course, like everything else connected to the distant past of the Sixth World, if you make your own Fourth World as opposed to using Earthdawn (Which is what I do in my campaigns.) you are free to use all sorts of cool ideas like elves all being ageless.

By-the-way, consider that idea stolen because it is fragging cool.

I prefer the "elves and all other metahumans were originally human, and still are basically human" approach. All age and die, some just take a bit longer than others. If I'd be using Immortal Elves they'd actually not be human at all, but something else taking the form of elves - like flesh form bug spirits.

This was my thought too - the IEs are actually Inhabitation-using spirits of some type summoned into the bodies of elves by dragons. Some IEs were made during the last cycle of magic, but a few have been newly made in the Sixth World. They're not really elves anymore at all, they just look like elves.

Then how do you explain Frosty? She's Ehran's daughter, is apparently a normal Elf with that pesky immortality thing going on, and was born (w/o word to the contrary) like any Elf would be.

Looks like an Elf, acts like an Elf, apprenticed to an Elf that the Big D recognized as an Elf...

I'd have to say she's an (Immortal) Elf.

Besides, I could have sworn canon material said the original IEs were the offspring of Dragons & mortal Elves and with that being a genetic trait, they could pass it on to future children from IE + E or IE + IE couples.

Besides, I would think if they were Inhabitation spirits there would have been a problem for them during the down-cycle.

There is no reason that the merged form could not provide elven genetic material (semen, blood, etc.). The offspring would be a normal elf, not an IE. However, it's certainly possible that Frosty was born normal and later merged with a spirit to make an IE. Dragons can be tricky.


End product (IE) is the same, but the path is different.


I though that I made it clear that I have diverged fron canon. IMO, all of the direct ED/SR crossover is shit (but I like ED as an independent game), so I'm making my own possiblities here. I prefer a more mysterious and less defined Fourth World.


In my version, they were confined to very specific magic locus locations during the downcycle and even then existed in a state of 'near-death' much like withered mummies in tombs although they were able to astrally contact one another from time to time. They had almost no influence on the developing Fifth World until just before the new millenium (1990s) when the first traces of returning mana revitalized them and restored their appearances. It would still be another decade or so before humanity realized magic was returning, and during this time the IEs studied the world and planned out some strategies. Generally speaking, these stragegies are twofold - anti-Enemy and anti-Great Dragon (they are still sore about the whole enslavement thing and worried that the GDs might try to do it again), but the realities of the former mean that they must sometimes cooperate with the latter.

Didn't realize that you were going non-canon. Nothing mentioned in this thread other than your post just now says you were going non-canon.

My apologies.

The last two points are only covered in ED material, not SR. So going strictly by SR canon and not ED gives you a lot more latitude.

I realize a lot of people if not most SR players use ED as the SR background these days, but it isn't required by a long shot.

Immortality thing going on? Frosty is not THAT old. She is at this point as immortal as every other elf in the Shadowrun universe.

There is nowhere canon I've ever read that IEs are immune to disease. They probably have quite an active immune system after a few thousand years though. But more importantly with advanced magic from the 4th age I'm sure they have some sort of anchored "cure disease" spells. Any reasonable elf who had incredible magic, and wanted to live forever would have some magical solution to the nasty diseases that were bound to creep up on the spot in the 6th age. I mean heck, if a regular street mage can use a "cure disease" spell what can a 6k+ year old elf with an incredible level of initiated magic going to do with "cure disease"?

Oh by per Dunkelzahn's will Dragons can get sick, see the entry about Dragon flu. They don't have immunity to diseases like some creatures have listed as a power either. So what was that about immune to diseases?

I use a home-brew background, with strong "Loans" from Fred Perry's "Gold Digger" for my 4th world.

You are aware that it's been stated (canon) that she *IS* an Immortal Elf, right?

I can't tell you where exactly, as I haven't got the books handy, but I am almost positive that it is mentioned in canon (possibly several times) that Immortal Elves have immunity to age, disease, and pathogens (IIRC). Can someone please find the reference?

Earthdawn as the Fourth World is not required by the rules, however it was created to be the Fourth World to Shadowrun's Sixth, and has been treated as such by the both the creators and owners of both games. This connection has always been implicit in the rulebooks, but is explicit in the novels which include a trilogy spanning both games.

I also remembered one other "in universe" detail germane to a previous post:

• Immortal Elves themselves have described their activity during the Fifth World.

One example, Ehran the Scribe, describes both knowing DaVinchi and creating the Egyptian calendar a century or two after the Fourth World ended.

Harlequin's Back and Threats, as I do recall. Although really it was a plot point in the first Harlequin, where the genealogies of Ehran's descendants showed that observation stopped when they got sick or started showing signs of aging past the twenties.

Thanks for that, Ancient History.

To quote Harlequin's Back, in the cast of shadows, pg. 147



and...

Jane "Frosty" Foster, pg. 148



and

I SORT of use ED for my SR 4th world. I tend to keep what I like, throw out what I do not, when it is not supported by SR canon.

That said, I really like the idea of IE's actually being Inhabiting Spirits. The Inhabitation would likely give the powers we know about them, but, likely, it is the spirit, not the long subsumed Elf, that is the one directing the body. Since these would likely, by now, at least, be Free Spirits, it means there is the posibility that, if you kill their body, they might jump out, and take on a new Host...Great little way to kill an IE, yet still have the same IE show up again and again.

I usually use ED as the canon 4th world for my games... but I'm starting a new game soon, and I think I might just steal the Inhabitation idea for it.

SR was already around for a few years before they started on ED. Many novels, books like Harlequin, etc had already been written and talked about the 4th world before it became ED. Even then there were those at FASA who had the philosophy that ED was A possible 4th world among several that could be chosen from and some who decided that ED was THE 4th world for SR.

I've always taken it as "A" possible 4th world for SR. I prefer the Celtic/Mayan/Hope myth background for SR more though personally. On the rare occasion it is relevant I either meld the two or try to have both as an optional interpretation of events.

P.S. - How was Leonardo poisoned if IEs are immune?

So when do we get to see Immortal Orks, Trolls and T'skrang - oh my?



Actually if the Immortality trait is recessive, it could be passed on in E+E couplings (and others; see above). I postulate that immortality cannot be passed on during downcycles or the record for longest life would be longer than an hundred something years.

"The name's Connor Macleod, of the clan Macleod."

I believe there may be ways for that to be taken care of.

(Reference to ancient and dreadful Eighties flim called Highlander where immortal swordsmen fight to be the last of their kind.")

Highlander was a great film as long as you remember "There can be only one!"