Am looking for general information on the Immortal Elves, not individuals. Something along the lines of the write up for regular elves or orks and trolls. In otherwords I am looking for "critter" write up on Immortal Elves as a group. Is there such a thing?

It's been awhile since I've seen one, but I think it's like Elves with the addition of Immunity (Age, Disease, Pathogens).

If I remember correctly they can never get sick or poisoned, but other than that are just really long lived elves... Most of the things that make them scary are just a side effect of being alive for so long.

Also for some reason they were able to remain active in the downcycle, albeit perhaps in human form. Turns out that almost every exceptional person in human history had secret pointy ears.

While I could agree that Elvis was an Immortal Elf (what?!? His name is clearly a bad joke), I don't think that Newton was an Immortal Elf, he was just plain crazy.

What's your point? You try living for thousands of years, and see if it doesn't make you just a touch, umm... touched.

I agree that not all famous people were IE. I would argue that the majority were not IE. I think only Da Vinci is the only one that they stated was a IE. If I ever have a IE in one of my games I just give him/her elven stats with the immunity to age, diseases, and pathogens. That is the only thing that makes them special, there is no need to have a dedicated critter page to them.

I don't see why they WOULDN'T have remained alive during the down cycle. Unless I'm mistaken, there is nothing stating that elves/dwarfs/orcs/trolls can't exist in a manaless world. It just states that the presence of mana caused the birth/mutation of said meta-types. Eventually, all the non-human meta-types would have died off and none would be reborn. Is there canon refuting this?

It is pretty much UGE in reverse, if the magic level drops too low the elves, dorfs, orks and trolls go back to being humans until the magic level rises again.


And along those lines, if there were immortal elves, it would be magic that made them immortal and thus when the magic goes away so does the immortality.. unless they are just genetic freeks with negligible senescence(not sure if there has ever been a human with it), but they would still be subject to death from disease, accidents, poisons or just good old being killed.

Even when the magic levels are negligible they're immune to age, disease, and poisons... accidents and "just good old being killed" are a hazard they have to deal with like the rest of us, no matter the mana level. Well, maybe not quite just like the rest of us... there are advantages to being that old, like: experience, power, wealth, etc. But they can be killed just like anyone else, if you can get to them.

Or was assisted by a pointy ear.

Immortal Elves aren't a category of critter. You take a normal elf, add the immunities people have stated, and then build a character around it - they're from the 4th world, old, powerful beings who you may recognize if you play Earthdawn. It's a complex and annoying matter to deal with, and while I don't want to say you can't or shouldn't play however you want, there're a lot of IE's to go around already, adn I don't know if you REALLY want to go around creating yet another one - especially because it's a pain.

In addition to the immunity listed above, when I have had one in an adventure, I have had them be Dual Natured as well, to reflect that they are related to a Great Dragon (which is, of course, a Dual Natured creature). This also partially explains (in addition to their great age and attending experience) why they are so capable when it comes to magical skills-they have seen astral space continuously since their birth. One final thing to keep in mind is that since they were trained as Adepts (or by someone who was an adept) during the time period covered by Earthdawn, they have a substantial amount of physical magic in addition to spell casting and conjuring at their disposal.

AFE

So orks and trolls degoblinize when they're in space?

They are elves with the immunities described above. They are not dual natured and not all of them are from the 4th age (Frosty anyone?)

In the older sourcebooks they had Essence 8, but that might be different in SR4 as shapeshifters have been downgraded from 8 to 6 alongside a few others.

Sounds like there needs to be a metagenetic quality for elves that lets them take the power Immunity to Age, Toxins, & Pathogens

That'd be pretty cool, though not as a metagenic quality, I think... those are from SURGE, right? Perhaps a high-BP quality in the BBB? like 'Immortal (with Requirement that the character is an elf): You are now an Immortal elf, immune to ageing, toxins, and pathogens of all sorts...'

Could be a 15 BP quality? Or maybe 20 or 25.

If we stuck with the precedent that the writers use that means more points for a quality thats rarer, probably. However, immunity to age is worthless, and toxins and pathogens are not THAT common of a threat. I'd say 15 or 20 tops.

I'm a little curious as to what happens to people who make spirit pacts. They gain the ability, but maybe they're forced to go dormant until the mana comes back.

that depends on which adept discipline path(s) they follow. Rememer in ED also mystical spellcasters are called adepts. If an IE just had circles (similar to levels of initiation) in spellcasting disciplines like Nethermancer, Illusionist, Elementalist or Wizard then they would not have any physical adept powers.

One example is Harelquin who is/was both a Swordmaster (Physical adept on the flashy path of fightyness) and Wizard (Logic driven spellcaster), in this case he would be a mystic adept, but it dosent mean all immortal elves have such powers.

Though slightly off topic: I generally assume there are about 20 IE from the Fourth age still kicking around and a dozen or so more kicking around now with the re-surgance (prior to the mana levels going back up no new IE could be born, those with the correct genes did not express the same way Goblinized humans retained their human lifespans dispite being Orcs). I give them nothing past the immunities and some fairly mint stats and skills (4, 5 and 6's in most stats, few skills below 5, several at 6, a couple at 7). Even the least and laziest of them is a formidable foe and each of them knows the other 19.
I don't have them come up. Ever.
Why? Because hiding has become a habit and a 7000 year old habit can be hard to break.

Looking for them is near fruitless because you don't survive 7000+ years of human "civilization" by being noticed. Sure a few have stepped up now that their mighty magics have returned, to retake thier old seats of power (as is fitting for the beautiful people... freaking IE's) but I've desided most have desided to remain laid low and retain only the most basic of contact with their fellow IE's.

The likelyhood of a PC meeting one is roughty on par with them meeting a Great Dragon - slim to nil and unlikely to be good news for the PC. On the bright side the IE is far less likely to reveal who they are. Or is that a bad thing?

I think if they could lay hands on a ghost master item they could take up any discipline they wanted to. Go read AH's page, I think AIthine Oakforest is a druid/swordmaster.

On the IEs being present during the downtime, would they not have to be, if for no other reason than that they hunted dormat Dragons?

It's my understanding that metas don't revert back to being human during the downcycle, but I figure that IEs should have to go dorment for the same reasons that Dragons did, albeit perhaps at a later time.

As for people with Spirit Pacts, personally I figure that they die once the mana field drops, unless of course they are able to make preperations to keep a localized Mana Field running for them. Kindof the way in which IEs should have been handled but weren't.

It's implied everywhere that the IE's stay active. They even have access to basic magic. Very, very basic magic. During a minor manaspike. Now that I think about it, I seem to remember something about a kingdom of dwarves who made a pact with an earth spirit and turned to stone at the nadir of the mana cycle. Think. Plus the way it's written implies that they get that power regardless of mana levels.

*sighs*

Yes, I know that by CANON the Immortal Elves are active during the downcycle and can still cast spells just because they are that awesome. I just happen to think that it is really, really stupid to have handled them in that manner when everything else has to go dorment because the fragging mana levels aren't high enough to support that kind of nonsense.

As for the dwarven kingdom, I was under the impression that it was retconned into being a big lie and was actually set up in modern times.

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.

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 ^^