Dumpshock Forums > Immortal elves

hermit

Mar 9 2005, 04:08 PM

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

Mar 9 2005, 04:20 PM

[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...

Smed

Mar 9 2005, 04:34 PM

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

Mar 9 2005, 04:36 PM

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

Mar 9 2005, 04:54 PM

QUOTE (Smed @ Mar 9 2005, 11:34 AM)

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.

Yes. You could be like, "You try to shoot the immortal elf, but he farts. So much karma is concentrated in his expulsion of methane gas that he round bounces off his perfectly white teeth."

Tanka

Mar 9 2005, 04:55 PM

Gauseous Reflection?

...Ewwww...

Smed

Mar 9 2005, 06:13 PM

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

hermit

Mar 9 2005, 06:12 PM

Ewwww.

mintcar

Mar 9 2005, 06:28 PM

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

Mar 9 2005, 06:35 PM

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

Mar 9 2005, 09:08 PM

We had a street sam character who survived D wounds so many times, we joked he was an immortal elf.

He knew every DocWagon tech and ambulance driver by first name...

Mortax

Mar 9 2005, 10:09 PM

QUOTE (hahnsoo)

We had a street sam character who survived D wounds so many times, we joked he was an immortal elf.

He knew every DocWagon tech and ambulance driver by first name...

LOL that's great!

On a more seriouse note, IE are dragonkin. This is something from earthdawn, where a GD in metahuman form mates with a metahuman. (no, it didn't work on obsidimen. Not sure about T'skrang) When the children are born, they have astral perception, charisma and int + 1, I think. It also makes humans live like 500 years, and elves become immortal. I'd say they prolly also have those immunities, if they are elves. other metahumans I'm unsure of.

As far as IE making PC's feel usless, only if your using them wrong. IE, like GD are ment to be plot drivers and devices. The PC's shouldn't be encountering them on a day to day basis. If they are, well, they shouldn't be helping with the runs.

Runs get booring when you have NPS, or PCs for that matter, that can flatten any oppisition. This falls in the same thread for me as people who bring out "Threats" for every run. It's okay to throw this in for spice evry now and again, but using it all the time can suck the fun out of it.

Course, just MHO, I could be wrong.

Mortax

Mar 10 2005, 02:52 AM

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

Mar 10 2005, 03:02 AM

QUOTE (Mortax)

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.

stupid makeup...

Mortax

Mar 10 2005, 04:24 AM

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.

fistandantilus4.0

Mar 10 2005, 04:42 AM

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

Random and unhelpful I know, but funny

Mortax

Mar 10 2005, 05:27 AM

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

Mar 10 2005, 09:34 AM

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

Mar 10 2005, 09:53 AM

QUOTE ("Hermit")

I thought IE and Dragonkin were a different thing?

Yes and no. We'll go into it later.

Sandoval Smith

Mar 10 2005, 12:44 PM

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

hermit

Mar 10 2005, 12:52 PM

Yay! *unpacks sausages and marsh mallows*

torzzzzz

Mar 10 2005, 01:15 PM

*leans forward with anticipation!*

Ancient History

Mar 10 2005, 03:34 PM

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 ]

. 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

Mar 10 2005, 04:04 PM

QUOTE

(tanka)

Gaseous reflection?

...Ewwww...

tanka:

Shouldn't that be "{g}aseous DEflection" ?

(Hmm.... New spell idea--"Poisonous Bullet Barrier".

)

Just asking.

hermit: Sahandrian, my group's GM, is allowing me to play an I.E. with the "Human-Looking" Edge in our current campaign, set in Seattle in 2064. The backstory, which I haven't really fleshed out yet, is that he's a several-generations-removed descendant of one of the less-well-known Immortal Elves.

(A.H.--Isn't there an "unnamed" I.E.?).

With the exception of the color of his hair (brown, with silver at the temples) and eyes (hazel-green irises with silver flecks), he looks human. The character is, at most, 300 years old (he was born during the last downcycle, possibly around the time of one of Halley's Comet's visits); except for possessing all of the standard traits of I.E.s (as noted above), he was pretty much a mundane (or at least, he *THOUGHT* he was) until his magical abilities manifested around the time of the Awakening in 2011. However, he didn't realize what he really was until the "spike baby" Elves in Ireland made their existence known in 2015. Up until that time, all he knew was that he stopped aging physically and mentally (i.e., no Alzheimer's Disease) at about 25 years of age, and didn't get sick, while everyone else he knew got sick, aged, and eventually died.

--Foreigner

Ancient History

Mar 10 2005, 06:28 PM

QUOTE (Foreigner)

(A.H.--Isn't there an "unnamed" I.E.?).

At least one, yaar.

hermit

Mar 10 2005, 06:28 PM

So ... the "real" immortals, like Harley, Erhan, Aina, and all the others, are dragonkin who have undergone a special "immortality treatment", which made their immortality inheritable, right?

And dragonkin elves are what comes out when dragons have sex with humans? Did I get that right?

Foreigner

Mar 10 2005, 06:45 PM

Ancient History:

Thanks.

I figured that saying that my character is descended from the "unnamed Immortal Elf" would be easier to explain than saying that he was related to one of the "named" ones, i.e., Harlequin et al.

P.S.: I almost forgot--is anything at all known about the aforementioned I.E.--that is, how old is he/she, where he/she lives/hails from, etc. ?

--Foreigner

Ancient History

Mar 10 2005, 07:29 PM

QUOTE (hermit)

So ... the "real" immortals, like Harley, Erhan, Aina, and all the others, are dragonkin who have undergone a special "immortality treatment", which made their immortality inheritable, right?

And dragonkin elves are what comes out when dragons have sex with humans? Did I get that right?

Yeah. The ritual or spirit effect would have to have happened prior to conception, or during gestation. The ritual (or possibly some weird genetic tag) are what make the IEs immune to age, pathogens, and poisons; it may also be connected to the genetic basis of magical abilitiy.

So IE's are super-dragonkin elves.

Mortax

Mar 11 2005, 06:02 AM

Yeah, strange world, neh?

Grinder

Mar 11 2005, 04:29 PM

It's a kind of magic, maaagic.

Mortax

Mar 11 2005, 08:53 PM

rotf!

Plus one karma to thee.