Eternity's Memory: Immortals in the World of Darkness

By Mist Reynolds-Main (mist_cat@hotmail.com)

Culture

Immortals don't have a real culture or society. They are loners and do not bond with one another as mortals do. They are less than 1% of the world population. Their births are rare and often result in tragedy to the birthparents. A majority were orphaned or abandoned as if their mothers' sensed they were not like others. No two are exactly the same because of when and where they are born may vary by centuries as well as distance. This results in dramatic differences in outlook and world view.

What they have in common is that none can die, except in a specific fashion. Usually the head must be severed in some way from their bodies. This means that the spinal cord must be cut through with no chance of contact between the two parts. Immortals can recover from broken necks that sever the spine because the two ends of the spine are still able to touch. They are all sterile with no exceptions. They can survive attacks that would instantly kill a mortal and continue to fight. Their blood is the sweetest of elixirs to vampires. And they are all hunted, if not by their own then by others.

When immortals meet each other there are only three possible outcomes. The first, and most common, is that they will duel to the death. The second, rarer, outcome is that they will become companions for a time. The third, most rare, outcome is that the immortals will walk their separate paths without making effort to fight or seek comraderie.

Immortals are critical to the balance of reality. They are the memory from which paradox draws to correct the tampering of magi. When all the immortals of an era are slain that part of reality may be rewritten and often falls into the realm of myth and legend. This is what has happened for the realms of Hyperborea and Atlantis.

Duels

By eternal tradition, immortals fight in private places with sharp weapons. Contrary to what many may assume, female immortals take to the use of swords as readily as the males. The societal constraints forbidding women the use of swords are an aberration of the Renaissance era in Europe.

The typical weapon of the immortals is the sword. However, cultural preferences may influence an immortal to use other weapons such as axes and edged pole-arms. All weapons used in the duel will have a razor sharp cutting edge.

Immortals don't clean up after themselves as well as other supernaturals. This causes major problems in the current century with new innovations in criminology making it harder for an immortal to continue in a city for more than ten years at a time.

There is much speculation about why the immortals fight. When they meet to duel they often say the phrase "There can be only one." What this phrase means is a total mystery. Some believe it is the goal of all immortals to rule over the world. Others believe it has something to do with the Ascension war of the magi.

Holy Ground

Records of immortals meeting on holy ground are numerous. However, the immortals who meet rarely fight on holy ground. Those immortals who do so are held in contempt by the other immortals.

It is believed by this author that the Quickening does not act as it normally would on holy ground. It is quite possible that the Quickening of an immortal slain on holy ground dissipates into the universe, instead of being received by the slayer.

Death

There is only one way to permanently kill an immortal: the severing of the head from the body. In any other instance the immortal will return from the grave. The obvious exception to this is when the body of the immortal is utterly destroyed. Being shoved into a vat of acid will kill an immortal as permanently as it will a mortal. Most any other method will merely cause the symptoms of death but not the reality.

Immortals recover from "death" within 24 to 96 hours. The more often they have died in a specific manner the faster they recover from that form of death, possibly because their bodies have learned how to repair the damage. Immortals cannot fully recover from death faster than 8 hours (1 hour to heal each health level +1).

The storyteller may subtract one hour from the recovery time with a minimum recovery time of 7 hours. If the immortal knows its coming he may spend 1 pt of Wuickening to take off an hour of recovery. The Storyteller has final say on how long it takes to recover from a fatal experience.

When an immortal dies permanently her life essence known amongst them as the Quickening transfers to the immortal that slew her.

Entombment

Immortals can survive being without food, water or air for centuries at a time. They apparently enter a trance state, possibly to preserve their sanity. When conditions return to those conducive to mortal living they resume their previous habits.

They may suffer from culture shock and temporal disorientation. Recently revived immortals tend to stand out like sore thumbs if they have been entombed for many centuries.

Immortals do not like being entombed and usually arrange for burial in a vault or other location where they may unobtrusively rise from the dead.

Quickening

Quickening keeps an immortal alive. It is raw life essence and is often sought by non-immortals, in the mistaken belief that the essence may be transferred or given away. It is thought by these non-immortals that the captured life essence will grant them immortality.

Quickening allows an immortal to recover quickly from injury {1 health level/hour}. Quickening allows an immortal to survive attacks that would instantly kill a mortal or severely injure the supernaturals. {1 point of Quickening may be spent to gain 1 die for the purpose of soaking aggravated damage. It takes 4 times as long for an immortal to recover from aggravated injury.}

The magi compare Quickening to a substance they call Quintessence. They have explained to this author that the Quickening is not 100% the same as Quintessence. Where Quintessence is raw energy, Quickening is processed. The magi believe that because the Quickening is somehow processed by Immortal bodies and it, therefore, cannot be used to fuel True Magick.

{A mage with Prime 3 (willing) or 4 (unwilling) may convert Quickening into Quintessence at the ratio of 3 Quickening to 1 Quintessence.}

Living bodies generates the Quickening; immortals simply produce five times what most mortals do. It replenishes itself {5 Quickening/24 hours} but it is not inexhaustible. When immortals no longer have Quickening they "sleep" as if dead until their bodies regenerate the Quickening. In this state they are vulnerable until they have regained Quickening {at least 1 point}. If they are entombed in some way prevented from receiving food, water or air, they will continue their "sleep" until conditions change.

Quickening may give them strength, and power ancient rituals. It heals their bodies but not their minds. Some even claim that it will empower their weapons. What the Quickening allows immortals to do is:

• Increase attributes at the rate of 1 Quickening to 1 attribute.
• Fuel Hedge Magic rituals.
• Fuel shapechanger kinfolk gifts.
• Allow automatic successes to soak all normal damage (1 Quickening for 1 automatic success)
• Allows the opportunity to soak aggravated damage (as per the Fortitude discipline)
• Activation of Talens, Fetishes, and Talismans by the Immortal.

What the Quickening can not allow an immortal to accomplish:

• Telepathy or telekinesis or any other psychic effect.
• Breathing water. Immortals suffer drowning, just as mortals do.
• Make people see things; summon the dead from their graves.

When an immortal dies her Quickening goes to the nearest immortal, which is usually the person who killed her. {If there is doubt then the Quickening goes to the killer.} An immortal can not run fast enough to get away from the Quickening. It is ecstasy and pain of the most excruciating kind. But that is not the only reward of slaying another immortal.

All of the victim's memories become the slayer's memories. The killer receives the full amount of the killed immortal's Quickening or up to a maximum of 20 Quickening, whichever is less. The killer receives 1 dot in a Skill from the deceased's list of Skills and 3 dots of Knowledges from the deceased's list of Knowledges.

Example: Alia kills Bert . Bert has Firearms, Melee, Stealth, Body Reading, and Hunting in Skills. The storyteller knows that Alia's player would love to have Stealth or Melee. Alia has a five in Melee and a 4 in Stealth. The Storyteller decides it would be more valued by Alia's player if she worked on it through experience and gives her 1 dot in hunting. Bert had the Knowledges Linguistics, Computers, Thanatology, Medicine, Culture, and Garou Lore. The house rules state that Immortals can't learn languages through Quickening. So the Storyteller talks to Alia's player. They decide that 1 dot of Computers and 2 dots of Garou Lore will enhance the story. Alia is free to develop all the skills and knowledges at her normal experience rate.

{The Quickening Effect may be reproduced by a Mage with Prime 3, Forces 3, Life 3. This will only replenish the immortal's Quickening pool. It will not give the immortal any other benefit. It may be re-directed from one immortal to another by a Mage with Life 3 and Prime 3. (This is a good way to make immortal enemies and friends.) Quickening may be replenished, without the light show, by a Mage with Prime 3. A Mage converts Quintessence to Quickening at a rate of 4 Quintessence to 1 Quickening, in all cases. It is also recommended that a Mage who tampers with the Quickening have 1 dot in life. If the Mage is attempting to replenish Quickening a dot in the Node background is strongly recommended.}

Parts is Parts

A side effect of getting into sword fights over several hundred years is that immortals tend to accumulate scars and severed limbs. Scars will actually disappear given enough centuries. Scars always result from aggravated damage.

Severed limbs result from any process which naturally and normally causes a limb to be severed. Limbs may grow back in time. This takes several decades and life in a nice secluded monastery. During the regrowing period the immortal cannot be spending Quickening on anything other than the regrowth. For game purposes 10 dots of Quickening will regrow an ounce of missing tissue. The Quickening can only be spent to regrow lost tissue once a month. The slow rate of regrowth keeps mortals from noticing anything odd about the immortals.

Eternity, Supernaturals and Psychic Powers

Rarely, an immortal may have True Faith, psychic abilities, practice magic, or have learned special gifts from strange allies. The legends of immortals being summoned back by Quickening are because of the immortal's study of magic. The immortals who read minds have telepathy. Whereas, the immortal who masters illusion has a psychic ability, most probably telepathy. A storyteller is within her rights to increase the cost of numina for an immortal.

Because immortals are immune to death, they cannot be embraced by vampires. A vampire cannot diablerize an immortal, either. The vampire can drain the immortal of their very nourishing blood and leave her for dead. In a day or so the immortal will rise to resume her life or go after the vampires cojones, whichever appeals to her at the time.

Immortals have few ties to the changelings. They are not, contrary to changeling belief, a type of changeling. This makes it impossible for them to learn changeling Arts and Realms and therefore they cannot use changeling cantrips. Immortals appear to changelings as any other mortal and may be mused or ravaged as any mortal.

Immortals do not have Awakened Avatars. Immortal Quintessence is processed by their bodies into Quickening. Because they cannot access this Quickening/Quintessence, except as specified in the section on Quickening, they cannot use true Magick.

Immortals upon death may become wraiths. They lose all benefits of the Quickening upon death. Immortals cannot learn Arconos until they become Wraiths.

Immortality and Changing Breeds

The gene or gene sequence which causes immortality is within the same sequence that determines whether a person is a member of the changing breed or not. The immortality gene is a dominant gene, where the changing breed gene is recessive. In other words changing breed need two sets of the gene to become active members of their society. Immortals, on the other hand, only need one set and this set overrides the data from any changing breed data.

In simpler terms this means that an immortal will never be a member of the changing breeds; at best the immortal will be accepted as kinfolk. However, the immortal may have to go into hiding after a time, even from her changing breed kin. The reason for this is that sooner of later one of the enlightened members of the changing breeds is going to decry the immortal as having made a deal with the Wyrm and go out of his way to prove it.

Immortality and Changelings

Changelings are spirits manifesting through human forms. In theory, it is possible for a changeling to inhabit an immortal body. For game balance, this is strongly discouraged.

However, for those who must experiment some guidelines may be in order.

The weakness for iron takes precedence over the immortals immunities. Should the character become clever and take a merit which weakens or eliminates the effects of iron on their person, the Storyteller should insist that the weakness be replaced with another substance (such as gold, silver, or platinum).

An immortal changeling will not age after first death.

The immortal may be more susceptible to Banality and loose touch with the Dreaming more easily.

Immortals who take the Quickening of an immortal changeling may be driven insane by the duality of the changeling.

Reality and Immortality

Many magi would give their eyeteeth to know what purpose the immortals have in the World of Darkness. The simple truth of the matter is that the immortals are anchors for reality. It is from immortal beliefs that reality draws its sense of what is and isn't possible. Since most immortals remember hedge magics working they work still, much to chagrin of the Technocracy.

For all intents and purposes an immortal is not awakened in the same sense that a Garou, Mage, or Changeling are awakened. Immortals spend 99% of their lives among the sleepers and most may never encounter any other supernatural. Indeed the majority of immortals believe they are the only supernaturals in the entire world. But not all of them do and because of the few that know of the other supernaturals these others are protected from being wished out of existence by the Technocracy or any one else.

Character Creation

All immortals have:
• Immortality, 7pt merit
• Potent Blood, 3 pt flaw
• Hunted, 4pt flaw
• Sterility as an innate flaw
• 7 Health Levels
• The ability to take and soak aggravated damage as other supernaturals.
• Subject to Reverie after living 200 or more years or life.
• The potential for 20 points of Quickening.
• Immunity to diseases.

Immortal characters are created according to the mortal template.

Attributes 6/4/3
Abilities 9/7/5
Backgrounds 7
WP 5
Quickening 1d10 roll
Freebies 21

Immortals spend freebies as follows:

Attributes 5 to 1
Abilities 2 to 1
Backgrounds 1 to 1
Willpower 1 to 1
Quickening 2 to 1
Numina 7 to 1^*
2nd Numina 14 to 1^*

^*Numina costs may be doubled at the Storyteller's discretion to maintain game balance. Only immortals with shapechanger allies or kin may learn Gifts.

Any concept, personality archetype, merit, flaw, background, or numina that can be acquired by a mortal may be acquired by an immortal. Consult with your storyteller before making an immortal character.

New Backgrounds

The immortal is between 100 and 600 years of age. Immortals who are long lived begin to be set in their ways. It takes a long lived immortal 1.5 times normal experience to raise or buy any new attribute, ability, etc.

*	100-199 years of life. +15 freebies.
**	+30 freebies, 1 dot of reverie.
***	300-399 years of life. +45 freebies.
****	400-499 years of life. +60 freebies, 2 dots of reverie.
*****	500-599 years of life. +75 freebies.

The immortal has lived for at least 600 years. All experience costs to raise or buy new attributes, abilities, etc. are now doubled.

*	600-899 years of life. +150 freebies, 3 dots of reverie.
**	-1199 years of life. +180 freebies.
***	1200-1499 years of life. +210 freebies, 4 dots of reverie.
****	1500-1999 years of life. +240 freebies.
*****	1800 + years of life. +300 freebies, 5 dots of reverie.

The immortal has profoundly affected human history in the past. Her deeds are recorded in the songs, poems and myths of the ancients. (Fame should be substituted for an immortal under 100 years old.)

*	Obscure, recent, or not well known.
**	Fairly recent influence, but you made the papers.
***	Stories about you are mandatory study in school.
****	National hero.
*****	Depicted as a god, myth known throughout the world.

The immortal has a reputation among the other immortals. Mortals will be totally oblivious to the immortals reputation. She is known by an epiphet such as "The Currigan," "The Highlander."

*	You've impressed a handful of the immortals.
**	Your name is known across a country or two.
***	Your name is known throughout a continent.
****	Your name strikes terror into your foes.
*****	You are actively sought, for the enhancement to the other immortals reputation, your death will bring.

Reverie

The immortal has a perfect memory of past events and situations she has been directly involved in. The memories often relate to current problems and situations the immortal is currently dealing with. The down side is that the memory replaces all current experience. The immortal is totally vulnerable, and totally caught by the memory; a willpower roll must be made against the dots of reverie +5 to break free.

An immortal will never enter reverie unless in a safe environment. An immortal is physically immobile while in the reverie, which resembles a dream state.

New Merits and Flaws

1-5pt merit

The immortal has a weapon she has been using for decades or even centuries. Because the immortal knows the weapon well she gains 1 extra die to her melee skill for each point of merit she has. The extra dice are not useable with a similar weapon, they are only obtained with that specific weapon.

7 pt merit

The immortal cannot be killed by severing her head. Another more exotic means must be used, such as an arrow through the Achilles tendon. The player must state before playing the character how the character can be killed.

2pt merit

The immortal may add 1 die to resist the hold of the reverie.

3pt merit

The immortal's Quickening is stronger than normal. Her body heals damage at a half hour per health level, 1 hour for aggravated damage. She may rise from the dead in half the time, as well. This may upset doctors in emergency wards and otherwise rouse suspicion.

3 pt merit

The immortal has made allegiance with another of her kind. The two are pledged to help each other until the final Gathering.

4 pt merit

The immortal has a lover or companion who is also immortal. The two share their immortal lives as much as possible. The two cannot stand to be apart for more than a century at a time.

1pt merit

The immortal can sense others who are Quickened. They cannot sense any other supernaturals.

2 pt merit

The immortal has been formally trained to use melee weapons. The immortal gains 1 die during melee combat, regardless of weapon used. This merit is cumulative with the favored weapon merit.

3 pt merit

The immortal has found a place on holy ground where she may live. She is totally safe from all immortals who follow tradition as long as she lives on holy ground.

3 pt flaw

The immortal doubles all healing rates. It takes 2 hours to heal 1 health level of normal damage and 8 hours to heal aggravated damage. Even rising from non-permanent death takes twice as long.

1 pt merit

The immortal's first death happened when the immortal was well into old age. Her body is quite spry and supple, however.

3pt flaw

The immortal was not full grown when she died. She automatically has the flaw child. In addition the immortal can barely lift or wield adult sized weapons. She must have an adult companion to function in public society.

2-7pt flaw

The immortals has spent the last 200 or more years entombed and out of contact with mortal societies of any kind. The immortal is automatically anachronistic and cannot speak any current language form. (Lots of ye, thees, thous, and the like at 2pts; no knowledge of any modern language at 7pts.) The immortal may view modern technology as witchcraft, sorcery or worse.

2-7pt flaw

The immortal suffers from a derangement of some sort because of living centuries of traumatic events. This may be a mild paranoia, to homocidal psychosis.

2-6pt flaw

The immortal finds herself in the same situations over and over again. This often involves the same or similar people (2pt). A stronger form of this flaw has issues from the immortals distant past rearing their ugly heads in the present. For example, a reformed immortal may have to face a vampire who is the last of her village, for which the immortal was responsible.

Immortal View of World of Darkness

Vampires: Get real. Psychos with a blood fetish are nothing new. I'm sure there is a logical explanation.

Changing Breeds: You've got to be kidding me. Lycanthropes only exist in novels and movies. Unless your talking madmen.

Mages: Practioners of the occult have always existed. Never seen any of them actually mumbo jumbo a demon though.

Wraiths: There might be something to those stories. I sometimes feel Regina's presence.

Changelings: There you go, shooting off about wild fantasies, again. I think you should lay off those roleplaying games.

Mummies: Let me get this straight, the guy in the sacrophagus got up and left. Better find him before he gets into trouble.

Others: No more horror shows before bed for you.