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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Bira)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Thu Oct 25 15:10:01 2001
Let me warn from the start that this topic deals with those pesky Immortal Elves, on
certain levels.

Now, I personally can't stand IEs as they are now. The idea that some people and entities
of the Sixth World were around ages ago, before magic went away, has some appeal, but SR's
immortals suffer from "Vampire(TM) syndrome".

Basically, this means that they have been secretly ruling and manipulating humanity for
the last ten thousand years. Every great war in history was fruit of their internal
bickering, and every great human thinker (and other historical personalities) were either
IE's in disguise or directly controlled by an IE. I don't like this one bit, because it
kinda implies that the human race isn't capable of doing great things on its own, that it
wouldn't have gotten past Stone Age if it weren't for the "Great Immortals"
trickling their immense knowledge down to us.

So the question is: can you think of some nice "replacement origins" for the
IEs, or even some other types of entities that could replace them? The only requisite is
that they must remain either dormant or away from our world during the Fifth Age. The
"mythical past" needn't even be Earthdawn.

For example, I've already decided that Harlequin's place (if I ever run his adventures) is
going to be taken by a human mage named Richard Mayhem who by some accident of fate
transcended bodily into the metaplanes in the early 2030's, and spent nearly a
(subjective) century visiting strange worlds deep in the astral and learning their
mystical secrets. He doesn't look a day over 35 now that he's returned, and many think
he's a certified loon (they're probably right). He was also the teacher of one of my mage
players, but that's another story :).

Ehran the Scribe might be the reincarnation of a former emperor of Atlantis, who has a
perfect memory of his past life.

The list goes on... Do you have any interesting suggestions on this?
--
Bira -- SysOp da Shadowland.BR
http://www.shadowland.com.br
Redator de Shadowrun da RPG em Revista
http://www.rpgemrevista.f2s.com
Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Jason Lantrip)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Thu Oct 25 15:50:01 2001
Everyone's favorite immortal, Harlequin, is easily replaced by a
Merlin-esque mage. (Merlin was never "omnipotent"...just powerful, and he
made his share of mistakes)

Imagine it...you're the most powerful mage of your time, and you see that
magic is slipping out of the world. Deciding that you might not want to be
around when people figure out that you're no longer all that powerful. A
spell is devised that makes you dormant until magic is on the rise again
(once the magical background count reaches an acceptable level, I guess --
which could be more than a few times, down the years)...and once you're
awake, the desire for power takes over again. You don't want to rule the
world, but you want to be one of the movers and shakers (again).

Along the way, he (or she) would make plenty of mistakes, learning as they
go, or have a corporation attempt to "appropriate" them before they gain
any kind of understanding of how the Sixth world works (they'd be pretty
clueless at the outset)....sorry, I guess it's starting to sound more like
a campaign plot than an IE replacement, but you get the idea...

--J

-----Original Message-----
From: Bira [SMTP:ra002585@**.unicamp.br]
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 1:03 PM
To: ShadowRN
Subject: Alternate Immortals

So the question is: can you think of some nice "replacement origins" for
the IEs, or even some other types of entities that could replace them? The
only requisite is that they must remain either dormant or away from our
world during the Fifth Age. The "mythical past" needn't even be Earthdawn.
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Fri Oct 26 05:45:01 2001
> Basically, this means that they have been secretly ruling and manipulating
> humanity for the last ten thousand years. Every great war in history was
> fruit of their internal bickering, and every great human thinker (and other
> historical personalities) were either IE's in disguise or directly
controlled
> by an IE. I don't like this one bit, because it kinda implies that the
human
> race isn't capable of doing great things on its own, that it wouldn't have
> gotten past Stone Age if it weren't for the "Great Immortals" trickling
their
> immense knowledge down to us.
>
> So the question is: can you think of some nice "replacement origins" for
the
> IEs, or even some other types of entities that could replace them? The only
> requisite is that they must remain either dormant or away from our world
> during the Fifth Age. The "mythical past" needn't even be Earthdawn.

My reply is this: Don't make the fraggers so 'all-fraggin'-powerful'.

Sure, you can gain a lot of wealth if you're alive through hundreds and
thousands of years; you can lose it a thousand times over, too. You can be
hounded, pursued, persecuted, run out of town on a rail; you can be found
out, accused of witchcraft, escape being burned at the stake, and flee to a
new country.

Hit the IEs with the Reality Club -- how long can Ehran sit around Paris
until the infamous Mob notices that HE ISN'T AGING?? Superstition runs
rampant; any group before, oh, the year 1990 would give a very evil eye
towards the Man Who Didn't Age. After 1990 it actually becomes MORE
difficult, because you can't move major amounts of money or property without
being noticed -- which is to say, it's actually more difficult to pop up out
of nowhere. Used to be you could just sell all your stuff, head down the
road a few cities, and re-establish yourself.

So maybe some red-haired IE bink establishes herself as Queen of England. So
maybe some dark-haired crazy IE genius establishes himself as the original
Renaissance Man. Would they, really? Bollocks. Elizabeth aged, despite all
the cake makeup; her ladies-in-waiting would notice and gossip (a LOT) if she
didn't. So did Leonardo, and while he moved from town to town, when you have
a 30-year reputation, people EXPECT to see a doddering 50-year-old man, not a
fit 25-year-old. (Hey, this is the Renaissance; 50 was -old-.)

So deny the fact that most/all of the major movements within the world had
IEs behind them; IEs are simply immortal. Immortality only lets you outlive
your enemies; it doesn't do a hell of a lot else. No magic, remember? That
means you live by your wits alone, and (because you're permanently 25 or so
years old) you have to cut and run every decade or so. Can you amass a
fortune? Sure. Can you lose it? Doubly sure!!

IMO, Aina was the 'best' of the IEs, because while she was pretty damn rich,
she had to Take Steps to keep her wealth, and (in some of the flashback
scenes) she was Persecuted, Persecuted, Persecuted. Black skin, silver hair.
Hell, yeah!! I can see her going to Africa, getting caught by 'another'
tribe, sold to slave traders, and hacking out weeds on a Southern Plantation
before she has to run away and hide like nobody's business, or be burned at
the stake as a Spawn of Satan. :P

In short, toss out the 'Movers and Shakers' theory. IEs are just really
long-lived people, with long-range planning, and a bad habit of changing
homes and identities every decade or two....


The Wyrm Ouroboros
'Half Russian mathemetician,
half Silicon Valley code freak.'
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Bryan Pow)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Fri Oct 26 13:05:01 2001
>Basically, this means that they have been secretly ruling and
>manipulating humanity for the last ten >thousand years. Every great
>war in history was fruit of their internal bickering, and every
>great human
>thinker (and other historical personalities) were either IE's in
>disguise or directly controlled by an IE. I >don't like this one
>bit, because it kinda implies that the human race isn't capable of
>doing great things on >its own, that it wouldn't have gotten past
>Stone Age if it weren't for the "Great Immortals" trickling >their
>immense knowledge down to us.

I prefer to keep the Immortal Elves alive and behind the scenes
through human history but more as a
"we better stay hidden or the Humans(Illuminati, Masons, Templars,
Rosacrusians etc) will get us."
This way they are still Immortal Elves, they just don't control
humanity (because if they did control
humanity in the past why aren't they any more?). So why did they say
they did all that stuff?
EGO
"So Mr Harlequin what did you do in the last thousand years?"
"I errr.....errr.....hid"
"really? Is that all?"
" Oh i errrrr..... started world war two... errr... and one..... yeah "
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Nivek Sregor)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Fri Oct 26 16:30:01 2001
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Pow <powbr323@*******.otago.ac.nz>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 06:06:11 +1300
To: shadowrn@*********.com
Subject: Re: Alternate Immortals


> >Basically, this means that they have been secretly ruling and
> >manipulating humanity for the last ten >thousand years. Every great
> >war in history was fruit of their internal bickering, and every
> >great human
> >thinker (and other historical personalities) were either IE's in
> >disguise or directly controlled by an IE. I >don't like this one
> >bit, because it kinda implies that the human race isn't capable of
> >doing great things on >its own, that it wouldn't have gotten past
> >Stone Age if it weren't for the "Great Immortals" trickling >their
> >immense knowledge down to us.
>
> I prefer to keep the Immortal Elves alive and behind the scenes
> through human history but more as a
> "we better stay hidden or the Humans(Illuminati, Masons, Templars,
> Rosacrusians etc) will get us."
> This way they are still Immortal Elves, they just don't control
> humanity (because if they did control
> humanity in the past why aren't they any more?). So why did they say
> they did all that stuff?
> EGO
> "So Mr Harlequin what did you do in the last thousand years?"
> "I errr.....errr.....hid"
> "really? Is that all?"
> " Oh i errrrr..... started world war two... errr... and one..... yeah "
>
>
How do you know that they don't control humanity? Just because we don't see it, doesn't
mean that they don't. I don't see the Mafia's or the Yakuza's influence nowadays, but
that doesn't mean that they don't do anything. Quite frankly its a smart thing to do.
Why else would there be shadowrunners? Because the corps don't want to have to take the
falls for their plots, its bad business. I would think that over several thousand years
of life, with no record of them (In the form that we see them in Shadowrun. They were
such powerful magicians, couldn't they conceal themselves?) in history, wouldn't they have
learned a thing or 2? I would imagine that they have active skills and knowledge skills
about as big as a character sheet. If one man alone can do a lot, then one immortal elf
with more magical power than any of our characters will ever know with thousands of years
worth of knowledge and experience can do a lot. Given the great deal of advantages they
have over practically any human/metahuman alive, I don't see why they couldn't have been
responsible for a lot of things in the past. I'm not saying humans can't accomplish great
things on their own, its just certain things and events can lead them down different
paths.
--

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Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Bira)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Fri Oct 26 20:35:02 2001
On Sat, 27 Oct 2001 04:27:42 +0800
"Nivek Sregor" <thedarkmessiah@*******.com> wrote:

>
> How do you know that they don't control humanity? Just because we don't see it,
doesn't mean that they don't. I don't see the Mafia's or the Yakuza's influence nowadays,
but that doesn't mean that they don't do anything.

It's exactly this that I was looking to remove in my campaign. To replace the
elves with some other magically powerful beings that would have been dormant or away from
the human scene before the Awakening. Someone who is a former mage-king of Atlantis
reincarnated (and remembers it) would be just as powerful as Ehran, for example, without
having been around during the Fifth Age. It's all this manipulation thing that gets to my
nerves :).


--
Bira -- SysOp da Shadowland.BR
http://www.shadowland.com.br
Redator de Shadowrun da RPG em Revista
http://www.rpgemrevista.f2s.com
Message no. 7
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Dan Turek)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Sat Oct 27 02:40:01 2001
>Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 17:02:34 -0200
>From: Bira <ra002585@**.unicamp.br>
>Subject: Alternate Immortals
>
>Let me warn from the start that this topic deals with those pesky Immortal
>Elves, on certain levels.
>
>Now, I personally can't stand IEs as they are now. The idea that some
>people and entities of the Sixth World were around ages ago, before magic
>went away, has some appeal, but SR's immortals suffer from "Vampire(TM)
>syndrome".
>
>The list goes on... Do you have any interesting suggestions on this?
>--
>Bira -- SysOp da Shadowland.BR
>http://www.shadowland.com.br

There isn't a nice convenient list of the Immortals, is there?

I see them lying low when the mana level dropped. They tried to keep tabs on
people and what was happening in the world, but I don't think they had much
power before the Awakening or perhaps every country in existence wouldn't
have splintered. That seems to be when all the "Old Ones" made their power
grabs, since they could now back it up with magic. If they had a lot
beforehand, they risked losing it all when the governments changed/fell.
Certainly nothing indicates them being behind the great genuises, or they
could have made that technology when the mana levels fell instead of having
a Dark Age that literally went into the Prehistoric Stone/Bronze Age. When
you can snap your fingers and get your wish granted, you probably aren't
used to opening a can of beans for yourself.

So lets say all the IEs and Vampires from the 4th world hung around either
lying low or in suspended animation or some other plane. Dragons, things
possessed by spirits, etc. are also immortal (mostly) so what did they do
(does a novel say by now?) What else is effectively immortal?

Does anyone have more on Ehran? My group gets to break into his estate in
the Tir (no, he's not home and most people on Royal Hill are busy with it
being May 1st) and other than what little is in Harlequin, Tir Tairngire,
Dunk's Will, a the flier with his speech (I really loved those. It's what
got me to buy the game) I know nothing about him.

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Message no. 8
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Bira)
Subject: Alternate Immortals
Date: Sat Oct 27 15:25:01 2001
On Sat, 27 Oct 2001 02:38:12 -0400
"Dan Turek" <danturek@*******.com> wrote:

>
> There isn't a nice convenient list of the Immortals, is there?

Afraid not, though I'd very much like one of those :).

>
> So lets say all the IEs and Vampires from the 4th world hung around either
> lying low or in suspended animation or some other plane. Dragons, things
> possessed by spirits, etc. are also immortal (mostly) so what did they do
> (does a novel say by now?) What else is effectively immortal?

SR attributes vampirism to a virus, one that did only became active again after
the Awakening. As for dragons, they slept through all of the Fifth Age. Them coming back
is one of the events that signaled the Awakening.

--
Bira -- SysOp da Shadowland.BR
http://www.shadowland.com.br
Redator de Shadowrun da RPG em Revista
http://www.rpgemrevista.f2s.com

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