Why is immortality such a big deal?

[ElvesofZion]

Meh. You can say Dave said whatever he wants but even if you linked a quote, until he publishes it I'm not taking it as gospel.

But how? I mean, mind seems like its super needed to transfer your consciousness into a new body. How you would even do it without Mind?

(Note: I really don't know 1st ed, so this is 2ed only)

[Mrmdubois]

Meh. You can say Dave said whatever he wants but even if you linked a quote, until he publishes it I'm not taking it as gospel.

Yeah, I'm aware. Like I said I'm just reporting what I know.

But how? I mean, mind seems like its super needed to transfer your consciousness into a new body. How you would even do it without Mind?

(Note: I really don't know 1st ed, so this is 2ed only)

In 1e the FC book had a Death spell that let you put your soul in a target and destroy their soul as it was booted out. Some Masters of Death used it as a favored method for taking out foes during the Nameless War. It didn't require Mind and it's what TidyGamer is referring to. I agree though, it probably ought to involve Mind.

[thenate]

Especially in 2ed, simply moving the soul is insufficient to move the mind. The only published hopping spell was in The Free Council and required Mind... (Edit: err, my bad. I finally checked and it required Death and Life. Apparently it was more of a wrapping another's flesh around your mind and soul intact. That said, though, I disagree with leaving Mind out...)

If you want to ignore that, feel free, obviously, but you will probably want to come up with some consistent rules to apply.


Ed:
2e Rules on soul transfer are on pp.97-98. These do cover this question, albeit only from the side of what happens to the personality et alis when a soul is missing or replaced. RAW is pretty clear.

[ElvesofZion]

Yeah, I'm aware. Like I said I'm just reporting what I know.



In 1e the FC book had a Death spell that let you put your soul in a target and destroy their soul as it was booted out. Some Masters of Death used it as a favored method for taking out foes during the Nameless War. It didn't require Mind and it's what TidyGamer is referring to. I agree though, it probably ought to involve Mind.

OK, definetly different in second ed.

As thenate says, taking out your own soul would not take your personality (mind), only your drive. Putting it in another persons body won't do any body hopping. It would just be bad for you. TidyGamer, that's how it works in the published material, no word of god needed.

[TidyGamer]

You no longer need Life to turn yourself into living shadow. In some cases the Devs have expanded old spells into doing more than they could. I feel that body snatching should be able to be acomplished via death/life. I'm not opposed to a Mind variant. The Many Roads sidebar on page 124 says this is okay. I'm also extremely leery about encouraging Mind bloat, something that plagued 1e.

[Mrmdubois]

I have no idea why you don't need Life to turn yourself into a shadow. I find that to be pretty inconsistent with other spells in the book. It's actually one of the first things I asked about in the FAQ thread but I didn't get a reply.

Most of the spells so far (I'm up to Matter) look pretty solid, but then we have Matter and I'm left wondering what the hell happened. There's a spell to determine where hidden things are and if you add Forces it involves also finding electronic data on a device. Couldn't just straight Forces accomplish the same effect?

Also, Shrink Object mentions that if you add Life 3 you can use this spell to effect living things, but shouldn't that be a straight function of Life? Why is Matter needed to shrink living beings?

Death 4 allows you to change into living shadows without Life conjunction, Matter 4 does not grant the same. Isn't this inconsistent?

[WHW]

Maybe Shadow of a person is a Death part of them, and you aren't transforming into something different, just switching proportions.
...yeah, it's a weak justification, I'm tired.

[Mrmdubois]

I have no idea, I just know there are a number of spells that have seemingly inconsistent and illogical arcana combinations. Fortunately, it's the easiest thing in the world to houserule more consistent fixes, but it does make it difficult to have one of these kinds of conversations where everyone can come away with a different interpretation.

[Froggy711]

For PC's, immortality is largely irrelevant. The vast majority of PC's are in the prime of their lives, and it's doubtful the game will move at such a pace to change that.

However, immortality can be a HUGE motivator for NPC's especially villainous ones. The fear of death is powerful, and can be used to excuse all kinds of heinous acts.

Having immortality be something that can be gained simply, or as a natural outgrowth of arcane mastery, or without breaking any morals/mores, doesn't really add anything to the game. "You reached Life 5. You can cast the immortality spell now. Good for you!"

Also the "power mad mage in search of immortality" is a genre staple and the game would suffer without it.

As for the idea that living forever is a bad thing, or that having a 5000+ year lifespan upsets some natural order... I don't know if I buy that. The idea seems to be the flip side of "death comes for everyone" and having one person who can live forever while the rest of us have to go through this whole "death" thing doesn't seem terribly fair, but what else is new?

[Servanous]

How would spells to steal life / lifespan / years look anyway?

One way to do that would be for a mage to run a stall at a goblin market or be in indentured servant at a goblin market. Service for years of youth deal. That said I think most mages would die of enemy mage/horrible thing in ruin/paradox explosion/hunter and so forth.

[Aeryes]

There was a spell for stealing lifespan in 1E that did not make the cut for 2E. Would it still be valid for creative thaumaturgy in 2E?
It allows for this "I am immmoooooortaaaal!" thing but you're taking lifespan from someone else, bringing Wisdom and morality into play. I quite liked that one.

[MercSet]

There was a spell for stealing lifespan in 1E that did not make the cut for 2E. Would it still be valid for creative thaumaturgy in 2E?
It allows for this "I am immmoooooortaaaal!" thing but you're taking lifespan from someone else, bringing Wisdom and morality into play. I quite liked that one.

"Bring the sacrifice to the alter. Hurry Before the Eilcipes wanes and we lose the aura from Venus."

I also think of those spells as big set pieces. Like thats a plot hook of a rouge mage

[Dave Brookshaw]

At risk of reigniting this topic, but I finally read it and...

Archmasters aren't immortal. They keep getting brought up as being immortal, but they're not.

[Vent0]

At risk of reigniting this topic, but I finally read it and...

Archmasters aren't immortal. They keep getting brought up as being immortal, but they're not.

But it *is* fairly easy to render themselves immortal through Imperial Practices, right? I recall something about Excising the Death from someone.

[Gammelbraxen]

Why is immortality hard for mages?

The Exarchs did it!

Seriously. The majority of living mages does NOT serve the Exarchs. If they could live forever they would sooner or later reach archmastery and start to meddle in the Exarchs plans. So they did something to supernal magic. It can't be done any more.
To Supernal magic that is. There are other sources of magic/power that doesn't have that problem and whom over the Exarchs doesn't have (anywhere near) as much influence.

If you manage to reach archmastery I imagine you can shake of this Exarchic influence but until then you will have to ... improvise. Find other sources of power, or use supernal magics with imagination.

Slowing down aging, or just living longer, should still be able to be done with (supernal) magic. It is such a basic thing of existance so that completely deleting any such supernal magics might have side effects like making healing impossible. It should be rather finicky and never result in immortality or unaging-ness (in my opinion). And easy fixes comes with drawbacks. Look at Veil of Moments (Time 2), even the most powerful version makes you unable to spend XP (but you can still accrue it? Weird, I'd make gaining beats impossible as well). Making your body remarkably fit and able to live into your 150's, or stretching out your remaining time so that it takes a week to age a day, should (in my opinion) be possible with (advanced) supernal magic, but not outright immortality.

Tremmies do it with soul-devouring. And attainments, which, if I understand it correctly, isn't quite supernal magic.

This would all be under-the-hood immortality. You could cast a fairly simple (Life 3/Time 3) or some such spell and remain a certain age forever. But if the spell gets dispelled you'd revert to your 'True' age.


TL, DR: The Exarchs made immortality impossible through supernal magic. Seek out other sources of power or reach Archmastery and shake of the influence of the Exarchs.

Also, yeah ... easy immortality is boring. In a Horror game? If you do accomplish it, there should be a Price.