Why is immortality such a big deal?

[Mrmdubois]

The impact of humanity on the natural world has been largely to speed up entropy on the whole which is still part of the natural cycle of existence. Using magic to live a longer life probably isn't that big of a deal, but straight up immortality would be flying in the face of one tenth of the natural metaphysics of the game.

[Prometheus]

The impact of humanity on the natural world has been largely to speed up entropy on the whole which is still part of the natural cycle of existence. Using magic to live a longer life probably isn't that big of a deal, but straight up immortality would be flying in the face of one tenth of the natural metaphysics of the game.

Oh, than it was probably a misunderstanding. I meant "not aging", not "can't die" and even then thanks to physical changes to the body, not soul metaphysics. Magic would only be used as a more advanced technology, to slightly modify the body in a way that will probably be possible in the near future anyway even without it. Hence the requirement to understand modern sciences, so you know what to affect.

Of course that screwing with the soul with the Subtle Arcana is not bound to end well. Mages don't understand nearly enough to not screw up when they meddle with the soul.

[Unahim]

Interesting discussion so far, guys.

Some things I want to respond to:

- Immortality being hard to achieve so that there would not be too many archmages present: Can be solved by just leveraging the threat of the Exarchs, too, as well as the natural dangers involvd in the study of magic and its practice. There are not a lot of archmages because people who get that strong attract attention from the Abyss and beyond, and their Obsessions raw them into ever more dangerous pursuits. I think just a "natural lifespan" solution is actually less dramatic and more boring a solution.

- Immortality being an act of hubris: So are lots of other things the PCs can and probably wil do, yet these do not get restrictions imposed on them because of this.

- If your spell gets dissolved, you will quickly die: How so? Healing damage from guns or healing damage from aging really is no different in the long run, so I don't see why both would not be Lasting, else neither would be. Interesting remark, too: The limitation that has been put on the Knit spell, seemingly to prevent healing aging, also makes mages unable to heal Cancer. Seems... weird.

[WHW]

It was stated that it's on purpose that you can't permanently heal cancer or brain damage, and person you are healing is forever reliant on a dispellable, non-lasting 4dot spell. (Regeneration)

[HardcoreHannes]

There is a very simple reason why immortality or even invicibility spells cannot be lasting: "NOT beeing something" cannot be a lasting condition. Mages do age. Not aging is an unnatural state, you cannot achieve. It's the same with stuff like, not having cancer. You can heal the symptoms over and over again and probably recreate something like a chemo therapy and wipe all cancer cells from the body, but you cannot create a lasting, natural effect, that prevents rebuilding of cancer cells. I do agree though, that there is no reason for you to age faster after a non aging spell is dispelled on you. If you could freeze a body for 20 years, there is no logical reason for why it should age faster after the 20 years. So even if your spell get's dispelled after 2 years e.g. it was probably still worth it.

I would also tune a bit down on the natural regeneration front. While there is a lot of research going on, there is no evidence that there will be any kind of gen therapy in the near future that will provide the human body with the means to constantly regenerate to e.g. the state at age 20. Even if this might be possbile, it might have significant complications, for example not beeing able to get any new memories and therefore learning anything. This is not so much a problem for a low brain function animal mainly acting on instincts, but for a human or a mage, this would have significant problems.

[Michael]

But that could be said about anything happening in modern civilization. Rest of the world couldn't prepare for the arrival of humanity during such an astronomically short time. What makes long life stand out from the ton of things humanity imposed on the world in such a short time? If extensively and quickly taming the environment to serve men is alright...

Not a lot. I mean, I was actually wondering about making an analogy to the impact of humans on the natural world.
The difference is that humans only really became aware of the impact they were having long after our society became dependant on those extremely destructive technology. The prospective immortal Moros is well aware of the issues beforehand.

- Immortality being hard to achieve so that there would not be too many archmages present: Can be solved by just leveraging the threat of the Exarchs, too, as well as the natural dangers involvd in the study of magic and its practice. There are not a lot of archmages because people who get that strong attract attention from the Abyss and beyond, and their Obsessions raw them into ever more dangerous pursuits. I think just a "natural lifespan" solution is actually less dramatic and more boring a solution.

You don't really need to do anything, that's pretty much how things are anyway.

As for it being boring, I don't really see how your version is better. You've just made lifespan a non-issue.

[Prometheus]

It was stated that it's on purpose that you can't permanently heal cancer or brain damage, and person you are healing is forever reliant on a dispellable, non-lasting 4dot spell. (Regeneration)

That's true. But you can use Life to make body stronger to resist the disease, you can use Fate to make the probability of various medicaments succeeding higher, etc...

Using an Arcanum to brute force the condition to disappear by simply rewriting it to "not be" was never the point. Using it in conjunction with other tools and knowledge to get the result you wish for is the point of my 'use exoteric knowledge' idea I was making earlier. More advanced civilization = more of exoteric knowledge = better ability to use magic as a fine tool instead of a sledgehammer.

Also, Death can actually do just that:

Deny the Reaper

Primary Factor: Potency
Suggested Rote Skills: Medicine, Occult, Subterfuge

"...The mage reverses the effects of decay, restoring the subject to its physical state of being from before up to one month per Potency of the spell. On a living subject, the spell can restore eyesight, the use of limbs, reversing irreparable damage, and restoring all bodily functions..."

Notice the Potency as a primary factor. The spell is Lasting, otherwise it would be duration as primary. It's like that with every other spell in the book.

[WHW]

Yeah, but Masters already can easily mass ressurect people by doing something like "Grab a Spirit of Rank 3, use Spirit 4th dot to make it a Spirit of Healing, use Bolster Spirit to make it Rank 4 and give it Ressurection Numina, don't care about Dissonance/Dispellation/Other stuff". I think it's much saner to generally consider 4th and 5th dot impacts on the world on local/individual scale, not potentially world-changing.

[Prometheus]

Yeah, but Masters already can easily mass ressurect people by doing something like "Grab a Spirit of Rank 3, use Spirit 4th dot to make it a Spirit of Healing, use Bolster Spirit to make it Rank 4 and give it Ressurection Numina, don't care about Dissonance/Dispellation/Other stuff". I think it's much saner to generally consider 4th and 5th dot impacts on the world on local/individual scale, not potentially world-changing.

I can concede that point.

It's the first part of my post I consider important. Normal Life magic may not directly cure cancer, but it sure as hell can be a useful tool in medicine's repertoire.

[WHW]

It is. In general, my favorite mode of using magic is to "enhance your skills and abilities", instead of replacing them. For example, I vastly prefer an Alchemist who uses her knowledge of Science to nudge and push Matter in ways that enhance her chemical processes and opens up new avenues, instead of replacing the whole thing with "I cast a spell, alchemy done".
This in general works really great for most of things (instead of mentally reprograming your children, try to enhance the parenting process with your mind magic! instead of literally changing value of "is he sick" from true to false using life magic, try to cause things that will result in making that person less sick)

[Prometheus]

It is. In general, my favorite mode of using magic is to "enhance your skills and abilities", instead of replacing them. For example, I vastly prefer an Alchemist who uses her knowledge of Science to nudge and push Matter in ways that enhance her chemical processes and opens up new avenues, instead of replacing the whole thing with "I cast a spell, alchemy done".
This in general works really great for most of things (instead of mentally reprograming your children, try to enhance the parenting process with your mind magic! instead of literally changing value of "is he sick" from true to false using life magic, try to cause things that will result in making that person less sick)

You could say that this is actually the point of Wisdom. Mage with high Wisdom knows to, among other things, minimize the impact of his magic on the world and is subtle in its applications.

[Pale_Crusader]

I can concede that point.

It's the first part of my post I consider important. Normal Life magic may not directly cure cancer, but it sure as hell can be a useful tool in medicine's repertoire.

Would the Fraying Practice used upon Cancer work very much like amazing precise Chemotherapy that only affected the Cancer? I mean combined with Unveiling to know exactly which cells were cancerous. Also could you just Unmake the Cancer as a Lasting effect, Unmaking is usually Lasting anyway. Sorry for quibbling over details.

I would note in my homebrew Immortality (as per the Immortality Dread Power) is accessible to every Major Template at a price, and it works well both for Reoccurring NPC and even PCs. Vampire in particular seems to do well when a simple beat down of a violent thug doesn't solve anything permanently (unsurprisingly Immortality is already a theme in Vampire so the dark prices of blood sacrifices and ritual aren't that out of place)

In Mage I tie it heavily to Reaping Lichdom, which is also thematically appropriate.

[Prometheus]

Would the Fraying Practice used upon Cancer work very much like amazing precise Chemotherapy that only affected the Cancer? I mean combined with Unveiling to know exactly which cells were cancerous. Also could you just Unmake the Cancer as a Lasting effect, Unmaking is usually Lasting anyway. Sorry for quibbling over details.

I guess so. As WHW said, at the Mastery level things get pretty wonky (and scary. Masters are scary.) In Mage in general, you are given a great amount of tools (and not just magic) that you can combine to get the results you want. The amount of combinations is practically infinite and cannot be all listed here. That's what the Creative Thaumaturgy is for.

[arthexis]

These immortality topics keep coming back from the dead!

Having immortality in your Mage game is completely irrelevant. You are not going to be playing forever, you know? You, the player, you will die. Or just get bored and stop playing. So what does it matter if your character is immortal or not? Being immortal grants you absolutely nothing. It can serve as a plot device to the ST if he wants, at most. And the ST can make any NPC or PC immortal if plot required it anyways.

Since Mage is not a game about exploring immortality (if you want to explore that, I suggest the book Ancient Mysteries for Vampire the Requiem) it doesn't have much support to play stories about immortal mages. Even to archmasters, immortality is a side thought, the book didn't even talk about it. I feel like this is more or less the same thing I said in the last three Immortality threads.

[WHW]

For many people, it's relevant from worldbuilding point of view.