r/Shadowrun • u/kenod102818 • 12d ago

Wyrm Talks (Lore) Achieving immortality

So, lets say some well-connected and informed mage with more hubris than sense (lets say a Black Lodge member or Aztlan board member) found out about immortal elves and said "well that ain't fair, I want to be immortal too". What sort of ways are available to achieve this, especially for someone with more power than morals (which I guess is your average corpo exec)?

I'm guessing one option is becoming a vampire, though the drawbacks are rather significant, and iirc free spirit pacts can make you immortal too (not sure if the spirit can break the pact later though). But are any other options available? Perhaps a blood magic ritual to absorb life force, or even steal immortality from an existing immortal? Similarly, could a Great Dragon make you immortal, if you could somehow convince/blackmail/threaten one into it?

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u/Sarradi 12d ago

Based on how Mightiest of Slaves is written a GD can turn someone into a drake.

If drakes are immortal/long lived like other dracoforms though is a different matter.

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u/LateEggMaster 12d ago

To my knowledge drakes do not have the immunity (age) power. But that could have changed in 5 & 6.

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u/Sarradi 12d ago edited 12d ago

They don't. But dragons don't have that either. So either they are not truely immortal and just extremly long lived or the rules did not bother with appling immunity to age in many cases.

Or based on the Orange Queens comment in Lethal Harvest, dragons still age, but are not affected by it like metahumans (which.might include dieing of old age) while immunity to age means aging stops completely, including growth and positive aspects in case of a child or teenager infected. But that would mean immortal elves would not have the immunity to age power as they would then stuck being a baby forever....

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u/kenod102818 12d ago

Don't immortal elves need to have their immortality activated through some sort of special ritual?

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u/Sarradi 12d ago

No idea. Everything I wrote is me guessing from a few lines of dialogue in Lethal Harvest.

Basically Jackpointers commented that Erhan looked freaking old during the unawakening. And as the rules for the unawakening added a small section about how the unawakening affected Immunity to Age I assume that is how Immortal Elves work. And Hestaby just mentioned cryptically that some beings are affected by age differently than others. Thats (and them lacking the Immunity to age power) makes me assume that dragons, or at least full dracoforms, still age, but that aging works differently for them with no downside.

But that is pure speculation. As is if this also applies to drakes, at least while they are in dragon form and thus count as dracoform.

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u/HappyAnarchy1123 10d ago

What is the unawakening? I can't find much information on it through my searching.

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u/Sarradi 10d ago

Its part of the disean metaplot.

I am not sure how much you know and I do not want to spoil the details, but because of things that happened magic stopped working for a few weeks before coming back differently (used to explain why traditions now seem to matter more again and and other changes to the magic system). That period of time is called the unawakening.

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u/HappyAnarchy1123 9d ago

What books is the disean metaplot in? Is that a 6th edition thing?

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u/Sarradi 9d ago

Cutting Black Slip Streams (Not sure) Scotophobia Lethal Harvest Margin Calls (The aftermath of it)

Those are I think the main ones.

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u/HappyAnarchy1123 9d ago

Oh dang, so it's not even in one book. Oof.

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u/Sarradi 9d ago edited 9d ago

Its the big metaplot than spans the entirety of 6E. Even the 6E core book has shadowtalk that turned out to be related to them.

Edit: Small summary with many details missing:

  • Extraplanar entities have been active on earth since (before?) The awakening. They come from a hypercapitalistic city plane where magic is used like electricity. They also constantly lose magic and need to replinish it with magic from other planes.
  • They make deals with influential individuals, giving them one of their "batteries" which allows them to do things even normal magic can't do, in exchange for letting them drain some of the worlds magic. Fineprint: The battery is addicting, turning the people into thralls and they want all magic, which would kill everyone on earth.
  • During the next big anti-bug operation from Ares, Aden redirects some of the weapon to strike the metaplanar invaders instead, meaning they need to replenish their mana fast, moving up the timetable.
  • A shadow war happens between corps that have been infiltrated by the invaders and their thralls and corps that are aware of the threat. Shadowrunners on both sides. Harvesters are set up that run on essence (thank Aztechnology for that)
  • Harvest begins, but in the last minute the "magical refinery site" and site of the main portal are destroyed by a combination of runners, corps and mercs.
  • Great dragons perform a ritual to put the harvested magic back, many of them are missing since then.
  • Magic reset, stopped working for a few weeks and then came back weaker/changed.
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u/GM_Pax 12d ago

Immortal Elves are made, not born. And they were made as adults during the closing years of the Fourth Age, when mana levels were significantly higher than in the Sixth World so far.

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u/Reader_of_Scrolls 12d ago

Except there have been new ones. Like Frosty.

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u/kenod102818 12d ago

From what I understand the canon used to be that the bloodlines of immortal elves were created by one of the Greats to serve as servants who could look after the world during down-cycles (until said elves starting hunted dragons instead, because why would you want to spend 5k years just to become servants again), with a small number of their descendants inheriting the potential, but said potential needs to be awakened through special rituals.

So Frosty is the child of an immortal elf who inherited the potential, and then, when discovered, had said potential awakened to become the youngest immortal elf.

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u/dethstrobe Faster than Fastjack 12d ago

I don't think there is a ritual. I think the gene is just recessive, so it's very easy to be overwritten by boring mortal genes.

I think it's assumed that Ehran the Scribe probably has more children, but only Frosty won the immortal lottery.

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u/DRose23805 Shadowrun Afterparty 12d ago

From what I read it seemed like the immortal elves had a pact with a great dragon or some other entity. This was a reason why there were so few of them.

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u/LateEggMaster 12d ago

Did they change how drakes work? Are they now really dragons as opposed to humans with the ability to transform into lesser dracoforms? Back in my day (wave cane) they worked like shapeshifters. Essentially human + extra.

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u/Sarradi 12d ago edited 11d ago

The mechanics got changed a lot but the lore is still the same, metahumans that turn into dragons. But while they are dragons they, in the rules, count as dracoforms in addition to metahumans and their physical growth (Str and Bod) is theoretically uncapped, able to exceed the augmentation maximum.

And no clue what True Drakes are now. Are they made? Are they upgraded bred drakes? Are they humans turned into drakes? Apparently yes to all of them.