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The Basics You are obviously here because you want to learn about Immortal Millenium. There are two ways to learn about Immortal presented here. The first involves reading through this webpage. The second involves what we call the Immortal Prepkit. The Prekit (provided for now in Rich Text Format - which is usable by most word processors) gives you a beginners tutorial on how to play the game and includes a short sample adventure. We will provide a PDF format of this soon. But for now, you can click here and download the RTF version if you'd like. And of course, you can continue on reading from here. . . What is Immortal? Immortal is a role-playing game. It is an interactive story in which you become a key figure both as a player in the game and as a character in the story. The story of Immortal concerns the end of the modern world and the return to dominance of immortal beings that existed before human civilization. Like a character in an exciting novel or film, you will experience adventure, romance, power, and hard choices that test your courage and compassion. The myths humanity holds dear will crumble when ancient gods rise from their secret places to fight a final war with the forces of darkness. A new age of legend is dawning. Whether this new age will be terrible or breathtaking depends to a large extent on how you and the other players handle the challenges that will face you. Immortal is a free-style narrative game. Like any game, it has rules to define what the players can do and to guide the referee (called a narrator) in resolving disputes. Short Background History Sixty-five million years ago, the Sanguinary crashed into our world and shattered like glass into millions of shards which rained around the globe. She had been cast out of another universe, a dimension higher than our own, composed entirely of thought. Gigantic and unbearably beautiful, she plunged out of control through our universe until Earth blocked her path. The Sanguinary did not die when she shattered. An immortal being, even her scattered parts had a life of their own and a fragment of her alien intellect. Slowly they invaded the living biosphere of the Earth like parasites, seeking hosts among the animals that then dominated the worldthe dinosaurs. Each shard had the same purpose, to reunite with others and thereby bring the Sanguinary back into a single, terrible body. The shards made everything they invaded immortal, to protect the host while the shard sought to physically locate and merge with others of its kind. The first race, reborn from the perishing dinosaurs, became even more sleek and deadly as the shards rewrote their DNA and transformed them. Men would call them dragons, but when the intellect of these creatures grew to sentience, they called themselves the Abzulim. The Abzulim grew in power. They discovered how to use the power of the shards inside themselves. Men called this power "magic." The Abzulim used this magic, and similar resources, to power their technology. They spread forth from Earth and conquered galaxies beyond. They built slave races, also immortal, to manage their expanding dominions. To control their servants, the Abzulim created psionic weaknesses that could be manipulated through intricate body language. The Abzulim learned to trigger any response in their slaves with mere gestures, expressions, and shapeshifting manifestations. These weaknesses have evolved through time, and in their modern form they are known as emotions. As the Abzulim grew in power, they also began rebelling internally against the shards that possessed them. They became fiercely individualistic and unable to work together. Despite the mental conditioning, their slave races revolted. Eventually, in spite of all their power, the reign of the Abzulim was brought crashing down by countless far-flung rebellions. Abzulim who survived the holocaust hid themselves in distant fortresses and plotted their return to power. The young immortals, free of Abzulim oppression, divided the empires of their fallen masters. Yet they, too, became intolerant of one another and soon went to war. The rediscovery of humanity only exacerbated this conflict as the immortals competed with one another for the worship of humanity. Worship became an insidious drug, and the immortals were addicted. Their conflicts led to a terrible war, the Shouting War. During this time, when immortals used their powerful voices to rip apart reality, they fell prey to a new slave race of the Abzulim, an elemental race of shadows called the Nimrod. Serving their Abzulim masters, the Nimrod confined the other immortals in a barren, dimensional prison. The Sanguinary, during all of this time, had not been idle. She almost succeeded in her quest to rejoin the fragments of her body, but was thwarted when the master shard she was building was found by the young immortals and smashed. On the verge of perishing for good, she instead found refuge in the collective unconscious of a newly emerging humanity, transferring her psionic essence into the young race. At the moment she possessed the human race, the dream realm came into being, a lair in which the Sanguinary hid and planned her eventual resurrection. The immortals eventually freed themselves from their awful prison. Their guards, the Nimrod, were powerless to prevent the escape because they faced a new enemy in the form of the Progeny, immortals loyal to the Sanguinary who embraced her hunger and selfishness. The liberated immortals built a safe zone for themselves which humans later called Atlantis. Here they recovered from their wounds and made a pact to ally with one another and destroy the menace of the Sanguinary. Unfortunately, they did not learn from their mistakes, and late in the 20th century, they were almost destroyed in a period of time known to them as the Great Betrayal. Once again they retreated to their hidden places, but now they allied themselves together with renewed purpose and a new way of looking at themselves and the world around them. The Sanguinary is at last prepared to rise up and it is up to the immortals to stop her, or become her agents of destruction. What are ImmortalsImmortals are created when an animal is invaded by a gemlike shard of the Sanguinary's shattered body. The shard always enters a wound, liquefying on contact with blood. Inside, it lodges in the throat, becoming a reed-like organ very similar to a vocal chord, called a "vox." This new organ interfaces with the brain and the nervous system in order to process all sensory data from the host. The Abzulim discovered the reason why the shard metamorphoses into the vox: communication. Once a shard invades a host and becomes a vox, it can communicate with others of its kind to coordinate the effort of reunification. Sometimes this communication between voxes can cause an immortal disorientation and stress. Most of the immortals that exist were created intentionally by the Abzulim, who forcefully injected shards into them. Later, when humans evolved, immortals were affected, against their will, by human spiritual faith. Their bodies took on human appearance to suit the expectations of their worshippers. Still, immortals maintain the ability to revert to their more primitive himsati ("the form that kills") at will, calling upon natural powers such as fangs, claws and wings. Over time, the immortals learned to make the vox work for them. Because the presence of the vox telepathically opened their senses to the true nature of the universe, they used the vox to imitate the celestial din. This is the origin of the serenade, the ability to change reality with a whisper, a muttered word, or a song. The discovery of this ability nearly destroyed the immortals, as serenades became the ultimate weapon. Immortals are superior to humans in almost every way. They are stronger, quicker, and more resilient. Their intellect and perception are exceptional. Their spirits burn brighter and give them supernatural powers. Although they can discorporate from their physical form when their vox is separated from their body, it is impossible to permanently kill immortals. Once discorporated, they wander the world in spiritual form until they can regain a foothold in the world of the living. The Face of the EnemyThe Sanguinary is the ultimate enemy. Immortals give her the male and female gender, depending on what aspect the creature outwardly displays, but make no mistakethe Sanguinary is alien, unknowable, and without remorse or compassion. It's goal is the reunification of all its scattered parts, which means the voxes in all living immortals and the shards that lay dormant, waiting to enter a living host. This reunification will also absorb the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of the immortal host, destroying him or her utterly. For the immortals, the Sanguinary represents genocide. Many creatures, caught in the web of obsession the Sanguinary generates in living things, serve and worship her as their mother. Called the Progeny, they battle the immortals and tempt humans with visions of power, money, sexual gratification, and all the other "deadly sins." The Progeny are defectors that have embraced the freedom of indulgence granted by the Sanguinary and forsaken the immortal creed of self-sacrifice for the good of all life. It is suspected by the immortals that the Abzulim, defeated long ago, still exist and are moving into the world with the aid of servants and allies. Their purpose is the reconquest of all they once ruled, including the slaves who revolted against them. They are aided by the dread Nimrod, immortals made of shadow. It is not known if the Abzulim are still under the control of the Sanguinary, but they are certainly opposed to the immortal courts in any case. HumansHumans are something of a paradox to immortals. On one hand, humanity is a deadly race; any human could have the mind of the Sanguinary lying dormant in the subconscious. On the other hand, most humans are innocent pawns or completely harmless. Immortals realize that humanity may be instrumental in their victory over the Sanguinary. A human's faith, if his spirit is strong enough, can damage or even cripple an immortal. Yet these are precisely the humans immortals would like to bring into the fold. The tricky part is enlightening mankind to the beast that sleeps inside the world of its dreams. The Basics of an Immortal Character We aren't going to go through the process of creating a character here, you can get the information on creating a basic character in the prepkit. However, we will go over the basics of what makes up an Immortal character in the game. The Basic Features of an Immortal Character are:
RATINGS
AURAS
Many humans do not have a spirit, having been pulled into the gaping maw of the Sanguinary's hunger. Some humans do however, and the Immortal race has sometimes called them Bright Bloods in the past. It is also possible to further differentiate your auras, such as a character whose BODY has a very high strength, but not reflexes or resistance. These topics are not covered in the initial Immortal guide, but are advanced features that you can add in to your game.
SKILLS
HIMSATI An immortal can take on attributes of the primeval himsati form in stages or can completely revert to the form at will. While this often is an advantage in combat, it also exposes the immortal to the danger of possession by the vox and thus the Sanguinary. Immortals know that a shard can control the base animal intellect of a creature until the creature develops self-determination. Thus all Immortals quest for Transcendance, where it is said they can exist without the vox and still remain immortal. Just what Transcendance truly is, and how it truly affects the Himsati is a mystery to many. Most Immortal Himsatis are plants and animals. Some even have "human" himsatis, those these are rare. And just as rare are the himsatis made up of the elements. These Immortals do not work under quite all of the standard rules for most Immortals. The vast majority of Immortals are made from fairly normal animals capable of being "infected" with the shard of conundrum that eventually forms the vox.
NATURES
CALLINGS
AVATARS and
your Past Lives After enacting the rite, the Immortals previous lives are subsumed within its Vox and its body transforms into an energetic red cloud which coalesces into a beautiful, embryonic object from which a new body is born. The Vox reaches out to the psychic resonances of the area around it, gathering information to build a new identity for itself. The new body often appears childlike, the better to hide among mortals and create a new life. The greatest bliss is that the Immortals memories are buried in the subconscious and life can be approached once again as a new experience. The Courts of the Perpetual Society go to great lengths to protect this from the mortal population, but occasionally glimpses of such are seen in the tabloids as "Aliens" and such. Many mortal families, loyal to the Perpetual Society, take these and raise them as their own "children". Just as many are placed with unknowing families, who are made to think that these "children" have been with them all along. This is how most characters start the game, just now reawakening to their Immortality, and realizing just who and what they are. However, there is a side-effect to all of this, Avatars. Avatars are who you once were. They lie buried within the vox, separated, yet part of you. These Avatars can come out and take control, or perhaps the Avatar will be beneficial. Many Immortals coming out of lethe unfortunately have an Avatar awaken within them early on, and are diagnosed with multiple personalities. These poor souls, thinking themselves insane, are locked away in mortal facilities, never growing or realizing their true nature.
COURTS Immortals choose their Court based on their strongest connections to reality. The Courts are tied to aspects of reality, as their names below show:
All Courts are dedicated to the destruction of the Sanguinary's influences, if not the Sanguinary herself. This overriding purpose is known as The Cause.
SERENADES Serenades are used much like any other skill, though their effects are of course, much more dramatic.
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