The Immortals Handbook

[Upper_Krust]

Hi CRGreathouse mate!

Wow, what a profundity of posts; I should check this thread more often.

He he!

I have a few assorted questions. First, about names: Why are Old Ones named such? Is there any reason they're old beyond the general D&D association "older = more powerful"?

Its partially a Lovecraft thing I suppose. Elder Gods. Great Old Ones. etc.

Similarly, why are certain Eternals called Time Lords?

My initial investigations into the occult brought forth an obscure reference to the name Time Lords, I can

Is there a reason all beings of that power level would be concerned with time,

Thats probably how Sidereals (and the few Immortals who know of them) perceive them.

or that beings of more or less power would not have the desire or ability to influence it? (Characters who aren't yet even metamortals can influence time via spells like time stop; with all the levels of power in between the lowest of mortals and the Eternals, I'd expect the ability to influence time would continue to grow.)

Time Lords don't (just) influence Time - they exist completely outside it.

It seems that the core of your work are the 10 major templates: Demideity, ..., Supernal.

Well I think the Disciple - Quasi-deity templates will probably see more use than the Time Lords + stuff.

Why are these broken down into 4 'classes' (Immortal, Sidereal, Eternal, Supernal)?

Each class means something. Immortal obviously means just that. Sidereal I will further explain in the book. Eternal means a number of things including existing outside time itself. Supernal I'll also explain in the book.

What's the difference between a really powerful Greater God and an unusually weak Old One? (That is, why is there a gulf between them?) Or is this just a way to simplify the presentation?

To explain the gulf I would have to better explain Old Ones and I want to keep a few secrets for the book.

Are Time Lords the most powerful of all the Eternals, or are there more powerful types?

There are more powerful types.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Alzrius mate!

Kezef is more like Fenris/Fenrir than Garm...but that's splitting hairs, since both mythical hounds have been compared as being the same being. Kezef did, after all, bite off Tyr's hand when the other gods chained him (Kezef).

Dendar is the Night Serpent. She resides in the Crystal Spire (Kelemvor's realm), eating the nightmares of mortals. Once she has become completely full, she will burst forth onto the Material Plane, and eat the sun, either ushering in, or as a symptom of, the Year of Carnage (Doomsday).

Okay, thanks for the details.

In the Pantheon chapter I have a section on creating (not only a mythologies Pantheons - obviously) a Pantheons enemies and balancing that with the creation of the Pantheon itself.

eg. So the Greek Pantheon may be slightly larger than the Japanese Pantheon but that will mean it has more intrinsic enemies.

In other words, any subset (such as 10%) of infinity is itself infinite, and can be larger or smaller than each other (such as 10% of infinity compared to 30%)...but still fundamentally lesser than the whole (that is, the 100%).

Exactly. Though this is (for practical purposes) useless, since it pidgeon holes everything into a subset of infinity.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi CRGreathouse mate!

This talk about infinities concerns me deeply... the idea that there are more integers than odd integers goes against everything I know about the various infinities (the alephs, the beths, and even the inverse "granulars" which I dispute).

I take it all with a 'pinch of salt' myself.

U_K, have you thought about starting a new thread? I think that shorter threads encourage people unfamiliar with the IH to post, as the thread seems less daunting.

Yes, but with the website iminent I would prefer to devote my attentions to that.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Greetings friends!

Ahoy Eä matey!

Hope you have been keeping well?

There has been some development in my taste in RPGs over the last months and I have primarily converted to White Wolf's Exalted. However, I will incorporate the WPS into my new campaign, I think, making divine abilities into "charm" trees. Do you think that could be done, UK?

Can you show me an example of a 'Charm Tree'? I am only (very) loosely familiar with Exalted.

Also, are you planning on writing up the Greek Pantheon? While I have become incined to using the Exalted as reference, I will be running a campaign taking place in ancient Greece, where the characters will be heroes aspiring to become as great as Hercules and such.

Yes, I will doing the Greek Pantheon in the Immortals Index. All Earthly Pantheons in fact...as well as a few others.

Any subset of an infinite set need not be infinite itself. Also, any subest of an uncountably infinite set need not be uncountably infinite. Take for instance the subset Z (the integers) of R (the reals). Z is countably infinite while R is not. The subset {1,3,5} of Z is finite, while Z itself is not.

Also, it can be shown that Z is group isomorphic to nZ={...,mnZ,...,2nZ,nZ,0,nZ,2nZ,...,mnZ,...}, meaning that nZ and Z has the same number of elements. This also closely resembles the definition of infinity (that a proper subset of a set can have a one-to-one correspondence with the set itself). This also "proves" that 10% of "infinity" is indeed infinity but not some smaller "infinity."

Now, I am no master of set-theory, but I can provide some links to relevant pages:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Infinity.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TransfiniteNumber.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/OrdinalNumber.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Continuum.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CardinalNumber.html

Now you're just showing off aren't you!

 

[-Eä-]

Ahoy Eä matey!

Hope you have been keeping well?

Sure! But as always, some things could have been better (-;

Can you show me an example of a 'Charm Tree'? I am only (very) loosely familiar with Exalted.

Yeps, will try.

http://www.aeonsociety.com/Exalted/Charms/SidrealExaltedCharms.pdf

Yes, I will doing the Greek Pantheon in the Immortals Index. All Earthly Pantheons in fact...as well as a few others.

Nice.. Though I will probably need some heavy converting.

Now you're just showing off aren't you!

Perhaps (-; Though I think it was a relevant point that in mathematics a proper infinite subset, H, of an infinite set, F, in many cases indeed has the same number of elements as F.

For instance, if you regard 10% of Z (the integers) as the set
10Z={...,-n*10,...,-30,-20,-10,0,10,20,30,...,n*10,...},
it has exactly as many elements as
Z={...,-n,...,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,...,n,...}
and both have (countably) infinite elements.

Equally, I=<0,1> is homeomorphic to the whole real line R=<-infinity,infinity> (and in Topology they can be regarded as the same spaces). And I has as many elements as R.

Infinity is indeed a strange "quantity."

 

[CRGreathouse]

Strange as this may sound to non-math people, I must thank -Eä- for bringing some sense back into this discussion.

 

[Verequus]

Hi U_K!

I hope you have been keeping well!?

Yes, while being busy, I had even not one cold!

I think you can help me with two problems regarding my story. A little bit of background: A Timelord chose to move the universe of a parallel earth into the "area" of universes with magic and imbued the earth with magic. He/She/It also gave some humans special properties, making them to the source of magic and masters over one element (22 like in Elements of Magic - yes, exactly those elements ). But some things went horribly wrong and the three surviving elemental masters became big, bad and (first in their universe, later over really many universes) unstoppable tyrants (I think they will become Greater Gods or even Old Ones).

Because of a contract the Timelord couldn't stop those tyrants, so he looked after some loopholes to change the course of events. The only thing possible was to get someone powerful for killing those tyrants - the main character, a slave being created by those tyrants. He/She/It freed it and provided some limited support like giving immortality.

And there lurks the problems. Because the main character will unavoidable make many, many enemies and he isn't for the first centuries really subtle (he has to learn a lot of things, even the basics of culture are unknown to him, so he thinks at first that friendship isn't voluntary but brought through a Greater Power, which he tries to find - after failing the discovery of priests or other signs of this god he decided to get his attention through killing his followers...). So he will get killed, with noone wanting to resurrect him except the Timelord. Thus my conclusion is to give the main character a kind of immortality, which has a resurrection feature like the ghosts in the MM. Do you have such a feature in stock?

The second problem is, that other greater beings will eventually discover him and try to kill him permanently, before he becomes too powerful. With a loophole in the automatic resurrection thingy they will eventually find a method to exploit this. How can the discovery by those enemies be prevented?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again mate!

Sure! But as always, some things could have been better (-;

Thats always the way of it though.

Yeps, will try.

http://www.aeonsociety.com/Exalted/Charms/SidrealExaltedCharms.pdf

Okay, thanks for that. It appears that they are merely outlined feat/ability trees derived from prerequisites.

It shouldn't be too difficult to illustrate something similar within the framework of d20.

Nice.. Though I will probably need some heavy converting.

Indeed.

Perhaps (-; Though I think it was a relevant point that in mathematics a proper infinite subset, H, of an infinite set, F, in many cases indeed has the same number of elements as F.

For instance, if you regard 10% of Z (the integers) as the set
10Z={...,-n*10,...,-30,-20,-10,0,10,20,30,...,n*10,...},
it has exactly as many elements as
Z={...,-n,...,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,...,n,...}
and both have (countably) infinite elements.

Equally, I=<0,1> is homeomorphic to the whole real line R=<-infinity,infinity> (and in Topology they can be regarded as the same spaces). And I has as many elements as R.

Infinity is indeed a strange "quantity."

Well thats clarified it all for me.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi U_K!

Hi Rulemaster mate!

Yes, while being busy, I had even not one cold!

You have fared well indeed.

I used to get minor illnesses like colds, and sore throats all the time, but I have noticed that when regularly training/exercising I never get ill.

I think you can help me with two problems regarding my story. A little bit of background: A Timelord chose to move the universe of a parallel earth into the "area" of universes with magic and imbued the earth with magic. He/She/It also gave some humans special properties, making them to the source of magic and masters over one element (22 like in Elements of Magic - yes, exactly those elements ). But some things went horribly wrong and the three surviving elemental masters became big, bad and (first in their universe, later over really many universes) unstoppable tyrants (I think they will become Greater Gods or even Old Ones).

Because of a contract the Timelord couldn't stop those tyrants, so he looked after some loopholes to change the course of events. The only thing possible was to get someone powerful for killing those tyrants - the main character, a slave being created by those tyrants. He/She/It freed it and provided some limited support like giving immortality.

Sounds really interesting. I like the idea of alienating one of the elements against the others.

And there lurks the problems. Because the main character will unavoidable make many, many enemies and he isn't for the first centuries really subtle (he has to learn a lot of things, even the basics of culture are unknown to him, so he thinks at first that friendship isn't voluntary but brought through a Greater Power, which he tries to find - after failing the discovery of priests or other signs of this god he decided to get his attention through killing his followers...). So he will get killed, with noone wanting to resurrect him except the Timelord. Thus my conclusion is to give the main character a kind of immortality, which has a resurrection feature like the ghosts in the MM. Do you have such a feature in stock?

This is me you're talking to - of course I do.

I actually have a number of different types of resurrection type abilities. The primary ability is a cosmic one called Second Coming which reincarnates the deity. But there are other more powerful powers such as Transmigration that let you take over the body of the being who killed you. Or even beyond that is a power called Metamerism which means you can never be destroyed only divided.

So you have a choice of abilities to choose from.

Hope some of those spark your interest. There are probably others I can't even remember off-hand.

I like the basic idea of the Second Coming. Even if the deity is destroyed it reincarnates again and again. You could easily see parallels in Moorcocks Eternal Champion idea.

The second problem is, that other greater beings will eventually discover him and try to kill him permanently, before he becomes too powerful. With a loophole in the automatic resurrection thingy they will eventually find a method to exploit this. How can the discovery by those enemies be prevented?

Well there is probably no method of hiding your secrets forever, at least, certainly not from beings who are essentially more powerful than yourself.

Though that in itself could be part of the campaign. With every incarnation the character must secretly sow the seeds for its next incarnation. This could be something as simple as having a child, who will eventually rise up and become the next incarnation, inheriting all your powers.

 

[historian]

Howdy Krust!

Quote:
Originally Posted by historian
If the “other” template begins with a “D” then I think I know what you’re talking about. Otherwise, I’ll just have to do some scrying.


Nope...and don't be going through all the letters of the alphabet.

Don't worry dude, that's why I have a crystal ball. That "D" thing that I had in mind is more likely associated with the sideral level anyway.

*Obviously things like Time Lords are beyond alignment.

Sweet - I'm wondering if 'transcending alignment' is a prerequisitie to ascending to eternal status.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CRGreathouse
Are Time Lords the most powerful of all the Eternals, or are there more powerful types?


There are more powerful types.

Somehow I was under the impression that the Time Lords were the last link in the chain before the supernals.

Strange as this may sound to non-math people, I must thank -Eä- for bringing some sense back into this discussion.

To the extent I have played a role in getting anyone 'off-track' I apologize. I should remember that most of the posters drawn to this discussion are of the "lawful" (good or neutral) variety.