How do the eternal “live”

Being an immortal creature has its drawbacks.  Sometimes, you get a sense of this from some of the more romantic fiction about vampires:  Everyone they know is dead or will die and they just keep going on.  While this has no impact on their ability to take or do damage in combat, it should be an important part of a FRPG.

There are many ways in which this can impact the characters themselves.  They are going to have to find a way to be in the world (hopefully without going crazy).  Here are just a few ideas:

As an immortal being, they could decide to remove themselves from every aspect of the tediously short lives of mortals.  Refusing to be constantly hurt or annoyed by people dying, they separate from mortals and live alone.  In these circumstances, they will rely on other immortal / undying creatures such as undead, golems, or possibly even divine creatures (probably the worst types of divines).  Their lairs will be distant from mortal cultures, and it will likely require some manner of extreme athleticism just to get to their homes.  They will be the kind who gets incredibly upset that someone has invaded their home, and there will not be a gracious host willing to have a long conversation here.  Yes, think of the grumpy old man as a vampire.

Another alternative is the exact opposite.  Here they want to be involved in every aspect of mortals’ short tedious lives in order to feel more connected to the process of life, something they themselves can no longer feel.  This can often be the case with the Noble Vampires, who keep “cattle slaves”.  Cattle slaves are different from chattel slaves, because they are not simply slaves, but are instead kept as both servants and food source.

For an immortal surrounded by mortal servants, they can become engrossed in the lives of these servants.  While the attraction is far more often one of an owner and his pets, he still wants to know what’s going on.  As soon as the sun sets, the vampire could be quizzing his servants about what he missed during the daylight hours.  This whacky obsession with the living is all about the things that the immortal can no longer feel or experience.  There are repercussions!  The death of a precious pet could either throw the immortal into depression or rage.

In a somewhat similar way, in order to maintain sanity over centuries, an immortal can find a hobby.  OK, that was an intentionally silly way to describe it, but they will find their “life’s work” and throw themselves into it.  This obsession will allow them to get moving when they awaken and get to doing something, rather than lay around the coffin all day.

This is the way that most of the remaining titans on Fletnern deal with their incredibly long lives (and they usually only live a couple of centuries).  They find some pursuit that interests them and they throw themselves into it with everything they have.  For some it could be alchemy and “perfecting” some manner of potion.  For others it could be animal husbandry and the breeding of some manner of animal or monster.  When discussing the undead, it could very well be a focus on necromancy and some aspect of it that they are trying to develop or perfect.  The fun part for GMs is that this goal does not have to be attainable.  What might keep a vampire busy for 400 years could be the pursuit of a vegan blood source.

There is another alternative.  Our suggestion here is that the human brain (and most vampires start out as humans) cannot handle centuries of living.  Exactly how you want to handle that is your own decision, but it does seem likely that becoming a vampire and being conscious for centuries could cause a person to go insane.  But here is the fun part:  insane, how?  They could become a megalomaniac, becoming the most feared enemy of mortals.  They could become obsessive compulsive, and every item in their massive fortress must remain exactly “right” or they lose their stuff.  They could become Jekyll and Hyde - perfectly sophisticated but only after they have had their meal.  Up until then, they are raving violence incarnate.  Insanity can have a lot of different faces - many of them interesting to add into a FRPG.  (Apologies to anyone actually suffering from mental disorders, we are taking a very superficial view of this for the sake of throwing out ideas.)

Our whole point with this is that not every vampire should be Count Dracula.  Not only that, but any “immortal” creature really needs to be looked at from a spectrum of not being mortal - not being confined to a mere century or less of life.  Sure, their first 100-150 years are probably lived similarly to anyone else, but at some point, they are going to feel the sting of immortality.  What they do then is how you as the game master develop a really memorable NPC enemy.

This blog entry was written in conjunction with our Small Bites supplement, The Vampire Tyrants of the Darklands aka All About Creatures of the Night.  Click the link for the FREE World Walkers edition.