From nv91-asa@nada.kth.se Tue Dec 21 14:07:31 1996 Status: RO X-Status: Received: from dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.9]) by mail.nada.kth.se (8.6.10/8.6.10) with ESMTP id OAA28671 for ; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 14:07:28 +0100 From: dickbeck@ix.netcom.com Received: from grc-ny7-11.ix.netcom.com (grc-ny7-11.ix.netcom.com [199.183.206.203]) by dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com (8.6.13/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA09154 for nv91-asa@nada.kth.se; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 05:06:56 -0800 Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 05:06:56 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com: Host grc-ny7-11.ix.netcom.com didn't use HELO protocol To: nv91-asa@nada.kth.se Message-Id: <199612218537741@ix.netcom.com> Subject: The Old One X-Mailer: NETCOMplete v3.0, from NETCOM On-Line Communications, Inc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A idea for an NPC for your Mage Page. For I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost, Stoping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening Background:The Old One is just that, old. 16,421 years old in fact. He was born in 14,425 B.C. Back then, not enough people had been born to require names. Anyway, one day he was talking with a friend of his who could sometimes do weird stuff. The Old One commented that if his friend had some sort of internally consistent worldview, he could do more with his strange powers. Thus were the Dreamspeakers born. That friend later became the first Oracle. Ever. To reward his good friend for showing him the path, he granted the Old One a gift. Immortality. Ever since then, the Old One has been trying to die. But he can't. He has walked into fires of dragons, into hot lava, nuclear blasts, and has had his ashes scattered to the four winds. Among other things. All to no avail. Within three days, his body has reformed itself, leaving him to walk the world. Always wishing to die. Appearance:The Old One was thirty-one when he became immortal. But in his time, thirty-one was pretty old. He is ancient and grizzled, and has a strange, empty look in his eyes. Roleplaying Hints: You want to die. Others think they want to be immortal, but they don't know what it's like. To watch each generation make the same mistakes, again and again. To watch all that you love grow old and die why you stay the same, again and again. All of your plans to die have failed. Even driving the Wyrm and the Weaver mad didn't do any good, as the Wyld stayed sane. Your latest plot is the Ascension War. If you can keep the Traditions from winning, maybe you will be free. Notes: The Old One will ignore any threat. After all, he's immortal. He is technically a Sleeper, but does not count as one for purposes of Paradox. The result of thousands of years of magickal existence. He is constantly trying to make the Traditions lose the Ascension War, in the hopes that he can die. He is useful for a number of campaign concepts. The best I've come up with so far is he's the Holy Grail of the Euthnatos, the one who cannot enjoy the Good Death.