I've written before about my fascination with Immortals from early editions of D&D and a little of my own vision of them. While there is a lot I do enjoy about them, there's also a lot of room to improve. Here are some things about the original versions of Immortals that don't quite fit the DCC vibe, and how I might use some of DCC's design principles for Immortals in my own games and worlds.
All Immortals are the same
When one becomes an Immortal, they gain a bunch of the same powers as the other Immortals all at once and their old life becomes suddenly irrelevant (besides, apparently, the Immortal's personality and some fond memories). Immortals are not all identical, of course, but there is a core set of abilities that they all just have. These abilities are largely unrelated to each other besides being the kinds of things you expect godly figures to be able to do.
What if each ability critical to being an immortal had to be gained independently, and thus not all Immortals have all powers? The first step is, obviously, immortality itself. Bringing yourself to a state in which your death is no longer a guarantee. From there, all the other powers are just a matter of time - after all, you have endless years to achieve them. Characters could undertake multiple quests to gain the powers of divine spellcasting (truly creating their own spells, rather than borrowing them as Clerics and Wizards), various forms including ethereality and mortal avatars, teleportation, planar creation and dominion, and resistance to magical effects. Each and every one of these powers that is simply granted upon ascension could be an entire story of its own. Quest for it.
To be fair, it makes sense for Immortals to be so similar because there is only...
One road to Immortality
You might argue that there are multiple listed paths, but in the end they all amounted to finding an Immortal sponsor and doing some grand test or display of power to get your sponsor to grant you the gift of Immortality. This implies that you could draw a family tree of all Immortals, from the first of all time right down to the player characters. This set of powers is a gift that has been passed down.
This is way too straightforward and structured.
Being granted immortality by a higher being should be but one possible path toward immortality, let alone capital "I" Immortality. Perhaps it's the appropriate path for a Cleric to follow, the ultimate reward from their deity for acting as their Chosen, but here are some alternate ways to become immortal:
- Lichdom. Sure, this isn't complete immortality, but "immortality, unless..." is more fun anyway. Have players attempt to pull shenanigans like Voldemorting themselves into 7 phylacteries or dropping their phylactery into a black hole to make it inaccessible.
- Reincarnation. Give your soul some way to move bodies after your death and you even get fun new forms every lifetime.
- Discovering or creating the Philosopher's Stone.
- Regenerative immortality. Develop some magic, tech, or mutation which allows you to recover from any injury, given enough time and energy.
- Rewrite the annals of time such that your death is no longer destined, or that your existence is a universal constant.
- Pledge your soul to multiple afterlives and they'll use their power to keep you alive so they can avoid going to cosmic court over custody. This will piss your patrons off for sure.
- De-age yourself every couple decades. Magically, medically, whatever.
Some of these are even almost possible using spells in the core rules.
Immortals totally aren't Gods
To any peasant, even the weakest of Immortals would seem like a god. The original version of Immortals simply doesn't bring up the elephant in the room with this one. Gods presumably exist, as Clerics regularly receive divine intervention. In fact, Clerics will serve Immortals, so the reasonable conclusion seems to be that Immortals are in fact gods. But BECMI simply doesn't bring up gods at all, and the particular lack of any mention of particular aspects of religion appears to be a result of the backlash received by D&D during the Satanic Panic. Can't blame the publishers for not wanting to pour fuel on the fire there.
In DCC, it's not entirely clear what deities are exactly. Among the suggested Clerical deities in DCC RPG are proper gods, a demigod, an Old One, a demon prince and a demon lord. From this I would suppose that a deity in DCC is any being powerful enough to grant a Cleric their power. Any one of those creatures are likely immortal and thus classify as an Immortal.
It's not so much that they are gods necessarily, but they may as well be because who even knows what a god is anyway?
Immortality follows a clear and structured hierarchy
I'm not sure whether it turned out this way for the sake of game mechanics or whether the authors fell into the design traps many of us do while world-building - that old human obsession with labelling things and putting them neatly into a box. Whatever the reason, the Immortals set goes well out of its way to tell you exactly how many Immortals there are at which levels. To reach those levels, you specifically have to compete with and usurp existing Immortals.
A lot of mystery and variety is removed by this structured approach. On top of that, it bakes a lot of cosmic world-building into the mechanics of the game, leaving little (if any) room for the Judge and players to do their own thing. I have my own ideas about what the cosmos looks like with Immortals in it but it's very freeform and would likely be different in a different campaign world. BECMI gives you one version of the cosmos to play with, and it's not a very mysterious one. There's little to explore, which is odd given that exploring the secrets of the universe is supposed to be what Immortals do. I guess the authors thought that meant there needed to be answers.
How this all ties together
If we these things about Immortals, we end up with something that looks a little more appropriate for a DCC campaign. The advice given in the core book includes keeping things mysterious and unknown, having variety, and achieving great power through questing. That's all totally possible at the cosmic hero tier of play too.
I guess the next step is to create that tier of play.
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