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Is giving mortals a way to temporary immortality too op?

Would giving mortals the power of immortality through these potions be too OP?

  • No. It would diminish the point of immortality and make gods/other immortals seem weaker.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • You're onto something, but you need to tweak things a little bit. Add some more stakes.

    Votes: 3 100.0%
  • Maybe? But it has to be impossible for it to happen.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3

Michael Roy

New Member
I have a story finished up, but I'm reconsidering making some major edits. I came up with two potions that could give mortals (aka humans) temporary powers in this story.

One called Immortalem Interficere allows a mortal person the power to kill an immortal person for 24 hours. The catch is that they visit a Pool of Death and give up half their soul to get a black paste to complete the potion. (Their soul would become corrupted, their health will diminish rapidly, and they'll die in about half the time.) It also acts like a poison if you get one thing wrong in its brewing.

Another potion that I'm considering taking out of the story completely is Immortales Praesidium. It's supposed to be the opposite of the former potion; this one would not make you stronger per se but instead, keep you from dying for 24 hours. (Ex: If someone dropped from 50 feet, they are less susceptible to dying.)

The problem with this one is I don't think it has high enough stakes. For it, the ingredients are very rare, the amounts of them must be perfect, you need holy water from monks (which requires a day of prayer with them to attain), and you'll be deathly ill for two weeks if you get one thing wrong. You won't die from getting it wrong like the Immortalem Interficere potion. I also fear that it acts as a deus ex machina in my story, where Agatha (who is immortal) fights the antagonists in the underworld with her mortal friends. They would take the Immortales Praesidium for temporary immortality to help her out. I don't want it to feel like I have the potion solely to advance the plot.

I thought about requiring that they must get a Heart of Gold from a Pool of Life (which is an idea I've already come up with) and only allowing the one who visits the pool to get the heart one time. But I don't know if it'd be enough to raise the stakes of creating that Immortales Praesidium potion. I also was thinking of replacing it with a super-strength potion, too. But then I feel like to me, it'd take away from the light vs dark theme I was going for: A potion allowing you to kill immortals, and a potion that makes you immortal temporarily. I also don't know if kids taking super-strength potions to fight immortal demons would be believable.

I'd like to know everyone's thoughts on giving mortals immortality traits and if that would be too OP or if you think it'd diminish the point of immortality. I wanted to make a story with an immortal child as the protagonist. But it's a lot harder to pull off than I thought. Lol.
 

Queshire

Auror
It seems fine to me.

Well, the price is actually a bit high for what I'd go with, but that's just a matter of taste.

Ahem, anyways, half your soul for the immortality killing potion would make it a big sacrifice for the heroes if they ever need some, but it'd be a lot easier for villians to obtain some. They could try to force innocent victims into obtaining the gunk for them or failing that they could raise up a group of fanatically loyal henchmen willing to take the hit for them.

The capabilities of the immortality potion seems fine. Whether it comes across as a Deus ex Machina or not depends on whether the reader knows about before its use or could logically conclude its existence.

So, since you mentioned being less susceptible to dying instead of being unable to die while under its effects I presume it's some superhero style toughness or fast healing? The risk is still there if their foes hit hard enough.

Even full immortality can be dealt with using the proper tactics. Just being immortal won't really help you if someone collapses a mine on your head after all. If you still only have human level strength you'd be trapped all the same.

What's important is why it wasn't used earlier / won't be used afterwards. Did the immortal not know how to make it before? Is gathering the ingredients arduous enough that they're only willing to do so when things cross the godzilla threshold? Is the immortal actually sharing her immortality and once the potion wears off she'll be stuck weakened? Stuff like that.
 

Malise

Scribe
I think you can amp the stakes of temporary immortality (and make immortals a bigger threat in story), by adding a spiritual/mental cultivation requirement on top of the need to drink the immortality elixir.

Possible Examples:
Abrahamic Religions
- Deal with the Devil. You can make the temp. immortality potion has a huge negative mental effect, and basically make only people with dark triad traits the only mortals who can use the potion effectively. It doesn't necessarily make the effective potioning drinkers bad people, it just means that they have the mental equipment to get things done by any means possible.
- Mysticism. To be one with God (Higher Being in your case) is to study God and God's essence. You can use this principle to limit temp. immortality to highly spiritual people, whose understanding of divine nature allows them to better utilize metaphysical immortality.

Eastern Religions
-
Internal Alchemy. Restricts temp. immortality potion to health hippies/militant doctors who have spent years cultivating their bodies and minds to be highly effective elixir consuming machines. This comes with the added requirement that they ingest the immortality potion often to get a stronger effect from the potion.
- "The Way". Limits immortality elixir effectiveness by mental clarity of the person. If the potion drinker is not vibing with their surrounding, their surrounding will still kill the person.

Non-Religious
-Metaphysical Paperwork. For whatever reason, the person planning to use the immortality potion needs to write up a contract stating what they intend to do with it, exactly to every detail. If they break the contract, no more temporary immortality for you. Within your setting, you can chalk it up to resource scarcity and the need for the church to regulate it. This adds the requirement of foresight to using the potion.
 

Chasejxyz

Inkling
Giving everyone a temp "you can't die" potion for the final fight, to me, sounds like you're covering your butt so that you don't have to kill anyone. If the good guys were able to all get it, then that's way too easy to get.

There's an SCP story series where the foundation manages to end death (by killing the supernatural being that does it). So no one can die anymore, hooray! But that doesn't stop the body from aging/decaying. People do some pretty horrific stuff to have a not-dying body until they can engineer robot bodies/lab grown bodies, so brains that have been removed from their bodies are still alive, still think and feel, you can just imagine how it goes. No one can "die," which means the brain never "shuts off," there is always consciousness, no matter how little of the brain remains.

So what, exactly, is "you can't die" in your story? If the baddie takes a hero and chucks them into a volcano, what happens? Even if they're invulnerable to injuries for 24 hours, what happens when that's up? Would the other heroes be able to swim through the lava to rescue their friend in time? Or what if Cerberus swallows someone? Does your baddie expect the heroes to drink the "you can't die" juice? Then she's going to make traps/forms of attack that'll kill them the moment the potion stops working. All she has to do is draw out the battle for 24 hours....can she make a maze? Some sort of magic mansion where rooms are constantly swapping around and it's impossible to get your barings? They have to wade through a field of jello?
 

Almyrigan Hero

Minstrel
What you have there is actually both self-balancing... and also sort of self-defeating.

So okay, potion A lets you kill an immortal, and potion B makes you immortal. What I gather from your post is basically, 'Heroes need A to kill an immortal foe, and B to avoid dying more or less instantly.' But so long as potion A exists... what's stopping the bad guys from just brewing that, thus rendering potion B redundant for the heroes? At that point you're effectively both mortal, if only to each other, and the stakes basically even out.

The only real way to work it out logically would be to involve some manner of arms/espionage race. The heroes need to obtain both of their potions, but also divide their attention between that and preventing the enemy from brewing their own immortal-killer potion.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
I was going to say that the name immortal implies that you can't die through aging... but it would still be possible to die getting your head cut off, or getting chucked into a volcano, or if you fell off a cliff. I agree with what Chase said. I think you are too attached to your characters that you want everyone to survive unscathed, instead of using the journey as an opportunity for a courageous sacrifice, martyrdom; something that could actually make the adventure more meaningful to those who ultimately survive it.
 

Michael Roy

New Member
Isn't temporary immortality an oxymoron? I might be more inclined to call it invulnerability.
I think you're right. That's more of what I'm going for. I couldn't think for the life of me what the word was for some reason. Some days I can't think straight.

Thanks! Maybe I should change it to invulnerability to temporary immortality.
 

Michael Roy

New Member
I was going to say that the name immortal implies that you can't die through aging... but it would still be possible to die getting your head cut off, or getting chucked into a volcano, or if you fell off a cliff. I agree with what Chase said. I think you are too attached to your characters that you want everyone to survive unscathed, instead of using the journey as an opportunity for a courageous sacrifice, martyrdom; something that could actually make the adventure more meaningful to those who ultimately survive it.

I guess I should have also added that the majority of the protagonists are kids that were around the same age as Harry Potter in his first year. My main character finds out that she is part-goddess as well, but I'm not sure that's relevant or not. I'm not sure I want to kill off a bunch of eleven or twelve-year-olds right away in the series. I feel that'd be a bit cruel and mess with the plot I had for later on. Maybe it's not a bad idea, though. There are many more gruesome fantasy books out there.

It's definitely not that I want to protect all my characters. I kill off the main character's mentor halfway into the first book. The Sorcerers Three (the antagonists) kill him with poison fire. I just don't think it makes a lot of sense to kill off a ton of my protagonists before the series starts, at least from my point of view.

The reason I put the Immortal potions in the original story idea was to have two things that off-balance each other. I wanted something that could afford you the slimmest of opportunities to kill off an immortal (or make you invulnerable). But you'd have to be desperate enough and give your life to the nearly impossible task of making those two potions.

I wanted the Immortales Praesidium to be a little fewer stakes than the Immortalem Interficere because to be invulnerable is a defense, and the latter means you want to kill someone, which of course can be seen as either evil or something that needs to be done.

I guess what I am realizing is perhaps it's too early for kids to face three immortal demons and that the invulnerability potion is less of a good idea and more of plot convenience right bow. I want to make it work. I just need to work out the kinks for it to make sense, I guess. I know it can be done.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
I guess I should have also added that the majority of the protagonists are kids that were around the same age as Harry Potter in his first year. My main character finds out that she is part-goddess as well, but I'm not sure that's relevant or not. I'm not sure I want to kill off a bunch of eleven or twelve-year-olds right away in the series. I feel that'd be a bit cruel and mess with the plot I had for later on. Maybe it's not a bad idea, though. There are many more gruesome fantasy books out there.

I wasn't suggesting you act the reaper and decimate everyone; not at all. One death, a meaningful death could have more impact with the story that follows, make readers feel sorry for those that remained. The world is not a very fair place, and it was less so in medieval or ancient setting when losing children was sadly quite common, including in battle. You might even use it as a plot point... like the character lies about taking their potion because there wasn't enough and gives theirs to someone else.
 

Almyrigan Hero

Minstrel
Another option is to toy around with what exactly 'immortality' means here. Are you literally impervious to all damage, or do you just have unlimited regeneration? Maybe you don't regenerate at all, but resurrect on death. Can you be knocked unconscious or sedated? If you can be temporarily injured, does that still result in pain?
 
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