Reincarnation with memories

[Vondy]

Here is another weird thought.

 

What if you simply make a new character with the concept "reincarnation of the last guy?"

 

No funky power builds necessary.

 

Just a new character.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I think we all agree that waiting twenty to thirty years for the reincarnated Elf to get back into adventuring shape would be a problem.

 

It would be ironic for a species that only dies by accident or misadventure to have an abbreviated childhood, but that may be a fix. Once the Elf is born/reborn, he is weaned after about six weeks, has an immediate grown spurt at about three months, and becomes a physical adult in six -- ready to take his place in Elvish society. If he already has all the skills and abilities he remembers from his last few lives, he'll fit right in an adventuring party.

 

The downside is that personalty would develop more slowly. The youngster may be physically fit and have a lot of useful talents, but it may be a while before his social skills and personal judgment are up to speed. I imagine some elves going through "lives" rapidly -- four or five over the space of a decade -- due to tendencies to get into situations they should have avoided, ticking off the wrong people, etc.

[sinanju]

Is every elf who is born a reincarnated previous elf?

 

This might be a substitute for traditional Elven immortality. The body matures, grows old, and eventually dies, and then the process repeats -- over and over again, to infinity. It's a cycle that the elves apparently cannot escape.

 

I don't know how to model it, but elves might well have flashbacks of their former lives that can get pretty disturbing. They would remember every time they died, for example -- including the horrible ones. Some of those deaths and other experiences would be traumatic (ranging from the emotional pain of a failed relationship to having been tortured on the rack a few cycles ago).

 

There is a systemless horror scenario from Hebanon games called "The Wives of March" that has an interesting take on this. Spoilers ahead.

 

 

There is a huge, sprawling conspiracy that straddles the world, hundreds or thousands of people, of all ages from elderly to newborns, who are insanely wealthly (they have the accumulated wealth of millennia squirreled away, including many "lost" masterpieces from centuries gone by). They are ruthless, fearless, and often appear inhuman in their goals and actions, though entirely human physically. Save for one small detail.

 

There are really only two of them. A man and a woman from the very dawn of humankind who were once lovers who made a pact with Things Man Was Not Meant To Make Pacts With to achieve immortality in return for giving said Things access to our world. And it worked. When the lovers have a child together, they produce a Thing . When they mate with others, they produce only carbon copies of themselves. He fathers her (no matter who the mother), and she bears him (no matter who the father). And they are born knowing everything all their previous incarnations knew.  They are not a hive-mind--those still living only know what they communicate to one another by normal means, though they have an uncanny ability to anticipate one another, unsurprisingly.

 

But the newborns are aware, though it takes time for them to develop the bodily coordination and skills to do anything with it. They are all, to the degree permitted by age or infirmity (many of them scar or mutilate themselves to distinguish themselves from one another, in addition to more mundane things like hair dye, distinctive beards, clothing, skinniness, obesity, etc) absolutely deadly, with centuries or millennia of experience in fighting. They are fearless, neither death nor pain frightens them, it's all temporary and mostly just an inconvenience.

 

It's a horrible, horrible form of immortality that will ultimately spell the end of humankind. Either they'll birth enough Things to end the world...they won't, and they will slowly but inevitably (it's mathematically unavoidable) crowd out every other human on the planet.

 

 

It's not explicitly Lovecraftian, but it's just as horrible in its own way.

[Sean Waters]

Whilst this might work in a book where there is strict authorial control of the characters, it seems less likely to work in a RPG where the elves, presumably, are all going to be massively better at stuff than other races because of their generations of experience, knowledge and ability.  If all the PCs are elves, it might work, or if elves are always the enemy.

 

A more interesting variation might be race memory: an individual is not a continuation of a previous dead elf but does have limited access to that creature's memories and skills, which you could, with GM approval, probably simulate with a KS and a VPP (sticking skills in a VPP is what you need GM approval for), bung the VPP on an activation roll or give it situational activation and you are good.  I mean, if it takes 10000 hours to become world class, these puppies have the time to be world class at practically everything UNLESS being an elf makes you ridiculously indolent and/or easily distracted.  Hmm.  That could work...

 

Roger The Red, Human Paladin: ...but Etharis, you swore you would be able to defeat the foe, and hold the pass single handed with your 'stonishing sword skills.

 

Erathis The Elf: True.

 

Roger: Well...why didn't you?

 

Erathis: There were so many of them.

 

Roger: So they overwhelmed you?

 

Erathis: No. I just thought it would be too much effort.  Ooh!  A butterfly...

[prestidigitator]

KS: past lives, or a set of KS: (individual past life).  I'd assume they could be improved through magical and/or spiritual practices that put you more in touch with your "deeper" memories.

 

(There are also a bunch of other KSs and other Skills that could use past lives as justification, "...even though I've never actually practiced the skill myself."  Could be SFX of Cramming, Skill Levels, or Frameworks as well.)

[Sean Waters]

It would seem to me that the elf thing is probably more of a meta-reason for elves to have more starting character points than humans rather than something you necessarily need to model mechanically.

[Lucius]

As I recall, Elves in this world don't die of age or disease, just from mishaps or violence.

 

On a related note, how would one do a D&D style reincarnation spell? The Druid casts it and "poof" you're alive again, just you're a badger now (or whatever). Healing with the Resurrection option with a Side Effect?

 

Reincarnation:  (Total: 165 Active Cost, 15 Real Cost) Summon 275-point creatures, Expanded Class of Beings (Limited Group; +1/2), Difficult To Dispel (x4 Active Points; +1/2), Specific Being (+1) (165 Active Points); Extra Time (6 Hours, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -2), 1 Charge (-2), OAF Bulky (Decedant's reminds; -1 1/2), No Conscious Control (Only Effects cannot be controlled; -1), Concentration (0 DCV; Character is totally unaware of nearby events; -3/4), Arrives Under Own Power (-1/2), Summoned Being Must Inhabit Locale (-1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Conditional Power Deceased must have followed same pantheon (-1/2), Antagonistic Annoyed (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4), Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4) (Real Cost: 15)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Planning to reincarnate as a palindromedary

[Doc Democracy]

Were you getting bored Lucius?  Just scanning for stuff to keep you amused?  :-)

[bigbywolfe]

I just find it funny he used thread necromancy to talk about reincarnation spells...

[BhelliomRahl]

Interesting idea, I have seen it done in several books and television shows with the repercussions being different in each case.

 

Questions:

When does the elf remember their past lives?  Are they born with these memories or do they develop over time.  It could be that an Elf needs to be taught a technique to allow them to journey into their past lives and remember.  The memories become part of them like a dream but one they remember.  Or do the memories merge with their current forms becoming inseparable.

 

Depending on how the Elf remembers will determine how they affect them mentally.  Do they accept their old memories and personalities having them become a part of them or do they reject them potentially leading to schizophrenia.  

 

Are the memories the same as with normal people, they become fussy and potentially edited overtime or does the elf remember everything with crystal clarity, if so the Talent: Eidetic Memory would be appropriate.

 

 

Thoughts:

I would not mechanically build the rebirth, assuming elves mature at the same rate as humans it is not really a viable method of resurrection unless your campaign is progressing in generations. 

 

For skills and abilities it appears to be justification for allowing players to acquire skills with no need for time or training.  Depending how you run a game, if character need to justify learning skills; time, teachers, training, etc. I would think a Talent – Old Soul (10pts) would be appropriate which allows characters to acquire skills without the usual prerequisites.  However if people can acquire skills as they desire with no prerequisites I would forgo the Talent.

[Markdoc]

Just a couple of short comments, since most of this has been covered already.

 

 

First off, I'd agree that it's pretty much a special effect. If a dead character "reappears" as a fetus and has to go through birth and growing up before they become a viable adventurer, its relevance to PCs is preeeetty close to zero, although it could be a fascinating exercise in society-building for the GM. At most it's a reason why your starting character has a really broad range of skills and some odd psych. lim.s.

 

 

As for skills, on the idea that the brain can only hold so much and that a character who remembered multiple lives would inevitably go mad, I have to call poppycock. For a start, when we are talking about a person who shifts memories intact to a whole new body, it's pretty clear that wherever their memories are being stored, it's not in the meatball inside their skull. I hesitate to make definitive statements about what the memory capacity of a disembodied spirit that can move from body to body is. As for multiple lives driving you mad, I know some relatively with-it people in their 90's and have seen no evidence that having lots of memories has had the slightest effect on their sanity, even though they have the equivalent of 2-3x the life experience of most preindustrial humans. If a century isn't the limit, what is? Two centuries? Four? Fifteen? Who knows?

 

 

As to how you handle it in-game, I've had immortal characters in my games before (in fact one campaign featured exclusively immortals as characters: like the elves discussed in this thread, if they died, they simply woke up the next day in a new body, though in this case, an adult body resembling their former one). I handled the knowledge problem by several mechanisms. First simply allowing very broad categories of knowledge (for example KS: Personal History) with the explicit rider that things that could plausibly be within a character's personal knowledge would get a bonus and other things would take a penalty. I also found that giving a character cramming (again with the "personal history" proviso) would allow them to have a broad range of knowledge and would allow for things like "Oh, yes, I know this place well - of course it's changed a bit in the last two hundred years" (AK: some place 8-). Finally, skill enhancers allow characters to pick up lots of skills cheaply.

 

 

cheers, Mark

[Chris Goodwin]

This would be a perfect place to use the "Radiation Accident" rules.  If you need to have something on the character sheet to represent it as an ability, call it a Perk: Undergoes Radiation Accident Upon "Death", along with whatever other abilities you might find necessary (Regeneration with Resurrection, additional BODY, Only Vs. Death, etc.).  I'd say make it 1-3 points if you're charging for the other ability, or 5-10 points if the return ability is built in.  

 

Edited to add:  The above is for the ability to reincarnate upon death.  For characters with past lives, just buy whatever Skills they would have based on their past lives.  

[Markdoc]

This would be a perfect place to use the "Radiation Accident" rules.  If you need to have something on the character sheet to represent it as an ability, call it a Perk: Undergoes Radiation Accident Upon "Death", along with whatever other abilities you might find necessary (Regeneration with Resurrection, additional BODY, Only Vs. Death, etc.).  I'd say make it 1-3 points if you're charging for the other ability, or 5-10 points if the return ability is built in.  

 

I think it's more useful than that - in the immortals game I mentioned, one PC (The Hanged Man) had precisely this ability. When s/he "died" she simply entered a vegetative state for 24 hours and then emerged, fully healed, with a new set of powers and skills. This was built as invisible extra body only to prevent death, some limited regen, plus a big ol' VPP with a fairly stringent requirement for changing powers (ie: 24 hour delay, 0 DCV concentration, the character had to take 20+ BOD) and the powers were limited to those possessed by people s/he had contacted in the previous 24 hours.  Even with those limits, it was an extremely strong ability, since with a little prep. time, the player could acquire a skillset suited to any job at hand. Once she got the hang of it, the player was regularly "killing off" her PC and reconfiguring it. I don't recall the exact cost, but it was somewhere north of 200 points for the whole package.

 

Expensive yes, but the character was not overshadowed, even though she was playing alongside Death and the Devil.

 

cheers, Mark

[Hugh Neilson]

Looked at another way, if the character lacked this power, and their character was killed, would the player be out of the game? Probably not. More likely, they would make a new character and rejoin the game.

 

Would I have looked at the player at the very start of the game, who came with a cool backstory of being the 73rd reincarnation of a Noble Elven Warrior, and said "nope - you have to start play as the first incarnation"? More likely, I would have said "cool", then looked over the mechanics to see that they matched the campaign ground rules.

 

So why should that character pay character points so that, if that character dies, the new one can have a cool backstory?

[dmjalund]

it would merely be the reason behind an unusual list of skills and knowledges

[pinecone]

KS: "Meta knowlage"  "I remember where the sword is located, I ditched it just before that Dragon ate me."   A form of Ansestral recall Cramming should do I'd think...?

[Chris Goodwin]

Looked at another way, if the character lacked this power, and their character was killed, would the player be out of the game? Probably not. More likely, they would make a new character and rejoin the game.

 

Would I have looked at the player at the very start of the game, who came with a cool backstory of being the 73rd reincarnation of a Noble Elven Warrior, and said "nope - you have to start play as the first incarnation"? More likely, I would have said "cool", then looked over the mechanics to see that they matched the campaign ground rules.

 

So why should that character pay character points so that, if that character dies, the new one can have a cool backstory?

 

 

You make a good point.  The only reason I could see would be to represent in-universe that the one character is qualitatively different from the others.  Maybe a single point as part of the elves' racial template.  Not everybody can, and it's a way to differentiate those who can from those who can't.  

 

Ah: do newly made characters begin at campaign starting values or do they match the XP level of the existing characters?  And does this ability let a character bypass that?  That might make a difference.  

[Lucius]

You make a good point.  The only reason I could see would be to represent in-universe that the one character is qualitatively different from the others.  Maybe a single point as part of the elves' racial template.  Not everybody can, and it's a way to differentiate those who can from those who can't.  

 

Ah: do newly made characters begin at campaign starting values or do they match the XP level of the existing characters?  And does this ability let a character bypass that?  That might make a difference.  

 

How often player characters actually die also makes a difference.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Does a palindromedary make a difference?

[Tasha]

How often player characters actually die also makes a difference.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Does a palindromedary make a difference?

Wow it took you a year to comment on Chris's post...

Nice thread necromancy

 

Tasha

[whitekeys]

I read this whole thread before I realized it was so old! Now I'm contemplating whether I should comment or not... Oh well, here goes!

 

From my write up of Scarab

10 Far Memory: Retrocognitive Clairsentience (Sight Group And Normal Hearing) (45 Active Points); No Conscious Control (-2), Retrocognition Only (-1), Only Through The Senses Of Previous Incarnations (-1/2) 4 Notes: In either secret or heroic identity, Scarab sometimes has glimpses of past incarnations, especially of being a priest of Ra. These can be full fledged "visions" of a past life, or sudden flashes of insight or special knowledge - "This way! The fourth duke built a secret tunnel in case of seige, it may still be there." "I thought you had never been in this castle before?" "Not in this life...."

While locating that, I stumbled on this thread

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/86059-incarnation-awareness/

Lucius Alexander

On a clear day, a palindromedary can see forever

 

The OP never really answered all the excellent questions that were asked, but I would add Uncontrolled onto the quoted Power, and let the GM and players decide when it actually comes in to help them. This seems like the best option to me, since I agree with the idea that, since it effects all the elves equally, it's just a special effect. The HERO System rules are used to create unique characters with a schtick. 

 

EDIT: I meant No Conscious Control limitation, not Uncontrolled.