Immortals

**Immortals** are a variant of mutants who have extended lifespans that last for centuries. Many of them cannot grow old, but remain as adults for as long as they could avoid getting killed. Therefore, their bodies require more energy, so they eat more food than humans usually eat. Their bodies also consume some of the food's waste to provide additional energy.

## Immortals of Jerde

### Early ages

The people brought back to life after the Reorganisation War through cloning, especially the Ardeschens, were immortals who had the youth and memories of those they were based on in their past lives. They were sad when they realised that they were younger than the people who they loved, and they would have to watch them pass away while they lived on, alone and together, in the coming centuries.

Emperor Manditur of the Third Vozonid Empire, the last of its rulers, was an immortal, along with his brother and various aristocrats. They were killed while fighting Sarmelon I's rebellion, but his brother Aljatroz, who led the rebellion and passed it on to Sarmelon I as a worthy candidate, continued to guide him through his old age. Aljatroz lived on to read his deeds during the first emperor's funeral, and then he lived as a hermit in a jungle, attended by the local wights and fairies. Centuries later, he ascended to Heaven in a diamond chariot, where he was transformed into an angel.

Ratirminoz, the penultimate emperor of the Sarmelonid Empire, wanted to make himself immortal to continue guiding his people after witnessing the tragic errors of Maudolinnir's world war. His elixir, a blue liquid, instead damaged his brain and made him more addicted and unstable. His son, Zannoz, arrested him by the suggestion of his imperial court, and they made him emperor while he languished in a prison cell and a cage. Thousands of people in the Vozonid capital were also immortals, but they used their long lives to make themselves servants of their fellow city-dwellers. Although they were sad, their own people stopped them from killing themselves in shame. Their friends and family told them that they should make up for their immortality by serving the Vozonid people, and that their immortality will eventually wear off so they can pass away and join them in Paradise.

In the rest of the Vozonid Empire and its former colonies, all doses of the immortality elixir were destroyed and burned by angry mobs and new rulers, who saw it as a symbol of Vozonid rule or the destruction of their proud civilisation!

Koschei the Red, the founder of Bujan, also made himself immortal with the same elixir stolen from a Vozonid research facility. Although he regulated it to extend the lives of his people, their neighbours, the Vilonians whom they freed from Vozonid oppression, and their Freyrgardian allies, he himself took too much and was also driven mad. So unstable he had became, that he was jailed by his grandson, who turned Bujan into a Vozonised society.

Immortals were the founding people of the southerly republic of Umbirab, and they can be told apart from humans by their curly white hair. To solve its overpopulation problem, many immortals migrated to Rabydos, where they worked alongside their fellow kin.

Some immortals were affected by a disorder that made them more destructive after reaching a certain age (such as 200 years, 300 years, etc.), seeking death: the original designer of the Umbirabian elixir did this as a form of population control. This is how come a large portion of Rabydos' military was made of white-haired volunteers, seeking to die in battle.

### Modern times

Owing to centuries of genetic modification, the people of the Wannaenid Empire have become a race of immortals. However, many of them do not reach their twentieth year in life due to infighting and dying in wars. They found the immortality serum from the earlier Zetrosians from another world, who also took the serum to make them ever-young warriors with a swift rage against all foes.

Aldugas, a runaway slave from Marnos, accidentally became an immortal after drinking at a tavern in Gimbarish. He was protected by the jungle wights of Siangwaan, who cared for him even as he mourned for the deaths of his loved ones. He was driven mad by visions of Celestials and the undead after handling some artifacts after he was hidden from the Wraithstorm. He eventually helped the angel Sharada and her friends, along with the leaders of Siangwaan and its allies, establish relations with her homeworld of Tuxavin. With the help of the spinel wight Athadol, he even fought the undead who tried to kill them.

In the town of Tai Bo, all of the inhabitants are immortal after taking a pill that mutates their physiology. They have white hair and blue eyes. Their children do not inherit their immortality, so they must take the pill in order to become immortals like their parents.

In some societies, immortals have social benefits, which consist of allowing them to take a break that lasts for decades, as they retain their youth for that long. Richer countries allow immortals to rest for up to 40 years, while typical countries have 10-year breaks. After that, the immortal must return to work, using their continued strength and additional knowledge to contribute to the nation.

Recently, Koschei's elixir was rediscovered, but it was also successfully refined so it does not become an addictive drug. At first, its initial users were lovers and spouses of Arnadjanai people, who extended their lives and youth to continue being together with their spouses. Later on, from the 1950s onwards, more and more people took the elixir, allowing them to live for up to 180 years. In their new lifespan, they remained as young as they were in their twenties, and then take take a ten or twenty-year break at the age of 60 or 70. They only truly grow old when they reach their 140th birthday, and die at around their 200th or 220th birthday.

From 1965 onwards, almost everyone in the region around Bujan lived extended lives, except for the war-torn land of Baido and the hostile dictatorships of Sommemmo. Already the Wannaenid foes in the northeast also lived immortal lives, only for them to destroy themselves in frequent furious murders over the slightest error. The Kovastoi, another enemy of Bujan, are also immortal.

## Terran immortals

The Zetrosian Empire, one of the powers of the Terran universe of Earth QVOZ, was a nation of immortals. To honour their eternal youth and the Martyrs of Tyrska, the Zetrosians used the numeral 8 as a symbol of their empire. In its original form, the same immortality elixir that cured many diseases also drove them into a frenzied rage.

Their immortality elixir was later used by the Wannaenids and other peoples of the region.

## Other immortals

Two of the guards in Izelgara of Rukthan tried to rescue people, but were taken into another dimension. A hundred years later, they returned, and found that they became immortal. They still needed to return to Izelgara.

## Trivia

* A common theme among immortals is that they tend to get weary of living very long lives burdened with stress, knowledge, and sorrow over the people whom they lost. They especially were hurt by seeing their loved ones die around them over the years.
* In April 2022, the author was inspired by the "Where have you been for the last eight years?!" meme by Russian nationalists to write about the origin for the Wannaenid immortality elixir. 8, the number used in the militarist slogan, can be turned aside into an infinity symbol, so the Russians who invaded Bujan were from a different civilisation, a nation of immortals.
	+ This also alludes to Koschei the Deathless, a Russian folktale; or Qin Shihuang, an emperor of China.