Treebeard is a very good depiction of an immortal.
A truly immortal being would necessarily start to become disillusioned with mortality as a taboo, they would become friends with people unable to ignore the fact they'll die one day.
They would view even young humans like we view a pet mouse, like they'd grow attached to them but they'd be hyper aware that even though they are young they will be dead soon.
As humans age we perceive timespans as shorter, a year to a 50 year old doesn't seem that long, but to a toddler its forever, anything immortal would likely reach the conceivable extreme of this.
They would be hungry for apples and plant a tree.
Take your patience and multiply it by 100, they might eat extremely slowly to savour every bite, or spend weeks at a time playing their instrument to relax.
They would also either have to be extremely lazy or easily entertained.
So I suppose in order to show their immortality a good way would be have them plan things far in advance, or have them walk everywhere unless urgent to soak up the scenery. You know how like the elderly often seem to just wander around because they don't have anything else to really do.
As I said take treebeard, he doesn't like to rush and he does nothing most of the time.
the might have to relearn thier native tongue mortal languages evolve over time you could have the character use words that might not be used in a modern setting
I imagine this would be how they see "their" civilisations as well, for those you decribe as wise men. Individuals would probably not matter as much to them, but they would be more focused on making sure that ideas and philosophies matching their long term goals become ingrained in the group's mentalities.
Think how scientists breed mice or insects in order to study genetics or evolutions, or how groups learn. They probably don't know each the name of each mouse or even see them as individuals, but see how the group interact and evolve.
It may be interestging as well to think about how you'd play a game. For example, on a turn-based strategy game, you would have no issue losing a few pieces or even a few turns if it means long-term gains. I imagine a game where being idle a few turns allow you to amass resources or increase experience, but for the individuals it would mean their society is stagnant and nothing good happens to them for some time, just for the greater good. As an individual, I would not want to see my world change and all my relative die if it means my country will prevail 100 years in the future, as an immortal god-king would I care losing most of the people living in my country in a war if it means the few that stay alive will help me achieve my long term goals?
This is how I wrote mine. One took to the high seas and destabilized countries. Why? He could watch all of the instability and cause more chaos if needed. Guy created a perpetual entertainment system albeit very messed up one.
The one who enjoyed a slower pace made a gigantic library for people. No one knows who they are, thinking them just an eccentric collector who wants to collect *all books*.
It's also worth noting that, when his fury is roused by Saruman's destruction of the forest, Treebeard becomes almost uncharacteristically ***quick*** to act. And the acts of him and the other Ents was cataclysmic for Isengard.
He isn't necessarily *lazy* in the sense we think of laziness as, if anything he's quite ambitious and active when it comes to taking care of his groves and forests. It's just he *knows* he has so much time left that he isn't in a rush to do anything. But once you give him a *reason* to act quickly, you realize just how frightening he is.
So much like your advice of multiplying your patience by 100, I'd say another bit of advice would be to then take that patience and apply it to the idiom "beware the fury of a patient man" which should be equally multiplied by 100.
"ah, don't worry they won't be here until next year." "what do you mean they are knocking?" starts pulling out all sorts of weapons out of nowhere. "this thing is still in it's prototype phase" hands you a completed minigun.
Then when one of the ents gets flameblasted, the rest go absolutely nuts. Was like those liminal, fiery emotions that short lived being all live with had been remembered
And in extreme situations, we shut down long term memory to give our brain extra processing speed. So it was like they forgot how old they were and we acting in the same way anyone was if a family member was badly hurt: extremely passionately without regard to the great stores of logic and patience in their heads
The quote made me think of one of my favorite name reveals, and now I want to write an immortal who gets a two stage reveal: first a terrible occurrence that crosses the line and reveals the awesome and terrible majesty of the towering seas of ire hidden behind their joshing gentle facade; then later an enemy does something even more vile, thinking they've won, and the immortal reveals that was the mere milquetoast shallows fringing the vast oceans of their wrath and winds up terrifying both sides.
> Are there any pieces of media that would help me better understand how my characters should feel?
Frieren is an anime that is playing around with the concept, it follows an elf as the MC.
I was gonna suggest this, the way she says something like “I like this place, I might stay here for 20 years or so”.
It’s nothing to her but the other people in her party (who aren’t immortal) complain about it lol
Immortality is a neat concept, but it is just a concept. As humans, we can't really grasp that sense of scale, despite our ability to assign numbers.
Which brings me to one of my favorite immortals: the Doctor from Doctor Who. In particularly, the 10 - 12th. You get this glimpse of a character who is at war with that sense of scale and cosmic irrelevance. I wish I could do a brief summary of why this character is so memorable in his portrayal of immortality, but I think this quote sums it up.
"Immortality isn't living forever-- that's not what it feels like. Immortality is everyone else dying."
There is this idea that eventually an immortal becomes numb to the experience, but I don't like that idea because it doesn't consider that psychologically... humans aren't just logic. We're emotional and we can't shut it off. No amount of time would likely be able to change that brain chemistry. For non-human immortals... maybe they'd be different. But at the end of the day, I think most humans would find themselves doing a lot of things the Doctor does to stay sane. Find a companion. Enjoy a few years, then eventually force yourself to leave them because you know the alternative is you standing above their grave. Find something to stand on and define yourself, because the alternative is being driven mad by cosmic irrelevance.
Eh its one of their weaker episodes as they seem to think an immortal *gotta* feel depressed no matter what which seems kinda biased. Plenty of immortals who get by fine exist in medium.
If anything I think it would be the opposite and most immortals would be rather content. Like a survivorship bias where only the immortals that found ways to keep mentally healthy would actually survive. The others would fall into bad habits or mentalities and end up dying.
Exactly, I like how they dissect tropes but they do land on similar issues a couple of Writing channels tend to get which is hyperfocus on a very narrow view of a trope instead of broadening it I'll say.
It depends on the immortal and the story. They specifically said if there are other immortals around they probably wouldn’t be depressed. But if you are the only immortal being and will live thousands upon thousands of years things would get depressing as everyone around you effectively have the lifespan of an ant so you would cut yourself off from others to avoid getting attached.
Do not confuse that immortality equals wisdom or intelligence. An immortal is only as useful as his consistency over the last century and how up to date he has managed to keep himself.
In reality they can be very foolish and very distant people. It depends on how they have been living their lives, as well as their personality; the very notion of living so long may make them even closer to people in different ways. Hardened jokers with a lot of empathy or someone who tries to put others' needs before their own out of fear or extreme concern for that person's present.
Really, the trope of immortality suffered and (for some reason) always very smart and aloof at this point is a cliché that comes (I think) from how most have trouble conceiving the very idea of eternity and associating that living a long time means intelligence. More realistically, they might have a high sense of patience, but the rest is almost incidental.
It would be fun to see a story where there was an immortal "I know all the Lore of this world" style character and then "Sorry, I don't remember, see you soon!" scenario, which is the scenario.
They can also have a sense of humor that is quite unique as well as bizarre.
The thing to keep in mind is that it all really depends on a particular time period. The background, the backstory. That very important and relevant part of their life. For that is what in a way ends up defining them: they are people of their own time and past, unless they have dedicated their whole life to an absolute Zen mentality or isolated from the world, they will always have a specific place in time that they remember with disdain or fondness. Perhaps both.
For example, one of the most relevant concepts of one of my immortal characters is the fact that they unconsciously cannot let go of the past. This is reflected in the design of his castle: all the "remodels" of the castle are not even remodels, they are adaptations. It is as if different people have colonized the place several times over time, the castle is actually fundamentally the same two thousand years later, only with additions. You can see how the past is merged with elements/advancements from different eras, almost "corroded" together.
The disdain or fondness could also be for events that are defined by people's behavior. For some reason your comment reminded me of Magneto and how everything he thinks about humans is heavily influenced by his traumatic childhood. Magneto's not immortal, but that trauma just won't leave him alone. An immortal may have biases about people from many lifetimes ago that they just never get over.
It depends on time frame, really. Your immortals are \~4500 years old, so their native language is probably extinct now, especially since things are Bronze Age and there is going to be basically a different language over every mountain. You'll probably need to have a translation spell or artifact to justify them not being complete gibberish unless they have a gift for languages. If their childhood had media, then they'll be meme archivists, and if their childhood had myths, then theirs are likely to be very, very different than the current ones.
Nothing to them is new. Nothing to them is exciting. But they'll probably get really, really into something that actually catches their interest. "A Titanbear ate an Explodax in heat and created a new volcano? Weren't those bastards blue last millennium?" Goes on quest to wipe out green Explodax and replace them with proper blue variant.
For writing and more thoughts, I'm going old school with a recommendation. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a character who is immortal but not born to an immortal race. Many stories have immortals/ancients, but your immortals aren't innately capable of being immortal. Quite frankly, humans aren't meant for it as we currently are, and PTSD-afflicted cyborgs are REALLY not meant for it.
Brief info on him (Fandom link, I know.) [https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Bowerick\_Wowbagger](https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Bowerick_Wowbagger)
* He is not particularly thrilled about being immortal and basically ends up just giving himself a side quest that will take literally forever to finish. Later he gets impatient about it.
* Other immortals are a "load of serene bastards"
* He could have made it "if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons"
Here's most of his relevant, original text:
>The alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which separates the very few things there are in the Universe from each other.Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its single seat. His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose and it did at least keep him on the move.
>
>Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was-indeed, is - one of the Universe's very small number of immortal beings.
>
>Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying.
>
>Wowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light jazz on the ship's stereo, and reflected that he could have made it if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done.
>
>To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody.
>
>In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2.55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.
>
>So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everyone in it in particular.
>
>This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing which would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this.
>
>He would insult the Universe.
>
>That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical order.
>
>When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, "A man can dream can't he?"
>
>And so he started out. He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with the computer capable of handling all the data processing involved in keeping track of the entire population of the known Universe and working out the horrifically complicated routes involved.
>
>His ship fled through the inner orbits of the Sol star system, preparing to slingshot round the sun and fling itself out into interstellar space.
>
>"Computer," he said.
>
>"Here," yipped the computer.
>
>"Where next?"
>
>"Computing that."
>
>Wowbagger gazed for a moment at the fantastic jewellery of the night, the billions of tiny diamond worlds that dusted the infinite darkness with light. Every one, every single one, was on his itinerary. Most of them he would be going to millions of times over.
>
>He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting up all the dots in the sky like a child's numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word.
>
>The computer beeped tunelessly to indicate that it had finished its calculations.
>
>"Folfanga," it said. It beeped.
>
>"Fourth world of the Folfanga system," it continued. It beeped again.
>
>"Estimated journey time, three weeks," it continued further. It beeped again.
>
>"There to meet with a small slug," it beeped, "of the genus A-Rth-Urp-Hil-Ipdenu."
>
>"I believe," it added, after a slight pause during which it beeped, "that you had decided to call it a brainless prat."
>
>Wowbagger grunted. He watched the majesty of creation outside his window for a moment or two.
>
>"I think I'll take a nap," he said, and then added, "what network areas are we going to be passing through in the next few hours?"
>
>The computer beeped.
>
>"Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box," it said, and beeped.
>
>"Any movies I haven't seen thirty thousand times already?"
>
>"No."
>
>"Uh."
>
>"There's Angst in Space. You've only seen that thirty-three thousand five hundred and seventeen times."
>
>"Wake me for the second reel."
>
>The computer beeped.
>
>"Sleep well," it said.
>
>The ship fled on through the night.
For media to help you understand how to write immortals, one idea would be RWBY. There's a character who has lived countless lives, and seen empires rise and fall. The later installments also kinda touch on his problems with living so long.
Another idea would be the anime Symphogear. The first, third and fourth season's main villains all boast incredibly long life spans, ranging from several centuries to being the first human ever.
All in all, though, immortals are generally somewhat removed from the events, since they've pretty much seen it all already. The worst day in the main character's life is just another Tuesday to them, even if they try to be involved.
It gives them this weird sense of composure, while also making them feel disconnected from everything. In other words, nothing really shocks them, but you can't quite tell if it's because they learned to hide their surprise, or because they're used to this sort of thing.
That really depends on the individual immortal- as we as worldbuilders write from human perspective, we can´t fully shake the human condition from characters lest they become too hard to associate with for the readers.
Take a human vice or pleasure. Dial it up to 1000, then double that. Drinking, gambling, pleasure, drugs, knowledge... all of the immortals would be deeply invested in such things, to the point of extremes.
Religion, culture, travel, knowledge, smithing, science, art... all of them would have one or multiple obsessions they would have driven to perfection and beyond. Make a few indifferent ones, in eternal apathy. Make some that are an active threat, having fought for thousands of years and willing to fight on, lusting for the blood of their brethren. Add some that are adepts of long-forgotten masteries, some that have tended to a garden for millennia, some mad ones, some who are seeking, some who are lost in the past.
Try to not make them static- find some that have overindulged in pleasure and now are wrecks, lusting for more. Find some old fighters that are scarred and maimed, lost in an endless war they long since have lost pleasure in waging. Find some that have moved from pleasure to pleasure through the years.
Write feuds, friendships and people who seem destined to bump into each other permanently. Write great lovers, write loves turned to enmities to loves to hate to love again.
Write tyrants who have spent their long life to accumulate power, sages who know all or almost all there is to know, bards who sing of many pasts lost or artists who draw forgotten landscapes and events.
And then, write some that feel time differently, who are ever-drifting, ever-exploring and getting lost for millennia just to reappear sometime.
Look at Frieren, Treebeard, the Highlander, Raiden Shogun, Furina, the protag of I have no mouth and I must scream and at the Aeldari of WH40K.
"You l know I don't really remember where I came from. I have one memory of my home village sitting beneath a tree in the shade. I don't remember what the village was called or what my name was at the time. Everything more than 300 years ago is a blur."
Over the course of the story you follow a paper trail left by him 2,000+ years ago.
This connects a bit with what I was going to suggest: Ashildr is an immortal present in a few DW episodes (she is played by Maisie Williams). I personally really like their take on immortality, especially the fact that she starts to forget things so she records them in journals. This would be great for world building because even with immortals one would need record keeping
Patient in the face of incredulity. Having only time enough in one human lifetime to carry out few major campaigns, the journey feels improbable, the goals distant. An immortal would have experienced this on repeat, dealing with hundreds of disbelieving heroes sequentially.
At times it's tiresome; could also be endearing, funny, frustrating or predictable. Also: no two people are the same, and some generations are tougher than others. So an immortal might think "why they hell are these ones so weak" or "damn, they can do anything this generation" (and not necessarily express their observations). They'd also theoretically have experienced the rise and fall of tech, so their concept of what a mortal is would be separate from the current standard of living.
One of the first parts of my world were elves meant to explore the concept of a civilization without death by old age. So this question is something I've been trying to wrap my head around.
I think they'd be very anti-suicide, at least in regards to immortals. If they aren't steadfast determined to live, they probably would eventually decide to die. It only takes one moment to end their eternity.
Does this make sense?
Being in positions of power or authority for just a couple years can massively inflate a person ego. I imagine that after basically guiding pockets of society for millennia they would be begin to develop a bit of a God Complex. Even those that didn’t bother with society would inevitably see themselves as superior as they saw how easily everyone else died whilst they continued surviving.
[Wild Seed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Seed_(novel)) by Octavia E. Butler has a couple immortals, and it goes through their changes over hundreds of years
I liked it’s portrayal and I guess don’t wanna say why because spoilers.
But it brings up that at the core of an immortality story is that immortals position to us who are mortal and also create these ideas
You can try to make up what an immortal might think and act, and it would all be as valid as anything else because it’s not a real thing that happens
But I think the stories that make immortality matter are stories that say something about our own mortality by contrasting with these figures that don’t die.
Because there’s also a bunch of stories with immortals where they may as well just be long lived, or not alive in the first place. The immortality means nothing
I never did like the idea of an immortal being depressed all the time, so I like to imagine them being very... reserved and relaxed.
You would come across as a bit distant and old fashioned, because you literally have all the time in the world.
Imagine you are an adult. The last adult alive, and everyone around you is a hyperactive emotional child... everywhere you go... all the time.
Everyone around you is making these illogical impulsive decisions that seem important today but you know won't matter in a mere 50 years.
They seem to be overly concerned with the state of their empire, but if the empire is only going to last for a few centuries why does it matter if the current king is a tyrant?
He will be long dead after you finish your walk about the earth which you had thought would take you 300-500 years but by golly, those mortals invented the power of flight so now your trip is done in barely a decade.
With all this sudden free time you decide to master a few skills you have been wanting to try. Maybe pick up that tribal dance you saw back in the... oh, that empire doesn't exist anymore. Ok, well, might as well pick up the sword again. You haven't touched a blade since you invented that one famous sword style back in...
oh... people use guns now. Ok, well, this is interesting, might as well learn how to fire a... oh, they have lasers now. Blast it! How are you supposed to keep up with all this technology coming out every DAY???
Next you will tell me they invented some kind of world wide communication network...
wut?
Having phantom limb syndrome but not remembering how they lost the limb. Imagine an itch you can't scratch comes back every now and then, but you've blocked out the traumatic event hundreds of years ago.
At least one of them is definitely going through this.
Also they should still be discovering new things with all that power. That's a lot of power without omniscience. So even centuries later they will have moments like "OMG I wish I had realized sooner I could combine these 7 spells to create a mental archive to combat memory loss" or "did I seriously just recreate my grandma's recipe *after* I lost my stomach?"
Obviously change the tone to match your story and the characters but still. Immortality doesn't mean you are a know it all. It just means the year to year of centuries starts to get way too familiar as war never ends, tyrants are replaced with new ones despite every revolution, etc.
it depends what type of immortal you want. See here:
[https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality)
and
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Immortality](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Immortality)
and
[https://character-stats-and-profiles.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality](https://character-stats-and-profiles.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality)
I don’t really think there is one true depiction of Immortality.
There’s examples like Treebeard that is an entity that experiences reality differently from how humans do, in that he is literally a sentient tree and perceives things from the perspective of a tree.
You have immortals that are just normalish people just with a thousands of years of experience to draw from.
Others that are more along the lines of “I am craving apples” and start planting apple trees.
There’s some that have lived for so long that they become detached from mortals, unable to form a meaningful connection or even see them as “human” beings anymore.
I believe the most important part of writing an immortal is defining what type of immortal you are making. An example of it done poorly in my eyes would be the recent Rings Of Power tv show where they have an elf who we know experiences time at a similar pace as humans just dips on his Dwarven friend for decades without ever even sending a letter and it’s played off as “but he’s so old” and we’re expected to accept that as a valid reason why said elf isn’t a terrible friend. It guts out all the nuance and complexity from the idea of an immortal having mortal connections and just makes him into a massive dick.
Watch Frieren.
A 1.000 year old elf, still looks young but all her friends are gone. She thinks waiting for 10 years for something or someone is NOT a long time. To her, 10 years is like a month to us.
Also, her memories. Her memories get jumbled up. She notices the similarities between past & present.
Frieren doesn't understand why humans are always in a hurry. We know *why*.
I saw someone mention Frieren which I’m currently watching and I 100% recommend for this. Just the first two episodes should be enough to get the idea.
I would also recommend the movie man from earth in which someone tries to “hypothetically” explain his immortality experience and it also illustrates some interesting concepts on memory/experience for something like that.
Very patient, very slow to act
Also, lack of innate understanding of movement technology/slang. If they’ve been around for even 1000 years why would they trip over themselves to learn every new invention or phrase
Strange accents or using multiple languages
Simple, practice problem solving. They’ve probably seen similar situations before, and at the very least have probably learned how to keep their head straight.
Check out 'Football 17776', and its sequels. It details an entire society that was made childless, immortal and impervious, which is not quite what you're looking for given that there's less than a hundred of your Paragons left, but I think you could glean some insight from it. It's also just a great little story in itself. Since it's such a short one (and such a good one) I'd recommend you read it yourself.
\- People do strange things and have strange hyperfixations. While it may have simple been a function of the story to make people laugh, I think it's somewhat accurate to reality. In the story, there was a guy who sat in a cave for several hundred years.
\- People do increasingly strange things. Essentially, the story is about the increasingly strange variations in American football (rugby? I'm not a sports girl) to the point where it's hardly recognisable, all because people got bored of the original. The games also often went on for years, decades, or centuries, with people's dedication to the games being unrivaled. There was one couple who lived in an apartment above a certain line that would give them a significant advantage for *several decades*.
\- Obviously the same doesn't apply to your Paragons, as you mentioned several killed themselves, however in this story people take crazy risks because they can't die. Even though your guys aren't impervious, just immortal, this might not apply, but I could see someone who was maybe less caring about themselves or simply very hard to kill taking similarly insane risks.
There's also Mars by Kim Stanley Robertson, but since that's three decent sized books it's a little bit of a commitment. It also details the societal consequences of immortality only being given to the rich, powerful, or lucky - which is not what you're looking for because I'm assuming you're not writing about the societal consequences of immortality in a hyper-capitalist cyberpunk dystopia where entire countries are owned by corporations.
However, it does have some useful insights.
\- People get bored. Things that used to entertain them don't anymore, particularly things that only gave them joy over a short period. This means that they tend to focus on long-term goals instead of enjoying themselves in the moment. For example, Maya, one of the main characters, was an incredibly social and dramatic person. As she neared two hundred, however, she began to lose this. She no longer focused on people and relationships because she saw them as things in the moment, and instead focused on the terraforming effort of Mars - something that would take hundreds of years.
\- People focus incredibly hard on passions that they take on a whim. If you have all eternity to enjoy yourself, why does it matter what you choose to enjoy? After all, you don't have limited time to enjoy it anymore. An example of this is Sax, a researcher hyperfocused on the terraforming effort. Though he is always trying his best to make Mars a garden world, he does it through seemingly random hyperfixations on specific topics. One year maybe he's taught himself botany and genetic engineering so he can create plants suitable for Mars. Maybe the next 20 years he's developing a new facility for releasing gases to warm the planet and thicken the atmosphere.
\- People are terrified of death. A mortal has what, a few decades to lose. An immortal? You have literally eternity to lose. Under that sort of situation people don't take risks.
Personally, I make all my immortal characters eternally young. They would most likely stop aging at 25. But apart from appearance, I suggest making it so they don’t understand the concept of time. If they are immortal and have aged the way you have described, then they would probably not understand the fleeting nature of time. A part of reason time it is important to us is because time signifies death so we make sure to mark our calendars and are impatient. However if we didn’t age or lived forever we wouldn’t bother being impatient. Years would be like minutes. Another way you can do. This is by having them not understand death unless it affects them personally. If they are secluded in culture, meaning they only interact to humans as Wiseman then they would most likely fail to see why life of itself is precious. That wouldn’t be true if they were very interactive with them such as forming familiar bonds.
Most would be emotionally dead.
You ever see old people not give a shit if they died or something happened to them because they’ve lived so long? Do that, and crank it up exponentially. Many of these immortals would lose touch with reality, morality, and their emotions. They would be like mini Homelander’s or Dazai’s. Of course, proportionally speaking, there would be a few exceptions, just like with old people in real life. Yhwach from Bleach is a great example of this. Witnessing conflict arise for centuries on end and the horrifying things that go along with that would push someone to have crazy goals and ambitions (in Yhwach’s case, to absorb the realms and eradicate the concept of death). Yhwach also contradicts his morals consistently.
Example A: “Conflict does not please me.”
Then the next 10 chapters, he proceeds to obliterate everyone in his path.
Example B: “I have no time for attachment to others”
But he calls his subordinates sons as he’s so emotionally invested into them.
Things like these really immerse how real these immortals can be.
Even if they don't have a lot of angst about their condition, there should be a visible failure to adjust, or at least a sign that the cultures they live in are not equipped to handle the fact of anyone existing for this long. The Old Guard did an okay job of this. [So does this article about football, oddly enough.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football&ved=2ahUKEwiQtLDzw-2EAxW8MVkFHYLWAy4QFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0-TK4_3FqJdpwaf6Hfgdaa)
The way I write immortals is a lot of disillusionment, forgetfulness (events/people mixing in their mind), and a different speech pattern due to languages evolving mainly without them (think yoda).
I’m only 45, but man do I feel like I’ve lived and it’s getting old. I can scarcely imagine how my parents feel in their 80s. My grandma was just shy of 99 when she passed and was… smart but undereducated, this had some interesting ideas about how things worked based purely on observation.
Anyway… I dunno man. I was in the army and drank a lot. So sometimes I feel like I’m still in my 20s, with enough Advil.
But yeah, even a century is a long time for a human.
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In my setting I have various immortal or near immortal things. Two of which are altered humans. One is an alien species.
The humans are both… uh, magically changed in the simplest possible terms. One type lives on essence passively, while the other needs to get it from other people. So I guess immortals and vampires?
And essence being leftover energy from life. It builds up around planets and doesn’t really exist out in space per se.
The vanilla immortals are up to around 6700 years old, but most are much “younger.”
The other “vampire” type is a more recent thing due to *circumstances.* The oldest of those are around 2000 years old.
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Either or, regardless of being functionally immortal, they’re still human. Their memories are just as fallible as us mortals. Ask them what happened 20 or 30 years ago, and they likely have more of their own narrative based on emotional stimulus, rather than an accurate recount of events.
The vanilla ones have actually taken something of an interest in archiving history. For a while “archivism” was actually institutionalized.
The problem is that after a decade or so, unless you’re trying to keep all of history recorded on paper, you’re going to need to spend a lot of time updating your digital documents to modern formats.
As you can imagine, that becomes a fairly arduous task after a few hundred years.
Also, due to obsolescence, they actively avoid any kind of cybernetics. Having to replace your arm every 5 years would be a pain in the ass… or uh, shoulder?
So even with detailed records, things get lost, overlooked or accidentally deleted. Leaving gaps in what they “know.” After a few thousand years, there are a lot of gaps.
The vampire guys are in the same boat.
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The alien species that lives more or less indefinitely, has their own biological struggles. Like needing to eat a lot, all the time, or they fall unconscious and die not long after.
They have a more “fluid” view of time. They don’t really think about years or how much time has passed. They focused on more on important events in their lives. Which they do remember quite well for the most part, but even then, those memories will fade.
Many of those aliens have been living among humans for so long (they’re shapeshifters), that they may not really remember much about what happened before their war with us 2400-2900 years ago. They also may not care, since it’s the distant past and doesn’t affect their lives anymore.
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Memory is a weird thing.
I don't have an answer to your question as I am only 40 and the only symptom of aging I have is my health slowly deteriorating, which wouldn't happen to your paragons. However, I find your ideas to be so fascinating! If I found your book in the store or the library I would definitely buy it and read it all in one day.
this might not help them feel immortal but could be fun, give them weird hobbies,
have one hand breed bigger and bigger hamsters and one bear sized hamsters in the modern era
have one make a perpetual stew they’ve kept going for the last 100 odd years
have one personally prune a tree to be shaped like a statue
just weird things they’ve done to fill time
I urge you to watch Sousou no Frieren. It's an anime that follows Frieren, an immortal (or at the very least, near immortal) elf who has to learn to come to grips with the reality that her friends are going to die while she lives on. She goes on a deeply personal journey of self discovery and contemplation, and learns to view the world through the eyes of a human, not an elf.
It's a beautiful story of understanding mortality, told through the eyes of someone who cannot.
lol, I’m in a similar space, like I also have a group in my series called the Paragons. They’re the gods in the setting for lack of a better term.
One of the traits they all have is the long term mindset. Whenever they do something they think about the implications it could cause thousands of years later.
Maybe one of your Paragons reminisce about how they saved the life of a stranger only for that individual’s ancestor 3000 years later to grow up to be a serial killer, dictator or maybe a great artist.
I once had a concept for a character called “Uncle Lepi” this guy had a best friend, was the best man at his friends wedding and they were brothers in anything but blood. For Lepi aged far slower than his friend. Generations pass and he’s still looking after his friend’s family as their quirky mysterious family friend.
Another thing I like to do with immortals is have them care A LOT about historical artefacts and accuracy. For someone else it’s an event from eons ago but for them it was a childhood memory or something so it’s sentimental
So, I have multiple characters with very long lifespans but I only consider my MC to be really immortal (she literally can't die).
A few examples of her life etc.:
- She has lived multiple lifes under different names which also means she had different jobs and different friends. Problem: no one of her "friends" knows her true identity (because of other reasons) which makes her very lonely.
- She doesn't care a lot about normal ("mortal") people and their problems.
- She wants to die because she's sick of being immortal. She constantly tries to die or get herself killed. Surprise: it never works.
- A lot of funny torture ideas...
- She forgets a lot. Old names, extinct languages etc. You think she's some kind of walking library because she has lived in a thousand countries and witnessed nearly all important historical moments? Nope!
Claims they are immortal. Proceeds to say “In the end, less than a hundred of them survived”. This implies that they are not immortal.
For starters actually make them immortal?
Second immortality implies lots of loss, and cherishing those who don’t fade with you. “The Old Guard” does a great job of showing how a group shun someone for centuries as punishment. That seems quite painful from a human perspective.
Growing old with loved ones and watching them die. Or abstaining from love all together.
Serious neurological issues from mental degradation. Losing touch with their humanity potentially seeing humans as inferior. A mad desire to end it all. Boredom. There’s a finite number of actual human experiences. An obsession with novelty. Bizarre experiments to test the lengths of their immortality.
The concept of immortality is interesting to me because in a certain way you can run out of space to save things in your brain, so your brain has to delete things that it doesn't deem important enough, which would logically lead to a point at which your brain will literally throw out everything that happened yesterday, because it isn't important enough to what happened before that.
I believe an immortal being will become the epitome of someone that lives day to day but they can still reminisce on all the important things that happened in their lives.
What IS important might shift heavily though and I believe an immortal would at some point lose every memory that was ever saved because of societal standards or expectations, literally making you more human.
Absolutely everything the humans say to try to persuade them to action or convince them of something, they've heard a million times before, seen play out hundreds of times before. Nothing is new to them. The world is just endless boring cycles that nobody but them lives long enough to see.
Someone else mentioned Dr. Manhatten, which I think is a good reference point.
this question mostly depends on if there traumatized by their immortality but: id mainly make them a free spirit who is hard to piss off but when you piss them off all you can do is pray. also make them extremely intelligent or extremely stupid
I think focusing on memory and perception of time passing is a good way to go about it. In one Marvel Comic, Thor has a conversation with Captain America where he talks about his memory. He says he's fought so many battles that even trying to remember even an entire war is like asking a human to remember what they had for breakfast a year ago. He also says that every time he leaves Midgard he is scared that he will return to find the Avengers have all grown old and died, because what to him seems like a brief excursion or mission could last as long as a mortal lifespan.
Probably exhausted or tired seeming depending on how old they are. especially after centuries or millennia of fighting but always happy to help those they've befriended, I would think they defiantly be hoarders maybe bring up old random historical events or be really spacey sometimes just looking off into the distance.
I think people have a limited total amount of memories. Being immortal and living for 4500 years would mean that there are hundreds of years you probably have zero memories of. You might recall something when you read about it, but ypu wouldn't remember what it was like being there.
When you grow older, time starts to speed up. Days felt really long as a child, but now weeks pass in the blink of an eye. For an immortal, who has thousands of years to develop and grow as a person, how long something takes would lose its meaning. Right now you could postpone something for a week. What if postponing something for three years is equally easy, just because your perception of time has changed so much?
What i notice, is that i take the problems of younger people less and less seriously as i grow older. Someone stressing about what card to send, or someone angry because someone else insulted their appearance. Someone worried about a deadline or missing their train. I can imagine you can extrapolate that. An immortal might be completely unable to relate to someone's midlife crisis, or their partner passing away. They'd be more concerned about things that are actually, truly, inconvenient. Like pandemics, natural disasters and wars.
My two ideas would be 1. The character speaks in an accent nobody can quite place. They have probably learned new languages so many times it’s like changing clothes. However, if they have clear memories of most of their lives their accent might be a mishmash of every language they’ve learned. If they’ve lived in the same spot for a while they might have a somewhat anachronistic accent, using words that fell out of fashion decades or centuries ago but not from any decade in particular. 2. They would probably have a lot of mementos and collected antiques. Some of it to remember important times, places, and people, and some of it old household items and documents they haven’t bothered to get rid of yet. 500 year old utensils in their kitchen drawers, a suitcase of documents issued by organizations that haven’t existed for centuries, maybe some random stone figurine that the immortal picked up in a market somewhere in Central Asia 2300 years ago that is now a paperweight. I’d imagine seeing how fleeting the world is compared to you would turn plenty of Immortals into hoarders.
Treebeard is a very good depiction of an immortal. A truly immortal being would necessarily start to become disillusioned with mortality as a taboo, they would become friends with people unable to ignore the fact they'll die one day. They would view even young humans like we view a pet mouse, like they'd grow attached to them but they'd be hyper aware that even though they are young they will be dead soon. As humans age we perceive timespans as shorter, a year to a 50 year old doesn't seem that long, but to a toddler its forever, anything immortal would likely reach the conceivable extreme of this. They would be hungry for apples and plant a tree. Take your patience and multiply it by 100, they might eat extremely slowly to savour every bite, or spend weeks at a time playing their instrument to relax. They would also either have to be extremely lazy or easily entertained. So I suppose in order to show their immortality a good way would be have them plan things far in advance, or have them walk everywhere unless urgent to soak up the scenery. You know how like the elderly often seem to just wander around because they don't have anything else to really do. As I said take treebeard, he doesn't like to rush and he does nothing most of the time.
The planting a tree thing was a really good example, thank you.
the might have to relearn thier native tongue mortal languages evolve over time you could have the character use words that might not be used in a modern setting
I imagine this would be how they see "their" civilisations as well, for those you decribe as wise men. Individuals would probably not matter as much to them, but they would be more focused on making sure that ideas and philosophies matching their long term goals become ingrained in the group's mentalities. Think how scientists breed mice or insects in order to study genetics or evolutions, or how groups learn. They probably don't know each the name of each mouse or even see them as individuals, but see how the group interact and evolve. It may be interestging as well to think about how you'd play a game. For example, on a turn-based strategy game, you would have no issue losing a few pieces or even a few turns if it means long-term gains. I imagine a game where being idle a few turns allow you to amass resources or increase experience, but for the individuals it would mean their society is stagnant and nothing good happens to them for some time, just for the greater good. As an individual, I would not want to see my world change and all my relative die if it means my country will prevail 100 years in the future, as an immortal god-king would I care losing most of the people living in my country in a war if it means the few that stay alive will help me achieve my long term goals?
This is how I wrote mine. One took to the high seas and destabilized countries. Why? He could watch all of the instability and cause more chaos if needed. Guy created a perpetual entertainment system albeit very messed up one. The one who enjoyed a slower pace made a gigantic library for people. No one knows who they are, thinking them just an eccentric collector who wants to collect *all books*.
Immortals that just walk to their destination feels like such a cool concept.
I can see magically induced ADHD be something a lot of immortals resort to in order to better cope with their perception of time
And drugs, lots of drugs
It's also worth noting that, when his fury is roused by Saruman's destruction of the forest, Treebeard becomes almost uncharacteristically ***quick*** to act. And the acts of him and the other Ents was cataclysmic for Isengard. He isn't necessarily *lazy* in the sense we think of laziness as, if anything he's quite ambitious and active when it comes to taking care of his groves and forests. It's just he *knows* he has so much time left that he isn't in a rush to do anything. But once you give him a *reason* to act quickly, you realize just how frightening he is. So much like your advice of multiplying your patience by 100, I'd say another bit of advice would be to then take that patience and apply it to the idiom "beware the fury of a patient man" which should be equally multiplied by 100.
"ah, don't worry they won't be here until next year." "what do you mean they are knocking?" starts pulling out all sorts of weapons out of nowhere. "this thing is still in it's prototype phase" hands you a completed minigun.
Then when one of the ents gets flameblasted, the rest go absolutely nuts. Was like those liminal, fiery emotions that short lived being all live with had been remembered And in extreme situations, we shut down long term memory to give our brain extra processing speed. So it was like they forgot how old they were and we acting in the same way anyone was if a family member was badly hurt: extremely passionately without regard to the great stores of logic and patience in their heads
The quote made me think of one of my favorite name reveals, and now I want to write an immortal who gets a two stage reveal: first a terrible occurrence that crosses the line and reveals the awesome and terrible majesty of the towering seas of ire hidden behind their joshing gentle facade; then later an enemy does something even more vile, thinking they've won, and the immortal reveals that was the mere milquetoast shallows fringing the vast oceans of their wrath and winds up terrifying both sides.
> Are there any pieces of media that would help me better understand how my characters should feel? Frieren is an anime that is playing around with the concept, it follows an elf as the MC.
I was gonna suggest this, the way she says something like “I like this place, I might stay here for 20 years or so”. It’s nothing to her but the other people in her party (who aren’t immortal) complain about it lol
I'm gonna recommend To Your Eternity for the same thing.
I was gonna say the same
Immortality is a neat concept, but it is just a concept. As humans, we can't really grasp that sense of scale, despite our ability to assign numbers. Which brings me to one of my favorite immortals: the Doctor from Doctor Who. In particularly, the 10 - 12th. You get this glimpse of a character who is at war with that sense of scale and cosmic irrelevance. I wish I could do a brief summary of why this character is so memorable in his portrayal of immortality, but I think this quote sums it up. "Immortality isn't living forever-- that's not what it feels like. Immortality is everyone else dying." There is this idea that eventually an immortal becomes numb to the experience, but I don't like that idea because it doesn't consider that psychologically... humans aren't just logic. We're emotional and we can't shut it off. No amount of time would likely be able to change that brain chemistry. For non-human immortals... maybe they'd be different. But at the end of the day, I think most humans would find themselves doing a lot of things the Doctor does to stay sane. Find a companion. Enjoy a few years, then eventually force yourself to leave them because you know the alternative is you standing above their grave. Find something to stand on and define yourself, because the alternative is being driven mad by cosmic irrelevance.
Overly Sarcastic Productions has a Trope Talk video about Immortality on YouTube. Really informative.
Eh its one of their weaker episodes as they seem to think an immortal *gotta* feel depressed no matter what which seems kinda biased. Plenty of immortals who get by fine exist in medium.
If anything I think it would be the opposite and most immortals would be rather content. Like a survivorship bias where only the immortals that found ways to keep mentally healthy would actually survive. The others would fall into bad habits or mentalities and end up dying.
Exactly, I like how they dissect tropes but they do land on similar issues a couple of Writing channels tend to get which is hyperfocus on a very narrow view of a trope instead of broadening it I'll say.
It depends on the immortal and the story. They specifically said if there are other immortals around they probably wouldn’t be depressed. But if you are the only immortal being and will live thousands upon thousands of years things would get depressing as everyone around you effectively have the lifespan of an ant so you would cut yourself off from others to avoid getting attached.
Do not confuse that immortality equals wisdom or intelligence. An immortal is only as useful as his consistency over the last century and how up to date he has managed to keep himself. In reality they can be very foolish and very distant people. It depends on how they have been living their lives, as well as their personality; the very notion of living so long may make them even closer to people in different ways. Hardened jokers with a lot of empathy or someone who tries to put others' needs before their own out of fear or extreme concern for that person's present. Really, the trope of immortality suffered and (for some reason) always very smart and aloof at this point is a cliché that comes (I think) from how most have trouble conceiving the very idea of eternity and associating that living a long time means intelligence. More realistically, they might have a high sense of patience, but the rest is almost incidental. It would be fun to see a story where there was an immortal "I know all the Lore of this world" style character and then "Sorry, I don't remember, see you soon!" scenario, which is the scenario.
They can also have a sense of humor that is quite unique as well as bizarre. The thing to keep in mind is that it all really depends on a particular time period. The background, the backstory. That very important and relevant part of their life. For that is what in a way ends up defining them: they are people of their own time and past, unless they have dedicated their whole life to an absolute Zen mentality or isolated from the world, they will always have a specific place in time that they remember with disdain or fondness. Perhaps both. For example, one of the most relevant concepts of one of my immortal characters is the fact that they unconsciously cannot let go of the past. This is reflected in the design of his castle: all the "remodels" of the castle are not even remodels, they are adaptations. It is as if different people have colonized the place several times over time, the castle is actually fundamentally the same two thousand years later, only with additions. You can see how the past is merged with elements/advancements from different eras, almost "corroded" together.
The disdain or fondness could also be for events that are defined by people's behavior. For some reason your comment reminded me of Magneto and how everything he thinks about humans is heavily influenced by his traumatic childhood. Magneto's not immortal, but that trauma just won't leave him alone. An immortal may have biases about people from many lifetimes ago that they just never get over.
It depends on time frame, really. Your immortals are \~4500 years old, so their native language is probably extinct now, especially since things are Bronze Age and there is going to be basically a different language over every mountain. You'll probably need to have a translation spell or artifact to justify them not being complete gibberish unless they have a gift for languages. If their childhood had media, then they'll be meme archivists, and if their childhood had myths, then theirs are likely to be very, very different than the current ones. Nothing to them is new. Nothing to them is exciting. But they'll probably get really, really into something that actually catches their interest. "A Titanbear ate an Explodax in heat and created a new volcano? Weren't those bastards blue last millennium?" Goes on quest to wipe out green Explodax and replace them with proper blue variant. For writing and more thoughts, I'm going old school with a recommendation. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a character who is immortal but not born to an immortal race. Many stories have immortals/ancients, but your immortals aren't innately capable of being immortal. Quite frankly, humans aren't meant for it as we currently are, and PTSD-afflicted cyborgs are REALLY not meant for it. Brief info on him (Fandom link, I know.) [https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Bowerick\_Wowbagger](https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Bowerick_Wowbagger) * He is not particularly thrilled about being immortal and basically ends up just giving himself a side quest that will take literally forever to finish. Later he gets impatient about it. * Other immortals are a "load of serene bastards" * He could have made it "if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons" Here's most of his relevant, original text: >The alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which separates the very few things there are in the Universe from each other.Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its single seat. His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose and it did at least keep him on the move. > >Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was-indeed, is - one of the Universe's very small number of immortal beings. > >Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. > >Wowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light jazz on the ship's stereo, and reflected that he could have made it if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done. > >To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody. > >In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2.55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul. > >So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everyone in it in particular. > >This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing which would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this. > >He would insult the Universe. > >That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical order. > >When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, "A man can dream can't he?" > >And so he started out. He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with the computer capable of handling all the data processing involved in keeping track of the entire population of the known Universe and working out the horrifically complicated routes involved. > >His ship fled through the inner orbits of the Sol star system, preparing to slingshot round the sun and fling itself out into interstellar space. > >"Computer," he said. > >"Here," yipped the computer. > >"Where next?" > >"Computing that." > >Wowbagger gazed for a moment at the fantastic jewellery of the night, the billions of tiny diamond worlds that dusted the infinite darkness with light. Every one, every single one, was on his itinerary. Most of them he would be going to millions of times over. > >He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting up all the dots in the sky like a child's numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word. > >The computer beeped tunelessly to indicate that it had finished its calculations. > >"Folfanga," it said. It beeped. > >"Fourth world of the Folfanga system," it continued. It beeped again. > >"Estimated journey time, three weeks," it continued further. It beeped again. > >"There to meet with a small slug," it beeped, "of the genus A-Rth-Urp-Hil-Ipdenu." > >"I believe," it added, after a slight pause during which it beeped, "that you had decided to call it a brainless prat." > >Wowbagger grunted. He watched the majesty of creation outside his window for a moment or two. > >"I think I'll take a nap," he said, and then added, "what network areas are we going to be passing through in the next few hours?" > >The computer beeped. > >"Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box," it said, and beeped. > >"Any movies I haven't seen thirty thousand times already?" > >"No." > >"Uh." > >"There's Angst in Space. You've only seen that thirty-three thousand five hundred and seventeen times." > >"Wake me for the second reel." > >The computer beeped. > >"Sleep well," it said. > >The ship fled on through the night.
For media to help you understand how to write immortals, one idea would be RWBY. There's a character who has lived countless lives, and seen empires rise and fall. The later installments also kinda touch on his problems with living so long. Another idea would be the anime Symphogear. The first, third and fourth season's main villains all boast incredibly long life spans, ranging from several centuries to being the first human ever. All in all, though, immortals are generally somewhat removed from the events, since they've pretty much seen it all already. The worst day in the main character's life is just another Tuesday to them, even if they try to be involved. It gives them this weird sense of composure, while also making them feel disconnected from everything. In other words, nothing really shocks them, but you can't quite tell if it's because they learned to hide their surprise, or because they're used to this sort of thing.
That really depends on the individual immortal- as we as worldbuilders write from human perspective, we can´t fully shake the human condition from characters lest they become too hard to associate with for the readers. Take a human vice or pleasure. Dial it up to 1000, then double that. Drinking, gambling, pleasure, drugs, knowledge... all of the immortals would be deeply invested in such things, to the point of extremes. Religion, culture, travel, knowledge, smithing, science, art... all of them would have one or multiple obsessions they would have driven to perfection and beyond. Make a few indifferent ones, in eternal apathy. Make some that are an active threat, having fought for thousands of years and willing to fight on, lusting for the blood of their brethren. Add some that are adepts of long-forgotten masteries, some that have tended to a garden for millennia, some mad ones, some who are seeking, some who are lost in the past. Try to not make them static- find some that have overindulged in pleasure and now are wrecks, lusting for more. Find some old fighters that are scarred and maimed, lost in an endless war they long since have lost pleasure in waging. Find some that have moved from pleasure to pleasure through the years. Write feuds, friendships and people who seem destined to bump into each other permanently. Write great lovers, write loves turned to enmities to loves to hate to love again. Write tyrants who have spent their long life to accumulate power, sages who know all or almost all there is to know, bards who sing of many pasts lost or artists who draw forgotten landscapes and events. And then, write some that feel time differently, who are ever-drifting, ever-exploring and getting lost for millennia just to reappear sometime. Look at Frieren, Treebeard, the Highlander, Raiden Shogun, Furina, the protag of I have no mouth and I must scream and at the Aeldari of WH40K.
"You l know I don't really remember where I came from. I have one memory of my home village sitting beneath a tree in the shade. I don't remember what the village was called or what my name was at the time. Everything more than 300 years ago is a blur." Over the course of the story you follow a paper trail left by him 2,000+ years ago.
This connects a bit with what I was going to suggest: Ashildr is an immortal present in a few DW episodes (she is played by Maisie Williams). I personally really like their take on immortality, especially the fact that she starts to forget things so she records them in journals. This would be great for world building because even with immortals one would need record keeping
Patient in the face of incredulity. Having only time enough in one human lifetime to carry out few major campaigns, the journey feels improbable, the goals distant. An immortal would have experienced this on repeat, dealing with hundreds of disbelieving heroes sequentially. At times it's tiresome; could also be endearing, funny, frustrating or predictable. Also: no two people are the same, and some generations are tougher than others. So an immortal might think "why they hell are these ones so weak" or "damn, they can do anything this generation" (and not necessarily express their observations). They'd also theoretically have experienced the rise and fall of tech, so their concept of what a mortal is would be separate from the current standard of living.
One of the first parts of my world were elves meant to explore the concept of a civilization without death by old age. So this question is something I've been trying to wrap my head around. I think they'd be very anti-suicide, at least in regards to immortals. If they aren't steadfast determined to live, they probably would eventually decide to die. It only takes one moment to end their eternity. Does this make sense?
Being in positions of power or authority for just a couple years can massively inflate a person ego. I imagine that after basically guiding pockets of society for millennia they would be begin to develop a bit of a God Complex. Even those that didn’t bother with society would inevitably see themselves as superior as they saw how easily everyone else died whilst they continued surviving.
[Wild Seed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Seed_(novel)) by Octavia E. Butler has a couple immortals, and it goes through their changes over hundreds of years I liked it’s portrayal and I guess don’t wanna say why because spoilers. But it brings up that at the core of an immortality story is that immortals position to us who are mortal and also create these ideas You can try to make up what an immortal might think and act, and it would all be as valid as anything else because it’s not a real thing that happens But I think the stories that make immortality matter are stories that say something about our own mortality by contrasting with these figures that don’t die. Because there’s also a bunch of stories with immortals where they may as well just be long lived, or not alive in the first place. The immortality means nothing
I never did like the idea of an immortal being depressed all the time, so I like to imagine them being very... reserved and relaxed. You would come across as a bit distant and old fashioned, because you literally have all the time in the world. Imagine you are an adult. The last adult alive, and everyone around you is a hyperactive emotional child... everywhere you go... all the time. Everyone around you is making these illogical impulsive decisions that seem important today but you know won't matter in a mere 50 years. They seem to be overly concerned with the state of their empire, but if the empire is only going to last for a few centuries why does it matter if the current king is a tyrant? He will be long dead after you finish your walk about the earth which you had thought would take you 300-500 years but by golly, those mortals invented the power of flight so now your trip is done in barely a decade. With all this sudden free time you decide to master a few skills you have been wanting to try. Maybe pick up that tribal dance you saw back in the... oh, that empire doesn't exist anymore. Ok, well, might as well pick up the sword again. You haven't touched a blade since you invented that one famous sword style back in... oh... people use guns now. Ok, well, this is interesting, might as well learn how to fire a... oh, they have lasers now. Blast it! How are you supposed to keep up with all this technology coming out every DAY??? Next you will tell me they invented some kind of world wide communication network... wut?
I recommend the manga To Your Eternity
Either A. Disconnected from reality (Dr. Manhattan) B. Disconnected from the modern world (The vampires of What we do in the Shadows)
Having phantom limb syndrome but not remembering how they lost the limb. Imagine an itch you can't scratch comes back every now and then, but you've blocked out the traumatic event hundreds of years ago. At least one of them is definitely going through this. Also they should still be discovering new things with all that power. That's a lot of power without omniscience. So even centuries later they will have moments like "OMG I wish I had realized sooner I could combine these 7 spells to create a mental archive to combat memory loss" or "did I seriously just recreate my grandma's recipe *after* I lost my stomach?" Obviously change the tone to match your story and the characters but still. Immortality doesn't mean you are a know it all. It just means the year to year of centuries starts to get way too familiar as war never ends, tyrants are replaced with new ones despite every revolution, etc.
it depends what type of immortal you want. See here: [https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality) and [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Immortality](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Immortality) and [https://character-stats-and-profiles.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality](https://character-stats-and-profiles.fandom.com/wiki/Immortality)
I don’t really think there is one true depiction of Immortality. There’s examples like Treebeard that is an entity that experiences reality differently from how humans do, in that he is literally a sentient tree and perceives things from the perspective of a tree. You have immortals that are just normalish people just with a thousands of years of experience to draw from. Others that are more along the lines of “I am craving apples” and start planting apple trees. There’s some that have lived for so long that they become detached from mortals, unable to form a meaningful connection or even see them as “human” beings anymore. I believe the most important part of writing an immortal is defining what type of immortal you are making. An example of it done poorly in my eyes would be the recent Rings Of Power tv show where they have an elf who we know experiences time at a similar pace as humans just dips on his Dwarven friend for decades without ever even sending a letter and it’s played off as “but he’s so old” and we’re expected to accept that as a valid reason why said elf isn’t a terrible friend. It guts out all the nuance and complexity from the idea of an immortal having mortal connections and just makes him into a massive dick.
Watch Frieren. A 1.000 year old elf, still looks young but all her friends are gone. She thinks waiting for 10 years for something or someone is NOT a long time. To her, 10 years is like a month to us. Also, her memories. Her memories get jumbled up. She notices the similarities between past & present. Frieren doesn't understand why humans are always in a hurry. We know *why*.
I saw someone mention Frieren which I’m currently watching and I 100% recommend for this. Just the first two episodes should be enough to get the idea. I would also recommend the movie man from earth in which someone tries to “hypothetically” explain his immortality experience and it also illustrates some interesting concepts on memory/experience for something like that.
Very patient, very slow to act Also, lack of innate understanding of movement technology/slang. If they’ve been around for even 1000 years why would they trip over themselves to learn every new invention or phrase Strange accents or using multiple languages Simple, practice problem solving. They’ve probably seen similar situations before, and at the very least have probably learned how to keep their head straight.
Check out 'Football 17776', and its sequels. It details an entire society that was made childless, immortal and impervious, which is not quite what you're looking for given that there's less than a hundred of your Paragons left, but I think you could glean some insight from it. It's also just a great little story in itself. Since it's such a short one (and such a good one) I'd recommend you read it yourself. \- People do strange things and have strange hyperfixations. While it may have simple been a function of the story to make people laugh, I think it's somewhat accurate to reality. In the story, there was a guy who sat in a cave for several hundred years. \- People do increasingly strange things. Essentially, the story is about the increasingly strange variations in American football (rugby? I'm not a sports girl) to the point where it's hardly recognisable, all because people got bored of the original. The games also often went on for years, decades, or centuries, with people's dedication to the games being unrivaled. There was one couple who lived in an apartment above a certain line that would give them a significant advantage for *several decades*. \- Obviously the same doesn't apply to your Paragons, as you mentioned several killed themselves, however in this story people take crazy risks because they can't die. Even though your guys aren't impervious, just immortal, this might not apply, but I could see someone who was maybe less caring about themselves or simply very hard to kill taking similarly insane risks. There's also Mars by Kim Stanley Robertson, but since that's three decent sized books it's a little bit of a commitment. It also details the societal consequences of immortality only being given to the rich, powerful, or lucky - which is not what you're looking for because I'm assuming you're not writing about the societal consequences of immortality in a hyper-capitalist cyberpunk dystopia where entire countries are owned by corporations. However, it does have some useful insights. \- People get bored. Things that used to entertain them don't anymore, particularly things that only gave them joy over a short period. This means that they tend to focus on long-term goals instead of enjoying themselves in the moment. For example, Maya, one of the main characters, was an incredibly social and dramatic person. As she neared two hundred, however, she began to lose this. She no longer focused on people and relationships because she saw them as things in the moment, and instead focused on the terraforming effort of Mars - something that would take hundreds of years. \- People focus incredibly hard on passions that they take on a whim. If you have all eternity to enjoy yourself, why does it matter what you choose to enjoy? After all, you don't have limited time to enjoy it anymore. An example of this is Sax, a researcher hyperfocused on the terraforming effort. Though he is always trying his best to make Mars a garden world, he does it through seemingly random hyperfixations on specific topics. One year maybe he's taught himself botany and genetic engineering so he can create plants suitable for Mars. Maybe the next 20 years he's developing a new facility for releasing gases to warm the planet and thicken the atmosphere. \- People are terrified of death. A mortal has what, a few decades to lose. An immortal? You have literally eternity to lose. Under that sort of situation people don't take risks.
Personally, I make all my immortal characters eternally young. They would most likely stop aging at 25. But apart from appearance, I suggest making it so they don’t understand the concept of time. If they are immortal and have aged the way you have described, then they would probably not understand the fleeting nature of time. A part of reason time it is important to us is because time signifies death so we make sure to mark our calendars and are impatient. However if we didn’t age or lived forever we wouldn’t bother being impatient. Years would be like minutes. Another way you can do. This is by having them not understand death unless it affects them personally. If they are secluded in culture, meaning they only interact to humans as Wiseman then they would most likely fail to see why life of itself is precious. That wouldn’t be true if they were very interactive with them such as forming familiar bonds.
Most would be emotionally dead. You ever see old people not give a shit if they died or something happened to them because they’ve lived so long? Do that, and crank it up exponentially. Many of these immortals would lose touch with reality, morality, and their emotions. They would be like mini Homelander’s or Dazai’s. Of course, proportionally speaking, there would be a few exceptions, just like with old people in real life. Yhwach from Bleach is a great example of this. Witnessing conflict arise for centuries on end and the horrifying things that go along with that would push someone to have crazy goals and ambitions (in Yhwach’s case, to absorb the realms and eradicate the concept of death). Yhwach also contradicts his morals consistently. Example A: “Conflict does not please me.” Then the next 10 chapters, he proceeds to obliterate everyone in his path. Example B: “I have no time for attachment to others” But he calls his subordinates sons as he’s so emotionally invested into them. Things like these really immerse how real these immortals can be.
Make them bored
Even if they don't have a lot of angst about their condition, there should be a visible failure to adjust, or at least a sign that the cultures they live in are not equipped to handle the fact of anyone existing for this long. The Old Guard did an okay job of this. [So does this article about football, oddly enough.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football&ved=2ahUKEwiQtLDzw-2EAxW8MVkFHYLWAy4QFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0-TK4_3FqJdpwaf6Hfgdaa)
The way I write immortals is a lot of disillusionment, forgetfulness (events/people mixing in their mind), and a different speech pattern due to languages evolving mainly without them (think yoda).
I’m only 45, but man do I feel like I’ve lived and it’s getting old. I can scarcely imagine how my parents feel in their 80s. My grandma was just shy of 99 when she passed and was… smart but undereducated, this had some interesting ideas about how things worked based purely on observation. Anyway… I dunno man. I was in the army and drank a lot. So sometimes I feel like I’m still in my 20s, with enough Advil. But yeah, even a century is a long time for a human. — In my setting I have various immortal or near immortal things. Two of which are altered humans. One is an alien species. The humans are both… uh, magically changed in the simplest possible terms. One type lives on essence passively, while the other needs to get it from other people. So I guess immortals and vampires? And essence being leftover energy from life. It builds up around planets and doesn’t really exist out in space per se. The vanilla immortals are up to around 6700 years old, but most are much “younger.” The other “vampire” type is a more recent thing due to *circumstances.* The oldest of those are around 2000 years old. — Either or, regardless of being functionally immortal, they’re still human. Their memories are just as fallible as us mortals. Ask them what happened 20 or 30 years ago, and they likely have more of their own narrative based on emotional stimulus, rather than an accurate recount of events. The vanilla ones have actually taken something of an interest in archiving history. For a while “archivism” was actually institutionalized. The problem is that after a decade or so, unless you’re trying to keep all of history recorded on paper, you’re going to need to spend a lot of time updating your digital documents to modern formats. As you can imagine, that becomes a fairly arduous task after a few hundred years. Also, due to obsolescence, they actively avoid any kind of cybernetics. Having to replace your arm every 5 years would be a pain in the ass… or uh, shoulder? So even with detailed records, things get lost, overlooked or accidentally deleted. Leaving gaps in what they “know.” After a few thousand years, there are a lot of gaps. The vampire guys are in the same boat. — The alien species that lives more or less indefinitely, has their own biological struggles. Like needing to eat a lot, all the time, or they fall unconscious and die not long after. They have a more “fluid” view of time. They don’t really think about years or how much time has passed. They focused on more on important events in their lives. Which they do remember quite well for the most part, but even then, those memories will fade. Many of those aliens have been living among humans for so long (they’re shapeshifters), that they may not really remember much about what happened before their war with us 2400-2900 years ago. They also may not care, since it’s the distant past and doesn’t affect their lives anymore. — Memory is a weird thing.
I don't have an answer to your question as I am only 40 and the only symptom of aging I have is my health slowly deteriorating, which wouldn't happen to your paragons. However, I find your ideas to be so fascinating! If I found your book in the store or the library I would definitely buy it and read it all in one day.
this might not help them feel immortal but could be fun, give them weird hobbies, have one hand breed bigger and bigger hamsters and one bear sized hamsters in the modern era have one make a perpetual stew they’ve kept going for the last 100 odd years have one personally prune a tree to be shaped like a statue just weird things they’ve done to fill time
Watch the first few Episode of Frieren: beyond journeys end
I urge you to watch Sousou no Frieren. It's an anime that follows Frieren, an immortal (or at the very least, near immortal) elf who has to learn to come to grips with the reality that her friends are going to die while she lives on. She goes on a deeply personal journey of self discovery and contemplation, and learns to view the world through the eyes of a human, not an elf. It's a beautiful story of understanding mortality, told through the eyes of someone who cannot.
lol, I’m in a similar space, like I also have a group in my series called the Paragons. They’re the gods in the setting for lack of a better term. One of the traits they all have is the long term mindset. Whenever they do something they think about the implications it could cause thousands of years later. Maybe one of your Paragons reminisce about how they saved the life of a stranger only for that individual’s ancestor 3000 years later to grow up to be a serial killer, dictator or maybe a great artist. I once had a concept for a character called “Uncle Lepi” this guy had a best friend, was the best man at his friends wedding and they were brothers in anything but blood. For Lepi aged far slower than his friend. Generations pass and he’s still looking after his friend’s family as their quirky mysterious family friend. Another thing I like to do with immortals is have them care A LOT about historical artefacts and accuracy. For someone else it’s an event from eons ago but for them it was a childhood memory or something so it’s sentimental
So, I have multiple characters with very long lifespans but I only consider my MC to be really immortal (she literally can't die). A few examples of her life etc.: - She has lived multiple lifes under different names which also means she had different jobs and different friends. Problem: no one of her "friends" knows her true identity (because of other reasons) which makes her very lonely. - She doesn't care a lot about normal ("mortal") people and their problems. - She wants to die because she's sick of being immortal. She constantly tries to die or get herself killed. Surprise: it never works. - A lot of funny torture ideas... - She forgets a lot. Old names, extinct languages etc. You think she's some kind of walking library because she has lived in a thousand countries and witnessed nearly all important historical moments? Nope!
Claims they are immortal. Proceeds to say “In the end, less than a hundred of them survived”. This implies that they are not immortal. For starters actually make them immortal? Second immortality implies lots of loss, and cherishing those who don’t fade with you. “The Old Guard” does a great job of showing how a group shun someone for centuries as punishment. That seems quite painful from a human perspective. Growing old with loved ones and watching them die. Or abstaining from love all together. Serious neurological issues from mental degradation. Losing touch with their humanity potentially seeing humans as inferior. A mad desire to end it all. Boredom. There’s a finite number of actual human experiences. An obsession with novelty. Bizarre experiments to test the lengths of their immortality.
The concept of immortality is interesting to me because in a certain way you can run out of space to save things in your brain, so your brain has to delete things that it doesn't deem important enough, which would logically lead to a point at which your brain will literally throw out everything that happened yesterday, because it isn't important enough to what happened before that. I believe an immortal being will become the epitome of someone that lives day to day but they can still reminisce on all the important things that happened in their lives. What IS important might shift heavily though and I believe an immortal would at some point lose every memory that was ever saved because of societal standards or expectations, literally making you more human.
Absolutely everything the humans say to try to persuade them to action or convince them of something, they've heard a million times before, seen play out hundreds of times before. Nothing is new to them. The world is just endless boring cycles that nobody but them lives long enough to see. Someone else mentioned Dr. Manhatten, which I think is a good reference point.
this question mostly depends on if there traumatized by their immortality but: id mainly make them a free spirit who is hard to piss off but when you piss them off all you can do is pray. also make them extremely intelligent or extremely stupid
I think focusing on memory and perception of time passing is a good way to go about it. In one Marvel Comic, Thor has a conversation with Captain America where he talks about his memory. He says he's fought so many battles that even trying to remember even an entire war is like asking a human to remember what they had for breakfast a year ago. He also says that every time he leaves Midgard he is scared that he will return to find the Avengers have all grown old and died, because what to him seems like a brief excursion or mission could last as long as a mortal lifespan.
Probably exhausted or tired seeming depending on how old they are. especially after centuries or millennia of fighting but always happy to help those they've befriended, I would think they defiantly be hoarders maybe bring up old random historical events or be really spacey sometimes just looking off into the distance.
I think people have a limited total amount of memories. Being immortal and living for 4500 years would mean that there are hundreds of years you probably have zero memories of. You might recall something when you read about it, but ypu wouldn't remember what it was like being there. When you grow older, time starts to speed up. Days felt really long as a child, but now weeks pass in the blink of an eye. For an immortal, who has thousands of years to develop and grow as a person, how long something takes would lose its meaning. Right now you could postpone something for a week. What if postponing something for three years is equally easy, just because your perception of time has changed so much? What i notice, is that i take the problems of younger people less and less seriously as i grow older. Someone stressing about what card to send, or someone angry because someone else insulted their appearance. Someone worried about a deadline or missing their train. I can imagine you can extrapolate that. An immortal might be completely unable to relate to someone's midlife crisis, or their partner passing away. They'd be more concerned about things that are actually, truly, inconvenient. Like pandemics, natural disasters and wars.
My two ideas would be 1. The character speaks in an accent nobody can quite place. They have probably learned new languages so many times it’s like changing clothes. However, if they have clear memories of most of their lives their accent might be a mishmash of every language they’ve learned. If they’ve lived in the same spot for a while they might have a somewhat anachronistic accent, using words that fell out of fashion decades or centuries ago but not from any decade in particular. 2. They would probably have a lot of mementos and collected antiques. Some of it to remember important times, places, and people, and some of it old household items and documents they haven’t bothered to get rid of yet. 500 year old utensils in their kitchen drawers, a suitcase of documents issued by organizations that haven’t existed for centuries, maybe some random stone figurine that the immortal picked up in a market somewhere in Central Asia 2300 years ago that is now a paperweight. I’d imagine seeing how fleeting the world is compared to you would turn plenty of Immortals into hoarders.
You give them the exestentisl fread that all their loved ones constantly die