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The Book of Immortals

"I am Immortal, I have inside me blood of kings! I have no rival, no man can be my equal!"


So, you want to be an Immortal? Well, you could try the method Master Shake suggests, and jump off a magic cliff, like they did in that movie, Highlander (which was actually a documentary and shot in real time). Or buy the "Book of Immortals" from Mongoose for d20. Just which option is less painful is hard to say.

Let me say that a as a slight disclaimer, that I really am not a fan of Mongoose products (though they have occasionally put out some gems). I had sworn off them after buying two extremely poorly edited products from them, the original OGL Conan (seemingly with 100s of editing errors) and OGL Horror (similarly poorly edited, missing chunks of key rules, and just not that great). But then I heard in a thread on a message board about how they had changed, and blah blah blah, I should give them a second chance. So I did, with the Book of Immortals, a subject I had been very interested in.


I was a very big fan of Basic Dungeons and Dragons. This was set in a place called the "Known World", which was later called "Mystara" (along with some additions like the Hollow World). It was sort of an odd fantasy world, with a fair amount of strange stuff. One of the quirks about the world was that it had no "gods" per se. But it did have "Immortals". Immortals were essentially gods, but they had once been mortals. But through their actions, generally great deeds, they achieved godhood.

There were two products with rules for these Immortals. That is, how they operated, and how PCs could become immortals. BD&D had a somewhat higher scope of play than AD&D. PCs were generally expected to become rulers of a stronghold in the Companion Boxed set (around 15th level), then planar travellers in the "Master Rules", which was I think from 24th to 36th.

In some regards, D&D 3rd edition has that higher scope of BD&D. Character in 3.x can go up to 20th level, then qualify for "Epic" levels. So, I've been hoping for a product that would let PCs become Immortals, or gods. Preferably an official one, but one from another company would also be cool. (Or so I thought).

"Fly the Moon and reach for the stars!"

Enter Mongoose's "The Book of Immortals", which at first glance would be exactly what I was looking for. From the back blurb of the book:

"Gods and Immortals wield incredible, world-shaking powers, manipulate the fate of nations and visit ruin upon those who oppose them. They may have worshippers, temples, nations and even entire worlds singing their praises. Most are as fickle as cats and seemingly indifferent to the damage done to lesser beings in their titanic struggles with cosmic forces.

But where does that leave the common man? A mere puppet to be toyed with; a pawn to be used in the endless games of the gods? For those brave enough to take on the seemingly impossible there is hope, for mortals can become Immortals. They can take up arms against the gods themselves, shaping destiny to suit their personal whims. Their powers can shelter nations, strike down mountain ranges and shatter the barriers between worlds.

The greatest challenge awaits you. Do you dare to take up the reins of power? Do you dare to challenge the forces of the universe, to take your place among the stars?

Do you dare to become an Immortal?"

While it seems to have been aiming at what I was looking for, in actual practice, it really isn't.


First off, the Mongoose sort of Immortal is actually not really a god. They are somewhere between gods and epic level characters. Closer to the epic level end, though in some cases, not even that.

Immortals in BD&D were essentially just a really powerful character class (the Immortal) and had a range of levels from 1 to 36. Immortals gained levels by gaining more "Power Points", more or less like experience points, but which were also used to fuel their powers (in fact, using too many could drop them down a level). These points ranged from 300 for a starting Immortal to 6,000 for a top of the line one.

Mongoose Immortals have just 5 "steps", Aspirant, Wielder, Illuminated, Immortal, and Transcendent. Mongoose Immortals go up a step by achieving "Victories" and overcoming a "Great Challenge". Powers are basically powered by an Immortals "Aura", which is a number which is based on the Immortal's rank and the number of "victories" they have. The "Aura" ranges from 1 to about 50.

As near as I can tell from the 3 sample Immortals, each "victory" translates into a +1 challenge rating or so. So basically, one "victory" is about on par with just another level, epic or otherwise.

"No man can understand, my power is in my own hand!"

The powers that a Mongoose Immortal gains are called "Gifts". These are further broken down into 4 areas; Artifacts, Attributes, Numen, and Powers. An Immortal's "Aura" has to be invested in these. Also, most of these require the use of one of two new skills just for Immortals, Infusion and Channel.


Artifacts are just really powerful magic items. They are built with power points. They just use normal magical abilities in the DMG for the most part. Magical weapon and armor abilities cost 1 power point per +1 of the ability. So a +5 sword artifact would cost 5 power points be +5, then you could make it flaming for another power point (as flaming costs +1) or vorpal for another 5 power points. You can also imbue them with various other abilities, these generally cost a number of power points equal to the caster level, though some types of artifacts have a better ratio than others. (For instance, rings are easier to imbue with wondrous magical abilities than weapons or armor).

Each artifact starts off with 5 power points, and the Immortal can invest more of their Aura into the artifact. The aura to power point ratio isn't fixed, it depends on a roll of the Infusion skill. It can range from 2:1 to 8:1 power points to aura.

You can create some fairly impressive items with this method. However, it's heavily skewed towards the more capable Immortals (that have a high Infusion skill), and even then they have to spend a good chunk of their Aura points.


Attributes are kind of like feats or powers. They actually range from being able to cast 5 levels of a certain type of spell to gaining a +1 bonus to AC and attack roles defending a certain country, to becoming a plant.

These don't seem to be balanced very well. For instance, getting a +1 attack bonus and AC while defending a certain country seems about as powerful as a standard d20 Feat. Maybe not even that.

On the other end, you can gain flight. Or eternal youth. Some attributes really suck (why would anyone want to be a plant?), some are fairly powerful. None are especially earth-shaking. (I was kinda looking for Immortals that could create planes, create species, create worlds and planets and even suns)


Numen are basically flunkies or minions or allies. Not an especially powerful one, either. An evil Immortal might get a Succubus as a flunky. Which while nice, doesn't seem terribly high powered or unusual - in fact, nothing more than you might expect a higher level character to have as a cohort or minion...


Powers are kind of shape the fabric of reality stuff, though most of the things are pretty minor, result wise. For instance, an Immortal could heal himself or a colleague. Or create weapons out of wind (or some other element).

So really, Mongoose style Immortals are not really gods or near gods or even godlings. Because it uses a system parallel to that of the level system, it's hard to quantify their power, but it seems about as much as an epic level.


Now, not all Immortals can get all powers. Sort of a catch. An Immortal apparently needs a "Wellspring" or a "Covenant". The Wellspring is like a sacred area or something, while the Covenant is a pact with someone. These also give Immortals other powers, too. But these depend on another rating. It's a bit confusing, actually.


See, this is one of those things I find a bit irksome about this book. It's complicated, and you get all these schemes to earn abilities that are outside the whole level system, which adds a lot of extra book keeping. You have to keep track of an Immortals victories, their "title", their wellsprings and covenants and the various "tap" levels of same.

" With my sword and head held high, got to pass the test first time - yeah!"

As "Challenges" are so important to an Immortal, it gets a fairly hefty chapter devoted to them, 40 pages worth.

Basically, there are 18 different types of challenges, each with a fairly detailed (page or so) example. These range from creating or destroying artifacts (the whole Lord of the Rings plot, taking a ring to be destroyed in Mt. Doom would be a pretty good example of a Challenge), to tests of Will or Faith (the Last Temptation of Christ would be an example of one of those).

Some involve combat. Some involve self-reflection, sort of. There's one I like where an Immortal has to convert someone (one picked by the Gods, apparently) to a different alignment by convincing them to change. That seems like it could be a lot of fun in practice. There's a pretty wide range of things to do.

This part of the book I liked a lot. It provides a lot of help to the DM in actually implementing the Challenge part of the rules, and to a lesser extent, is very useful for just coming up with adventures, period.

There's also some brief comments on the politics of the Immortal world. And some pre-made paths to Immortality (that is, with fixed Challenges and such). There's only 3 sample Immortals, though, 1 of whom is a real wuss.

"Bring on the girls! C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!"

It's an okay looking book. Not particularly fancy, sort of no frills-ish, but not nearly as spartan as some splat books (notably the one word line from AEG or the Legends & Lairs line from FFG) . The font used is kinda big, so while it's 256 pages, it feels a lot shorter. (Until you try to read it while in bed, then it feels a lot longer.)

While I wouldn't say the layout is bad, exactly, again, it's sort of no frills-ish, and there are lots and lots of tables and such which are scattered all over the book. It would have been nice for these to have been reprinted at the back.

I guess they have improved the editing - I didn't notice too many glaring typos (other than one almost obligatory "looses" instead of "loses".). One weird thing, though, there are constant references to "Core Rulebook I" and "Core Rulebook II", which is a d20 license requirement that was changed a couple years ago (you can now refer to the PHB, DMG, MM, etc).

The art is okay, if a bit on the amateurish side. Some pieces are well done, but most are not remarkable one way or the other. Most art does in fact reflect things in the book ( as opposed to random clip art), but in some cases pieces apparently meant to illustrate a section or rule actually appear a couple pages later.

If 1 were a fanzine done by a drunken pirate and 10 were Freeport: City of Adventure (the best looking d20 book on the market), this would be about a 3.

"People talk about you, people say that you've had your day..."

While not a terrible book, it just isn't a very good one. The first time I read it, after finishing (and waking up), I thought to myself "D'oh! I just wasted $30". Which is unfortunately true - while it's got some okay ideas, it's just something that I would never actually use. While technically the rules are probably playable, they are just a mess.

Also, the writing in the book is kinda boring. Maybe it's just the subject, sorta, I know books on philosophy tend to make me sleepy. But it was a real struggle staying awake while reading this book. (Actually, like a philosophy book, this used a lot of jargon I couldn't keep straight)

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, it's just not what I was looking for. At most, these Immortals are only slightly more epic than epic. Which wouldn't have been bad, but it pretty much promises Immortals on par with gods, both on the back cover of the book and in the flavor text all throughout the book. So it fails at what it says it tries to do.

To be fair, the original Immortals rules for D&D were by Frank Metzner, and the revised were by Aaron Allston. Both perhaps legendary designers (if not immortal). And they were aiming at a setting which didn't have "Gods" to begin with, so they didn't have to try to position something between a "God" and a really tough dude.

I think I'll probably just try to convert those rules for what I'm after and find another home for this book. D+

Also note, this is one of those cases where the RPG.net descriptors don't really fit the numerical rating. I gave it a "2", because that's what I think it is out of 5, but it's definitely not "Sparse". The descriptor for "1", "I wasted my money" is closer to my opinion, but it's really not a 1. Actually probably closer to a 2.5 for Substance and Style, but definitely both below average so I'm rounding down.

(All the quotes are from the song "Princes of the Universe" by Queen. Which is from Highlander. Which is a different sort of immortal, but eh, I like the song. The whole soundtrack is good, actually. And don't try jumping off a mountain, magic or not..)

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