Review of Millenium

Immortal: Millennium is a game in which the players assume the role of newly awakened Immortals as they fight against the forces that created them. Immortal: Millennium is the second edition of the game. It was to be released as a set of four core books. At the time of this writing, only the first book has been released and the rest of the game line has been canceled. The second book is suppose to be posted to the company's web site. The second edition advances the story line and eliminates the Prides of the first edition. The second edition also uses a radically different rule set. Conversion notes for converting first edition to second edition are not presented.

Book 1

The book itself is rather attractive with full color art on the front and back covers as well as on the inside of the covers. The text is easy to read and alternates between a 1 column and 2 column format. An index is not present, but the table of contents is quite detailed. A quick scan of the book reveals many typos, grammar snags, missing punctuation, and several references to page <>.

The artwork in the book is above par for the industry. The art runs the gambit from altered photos to line drawings. The art sometimes interferes with the text as the text is made to curve around the art. This make reading difficult as the start of a line may not be is the same vertical position as the previous line.

Book 1 contains the basic background of Immortal, most of the rules needed to create a character, the basic rules of play, and live action rules. A notable exclusion are the rules for Serenades, which is the form of magic that Immortals can use. Book 1 also has several story threads running the length of the book in the form of email messages.

Background

The bulk of the background ground material fills only five pages in Book 1. The history starts over 65 million years in the past with the exile of the Sanguinary from another dimension. This being crashed into Earth and broke into a million shards. These shards invaded the local life forms granting them sentience and immortality. After the shard invades a host, it is called a Vox and is the source of an Immortal's immortality as well as the device that allows him to alter time and space through the use of Serenades. The first Immortals were created from dinosaurs and they called themselves the Abzulim. These beings founded a civilization that spanned galaxies. To help run this civilization, they created Immortal slaves from plants and animals. Centuries later, the slaves revolted and overthrew their masters. With their new found freedom, they proceeded to fight amongst themselves. While the Immortals fought, Earth and human civilization was rediscovered. Upon arriving on Earth, the Immortals were worshiped as gods. The Immortals became addicted to being worshiped and started fighting with each other for worshippers in what is now known as the Shouting War. During the Shouting War, a third group of Immortals, created by the Abzulim from the elements, appeared and imprisoned the combatants in a dimensional prison. While the Immortals were imprisoned, it was discovered that the Sanguinary was trying to rebuild its body and that it was the true enemy of all Immortals. The imprisoned Immortals were released to begin fighting the Sanguinary. Shortly after thereafter, they founded a civilization that would be known as Atlantis.

And that is where the background material ends. Even though the book mentions that the game is set in the near future, it does not describe the current state of affairs nor what has happened since the founding of Atlantis. It mentions that the Immortals formed several Courts to fight the Saguarity on different fronts, but besides a one line description of each of these Courts, no further information is presented. Also absent is any information on the enemies of the Immortals. Their agents, methodologies, and technologies are not discussed. All that is mentioned is that the Saguarity is using its agents to help rebuild itself and that the Abzulim are returning from their hiding places to reclaim their empire.

Another deficiency in the background material is the lack of definitions for many of the terms used in both the background material and the running story segments. Terms like Dominions and Prides are mentioned but not explained. This severely limits the usefulness of the story threads as a source of adventures as the GM does not know what is being discussed.

Character Creation

An Immortal characters is composed of three attributes which are called Auras. The three Auras are : Body, Mind, and Spirit. The Auras are rated by die type and range from d20 through d4 with d20 being the lowest possible value and d4 being the higher possible value. Human average is d12 and human max is d10. Immortals start off with a d12, d10 , and a d8 to distribute between their Auras. After distributing their Aura dice, they chose a Himsati form. This is the original being that was infected by one of the Sanguinity's shards. The Himsati will be discussed later. The player then decides how many past lives that their character has lived. This is where the character creation rules begin to conflict with the rest of the rule book and even other rules in the same section.

The rules in one part of the character creation section state that for every previous life that the Immortal lived, the player receives 10 memory points with which to build his character. But on the chart on the very next page as well as in the example, the amount of points that a player receives is completely different. The same conflict occurs is calculating of the character's Fugue score. The chart and example in the character creation section gives different results than the rules stated in the Fugue section. It is not clear which section is correct.

After the number of memory points is calculated, the player then chooses a Calling for his character. A Calling is a vague character template such as Guardian or Empath. The only game effect that they have is that they give the character 3 related skills at the basic starting level (d12). Next the player spends memory points to buy natures, foci, skills, and legacies. Again, the rules in the character creation section concerning the cost of items conflict with rules given elsewhere. Legacies, which are mentioned as an item that memory points can be spent on, are not included in the book. Also not included are boons or serenades. The book mentions that both of these item will be in Book 2.

It is assumed that the players will be playing Immortals that have just discovered their immortal nature. To alleviate the burden of living forever, many Immortals enter into a state called Lethe in which they are reborn into the world to develop a new perspective with all memories of their past suppressed. The memory points that the player uses to develop his character simulate the Immortal remembering a skill that he had in a past life. The Fugue score represents the danger of a past personality trying to take over the character's body.

Skills

Skills are broken down into broad categories such as Firearms, Business, Physical Science, Survival, etc... Like Auras they are rated by die type with a d20 representing unskilled and d4 representing complete mastery. Skills are vaguely linked to an Aura. The only time that the Aura comes into play is when a character has a focus. A focus is akin to a subskill of one of the broader skills. An example would be Investing which is a focus of Business. When a player uses a focus of a skill, they roll the Aura die of the Aura that the skill is linked to as well as the skill's die. The player then chooses which result to use.

Himsati

The Himsati is an Immortal's real body. Over the years, Immortals have been forced to take on the form of humans by their worshipers. It seems that human faith can alter the body of an Immortal. Also Immortals emerging from Lethe believe that they are human and thus are inclined to remain human shaped. However, all Immortals have the ability to shapeshift partially or completely to their original form. The act of shapeshifting gives the Immortal Natures which represent abilities native to his natural form. For example: An Immortal whose original body was a bird can grow wing and fly.

The Himsati form can be any animal, plant or element. Book 1 lists most animal and plant forms as well as several elemental forms. The Himsati form can also be a mystical animal, such as a unicorn, but none are listed in Book 1.

Natures

Natures are the natural and mystical abilities that are derived from the Himsati form. Some natures, especially the combat orientated ones, can be improved during the course of play and are rated in dice like Auras and Skills. There are many mistakes in the section on Natures. For example, Natures with a time limit are suppose to roll their die type to see how long they last, but several of the natures with a time limit do not have a die type to roll. There are also several Natures missing from the list.

Rules

To perform general task resolution, a player rolls the die type of the Aura or skill that is being tested. Low numbers are good and high numbers are bad. For static tests, the roll is made against a difficulty number from 0 - 12. A roll under the difficulty number is a success. For opposed tests, both parties roll their dice with the lowest result winning.

There are two sets of modifiers that effect the outcome of the die roll. One set of modifiers change the die type. Another set of modifiers adds or subtracts from the roll itself.

Overall, the basic rules are simple to understand except for the use of the term Rank which is poorly defined. In some chapters, rank refers to a die type and has the values of (from worst to best) 20, 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4. In the main rules chapter there is a chart that has Ranks listed as numerical value from 1 to 6 with 6 being the best. To complicate matters, the numerical values are assigned die types. Rank 1 = d20 and Rank 6 = d4. Rank is also used is another chart to assign difficulty numbers. In this case the range is 1 to 8 with the difficulty numbers ranging from 12 to 0. Rank 1 = Difficulty number 12 and Rank 8 = Difficulty number 0. When the rules refer to Rank, it is not always clear as to which type of Rank to use.

Combat

Combat uses a variation of the basic rules. A standard combat action takes requires 1 to 2 opposed rolls with a few modifiers tossed in. The system runs very quickly but tends to have unrealistic results. For example, damage is an opposed roll vs. body. The attacker rolls a die for damage and defender rolls his Body die. If the attacker rolls lower than the defender, damage is taken. The amount of damage inflicted is determined by looking up the attacker's die roll on a chart. Damage raises the die type of the Aura being damaged. So, as a character takes damage, they become less powerful. The lower the roll the more damage is inflicted. This has the effect of a low body die resisting most damage, but the damage that does get through is devastating. For example, a peon with a body of d20 hits an Immortal with a d4 body. 92.5% of the time, no damage will be done. However, when the peon does do damage, it will drop the Immortals body die to a d8 or d10. So a group of normal human can team up an render an Immortal nonthreatening even though the Immortal has a body of mythic proportions. There are advance damage rules, which are optional, that completely change the results. With the optional rules, the peon from the previous example wouldn't have a chance at seriously injuring an Immortal.

The damage ranks for weapons tends to be on the silly side. A knife is rated a d20 and a Heavy Sword a d12. But, the damage die that is rolled is the better of the characters Body die and the weapon's Rank. For example, a human armed with a knife or heavy sword would roll a d12 for damage. So a normal human does as much damage with his bare fists as a Heavy Sword and more damage than a knife. Given that most Immortals have superior bodies, why would an Immortal ever use a non-magical melee weapon?

Healing and Death

Being a game featuring Immortals who are fighting a war against powerful enemies, the subject of healing takes center stage. Healing in Immortal: Millenium comes in three different forms: instant healing, natural healing, and sinning. Immortals with a powerful Spirit Aura can heal a wound by 1 rank immediately after they take damage. If an Immortal does not have a powerful spirit, they then heal 1-2 rank per session. The first rank is automatic, they can try to heal the second rank if they receive medical attention. If healing 1-2 ranks per session is not fast enough, an Immortal can steal Aura from an mortal, which is known as sinning. If an Immortal attempt to sin and fails their roll, there is a possibility that they will receive a curse, which is covered in a later book.

It is mystifying why the healing rules are so loose and incomplete. No game-time span is given for Natural Healing. So, it doesn't matter if an hour or a century passes during a game, an Immortal can not heal until the next session. And even if a thousand years of game time pass between sessions, an Immortal can only heal 1 rank. The other rule for Natural Healing states that if the Immortal receives medical attention, they can attempt to heal a second rank regardless of the skill level involved. It doesn't matter if a top rate doctor in a modern hospital or a Boy Scout with a Band-Aid treats the Immortal, they still heal at the same rate.

Given the slowness of the healing rate, many PCs will resort to sinning. There is a fair to good chance that a beginning level character will fail his sinning attempt and acquire a Curse. However, Curses will be covered in a later book. Book 1 mentions in some places that curses will be in Book 2 and in other place that they will be in Book 4.

The other topic of interest to Immortals is dying. Immortals in Immortal: Millenium can never die a True Death. An Immortal's physical body can die, but his spirit lives on as a ghost until he can rebuild his body. An Immortal's physical body only dies when his Vox is removed from it. How this is done in the game is not explained. Also not explained is how this applies to Elementals as they do not have their Vox within their bodies to begin with. And continuing the tradition of not explaining how things are done, no mention is made on how an Immortal goes about rebuilding his body after his Vox has been removed.

Social

Unlike many games, Immortal has a set of rules to govern social interaction. Unfortunately social skills are not used in social conflicts even though social skills exist. Instead the die type that is rolled depends on the Social Level at which the interaction takes place. The Social levels are broken down into Lower, Middle, and Upper Class. Lower Class interactions use a d20 while Upper Class interactions use a d8. Other than a description of the classes, no information is given to help determine which social level to use. Once the social level is determined, the die type for that level is rolled and then modifiers are added or subtracted from the roll. The final result is compared to a chart to determine the results. The chart ranges from 1 (total cooperation) to 7+ (active opposition). With this system it is easier to convince a CEO in a board room to invest in a startup company than convincing a thief to help rob a house. In fact the thief will most likely call the cops and fill them in on the details of the character's plan. Adding to the confusing nature of the rules, there are no examples of Social Conflict included in the book.

Fugue

A character's Fugue score represents the possibility of one of the character's past lives taking over character's body. A check is made against this score whenever a character encounters a fugue trigger. Fugue trigger are poorly defined. It is not clear if it is an event that trigger one of the Immortals repressed memories or a mystical geas. It is also not clear is each past life should have its own trigger or which past life tries to take control of the character's body during a fugue check.

When a character encounters a trigger they roll d20 vs. their Fugue rating. On a successful roll, nothing happens. On a failure, character suffers headaches. On a critical failure, a past life takes over their body. Since a character's fugue rating increases as they gain past lives, the more past lives that they have lived, the less likely they are to be taken over by a past life. In fact, at 21+ lives, the character can never suffer fugue. This directly contradicts the background.

Live Action Rules

Also included is a brief section on Live Action Roleplaying. The section does not have much in the way of rules and in more of an introduction to LARPing. More detailed LARP rules are promised at a later time.

Final Opinions

Immortal Millenium is a strange book. Within 96 pages it tries to pack in enough rules and background material to begin play. At this it fails miserably. The game background is sparse and the GM is left to fill in several thousand years of history as well as design all of the enemies, courts, mystical locations, etc... with very little information to go on. The rules are incomplete, contradictory, and very quirky. Given all the problems with this book, it is hard to believe that it is a second edition rulebook. It is not of much use to a newcomer to the world of Immortal as much of the background is missing. Fans of the first edition will not find much of worth in the book as many of the rules are either wrong or missing.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)