Immortal: The Gathering 20th Anniversary Edition
Greetings people, I'm the developer of the 20th Anniversary Edition of the Classic World of Darkness fan splat Immortal: The Gathering, previously called Highlander: The Gathering. I take the handle of Outlander and I'm found on a variety of sites including the Onyx Path forums, Roll20, and /tg/. Now that introductions are over, let me talk about what I'm on about.
Why are you updating this?
Well this is a popular splat that's was made way back in the 90's with the help of a White Wolf Freelancer, and it's one of, if not the, best known Classic World of Darkness fan splats. It's most noted problem was balanced and other such interactions with other lines, but it's still a great and fun splat to play. I love the splat personally and think it's always fun to shove it in another game line because it's so damn awesome.
What did you change?
Well I didn't change too much, the biggest change over the Revised edition of Immortal: The Gathering is the addition of Dark Quickening as a morality system. Dark Quickening was in the Revised system to a degree, but didn't encapsulate a morality system. This system is basically a copy paste of Demon: The Fallen's system of morality, which is far looser and is a constant struggle to keep balance. I also added more than just morality, I followed the 20th Anniversary's idea for the metaplot which is agnostic approach, going with the belief that the splat should work with
ANY other CWoD splat. Just being able to put an Immortal inside any of splat and having it work well seems like it can make any game more fun to me, especially when the Immortal goes through the process of First Death during the game and has to come to terms with immortality with other Supernaturals who are equally as confused. The more character development that can be added to a game, the more interesting the game it is to me, which is one of my goals.
I removed some other things to the game, however. One of the major things I said above was making it metaplot agnostic, as such I removed all connection to the movies beyond quotes and other such things to the movies and series. I want Immortals to seem rare and unique, less than 500 in a world of 7 billion people, and by having established characters, I think this hurts this idea. As such I have left this all up to the Storyteller to make and decide. Immortal duels should be rare, at random or an entire story building up to a fight, and make the game more interesting; they should not be a Dungeons and Dragons style murderfest to level up and get stronger.
One of the other most important things I did was balance and rule clarifications, or I at least tried. I picked the most important things from movies and series, and gave them a healthy touch from the World of Darkness. Immortals aren't as unstoppable as they used to be in previous editions. I changed the healing chart speeds to make them not healing tanks. Their powers are now come with a cost, they get tired and get weakened after pushing their bodies to the limit for fighting and super strength. No longer are they completely unstoppable, least not till Elder tier.
What's next?
I have spent the past ~4 months working on the system and the character sheet, which I feel is a usable update to the system. I reworked the duel system to work not only with the new versions, but with other Supernaturals. Here's the list of stuff I feel I need to work on.
- Balance powers more. I can't clarify this enough, and I'm working a lot on this to balance the system. I love feedback, so feel free to bitch.
- Editing. I've been pretty lax in this regard, but I feel like this is an important thing.
- Work more on power interactions between splats. I have a huge ass page of these and it's still not enough.
- Add more to the Storyteller chapter. I don't have nearly enough for this I believe. I'd love to add more ties between the splats like Demons seeing them a Malhim of some type, how Vampires interact with them, and their relationship with the Traditions and Technocracy. I'd also like to add more ideas for PC's and major NPC's that involve them; Technocrat super soldier who died on the table and triggered his First Death, Vampire ghoul who died during his embrace and woke up neither Human or Vampire. More fun things like this. Including more stuff about how to run an all Immortal game and how to make each of them feel unique which is very important to me.
- More on favored weapons. An Immortal's blade is like a third arm to him, and is fundamentally part of his soul. It's super important to their character. I'd like to expand upon this and make this a more important part of the character beyond being just a weapon.
- More Immortal unique abilities and backgrounds. Immortals are extremely strange, their bodies are like a normal human, but their powers are beyond that. I want to make an Immortal able to do more super human things beyond just a swinging a sword faster and moving quickly. Highlander The Search of Vengeance is a huge inspiration to this for me. I'll probably go diving through the Hunter books and some older splats for lost abilities and backgrounds that help with this, along with other new merits.
- Add more Merits and Flaws. I feel like I have a lot here but there's never enough neat ideas that can be done with such a unique character in my belief.
- More inclusion for Hedge Magic. One of the largest things I noticed with Immortals is the lack of magic to them. They might be nearly indestructible but they can't even see a Vampire with Obfuscate. They have little to no magical defenses beyond their passive powers. Hedge Magic combined with the Quickening can make for even more unique characters in my opinion, like an Immortal Sorcerer who runs a society of Sorcerers that tries to help humanity or destroy them. Magic is superbly used in the Highlander fluff and I feel like that's important to remember.
Where's the current edition?
I will always have a page devoted to the most current version of the splat. I will update it with some change log notes on a new blog post when I do. I'll post the newest version, 0.21, soon. And I love feedback, so feel free to vent your rage or passion in the comments, /tg/, or OPP forums.
-Outlander
