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2017-10-11, 02:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
So I have an NPC immortal who has a ritual that returns him to young adulthood when performed. This ritual can be performed at any point, but he usually waits until he's approaching old age to do so. It's important to him that he retains both his family name and access to the money he's acquired over, at this point, about 200 years. This is, however, becoming increasingly hard to do in the modern world (current-day united states). The preferred strategy is to be your own heir, but that can be hard, especially as he needs to be a "natural" heir.
- He's under the impression that he's ethical, so killing someone to take their place, or imprisoning them long-term, is not an option. Shunting them off somewhere is, especially as he has the money to provide.
- He's a good magician, but his abilities in mind control are very limited. It's possible to control the mind of one person for a period of time, but this cannot be extended indefinitely once he no longer has access to them. Using psychic powers to fool a large number of people is out of the question.
- False memories might be possible but would generally only cover a short time (24h or less) and have to be implanted fairly immediately.
- Standard modern methods of appearance change are of course on the table, but magical ones generally aren't, unless they make a permanent physical change.
- Remember this guy has a lot of money. He will almost never kill a witness though if he can help it. He can and will pay his way around.
- He comes from a well-off family, and people are aware of that. He has a lot of political influence and generally tries to insinuate himself into public life, although usually not by seeking office himself.
- Because of his name and fortune, he can expect irregularities will be scrutinized by others hoping to inherit.
- Other than the ritual, he functions as a normal biological human. This includes normal reproductive ability for a male of the age he is currently living at.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-11, 03:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Norway
- Gender
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Alright, so the down-side is that you are going to have to get someone to go along with your scheme here and it's probably going to have to be the one to play your significant other. You will probably only get her to go along with this by offering her the same immortality at some point down the line.
Next, you're going to have to announce that you are expecting while she goes under cover for 9 months and then you have to announce your child will be attending an undisclosed boarding school for his own protection.
You now need to make wax dolls of yourself and your significant other. These will be your bodies after you both "die" of natural causes. Space them out or "die" in a staged car accident. Cremate the bodies and bury the urns on private property.
After some time passes, you and your significant other "meet again" and marry over again, on your anniversary. You announce it as the romantic idea that you decided to do it on your parents anniversary as a symbolic gesture.
This will last you this century until population becomes tracked digitally.
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2017-10-11, 03:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
It helps a lot to do this outside of the United States. He's only doing this every 50-60 years, so that's only once or twice in the modern era - if he has to do this now, his last reset was probably in the 1950s.
If he carefully liquidates most of his assets (around 90% or so) over a period of a few years, all the money can be placed into secure accounts in offshore and intensely private banks in the name of the fictitious heir. You should also establish the heir to be as existing by paying someone to doctor photos and create a paper trail and set of social media records for the person who doesn't exist. Then you just fake a death in a plane crash or boating accident in some place suitably far from the cameras (Indonesia's good for boating mishaps) and then emerge as the natural heir subsequently. So long as we are talking about large but not ridiculous sums of money - tens of millions not hundreds of millions or billions, then this sort of thing shouldn't raise too many eyebrows (hundreds of wealthy oligarchs place this kind of cash in foreign accounts in the names of family members every year).
Reset is going to kill personal political influence most likely, but if this guy is smart he does all his lobbying through a powerful foundation, so that way a lot of the gains can transfer easily to new leadership.
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2017-10-11, 04:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2014
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
If he's a user of magic of some sort, could he make a homunculus or other biological (or seemingly biological) construct made to grow pretty much identical to himself as his "heir"? Then when he goes through with the ritual, he just gets rid of the construct and takes its place. Don't know if getting rid of homunculi and the sort counts as killing people though...
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2017-10-11, 04:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
The difficulty here is that it really does have to take place in the U.S., he absolutely has to reside there. Also the ritual likely isn't going to work for someone else - it's tied to his personal powers in a way that, even if someone else performed it, it would have no effect on them.
So the trouble is going to be to generate the natural heir. Keep in mind he has lots of other relatives who likely want a piece of the pie, and can afford good lawyers. So having legal documents for this heir is likely crucial, and forgeries won't work well. Their lawyers will need to be able to go to the relevant department of vital statistics and find a birth certificate filed there - they won't accept copies from someone else. Similarly they need to appear to be a biological descendant. Probably need to be able to fool DNA tests as needed.
A homunculus might be possible, but it would be very difficult and represent an almost constant power drain. The magic system is custom (and a bit handwavey, since the players don't really get to use most of it), but it's much more of a scrabble for carefully hoarded power and using a lot of that power to keep yourself safe from nastier beasts.
A foundation is likely, especially if you can arrange for a job for the "new" heir. The name itself carries a local cachet as well.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-11, 06:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2017
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
For some reason this is making me think of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, although the immortality in that series isn't really relevant and would be nigh-impossible to pull off in a game setting.
My big question is, what sort of relationships do magic users have with other magic users? Specifically, how much value is there to cooperation? If you don't have to worry about other mages either pulling a Highlander on you or else the two of you being much more likely to stand out to the bigger occult nasties, an intelligent system of tradeoffs could easily be the smartest bet. Two people each taking turns discovering "a fresh new talent" who happened to be the others' new incarnation would attract less scrutiny and be easier to forge. And while you couldn't keep all your wealth, that leg up could be just enough to ensure comfort without building up the super visibility that comes along with super wealth.
Even if cooperating with another mage isn't workable for whatever reason, a 200 year old could easily realize that after a certain point, money is more likely to bring problems than it is more comfort and influence. Telling a confederate everything and paying them off to play along comes with certain risks - there's nothing stopping them from reneging after you're legally dead, after all - but aiming to be well situated instead of keeping the bulk of your money might still ne the best path.
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2017-10-11, 07:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Human magic users of this sort of power that are even remotely classifiable as sane are extremely, extremely, extremely rare, to the point where he might not even know of another one, and if he does they probably aren't even on the same continent. Non-human or demi-human magic users hiding in the shadows are much more common, and they don't like human ones (plus his immortality is kind of related to killing them off).
He also has immortality for the sake of a goal - being able to guide future monster hunters - not just immortality for the sake of immortality. So he doesn't just need enough money to be comfortable, he needs enough money to be a big player in the local political scene. He wants to be able to do things like endow schools and such. He also needs, specifically, to hang on to being a natural biological heir to the family name. That's the part that makes it so difficult. He needs a specific identity as a member of a specific family line, not just an identity he can operate under.
I think the money is going to be the easier part though, once the identity is established. In the modern world, there are a lot of places you can put money, and a rich guy keeping most of his money in offshore bank accounts isn't really going to be very suspicious. Swiss bank accounts are a classic, although I believe Andorra is growing in popularity. Either way, in this day and age, finding somewhere that will hold your money and not ask too many questions is easy.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-11, 09:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
For the past couple hundred years or so, his best option for maintaining an anonymous source of wealth is a small, private corporation, which we'll call The Millenium Trust. It is privately held, he is the only shareholder, and he passes control of this to his "heir" when the time comes. Sometimes, the Millenium Trust sells itself to someone else, becoming the Eternity Foundation or something, which is still the same thing, just under a new name. It might occasionally split, with one branch buying the assets of the other after a while.
Corporations are allowed to be eternal in ways people cannot. It looks weird if a person doesn't die after 100 years; for corporations, it looks distinguished.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2017-10-11, 09:41 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
I think the family name part is going to be the difficulty, not the money. The money will follow, but it's very important that he be recognized as his own natural son, or at the very least retain his original family name. And that name is quite prominent in local area politics.
Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-11, 10:07 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Have a lot of illegitimate children, so that any given individual isn't unreasonably his natural son. Make a habit of sending your children abroad to various schools, so there's big chunks where people might not know them. It means diluting the fortune with each pass (because you have to share some out to other illegitimate children), but it also means that you can appear, mostly grown, with a plausible backstory.
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2017-10-11, 10:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2017
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Just as a question, why does he need to be considered as his own natural-born son? What would the problem be with being considered an adopted child?
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2017-10-11, 10:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
In the short term looks might be an issue that can be solved by 'natural-born son'.
The first question is who exactly does he have to fool? Fooling everybody, fooling just the government, and fooling just the local populace have different outcomes.
A possibility is to be open with the government, get their help in falsifying records, and come to some sort of arrangement. A corporation with it's offices in the country that turns large profits also means the government gets money in taxes. Just relocate every half century or so after the ritual.
If you only have to fool the government, then you don't need to worry about fooling those who'll see you any day. I cannot give any help beyond that.
If you need to fool everyone, then you probably want an elaborate scheme.
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2017-10-11, 03:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
If he doesn't need to keep his immortality secret, why not just get together legal and scientific experts to confirm that that his de-aging ceremony is legally okay? Then he can just keep living forever without any problems.
He could also just re-do his ritual every few years so there's never much change to his appearance. Sure it might seem suspicious after a while, but with care he could document his unaging appearance properly. He could even go on a diet or something and attribute his unaging appearance to that, or just accept the fame of being a wonder of human biology.Last edited by Slipperychicken; 2017-10-11 at 03:38 PM.
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2017-10-11, 06:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Ok, the rules here:
- Bloodline is very important here, which is why being a natural-born son is important.
- The immortality needs to be kept secret from everybody, or at least from everybody who doesn't already strongly believe in magic (which amounts to almost everybody)
- His project means he has to stay living most of the time in roughly the same area. Relocating to a different area isn't an option. This is also why a natural-born son is important.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-11, 07:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
He could find a "lookalike" newborn, get its birth registered as his own son, send that baby off someplace it's unlikely to cause trouble (ideally where it will be registered for real and raised normally), then pretend to be raising the child in total secrecy, homeschooled, anti-vax, everything to justify the fact that no-one has ever seen the kid. Make it abundantly clear that this imaginary mistreated child is the sole rightful heir. Then once the fictional child has hit the right age, daddy fakes his own disappearance and emerges from the woodwork as his own son. Then he goes and jumps through any bureaucracy he might find convenient (such as driver's license, degrees, etc), and goes on living much as he did before, with most eccentricities explained by being a homeschooled hick raised by a crazy neglectful billionaire.
Of course, if it's possible to get the birth registered without the use of an actual infant, or just bribe someone to make it happen, that would simplify things considerably. Living out in the sticks, or at least pretending to keep his child there, would also help.
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2017-10-11, 07:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Two issues here:
One, he does need to live in a fairly urban area, and he needs to be involved in community life. This also means he needs to not look too crazy. I imagine that would be easier solved by foreign schooling though - after all, if he's rich, sending the child to a fancy european boarding school is fine.
Two, it might be easier if he could figure out a way to fake a natural death rather than an accident. He has to keep repeating this, and people notice things.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-11, 07:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
You said that he's under the impression that he's not evil. Not that he ISN'T. So...If he's training future monster hunters, passing down necessary information for the survival of the species as well as taking care of the widows/widowers/orphans created by the profession...What's a few accidents, really? Those people are on the monster's side, if they will threaten his ability to guide humanity into a bright new future of not being snack food for monsters.
Also, he could pretend to have a nasty genetic disease/disposition to a certain disease. If he looks like he's weak, others won't assume he's a monster hunter and he'll lull his enemies into a false sense of security. It'd explain a few accidents as well.
And find ways to avoid the limelight. Don't get fancy houses, drive reasonable cars, wear jeans, and don't ever get involved in politics.
Maybe obtain an inner circle of very loyal people? Someone to forge birth certificates, a doctor, a false child, and a false mid-wife could go very far. If he targets those who have survived monster attacks, they might be rather sympathetic to their cause. Use that mind magic not to control, but to ensure loyalty of the followers.Last edited by Honest Tiefling; 2017-10-11 at 07:46 PM.
For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2017-10-11, 08:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2017
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Knowing that he's a monster hunter who happens to be a mage as opposed to a mage primarily makes me want to ask the same thing I asked before with a different spin. Does he have clued in monster hunter allies? Having help who are clued in and aware is massively easier than trying to do it all on his own.
And while this may have some slight inconveniences, has he invested in having normal children? On the one hand, mundane children can distract from important hunting duties and provide a weak point for your enemies to attack. On the other hand, clued in blood relatives can be a massive benefit once they've grown up. Just remember how well the draketooth clan did defending their gate, until they ran afoul of a stray bit of epic badness. Being able to become his own grandson should be an easier ruse to pull off, since there's an established adult person to help guide the process along. Plus, ruthless child masterminds can be chilling.
(As a bonus point for the grandson plan, one angle I like to play up with in modern fantasy is how quickly the world is changing. Long lived supernaturals might well have to scramble for a suboptimal plan, simply because the mortal world has changed so much over a few short generations.)Last edited by Anymage; 2017-10-11 at 08:26 PM. Reason: Fixed tags
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2017-10-11, 09:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
As long as he can travel briefly, he can still take advantage of the more porous record systems of other nations besides the US. The modern elite are very global oriented, and they spend time briefly in lots of different places going to stuff like Davos and so forth. This character has access to mental compulsion, so he can sow a history of having a girl in every port and illegitimate children attending foreign schools. Then you just pick one as the identity you respawn into and move back to the US (if you're rich, you can just buy into the country using an investment visa).
Two, it might be easier if he could figure out a way to fake a natural death rather than an accident. He has to keep repeating this, and people notice things
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2017-10-11, 09:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Thinking about this, I have some more ideas:
Firstly, if he's a known monster hunter, could the monsters take care of his relatives for him? I am assuming that while his facade is good, it's not good enough and some have figured it out. This might reduce the likelihood of relatives poking around if they have become monster food.
Secondly, does he have access to magic to reduce fertility rates? I mean, it's still not ethical, but it's far better then letting monsters run amok, right? So just reduce the number of problematic relatives. (And if they are the type to make a fuss about inheritance, maybe they aren't such great people to begin with.)
Depending on the character's age, a good ol' fire could have wrecked a lot of records. I am not really sure when records got online or into more secure databases, but fires could be blamed on all sorts of things. Why would the local bigwig do that? Especially if a monster got into local politics...Two birds, one fire!
And what if he decided to take care of a son he made when he (and the woman) had when they were teenagers? In that case, the child is only given information of their birth parents once they hit 18, which might explain a tearful reunion kept in private due to the shame of knocking someone up. (No judgement if you have done this or a product of this, but this guy doesn't seem like he values tolerance over monster butt kicking).For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2017-10-11, 09:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2017
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
So it looks like the best bet is to father a child and shuffle some memories around to get the child into the adoptive system without paperwork being filed so that he can take his own place later.
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2017-10-12, 12:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
You have the ethos of world of darkness down here pretty well. "Not evil" usually means "at least I'm better than that guy." This being world of darkness, that may not be a high standard.
Also, he could pretend to have a nasty genetic disease/disposition to a certain disease. If he looks like he's weak, others won't assume he's a monster hunter and he'll lull his enemies into a false sense of security. It'd explain a few accidents as well.
And find ways to avoid the limelight. Don't get fancy houses, drive reasonable cars, wear jeans, and don't ever get involved in politics.
Maybe obtain an inner circle of very loyal people? Someone to forge birth certificates, a doctor, a false child, and a false mid-wife could go very far. If he targets those who have survived monster attacks, they might be rather sympathetic to their cause. Use that mind magic not to control, but to ensure loyalty of the followers.
And while this may have some slight inconveniences, has he invested in having normal children? On the one hand, mundane children can distract from important hunting duties and provide a weak point for your enemies to attack. On the other hand, clued in blood relatives can be a massive benefit once they've grown up. Just remember how well the draketooth clan did defending their gate, until they ran afoul of a stray bit of epic badness. Being able to become his own grandson should be an easier ruse to pull off, since there's an established adult person to help guide the process along. Plus, ruthless child masterminds can be chilling.
(As a bonus point for the grandson plan, one angle I like to play up with in modern fantasy is how quickly the world is changing. Long lived supernaturals might well have to scramble for a suboptimal plan, simply because the mortal world has changed so much over a few short generations.)
That would work well, especially if he could find a foreign-born (but ethnically similar) cooperative woman as the mother. Maybe a european graduate student? She gives birth in the U.S., but along with her child moves back to her home country. Upon arrival in the home country the infant is given a new identity and raised there to hopefully live a normal, quiet life. Meanwhile educational records are faked for the new life. Heck, if he wants to give a few extra years, he could get some real ones by going to college somewhere, might not be a bad idea. "Resurface" in London, there's a nice little business school there, get a degree.
I'm also assuming he could at least guarantee the child is a boy. There's lots of ways to do that. Sex-selective IVF combined with a little bit of magic (to help ensure implantation and survival) would be the easiest.Last edited by WarKitty; 2017-10-12 at 12:45 AM.
Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2017-10-12, 08:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
I see two issues here. First, identity, and second, assets.
1. Identity. If you create another "you," you'd better be able to document his existence while you're still alive, or else eyebrows will be raised.
Step one is the birth. Find a woman about to give birth. Ideally, an undocumented immigrant - no documents makes it hard for her to be traced, and hard for her to challenge your actions. I'm going to assume you're quite wealthy - pay to have her removed to another country, one where the laws are looser about birth registry. In the alternative, as has been mentioned, simply find a woman in another country, that works too. Disappear with her for the duration of the birth. Set her up for life there - nice home, small fortune. One payoff like this every 50 years or so is manageable, and makes it highly unlikely that she'll be back to become an issue. Register the birth of her child in that country. Register yourself as the father, and your "self" as the child - pay someone off to register the real child, if you like. Return afterwards to the States, and admit that you were involved in a sudden, whirlwind romance, but that your bride decided to "go home," and that she will be raising the child for now. Be a bit heartbroken, but admit that it's for the best.
Bam. You now have the birth documents to prove the legal existence of your "heir," an explanation for his absence, and nobody around to contradict your story. The real child will grow up in that other country, comfortable and out of your hair, and you can move forward with phase 2.
2. Assets. At no point will you and your "heir" ever be in the same place at the same time. That will make it hard to prove that "he" is your heir. You can't exactly go around showing people pictures of young "you," which means that when the new "you" shows up seeking to reacquire your fortune and inheritance, people will be skeptical. Know what assuages skepticism? Money. But how can young "you" acquire old "you's" money before an inheritance changes hands? Oh, if only there was a place known for banks that don't ask questions.
Before you "die," you establish a Swiss bank account, and deposit substantial funds. Enough for old "you" to survive off the grid for a year or so, and young "you" for a few years after that. Since you have young "you's" documentation, you make him a joint account holder. Then, old "you" tells his friends and loved ones that he is ready to retire to a chateau in another country - say, France, or something - and wishes to reunite with his son.
Now, this is important. During the years that young "you" has been away, you'll have been building a credit history for young "you." Make online purchases. Have them sent somewhere - say, a second home in Europe or something - to demonstrate that young "you" exists. Next, and here is the tricky part, as old "you," file the paperwork to get young "you" a passport. Note that there is a window here - you can only do it after you make the transfer, because you need photographs of young "you," but you have to do it in such a way that raises no suspicion.
Passport in hand, young "you" can proceed to make withdrawals on your Swiss account, live things up in Europe for a few months, then come back to the States, with ample documentation and proof of your identity. Tell them all about reuniting with your "father," about how he wanted you to follow in his footsteps, etc. You have access to your Swiss account, so you can appear independently wealthy, which will be enough to silence most critics.
Wait a few years, then observe to people that you've stopped hearing from him. Take another trip abroad, to wherever old "you" said he was retiring. Find an unidentified corpse in a morgue, they're not that rare, and identify it as old "you." It might not hurt to bring your wallet, if you catch my drift. Be sure to acquire a copy of the certificate of death. Return to the States, mournful, and reveal your "father's" tragic passing. File the certificate lawfully, and the execution of the will of old "you" will follow.
Obviously, old "you" will have drafted a will after having a son, leaving everything to the son.
There might be some investigation. But everything will be above-board. Your "father" will have confirmed your existence while he was alive, there's ample documentation to prove you exist. And the certificate of death, filed well after your return to the States, proves that his death was real and recent. No documents were forged; they're all completely real, and withstand any scrutiny. There are no questions that need be asked, no lingering curiosity. You will inherit your "father's" wealth, and come full circle.
And by the time you repeat the process, fifty years from now, nobody will even remember.My headache medicine has a little "Ex" inscribed on the pill. It's not a brand name; it's an indicator that it works inside an Anti-Magic Field.
Blue text means sarcasm. Purple text means evil. White text is invisible.
My signature got too big for its britches. So now it's over here!
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2017-10-12, 10:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2011
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Quite a few ways have been covered in various fictions over the years, but I don't remember them well.
My only real note is that I think it's better to hvae the old you retire to an undisclosed location; that would be easier to fake and less suspicious than death I think.A neat custom class for 3.5 system
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94616
A good set of benchmarks for PF/3.5
https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2...y-the-numbers/
An alternate craft point system I made for 3.5
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...t-Point-system
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2017-10-12, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2016
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
"It's important to him that he retains both his family name and access to the money he's acquired over, at this point, about 200 years."
How the heck he was able to live in modern society this long without anyone finding it suspicious?
It's impossible for an immortal being to live under the same family name in modern society without rising any eyebrows.
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2017-10-12, 02:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Probably because modern society hasn't been around that long, so he only has a few iterations to worry about. Since it isn't exactly impossible for children to be the spitting image of a relative, it could be possible to mask it for a few generations.
Oddly, I think he'd be really good at dressing himself. There has to be a few tricks for the modern man to disguise himself and look like a completely different person. Hair dye might solve a few issues.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2017-10-12, 02:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
As ever, Red Fel has an excellent scheme for you. I suggest using it as ONE of at least two, if not three or four, methods, so that you can't have nosey, suspicious individuals look at your "father" and discover that how HE learned of his heritage is remarkably similar to the unusual way you did.I will posit a second approach: raising your own "son."
Depending on the magics available, you can either pull a "secret identity" or you can create a false stand-in. If this were D&D, I'd suggest going with a series of simulacrums. Find some 25 people of varying ages who look sufficiently like you that you can claim their photos as past images of you. Then create a simulacrum of each. Tutor the ones that are old enough to talk in the history you're building for your next incarnation, and have them change schools every year and go on month long vacations between school years. Appear sporadically at events with you. In case it's not obvious, every year after a lengthy time away from the public eye, you swap out which simulacrum is your child.
Now, you and your child appear in public, and your child has a life of his own, with paperwork, etc. Because they're simulacra, they have no actual minds of their own but do a perfect impression of doing so. They can be stored in a nice cellar somewhere without growing bored or needing maintenance beyond (perhaps) regular cleaning, until they're needed again for your next cycle through.
Aside from the replication of some part of Red Fel's suggestions for forging birth documents, you won't have to even bribe anybody for semi-legal paperwork; the paperwork for the fictitious offspring is legit, except for its basis in the one fraudulent set that establishes his birth. Even your school records are real, complete with friends who remember you. (You'll want to be sure to get those memories as time gets closer to faking your death, so you "remember" his old friends. You can feign the fog of ages for a lot of early stuff, but failure to remember the clique he hung out with a year ago might be an issue.)
Edit to add: I have a character who is an immortal stuck at 12 years of apparent age who cycles himself through the foster system. Every 2-3 years, he makes sure that during a transfer to a new foster family his records get "updated" to reset his age to 11 or so, so on paper he's always between an old-looking 11 and a young-looking 14. He heavily relies on the fecklessness of CPS and their records-keeping to manage this.Last edited by Segev; 2017-10-12 at 02:32 PM.
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2017-10-12, 02:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Another thought occurs to me: Obfuscation. If there are some fishy coincidences with the ol' family tree, the best way to hide them might not to be to keep them a secret. People love a good family drama, especially when it involves money. Ghost write as many trashy, half-true, half-accurate books of the story of the family as possible. Anyone doing research is going to be inundated with facts that'll be a snarl to untangle due to the books all referencing each other and records that were destroyed. Bonus points if anyone looking into this history often comes across as a looney!
Someone from the inner circle could even make a museum with obvious fakes in it about the 'sordid' history of the family, including their reported demon summoning, that time a member of the family was raised by Bigfoot, their ties to the Illuminati, the scandalous affair with Elvis, and the member of the family who claimed to be psychic but died in an airplane crash.Last edited by Honest Tiefling; 2017-10-12 at 02:38 PM.
For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2017-10-12, 02:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
Oh, and don't underestimate the utility of disguise. After youthenizing yourself, keep an "old you" disguise kit handy. Go out as "old you" and also have "young you" (now real-you) participate in the world.
If you're using my simulacrum suggestion, make one of yourself as an old man, too, to keep around as "Father" for a while after your ritual.
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2017-10-12, 06:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Help me with the logistics of living an immortal life!
This is WoD second-sight based type magic, not D&D magic. You can pretty much presume anything even approaching the level of simalcrum is entirely beyond the reach of a mortal mage. The true fey can do that, but unless you want to make a bargain with one of them (spoiler: that's a terrible idea), you can't.
Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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