So You're Mortal... Now What?

vhurka:

I was flipping through Promethean the other day, and it just occured to me:

What happens to these guys after the pilgrimage is over?

I mean, yes, they get their souls back, and they're human again, and that's all very well and good, but what do they do with their now-human lives? Is this talked about in any of the books?

i believe its midnight roads, with a npc who works with a circus sideshow as a "strong man" who is supposedly an ex prommie.

Michael S:

vhurka:

What happens to these guys after the pilgrimage is over?

And they lived happily ever after.

Seriously, why not?

Or we could go with a more depressing alternative...

The Prommie becomes Redeemed but finds that he is not cut out for society yet. He's spent years or even decades avoiding too much interaction with humans, which makes him slightly "socially backward." He doesn't have any documents to give him a 'legitimate' identity - no bank cards, no birth certificate, no driver license. He doesn't have any money, or if he does he doesn't have enough (or the accompanying documentation necessary) to be given a rental apartment. And he has no qualifications from university or any after-school training (eg. plumbing or mechanic).

So what happens? He ends up on the streets, begging for scraps to avoid dying. Then winter comes about, and without that iron constitution he used to have, he starts to get sick from the cold of the alleyways and the streets. He can't afford to go to the doctor, so he gets worse every day. Eventually he falls asleep in an alleyway one night, too sick from the cold.

He doesn't wake up.

And there's what is more likely to happen to a Redeemed.

Well said!

Armidale Cheiron:

Michael S:

vhurka:

What happens to these guys after the pilgrimage is over?

And they lived happily ever after.

Seriously, why not?

Or we could go with a more depressing alternative...

The Prommie becomes Redeemed but finds that he is not cut out for society yet. He's spent years or even decades avoiding too much interaction with humans, which makes him slightly "socially backward." He doesn't have any documents to give him a 'legitimate' identity - no bank cards, no birth certificate, no driver license. He doesn't have any money, or if he does he doesn't have enough (or the accompanying documentation necessary) to be given a rental apartment. And he has no qualifications from university or any after-school training (eg. plumbing or mechanic).

So what happens? He ends up on the streets, begging for scraps to avoid dying. Then winter comes about, and without that iron constitution he used to have, he starts to get sick from the cold of the alleyways and the streets. He can't afford to go to the doctor, so he gets worse every day. Eventually he falls asleep in an alleyway one night, too sick from the cold.

He doesn't wake up.

And there's what is more likely to happen to a Redeemed.

Actually when I ran promethan when my players didn't know anything about the game one of the first things they did was attempt attempt to get identification, so chances are they know you need those things to live in civilized society, and chances are they know about identification the first time that someone asks them their name.  Usually that part of the game is lost because most times PC's make their characters after the slab phase and they never tackle though first things people ask you when you wake up.  "Who are you, "do you have I.D", "you need money to pay for that".  Any promethan that went by a city has heard these questions and know about this

Couldn't they just forge an I.D? Kind of reminds me of that Hunter PDF where a Promethean became a Russian Mob boss.

vhurka:

I was just curious about what an NPC promethean would do and how they would react to becoming mortal. I can't imagine it would be easy to adapt to.

One catch: mortality isn't something that happens to a Promethean, and thus needs to be adapted to.  It is the culmination of the Promethean's journey.  The Pilgrimage, central to a Promethean's story, is all about preparing the Promethean for mortality: in a very real sense, the Promethean spends his entire existence as a Promethean adapting to mortality.  After that, the typical Redeemed sets out to enjoy the fruits of his labor. 

But setting that aside for the moment, consider the Archetypes from Geist.  There, the idea is that your character has had a life-altering experience (i.e., death, or a near-death experience).  The Archetype represents how the character responded to it.  The New Dawn is every bit as much of a life-changing experience as Geist's near-death experiences are, and would likely trigger similar responses. 

For example, a newly-Redeemed mortal might choose to go out and live her new life to the fullest: she would be not unlike a Celebrant.  Another may choose to seek out Prometheans and to guide them along their Pilgrimages - an Advocate.  A Bonepicker analog would be a Redeemed who develops a deep appreciation for the everyday comforts of life.  The Gatekeeper analog would seek to keep Prometheans from disrupting the mortal world.  The Mourner equivalent would be a mortal who regrets his New Dawn, and wishes he could go back to being a Promethean.  The equivalent of the Necromancer would be the Alchemist: a mortal who is fascinated by the Divine Fire and what it can do.  The Pilgrim is rather straightforward: once he achieved Mortality, he realized that it wasn't the end of his Pilgrimage, but merely another milestone on it; he still seeks enlightenment and spiritual improvement as he did when he was a Promethean.  And the Reaper is a Redeemed who hunts down and destroys Pandorans, Centimani, and other Prometheans who show signs of going the route of the monster. 

DataWeaver you read my mind, you don't know just how close I was to bringing up the geist life changing Archetypes.

cobrawax:

Couldn't they just forge an I.D?

No one JUST forges and ID. Its possible that they did have a false I set up in the system as part of their pilgrimage, or stole someone's identity, but there is nothing easy about creating a false persona in the system.

Dataweaver:

But setting that aside for the moment, consider the Archetypes from Geist.  There, the idea is that your character has had a life-altering experience (i.e., death, or a near-death experience).  The Archetype represents how the character responded to it.  The New Dawn is every bit as much of a life-changing experience as Geist's near-death experiences are, and would likely trigger similar responses.

BTW, I originally suggested this purely as a matter of roleplaying guidelines; I was figuring that there would be no game-mechanical system associated with it.  And that's still a perfectly valid way to handle it - and perhaps even the preferred way of doing so. 

But it has since occurred to me that you could do more with this idea if the Redeemed had an Athanor: say that he might still have limited access to his Promethean Boon, in a manner roughly analogous to how Archetypal Manifestations work for Sin-Eaters.  That is, if there's an aspect of the Athanor's Promethean Boon that requires the expenditure of Reagent to use, then once per story, the Redeemed can use that capability as if he were a Promethean who had spent a point of Reagent on it, as long as it's being used to further the cause of the Archetype. 

Depending on how potent you want this to be, you might go further by saying that the newly-Redeemed gets to keep the full benefits of the Athanor, except that Reagent doesn't regenerate on its own (and it starts out empty, having been expended to help transmute the Promethean into a mortal); it has to be generated through the Archetype, the way that a Geist can generate Plasm through its Archetype. 

You might even go so far as to tie the level of access to the degree of success on the final Azoth roll: those who achieved an Extraordinary Success get to retain the full Athanor benefits but with limited refueling capabilities, while those who achieved only a normal success would only have access to an "Archetypal Manifestation" of the Promethean Boon.  Or perhaps you need a mortal-only merit in order to access this potential, much as how a hunter doesn't benefit from his Profession unless he has the Professional Training merit: at one dot, you get the "Archetypal Manifestation"; at three(?) dots, you get the "Virtue/Vice Channels" version. 

Sparketh:

If they are in the US, their soul didn't come with a SSN, a high school diploma, or a working knowledge of how to deal with the DMV.

Most ordinary mortals can't understand the DMV.

ChaosWolf:

Most ordinary mortals can't understand the DMV.

+10 points

ChaosWolf:

Most ordinary mortals can't understand the DMV.

You have won this thread.  Gain 10 experience points.

Shock:

or have them them become Immortals

This, most of the methods for immortality are discoverable and who'd spend all that time trying to earn something and only want a short run at it? 

Shock:

Or kill them all and make them vamps!

Vampires, while not difficult type of immortality is a total rip off for a Promethean,

You can't really choose to be a Mage, though a Toaist Alchemist from Second sights seems doable, and damn appropriate given the previous line of study.

Alabaster Xnight:

This, most of the methods for immortality are discoverable and who'd spend all that time trying to earn something and only want a short run at it? 

I have a friend who is fond of saying that an oft-overlooked element of Greek mythology is that the gods were envious of humanity, because of our mortality.  The idea goes something along the lines of: pain and death are essential parts of the human condition, and eliminating them invariably results in the person losing touch with humanity.  Some of the Redeemed might hold a similar perspective, that mortality is to be cherished all the more precisely because it is short - and that to try to extend it indefinitely is a fool's errand, because even if you succeed, you will have lost something vital in the process.

Alabaster Xnight:

You can't really choose to be a Mage, though a Toaist Alchemist from Second sights seems doable, and damn appropriate given the previous line of study.

Agreed.  And in fact, some Redeemed might see their mortal lives as extensions of their Pilgrimage; for them, the Taoist Alchemist tradition does seem to be a natural step - though not an inevitable one. 

i honestly think i would give my players a couple of options once we finished the pilgrimage.  one of which is continue playing.  start a new game or keep playing but play as a mortal games and those who wish can GNC.