Immortality and Sealing the Big Bad

[AfroKat]

A big concept I always think about is how to handle Immortal Beings . Or why they just seal away the Demon Lord. Like if you are Immortal how can we stop you and how did you get there? If the only choice is Sealing you what makes a seal stronger then the guy who LITERALLY can't die? What stops him from breaking out. Also he's sealed now. Stab him don't put him in a coffin.

Spoilees for Banner Saga, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy X ahead


There's a game called Banner Saga where the Immortal guy can only "die" (sleep) if he thinks he dies. He then wakes up once he realizes he's not dead. So you have to convince him he's dead with you chopping his heart or shooting him etc. etc.

Then we have Dragon Quest where the big bad is almost always sealed away and the MC fights and actually kills him with God Sword 2.0, why didn't the original hero do this?

Or we can go FFX route and the big bad makes armor of himself and constantly refreshes it and nobody knows he's actually a little guy in the robot so they don't know to kill him or anything.

Basically what's your thoughts on this and how to deal with them?

 

[CraneSoft]

The usual justification is simple: They had to be sealed away because the ancestors or heroes from 1k years ago simply aren't strong enough to kill them or the weapon/spell to kill them doesn't exist yet, so the game exists for you to finish the job.

In a lot of stories, immortality is actually a curse more than a blessing unless you are the big bad demon lord that is so strong immortality is only a secondary ability, nevertheless they all share one fatal weakness: immobilization. Just because you are immortal doesn't mean we can't just throw you out in the vacuum of space, sinking you at the bottom of the ocean or buried 1000-feet underground. If you are so powerful none of the above is a factor, there will be someone who will craft a spell just to seal you, after all, an immortal who can't move without outside interference is not a threat to humanity.

Generally, immortal beings are cool because players like to do the impossible: killing immortals.

 

[fluffymonster]

Someone being immortal doesn't equal them being most powerful, so I think it's dependent on what you want to do with it for the story. There's more to play around with than just X is immortal, so therefore X is the most powerful, durable, and long living. I think balance helps all things. How did they become immortal? What does it entail? How do you take immortality away? Are there any weaknesses or downfalls?

Um, FFX -- as in, Final Fantasy X?

 

[bgillisp]

I actually addressed this in my game when someone asked why didn't we do this last time (the time before with the big bad) and they are told we didn't know how at the time. Plus the idea is experimental so no one knows if it will even work.

 

[MagicPizzaGuy]

Because you are the hero? If everybody had already solutions to everything why even have the game? HAHAHAHAHA

 

[The Stranger]

As @fluffymonster said, being immortal\eternal doesn't mean you're omnipotent. Usually, eternal beings are sealed away using powerful magics, or through the invocation of an even more powerful force.

Sealing away eternal beings might make them even more evil and insane, though - eternity in prison, usually a prison of darkness or absolute nothingness, would make anyone twisted and insane. lol.

I don't like it when these beings are killed by the mcguffin (magical sword, random spell no one throughout history thought of using, etc), but I do like the idea of an eternal vigil or war. I'm a sucker for unwanted duties being passed down generation to generation in stories, and eternal foes fit nicely into that sort of narrative.

 

[ave36]

Well, I solved the problem of "what to do with the immortal BBEG" by introducing a pair of legendary swords, Masamune and Muramasa, that ignore immortality and can slay any being except for the truly supreme beings of cosmos and chaos. The BBEG wields Muramasa and uses it to murder gods. The heroes must obtain Masamune and use it to kill the BBEG.

The Masamune and Muramasa have a drawback, however: if you kill a god or a similarly immortal being with one of these swords, you get their powers. For the BBEG Reaves Gerrard, this is kinda the point (pun intended) of wielding Muramasa. But if the heroes defeat him using Masamune, there's the problem of what to do with all the divine power Reaves dropped when he died. Hence the final choice for the hero: does he become a new god, ask the cosmos to relieve him of it and create new gods, break Masamune and end the age of magic once and for all, or share it with all the people. Hence the four endings: Mad Oscar, Business as Usual, Inner Circle Victorious and A New Age of Magic.

 

[Shikamon]

I always think "the eternal big bad" comes from the natural cycle, like when "evil" become so powerful that need to put down and mortals become united because of it. Then, mortals fall into "sin" like wars, greed, or forget their own history. It makes "evil" return once again and so on.

So it almost impossible to seal "evil" forever. Immortal being just more personified of it, I guess.