Immortality

Ask a genie to live forever until you want to die. Then being an asshole genie who thinks he's a clever shit, he will grant you unending immortality.

How would one Ascend to Godhood though?
You are a great adventurer who survived many encounters, you can fight with a lot of type of weapons but how would a warrior could become a god for example?
I imagine it is easier for a mage.

Body switching. Not only practically immortal as long as you have enough backups but also untraceable and with potential for great mindfuckery with your enemies.

Giving your body up to machine perfection.

Does having gaps in continuity of ones existence from the perspective of the outside world counts as immortality? Like would infusing a child with your genetic memories / soul / w.e. and, once his mind is developed, for "you" to hatch, purge his personality, reconstruct your own, and transform his mind into near perfect copy of yours counts as being immortal?
Hardmode: assume no souls

Be a faithful servant to whatever good god(s) of your setting, ascend to afterlife and have your soul remolded to be an archon/angel/whatever so you can continue serving your ideals after being human.

Every other option is pretty much evil.

Ring of winter.

Imprinting your personality into a handwritten autobiography, and slowly mind-transferring to anyone who reads it, overtaking them totally upon reading the final word.

Interesting, but what happens if multiple people read it?

Either the ghost leaves the pages on the first reading (slash the possessing ghost burns the book with it's new body), or you could end up with a whole bunch of clones of different experiences and ages wandering around.

Honestly, the first one sounds better than the second option.

>You are a great adventurer who survived many encounters, you can fight with a lot of type of weapons but how would a warrior could become a god for example?

Killing a god would be the most natural method. Sometimes it's enough to be the subject of widespread worship. Or the existing gods might elevate you to godhood for services rendered saving the world or whatever.

I'd say yes if you actually transferred your soul into him, no if not using souls (it wouldn't be you, just a copy of you).

Being a vampire.

Whine at the GM enough.

If you're playing 5th edition D&D, there's a boon that makes you unageing.

Level 1 of mythic ascension in pathfinder lets you become unageing too.

3.5e has greenstar adept, which turns you into a golem, but suffers from being shit.

You don't age when you live out of time.

Well the most natural thing would be to just beat Death until he or she agrees to never come for you again unless you personally ask.

But what is the difference between "You" and copy of "You", if you are indistinguishable and there is no break in subjective continuity? Won't you by that definition die every time your consciousness fades? Like in a coma, during clinical death, under general anaesthesia, in a dreamless sleep, where do you draw the line?

Why do you believe you don't?

Like this one said.

Literally, in Pathfinder, becoming an Alchemist is the path to immortality.

At one level you can make a single potion permanent at any given time, and this can include the potion that reverses the effects of aging, freezing you at a fit, youthful age, and you can brew an Elixir of Life which lets any fool cast true resurrection to bring you back if you die.

At level 20 you can chose a Grand Discovery, one of which is just a full stop end to aging, literally named 'Eternal Youth'.

One of my characters became immortal by the favor of most of the good gods combined.

Him and the rest of the party saved the world from the return of an evil god of incredible power, and were each given a great boon as a reward. Most got wealth, power, or some personal reward like their family coming back or their home being un-destroyed.

My character was a humble wandering storyteller, didn't want anything out of life other than the ability to keep on traveling, meeting interesting people, learning and telling stories and singing songs around campfires and the corners of taverns.

So the gods made him immortal, to live and grow old and die and come back again and again as many times as he wanted, to travel the world to his heart's content and see all he wished to see before he joined his friends in the afterlife.

He's still wandering the world, humming ancient songs from lands long gone, bearing witness to history as it unfolds around him. He'll stop by a stranger's campfire and keep them company on the lonely road, or stay in a humble tavern and regale the customers with tales of adventure and daring in olden days.

His favorite story is that of the great heroes which saved the world generations ago, from which he always omits his own hand as he considers his contributions unimportant, he just doesn't want his friends to be forgotten.

Every time he dies, he stays a while with them in the afterlife, they all get together and party again like the old days, laughing and drinking and singing.

But he is as restless in death as he was in life, and eventually the wanderlust takes hold of him again and he takes his leave once again, to wander the world for another lifetime.

I don't believe there is some transcendental You-ness to be transferred in the first place, so with nothing to lose nothing is lost.

Have you try not dieing. Enlightenment is the simplest way.

Play a Platinum Angel and counterspell the shit out of anyyhing that could kill it.

Depends on the setting.

Sometimes gods are only dependent on magical apples. In others it's because they're fated never to die.

And some just won't die and have supernatural powers because "Fuck you! I'm a God!"

Being a Vampire for one.
Dark rituals for extended life and pacts with things Infernal.
And probably some strange alchemical fuckery.
And while it's only in my setting, there's a Dwarven Ritual where one is magically converted to stone to forever serve as a guardian and sentinel. Not too fancy or glamarous though.

I kinda want more settings to explore the kind of "ordinary immortality" John Oldman has.
no mystical powers or magic. He just stopped ageing and has scarless healing, so hes around 14000 years old.
Immortal being who.can get killed as easily as mortal seems almlst more interesting than some demigod badass.

What happens if his head gets cut off?

he dies.
he heals flawlessly, but still only heals as well as a regular human can (apart from not getting scars)

Thats really sweet

Immortality is really overrated as a player goal and is passed out in fantasy far, FAR too much like candy. Having immortal characters really ruin a settings verisimilitude and don't leave opportunities "open" for new characters and factions to make their way in.

Good aligned characters should never seek methods to extend their life, they live to be ripe old age surrounded by family and friends and when they die they leave traces of themselves, or can sometimes visit new heroes from the afterlife. They become greater and more potent in death, like the Force Ghosts from star wars.

Evil or morally ambiguous characters may try to artificially extend their lives but it should be shitty and weak. They may live forever in the pages of a book or when bound to a candle but it's a weak and shallow existence, they should just be a shadow of what they were.

In many fantasy settings, the afterlife is a very real place and therefore "immortality" is only sought by the sinful, so they can avoid the punishment they are due.
The virtuous receive immortality by default.

Dying immediately.

But imagine an adventuring party consisting entirely of different (You)s.

>KRONOS, I've come to bargain.

Well, you could become a Graveknight instead of a Lich. They're a bit similar, but they have their key differences.

For a second, I thought the tip of his nose was the bottom of his chin.

>Graveknight
Is that a discount Deathknight?

Lich are pretty fashionable though

only in shit settings

>dick djinn
Yo when did this start again

But enlightenment is all about dying and not coming back as you usually would.

or you die the second you think you want to die, even if it's just a short emotional overreaction. Depending on the person they could be dead within the hour.

The beginning. Iirc Djinns are basically powerful godlike demons that refused to revere god and were spiteful shits so he put them in their place but they're still little shits you can't trust.

>Besides Lichdom
Well that's no fun.

Aren't Dragons basically immortal?
I assume it is possible for a character to become Dragon through some Magic ritual.

Having a wizard buddy cast True Polymorph on you and then use a Wish to remove the "can be dispelled" and "is a magical effect" aspects to bake it in should be doable. Using a Wish to do it all is probably much harder.

You can also do that with a specific class so you get it at 15th level instead.

In the mythology of my setting, a bunch of crazy assholes got into deep shit cause the gods were idiots and so theygot full of their bullshit and decide to kill and devoured them (whit a little help of rogue god tired of everything) gaining their divinity. In the end, only one of them was "worthy" (not being retarded enough to take the mantle of divine power without being corrupted by the power and horrible reveletions that came with it) and become a properd deity while the other just turned into things what go from evil entities to impulsive assholes to rambling animals

Take a note from Elizabeth Báthory, bathe in blood.

In one of the older D&Ds, if you got up to level 36, you could try for immortality by restarting at level 1 and going all the way back up to level 36. Then you became immortal. Something like that.

>Aren't Dragons basically immortal?
Depends on the setting.

They were violent motherfuckers in Shahrezad's tales, so yeah