Are you looking for a way to live forever? A way to extend your life over what is normally possible? Well, it looks like Chronicles of Elyria has a range of opportunities for you. Previously I mentioned an ancient relic that may be able to suspend the aging process, at a cost. This Forum Find focuses on some other ways to possibly elongate your life by becoming soulless. But before you start trying to pull your soul out remember, the chance of a long life comes at high costs.

One of the earliest ways we were told about extending your life was actually revealed by Caspian way back at the first Developer Journal Easter egg hunt:

At some point after game launch a dark magic will enter the world. This magic will make it possible for those gifted in such arts to transfer their soul from their body to a receptacle for safe keeping. So long as their soul is secure – they cannot die (though they continue to age).

What he was referring to were liches. Players who have become powerful sorcerers able to separated their soul from their physical form and transferred it to a  phylactery, or container if you don’t like fancy words. Your physical form is protected as long as their soul is safe. You can be hacked at with swords, bows and magic but as long as they do not find your phylactery you are going to keep getting back up. Interestingly this does not stop the aging process. If someone finds a good way to protect their soul we could have some very old liches out there. How they would look, how their skills grow, and how their power develops over time could all be very interesting to see play out. It sounds quite good doesn’t it? That is until someone finds the container protecting the liches soul. If that container is destroyed, so is the lich. Perma-death. The player, is of course, free to start another character, but that character is gone with no chance to spirit walk back.

Liches are not the only soulless (well semi-soulless) creature in Elyria. We have also had another dark creature confirmed. It was actually part of the same Easter egg, but we didn’t quite get there! However, Caspian was nice enough to let us know what we missed when we got around to the third developer journal: 

The other half of that, which wasn’t previously touched upon, is there is a race of people – Vampires – who feed on the spirit/souls of others. Weaker Vampires just drain spirit from their targets, reducing their overall life span. The more powerful Vampires can consume a person’s soul entirely, sustaining them for much longer, and increasing their power. Doing so “captures” the soul, making it no longer playable by the owner. As well, the person who lost their soul becomes a Vampire themselves. A Vampire is extremely difficult to kill, and has many of the known advantages/disadvantages from lore.

This seems even more interesting to me than the liches. While I am sure liches are going to be pretty darn evil, the vampires ability to affect a players spirit and soul seems particularly twisted. Spirit decides how long your character lives, so having it drained is essentially draining life, which is a harsh penalty. However, stealing a soul? That is really impactful. Souls can develop over characters, with skills previously learnt being easier to develop next time around, talents remaining unlocked. Players are going to want to use the same soul repeatedly. It being stolen makes it unusable when you start a new character.

It is possible to get the souls back. You just have to kill the very powerful vampire that stole it. If they are killed it is perma-death for them, and all the souls they have stolen are released and can be used once again. Vampires better watch out, they are going to be a number one target. The worrying thing for me is this line:

Is it easy to detect a vampire? No.

Number one target, the eviliest creature that can steal your spirit or even your soul, but you are going to have trouble identifying them? These are the things nightmares are made of. Nightmares, and incredibly interesting player-driven stories. The rumours about people starting to spread “Have you noticed how Frank never comes out at day?”, building momentum “I am sure I saw Frank in pain when I gave him my famous garlic chicken.”, until there is an all out uprising to stab a stake through Frank’s heart just in case.

I do not think I am going to go looking for the soulless life myself. I think the risks are too high. However, I know there will be some that follow these dark paths, and they will create a lot of content for the rest of us. So a massive thank you to all of you who choose to play as the eviliest among us. See I was nice to you, so nice, please leave my soul alone!