The Forever is a loosely organized group with a rough hier- archy based on age; some of the oldest members are more than 2,000 years old. Members come from all over the globe, but most are from the settled urban regions of the world. The Forever is largely a mutual-aid organization composed of peo- ple who share a drive to live forever and managed to achieve their desire. Members periodically appoint themselves as man- agers or guardians of the Forever. These individuals keep track of the organization’s resources and actively work to prevent its discovery. As long as the managers do their job effectively, their positions are not challenged. If they prove incompetent, they are asked to step down.
Any mortal who discovers the existence of the organization and asks to join is carefully watched. If the person proves both trust- worthy and sincere in her desire to live forever, an immortal will usually take her on as an assistant. After several decades of serv- ice, such people are granted the opportunity to achieve immor- tality. If they prove untrustworthy or incompetent, they are killed, or portions of their memories are erased. Nonhumans have a much more difficult time. A few ghosts have been allowed to join, but only those who are truly exceptional individuals. Infused are never admitted. The Forever realize that even the sanest Infused will eventually succumb to madness as the decades and centuries pass, and Infused are usually killed if encountered.
Many of the older members have had some contact with the Atlanteans, whom they call the “Eternal Ones.” Members of the Forever deeply distrust the Eternal Ones, both because they are Voids and because of legends about how the Eternal Ones once ruled humanity. Eternal Ones and members of the Forever largely avoid each other, but there have been occasional con- flicts. In some instances, a few of the Forgotten, ignorant of their true nature, have asked to join the Forever. These requests are usually granted, in part because such beings are useful allies against the Eternal Ones. Most members of the Forever under- stand that the Forgotten are Eternal Ones with their memories stripped away and make it a practice to inform any Forgotten who wish to join of this fact. However, since Forgotten are inca- pable of learning magic, they are looked down upon by many members and tend to be regarded as lesser beings by some.
Starting in the mid-19th century some Eternal Ones began implanting nanotechnology in humans. While most of these humans are loyal servants of the Eternal Ones, a few have man- aged to obtain the technology by nefarious means or as a reward for a short term of service. Since humans who receive Blood Surgeons become ageless and immortal, there are now several dozen such individuals, including a few who are over 150 years old. Humans who gain immortality though nanotech- nology are given the opportunity to join the Forever. Most who join begin to learn magic, because magical ability and age are the two primary measures of status in this organization. Today the Forever has more members than ever, with a membership of around 1,400 humans and 17 ghosts.
PROFILE
The Forever is primarily a mutual assistance organization dedicated to aiding members, though the most important goal is to guard the safety of its members. While some members are pacifists and seek nonviolent means to resolve possible threats, others regard ordinary humans as little more than interesting distractions and will calmly destroy them if necessary.
Members of the Forever have access to extensive knowledge due to the large collections kept by many members. Such collec- tions are made available to each other on a regular basis. The mere logistics of moving items around the globe often means that there is some difficulty in transporting goods. Similarly, although the Forever have a vast amount of knowledge in the form of historical texts, they have a more difficult time obtaining knowledge through the use of personal contacts unless it is sec- ond- or third-hand through their assistants or junior members.
Since most members are over a hundred years old and some are more than a thousand years old, threats are often inter- preted quite broadly, and long-term foresight is extremely com- mon. Some immortals will rapidly deal with a threat posed by a social movement that might possibly become dangerous in two or three decades. Anything which might cause massive death or social upheaval is considered a threat because such events could indirectly harm the members. As a consequence, their motivations are difficult to understand or comprehend, and many seem capricious at best. In this, they sometimes may be confused with the Atlanteans, who work independently and for reasons known only to themselves.
Generally, members of the Forever have some kind of natu- ral curiosity, especially if they are over 300 years of age. It is understood in immortal circles that to live past the age of 300 is indicative of truly long-term survival, since at that point the member has watched enough history pass to have learned to be apart from the world. During the first 100 years, most of the Forever endure the deaths of all of their closest friends and rel- atives. In the second century, an immortal must learn to find something that interests her or intrigues her, beyond the pur- suit of companionship. Most humans who live more than a few centuries become deeply obsessed with a small number of pas- times and only worry about other events which directly impact their lives, rarely involving themselves with others.
Threats to human sovereignty on Earth, whether from aliens, demons, or the Infused, are seen as a threat to immortals. While members of the Forever have some knowledge of the Eternal Ones, they do not know of their alien origin, guessing that these other immortals are an offshoot of early humanity. They have some information about the Pilosi but believe them to have become extinct many centuries ago. If some of the Forever are still in contact with the Pilosi, they are not telling anyone, even fellow members. Several members of the Forever have made contact with the Saurian Dreamspeakers but know only that they are an obscure religious sect that has a number of magicians. None realizes that the Dreamspeakers are not human.
In the 20th century, Earth has been visited by both the Saurians and the Greys. Some members are aware of such activities but not of their true nature or extent. Some believe they are aliens, others theorize that they are some new form of Incarnate. Like everything else, some members see the strange incidents as a threat to be rapidly dealt with, while others counsel that these problems have been going on for less than a century and will likely vanish in a few decades. Even so, an increasing number of members has begun to investigate these inci- dents. They know that some humans are working with the aliens but have not fully distinguished Aegis from NDD, or any number of other human secret societies.
ACTIVITIES
The Forever, with its expertise garnered over the centuries, makes it possible for certain people to simply disappear. Prior to the 20th centu- ry, vanishing was extremely easy for anyone with the price of a ticket to another country, or even another state. Beginning in the last decades of the 19th century, however, improved record keeping and shared infor- mation have made disappearing increasingly difficult. A number of the Forever worked to become specialists in creating this “disappearing act” using documents and records. They discovered it was not only possible to disappear themselves, but that they could make others disappear as well. In time, it became a distinct advantage to have such impersonal records and increasing geographic mobility, since it was harder for a person to be truly noticed by the immigration clerks.
Following the stock market crash in 1929 and the upheaval of two World Wars, a number of the Forever experienced serious setbacks in their fortunes. Used to having access to great wealth, they began to cast about for ways to rebuild their fortunes. Soon, a number of the members of the Forever began providing new identities for wealthy people who wished to disappear and have new lives. Since most members of the Forever use these same services every few decades to conceal their immortality, the network was already in place.
They will happily help anyone disappear, provided she can pay $1,000,000 in cash. In return for this fee, the individual’s death is faked and a new identity provided. Since this service was started in the early 1930s, it has helped more than 400 wealthy individuals van- ish. So far, none of the Forever’s disappearances have been uncov- ered. Everyone involved in this venture realizes that the discovery of even one disappearance could jeopardize the entire operation and might possibly put the Forever itself at risk.
The service is known as “Shuffling.” The procedure is conducted by scrambled telephone calls, blind drops, post office boxes, and emails from falsified accounts. Often the client never actually encounters a member of the Forever. The Forever carefully investigates all of its potential clients and refuses to take any case that seems too dangerous. The Forever does occasionally make mistakes, however. In 2000, the Forever helped Janice Tanner, a wealthy Grey-human hybrid, dis- appear from NDD agents. Having no knowledge of such hybrids or of the true nature and extent of NDD, the Forever compounded its error by failing to exhaustively conduct all possible background checks. NDD now suspects some outside influence is behind the disappear- ance of Tanner, although it knows little more than that. Additionally,
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one of the younger members was recently contacted by Aegis and hinted at the group’s Shuffling services. As a consequence, Aegis is investigating, mostly to ensure that individuals they are observing are not Shuffled.
The Forever have other abilities, ranging from a wide variety of contacts and numerous sophisticated mundane resources to the ability to alchemically create a body which is an identical duplicate down to the genetic level. These services must be bartered for between the Forever and the potential buyer.