…or very long life.
Here’s a classic topic: what ways do you see to prolong your life, even indefinitely?
Undeath, and becoming an “advanced being”, are the two most well-known.
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Self empowering a major psionic item.
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Where is that from? 2e’s Psionic Handbook, perhaps?
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Edition neutral or 3/3.5e?
There was the ‘Kiss of the Ages’ spell in Dragon Magazine that halted aging.
Undeath seems like a lame form of immortality.
Virtual immortality is already in DS canon via the novel The Darkness Before the Dawn. Follow the link to the description of this form of immortality.
Mon Adderath is immortal via psionic enchantment by Dregoth. That’s the most surefire way of becoming immortal.
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Any empowered item in 2E gained at least sliver of personality and ego. And in Mindlords of the Last Sea, the proctors were transferred psyches in obsidian orbs. So more common in the Green Age.
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You could also use an artifact such as Dregoth’s mirror to attain immortality any one of the other AD&D canon ways depending on the world you jumped to. Or be really lucky in your rolls for plane shifting, etc… depending on system and rules.
If you allow new psionics to be developed, there’s also the possibility of developing a possession/mental transference science and body hopping for eternity.
Potion fruits of longevity.
Pacts with Djinni or other elemental lords could keep one young.
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Dragon Kings had the 10th level wizard spell Life extension that increases maximum age by 77 years (one King’s age.) It doesn’t say it only works once either so I guess you could recast it ever 77 years to keep going.
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Vampiric Youthfulness. 9th lvl Wizard spell. Age others to reverse your own aging. IIRC the Prison State of Eldaarich has one of Daskinor’s templar wives using this to keep herself alive.
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Permanent mind switch. Use up one body and psionically jump to another. Wash, rise, repeat.
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In keeping with my rules-oriented tastes, here’s a number of options based on 3.x rules - The Immortality Handbook: http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1179.0. Pick one in keeping with your game and off you go.
Being an Elan is probably the simplest.
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In my current campaign the nascent God King Xerxes (yes almost carbon copy from 300) has been using fruits of longevity for the past 800+ years but recently his valley was destroyed by the Tyrians due to player indiscretion. He only has 1 fruit left after the attack so he’s a little ticked off.
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That guide is a useful hodgepodge, thanks 
In less “gamey” terms, what other methods would you use? I imagine there’s a ritual to make yourself immortal, requiring you are a supremely powerful wizard (read level 20 in 2e and 5e).
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Basically a unique set of circumstances. A monk reaching the state of Nirvana. The discovery of Fountain of Eternal Youth at the end of the campaign, which vanishes after drinking. A powerful psion that realizes that death is merely a socially constructed concept, and simply denies it. And so on.
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A good story can be written by any author, but with rules that same story becomes great. In the words of Brandon Sanderson, an acknowledged expert on “magical” systems, “it’s what magic CAN’T do that makes it interesting.” The limitations are what brings special effects to life in a story, be it magic or psionics or other. In an rpg, the rules are those limitations spoken of that will make your game great, not just good.
Don’t knock “gamey”, it’s where great stories are born.
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For Fluff. I personally would like an ability that steals a beings future nexus. When I’m done the victim is left non psionic and I cease to age for a period of time based on how powerful the being I use this on.
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Oh I agree wholeheartedly.
Infinitely flexible power with unlimited power level achievable is boring.
Yes, I am more interested in methods of prolonging life or of achieving immortality that are more appropriate for a “novel”, say, than a game. A Dark Sun novel, of course.
I imagine an old wizard can grow a small tree capable of producing a single fruit that when ingested takes years off. Then the next fruit produced is years away.
I imagine that scores of these methods were invented, each more exotic than the next, but all unique.
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Okay, story time, Athas style. (And yes, I’m totally making up rules for all of these in my head as I go…)
Fall in to some ruins, ancient lifeshaper lab, and get exposed to some ancient lifeshaped device, or concoction, or a mobile graft gets released, e.t.c… end result: really long life or even unaging plus timeless body.
Mad psionicist lab, forcibly injected with a quintessence based potion: same result.
The blood essences of at least three Sorcerer Kings can transform the flesh into an unaging state. Or maybe grafting on a body part from one would do it… totally thinking of the Head of Vecna, lol.
Bury your target corpse (or worse, creature while still alive) underneath a life tree, and wait long enough. That should do the trick.
Find left over pieces of an Avangion, consume or turn them into a graft.
Empty obsidian orb crops up and someone dies on it, or at least their dying breath is exhaled upon it while soaked in said creatures blood, activating it to absorb them.
Natural psionic cyst forms in a distant location that used to be an ancient city. Charged with the remnant souls and ley lines formed during the last cataclysm, it has become a natural psionic circle of Elan Transformation Ritual. Staying in the cyst too long will trap and transform the creature into an Elan.
A circle of Elemental Lords cooperatively transform a target creature into a genus loci. I suggest that this could be used as a punishment for a defiler: they lose their defiling ability, plus they get to feel what it’s like to have the life ripped out of them. Or a reward for a druid.
Positive Energy Elemental Pact enables one to periodically charge themselves with positive energy, reversing aging, so long as they keep the terms and never fail to renew the Pact on time.
That’s just off the top of my head. ( ^-^)b
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Wow, keep them coming! Nice brainstorming ideas there, nijineko
Clearly people have ideas bouncing around in their skulls, waiting to be expressed.
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You will find that I am an excellent brainstorming resource, even if I’m saying it myself. To this day I have friends who have discovered this fact call me on a semi-regular (ie: monthly or bi-monthly) basis for brainstorming ideas for whatever their current campaigns are: supers, fantasy, sci-fi, supernatural modern, etc…
My mom and my wife both always say that I make a much better wall than a window. Fortunately, I’m the type of wall that is also opaque to ideas, so they bounce in very interesting and useful ways! lol. Now even my friends say it…
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I have difficulty when it comes to my own campaign, but I do have a friend that hits me up now and again for his and usually gets from me an instant answer popping into my brain.