Immortals

The Immortals (不死者 fushisha) are a group of people who attained immortality either by drinking the Grand Panacea or by drinking the Cure-All Elixir.

There are set of rules that immortals must follow, as set by Ronny Schiatto. Although they are able to use a false name for temporary introductions to mortals, their bodies reject all attempts to establish lasting false identities. They must use their real names when speaking to another immortal - and this is an involuntary measure; it is physically impossible to give a false name when there is another immortal in one's vicinity.

To kill an immortal, another immortal must "devour" them by placing their right hand on the other's head while thinking "I want to eat you." After one devours another immortal, one receives all the immortals' memories and knowledge.

The more often an immortal is injured in a certain way, the faster they will recover from that injury. For example: Dallas Genoard has been shot in the head more than once. Each time he is shot in the head, the faster he recovers.

In the 2007 anime adaptation, immortals can transmit information and images to another immortal by placing their right hand on the other's head and thinking about the information or image. This is not so in the light novels - though immortals can transmit information in that manner to their linked homunculi (ex: Szilard to Ennis). In the anime, Maiza transmits knowledge of the elixir to Gretto via this method, but in the novels he simply tells Gretto half of the recipe.

History
At least three generations of immortals are currently confirmed.

Pre-1711 Generation
This generation originally consisted of ten people: nine alchemy students and their teacher Dalton Strauss. A decade after their turning, one immortal devoured his own mother - sparking a war for survival within the group.

There are only three survivors of this group: Dalton himself; Renee Paramedes Branvillier; and Archangelo. Archangelo is personally responsible for the deaths of the other immortals, whom he devoured for Renee's sake (he loved her, and believed that the very existence of the others was a threat to her). To avoid devourment, Dalton severed his own right hand and gave it to Archangelo, making it impossible for him to devour Renee or anyone else. Archangelo proceeded to bury it in a spot that only he knows the whereabouts of.

The survivors would go on to continue teaching alchemy to interested students.

1711 Generation
This generation originally consisted of thirty people who obtained immortality aboard the Advena Avis.

Fleeing persecution in Lotto Valentino, the alchemists board the ship and head for the New World. At some point during the voyage, Maiza Avaro summons a 'demon' (Ronny Schiatto). Ronny bestows on Maiza (and only Maiza) the knowledge required to concoct the Grand Panacea. That day, Maiza teaches his younger brother Gretto half of the recipe before deciding that he will keep the recipe to himself rather than share it with the others. Alchemist Szilard Quates is outraged, and proceeds to devour thirteen of the alchemists aboard the ship -- the first he devours is Gretto, and thus he obtains half of the recipe.

Szilard jumps off the ship of his own accord (in the anime, he is sliced in half by Nile). Once the surviving alchemists arrive in the colonies, they scatter across the continent in fear of Szilard's wrath. Five more alchemists end up dying by Szilard's hand over the course of the next two centuries. The reign of terror comes to an end when Szilard is devoured in November 1930.

It is later revealed that three of the passengers (Huey Laforet, Elmer C. Albatross, and Lebreau Fermet Viralesque) each sent Lucrezia de Dormentaire portions of the elixir (Huey and Elmer each sent her half of their portions, and Fermet sent her a 'sample' several years later). Lucrezia thus becomes a complete immortal, along with Niki and Maiza's father. Maiza's father is experimented upon over the next two centuries.

1930 Generation
This group of immortals consists of an unknown amount of people, and unlike the previous two generations obtained immortality accidentally rather than purposefully. This generation became immortal via the Cure-All Elixir - Szilard's newly completed version of the immortality elixir - in November 1930.

As previously stated, this group became immortal accidentally. To explain, there were three dozen bottles of the new elixir...most of which were destroyed in a granary fire (thanks to the mishap of Randy and Pezzo). Barnes managed to save two bottles of the elixir, but quickly lost possession of them: in the novels, Firo Prochainezo switches out the bottles for his own two bottles of liquor; in the 2007 anime, the bottles are taken by Dallas Genoard and his goons, then by the Gandor Family, taken back by Dallas and company, and then stolen by Isaac & Miria...who deliver the elixir to the Martillo Family. Believing the bottles to contain alcohol, Isaac, Miria, the Gandor brothers, the Martillo executives (and some of their family members), Lia Lin-Shan and Seina all consume it at Firo's promotion party that night.

It is revealed in a drama CD that a young man called Pietro Gonzales recovered a bottle of the elixir from the collapsed granary and drank it (thinking it alcohol). Once he learns he is immortal he is horrified, and with his friend Dominico Fuentes he searches for a way to 'cure' his immortality and become mortal again in the summer of 1936.

1920s-1930s: Incomplete Immortals and Homunculi
Szilard also devised an elixir that could bestow upon someone incomplete immortality. An incomplete immortal will eventually die of old age, but otherwise can survive all manner of injury or sickness. They cannot devour others, however.

Huey's homunculi in the Lamia are the reverse: they do not age, but they can be killed like normal humans.

Szilard must have finished the incomplete immortality elixir by 1927, since during that year he made the priest Donatello an incomplete immortal (he later devoured the man).

In November 1930, Szilard's subordinate Paula Wilmans is one of the workers responsible for the incomplete elixir. Lester pleads with her to give him the incomplete immortality elixir, but she refuses and buries her bottle of the elixir in her husband's grave for safekeeping. Her son Mark retrieves the bottle in August 1932, and confronts Lester that month in the Coraggioso. Lester charges at him in order to get at the bottle, and Mark stabs him with his ice pick several times, severely wounding him. Lester manages to seize the bottle. Kicking Mark aside, he rips out the cork and downs the bottle's contents in one gulp.

And so, Lester becomes an incomplete immortal. His wounds do not heal of course, and Lester screams in agony, much to Elmer's consternation. After Nicola Cassetti prepares to blow off some steam (intending to torture Lester), Elmer crouches down next to Lester and offers to put him out of his misery by devouring him...as long as Lester promises that he'll smile when he goes. Despite knowing his pain-filled fate, Lester refuses. Elmer says that he'll be back in a few years once Lester has changed his mind.

After Szilard's death, both Huey and the Nebula corporation attempt to obtain his incomplete elixir. Huey sends the Lamia to steal the elixir - but Nebula gets to it first and distributes it to all twelve hundred of its employees at the Mist Wall (under the guise of it being a mandatory vaccine for their jobs) in September 1933.

By December 1934, Nebula distributes the remaining incomplete elixir to certain executives of the Russo Family (including don Placido Russo and capo Klik) under the condition that the Russos capture the Lamia. To do this, Placido recalls Graham Specter and his gang back from New York to Chicago to capture the Lamia alive. The homunculi manage to escape from Graham.

At the same time, Huey remains incarcerated in Alcatraz. 1711 immortal and FBI agent Victor Talbot sends 1930 immortal Firo Prochainezo as a mole into the prison, where he has incarcerated 1930 immortal Isaac Dian as blackmail for Firo.

When Alcatraz prisoner Ladd Russo and Firo meet with Huey, it is revealed that Renée (who works for Nebula) had hired several Felix Walkens to steal Huey's eye. The Felix Walkens are easily dispatched, but Firo decides that he will steal Huey's eye instead. Sham secretly betrays Huey and helps Firo to escape, but not before Liza (a vessel of Hilton) steals Firo's eyes via one of her birds. She later returns his eyes to him via Annie, one of Hilton's vessels. Isaac Dian is released in December and reunites with fellow immortal Miria Harvent.

Back in Chicago, the Russo Family have failed to capture the Lamia. As punishment Renee devours the Russos' incomplete immortals, starting first with Placido and ending with Klik.

Huey escapes Alcatraz and later hires Claire Stanfield to guard Melvi Dormentaire in 1935.

Post-1930s
1711 immortals Maiza Avaro and Czeslaw Meyer go on a trip in the 1970s to find the surviving 1711 immortals and inform them of Szilard's passing. Over the next few decades, they locate Begg Garott, Nile, Sylvie Lumiere and Denkurō Tōgō.

In December 1998, Elmer arrives in a certain European country in Szilard's footsteps. There, he finds a strange, isolated village and the homunculus Phil, and takes up residence in the village's castle.

In 2001, Maiza, Czes, Nile, Denkurō and Sylvie travel to Europe in search of Elmer, the last missing immortal. Once they reunite with him, they investigate the strange village he lives in and the laboratory of Bild Quates.

In August 2002, several of the 1711 immortals and the 1930 immortal Firo board the cruise liners Entrance and Exit, and are embroiled in the massacres aboard both ships.

Notes On Immortality
Any amount of the elixir will grant immortality, even just one sip of it. When one drinks the elixir, it essentially preserves their body in the state it is in at the time of consumption; the most obvious example is that Czeslaw is doomed to be a child forever - more horrifying is how Niki has been in constant agony for the past three centuries ever since she had near-mortal wounds when she became immortal. As another example, Elmer's body is still covered in the countless scars he bore before consuming the elixir.

Severed body parts will seek out the body in order to reattach themselves; of course, it is possible to obstruct reattachment through burial or containment. One could potentially use this as a means to find another immortal - just like Renee does in the 1930s when she searches for Huey (using his eye as a 'homing beacon' of sorts - she just has to follow the direction it tugs in).

An immortal is not immune to exhaustion, or the psychological effects of starvation. Ennis has stated that immortals can become temporarily feverish if they are infected or poisoned. If they are in enough pain, they will black out just as humans do.

To elaborate on what happens when one absorbs a devoured immortal's knowledge, Szilard in Manga Chapter 011 says that an immortal body "not only grasps the knowledge it 'eats' with its brain, it physically 'knows' it as well. Provided you have the knowledge, you can ride horseback or dance perfectly the very first time [you try.]"

Dalton Strauss notes in 1935-B: Dr. Feelgreed that once one becomes immortal, one's capacity for memory expands beyond that of a normal human's capacity.

Elmer says this of the Grand Panacea in 1932: "I've been told it has a bit of a mind of its own and naturally improves things over time." It is unknown who told him and how true the statement is. He is speaking to Lester, and comments that with injuries like the ones Lester has that "it might take a very long time."

Elder Immortals (pre-1711)

 * Dalton Strauss
 * Renee Paramedes Branvillier
 * Archangelo
 * Seven other alchemists (deceased)

Immortals created aboard the Advena Avis (1711)

 * Begg Garott
 * Czeslaw Meyer
 * Denkurō Tōgō
 * Elmer C. Albatross
 * Gretto Avaro (deceased)
 * Huey Laforet
 * Lebreau Fermet Viralesque
 * Maiza Avaro
 * Nile
 * Sylvie Lumiere
 * Szilard Quates (deceased)
 * Victor Talbot
 * Zank Rowan (deceased)
 * Pierre (mentioned in Episode 07; deceased)
 * Italo (mentioned in Episode 07; deceased)
 * Fifteen other alchemists (deceased)

Other Immortals created with the Grand Panacea

 * Lucrezia de Dormentaire
 * Niki
 * Avaro Sr.

Immortals Created with Szilard's Cure-All Elixir (Nov 1930)

 * Firo Prochainezo
 * Keith Gandor
 * Berga Gandor
 * Luck Gandor
 * Isaac and Miria
 * Don Molsa Martillo, all the Martillo Family executives (including Kanshichirou Yaguruma, Randy and Pezzo), a few family members of the executives, Seina, and Lia Lin-Shan
 * Pietro Gonzales
 * A rat

Huey Laforet's Homunculi

 * The Poet
 * Adele
 * Christopher Shouldered
 * Frank
 * Hong Chi-Mei
 * Leeza Laforet (Hilton)
 * Sham
 * Sickle
 * Rail

Szilard Quates' and Bild Quates' Homunculi

 * Ennis
 * Felt Nibil
 * Phil

Incomplete Immortals

 * Barnes (deceased Nov 1930)


 * Dallas Genoard and his cohorts (Scott --> deceased in Nov 1930, James and a third man --> alive)
 * The 1200 employees of the Nebula association (including Renee's team)
 * Don Placido Russo (deceased Dec 1934)
 * Klik (along with a few other Russo men; deceased Dec 1934)
 * Donatello (deceased 1927)
 * Lester (made immortal in August 1932)
 * Three members of SAMPLE: the gorilla-faced man and Bride's two secretaries (made incomplete immortals by Fermet in 2002)