Immortals

The Immortals (不死者 fushisha) are humans who attained complete immortality either by imbibing the Grand Panacea or the Cure-All Elixir, or attained incomplete immortality by imbibing a failed version of the Cure-All Elixir.

While immortal homunculi and incomplete ageless homunculi exist, and certain immortal homunculi abide by the same rules as complete immortals, they obtained their immortal qualities through alternative means and are not the focus of this article. However, more information on immortal homunculi is available on their corresponding page.

Complete Immortality
Complete immortals cannot die by mortal means, and their immortality is defined by Ronny Schiatto's rules: 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 complete immortal - and this is an involuntary measure; it is physically impossible to give a false name when there is another complete immortal in one's vicinity. Furthermore, they are also unable to write a false name on documents.

There is a single method through which a complete immortal may be permanently killed: another complete immortal must place their right hand on the first complete immortal's head, and think, "I want to eat." Upon devouring another complete immortal, the surviving complete immortal receives the deceased's memories, knowledge, and feelings.

Incomplete Immortality
One of the failed byproducts of Szilard's research into the Grand Panacea was an elixir that grants incomplete immortality: immortality that allows an individual to survive all manner of injury or sickness, but does not prevent them from dying of old age. An incomplete immortal is able to live under a false identity, unlike a complete immortal, but – crucially – cannot devour immortals of any type. Conversely, the incomplete ageless homunculi of the Lamia do not physically age and cannot die from old age, but can otherwise be killed from fatal diseases or injuries in the manner of mortal humans.

For all that Szilard considers the incomplete elixir to be a 'failed product', it is incredibly useful for his purposes; by making mortals incomplete immortals, he can harvest their knowledge freely without putting himself at risk. In other words, incomplete immortals' true origin is as a class of people who exist solely to be exploited. As an unending harvestable resource of knowledge, they are little more than livestock as far as he is concerned.

Further Notes
Any amount of the elixir will grant immortality, even just one sip of it. When one drinks the elixir, it preserves their body in the state it is in at the time of consumption: Czes will forever remain in the body of a child; Elmer's body is still covered in the scars he bore prior to imbibing the elixir; and Niki has suffered in agony for three hundred years from the near-mortal wounds she possessed when she became immortal.

Severed body parts will seek out the body in order to reattach themselves, though reattachment can be prevented by burying or otherwise containing the severed pieces. As they will continue to 'tug' in the direction of their host, it is possible to use them as a homing beacon as Renee Parmedes Branvillier does in in 1935; by keeping Huey's left eyeball in a jar, she seeks him out by following the direction the eye is 'pulling' towards. Naturally, one could also use a severed body part to avoid the part's host, moving in the opposite direction to where the eye tugs.

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 or have otherwise endured overwhelming physical stress, they will pass out as humans do. However, an immortal may 'train' their body to build a resistance (endurance) to certain injuries: the more often an immortal is injured in a certain way, the faster they will recover from that type of injury.

For instance, each new instance of Dallas Genoard being shot in the head decreases the time it will take for him to regenerate the next time he is shot in the head. The reason Szilard is able to remain alive and standing after the Martillo executives shoot him multiple times is because he has deliberately exposed himself to repeated gunfire in order to accelerate his recovery time (and strove to lose his ability to feel pain).

According to Szilard, an immortal body "not only grasps the knowledge it 'eats' with its brain, it physically 'knows' it" as well post-devourment. Provided one has the knowledge, one could ride horseback or dance perfectly the very first time one tried. Dalton Strauss has also observed 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."

Immortals are able to transmit information (such as memories) to their linked homunculi by placing their left hand on the homunculus' forehead. This ability is changed in the 2007 anime adaptation: in the anime, an immortal can also transmit information and images to another immortal by placing their right hand on the other's head. While Maiza uses this method to 'transmit' his knowledge of the elixir to Gretto in the anime, he simply tells Gretto half of the recipe in the novels.

The Science of Immortality
To be added.

History
At least three generations of complete 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. Dalton himself first heard of the immortality elixir from the sage Majeedah Batutah.

There are only three survivors of this generation: Dalton himself; Renee Parmedes 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 escaped the city via the Advena Avis and set a course for the American colonies. 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. Outraged by Maiza's decision, Szilard Quates devours Gretto and twelve other alchemists in a single night. As a result, he obtains Gretto's half of the recipe.

Szilard jumps overboard to evade capture (in the anime, he is cleaved in half by Nile); once the surviving alchemists arrive in the colonies, they scatter across the continent in fear of Szilard's wrath. For some, their efforts are in vain: five more alchemists end up dying by Szilard's hand over the course of the next two centuries, and one is devoured by Ennis. 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. The Dormentaires proceed to experiment on Maiza's father for two centuries.

Sometime after arriving in the colonies, 1711 immortal Denkurō Tōgō attempts to walk back to his homeland in Japan. He is intercepted in the North Pole by Fermet, who entraps him in a box while he is asleep, and sends the box into a crevasse. Denkurō remains encased in ice for the next two hundred and fifty years.

1711 immortal Nile throws himself into war after war in order to never forget the realities of death once he arrives in the colonies.

Note that Advena Avis passenger Sylvie Lumiere is the only passenger who did not drink the elixir while on the boat; intending to eventually kill Szilard, she abstains from drinking her portion of the elixir for several years while in the colonies, only drinking it once she has aged several years and looks visibly different from her time aboard the ship. She dedicates her life to revenge, living solely to find and devour Szilard in revenge for Gretto.

Elmer, meanwhile, spends much of his time over the next two centuries tracing Szilard's footsteps with the intention of convincing him to repent and smile.

1930 Generation
This group of complete immortals consists of an unknown amount of people who drank the Cure-All Elixir - Szilard's newly completed version of the immortality elixir - in November 1930.

Most of the complete immortals of this generation became immortal by accidentally drinking the Cure-All Elixir at Firo Prochainezo's promotion party. The responsibility lies with Firo himself, as he had stolen the two bottles of elixir earlier that day from Barnes. Those who became immortal at the party include: Isaac & Miria; the Gandor brothers; all the Martillo executives (and some of their family members); Lia Lin-Shan; and Seina.

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
Szilard must have discovered the incomplete immortality elxir by 1927, as he made Donatello an incomplete immortal the same year.

By the 1930s, 1711 immortal Sylvie makes her living as a singer while 1711 immortal Begg Garott makes drugs for the Runorata Family.

In November 1930, Szilard's subordinate Paula Wilmans is responsible for looking after the incomplete elixir. When her colleague Lester pleads for some of the product, she denies him and buries a 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 manages to wrestle the bottle from him despite Mark stabbing him repeatedly in the process; kicking Mark aside, he rips out the cork and swallows the bottle's contents in one go.

Lester thus becomes an incomplete immortal, but as the elixir only preserves one's body rather than heals it, is doomed to live in perpetual agony. When Nicola Cassetti makes it clear that he plans to enact physical revenge upon Lester, Elmer – who had returned to New York on the Flying Pussyfoot – offers to devour him and put him out of his memory, on the condition that Lester smiles as he dies. Despite knowing that his future will contain nothing but pain, Lester refuses. Undeterred, Elmer assures him that he will return in a few years once Lester has changed his mind.

After Szilard's death, both Huey and the Nebula corporation attempt to obtain what is left of Szilard's incomplete elixir. Huey instructs the Lamia to steal the elixir from Nebula in September 1933, but Renee distributes it to all twelve hundred Nebula employees of the Mist Wall (under the guise of it being a mandatory vaccine for their jobs) prior to the Lamia's arrival.

In November 1934, 1711 immortal and FBI agent Victor Talbot arranges for 1930 immortals Isaac and Miria to be arrested under false pretenses. His men only manage to arrest Isaac, and Victor sends him to Alcatraz with the aim of using him as future leverage against Firo.

By December 1934, Nebula distributes the remaining incomplete elixir to certain executives of the Russo Family (including don Placido Russo and capo Klik) on the condition that the Russos capture the Lamia. Placido recalls Graham Specter to Chicago and orders him to capture the Lamia alive, but Graham ultimately fails to do so. As a consequence of the Russos' failure, Renee later devours Placido, Klik, and the other incomplete Russo immortals.

The same month, Victor has Firo incarcerated in Alcatraz as a pretense and orders him to investigate how Alcatraz prisoner Huey is communicating with the outside world. When Firo and mortal inmate Ladd Russo meet with Huey, it is revealed that Renee has hired several Felix Walkens (all of whom are Sham vessels) to steal Huey's eye.

Having arranged a temporary alliance with Firo, Sham allows his 'Felix Walkens' to be easily dispatched by Ladd while Firo gouges out Huey's left eye on Sham's behalf. The move enrages Huey's daughter-cum-Hilton vessel Liza, who later retaliates by stealing one of Firo's eyes in turn – only to develop a crush on him when he saves her life.

Isaac and Huey both leave Alcatraz for Chicago, Isaac via official discharge and Huey via Sham and Hilton smuggling him out of prison. Once they reach Chicago, Huey helps facilitate Isaac's reunion with Miria and proceeds to find Renee and claim her left eye for himself.

Firo is the last immortal to leave Alcatraz, returning to The Alveare in January 1935. There, Hilton returns his eye to him through her vessel Annie, an Alveare waitress.

In February 1935, Huey hires the mortal Felix Walken to guard the immortal homunculus Melvi Dormentaire for the duration of the party at Ra's Lance. The party is intended to distract Victor and his agents from Huey's real scheme, which is to taint New York City's municipal water supply with a certain substance developed by 1711 immortal Begg. Had the experiment been successful, it would have affected over seven million New Yorkers..

Post-1930s
Nile and Victor meet at some point during the Cold War, and Nile reports on his war experiences over the past two centuries, before setting out on his own once more. Meanwhile in the mid-twentieth century, a Soviet nuclear submarine encounters Denkurō at the North Pole and thaws him out. The KGB chase Denkurō all the way to Germany, where they shoot him mid-attempt to scale the Berlin Wall.

1711 immortals Maiza Avaro and Czeslaw Meyer set off on a road trip in the 1970s to find the surviving members of their generation and inform them of Szilard's passing. Over the next few decades, they locate Nile and Sylvie, but are unable to find Denkurō or Elmer.

After Bartolo Runorata's death circa 1972, Begg falls into a steep mental decline and lives as an inpatient at a hospital for the next three decades.

An East German hides Denkurō from the KGB until the wall falls in November 9, 1989, and Denkurō at long last is able to return home to Japan. Shocked at how much his homeland has changed, and with his family line having died out in the mid-nineteenth century, he ends up wandering aimlessly throughout the country.

In 1991, Elmer visits a tourist ninja-themed historical village while in Japan and unexpectedly reunites with Denkurō, who has found work there as one of the 'ninjas'. He eventually leaves Denkurō behind to continue his search for Szilard, which leads him to a certain European country by December 1998. Upon discovering a strange, anachronistic village in the country, he takes up residence in the village's castle and befriends the homunculus (and village pariah) Fil.

Having had no luck nor leads in their search for Denkurō, Maiza, Czes, Nile, and Sylvie switch targets and in the hopes that they will have better luck tracking down Elmer. Paying for the services of an information broker does the trick, as the bought information leads them to the same country in December 2001. Over the next two months, they investigate the mystery behind the strange village and come to learn of Bilt Quates and Fil's true nature by February 2002. At Elmer's request, his fellow immortals remain in the village for the next six months researching alchemic ways to extend the lifespan of Fil's vessels.

Maiza and Czes return to America in the summer of 2002, where Maiza visits Begg in the hospital upon his return. Elmer, Sylvie, and Nile leave for Japan in July in search of Denkurō, spending the rest of the month sightseeing after successfully locating him.

In August, immortals Firo, Ennis, and Czes board the cruise liner Entrance on the American west coast for the Prochainezos' twenty years overdue honeymoon. At the same time, Elmer, Sylvie, Nile, and Denkurō board its sister ship Exit in Japan on Huey's invitation. The Mask Makers seajack both ship en-route, with SAMPLE seajacking Exit at the same time. The massacres are masterminded by Fermet, a member of both seajacking groups, who had hoped to recreate the events of the Flying Pussyfoot incident aboard both ships..

Both seajackings are ultimately thwarted, and Fermet's identity as the Mask Maker 'Life' comes to an end when his true identity is exposed to Mask Maker leader Luchino B. Campanella. His affiliation with SAMPLE continues, however, and in the aftermath of the seajackings he reveals himself to Czes in Kyoto, Japan.

List of known immortals
For a list of immortal homunculi, consult Homunculi.

Elder Immortals (pre-1711)

 * Dalton Strauss
 * Renee Parmedes 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 (presumed 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 rodent.

Incomplete Immortals

 * Barnes (d. Nov 1930)
 * Szilard's coterie of aging men, including Veld and Stagen Heim (d. 1929)
 * Dallas Genoard and his three cohorts (Scott = deceased in Nov 1930; James and the third man = alive)
 * The 1200 employees of the Nebula association (including Renee's team)
 * Don Placido Russo (d. Dec 1934)
 * Klik (along with an unknown number of other Russo capos; all d. Dec 1934)
 * Donatello (d. 1927)
 * Lester (made an incomplete immortal in August 1932)
 * Three members of SAMPLE: the gorilla-faced man and Bride's two secretaries (made incomplete immortals by Fermet in 2002)

Trivia

 * It is possible that the legendary sage Majeedah Batutah is a complete immortal, as she is the one who first told Dalton about the Grand Panacea (he became immortal in either the 1400s or 1500s), and is said to be still alive in the 1700s. However, this has yet to be explicitly confirmed.