FF X: Immortality?

[ffutures]

The idea I keep coming back to for Forgotten Futures X is something I was thinking about for FF IX; a campaign about immortality, reincarnation, etc.; not just one type of long life, but everything from the Wandering Jew to vampires to reanimated mummies to She Who Must Be Obeyed etc. The campaign would have to span centuries, from the Dawn of Time (or at least the creation or whatever) to the far future as visualised in the 19th century. Source material I already have:

The Romance of Golden Star - George Griffith's novel about reincarnated mummies
Pharos the Egyptain - Guy Boothby's novel about a kind of reanimated mummy, only not exactly
The Vampire - a play based on Polidori's novel

Stuff I can get if I choose this option:

She, She and Alan - which I think are the two Rider Haggard novels about She, unless there are others I've missed. There are already several e-texts, so I'd probably link to them rather than scanning my own.
Valdur the Oft-Born - Griffith's serial reincarnation novel, I have a copy but it'll be a swine to do the OCR since the print is awful.
The Wandering Jew, Varney the Vampire, and The Vampire - again, texts are on line.
The Flying Dutchman - pretty sure this is on-line too.

So no real shortage of source material, the question is whether people would actually find this interesting enough if I wrote it. Trouble is that the campaign would mostly be historical / fantasy, without many SF elements, which isn't my favourite genre to write.

So - let's have a little survey...

[Poll #413419]

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I had the misfortune to be the reviewer that got lumbered with Man, Myth, and Magic for White Dwarf. It was one of the less enjoyable experiences of my life.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Ah. If I looked through my library I could probably find the review.

As I said, I never played it. It sounded like an interesting idea, but I don't know anything about the execution. Presumeably it can only serve as an example of how not to do it?

The chap who had it was keen on Yaquinto games for some reason. The only one I looked at was a pirate one which was to be published as a partwork, with a series of scenarios which introduced aditional rules as they were needed. He only had the first part, and I'm not sure they ever printed any more.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

MM&M worked that way too. Very very badly...

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

I can see the part-work model being a good idea for an introductory RPG if it's done well - not too many rules to put off beginners, having the rules and scenario intermingled so the rules are where you need them. Pretty useless for experienced gamers though. Of course if the implementation sucks......

But it sounds an interesting project. I'd like it if there wasn't a White-wolf style "there's this big secret war going on - pick a faction" background. But it would then be harder to have focus.

I've just remembered another immortal book - Tom Holt's "Flying Dutch". There's "Expecting Someone Taller" as well, actually. If you want to go for humour. "Flying Dutch" does at least touch on some of the problems of being immortal. It's in copyright of course, so less useful for your project. Still a good read though.