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Immortality Inducer

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Peter Quill: Well, you may not be mortal, but me...
Ego: No, Peter... death will remain a stranger to both of us, as long as the light burns within the planet.

This trope happens cases where a character is immortal through the agency of a physical object or substance or of some kind of ritual. How the object works can be very varied. It may be Powered by a Forsaken Child, thus invoking Immortality Immorality, or it could be powered by harmless Technobabble. In either form, it often takes the form of an Elixir of Life.

The extent to which it works and what kind of immortality it bestows also varies. It might only work on a single character, or it could work on anyone in the vicinity. It may also have negative side effects, especially if it's a prototype or created by a Mad Scientist. Said object will often be an Amulet of Dependency: they will typically lose that immortality if the object is destroyed or sometimes just if they lose contact with the object, often resulting in No Immortal Inertia.

In some cases, characters may try to merge with this item in order to gain its effects permanently. This may work, or it might backfire horribly, depending on the story and what the object is.

There are typically three forms this trope can take: the object simply existing grants them immortality, the object must be used in some way periodically to keep them immortal, or the object must be worn or carried in order to make them immortal.

Likely to be a MacGuffin or Plot Coupon. If the Immortality Inducer can be mass-produced, it may lead to a Society of Immortals.

Supertrope to Animating Artifact, Soul Jar, Heart Drive, and Immortality Field. Subtrope of Immortality.

Contrast Artifact of Death. The opposite of this trope is Immortal Breaker.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Bleach: The Hogyoku was originally created to eliminate the barrier between shinigami and hollow. Later, it is revealed to grant the heart's truest desires; assuming the Hogyoku is exposed to twice captain level reiatsu, and that target has the inherent potential to fulfill their wish. When Aizen merges with the Hogyoku, he becomes immortal. This causes a problem for the Central 46 because they cannot execute him; they instead have to sentence him to their most secret and darkest prison, a place no-one is ever supposed to return from.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • One of the wishes the Dragons can grant is bestowing immortality. The early villains of Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta and Frieza, wanted Earth and later Namek's Dragon Balls for this reason. Though Vegeta only sought them out because he believed he would only be able to defeat Frieza if he was immortal. He lost interest in immortality after Frieza was defeated. The only character known to have achieved immortality this way is Garlic Jr., who seems to have gained Complete Immortality from it. Unfortunately for him, he was also Hoist by His Own Petard and sucked into a pocket dimension where he remains indefinitely. The sequel series Super introduces Future Zamasu, who succeeded in getting this from the Super Dragon Balls, and like Garlic Jr. received Complete Immortality.
    • Another source of immortality in the series is the Water of Life, drunk by Master Roshi, his sister Baba, and his rival the Crane Hermit, allowing them to live for hundreds of years. Since all of them appear very old, it's unknown if this method allows some aging or whether they were already old when they drank it.
  • In Fairy Tail, during the Tenrou Island arc, both sides possess one.
    • On Fairy Tail's side, the mystical Tenrou Tree will not only replenish the magic power of those who bear the Fairy Tail guild mark faster, it will also ensure they will not die from their wounds no matter how severe as long as they remain on the island. Azuma is ordered to uproot the tree in order to remove this from Fairy Tail as well as cripple their power, though he ends up returning their magic once Erza beats him and Ultear uses her powers to re-ground the tree to give the heroes their Heroic Second Wind.
    • On Grimoire Heart's side, they have an actual mechanical heart within their ship that not only powers their base, but also sustains the life and magic power of Master Hades to the point he can repeatedly shrug off seemingly-fatal attacks and never run out of magic power. The Exceeds manage to find and damage the heart near the end of the fight, crippling Hades just as Ultear restores the Tenrou Tree, resulting in a final beatdown and his defeat. It's later revealed that said heart was actually modeled after Hades' research that lead to the creation of "Fairy Heart", a source of infinite magic power contained within the immortal imprisoned body of Mavis Vermilion and Fairy Tail's greatest secret.
  • The Philosopher's Stones in Fullmetal Alchemist. Every character laying claim to immortality possesses at least one, allowing them to regenerate from injuries (including fatal ones); however, this expends their Philosopher's Stones, meaning that a sufficiently tenacious opponent can still kill them. It's also possible to destroy their Philosopher's Stones directly through alchemy, or even rip them out as Envy does to himself after he's called on his hypocrisy. Exactly how many "lives" a Philosopher's Stone grants is dependent on how many human souls are contained within it.
  • In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the Stone Mask created by the Pillarman Kars can grant immortality in the form of vampirism to humans. When combined with the Red Stone of Aja, the Mask can bestow Complete Immortality.
  • The Slates made Adolf K. Weismann immortal when he became the Silver King. Subverted in that he didn't want it — he would rather have died in the bombing along with his sister. In the end of the second season, he does destroy the Slates and lose his immortality. He now gets to live a normal life with Kuroh and Neko.
  • Rin and Mimi in Mnemosyne became immortal when "time spores" entered their bodies. They can sustain severe injuries and regenerate themselves fully, as is shown with the often gruesome stuff that is inflicted on Rin. There is one character in the show who actually eats time spores, preferably old ones, so Rin and Mimi still have to watch their step.
  • In One Piece, some Devil Fruits give their user immunity to some lethal attacks. To gain such immortality, a person has to eat a Devil Fruit.
    • Logias are immune to everything except their natural weaknesses, Devil Fruit weaknesses, or Haki users.
    • Buggy is immune to slashes. Even Mihawk, the 'greatest swordsman in the world', couldn't kill Buggy with his sword.
    • Brook's power is the closest to immortality of any of the Fruits. After dying, his ghost was able to reanimate his skeleton body. With a lack of organs, most attacks cannot kill Brook, though he can still suffer pain and be defeated in battle. Brook can also turn into a ghost by escaping his body.
    • Law's Op-Op Fruit can manipulate anything within a specific area. The only limitation is that using the Op-Op Fruit's power drains his stamina. The Op-Op Fruit is considered one of the most powerful Fruits in existence because its ultimate technique grants eternal youth to someone at the cost of the user's own life. It was for this reason that Doflamingo sought out Law after his initial defection in order to bring him back into the fold and "educate" him on the "importance" of dying for Doflamingo. Law overheard this right before Doflamingo murdered his [Law's] idol Corazon (Doflamingo's brother), putting him off any interest of ever utilizing this ability.
  • Samurai 7 has a ruler enthroned in a machine that prolongs his life.
  • The Seven Deadly Sins has a literal fountain of youth that makes the drinker immortal if they drink the entire fountain (which is just a cup). This is how Ban gained his immortality.
  • Yui Kamio Lets Loose: Having a Mushi lets the host stay alive and regenerate even if chopped into pieces.
  • In Zombie Powder, various "powder hunters" search for the Rings of the Dead, which when brought together produce a substance called Zombie Powder that can be used to either raise the dead or grant immortality to the living.

    Comic Books 
  • The DCU:
    • The Lazarus Pits used by Batman archfoe Ra's al Ghul and others can rejuvenate the dying. Ra's al Ghul is hundreds of years old thanks to the Pits.
    • Batman: Endgame reveals that "Dionesium" is responsible for the apparent immortality and healing factors of several characters in the DC universe: Ra's al Ghul via the Lazarus Pits, Vandal Savage, the Court of Owls' Talons, and the Joker.
    • Superman & Batman: Generations: There is a pool that makes a person submerged in it immortal, but two people have to enter together and one of them will die.
    • Vandal Savage was a Cro-Magnon man named Vadar Adg who found a strange meteorite that fell to Earth one cold night. He fell asleep near it, being bathed in its rays during the night, and he woke up an immortal being. However, the meteorite's effects aren't permanent; Vandal occasionally needs to eat the flesh and organs of his own descendants to maintain his immortality. That bit is Newer Than They Think, added after the appearance of the immortal character with the same weakness in Smallville. Before that, he had to transplant organs from his descendants into himself as they wore out. Yes, this has scientific problems.
  • Conan the Barbarian: The story "The Forever Phial" is about a wizard who gained eternal life by drinking from the titular phial. He has since come to regret doing this, and spends the story provoking Conan into a confrontation so that the barbarian will kill him.
  • Bernadette's scythe in Death Vigil can revive the dead into members of her Vigil, which also comes with the perks of gaining a veilripper and the ability to face the Eldritch Abominations that are planning to overthrow humankind without being driven into madness.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Fantastic Four villain Annihilus has severe Mortality Phobia, so he mainly uses the Cosmic Control Rod to halt his aging. The other powers the Rod possesses also make him generally very difficult to hurt or kill by other means, too.
    • Nick Fury stopped aging thanks to the Infinity Formula. His Arch-Enemy Baron Strucker is also immortal thanks to the Death Spore and other serums HYDRA used on him.
    • The Sphinx, an enemy of Nova, was an Ancient Egyptian Priest given immortality and great powers by a gem he found in a mysterious temple. But he came to regret living for thousands of years; his main motivation was to find a way to end his own existence.
    • Royals: Primagen can, in addition to supercharging the powers of any Inhuman who touches it, can boost their lifespan by several thousand years. Maximus manages to live fifty thousand years thanks to being exposed to a tiny sliver.
    • She-Hulk once had a Skrull for a companion who swallowed a magic gem that gave her Resurrective Immortality.
    • One anthology issue of The Tomb of Dracula features an underground pool of blood that makes any mortal contacting it immortal.
    • Ulysses Bloodstone is immortal because of a meteorite/gem shard stuck in his chest. At the end of his story, it gets surgically removed by some bad guys and he dies.
    • An old anthology comic has a scientist build a device that uses electricity to induce immortality. Unfortunately, the twist ending involves a second hit undoing it just as he suffers a fatal wound. Another has a man develop a serum that grants immortality but also causes deforming mutations into a durable monster.
  • In Requiem Vampire Knight, everyone in Résurrection ages backwards, turning into babies rather than growing old. The only thing capable of preventing that is Dracula's dark kiss, which on top of preventing people from aging, grants them an incredibly powerful Healing Factor. It's not very easy to come by, especially since Thurim, one of the previous vampires that gained the kiss, tried to overthrow Dracula in the past and it was nearly impossible to put him down afterwards.
  • Mammoth Mogul from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) is immortal thanks to the Chaos Emerald embedded in his chest.

    Fan Works 
  • The Time Stone did this to Stephen Strange in the backstory of Child of the Storm, as well as making him a true Time Master. Even he isn't entirely sure why.
  • Just like in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, Shenron the dragon can be this in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, if that's the wish of whoever gathers the seven dragon balls and brings them together. Shenron seems amused when someone actually uses their wish for this though, because it always goes wrong somehow and he seems to think you have to be a little Genre Blind to do it. When Garlic Jr. does so in the movie where he's the Big Bad, Shenron just sarcastically congratulates Garlic for actually daring to make the wish and says he can't wait to hear how Garlic manages to screw up being immortal. Shenron doesn't even do anything to twist the wish like he has with some other cases when either the wish or the person making it annoyed him, he just sits back and lets events take their course.
  • Pony POV Series:
    • Becoming a Macguffin Guardian for the Rainbows of Light and Darkness comes with becoming The Ageless. This is how the Moochick lived as long as he did and how the Paradise Ponies lived for thousands of years. Patch, while regaining the pieces, was at least granted an extended life span, as while she did age it was at a very slow rate.
    • The Elements of Chaos the Chaos Six possess in Dark World granted them Complete Immortality so long as the Element isn't forcibly removed while they're still whole or shattered. Given the Elements of Chaos are the fragments of the Rainbow of Darkness, this makes sense. This is implied to partly be a result of how Discord replaced their hearts with them.
    • The Sirens' necklaces, in addition to massively increasing their power, also give them Complete Immortality like the Dark World Mane Six. Justified, as they're artificial Elements of Chaos.
    • Tirek became immortal after absorbing the contents of Pandora's Box.
  • Queen of Shadows: It's revealed during the climax of the Battle of Tobe that Lord Rokutaro has a crystal shard impaled into his chest which gives him a powerful Healing Factor. With it, he survives being cut in half at the waist, but dies as soon as it's removed by Kamisori.

    Film — Animated 
  • The Medal of Everlasting Life in The Book of Life protects its wearer from injury, harm, and death.
  • Ironically enough, being killed makes Kai in Kung Fu Panda 3 an immortal spirit warrior, which makes him immune to the Wuxi Finger Hold.
  • In The Movie of Walter Moers' Little Asshole, the Old Curmudgeon tries to gain immortality by being banned from the cemetery.
  • In Tangled, the magic flower and later Rapunzel's hair serve this role for Mother Gothel. Singing the magic song restores her youth.

    Film — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Animorphs: During one of their several Time Travel adventures, the team sans Jake are given this as part of two godlike characters' game. The Ellimist exploited the Exact Words of the deal Crayak made to send the gang through time to chase Visser Four. Crayak demanded one life as payment, so he only got one: once Jake was killed, the others get Resurrective Immortality, instantly reverting to normal after damage no matter how chunky salsa-ified they get.
  • Area 51: The Grail, as in the legend, can make someone immortal when the Urim and Thummim stones are connected to it. Many had served the Airlia on the promise of immortality this way.
  • The Grand Panacea from Baccano! has this effect; anyone who drinks it ceases aging, almost immediately recovers from any injury, and is actually immune to anything that involves breaking down things on a cellular level like fire and acid. The only way to "kill" an immortal is for another to absorb them (which gives them their memories in the process). There's also lesser versions of it that grant invulnerability and the weakness to being absorbed but not immunity to aging.
  • The CR (Cellular Regeneration) treatment in Captain French, or the Quest for Paradise has turned humanity into The Ageless. Overpopulation is managed both by Population Control (in the form of child licenses and easily-available and reversible sterility) and settling new worlds. People still die from violence or accidents, although We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future is also in effect. The titular character is biologically over 2000-years-old, although he was born 20,000 years ago (thank Time Dilation), and was one of the first to receive the treatment (albeit quite late in life; most people do it in their 20s, while he did it in his 50s and shocks people with his grey hair).
  • In Changing Planes, one world that the narrator visits has an island which has a small population of immortals, whose eternal life is believed to be granted by the mosquitoes that are endemic there. Unfortunately, this is Type VI immortality, with a normal human ability to heal. The immortal that she is fortunate enough to meet is a withered husk after having survived falling into a lava stream. The natives don't seem to worry about this fate because, according to them, there is just one.
  • Immortality in Clocks that Don't Tick was reverse-engineered from a girl whose unique mutation prevented her from growing. After throwing in super white blood cells to stave off disease, it became marketable. But it doesn't come cheap.
  • Conan the Barbarian:
    • In The Tower of the Elephant, Yara is said to be centuries old, and immortal because of his gem, the Heart of the Elephant.
    • In Conan The Magnificent by Robert Jordan, a sorcerer has cut a deal with a soul-eating ancient god (of course it's evil) for power and immortality. It gets annoyed with him after a while, but can't attack the sorcerer due to a protective amulet he wears and another amulet into which the sorcerer packed his soul and hid far away, so the god can't eat his soul. Well, Conan gets ahold of the second amulet, and down at the wire in the final confrontation remembers that Crom has given his people life and will, regardless of what spells are cast... and feeds the second amulet to the god.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses: A bath in the cauldron can turn a human into a high fae.
  • Dragonlance:
    • Fistandantilus's bloodstone pendant allowed him to drain the life-force from other wizards to prolong his own existence. Unfortunely for him, his Bastard Understudy Raistlin figured out that he would be the next victim and turned the tables, stealing the bloodstone and using it on Fistandantilus himself, killing him, absorbing his memories and life-force, and stealing his identity to boot.
    • Berem, the "Everman", has a green stone embedded in his chest granting immortality. He tried to steal it from the Foundation Stone.
  • The Denarians in The Dresden Files are immortal due to the presence of the Fallen contained in the silver denarius coin each one carries. Furthermore, Nicodemus is given extra protection by the fact that he wears the noose Judas Iscariot supposedly used to commit suicide around his neck, which allows him to regenerate damage that would drop even other Denarians who are protected by their respective Fallen. However, the noose itself can kill him.
  • In Vladimir Ilyin's Enemies in Reason, it's eventually revealed that the so-called "black rays" that are the aliens' main weapons partly act as this to any living being they hit, while also destroying any nonliving matter in their path. It turns out that all those "galoshes" (codename for the alien Space Fighters) were actually flown by former human pilots who were made immortal. After becoming immortal, the person exhibits many signs of a corpse, such as the lack of a pulse or breathing, but is fine otherwise. Any damage appears to pass right through the person, as if he wasn't there. However, it's also discovered that a second exposure to a "black ray" reverses the process. The protagonist manages to destroy the alien craft and then spends time Walking the Earth (he's even called a "Wandering Jew" by one character).
  • The Font of Immortality (the drink, not the typing) is one of the five artifacts in Fablehaven. The catch is that it must be drunk from at least once a week (don't worry, it's infinite), or else the drinker will spontaneously turn to dust.
  • The serum Melvin makes in The Fourteenth Goldfish is this, as when he tries it out on himself, his body reverts from 75-years-old back to 13-years-old.
  • Glory in the Thunder: When an Aspect of the Divinity decides it has finally found the right person, it will resurrect them as an immortal when they die. They usually make rather poor choices.
  • In John C. Wright's Golden Age trilogy, nomenual recordings allow effective immortality. Although it is a major plot point that the heat death of the universe will ensure that this is not actually living forever — the most that is possible is until every form of energy in the universe is completely consumed.
  • In Gor, humans have immortality thanks to "stabilization serums"—shots—developed by the Caste of Physicians; basically, it's an immunization against old age. In one book, a woman from Earth actually gets de-aged from her 60s to age 18 or so thanks to the serum. The priest-kings, alien gods of the planet, have even more advanced stabilization serums which make them immortal until they decide to die, although they can be killed.
  • Harry Potter:
    • In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the title object turns out to be one of these, as you might expect. It produces the Elixir of Life, which makes the drinker temporarily immortal.
    • In the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it's also believed that reuniting all three of the titular objects will grant immortality — becoming the "Master of Death." It turns out to be a subversion, wherein the true "Master of Death" realizes that death is inevitable in spite of the existence of magic, and that, in the end, there are far worse fates than dying.
  • In The History of the Runestaff, King-Emperor Huon's life is indefinitely prolonged by the Throne Globe, an elaborate piece of Lost Technology. From the outside, it looks like a glass sphere full of translucent fluid in which Huon floats. He can talk to people in the room, but he can't leave the sphere or move it. If it were to be destroyed, which would not be terribly hard considering it's made of glass, he would die.
  • In "The Immortal" by Jorge Luis Borges, the lost City of the Immortals was built near a spring that grants Complete Immortality to anyone who drinks its water. The narrator accidentally became immortal this way. When he reasons that the spring's existence implies the existence of an immortality-removing spring, the immortals scatter across the world in hopes of finding it. The narrator succeeds.
  • Inkmistress: The Fatestone supposedy can give a person eternal life, and the boar king wants it for this purpose.
  • Kitty Cat Kill Sat: Lily is immortal, but it takes her a while to explain how. The machine at the center of the station somehow makes people immortal... which is why people kept turning the damn thing on despite the fact that it also causes random interdimensional portals to pop up and spill out monsters. Lily, who was an ordinary cat at the time, was the last person to receive this treatment. She only managed to uplift herself to human intelligence decades after that.
  • Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged from Life, the Universe and Everything gained immortality during an incident with a particle accelerator, rubber bands, and a liquid lunch. In And Another Thing..., his immortality is revoked when those same rubber bands wrap around Thor's hammer.
  • In Aleksandr Zarevin's Lonely Gods of the Universe, the titular "gods" are Human Aliens who have arrived to Earth thousands of years ago to escape the Big Bad. One of the first things they did was plant an herb from their homeworld called ambrosia. Surprisingly, the herb grows into a plant overnight. They make a meal with ambrosia and eat it. Suddenly, they all feel excruciating pain and faint. Some time later, they wake up, feeling better than ever. The old professor in their group has somehow become a young man again. They find out that they have become The Ageless and have a limited Healing Factor. Unfortunately, ambrosia withers in a matter of days, although they manage to dry some of it and store it for the future (the main character ends up taking some to regrow his legs lost during a Portal Cut and become immortal). The characters become the rulers/gods to the primitive humans who live on their island, turning them into a powerful civilization with a navy that establishes colonies all over the Mediterranean. They name their island Atl-antis after their home country and the hill where their palace is built Oll-ympus after their homeworld. A security guard sent with them becomes the commander of the island's armed forces. His name? Mars Ares. The island is later sunk by a comet strike.
  • In The Lord of the Rings, the Great Rings (including the One Ring) all act as a particularly torturous version of this. Immortal beings such as Elves are not affected, obviously, while Dwarves are apparently immune. But a mortal who keeps one of the Great Rings, such as Gollum or Bilbo Baggins, will continue living well into old age. As befits an Artifact of Doom, it does not give its bearer new life, it stretches whatever lifeforce is remaining, resulting in Age Without Youth. The Nine Rings given to the Nazgûl work in a similar way. It's not a pleasant experience however, as it makes you feel "sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread."
  • In the Mediochre Q Seth Series, dragon's blood has healing and regenerative properties on living things. More than one villain has tried to exploit this in some way. Of particular note, in the first book, Maelstrom managed to survive for centuries by regularly injecting himself with the stuff.
  • The Misenchanted Sword: The protagonist is a scout granted this by a magic sword. He believes he "cannot be defeated until he has killed 100 men", and puts his sword down and retires long before reaching that number. He doesn't find out the truth for... quite a long time. He cannot die until he has killed a hundred men. Worse, the sword has to be taken up by someone else next who will be compelled to kill him, leaving them with the requirement of having to kill 99 men (the enchantment of the blade specifically making it uninterested in women and non-humans), and so on as it loses one off the count each time.
  • Mistborn:
    • The Lord Ruler's bracers in Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, which work due to the fact that he's a master of two metal-based magic systems which have odd interactions between them. They're made of atium which the Lord Ruler can use to store youth for later consumption using Feruchemy — with the side effect that he has to become old for an equivalent amount of time that he's young, because Feruchemy is an Equivalent Exchange system. Add his other magic system, Allomancy, which lets him draw power from the metal itself — by "burning" the bracers he's charged with Feruchemy, he's got a pair of magical objects that make him — and only him- infinitely young. This neat trick is called "compounding", and was the source of his godlike general abilities, though only the bracers are this trope.
    • The mistwraiths are normal mortal creatures, but once given two Hemalurgic spikes, they gain sentience and become the immortal kandra.
  • In The Night Angel Trilogy, Durzo Blint and later Azoth/Kylar Stern gain immortality after bonding with the Black Ka'kari.
  • In Nightside a street vendor is selling immortality serum. The real deal. "One sip, and you'll live forever."note 
  • Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia and other "Instrumentality of Mankind" stories have Stroon, a compound extracted from the huge, diseased sheep on Norstrilia that can be purified into Santaclara, a single injection of which can extend life by hundreds of years. While the Instrumentality set a standard lifespan of 400 years, Norstrilians themselves often live over a thousand years.
  • Perry Rhodan:
    • Cell activators are the Amulet of Dependency type in that once one has been worn for too long, the wearer will die from accelerated cellular decay after about 62 hours if they ever lose it. The benefits do, however, include lack of aging, a modest Healing Factor, and virtual immunity to all but the fastest-acting of poisons. The "classic" version was a literal amulet (a small egg-shaped pendant traditionally worn on a chain), which had the obvious drawbacks but also the advantage that it could be temporarily loaned to other characters to let them take advantage of its healing properties; the "modern" one is an implanted chip, which is rather harder to lose (without resorting to surgery, which some prospective thieves have tried) but also can no longer be used to help others in that fashion.
    • Before the activators, there was the "cell shower" — a fairly brief and painless treatment that would stop the aging process (only) for 62 years, with chronological age presumably catching up soon afterwards if not repeated. The catch in this case was that this treatment was available only on the planet of the Sufficiently Advanced Alien who provided it to sufficiently worthy individuals, and that planet could at times prove rather elusive and was in any case eventually destroyed. (It's since been replaced at least once, but IT — the alien in question — now seems to feel that the activators are sufficient by themselves.)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray: the caveat is that the immortality wears off if the titular picture is destroyed.
  • In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter trilogy, Prospero and his children are immortal between the effects of Miranda's Water of Life, and Eramus's staff's ability to cure.
  • In Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief, Gen (the titular character) is recruited to help find a stone that grants immortality to whoever is wearing it. After he steals it, he hides it in his hair and attempts to escape, but is caught up in a fight and stabbed in the chest. When the sword is removed Gen describes it as feeling as though his life is being stretched thin by the blade, and it causes him an immense amount of pain. Gen decides the pain isn't worth it and swears off ever wanting to be immortal again.
  • Ritual from the Repairman Jack novel The Haunted Air. A living child heart has to be eaten between summer solstice and the autumnal equinox every year. After 29 times user stops aging and becomes immune to harm and diseases for as long as ritual is kept up. Else...
    • Also, the necklaces worn by Kolabati and Kusum in The Tomb could grant a person agelessness if worn for an extended period of time. Problem is, they'll become Amulets of Dependency after a while and their wearers will rapidly age if separated from them.
  • The narrator in Xanadu by Rush gains immortality after entering the Pleasure Dome, dining on the honeydew, and drinking the milk of paradise. He is not happy about it.
  • In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, there is a whole planet, Iego, that works as this. Anyone living on this planet doesn't age and doesn't need nutrition as long as they don't leave. If they leave, no ill effects happen, the biological processes just resume. Of course, the catch is that Iego is a Death World by itself, and grants no immunity to violent death.
  • In the Old Norse saga The Tale of Norna-Gest, the magic of a norn makes Norna-Gest immortal so long as a certain candle is not destroyed or allowed to burn down. The story ends with Gest deciding he's seen enough of the world after three hundred years and lighting the candle, letting it burn down so he can finally die.
  • "Anti-gerosome" in Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" is a cheaply produced serum that stops ageing. This makes the world horribly over-populated, and static — one family's great-great-grandfather is still holding sway over all the descendants crammed into his home.
  • In The Twelve Kingdoms, anyone can be made immortal if their name is written in a Register of Immortals by a government official. This is usually reserved for newly-selected officials, and the status can be removed just as easily. The lists are just bookkeeping for the gods, who do the actual inducing on the basis that governments are more stable if their members can keep working forever. By the same token, national rulers are also automatically granted immortality when chosen for the role by a Kirin, but since eternity as a ruler is very stressful, they tend to fall after a lifetime or so.
  • The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is jury-rigged to become an Immortality Inducer in Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure via some material from Saturn's rings, some "really good fudge," and a few extra tweaks of Zeus's power.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Charmed (2018): The Eternal Spring instantly healed all wounds no matter how severe and granted the drinker agelessness and invulnerability. The demon Tull used it to become invincible and immortal, but while he couldn't be harmed or killed by conventional methods and was made an ageless immortal, the effects of the spring offered no protection against transmutation, and he was ultimately defeated by being turned into a tree. Even as a tree, the effects of the spring prevented ageing, as the tree itself would never wither, though it is unclear if it remained indestructible.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Kastrian Eldrad from "The Hand of Fear" was blown into a single hand. He and his entire race could store their genetic imprint into a ring to be reawakened with a burst of radiation even after over a hundred million years.
    • Then there's the Time Vortex, which can do virtually anything. When Rose absorbs it in "The Parting of the Ways", she uses it to revive the recently killed Captain Jack Harkness. However, since she is an inexperienced "Time Goddess", she ends up reviving him permanently (essentially setting his "revive" setting to "always on"). Nothing can kill him (except for the Blessing, which makes him mortal again, overriding the Time Vortex, or rather flip-flopping it: everyone else gets his immortality and Jack becomes temporarily mortal). He also may die about five trillion years in the future, depending on whether or not he actually is the Face of Boe.
    • In "Last of the Time Lords", despite regaining a set of regenerations, the John Simm version of the Master forces himself not to, storing his essence inside a ring to revive himself later.
    • After witnessing the death of a young Viking girl name Ashildr in "The Girl Who Died", the Doctor cobbles together some alien tech which he implants in her head; the good news is she comes back to life. The not-so-good news: she loses the ability to die and, while a severe enough injury can still kill her, she ultimately lives on for trillions of years.
    • In "Hell Bent", Clara Oswald is rendered immortal as a result of being extracted from time a moment before her death. Most of her body processes are frozen (though she can still think, move around, express emotion and cry and even drink) and she no longer ages. However, this status is indicated as only being temporary — if she doesn't die as history marks, a Reality-Breaking Paradox will result, but nothing says it can't be after spending hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years of tooling around the universe in her time-displaced state.
  • In Forever (2014), while it's not entirely clear what caused Henry's Resurrective Immortality, it all started with him being shot by an 18th century pistol by a slave ship's captain (who, basically, shot his boss's son) while trying to protect a sick slave (it's later revealed that he was in the process of trying to free all the slaves on the ship). Much later, another immortal who calls himself Adam reveals his theory that the only way to stop the "curse" is to once again be killed by the same weapon that started it all. He gifts the same pistol to Henry to see if Henry has the guts to do it. Adam admits that, when he managed to re-acquire the same pugio (Roman dagger) that first killed him over 2000 years ago, he was unable bring himself to test his theory. It doesn't work, although it may be because Adam is the one who pulled the trigger, not Henry.
  • Ghosted: The Cronos machine from in "The Machine". Created as a combination of science and magic, it takes people's blood, absorbing their Life Energy in the process, so it can be transferred into the machine's owner. This grants the owner immortality, superhuman strength, and a Healing Factor so fast they're practically invulnerable, whilst the victims age to dust.
  • Gotham Knights (2023): Rebecca March perfected one she named Electrum which has made her live to around two hundred while looking perhaps fifty at most. She has also used it to give a few others immortality as well, including her son Brody.
  • House of Anubis: The Cup of Ankh functions like this under very specific circumstances. One needs to drink the elixir of life from it at "the Chosen Hour", and the cup itself must be built by The Chosen One. It once belonged to the Gods of Egypt, until Anubis' lover Amneris stole it. He got so angry that he broke it into seven different pieces, but gave the chance for it to be rebuilt — once every seventy-five years, a descendant of Amneris could rebuild the cup. The search for it, and the race to build it, is what drove the first season of the show.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid is primarily centered around a Mad Scientist's attempts to produce immortality after discovering a virus with the supernatural power to turn living beings into video game characters and the other way around. Professor Guinea Pig is in full effect, and Kuroto gives himself three different flavors of immortality during the show, plus at least two more in sequel media.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The mithril is turned into this from very precious metal for Dwarves. In the show, the mithril comes from a tree in the Misty Mountains that contained the light of the last Silmaril. Because of this, the Elves need the mithril from fading away.
  • In the Space: 1999 episode "The Exiles", two prisoners have extended lifespans due to skintight membranes covering their bodies. If the membrane is ripped and their bodies are exposed, they're subjected to Rapid Aging and die.
  • Goa'uld sarcophagi in Stargate SG-1 are best described as Autodocs, but they're so effective that they can raise the dead. The System Lords are thousands of years old thanks to them. Shame about the side effects. As evidenced by Lord Yu, even a sarcophagus can, eventually, prove useless, if a symbiote is extremely old. Yu is shown to be suffering from the Goa'uld version of senility, such as ordering fleets to a battle that was fought long ago. His First Prime complies, of course, but then conspires with Teal'c to turn command of the fleets over to Ba'al. Ba'al is, at first, outraged that a First Prime would betray his god, but relents after Teal'c suggests offering the deal to a rival System Lord.
  • In Torchwood: Miracle Day, the Blessing is this, coupled with Jack's immortal blood.

    Mythology 
  • In Arthurian Legend, the scabbard of Excalibur is implied to be this. While it's not explicitly said to grant immortality, as long as King Arthur had it in his possession he was effectively safe from ever being wounded or killed in battle. Some versions of the myth even go so far as to say that it could heal sickness or even slow/prevent his aging. Regardless of the exact specifics though, it was clear as long as he had it he wasn't in danger of dying, which was why it was stolen from him.
  • The Bible mentions the tree of life, along with the tree of knowledge, growing in the Garden of Eden. After eating from the tree of knowledge, humanity was exiled from Eden, lest they 'take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever'.
  • In Chinese Mythology, the Peaches of Immortality grow in the garden of the Jade Emperor of Heaven and are given to gods, sages and others deemed worthy of them.
  • The Fountain of Youth.
  • In Greek Mythology, the food of the gods grows on Mt. Olympus and grants their immortality.
  • In Hindu Mythology, the nectar of Immortality called Amrita came from the buttery substance that both gods and devils made when they stirred the primal ocean.
  • In Japanese Mythology, Ningyo or Mermaid flesh was said to give near infinite vitality unto the eater.
  • In Norse Mythology, the gods maintain their immortality by the eating of golden apples cultivated by the goddess Iðunn. You might be noticing a pattern here.
  • This was said to be one of the many effects of the Philosopher's Stone.
    • The ultimate goal of Chinese alchemy, rather than the western "lead into gold," was to create an elixir that granted immortality.
    • For some western alchemists, the point of turning lead into gold was also to create an elixir of immortality: the the thinking was that gold is the purest metal, and transmuting the base dross of lead into gold would mean turning common flesh into angelic perfection.
    • The irony of course is that the Stone is actually just a metaphor for enlightenment. In the process of gaining the wisdom and knowledge necessary to craft such a stone, you will have long since outgrown the desire to actually use the stone. In other interpretations, it's the process of creating the stone that grants immortality rather than the stone itself.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Call of Cthulhu
    • Cthulhu Companion adventure "The Secret of Castronegro". Bernardo Diaz has lived for 300 years due to the ruby ring he wears. If it's removed from his finger, he will instantly die and his body will shrivel.
    • The Fungi from Yuggoth adventure "By the Bay Part I". Lang Fu's Coat of Life has allowed him to live for centuries. If it is ever removed for more than a few minutes, his body will begin an irreversible aging process that will cause his rapid death.
  • The CCG Illuminati had the card Immortality Serum, which not only made the affected character indestructible, it could be played on an opponent's characters to make them defect!
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • The Fountain of Youth gives players a cheap method of increasing their life points. Only the pigeons ever discovered its secrets, since no one in their right mind would drink from a dirty public fountain (especially if pigeons bathe in it).
    • Elixir of Immortality is, according to its Flavor Text, literally bottled life, though somewhat stale and not particularly palatable.
    • Eternity Vessel, Platinum Emperion, and Platinum Angel keep you alive by putting you in pseudo-stasis.
    • In a meta sense, making it to a Pro Tour ensures immortality by works, especially if you make it to the top 8.
  • The New World of Darkness has people who prolong their lives with magical Blood Baths. Each one uses a personal ritual with benefits that range from "mere" agelessness to Resurrective Immortality, a Healing Factor, and more. Legend holds that the original Bathing Ritual granted Complete Immortality with a single dip, but all known bathers are stuck taking regular baths — daily, at worst — for more limited rewards.
  • In Warhammer 40,000, the life of the God-Emperor of Man is preserved by technology in his throne. Probably influenced by the Runestaff books; certainly much better known nowadays. One of the signs of the Imperium's gradual decay is that the Golden Throne is starting to fail.
    • Of course, the Emperor was already some 40,000 years old, sustained by his own immense psionic energies, before he was so badly wounded he needed to be placed in the Throne.
    • A better example would be the Gene-seed. One of the fringe benefits of becoming a Space Marine is that you become incredibly long-lived, if not immortal. Of course, it isn't all sunshine and roses. More well-off Imperial civilians can afford the Juvenat process, which staves off aging for a few centuries.
    • For Chaos Space Marines, the powers of the Warp allow you to stave off aging. Again, considering where you get the immortality from...
    • The Craftworld Eldar use Soulstones to capture their souls upon death and put them into stasis note , where they're either placed in an Infinity Matrix, or a wraith construct. It's actually a pretty good deal, if you don't mind becoming either a) a ghost who will probably spend eternity giving out advice and information to the living, or b) a Golem-esque war machine who will probably spend eternity fighting the craftworld's enemies.
      • The Dark Eldar cheat death in a much more sinister fashion, naturally. They capture slaves and feed on their souls and suffering to rejuvenate themselves. They're basically vampires... IN SPACE!
    • The Necrons were once incredibly short-lived beings who longed for immortality. One day, they were approached by Eldritch Abominations who offered for them to be transferred into metal bodies. This turned out, of course, to be a stupendously bad idea; said horrors enslaved and brainwashed them. Nearly all of them have lost their higher-level functions and are now effectively mindless drones, and the ones who still retain free thinking and self-control are batshit insane. The Only Sane Man among them (ironically the very same lord who brokered the original deal with the C'tan) has made it his life's goal to give the Necrontyr flesh and blood bodies again.

    Video Games 
  • Azrael's Tear has the Holy Grail and the material it's made from, grailstone. Due to its gradual deleterious effects on the body and mind, it's not the kind you'd want to use for any length of time. And if you're exposed to too much of it and it can't sufficiently heal you, or someone really hates you, you can end up too injured to be revived but also unable to really die, or with your soul bound to some location, so you're trapped indefinitely!
  • In Battleborn, the Jennerit have a process called "Sustainment" which makes a being all but immortal. Discovered tens of thousands of years ago by Empress Lenore, the process involves harnessing the dark energies of the universe and using the Sustainment Engine, a device housed in the massive moon-sized starship Exodus, to expend enormous amounts of power in order to make a single being an immortal. This however is extremely energy-expensive, consuming stored energy on a planetary scale just to alter one being. Therefore, Sustainment isn't done often and candidates for sustainment are vetted through a rigorous process before finally being approved by the Empress herself. What's even rarer, and quite unusual, is when a member of a non-Jennerit race is allowed to become Sustained.
  • Bug Fables has the titular Everlasting Sapling, a plant that is said to grant eternal youth to the one who manages to eat just one of its leaves. Finding it was the life goal of Queen Elizant I, who, after going into "hard-earned rest", passed her dream to her daughter, Queen Elizant II, who had founded the Explorer Association, dedicated to finding the Everlasting Sapling in promise of unspeakable rewards. However, the Wasp King is also looking for the Everlasting Sapling, forcing the Ant Kingdom to race for the artifacts needed to unlock the sapling before the Wasp Kingdom would do it first. Ultimately, it was All for Nothing, as the sapling was locked up in a place without sunlight, wilting from staying in darkness for too long, and when the Wasp King managed to eat one of its leaves, the powers it gave ended up backfiring on him, turning him into an inanimate tree after the battle.
  • Dark Souls has the Primordial Crystal, which grants immortality to Seath the Scaleless, who stole it when he defected from the Eternal Dragons. Having been born without the scales that granted his species their immortality, the crystal gave him exactly what he wanted most. Then you smash it to bits, to the detriment of its soon-to-be-murdered owner.
  • Mundus in DmC: Devil May Cry is an immortal demon lord in Limbo. However, the human body he uses to control events in the real world as a Corrupt Corporate Executive is as mortal as any other human. The Hellgate in his office serves the dual purposes of preventing most humans from seeing demons (Dante's psychic ally Kat is one exception) and ensuring that he is still immortal as a human. Vergil's entire plan consists of finding a way to make Mundus angry enough to leave the Hellgate unguarded so Vergil can shut down the Hellgate, exposing the existence of demons to humanity and rendering Mundus mortal.
  • Dual Blades: The eponymous Dual Blades that are the prize for Alperen's tournament grant its wielder immortality.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • The Mantella in Daggerfall can cause this. It is an unimaginably powerful soul gem, created by Tiber Septim's Imperial Battlemage, Zurin Arctus, to power the reality warping Numidium. It is said to contain the soul of Wulfharth Ash-King, a Shezarrine (a mortal incarnation of the "dead" creator god, Lorkhan, known as "Shezarr" to the Imperials), who managed to kill (and possibly merge himself with) Arctus with his dying breath, creating the Underking. One of the Multiple Endings is to return the Mantella to the Underking, which will finally allow him to die. Another ending is to give it to Mannimarco, the King of Worms, who will use it to become the God of Worms.
    • In Morrowind, the Heart of Lorkhan is this for the Dunmeri Tribunal, and their rival, Dagoth Ur, who all tapped into the Heart using Dwemeri tools to achieve godhood. As a result of the game's main quest, their ties to the Heart are severed, killing Dagoth Ur but allowing the Tribunal to survive with a trace of their divinity in tact due to the faith of their followers.
  • Fallen London:
    • The local Bazaar of the Bizarre sells these in the form of Hesperidean Cider, of which a single drink will make you immortal. It's bloody expensive, though, to the point only three players have ever managed to buy it. Plus, it isn't that much help anyways unless you want to head for the surface (or the "no death from old age" part is what interests you), as within the Neath Death is Cheap and you'll get back up soon afterwards. In game terms, it's an infinitely-reuseable item that, when used, removes all levels of Wounds you may have. It can also be shared with other players, and if you do happen to die while possessing it, it gives you an option to immediately return to life, no questions asked.
    • As a manner of spoiler, the Masters have also granted these before in previous deals for previous cities, somewhat by accident in some cases. The big damn diamond at the center of Polythreme is a particularly intense one for its user, radiating so much life inanimate objects anywhere nearby start coming to life, and just a tiny little dusty speck is enough to keep a Clay Man animate. The King With a Hundred Hearts, the user in question, is less than thrilled about becoming more of a location than a man.
    • The Mountain of Light, down in the southern continent of the Neath. Radiates life in a different way, making flora extremely lively and strong (to the point vines sprout in bare rock and the local coffee will keep you up for weeks), and all the people there are immortal to age, and nearly so to violence; they just re-merge and get back up. However, the Presbyterate, the local government, has the rule that no man shall live past a thousand; they'll execute you if you get even one year past.
  • The Heart of Chaos serves this purpose for Caius of Final Fantasy XIII-2. As long as it beats in his chest, he always revives instantly after being defeated, Justified via him having the Auto-Raise status boost. If it's destroyed, he dies, and so does the goddess who gave it to him.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Triforce of Power is stated to have made Ganondorf immortal as long as he is connected to it, although that connection can be forcibly severed.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Igos du Ikana, Igos du Ikana's bodyguards, Flat, Sharp and every undead inhabitant of the Ikana Canyon revived by Skull Kid wearing the Majora's Mask and maintained alive by Twinmold.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Vamp, who previously demonstrated his immortality in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, is revealed to have nanomachines (what else?) in his body that enhance his already impressive natural healing abilities, making him practically immortal. Naturally, the only way to beat him later on is to inject him with a shot that supresses his nanomachines.
  • Mystery Case Files:
    • In Return to Ravenhearst, it is revealed that Charles Dalimar created a machine that kept him alive for more than a century by using the power of other people's souls.
    • In Broken Hour, Jacob Huxley invented a mechanical heart that gave immortality to the people it was implanted in. Too bad it went horribly wrong when he implanted it on his wife, who pretty much wanted to die, and went insane because of her new immortality.
  • Pokémon:
    • In Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs, The Societea become immortal by wearing pieces of the Golden Armor. This seems to be of the "stop the aging process and survive mortal blows" kind, but we never actually see them suffer any direct physical harm until after they lose their armor to Purple Eyes, so we can't be sure about the latter. After Purple Eyes is defeated, the armor disappears, thus making sure no one remains immortal.
    • In Pokémon X and Y, the Ultimate Weapon can grant eternal life. The Pokemon Xerneas grants eternal life, too, but not when you catch it in a Pokeball. Guess what you do over the course of the game.
  • In Ragnarok Online, the Soul Linker job change implies that your character owns several.
    This Witherless Rose will wither away instead of you...
    This Immortal Heart will cease to pump blood, instead of yours.
    This Diamond will turn to dust in place of your mortal body.
  • The Trope Namer is the +ii emitter in The Reconstruction and I Miss the Sunrise, affectionately referred to as the "immortality inducer" by some characters. It works by emitting radiation that stops cell aging, and is mass-produced, effectively making the entire human race immortal. It induces type II immortality. In The Reconstruction, it is also the "artifact" that Havan finds. Tezkhra reveals in the Golden Ending that there are five in total. Four are destroyed or deactivated by Tezkhra, so the fifth is likely a Sequel Hook.
  • The Life Gem from Skullgirls. Shortly afterwards swallowing it, Miss Fortune was cut into pieces — not only did she survive the ordeal, the gory extent of splitting apart her undying body is utilized in her fighting style.
  • The Twenty-seven True Runes in the Suikoden games will stop their bearers from aging. However, given the nature of the True Runes, you're more likely to die just by having one.
  • The Emigre Manuscript from the Shadow Hearts games is said to have featured instructions to gain immortality. Only the man who translated the book to under orders of the Vatican and his closest pupil know the procedure as the first omitted this part on the copy of the text he worked on so it couldn't be abused by future generations. He claims that he cannot perform the same act on others.
  • Jacob Crow in TimeSplitters Future Perfect achieves immortality by merging himself with one of these, or turning himself into one, it would seem. The good? He is immortal and can time-travel at will. The bad? His body is plastered to a giant bipedal mech, and he has absolutely no hands whatsoever.
  • Tomb Raider:
    • The Eye of Isis artifact in Tomb Raider III can apparently grant its bearer immortality or at least have drastically slow aging. Cosmetics tycoon Sophia Leigh posses the Isis and uses it in conjunction with her experiments to get true everlasting beauty. Unfortunately, all the people she experimented on were Left for Dead after their face and flesh rotted away and got booted down to the abandoned train tubes of Aldwych. When the men who were affected by the experiment tried to kill themselves, they discovered that it didn't work because they became immortal.
    • Rise of the Tomb Raider introduced another one to the series: the Divine Source, as evidenced by Jacob, who's the very same prophet that led his followers from Constantinople to Siberia many centuries before Lara meets him, still looking the same as he did then. The Source, taking the shape of head-sized, glowing blue crystal, also grants immortality by removing the soul of anyone who gazes into it, both in terms of not aging anymore and gaining Resurrective Immortality. Unfortunately, questions as to the Source's origin or true nature are left a Riddle for the Ages.
  • The Touhou Project series has the Hourai Elixir, which was literally created by distilling the concept of eternity into liquid form. It makes whoever drinks it immortal by removing the very concept of death from their being: they will never age, never grow sick, and will heal any injury, no matter how severe (even instantly in Kaguya's case, due to her other power). The closest one can get to defeating one is beating them down until the pain makes them not want to fight you anymore. Even if you could time-travel to before they drank the elixir and tried to kill them then, it still wouldn't work; death was removed from the entirety of their history. Fortunately, only three (possibly four) people have consumed the Elixir, and not one of them is particularly interested in a fight to the death (except between two of them). The Elixir remains in the immortal's body — should someone be skilled enough to disable a Hourai immortal and eat his or her liver without cooking it, they will also be granted the effects of the Elixir.
  • The Turing Test: The extremophile found on Europa is in a symbiotic relationship with a virus that repairs the former's damaged DNA, which confers it a resistance to high levels of radiation. According to Soichi's writings, this also prevents the biological aging that is ultimately caused by DNA damage.
  • War Gods features a mystical stone known as the Ore. Induces eight humans, one cyborg and one stone idol to immortality thanks to many chunks of ore. As a result, they're fighting each other until one becomes the true superior God... or so it seems.

    Visual Novels 
  • Both Yukiko and Liselotte Werckmeister from 11eyes share the same immortality that comes with a rapid Healing Factor and the inability to age. It is revealed that the Voidstone is the source of the immortality and separating it from the host will disable that immortality.
  • Ever17: The Cure virus inflicts The Ageless and Enchanced Healing Factor conditions on its victims, along with some other, less convenient symptoms.
  • Mizuchi: A major reveal in the game is that Ai is able to turn people immortal if she takes in a lot of their blood. Jinhai was made immortal this way, and the main protagonist Linh also becomes immortal through this method in Ai's route.

    Web Animation 
  • Bravest Warriors has the Ever Gauntlet, which keeps its holder(s) from aging. It also halts all natural body functions, including healing, but all can be restored by just getting away from it.

    Webcomics 
  • In Jix, Kelelder the Planet Thief was made immortal due to a glitch in a cloning and mind transfer device. He's also made a couple of servants immortal using his blood, Heleatra too due to a deal with Remula.
  • The Paradox Space story The Thirst of Dornamon Gary involves a t-shirt with a picture of Hella Jeff on it, which ages instead of him.
  • The Guardian Emerald in Sonic the Comic – Online! when Knuckles died, it would always resurrected him, but when then Floating Island's systems fell into disrepair most of Knuckles's memories were lost, as such he does not know the fate of his race and for it to work a being from the spiritual plane must be willing to exist in the mortal realm, unfortunately for the Echidnas, and perhaps all of Mobius, the only willing candidate was Vichama, the God of Death.
  • The life extenders are this for their holders in the Team Fortress 2 supplemental webcomics: one for Blutarch Mann, the other for Redmond Mann. The Loose Canon comic suggests that three were built. In fact, there are a total of four. One is used by the lost Mann brother, Gray, assumed to be the third although later developments suggest he actually built it himself. Everything he's done since showing up is to find Australium to keep it going. The final life extender, presumably the third original, is used by the Administrator and frequently upgraded by the Engineer, as revealed by Blood in the Water. However, that same story reveals that even the life extenders have their limits. The Administrator's upgraded version will still only grant her a few more years.note 

    Websites 
  • SCP Foundation:
    • SCP-963 is a talisman which, if you are killed while holding it, is imprinted with your soul. From then on, anyone else who touches the talisman has their personality overwritten with whoever is contained inside. It's actually possible to make multiple copies of yourself this way. Unfortunately, SCP-963 currently belongs to the quite-possibly-insane Dr. Bright, which led to several (actually pretty funny) restrictions such as "SCP-963 is not a joy-buzzer," "SCP-963 is not to be used in a game of 'hot potato'," and "Dr. Bright is not allowed to apply SCP-963 to any major political figures. Again."
    • Anyone who touches SCP-596 is kept alive forever until they release it, even regenerating from any injury. Not that you would want to be however, since you're kept alive in permanent agony, and the only way to let go is for someone else to touch it at which point it's their problem and you instantly die. Its heavily hinted that it was a booby trap to curse tomb robbers with a case of And I Must Scream.

    Western Animation 
  • In Adventure Time, the Ice King's Crown grants its wearer, among other things, immortality.
  • In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a talking doll ("Happy-Time Harry") who's a walking manifestation of seemingly inescapable mundane problems and vice turns out to be a Death Seeker who'll just take it. As he starts leaning more and more on that, Master Shake decides that's what he wants, so he decides to do the opposite, throw him off a cliff and turn him into an immortal Highlander. Which is, in addition to being a movie, not even how it worked in the movie, which even Harry points out, and when Master Shake is pressed for his reasoning, he just claims that he definitely remembers the movie had cliffs. (Going over the edge just injures him.)
  • Defenders of the Earth has two episodes ("The Evil of Doctor Dark" and "The Return of Doctor Dark") whose plots revolve around the search for the three pieces of the Orb of Konos which, when fully assembled, has the power to grant immortality.
  • In Gargoyles, Demona and Macbeth are each other's immortality inducers. As long as one is alive, the other cannot die. The only way either of them can die is if they kill each other. By the time of his first appearance in the series, after hundreds of years living this way, this is exactly what Macbeth wants.
  • The Dog talisman in Jackie Chan Adventures gives someone immortality with youthful energy, but (the baddies, at least) can still feel pain from blunt force trauma. Together with the Horse talisman, which gives the power to heal almost instantly from injuries, they provide Complete Immortality.
  • Rick and Morty:
    • "The Whirly-Dirly Conspiracy" takes place in a space resort covered in an immortality field. People just kill each other for fun and instantly heal from their injuries. The title "Whirly-Dirly" is a roller-coaster that briefly leaves the immortality field, allowing aliens to try and assassinate Rick, and the attempt to stop them causes the immortality field to be destroyed.
    • "Final DeSmithation" has a temporary version in the form of ordinary fortune cookies. Due to the cookies being made from the feces of a chaos-eating alien creature with an intestinal problem that draws the unknown towards known like gravity, any fortune inserted into the cookies is destined to come true, no matter how improbable. The immortality stems from how many fortunes are next-to-impossible to achieve while dead, so fate will keep whoever eats the fortune cookie alive until the prediction written on the fortune comes true. Rick exploits this by using Jerry as a meat shield due to his fortune of having sex with his mother not having come true yet, and in a big fight scene in the end, Rick ends up eating an ordinary fortune cookie that predicts he will make a new friend, rendering Rick immortal until he makes a new friend. The episode also features a guard who is given a fortune that says "You cannot be killed", providing a more direct version of this trope.
  • Starscream, in Transformers: Animated, becomes immortal due to a shard of the AllSpark lodged in his head. Prowl removes it in the series finale.
  • Chase Young from Xiaolin Showdown gained immortality at the cost of turning evil by drinking the Liao Mang Long soup. He has to regularly consume the soup to keep his mortal form and was introduced in the series trying to make Dojo the key ingredient of the soup.
  • In X-Men: The Animated Series, the secret to Apocalypse's immortality is the Lazarus Chamber, an ancient device located inside his pyramidal headquarters in Cairo. It allows him to rejuvenate himself every hundred or so years and restore his power to its prime.

    Real Life 
  • Certain mutations in genes such as BRCA 1, Rb, c-Myc et al. can prevent your cells from dying after a preset number of divisions. Unfortunately, scientists call this condition cancer. So while your individual cells become immortal (the tumour cells taken from the body of Henrietta Lacks are still alive today; they will continue to live as long as the field of biology exists), you will die.
  • Humanity has been searching for the secret to immortality for thousands of years. For some reason they kept coming back to mercury as a miracle serum. Historians partially attribute the fall of several Chinese dynasties to emperors drinking mercury, going crazy, dying young and leaving the throne to unprepared boys, who grew up to drink mercury, etc.

Alternative Title(s): Artifact Of Immortality, Immortality Talisman

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