Monday 17 August 2009

Earthbound Imortalls


The Earthbound Immortals, known as Earthbound Gods in the Japanese version, are evil incarnate entities, that were sealed in the Nazca Lines by the Dragon Star and its servants.

These Evil Gods are shaped in the form of a corresponding Nazca Line and each member of the Dark Signers wears striped robes bearing the color of their corresponding Earthbound Immortals. Their colors come from Wiphala, banner of the Inca Empire, with only white currently missing. Each color of the Earthbound Immortals are also the colors of rainbow.

The Earthbound Immortals serve as to the antithesis to the Crimson Dragon and the Five Dragons. As after a millennium of confinement these monstrous beings were released after an Enerdy accident occurred in the area now known as Satellite. It was thought to be an accident as a result of the research into the Momentum Energy (Enerdy aka duel energy) going horribly awry, in which supposedly the power generator was supposed to spin clockwise to generate an infinite positive power supply but instead it spun counter clockwise, creating infinite negative energy and resulting in the occurrence of the "Zero Reverse Effect" which ultimately opened a hole to the underworld, allowing these monsters to escape.

However the true nature of this incident was later revealed to be caused by Roman Goodwin, who, upon learning of the 5,000 year battle between the Crimson Dragon and these Evil sealed up Gods, was taken over by these Wicked God powers instead. In order for him to be resurrected as the future leader of the Dark Signers, he decided to kill himself by overloading the Enerdy system, thus causing the horrible incident.

It has been revealed that each corresponding Earthbound Immortal stands for a codename relating to the Old Momentum system. While Uru stands for the codename referring to the Old Momentum itself, the other four Gods' names each stand for a codename for each of the systems' safety switches. Chacu Challhua does not appear to have a control switch.

Their labeled name, "Earthbound Immortal" is based on the corresponding Nazca Lines that each were imprisoned in. Each Earthbound Immortal is featured rising from the depths of the "underworld" and each of them are shown with a different ground texture on their corresponding game card. They are polar opposites of the FIve Dragons, as they fight as the servants of theKing of the Underworld which is mentioned by Roman before he dies. This is similar to how the Five Dragons fight for the Crimson Dragon.

Four of these monsters have already been released in the OCG sets Raging Battle and Ancient Prophecy with the final three pending their debut on the upcoming booster "Stardust Overdrive".

Members

Each Dark Signer possesses one of the Earthbound Immortals, with it being their Signature Card. In the episode where the ancient battle was seen, the Five Earthbound Immortals were seen battling against the Crimson Dragon and its servants, and a condor geoglyph was seen. However after Greiger was transformed into a Dark Signer, a 6th Earthbound Immortal, Chacu Challhua, was revealed. Later, when it is revealed that Rex Goodwin is the last Dark Signer, he obtains the 7th Earthbound Immortal, Wiraqocha Rasca.
Earthbound Immortal Nazca Line Dark Signer Color Type
Uru Spider Roman Goodwin Red Insect

Hummingbird Carly Carmine Orange Winged Beast
Cusillu Monkey Demak Yellow Beast
Ccarayhua Lizard Misty Tredwell Green Reptile
Ccapac Apu Giant Kalin Kessler Blue Fiend
Chacu Challhua Killer Whale Greiger Purple Fish
Wiraqocha Rasca Condor Rex Goodwin Pink Winged Beast

The Earthbound Immortals are known to to be nearly unbeatable, since their effects negate any chance of a counter attack by a duelist. These effects are tied up in the use of any Field Spell Card and will disappear once the field is taken out of play. This is a major weakness which until episode 050 no one had taken advantage of. Luna and Leo are the only ones who have used it against them. By removing the field spell, they were able to destroy Demak's Earthbound Immortal. The field problem is a major issue in a Turbo Duel since it can never be destroyed until the Duel ends.

Ancient Fairy Dragon is one of only two of the Five Dragons that can also destroy Field Spell cards by its own effect, and it can gain Life Points for it as well. The other is Black Rose Dragon who can destroy all cards on the field when it is Synchro Summoned. The problem with the latter is that if a card like Field Barrier is in play and protecting the Field Spell from being destroyed, then it cannot be removed from the field by the effect of Black Rose Dragon. This was shown in episode 39 in the duel between Misty Tredwell and Akiza Izinski.

All Earthbound Immortals share a few similar effects. Only one of them can be on the field, the opponent can never attack them (in the anime, if the only monster on the player's field is an Earthbound Immortal then the opponent can wage a direct attack, as shown in (episode 046), and they can attack the opponent directly (the anime also gives them Spell and Trap immunity). They are instantly destroyed if there is no face-up Field Spell (the anime destroys them at the End Phase and just negates their effects until then). Aside from those, each one has a unique effect, most likely to counter or match the strategy the duelist each card's controller faced. In the real card game, if an Earthbound Immortal is the only monster on your opponent's side of the field, you cannot declare an attack at all, creating a huge advantage for the controller of the Earthbound Immortal and thus a one-sided battle.

In the anime, whenever an Earthbound Immortal is Summoned, the bodies and souls of anyone trapped inside of a geoglyph are sacrificed for its summoning. (However, Chacu Challhua used the souls of Grieger's villagers, none of whom were in its geoglyph at the time.) The sacrificed individuals turn into energy of the same purple colour as a dark mark, which is absorbed into a floating stone of characteristic shape. A beam of purple light then descends from the geoglyph in the sky, destroys the stone and strikes the ground, causing the Earthbound Immortal to rise from the "underworld". This has occurred in both Satellite and Neo Domino City; any non-dueling person trapped within its respective geoglyph is sacrificed in this way and for the moment it is unknown what happens to the sacrificed people. However this particular event was made to seem that it could only occur to humans only. But when Demak summoned Cusillu he sacrificed the souls of Duel Monsters spirits. Furthermore on the series there had been speculation about if this people could really come back if the Dark Signers are defeated. However after Grieger's defeat, the souls sacrificed for Chacu Challhua were indeed returned to life, and when Demak lost the souls of the Duel monsters spirits were returned back into the Spirit World. The spirits of the villagers were shown to be suffering inside of the Chacu Challua during the duel between Grieger and Crow.

Apparently these Gods are fueled by whatever reason of anger and revenge their corresponding Dark Signer carries. However for the same reason it appears that they disapprove the moment that one of these individuals no longer carries on this hatred. And so they can interfere by taking possession of the Dark Signers body as it occurred to Grieger when he dueled against Crow, after he learns that they are actually the ones that were behind his village's destruction. Wanting to stop the duel, Grieger's body is taken over by Chacu Challua's spirit. This also happens in the duel between Jack and Carly and the Duel between Akiza and Misty.

During the first duel between Yusei and Roman, it is revealed that an Earthbound Immortal will continue to harvest the souls of anyone not protected by the Mark of the Dragon as long as it stays on the field, as shown when Martha was sacrificed to Uru when she fell into the geoglyph even though Uru had already been summoned.

Only the Dark Signer's opponent, Signers and those near them are spared from this fate, as the Mark of the Dragon expands and becomes a red sphere which encloses the Signer and people nearby him/her. Only 4 non-Signers, Sayer, Leo, Crow (Later becoming a Signer), and Rex Goodwin have had to fight a Dark Signer, Sayer dueled and lost against Carly, Leo barely managed to win his duel against Demak with Luna's help and Crow defeated Grieger on his own, and Rex lost to Roman on purpose in order to become a Dark Signer.

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