Races and Age growth

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Baron
Hi folks!

A thought I have been having lately is on the subject of "long lived races" (and "short lived races to a degree) and aging. Specifically in the two following areas:
  • Long/Short lived race Adventurers aging at a different rate than their "traditional" racial stereotypes. Like, the fact that a "young" elf may start going bald within 10 years of adventuring and aging more like a human.
  • Children and growing up. Like, if a Page starts playing at age 10 as an elf (for those chapters that allow that) then within 6 years is as tall as the 40 year old Barbarian.
How do you folks reconcile that?

And the other question is: what is the typical age of maturity (i.e. 18 for humans) for your various races?

Just getting random thoughts and figured a conversation may be fun.
 
Hi Hi,

I have always thought that since all of the races can interbreed and produce viable offspring they all have a human gestation period. Human, elf and high orcs are all around that 40 weeks. Then they either age really fast in the case of wilderkin, high orcs and high orges. Or slow after puberty. That is how in my mind a high orc and biata can have children.

For a 'young' elf going bald within ten years of adventuring I always say that it is the stress of dealing with an apocalypses per a year. Or having their spirit shattered has had an affect upon their visage. Like in Dracula how Jonathan Harker's hair turned white due to the stress and horror of his experiences. This in my mind allows for a page Sylvan born grow into a young adult but, just say that they are still supe

At least that is how my head cannon works.

Amanda
 
I intentionally don't recognize it in-game as it is one of those points where the rules require shrugging and going with 'such is how the world is'. Questioning it too closely requires breaking character.

I personally feel racial lifespans are a mistake to have written into this sort of game anyway, as they have no rules effect on PCs and as Amanda notes in-setting all of the 'races' are cross fertile anyway.
 
Hi Hi,

I have always thought that since all of the races can interbreed and produce viable offspring they all have a human gestation period. Human, elf and high orcs are all around that 40 weeks. Then they either age really fast in the case of wilderkin, high orcs and high orges. Or slow after puberty. That is how in my mind a high orc and biata can have children.

For a 'young' elf going bald within ten years of adventuring I always say that it is the stress of dealing with an apocalypses per a year. Or having their spirit shattered has had an affect upon their visage. Like in Dracula how Jonathan Harker's hair turned white due to the stress and horror of his experiences. This in my mind allows for a page Sylvan born grow into a young adult but, just say that they are still supe

At least that is how my head cannon works.

Amanda
A mixed race should be formed according to your logic.
 
Likely true, except the setting explicitly states that's not possible and children are always one or the other. :)
 
Great conversation thread for certain.

The Chicago discord recently had a conversation similar to this involving birthrates among short lived and long lived races.

These topics are fascinating, and can easily take the Its Magic, or Its Science direction. The best probably is a hybrid of some sort.

I am not sure my thoughts on the exact questions posed at the start of this thread however, other than I try not to overthink stuff like that typically. But in this case I would definitely point towards adventurers are the oddity. They are exceptional in ability, in the stress they deal with, and resurrect much more often and certainly deal with large amounts of healing magic more often than normal folks from their disparate races. These factors combine to generate the abnormalities. I personally do not have any better answers for the original question myself.

I recently deep dived primate and mammalian fertility rates, gestation periods, and growth rates after birth. It was fascinating and definitely showed that huge variety exists and sometimes we need to break out of a humancentric view when analyzing non human races in the game. Keep your mind open and it helps when trying to brainstorm stuff for sure.
 
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