I'm asking here even though this is a general question about elves and age, as this is my half-elf's heritage.

What's the span/process like for elven children? Do they age at a similar rate as humans, and then the process trails out progressively past puberty? Or is the childhood delayed/lengthened, as well?

For example, human children around age ten (those from privileged backgrounds, anyway) might already be thinking about future aspirations and guild membership/apprenticing. Would an elven child still be too close to infancy to be doing the same?

I'm sure there's no simple answer here, but I'm curious to see what you all think.

-GK


Ysharra says, "One day, I'm going to have "What?" inscribed on your tombstone, with lots of helpful punctuation."

The sylvan history document suggests that ages 5 to 15 are considered young children, and puberty can last until around age 35.

The Argent Mirror Lahrair Illistim was a "child" when she assumed the throne. It was ruled in practice by others because she was only 34 years old, which you can calculate from the dates in the Illistim monarch document. The Council of Thrones later dismissed her conscription duties from being half Vaaloran when she was a "young adult." In the documentation for the Vaalor of the present day, young Elves join the military or military academies at age 50. They then have to serve for 100 years.

You might think of the ratio as 6 human years to 17 elven years for childhood rates based on those numbers. The scale by age appearance for our characters in adulthood is 5 human years to 146 elven years. An "ancient" looking human is about 70 years old, whereas an "ancient" dark elf might be 1,350 years old. The game only lets you pick up to 1500 years now, originally it was up to 3000. So, the original intent was for 5 human years to be roughly 300 elven years, but people had issues with it because there is very little lore in that period. The history documents have since had Elven rulers living 5,000+ years. What's not clear to me is what "looking old" means for Elves.

Like the Lady Ardtin NPC on the Illistim Council of Thrones was the Argent Mirror 4,000 years ago, and was probably alive during the Faendryl-Ashrim war. She appears "venerable", which would be about 75 for a human. The chronology is all messed up for Faendryl monarchs because the first culture document effectively said the Undead War lasted 15,000 years, which contradicts all of the other documents, but they're still hereditary and probably rule for a couple thousand years on average.

- Xorus' player

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>Level: 46
>Strongest foe vanquished: an infernal lich

In addition to other elf age references, it's said that at 50 is when Vaalorians are able to enter the military, which they do for a century. I am under the impression that it wouldn't be a 1:1 comparison, but that you would have to compare each age grouping. My thought would be preadolescence might be comparable, but once those hormones start kicking it, it diverges. Those difference would also likely affect the longevity in some way, but someone more medical minded might theorize better there.

I appreciate all the thoughtful opinions. I've often felt like adventurer characters experience parenthood/children as overwhelmingly adoptive kin, and thought I might try something different. If a character has children of his/her own, how would they be referred to, and how would their lives as adventurers be affected, and so on. The first place I thought to try and map out would be the simplest- what would a thirteen-year-old elven child be, compared to a human one of the same chronological age? I suppose in many ways it could depend on when and where they're raised, too.

Thanks again for the ideas to consider.

-GK


Ysharra says, "One day, I'm going to have "What?" inscribed on your tombstone, with lots of helpful punctuation."

Very good perspective Xorus. I had thought the PC's were more like Legolas and his father the Elven king Thranduil. While most elves (dark elves) are low level, most likely level 2-10, and bulk of humanity is like level 0-1. We PC's stand out, we are the exception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OMtzJWz6a8



Aurach

For myself, for my elven characters (of whatever flavor) that are over the age of.. 50ish, I try to come up with a reason that they are level 0, starting out. Could be a profession change (used to be a fighter, but discovered that their love was really magic), could be that until they left home for whatever reason, their abilities couldn't really grow (turns out to be a priest from a household that doesn't follow the Arkati), was a slave (so that one wasn't a dark elf..), had a completely non-combat related profession (was a merchant for their first 200 years, but is now an adventurer - might have to gloss over why they're not THAT good at trading starting out, or might just be that they never actually liked it), etc. Lots of good ways to do it that can help build the character and provide basis for how they ended up the way they are.
In terms of figuring out what kind of age they're equivalent to as a human, something else to consider is that there is a huge range of maturity even with humans of a particular age, so I would think that for elves it would be even more so. Humans are basically physically mature around 18, but not finished growing mentally until more like 25. I would think that for elves, that gap in difference between physical and mental maturity would be much longer. I do usually use the human chart to figure out roughly what the age my elven characters are mentally equivilent to in human terms, since that's all us actual humans really have to go on.
Fun stuff!