Life-span

Darksaber1

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Okay, we know that Elves (and Dwarves?) live for longer then humans, but does anyone (:cough:Kael:cough: Magister:cough) know how long they really live?
Edit: Oh, and the life span of really any race would be useful to know
 
I don't think the actual number of years has been mentioned. However, we do know that elves who were already adults in the Age of Magic are still alive and well well into the Age of Rebirth, indicating that they live for at least a millennium. It is said that the Dwarves of first generation (such as Bambur) were immortal (probably in the sense that they didn't age, but could be killed, much like the form of immortality that Ceridwen gave to Kyorlin), but each generation had a significantly shorter lifespan than the previous. I tend to think that in the Age of Rebirth that the average human and dwarven lifespan is the same. (I tend to prefer to think that the dwarven creation myth is just a myth, as it would mean that the dwarves don't have souls/divine sparks like humans, elves, aifons, and orks do.)


Humans similarly lived a lot longer in earlier generations. Nemed, the former god of life and father of mankind (and all races derived from man) is a true immortal, incapable of dying so long as the world remains. When his wife Gabella, who is similarly immoral, refused him the gods created a mortal wife, who presumably was little more than an intelligent humanoid animal with no soul. Their children inherited her mortality of body and his immortality of spirit. The first generation was much longer lived, but we don't know how much. I tend to think that they lived as long or longer than elves ever did, so probably at least a thousand years. I tend to think that human lifespans decreased a bit more gradually than the dwarves did, although it has been decreasing far longer. I tend to think that living to be 200 years old wasn't that odd in the Age of Magic, but that the Age of Ice was harsh and cut down on lifespans significantly. In the Age of Rebirth I'd expect a lifespan similar to that in the Middle Ages of Renaissance in the real world, with some exceptions. The Bannor skipped the Age of Ice, instead spending it without physical form in hell, so when they emerged back into creation they were "genetically superior" and lived 2 or 3 times longer than then men of any other nation (if they didn't fall in battle). However, they soon intermixed with lesser men so by about four hundred years later there would be in no way longer lived than other men. Only the highest nobility in the Bannor Empire can actually trace their descent from those who escaped hell anyway.


The Orks in FfH are descended from humans (and maybe a few elves, dwarves, and even aifons) instead of from elves like in Tolkien's work (although Tolkien later tried retconning his orks to be of human descent to make them). In both cases I don't think the lifespan was really changed by their corruption. However, Orks are very violent and tend to kill each other a lot, so it would be rare for an Ork to make it to old age. I tend to think orks of the highest caste (priestesses and shamen, who still speak in the noble old orkish/pre-fall-Bannor tounge) may still live almost as long as men before the Age of Ice, which would mean they still live longer than humans.


Lizardmen, Centaurs, Lamiae, etc, were all created by evil life manes in the age of magic by combining humans with wild animals. (The human part means they do posses souls/divine sparks.) I tend to think that they live about as long as normal humans do, or at most as long as normal humans did back in the Age of Magic, although the humans mages may not have known what they were doing as well as the gods did so they may have deteriorated more and have shorter lives now.

Its hard to say how long the Aifons live, since they don't anymore. :p Similarly, it would be hard to say how long the undead or golems "live" before they wear out.

Angels and Demons (including both those created as such and those who were formerly human) are immortal. When they die in the physical world they return to their god's vault to rest and recover strength enough to return, if allowed back. Basium doesn't actually kill demons, he traps them until Judgment Day.
 
Okay, I knew most of that, was just wonder if I'd missed anything. Maybe Kael will fianlly me more exact (if even he knows;)) And thought Tolkien's Orcs were elves, but maybe he tried to retcon them.
 
He tried to retcon them latter on (apparently he had never been too happy about the idea that these corrupt beings were descended from his noble elves, but having them descend from humans before humans existed didn't work too well, and clearly Melkor could not create life from nothing), but he didn't really succeed at it. He dies before he got the kinks out of that storyline. When his son gathered together his writing to compose the Silmarillion he (rightly, imho) considered the older story describing how the orks were once elves to be much better. (However he chose the later view of Dwarves as generally good but misunderstood beings over the earlier versions where they were just about as evil as orks, which was also a good move imho.) Orks being corrupted elves is the canonical explanation, although J.R.R. himself wrote some non-canonical explainations too.

It may be that different orks came from different sources, but most were elves. Actually, I think that at least one orc hero was described as actually being a Maia, like Saruman, Sauron, Gandolf, and the Balrogs
 
One from the earlyiest gays, Bolrug, or somethink (I think, I may be miss-remebering Balrog)
 
(However he chose the later view of Dwarves as generally good but misunderstood beings over the earlier versions where they were just about as evil as orks, which was also a good move imho.)

Probably he wished to be coherent with the LOTR world.
 
Well, assuming FFH follows D&D aging, here are the ages described in the PHB (I'm assuming this is Open Game Content, if not I'll edit this out)

Race: Adulthood/Middle Age/Old/Venerable
Human: 15/35/53/70
Dwarf: 40/125/188/250
Elf: 110/175/263/350
Half-orc: 14/30/45/60
 
Well, assuming FFH follows D&D aging, here are the ages described in the PHB (I'm assuming this is Open Game Content, if not I'll edit this out)

Race: Adulthood/Middle Age/Old/Venerable
Human: 15/35/53/70
Dwarf: 40/125/188/250
Elf: 110/175/263/350
Half-orc: 14/30/45/60

That seems quite odd that elves dont mature till 110 years old, i assumed that from my knowledge of most fantasy that they matured at a similar rate to humans as children and had a longer adulthood.

i may be very much mistaken though :lol:
 
I see no reason to assume that FfH follows D&D aging. There are for instance some prominent elves that are over a thousand years old and still seem youthful.

FfH Elves do mature more slowly than humans. Thessa is still considered a little child when she meets Devon at the age of 40. Half-elves like Kithra Kyriel apparently age at the normal human rate at lest until puberty though.




The Orc who may have been a Maia was named Boldog. He was slain by Thingol.



Yeah, Christopher Tolkien certainly wanted it to fit with the Hobbit/LoTR, and the earliest views of the Dwarves would not. Tolken stated that the Dwarves in his work were based on Ashkenazi Jews. (Which is why when most people seem to think that Dwarves should sound Scottish, I think they should sound Yiddish.) Early on the evils the Dwarves did resembled various supposed Jewish conspiracies, where they schemed and payed orcs to do their dirty work instead of working openly and honestly. I wonder if Tolkien might have been antisemitic early on, but had come to realize that this was wrong long and strongly opposed it long before the rise of Nazism. Some signs of the older views remain, but as incorrect stereotypes help by arrogant elves.
 
Interesting, in The Art of Discworld, Terry Pratchett claims that
There's a school of thought that says that Discworld dwarfs are Jewish, although the Jewish fans who have said so seem quite content with this (the dwarfs are hard-working, you see, and law-abiding, argumentative; they pay great heed to written tradition - while arguing about it - and feel mildly guilty about working in cities a long way from the mountains and mines, and respect the ultra-traditionalists back home even though they seem unable to move with the times...)
Each to their own; I was just trying to come up with dwarfs that fitted the modern fantasy tradition but worked.
 
oh elves physically mature a little slower then humans (25ish) while culturally mature at about 110, in the D&D universes, does that make sense Azure-Dreamer?
 
Well it is obvious Faeryl and Arendel lived in the age of magic. But did they live back in the age of dragons as well? At least to me it would make more sense if they were at least older than their respective courts (don't ask me why, really I have no clue). So that there have so far been two elven queens, ever.

Perhaps they have even been genuine friends once. It would add spice to the elven civil war imo.
 
Well, Arendel thought she and Faeryl were friends, but all the while Faeryl was thinking about Arendel's death.
 
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