V's age

[Felixc-91]

i was looking at my copy of the players hand book and i noticed something. V's stated age in Origin of the P.C.s is 103 years old. the PHB clearly states that elves are not even young adults until the age of 110, which is the equivalent 15 years old for a human (based on the age table in the players hand book on pg. 109)...
do you think this helps to explain some of V's actions? do you think that was deliberate? other thoughts?

[Dr.Epic]

I think somewhere else it's stated that V is older than that.

[Zevox]

I think somewhere else it's stated that V is older than that.
War and XPs would be the place to look - the cast list there gives the ages for most of the characters. Unforunately mine is loaned out to a friend just now, so I can't check myself. But I think this has come up before and War and XPs does have her with an older age, in her 140s or so I think.

Zevox

[Felixc-91]

well, at his point he'd be more like 104 or 105, but its clearly stated in Origin that, at the time he is 103 years old, just a few days before the start of the online comic. unless he has a reason to lie about it... if you happen to own a copy its on page 60.

[Gift Jeraff]

Don't worry, V's age in book 3 (130s-ish or something as Zevox said) is the canon one. There's also an error in Durkon's age in the cast page for No Cure for the Paladin Blues, and I believe there is an inconsistency between Xykon's age in War & XPs and what he told Redcloak in SoD. Even the Giant makes mistakes. No biggie.

EDIT: Although some use this as "proof" that V is female because s/he lied about their age. I'm never too clear on whether or not they're serious.

[Dr.Epic]

War and XPs would be the place to look - the cast list there gives the ages for most of the characters. Unforunately mine is loaned out to a friend just now, so I can't check myself. But I think this has come up before and War and XPs does have her with an older age, in her 140s or so I think.

Zevox

It's War and XPs? That's the only non-prequel OotS book I have and I didn't know that. Well, makes sense seeing how I've looked at little more than the bonus strips and the map of Azure City in that book.

[Nimrod's Son]

Yeah, both NCftPB and W&XPs list V's age as "130?" (DStP's cast page doesn't include age). So we don't know for sure how old V is, but we have a ballpark figure and it's quite a bit higher than the one V gave in Origins.

[Felixc-91]

... that really sucks... i was hoping to have something interesting to discuss. oh well, i only have the prequels...

[Tass]

V also said she studied magic for a century (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html) before mastering first level spells. That points to an age of significantly more than a hundred and a few.

[grimbold]

V also said she studied magic for a century (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html) before mastering first level spells. That points to an age of significantly more than a hundred and a few.

yes my thoughts exactly
if hes 130,
well i guess he might start training for wizardry in elf kindergarten
does anybody know the age of an elementary school elf?

[grimbold]

srd says that elves of the age 110 are similair to those of humans who are 15
so some math that kind of works in the tense but not really
1 human year=110/15 elf years or 7.333
so an elf aged 7 in elf years (when many middle age humans started apprenticeship) would be 51 human years old. 51+100=151 it doesnt work 150 is not close to 130.
However maybe V started early
so lets say say she started at age 5 in elf years or 36 in human years
that makes her 136 today
definitely possible
i hope that makes sense

heres a short version of what i just wrote
using math and the assumption that V started her apprenticeship in elf kindergarten V is about 136 years old

[Morquard]

yes my thoughts exactly
if hes 130,
well i guess he might start training for wizardry in elf kindergarten
does anybody know the age of an elementary school elf?

Not elementary school. But V's adopted children are 26 and go to kindergarten (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0629.html).

The giant at one point stated he wanted the order to be approximately the same relative age. All of them equivalent to around 20-25 human years. That makes the dwarf Durkon over 50 and the elf over 130 or so.

The "century before mastering the first cantrip" was most likely a dramatic exageration, I doubt it really took V 100 years.

[grimbold]

Not elementary school. But V's adopted children are 26 and go to kindergarten (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0629.html).

The giant at one point stated he wanted the order to be approximately the same relative age. All of them equivalent to around 20-25 human years. That makes the dwarf Durkon over 50 and the elf over 130 or so.

The "century before mastering the first cantrip" was most likely a dramatic exageration, I doubt it really took V 100 years.

I would like to point that the giant probably did not look up elf ages before stating that the kids were 26
any way they would be in pre-k by my estimation (3 and a half)

also the century before mastering a cantrip thing probably is an exageration

[Morquard]

I would like to point that the giant probably did not look up elf ages before stating that the kids were 26
any way they would be in pre-k by my estimation (3 and a half)

That's only if you assume that elves age at the same relative rate as humans, just like 7 times slower.
Also, why would elves say "No humans let their kids into kindergarten at X years, so we can't let them in before they're X*7".

But as I said, they don't have to age at the same rate as humans. Their toddler phase probably doesn't last 15 years till their out of diapers and can walk and manage basic speech. They might learn that reasonably fast even, lets say 1-2 years.
After that they're "children" for the next 50-60 years, they're growing slowly and their minds just aren't ready yet for complex topics and so they're in kindergarten.
Then in the course of 5 years they suddenly grow three times as tall, go to school for 20 years.
Eventually puberty hits them, and over the really fast time of 3 months all obvious signs of gender are removed and obscured.
Then they start an apprenticeship which lasts another 30-50 or so years depending on what they want to do.
Now they're around 110-130 years old and are ready for adventuring.

So basicly they're 1 year old for 2 years, then 4-5 years old for 60 years, about 9 years for another 20, 12 for just 3 month, after that 16 for 30-50 years, when they finally are adults :)

Just made that up, so they're no source for that. Simply to demonstrante "Just because 110 years equals 16 years, doesn't mean 55 has to equal 8"

[Tira-chan]

OotS doesn't really use D&D elf aging - according to Races of the Wild, at least, elves reach physical maturity at approximately the same age as humans, but not mental/emotional maturity until they're around a century old. So I'd assume that there's a relative rate of about five to one, based on V's kids, making her roughly the equivalent to 26.

That's interesting that all the characters are supposed to be rougly the same age. I'd always pegged Durkon as being older, presumably because he's bald and has a relatively high wisdom.

[Morquard]

I dislike the RotW rule really. It makes elves seem dumber than bread. I mean seriously, the need 100 years to mature as much as humans do in 15?

Another explanation I've heard that I like better goes like this - it's similar in many regards to the RotW, but with different reasons for the century gap between growing up and adventuring:
They grow and mature at a similar rate than humans and can be equally smart and mature as a human at the age of 20.
Unlike humans however elves live long, very very long. They don't just have like 80 years to life their life so they can take their time.
They don't have to learn 20 things at once, because they'll run out of time otherwise. They take their time, learn one thing till they can do it perfectly, then move on to the next.
Also the age of 110 or whatever, is when the other elves as a society consider them adults. That doesn't mean they can't be mature long long before that. Just no adult elf would consider another who's just a mere 50 years as anything but a teenager in comparision, who has no idea how the world really works. However if that 50 year old elf would venture out into the world, by human standards he could be quite mature and adult.

I like this idea lot better, because it makes absolutely no sense that an Elf first takes 10 times as long to reach maturity and learn the same things as a human, but then suddenly are able to keep up with the learning (aka they level up at the same rate).

(but that's not really the topic of this thread anymore, which was abotu OoTS elves which quite clearly don't use the RotW age rules or the ones I just posted)

[Havelock]

If you read RoW, you'll see that there isn't anything stopping an Elf to go adventuring at 50 years or so, it's more the cultural thing that they choose to wait. It's like, today we have 3-4 years of school after we turn 15, then perhaps another 5 in uni or something. We could start working at age 15 if we wanted/needed to.

Elves have the extreme version of that, and appearantly, they all tend to do it. If you go further, and look at the Drow, they don't do that iirc.

[Nimrod's Son]

But as I said, they don't have to age at the same rate as humans. Their toddler phase probably doesn't last 15 years till their out of diapers and can walk and manage basic speech. They might learn that reasonably fast even, lets say 1-2 years.
Not according to V. In OtOoPCs, V tells Haley that he spent "20 years in diapers".

Also in the same book, we see V at ages 19 and 43. At 19 he is clearly a toddler and hasn't physically grown all that much (ie. he still looks like a small child) by 43.

[Water-Smurf]

I think that the Giant is playing a little fast and loose with the different life stages and subsequent ages of elves because it's not that important to the story. I think he put down 103 in OtOotPCs, then decided that sounded too young and made it 130. For an in-universe explanation, Vaarsuvius put the zero in the wrong place and decided it was too unimportant to fix, like with the gender question.

[Felixc-91]

I think that the Giant is playing a little fast and loose with the different life stages and subsequent ages of elves because it's not that important to the story. I think he put down 103 in OtOotPCs, then decided that sounded too young and made it 130. For an in-universe explanation, Vaarsuvius put the zero in the wrong place and decided it was too unimportant to fix, like with the gender question. many thanks for the in universe explanation... its nice to have some one actually try and make a logical connection out of the discrepancy instead of just dismissing it as non-canon.

[TheWerdna]

I dislike the RotW rule really. It makes elves seem dumber than bread. I mean seriously, the need 100 years to mature as much as humans do in 15?

Another explanation I've heard that I like better goes like this - it's similar in many regards to the RotW, but with different reasons for the century gap between growing up and adventuring:
They grow and mature at a similar rate than humans and can be equally smart and mature as a human at the age of 20.
Unlike humans however elves live long, very very long. They don't just have like 80 years to life their life so they can take their time.
They don't have to learn 20 things at once, because they'll run out of time otherwise. They take their time, learn one thing till they can do it perfectly, then move on to the next.
Also the age of 110 or whatever, is when the other elves as a society consider them adults. That doesn't mean they can't be mature long long before that. Just no adult elf would consider another who's just a mere 50 years as anything but a teenager in comparision, who has no idea how the world really works. However if that 50 year old elf would venture out into the world, by human standards he could be quite mature and adult.

I like this idea lot better, because it makes absolutely no sense that an Elf first takes 10 times as long to reach maturity and learn the same things as a human, but then suddenly are able to keep up with the learning (aka they level up at the same rate).

(but that's not really the topic of this thread anymore, which was abotu OoTS elves which quite clearly don't use the RotW age rules or the ones I just posted)

What you discribed is what the RotW says. Being considered adults at 110 is a cultural thing at best. Even so elves do take longer to grow up. They grow at the same rate as humans until they hit puberty, and which point elves take longer to hit adulthood (not until 25)

But obviously OotS does not use these rules