Elves and Immortality

[Dark Wolf 97]

IMC Elves live forever (like in LOTRs) without the other benifits that gods recieve. Do you think this changes Elven ECL? I personally do not, but thats just me.

And in my campain their population is nearly 75% of that of the humans, so how often would they (for lack of better words ) mate? I am have several balace issues with these guys. It is kinda weird thinking of a huge population of young looking people. And I need an explanation on why there are very few Elves over 4,500 years old (perhaps they go to the Fey world, but I'm looking for other solutions).

 

[Crothian]

I don't think this requires and ecl bonus. Well, how long has the empire existed? How many wars have they been in? That could explain why there are few really old ones. O

 

[Drawmack]

I have also made them immortal IMC.

However, they have a con reduction which makes them very susptible to childhood death from illness. With nearly 70% dying in their first 5 years, and heck a five year old elf is an infant.

Their justation period is 5 years.

Children are generally born 25 - 50 years apart from a single mother.

Basically I sat down and did a lot of math to balance them with humans having a 2:1 ratio over evles and these were the numbers that I came up with. Don't ask for the work now though that was well over a year ago and I'm not redoing it.

On a related note: half-elves aging is changed becuase of this. I created a life span table that they have to roll on. Their life span can be from 100 to 1000 years (1d10 * 10 + 1d100)

 

[Belkunyn]

Perhaps you could say that although the elves are ageless (I think immortal is the wrong word, but perhaps that's just me) they still "pass on" when they feel they have done all they were supposed to. And you could also say that it's mostly those who have some position of "importance" who stay for very long because they feel they are still needed. So that's a way to explain the existence of the few ones who had stayed for very long, the Elronds and Galadriels of your world, and also why most ordinary ones, farmers perhaps, leave for Arvandor, or whatever place you use for the elven god's home, or where ever the elves go when they die in your campaign.

 

[Belkunyn]

Perhaps you could say that although the elves are ageless (I think immortal is the wrong word, but perhaps that's just me) they still "pass on" when they feel they have done all they were supposed to. And you could also say that it's mostly those who have some position of "importance" who stay for very long because they feel they are still needed. So that's a way to explain the existence of the few ones who had stayed for very long, the Elronds and Galadriels of your world, and also why most ordinary ones, farmers perhaps, leave for Arvandor, or whatever place you use for the elven god's home, or where ever the elves go when they die in your campaign.

 

[Saeviomagy]

You could always say that elves are ageless because their chaotic society almost guarantees them dying in an untimely way. Noone's ever met an ancient elf, because they all die from some reckless act before they reach 300...

 

[SylverFlame]

In the FR book Evermeet (a novel) it explains that elves are ageless, though they still recieve aging effects (wrinkles, stat changes, etc.) only VERY slowly. They only "pass on" when they choose to make that move or they are killed. Choosing to move on is like meditation in the book where the elf turns into light and disappears. Pretty cool effect.

As for birth rates... I look to the Kinslayer Wars trilogy of Dragon Lance. In that the elven king and queen of Silvanost have two kids, and at one point they mention that that is a lot considering the parents are both around 1000 years old (I can't remember if that's accurate).

As for actual chance of fertilization, I just make it a 20% chance every ten years and cap the family at 3 or 4 kids over a period of around 2000-3000 years. That keeps the numbers low. Also, I allow certain families to have more in special cases ("It's said they had a human in the family a few hundred years ago!"). Also, feral elves have a slightly higher birth rate and mortality rate. City elves (as I call all civilized elves), have a fairly low mortality rate so their society is either stable or in a slight growth position.

 

[Ace]

My Elves are unaging and immune to disease.

I don't add to the ECL for this, neither aging nor disease matter enough in the game

As far as reproduction I take a different tack. My elves have complete control over the reproductive cycle

Both the male and the female must want to have a baby. If they do, there will be a pregancy

The gestation is one year

The reason that there aren't zillions of elves is that Elveson the whole aren't comfortable crowding. Also they don't like Farming, FIshing and Lumbering on a large scale.

Still if there is a need they can have a child every year, as needed for as long as needed.