Elves, why so long to mature?

[Umbran]

Of course they had high-cholesterol, among other things. It's not like people didn't eat meat until this century. Back then, they didn't *know* to avoid those foods.

The only difference is that North Americans live more sedentary lifestyles than our ancestors did, and as a result, the damage caused by those diets isn't counteracted by activity.

Sorry, but that's just historically inaccurate. While they did eat meat, it wasn't in anything near the quantities seen in modern America or Europe. As a broad generalization, it takes over 10 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat - it was, and still is, really, only a staple food for the wealthy. To peasants of the time, meat was more like a dietary supplement, and they didn't generally eat enough of it to have high cholesterol levels.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Of course they had high-cholesterol, among other things. It's not like people didn't eat meat until this century. Back then, they didn't *know* to avoid those foods.

The only difference is that North Americans live more sedentary lifestyles than our ancestors did, and as a result, the damage caused by those diets isn't counteracted by activity.

Meat is bad for you?

I guess I should tell that to my 90-year-old grandfather who starts each day with bacon and eggs, and has steak for dinner on a regular basis but recently had a doctor comment that he's in better shape than most guys 20 years younger than him. My vegitarian aunt who inexplicably has high cholesterol is much more sensible with her diet.

 

[The Shadow]

Sorry, but that's just historically inaccurate. While they did eat meat, it wasn't in anything near the quantities seen in modern America or Europe. As a broad generalization, it takes over 10 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat - it was, and still is, really, only a staple food for the wealthy. To peasants of the time, meat was more like a dietary supplement, and they didn't generally eat enough of it to have high cholesterol levels.

Quite true. You might slaughter a pig or the fatted calf for a special occasion - a wedding, a religious festival, etc. - but not otherwise. It's just a bad use of resources.

There has never been a culture on the face of the earth that eats as much meat and sweets as people First World countries do now. And the reason why we do it is that those things have always been associated with rejoicing and special occasions, and we're rich enough to afford them often.

 

[The Shadow]

Whoops, forgot to address the actual topic of this thread.

In "standard" D&D campaigns, I generally have elves maturing physically a bit slower than humans, but not excessively so. It's the cultural maturity that takes decades upon decades. As someone else said, there's a long period in which an elven "youth" isn't really taken seriously by his or her elders. And yes, I also agree that elves take a lot of time over things, making them unique and memorable.

And I've often kept the traditional Tolkienesque "sailing west" idea, because I find it terribly romantic. It doesn't happen automatically at a certain age, though, that's just silly IMO. Honestly, how many campaigns have you run where lifespan becomes an issue even for humans?! There aren't any real balance issues, game-mechanics wise - though there are certainly balance-of-power issues in terms of world-design.

By the way, I house-rule elves as having sorcerer or bard as their favored class, not wizard. Makes much more sense to me.

 

[Pseudonym]

The thread calls to mind Forrester's anti-elf rant, but that was a few board versions ago. Does anyone have a working link, or a saved copy by chance?

 

[random user]

Here would be my take:

It's all about the hormones.

In a human if you regulate what hormones are in a body, you can make it do very freakish things. For example, in the womb you can mae a XY male (male by gamete) not create male sexual organs. Instead he will have female sexual organs and in all outward ways look female.

You can cause a person to not enter puberty by using hormones. I believe there is a disease named for one who cannot enter puberty because they can't make the hormone.

Hormones can cause depression and even suicidel tendencies. Hormornes can (at least for some people) eliminate depression (ok some of them are synthetic drugs, but they act upon the same passageways that hormones do and basically "mimic" hormones, or the lack thereof (ie inhibition)).

So you could easily wave your DM hands and say that phyical maturity happens at whatever rate you want because their bodies are genetically programmed to release whatever hormones at whatever time you want.

Learning to a large extent comes from synapses in the brain wiring themselves in a certain way (a lot of research has gone into exactly how this happens and no one knows for sure yet, though see my disclaimer at the bottom). Before a certain age, it is simply impossible for a person to realize certain things. For example, small babies have no concept of object permanence. If they see a ball they smile. If you put your hand in front of the ball and the ball disappears, in the baby's mind, the ball is *gone*. When you remove your hand, the ball suddenly appears. At a later point, they understand the concept that the ball is still there even if something blocks their vision of it.

If you talk to an 11 yr old vs a 16 yr old about their life perspective, you'll get very different answers. Some of it of course is attributed to social experience and learning. However, it's unclear how much is simply that, and how much is caused by hormones and wiring of the brain as a pre-requisite, and how much is independent of those two factors. In other words, if you took about the hormonal changes and the wiring away, how different would the 11 yr old vs the 16 yr old still be? It's hard to say because that experiment will never be done.

Disclaimer: it's been several years since I've taken classes in these subjects. I may be wrong

Anyways thats my 2cp

 

[The Shadow]

There's actually a genetic disease in real life (unfortunately I've forgotten the name of it) that may have contributed to legends of elves.

Bizarrely enough, a defect in a single gene produces the following alterations:

A slender body shape.

Oddly distorted cartilage features, notably strangely-tapered ears.

A defect in the iris that causes the eye to sparkle iridescently in bright light.

Odd psychological changes - people with this disease tend to be fairly bright and have good memories, but have trouble connecting what they know to what they do. They also are notably over-trusting and friendly, even when "once burned" they don't tend to be "twice shy".

An example given in the article I read: A mother saying to her child with this disease, "What did I tell you about talking to strangers?" The girl repeats back what her mom had said word for word. "Well, why did you go up to that man and hug him, then?" "He seemed nice." No connection between what Mom said and what she ought to do. (Of course one could argue that this is true of small children generally, but still.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

As a side note on population control, both male and female elves IMC have a "fertility cycle". It lasts only a couple of months out of every 6-7 years. Also, unlike women in real life, these cycles are not prone to synchronizing over long exposure.

The net result is that an exclusive elven couple may only be "in sync" for a couple of weeks every 40 or so years. That means that even when the couple is "trying", it could take a century or two to conceive. Needless to say, there is some pretty heavy social factors in place to encourage childbearing.

This is interesting and sort of goes with what I have below.
This might also explain why elves and humans might interbreed, despite things like vastly different cultures and lifespans, social stigma, and the fact that a lot of elves might view humans as being beneath them.
On the one hand;

1. Elves and humans are simply from different worlds.
2. Humans are looked upon with disdain by many elves
3. Your human mate will be a rotting corpse before your children are even considered to be ready to leave the house.

On the other hand;

1. If you're an elven female getting ready to hit your mating cycle and none of the male elves in your community are in synch with you, the perpetually fertile human males might start looking pretty good compared to a 6-7 year wait.
2. You're a horny elven male used to bedding down with elven women who are only fertile for a few months every 6 or 7 years and then you have sex with a human woman during your own fertile period. Oops, you forgot human women are fertile practically all the time... She is now what some humans would call "your baby momma".
3. By the time you get the "Seventy Year Itch", your human mate is dead anyway; so finding a new lover won't break any matrimonial vows (that don't involve reincarnation spells). So for the elf that doesn't want to be tied down to one woman/man, a human mate might be more appealing.
4. Love conquers all. Love is blind. All you need is love.

With that in mind, there are plenty of reasons that half-elves would exist.

An interesting idea...
Recently scientists have been exploring a possible link between longevity and reproduction.
Many creatures exist soley to reproduce.
Many species die soon, if not immediately, after they reproduce.
When you prevent such species from reproducing, their lifespan can be drammatically increased.
It is thought that since so many women are having babies later in life due to careers etc, that the window of time in which they remain fertile could possibly increase, along with the human lifespan. Whether or not that's true, who knows.
Apply it to D&D and you could have a situation where elves are just an offshoot of humans that, many eons ago, started having children later in life and eventually increased their lifespan to many times the normal for humans.
Imagine we're only talking about one or two particular communities of humans who evolved in such a way. The gene pool gets sort of shallow and some common traits begin to surface and over time, all ultra-long-lived, late-breeding humans might share a common trait like pointed ears or a certain height or build. These humans, now called elves, can breed with regular humans because they are still the same race; their view on life and their culture has been changed considerably by virtue of the perspective gained through their longevity.

The weak link in this theory is that we have to take into account that males are designed to breed with as many receptive females as possible, as often as possible. They don't bear young, and their lifespans are shortened by a number of factors, namely they do dangerous things to compete for the attention of women. Like fight with other men.
Then again, if the women are living longer, they may start caring for their young longer before letting them out on their own (like elves). This gives competitive males a leg up, longevity-wise, because they're already older by the time they're free to compete for female attention; with that age they may have also gained some wisdom and civility *gasp* that would preclude attempting dangerous acts and life-threatening brawls simply to win a chance to breed. Which could increase the lifespan of the men as well.

The thread calls to mind Forrester's anti-elf rant, but that was a few board versions ago. Does anyone have a working link, or a saved copy by chance?

I try to forget posts like that, rather than glorify them.

 

[Dark Jezter]

The thread calls to mind Forrester's anti-elf rant, but that was a few board versions ago. Does anyone have a working link, or a saved copy by chance?

Not being overly fond of elves myself, I'm rather interested in seeing this rant.

 

[mmadsen]

It is thought that since so many women are having babies later in life due to careers etc, that the window of time in which they remain fertile could possibly increase, along with the human lifespan. Whether or not that's true, who knows.

"Old maids" and nuns go back far, far further than modern career women -- women putting off childbirth is not a brand new phenomenon.

Apply it to D&D and you could have a situation where elves are just an offshoot of humans that, many eons ago, started having children later in life and eventually increased their lifespan to many times the normal for humans.

If we posit that (a) putting off childbirth enhances your own longevity (beyond simply avoiding the risks of childbirth itself), and (b) you can pass this longevity along somehow, I guess it could make some kind of weird Lamarkian sense...

But for it to make any kind of Darwinian sense, reducing your number of offspring and living longer would have to improve the reproductive fitness of those (few) offspring.

The weak link in this theory is that we have to take into account that males are designed to breed with as many receptive females as possible, as often as possible. They don't bear young, and their lifespans are shortened by a number of factors, namely they do dangerous things to compete for the attention of women.

In a species where the young benefit tremendously from parental investment (e.g., humans, and, presumably, to an even greater extent, elves), the male has two viable strategies -- cad (which you just described) or dad.