So is an 18-year-old elf in diapers?

[Gez]

Here are two different ways to explain this slow maturity.

1. It's rubbish. The elves are lying in order to look mys-teeer-ious (wiggle fingers). They always pretend to be older than they are, but a 100-year old elf is in fact 20-year old.
2. The elves are wild, primal creatures. While they physically mature as fast as humans do, they are like animals for a long time, not considered truely sentient by their elders. During their prolonged adolescence, they live in the present, enjoying themselves, indulging in whatever they want, oblivious to consequences. They have poor memories, and usually totally forgot what happened on the eve. They can do useful stuff, like hunting, for example; but they are hopeless for anything serious, or even for conversing. Still, the other elves slowly teach them to remember, to talk, to think. The elven trance is a key part of this teaching, for it's during their dreams that the elves' memory fade. By using this slowly-acquired technique to avoid sleeping, they can strengthen their memories instead of losing them. After dozen of sleepless years of trances, the young elf finally become sentient and focused enough to become a member of a civilised species. He'll learn other things he needs -- like the techniques to resist to sleep spells, that would be disastrous for them, or enchantment spells, to which they were so often exposed during their wild years. He learns to use sword and bow. He learns to master his language, which is deliberately complicated in order to force the mind to keep up using subtleties and intricated process. Still, despite all this rigorous training and shaping, the elven mind stay very chaotic. An elf is considered fully adult when he acquired the discipline necessary to police himself up, even without the contact of civilisation.

A thousand years ago (in europe), or 300 years ago (in the America's), children were considered adulthood at puberty. A 15 year old boy/man was considered responsible enough to start a family, go to war, etc. His girl/woman was probably only 13.

You might want to read more accurate sources, because that's impressively false.

 

[Ogrebear]

Whoa. 40-50 years for a Human? Sounds reasonable for a commoner, but an adventurer or rich man with cure disease available whenever he needs it, a human should reach at least the same ages we reach today.

Cure disease, while retarding the effects of aging wont stop someone getting old. The Human body will still fail and magic might help but nothing will stop it. As a side note - I removed Raise Dead, Reseruction Reincarnation etc. When you die in my game world the Gods will only give you back if someone does a major ritual and argues your case in front of a Gods Avatar. It's genrally not worth the hassle, esp as Speak With Dead is available.

Still the biggest reminding problem for me concernign Elves is players being able to relate to a being that is 100's of years old. What frame of referance are they going to use to base the character off? Most players cannot role play a being that is that old- it is too strange to Human experiance. Same applies to Dwarves or any other long lived race.

I argue that one of the reasons Hulk didn't do so well is that movie goers could not relate to a 15' tall green skinned giant- he was totally outside their realm of experiance or referance. Lou Feringo worked cos though big is is still fundamentally Human sized. Movie Hulk was something past beliveable. Elves, Dwarves etc sufer the same fate imho- they are too far removed from what real Humans can relate to and thus simply dont work as writtern.

 

[knitnerd]

Since elves reach adulthood at around age 100 (I believe, at least according to the PHB), how mature is an elf at, say, 18? Or, to put it another way, if I wanted to make the elven equivalent of a teenager, how old should he/she be?

I ask because I'm making a 1st level elven hermit/druid who lives in the woods and was abandoned by her parents at a young age. When I told the DM she's 18, he said, "Dude, elves don't even reach adulthood until after 100...so at 18, they're basically little kids." I thought, "Interesting point..."

While we're at it, what's the gestation period for an elf? I think my DM's guess of a year is a little low. It seems that someone who lives 700 or so years should have a pregnancy of three years or more.

 

[knitnerd]

Since elves reach adulthood at around age 100 (I believe, at least according to the PHB), how mature is an elf at, say, 18? Or, to put it another way, if I wanted to make the elven equivalent of a teenager, how old should he/she be?

I ask because I'm making a 1st level elven hermit/druid who lives in the woods and was abandoned by her parents at a young age. When I told the DM she's 18, he said, "Dude, elves don't even reach adulthood until after 100...so at 18, they're basically little kids." I thought, "Interesting point..."

While we're at it, what's the gestation period for an elf? I think my DM's guess of a year is a little low. It seems that someone who lives 700 or so years should have a pregnancy of three years or more.

 

[Hida Bukkorosu]

I argue that one of the reasons Hulk didn't do so well is that movie goers could not relate to a 15' tall green skinned giant- he was totally outside their realm of experiance or referance. Lou Feringo worked cos though big is is still fundamentally Human sized. Movie Hulk was something past beliveable. Elves, Dwarves etc sufer the same fate imho- they are too far removed from what real Humans can relate to and thus simply dont work as writtern.

I think we were supposed to be able to relate to Bruce Banner, who was human and his repressed rage, which the Hulk personified...