Physical Maturity

Draegloth · Post by **Draegloth** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 9:07 am

At what age would you say an elf has reached a physical maturity to be on there own? I'm not talking about when an elf is considered an adult but when they physically look like an adult height, weight ect wise.

Starslayer_D · Post by **Starslayer_D** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 9:32 am

Biological it makes no sense to have that age reached age later then in say humans.. starting at about 14 to 20.

Having a child grow and mature over 50 years.. no species does this. Elfs do not have more complex brains then humans, either.

Or course, social maturity is totally different.
A man or woman can make children by 13, 14, but the spiritual materity to cope with the situation well is developped later... say, 18, 20 and you are set.

Societies agreement on maturity is different again. With the romans, you were a man or woman with 14, most states today don't let you vote before 21.

Furin · Post by **Furin** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 7:33 pm

Star, it may make no sense biologically in *our world*, but in our world there aren't complex animals that live for 800 years, either.

Physical maturity could absolutely proceed hand in hand with social maturity, thus taking, say, 50 or even 100 years for an elf to outgrow childhood.

Here's a quote from the 3rd Ed. half-elf description:
"If raised by elves, the half-elf grows with astonishing speed, reaching maturity within two decades....She leaves behind her childhood friends, becoming physically an adult but still culturally a child by elven standards."
So we have reason to believe that reaching physical maturity within two decades is an "astonishing speed" as far as elves are concerned.

Draegloth, my character in-game is an elf who is barely more than a child by elven standards. He's almost 120. Consider that Orl said the elven life span on Avlis is 600-800 years and that the human one is 60-80 years. I took this to mean it would be at least somewhat safe to assume a 10/1 kind of ratio, so my elf is sort of like a young human teenager.

But hey, if someone from the team would like to lay it out for us, that would be excellent.

_LuCkY_ · Post by **_LuCkY_** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 9:32 pm

I've read that elves become an adult even faster than humans at the age of around 14. Though I think thats mentally, don't know if its physically. Also I don't know if this goes for Avlissian elves...

Titanium Dragon · Post by **Titanium Dragon** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 10:36 pm

I would assume it takes a long, long time for elves to become physically mature, though I doubt their age progression is 1/10th that of humans, either, as an elf is considered to have reached maturity at about age 100.

Dashel · Post by **Dashel** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 11:07 pm

From a totally biological point of view which is proberly pointless to try and bring science into a magical world it would make no sence for the elf to mature physically as fast as a human then to start aging slower. A 500 year old elf will look older than a 120 year old elf etc and 800 year old elf would look comprable to a 100 year old human. So it can be assumed that the elf doesnt hit physical maturity at 14 or even 20 and then stop aging then suddenly age again every 100 years or so. They would be constantly aging so I wouldnt say you could see an elf that could hope to fight in a battle etc till at least the age of 75. But then elves dont see time as humans do and to them that 75 years would seem the same as 14 for a human.

Draegloth · Post by **Draegloth** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 11:31 pm

Well the reason I even asked this question is because I developed a background for my character but I realized I might of made a mistake in my characters age. I used the default 120 years for an elf. Because from my understanding this is the age that elves consider other elves an adult. However my elf was not raised by other elves. He has adoptive parents. I realized this might not even be possible if an elf does not obtain a physical presence until the age of 120 as almost any human parent would of more then likely died by this time. However if an elf is physically able to support a lifestly on his own at the age of say... 40 45 then it indeed becomes possible. Id just like an official statement from Avlis because I dont want to masquerade around with a background story that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I'm thinking about just scratching the whole story anyway just because of the complications involved. Even still it would be interesting to see what Avlis has to say on this.

Spell Singer · Post by **Spell Singer** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:30 am

The easy assumption is that they mature at the same rate as a human but then slow down (frankly in most games Elves are immortal). No species that took that long to produce children would survive and it is absurd that a 15 year old human has the same starting characteristics as a 120 year old elf. If the elf had lived 120 years they should start with significantly more skills and levels then the 15 year old human. Unless they are brain dead morons that is...

Can you just say that D&D has continually messed this up from the get go and leave it at that. An Elf at 1st level as a fighter would be between 15-30 years old (they might do other things rather than train as a human does or start later or whatever)...it would all depend on the situation. Elven society may consider them still children but then someone who lives for 100s of years someone who has seen a mere 75-80 of them a child anyway.

Time passes in the same way for elves as humans and unless they all have learning difficulties there is no reason to put their ages 100s of years. And certainly the females don't carry their children for 72 months. Or I hope that they don't take 20 years to toliet train...or 30 years before they can walk...and what they are 50 years old when they start school?

The ages are absurd and not using the starting age will do you wonders.

This is especially true in Avlis where the elves are fighting are war and they are sending people to fight it at a younger age then they normally would. Hense there should be a large number of "young" elves around. Or at least that is what Orl wrote about this one time.

Just my ?0.02 worth