forum Race aging

Started Jun 16 by @DemisedKenze face

tune

Hello! Little help, how do you do ages for non-human races, like thoes that age slower or faster.

something mathimatical or just simply adding like a 0 at the end of the age

It varies for me, but I usually figure out the average lifespan first. So, for example, say there’s a race that typically lives about 1,000 years. From there I can break it down to how I want to age them.

One of my usual methods is doing something similar to dog/cat years. So, maybe 100 years is the equivalent of 10 for this race. Which would mean at 100 years old, you basically got a 10 year old kid. 500 would be the equivalent of 50, 700 and 70, and so on. The numbers and equivalents can vary at your leisure.

Another method I mostly use is quartering the lifespan. So, for this example race, anything younger than 250 would be a kid, 250-500 would be young adult, 500-750 would be adult, 750-1,000 would be elderly.

I also sometimes do different fractions of the aging, depending on how I want to build the race. I usually keep it simple though, with 1/3 to 1/5 being my usual range for breaking down the stages of aging. At most, I do 1/6 fraction, but I don’t often go that far.

It’s also good to remember that these examples are averages. Having some leeway/range with the aging and lifespan gives a little more realism. Like how humans have an average lifespan of 70-100 years, and the aging is approximately quartered or fifthed. For the example race, you could do 700-1,000 or even 750-1,250 for the lifespan range with maybe a similar aging range as humans (if you so chose). It allows for that leeway to make unique characters that could age slightly faster/slower than normal or live slightly shorter/longer than normal (because of magical reasons, health issues, genetic quirks, etc).

Ultimately it’s up to how you want to do it when you build your race. Everyone has their own methods. But, I hoped this helped, grin.