Hello,

This topic has been something I've seen discussed elsewhere about elves being immortal (and being around before the recent age) as they lived our world. Now, I suppose some of that was continuing from the Earthdawn stuff, but my question is, how long do elves live specifically, and if they do have lifespan in the hundreds of years as it says in the rulebook (I don't have it with my but just going by what's in my head), how do the ones who aren't immortal know that? Do they take longer in childhood or something? How do you know your lifespan when you were just 'poofed' into existance genetically a while back?

Elven.

Elvish has left the building.

My guideline is that if the elf has enormous blond permed hair he's probably immortal. I don't think anyone can work the guitar better than an elf.

It's postulated an elf could live to be 400 or so. Provided they don't die in childbirth or get stepped on by a troll or anything.

I've always wondered about the lifespans as described. I mean, sometimes I hear that orks and trolls age super-fast, and sometimes I don't. Elven and dwarven lifespans have to be guesses, since they haven't been around in the 6th world for 400 years yet. Hell, they haven't even been around for 100 years, unless we're talking about IEs.

The Tir Tairngire sourcebook had an extensive discussion of elf genetics at the end. While the point of it was to hint at immortals, it stated that gerontolists and geneticists had determined a lifespan of 400 years or so from studying the cells/genes. For one thing, <mumble> shortening during cell division would (or would not) obviously be shorter in elves if they live longer - it imposes and absolute limit on cell longetivity.

The way that the whole elves living for long periods of time, and more importantly them knowing they will, brings up an interesting thought into my mind. We've got characters like Harlequin, and even The Big 'D', who have lived over many periods of time, if I remember my SR 'history' correctly. They have amassed large fortunes if we look at The Big D's will for example, so what's to stop elves who will be living for long periods of time from messing with the system so to speak.

Put some money into a bond and let it mature for a thousand years, for example. Imagine an RRSP when you work for a thousand years. Play the stock market. Or if you want to have some fun, play yourself as human and mess with people's minds like a couple of the Highlander episodes where people were sure they knew him from before.

Other than for the thrill and maybe for a personal reason, such as the 'I'm looking for the man who shot my pa', Elves would have a better chance of striking it rich outside of the Shadows, or perhaps by lightly running them. When you live for a thousand years, you get to plan out your endgame a lot better. For humans, it's live every day to the fullest, it might be your last. With elves, if they take care of themselves and stay out of trouble, unless you start adding medical conditions and such given the pollution and so forth, elves could easily outnumber the rest of the races really soon (in their timeframe).

Slight tangent: is it ever actually established in canon that orks and trolls have a biologically shorter life span than humans, or is their relatively short average life span due to the fact that they're more likely to live and work in dangeous environments than the other metatypes?

IMC, life expectancy of the metatypes is all pseudoscience based on prejudice. Elves don't have superior longevity because of superior genes. They live longer because they get treated better than other metatypes, and orks and trolls live shorter lives because they're treated worse. People think they're immortal or live for hundreds of years because fiction such as LotRs say so and because their youthful appearance makes them age more gracefully. If sourcebooks say there's any actual science behind it, I reject it.

Some of the novels (Nosferatu springs immediately to mind) definitely say it's a biological thing. If it matters to you, it's also in Earthdawn. I could've sworn there's a SR4 referance to it being biological as well, but I can't find it in a quick search.

I don't particularly mind the Orks getting screwed longevity or the Elves being ubermanch; it fits the tone of SR fairly well that the universe doesn't play fair.

For Orks, it is both. Many have normal human lifespans, barring violence, but a disproportionate number of born (rather than goblinized) Orks suffer from Methuselah syndrome, a fictionalized ork-only version of the real genetic disease progeria, which causes rapid aging.

I ignore any "fast-aging" silliness in my games. I think the whole idea is ridiculous.

I've kind of compromised in my head that orcs and trolls reach maturity faster than humans, but then they remain mid-range adult like for a long time. Only towards the end of their 60 years or whatever do they go through a rapid decline. So an orc would hit full-grown adulthood in the mid-teens, then age more slowly so that humans would catch up at around forty five. However, at fifty orcs start to get rickety and a 60 year old orc could pass as an 80 year old human.
That's just my rationalization.

In regards to the player with the D&D type elf character. Whether or not he actually is immortal (or relatively so), there's no reason that he wouldn't think that he is.
Hell, let him think he's automatically gonna be a mage too, if he just studies hard enough...

Somewhere in canon it was said that Orcs and Trolls that were born that way have average lifespans of the mid-30's and mi-40's respectively. On the other hand, those who were born as humans and goblinized will still have a human's normal lifespan, but they typically have mental problems from the trauma of goblinization.

Unfortunately I don't have access to my books at the moment, but when I get a chance I'll see if I can't hunt down canon references. I seem to recall it getting brought up somewhere in second edition.

The Elvis lifespan is entirely dependant upon how many Elvis sighting there are per year multiplied with the amount of Elvis shamans there are in Las Vegas.

If I remember correctly, the father of Kham is a leader of the ork underground; he was a human who goblinized into an ork. He was abou 40 years of age, and looked like it; but his mother was born ork, and she at forty-somthing looked like an old woman(ork)...

I think it was in Never Trust An Elf that it explain that when a human goblinize, he keep aging like a human; but if a ork get born as an ork, he will have a shorter lifespan...

SR4 PDF v13 pg.65
"Many first and second generation orks and trolls—especially those who goblinized—died young, indicating the relatively low lifespan of these metatypes. The early dwarfs and elves are still around, however, many of them showing little sign of aging."

I'm reasonably sure I've seen something in other editions of the base book that points to orks and trolls having a shorter lifespan. Maybe it was a 2nd ed thing.

I think SR4's average ork lifespan is listed as being 45, with trolls surviving a little longer.

My usual explanation for the short ork lifespan has to do with body construction. The heavy bone structure makes them more vulnerable to mineral deficiencies and heavy metal poisoning, the extra muscle mass makes their hearts work harder, the extra weight leaves them more prone to spinal degeneration... eidolon, you can laugh this stuff off as "ridiculous" if you want, but the dog breed example wasn't a bad one. Flat-coat retrievers have a noteably higher cancer rate than other breeds... my girlfriend's family had their first die at 7, and the second die at 4, both from bizarre cancers. Lab-rott mixes are wonderful dogs, but almost as a rule, their hips go bad before they turn 4, and they spend most of their lives with a limp. Dobermans are a reasonably intelligent breed, but the develpment of the pincher variant (with it's long, thin head and correlating small braincase) managed to get rid of that.

Orks may not age faster or die (of old age) any sooner than humans, but if they're prone to a wide variety of fatal health conditions that humans are not, it's gonna reduce their life expectancy accordingly, especially with a significant portion of their population falling into a demographic that doesn't get good health care.

I'd be more inclined to believe that ork mortality rates are due to poor health habits, inadequate medical care, working in dangerous jobs, gang violence, and anti-meta violence. What you're saying about health problems makes a lot of sense. Hyper-accelerated aging, to the degree that they're dropping of old age at 40 and looking like 80 year olds, is ridiculous.

An ork like that would reach puberty when he was like 6-8 years old.

Tir Tairngire mentioned that orks and trolls also mature much faster. I got the feeling that a 14 year old ork was as physically developed as a 20 year old human. If you also condense the aging process at the far end, you can squeeze 15-20 years of good adult health into their lifespan.

The average African American male dies at 54. That's how I've always looked at ork and troll aging, as a function, mainly, of culture and lifestyle. The differing lifespan being biological add too many weird problems, like puberty at 7. The idea of certain conditions, heart problems and what not, can also fit in with this. Science doesn't try as hard to cure diseases mainly present in minorities.

Another reason for the short lifespan of orks and trolls could be due to the fact that likethe early pioneering humans, they aren't getting the best treatment of medicine, as well as the fact that most trolls and orks (at least of the squatter, ganger and some of the shadowrunner variety) barely live above the streets, so they have all sorts of hygenie issues. And then, as I mentioned earlier, you kill off a percentage of a race, their average lifespan goes down to match.

There have been some GMs and even players I have played with that have mentioned that attempting to apply reality with games in their own worlds doesn't really work. ke why don't people in D&D die of various diseases? Or in Role Playing Games when you can bring people back to life in your party using something item shops sell, why are there graveyards? With Shadowrun, we've got magic, various genetic changes creating new races, not to mention things like the HMHVV and corporations that don't have to answer to governments anymore. So, we can come up with a scientific reason why dragons breathe fire (I've got one printed off somewhere), but that doesn't mean its why in a game world that dragons can breathe fire.

But I find that sometimes explaining things in terms we understand helps make them make sense. Like elves living forever due to their cells actng differently than normal human cells. But in that case, how can they chart a specific lifespan, especially if no elves have lived that long?

an 'average' lifespan includes things like sickness, and violent death. with orks and trolls being a discriminated minority, they tend to be poorer and have less medical care, and thus more of them lead a short and violent life. thi slowers the 'average'.

for elves and dwarves- the best answer is that they oldest ones alive are not to their 'middle age' yet, and until we see a couple generations pass by of old age, we wont have any good numbers. To make matters more complicated, there is a chance that lifespan may be affected in an unknown way by overall magic levels. so what could be 400 years now, could be 500 in a centry.. or 1000 in several centuries.

orks and trolls, otoh... probably have near-human lifespans. maybe a lil less for born goblins. i recall reading somewhere that the goblinized humans live longer.

as an added effect, we need to consider surge, and the effect of mana spikes on lifespan. how many effects we cant measure did the comet have? how much worse will the next one be?

personaly, i would say an elf will live either until he is murdered, or until the SR timeline ends as we are all 100+yr old fans talking about a long-dead gameline from a forgotten compant. its long enough it dosent matter in most any game you run with RAW.

Search will reveal an Evlis totem for SR3 that might be useful to you.

But why invest in training or even hiring orks and trolls in the first place if they're going to age so rapidly? The turnover would be ridiculous.