Are elves immortal in the AD&D system?

[Xen]

How about in the world of LotR? I think they are immortal there. They also live for a long time but AFAIK Elrond decided to become an Elf and therefore Immortal and Arwen gave up her immortality. So what is it then?

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Dace De'Briago: And as the main character starts off as a 20 year old in BG 1... it's ever so slightly unrealistic. Elves don't really get out of adolescence until they hit about 90 years of age

That "20-year mark" was mentioned by BioWare, but I think it was really only intended for Humans, Half-Elves, and perhaps Halflings, Dwarves & Gnomes. The real marker for your departure from Candlekeep is "adolescence." Remember, your age is NOT determined by the Time of Troubles: The time between Bhaal's death and the beginning of BG1 was only ten years, not 20. For an Elf to leave home and make his way in the world at the tender age of ten would be akin to a Human 4-year-old starting his own business. True, Imoen, does state that "Stop calling me 'child!' I'm as old as ," but I think we can forgive BioWare for that.

Average Lifespans (off the top of my head):
Elf: 1000-2500
Dwarf: 250
Gnome: 200
Half-Elf: 160
Halfling: 110
Human: 90
Half-Orc: 80
If you happen to be in the adventuring profession, you should probably divide each of those numbers by 3, to get a more reliable estimate. [img]smile.gif[/img]

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As far as Middle-Earth goes, Elves can be slain in battle, or they can die of grief or weariness. That's pretty much it, Tolkien never even mentions such things as poison or illness. (Kinda makes you wonder how Elrond got this great reputation as a healer, with nobody to practice on....) As far as Elves go, Elrond's just a young pup. Galadriel is older than him (at the very least) by almost the entire First Age of the Sun, and almost certainly a big chunk of the Ages of the Trees, too. As for Arwen, after she chose to become Human, I imagine she lived for about 500 years (it says in the Appendix, but I can't check right now), and then died. 500 years was also the approximate lifespan of the earlier Kings of Numenor, whose Elven blood was quite strong. I forget how old Aragorn was at the time of the War of the Ring, but I think he was in his 80's. I do know that he was only one year younger than Denethor, though.

[drew_jarvie]

In Lord of The Rings, elves are immortal in that they cannot by diseases nor be vulnerable to such diseases in the manner than men are. They can, however, be slain in battle and can "fade away" from middle earth; through grieve through one lost, or due to other factors such as this. Once they die, they go to the halls of Mandos (the God of Death) and there their fate is decided. The bad ones stay there for as long as it takes Mandos to accept that they are worthy and then their spirit (not body! as commonly thought) is born once again into the line of elves of their kin. In the very beginning (details which I shall not go into further) there were three groups or kindreds of elves born into the world. Two of them eventually to Valinor, and one remained in middle earth. To find the rest of the story I would thoroughly recommend buying "The Simarrilion", a truly great book (the only book apart from LOTR that I have read all the way through lol. But anyways, Valinor is like heaven to the elves and most elves want to get there by sailing over the sea. the lands of Valinor are such that they are undying and the immortallity of the Gods and elves in even more prolonged, and it is their doom that they suffer the endless cycles of the world until the remaking of the world (it would get boring after a couple of million years after all!

I hope this answers query (whoever asked this)


P.S. If you havent read the Lord of the Rings novels you are mad. They are the best books I have ever read. After that, read the others such as the simirillion atc, you will NOT be dissapointed lol.

[ 12-05-2003, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: drew_jarvie ]

[Xen]

Actually so far i have read LotR 1 and 2 i also own Silmarillion but i have yet to read it.

[drew_jarvie]

Cool. they are great arent they [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Xen]

Originally posted by drew_jarvie: Cool. they are great arent they [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yeah!

[Olorin]

There are a good series of books by Dennis McKiernan that deals with the issues of elven immortality. The elves in his books do not age after reaching maturity and cannot die, but they can be slain by accident, disease (a few rare but fatal ones affect them), or violence.

The elven society had an interesting evolution, and the elves in the books do not reproduce until "conditions among elvenkind permit"; basically when the population has been reduced due to wars or accidents so that the elves do not overpopulate.

[Imrahil]

Originally posted by SixOfSpades: The real marker for your departure from Candlekeep is "adolescence." Remember, your age is NOT determined by the Time of Troubles: The time between Bhaal's death and the beginning of BG1 was only ten years, not 20. For an Elf to leave home and make his way in the world at the tender age of ten would be akin to a Human 4-year-old starting his own business.

The only real problem I have with that...
...necessitates
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...is that when you are shown your history during the Trials in ToB, you are told that Gorion could have rescued you (as a child) or Sarevok (as a child) at the same time. Child Sarevok evens gives you a guilt trip about it. That would mean that Sarevok, who is Human, is the same chronological age (give or take 5 years, tops, for it to make sense) as the PC.

So the idea that an Elven PC could conceivably be 40+ years old but a Human PC could only be 20 (to both be in "adolescence" I guess), doesn't make sense, given Sarevok's known timeline (e.g. Rieltar treating him like a child until a few months before BGI starts). Not that it really has to make sense, though - Abazigail has had enough time to sire a fully grown son, after all.

- Imrahil

[Minchandre]

Going off of the official 2nd edition D&D rules in the Complete Book of Elves, which are not necessarily the ones used in Forgotten Realms, High Elves (equivilent to Moon Elves in FR) live to be about 750 years old at the maximum. Grey Elves (equivilent to Gold Elves) live almost 1000 years, and the rest live less long, Aquatic and Wood being slightly less than High, and Dark living to a maximum age of about 500 years (most are killed before this).

[Dundee Slaytern]

Imrahil, who said all Bhaalspawn had to be born in the same year? Bhaal is not Father Christmas you know.