Character's Growing up

Anyone who has looked at their characters character sheet will have noticed a listed age.Like other people I have generally disreguarded this as generally irrelevant, basing my opinion of a characters age upon how old their portrait looks.However I have a few questions on this subject.
Do they ever grow older?(Does the age ever change,naturally or other wise)
Does their age affect gameplay in any way?
Do the different races start at different ages?(Dwarf's are the oldest race (at least in Middle Earth and Warhammer,certain Elves would argue otherwise concerning Middle Earth but the Dwarfs where made first,another god made them all sleep untill he could finish the Elfs and look special)
Does the choice of portrait affect the starting age?(It should, there is at least one respectable Dwarf portrait that looks middle aged(and that's being generous)
Do the different races age at differing rates?(They should, if they age at all)
Do they all age at the same rate?(As in RQ or Fighting Fantasy)
And concerning all of the above questions(exept the last one)- and if not, why not?

I have already experimented with custom portraits (it's easily done) and have considered ageing them as they grow (it would be a nice touch, I got fed up with having a 102 year old cleric in Might and Magic 7 who looked about 27).Ageing portraits can be fun (hints of grey at the temples- along the jaw, wrinkles etc) and it would be nice to see a computer game where this had been implemented (even if it was only a slight change every twenty years or so).

Come on someone, answer my questions!!!!!

You know in older Wizardry games, the characters would age and it would make a difference! (You could ocassionally get and ankh of age that would make you a year younger per ankh that you equipped & evoked)

I have not paid any attention whatsover to my character's ages in this game except to notice for a second that it is posted there!
I'll check it out as I progress & see if anything significant occurs.

[Sazerac]

The only thing I've been able to determine is that starting age is determined by class. Rogues are the youngest (I've actually rolled one up who was 14! Can you say "middle school"?), then Warriors (ranging from 16-21). Wizards and Priests are generally the oldest, ranging from 20-24 years old.

Since the game progressess by day and night, I would imagine the character would age; however, the game would generally be finished by the time 3 or 4 months went by given normal playing standards, so I think age is just cosmetic.

Don't know if there are any monsters out there that cause unnatural aging (like in the Might and Magic series). In Wizardry, it used to be that if you were resurrected, you aged 1 year and had 1 point of Vitality (Fortitude to W&W) removed; although you could get it back on the next level up, maybe. (In Wizardry, attribute point gain was random rather than determined by the player).

Sazerac.

Haven't seen them age . . . some aspects of reality I don't care to imitate!

[Wyvern]

Perhaps the reason there have been no replies (so far) is that no one has any answers.
I'm going to guess that age was an aspect of the game which never was fully implemented. There are many CRPGs where characters age naturally over time and can have their age changed by attacks and perhaps a similar use was discussed for W&W. There appears to be no running clock - inspite of the day and night routines in the game - and no calendar and the game does not have the scope of other CRPGs which do make age an issue.
I never kept track of my own characters ages (I've completed 1 game and am close to completing my second) so I cannot offer any personal observations.
It could be nothing more than that age was included because it seems rather natural to do so and has no significance beyond that.
My characters portraits never showed any signs of aging. I'm sure that my different races did start at different ages but whether that was a random throw of the dice or determined by race and other characteristics - I have no idea.

Not a great answer to your interesting questions, but an answer!

Wyv

[Wyvern]

WOW - BAM 3 answers all within seconds!!

IMPRESSIVE!!!

I think it might be because we can edit the portraits (in Wndows Paint but it'll do) that they didn't bother with age but it's a nice touch (I once deleted a character who had all required abilty scores for promotion becasue he was just too young to have studied long enough to be a wizard).I reckon age is class based but hopefully with a racial age modifier.