Racial Ages
#1
This has been bugging me for quite some time, so I thought I would bring it up on the forum. What are the average life expectancies of the various races of Azeroth? If anyone is really into WoW lore and knows this, an answer is appreciated.

Humans: Like us, no biggie. I would expect orcs, trolls, tauren, gnomes, and dwarves to follow the same rules when it comes to age. What about the Undead, Blood Elves, Night Elves, and Dranei? I have no clue how long they're supposed to "be around."
Reply
#2
The Night Elves, for their part, /were/ immortal, but that changed when Mt Hyjal got blown up. Other than that, I don't think any life expectancies have ever been laid out. I should imagine Undead have an unlimited unlifespan.

WoW is, what, 30 years after WCIII, and Thrall still looks pretty much like he did in Durnholde Keep, when he was a young'un. Grom Hellscream was the first Orc to drink the Blood of Mannoroth (as recently revealed by Nagrand's "Summon Thrall" questline), which means that be was alive from the First War through near the end of WarCraft III, and still looking pretty spry. Thrall's grandmother is still alive. I'd have to guess that Orcs are a pretty long-lived race.
Reply
#3
From what I understand, Trolls live a really long time too.
Reply
#4
Well, that just makes the water murkier. :?
Reply
#5
I personally assume that Blood Elves lived a long time, as do Draenei.
My Draenei support is that although Velen is old, he was once of the first on Argus to be tempted by Sargeras and that was centuries ago, so he's a couple hundred years old at least.
Reply
#6
Filiminjaru Wrote:This has been bugging me for quite some time, so I thought I would bring it up on the forum. What are the average life expectancies of the various races of Azeroth? If anyone is really into WoW lore and knows this, an answer is appreciated.

Humans: Like us, no biggie. I would expect orcs, trolls, tauren, gnomes, and dwarves to follow the same rules when it comes to age. What about the Undead, Blood Elves, Night Elves, and Dranei? I have no clue how long they're supposed to "be around."
Undead-Kel'thuzad promised the followers of the Cult of the Damned with social equality and eternal life...through undeath, so I think Waka is right on this.

Elves- The Wow Encyclopedia says elves are called immortal, even the Nelves with the sacrificed immortality. But the elves aren't really immortal, they have "comparable lifespans that can extend as long as several thousand years."

Dranei-This is the tricky one, since our information on them is limited and we can't really say. Velen himself is +25,000 years, so at least Velen himseld is immortal from the Light or Naaru influence. The rest of the Dranei may be immortal too, most likely from Naaru influence if they are. Despite this, I keep tending to think Velen is the only immortal Dranei. *boggle*

And that's all I have to say.
Reply
#7
Well, according to WoW wiki or more to the point the Warcraft RPG source book they got the info out of. Claims that the High Elves had a life span of hundreds of years. Maturity at 120, Venerable at 300 and rare occasions over 400. Of course, this is also the D&D lifespan given for elves, so I pretty much figured that is what they decided to go for the RPG. Whether that is the offical and not just something to appease the masses is beyond me. But I think its a good starting point to guess at it. I would assume the night elves now go off this one as well, since they are in the same situation as the high elves now, and well the blood elves ARE high elves so they use it.

As for the others, I don't really remember it saying.
Reply
#8
Troll regeneration extends their lifespan to match what the WoW RPG books would call "Venerable" for a High Elf. The elves tend to land more on the thousands of years old side of the equation, even the newly-mortal Nelves.

Orcs and Humans pretty much match up evenly. Forsaken/Scourge are more or less timeless, but most don't live long anyway due to the warlike nature.

Tauren... I believe Cairne is over 120 years old, and he's considered old.
Reply
#9
Wakaraina Wrote:WoW is, what, 30 years after WCIII....

Actually, WoW release marked 4 years after the events at Mt. Hyjal, so it's been more like 7 or 8 years. But what's a few decades among friends? Wink
Reply
#10
Dwarves, unless I am mistaken, live considerably longer than humans.



At least they do in the Tolkien world and fantasy writers poach from him the way sci-fi writers poach from Asimov.
Reply
#11
Tadakatsu Wrote:Tauren... I believe Cairne is over 120 years old, and he's considered old.
That's pretty close, but I think he's closer to 105 from what I can gather; but you are right. "He is old, even by their standards," was the exact words if I remember right.
Kaerrah Wrote:Dwarves, unless I am mistaken, live considerably longer than humans.

At least they do in the Tolkien world and fantasy writers poach from him the way sci-fi writers poach from Asimov.
Now according to my massive memory...*sound of pages flipping* Muradin Bronzebeard was 221 right as he died, so dwarves live a lot longer than the average human, but we don't know how long. Since I unfortunately never read Tolkien, I can't say if that's more than the traditional Tolkien dwarf or nearing up to the time of death or not.
Reply
#12
"One similarity between night elves, high elves, and blood elves has only recently come about. The night elves sacrificed their immortality and much of their power at the end of the Third War. Thus, all elves are now mortal and have comparable lifespans that can extend as long as several thousand years."

Source - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/ency...ia/339.xml
Reply
#13
Something bugs me about the ages in WoW I mean this is evidently a pretty primitive world where they are just discovering mechanics and the such and a long tim ago IRL humans used to live for hundreds of years and a 400 year old person was abit over middle aged so why do the WoW humans have a life exspectancy of modern day humans who only live for such a short amount of time is because we have made evolved viruses and diseases that didn't exsist way back when and such?
Reply
#14
Humans used to live for hundreds of years? 400 years old was "middle aged"? What world was this on?
Shantow the Bear
The Ironsong Tribe


"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." King
Reply
#15
Bloodbound may be correct that in prehistoric times "Man" may have been able to live alot longer than we can today.

However humans in WoW based on modern day man probably for the fact that we recognize humans only able to live so long. Its natural for a player to relate a Human from a fantasy world to a human in modern day, when it comes to age/aging. Elves, Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, those races dont exist in modern day (as far as I know) so its easier to accept a longer lifespan for them.

Thats just my own interpretation, I could be wrong since I am only just getting into the deeper lore of Warcraft.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)