OOC: How old are your characters?

On one of their recent breakfast topics, WoW.com asks “how old are your characters?” The question of how old a non-human character is in this setting is actually a little bit tricky. It’s very hard to find specific information on the timeline of certain events, with a lot of the major lore events in Azeroth being confined to certain years that happened in the very recent past and a lot of the exact timing of events, especially relative to each other, difficult to work out.

Add onto that a fuzziness about exact lifespans of different races and it gets difficult to quantify. The best way to clarify is to just give an equivalent to human years and make sure that you say it’s an equivalent so that you don’t get griefed by someone saying “that’s just a baby!”

Also, don’t feel that every elf has to be hundreds of years old. People will grief someone who says their elf is only 16 or 20, or whatnot. But the starting areas are relatively safe and sheltered. It’s conceivable that a very young elf would be in the starting area just beginning his or her training. It could be an interesting character/story idea to start a very young elf and imagine that, for example, ten years go by with each level. Of course that is hard to reconcile with the timing of the WoW story, so one would have to be very creative to do it convincingly.

Generally, when trying to work out the ages of my characters, I use the various timelines collected by WoWWiki to determine the age of my characters based on their relation to certain events in history. Likewise, a chart with the lifespans of different races can be found HERE. Already I can see a problem with Laila’s age. I didn’t consult with any source before starting her, since … well, she’s human. But the story begins with her reaching adulthood at 18, when the chart indicates adulthood is reached at 15 in human society. An easy fix, I think.

Not all of my characters have set ages, but for the ones that I have thought about their stories, they are as follows:

- Laila: Eighteen, as stated, although now I am considering revising down to 16.

- Seswatha: My dwarf paladin is an old soldier, around 175 years old. In my head, he started out life as a plain ol’ warrior and only recently became a paladin in his twilight years when he experienced an awakening of faith and dedicated himself to the light as a grizzled old veteran.

- Cecilie: My human warlock is probably at this point around 28 years old. She is no longer young, but she has not yet reached middle age. At one time she was using fel energies to enhance her appearance and make herself look younger, but she has given that up and now appears as her true age, although she still enhances her appearance, as her true coloring is mousy and dull, and she maintains jet black hair to make herself appear more striking.

- Istriya: My undead warrior I imagine to have been in her late 40s when she died. She was in life a country gentlewoman who has a wife, mother, and estate manager. She awoke to undeath with only a vague and fuzzy memory of who she used to be and a newfound strength and fury, leading her to reinvent herself as a fearsome warrior, barely recognizable as the lady she used to be.

- Amoris: My night elf hunter is about 300 years old, or just on the cusp of adulthood for a night elf. Her family has lived in Ashenvale for thousands of years. Her parents died at the hands of Grom Hellscream and his orcs and she was sent away at that time to complete her training elsewhere. She is only now returning to take her mothers place with the Sentinels there.

- Istayla: Given the immortality of Draenei, I cannot say how old Istayla is. She was born on Draenor so she is probably less than 20,000 years old. She had not yet begun training of any kind when she fled Draenor so she is probably even much younger than that, but I can’t find enough information to determine how old she might be.

-Lileda and Eleda: These are a pair of twins, one a blood elf hunter, the other a blood elf death knight. They are about 75 years old, although Eleda is now dead and will not truly age beyond this, except chronologically. Lileda was a solitary hunter by profession, living in the woods, helping to keep the animal population in check and Eleda one of the Farstriders who fell defending Quel’Thalas from the Scourge. Unbeknownst to her family, she was raised as a death knight. Lileda joined the Farstriders after her sister’s death and continues her legacy.

OOC: Belated (or Early) Friday Five – Time is on Our Side

Last Friday, Too Many Annas posted her Friday Five, with some prompts for people to answer about their characters. Since this blogging exercise is all about exploring my character from start until the bitter end, whenever that may be, these separate exercises exploring my character are not only valuable, but fun as well. So I am going to attempt to answer these prompts from my character’s perspective, albeit a little bit late.

• Is your character usually early, on time, or late?  What does he or she expect from other people with regards to time?

I would say that Laila really isn’t a stickler for time. She’s not habitually late, but doesn’t pay attention enough to always arrive early. I would say she’s generally on time, with the possibility to be a few minutes late or early, as she doesn’t particularly try for punctuality.

She also has no expectations from others with regard to time, except that you not stand her up or keep her waiting for an amount of time that becomes rude. She probably won’t even notice if someone is five or ten minutes late, but if you keep her sitting around for 30 minutes or more, except some stormclouds when you finally do show up.

• Is your character a morning sparrow or a night owl?  Is this their nature, or have they trained themselves to it?

Laila is neither a morning person or a nocturnal person, although by training she has become accustomed to waking up early and going to bed early. She grew up in an abbey, so she had to keep the schedule of inhabitants. Left to her own devices, she would probably wake up naturally around 8:30 or 9:00 and stay up a little past the normal bedtime. Perhaps around 11:00 or midnight.

• Does your character carry a time-keeping device? (watch, pocket watch, chronometer, gnomish buzzbox with digital clock peripheral)

No, she’s never heard of any such thing and would be astounded if she were to see one. But she’s not overly concerned with time, so she probably would get really excited about it, ask a lot of questions, and then quickly lose interest.

• How does your character deal with the Bronze Dragonflight – does he or she take them seriously?  take the Caverns of Time seriously?

She has not yet encountered the Bronze Dragonflight, and there’s no telling how she will react if she ever does. If she were to stumble upon it today, she would probably be willing to listen, and once shown the past, she would probably take it seriously.

• What does your character eat for breakfast on a “normal morning”? (whenever that “morning” happens to take place)

Something light. At the moment she is living in an inn and her keep is being paid by the Stormwind Army, so she eats whatever breakfast that entitles her to. I imagine bread, cheese, and some kind of meat most days.