Dwarves, Gnomes, and old age?

[Geoni]

So recently I was wanting to profile a Dwarf who has been through the War of the Three Hammers, since the life span page on the wiki says that they can live up to the age of 450. Yet they're venerable at the age of 250 (200 for Gnomes)? What allows venerable Dwarves and Gnomes to live that extra 200 years? There's a good old 'citation needed' on the page for life spans, so maybe someone here can confirm why this is.

[Osvaldas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKnIYNB08sg

[Mathias]

We also have the age guidelines on our wiki, to note.

I would guess that 450 is the maximum, with 252 being the average. Think of it like 'murica. The average lifespan for an American is... what? 76? 78? Despite that, we still have people living to their 80s, their 90s, sometimes their 100s, and very rarely, their 110s. So for a dwarf, they typically live to 252, but there are recorded instances (due to a good diet, exercise, some sort of 'miracle drink', or just plain ol' stubbornness) where they lived beyond that, to an age of 450.

Or there might be something in the RPG book about it, because the age guidelines are from the RPG book.

[Geoni]

Also considering that the max age for humans in the setting is 130, I'd think magic had something to do with it? I mean, I guess healthy lifestyle and the right amount of factors could lead to a really extended life, although what makes me scratch my head about Dwarves and Gnomes is that it's almost twice their lifespan from the point when they get venerable.

[Mathias]

It's magic/fantasy~ The guidelines were lifted from D&D, where a dwarf's max age was 250+2d100 (and for a gnome, it would be 200+3d100), but they're also all we got. I would personally want to edit the age guidelines a bit, but that might require people to rewrite their character profiles, and I'd rather not force people to do that.

Could also be their history as Titan creations, though this wouldn't explain why humans got the shortend of the stick and only got a max of 110 (according to our guideline).

[Reigen]

http://wiki.conquestofthehorde.com/Age_Guidelines

There's our wiki page on it. I imagine that, in the case of the ones with two finial ages listed, the first age isn't so much venerable as it is the time when they really start to deteriorate. So races that live longer [Gnomes and dwarves] take a lot longer for their body to break down from the first age where as races that live shorter [trolls, humans, orcs] don't take as long for their bodies to really start wearing down.

As for why it's that way? Conflicting lore sources on how old they can be, so really it's 'somewhere in this range'. We did initially take the age from the wow D20 IIRC and then tweaked it as we came across official lore examples that showed different.

[Altaine]

I've always seen the dwarves of Warcraft as the dwarves of Warhammer, as they are virtually the same in both regards. Some dwarves have lived up to 600, but no more than a mere 650. While I have no citation of this, I am also not saying it's canon, pls don't shoot me.

As for dwarves, though, I also treat them with a sort of nordic feel. They aren't quite spartan-esque like the orcs, and sometimes humans, but they are melded by the same factor of honor, xenophobic natures, and wanting to die in battle/serve their nation to it's fullest extent. Unless you were making some sort of pirate or adventurer/traveler, then I feel as if a good range is 250+ but lightly touching 300. This is just a suggestion to the idea, however. It is your character so I can just spurt nonsense over here. But a good tip for making a dwarf (imo) is: beware old people in a profession where one usually dies young.

[Geoni]

Living through the wars doesn't mean fighting in it! He's a character who will perform religious services throughout his life as a career, and more or less likes to manipulate things through that to whatever extent he can (but this is more in connection with Jonoth's house).

I'm going to assume it's alright to be up there so long as lots of 'deterioration' is noted. Mmm...deterioration, one of my favorite things to put a character through.

Thanks for the answers, guys.

[Maulbane]

I remember when going through the lifespans part of the RPG for my Quilboars (oink oink) I came out with the distinct distinction that anything past 'venerable' really is excluded for circumstances limited to lore-character-level situations. I have a feeling a Dwarf that, say, actually made it to 450 would have had to have had either some kind of superdwarvern genetics, or a warlock who'd made a deal with a devil; just like a Quilboar would have to have done something worthy of being catapulted into one of Knaak's books in order to reach even close to say, 70.

[CappnRob]

My personal headcanon is dwarfs mature rapidly and then live a long time. But that's just me :V