Night Elf Aging Given Solid Lore

[Beltharean]

Tragedy in Three Acts

Here you see direct proof that on her 'Twenty fourth birth year' Theleste was in a relationship with one Pyramond. That being said, a Night Elf would need to be comparable to an adult of the same age in order to lavish Theleste with presents, and then spend "Time with a tavern wench" to quote. I only bring this last part up because some may argue they would be the equivalent of teenagers, as it is extremely reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. That being said, elves are not children at age twenty-four. They're adults fully capable of romantic relationships and thus combat, jobs, positions of wealth, etc.

As someone who works with profiles on a daily basis, I figured it would be my duty to bring this new information to light.

[c0rzilla]

I just always thought it a simple rule of survival. If you're an infant for decades, your species wouldn't last.

But, yay lore! Awesome work.

[Uguu]

[Kaghuros]

As a bit of trivia, it appears as though Theleste was the tavern wench in question and Pyramond was some sort of nobility.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Would that be the same for Draenei?

[Aphetoros]

Interesting...

Myes...

[Beltharean]

I believe so, yes. This also means Blood Elves, Dwarves, Tauren, Gnomes and any other races that age slower would likely also have the same sort of growth rate. At least for the first years of their life.

[ImagenAshyun]

Oh god I do hope this does apply to Draenei. It'd be absolutely ridiculous to be changing diapers for 200 years and your child be just learning to speak simple sentences. On an evolutionary standpoint, that is detrimental to the child's survival. I hope to apply this to other races wher their life spans are long as well.

.....

[Reigen]

I could be wrong...but isn't there a Draenei orphan child who says she's like 300 or 500? That you get during children's week?

This was a while ago I heard about it, mind you.

[Beltharean]

You would be thinking of Dornaa. Skimming her first quest text I found this:

Mother and father were killed in the war, and I've lived in the orphanage all my life. It's nice, actually, but I've always wanted to go places and see things.

There haven't been any wars on Outland where the Draenei were involved prior to about fifty years ago when the orcs first attacked them. That being said, with the information on Night Elf aging it's much more likely she's referring to the more recent war, in which her parents could have more than likely died eight to ten years ago as her age seems to suggest.

Food for thought!

[ImagenAshyun]

For all I know, from Rise of the Horde (never read it, but I did read excerpts) is that draenei children could be centuries old and yet be unchanged. I have a feeling that this would occur wherein children are in that stagnant stage in pre-pubescence where developmental growth mostly applies in just getting bigger. I can believe what would be a 10 year old human child would be 300 years for a Draenei in which a growth spurt occurred the first few years, but not, let's say, what would be a 2 year old human would be 200 years for a Draenei and those years in development were spread evenly.

My main problem with long-life span races growing up is 1.) Infant-prepubescent stage (ages 0-6ish human years) and 2.) once puberty occurs (11-18ish). Those two stages of human life are where the biggest spurs of development occur at the shortest amount of time, but if we delay them by centuries by applying proportionate years (200 instead of 2 years for a baby to become a toddler), that wouldn't make much sense as far as the issue of biological, survival, and social evolution goes. Bear in mind that many Warcraft societies suggest lifestyles prior to technology where we reduced infant mortality via vaccinations, frequent doctor visits, ultrasounds, and the like. Surely the Elements/Spirits/Moon/whatever source of magic and spirituality would assist in the survival of the child as they develop, but that is not always a guarantee should war break out, especially in cases where the birth rate is slower than the recovery rate of a population (the death rate is higher than the birth rate).

[Beltharean]

I agree with everything except that first sentence of yours. Having read Rise of the Horde I don't recall having seen anything that stated (or even hinted at) Draeneis aging slowly. *nod*

[Kaghuros]

I remember hearing there was a statement a Draenei child made about her unusually old age as compared to the player, but can't seem to find it on WoWpedia or WoWhead. Though they removed the "same model as" category for the Draenei Orphan NPC so I wouldn't be able to find other draenei girl children to search for dialogue anyway.

[Hexproof]

The Draenei aging in Rise of the Horde was Durotan sort of freaking out when he realized how old another Draenei was, then thinking that perhaps a Draenei child he'd seen was a lot older than he.

They never actually said if this was true or not.