For those who roleplay in World of Warcraft...
To help you guys create your character bio, below you will find the explanation on how to chose the age based on what you want your elf to look like (young, old), how to calculate it and how to chose a birthday for them, on the year he/she was born.
The timeline is coming...
Once you have both, you can chose your character's age based on how much of the history you want them to see and still look like a young adult, because they can't be younger than 19 and look like the characters you create in the game to play. Think of 19 as the minimum age you can chose, because that is how they physically look in the game, if you chose a fresh hair cut and a young face for them.
Also, the text about elven customs will come too, I have to finish talking about it and making it more complete. On how they think, how they do things, what to think when you roleplay based on their history...
So, here it is... the age and date of birth.
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The rule of thumb to compare Blood (High) Elf ages to the corresponding human age is by dividing it by 5. For example, if a Blood Elf is 125 years old, he is physically equivalent to approximately a 25 year old human. An 'adult' character should be approximately 95 years old (which is approximately 19 human years) and that would be the minimum age you could choose based on how the characters look when you create them ingame.
The current year in the World of Warcraft is 28 years after the opening of the Dark Portal (year 0). This is referred to as 28 A.D.P. Year 28 corresponds to year 2009 for us.
Adult Blood Elves are approximately 95 years old, all Blood Elf players would have been born well before the First War, which is when the Dark Portal was originally opened (year 0).
For example, a 95 year old 'adult' Blood Elf, would have been born 67 years before the opening of the Dark Portal. So every Blood Elf player has had almost a human lifetime to acclimate themselves to the world before it was all turned upside down by the three major Wars, the events of World of Warcraft, the Burning Crusade and the Wrath of the Lich King.
To chose your character's age, first think of how you want it to look like physically.
Example: if your want your character to look like an young adult, like a 19 year old. Multiply it 5, so 19x5=95. Your character would look like a 19 year old, and he would be 95 years old as an elf. We chose that only based on the physical appearance because the mind is too diferent froma human, because they live more, which is explained below.
To calculate the year he was born, because WoW counts the year as being 0 at the opening of the Dark Portal and we are now at year 28 after the opening of the Dark Portal.
So, your character is 95, 95-28=67. At year 0, during the opening of the Dark Portal he was 67 years old. So he was born 67 years before the opening of the Dark Portal (-67 ADP), considering that he turned 95 on his birthday in the year 28.
We've just discussed how to determine your character's age and birthday BUT there are two aspects of your character's age that you need to keep in mind.These are the physical and mental aspects.
A 60 year old elf experienced twice as much life as a 30 year old human, but the elf is only 12 (60/5). An elf can live for 60 years and still look like a 12 year old (if you compare to a human, physically). He would still look like a child (the elf) but he would have accumulated life experience and education worthy of an entire human life. So for a human, to look at a 60 year old elf would be impressive because they would be very intelligent and mature mentally, but still be a child. This dichotomy can be very confusing, and is poorly documented in the lore. Faradriel had a great idea to help explain this concept - the popular movie adaptation of the Lord of the Rings.
In the movie, Aragorn is seen as a man in his late 20s, but he is 87 years old because his ancestors were humans and elves. He has seen countless battles but is still physically fit. That is one of the reasons why he is such an amazing warrior: he has had decades to hone his skills without losing his fighting edge. Were he not gifted with the long life of the Dunedain (elven ancestors), he would be old and grey, probably unable to even lift his sword. A Blood Elf has this kind of perspective, but in a greater magnitude.
In this video from the extended edition DVD (please watch it, it is not long) Eowyn learns that Aragorn is 87 years old, but she has a hard time understading why because he fought along with her grandfather. When she learns he is one of the Dunedain and has elven ancestors she understands why. He lives longer and ages slower like the Blood Elves that can look like a 19 year old but has way more experience in life than an actual 19 year old human, who is still kinda of a child.
This can mean that a 50 year old child elf (who still looks like a 10 year old human but with 50 years of life experience) can be astonishingly wise and knowledgeable, simply for having lived so long. It is difficult for us to understand this, and for us to roleplay this as well.
Think about this - If you were 50 years old but still in the body of a child, wouldn't you be impatient to try things that only an adult body can do?
The thing is Elves (for the most part) aren't!
Because it is normal for them to grow that slow. All the long-lived races in fantasy tend to be more patient and relaxed compared to our frantic short lives. So it can be difficult for us to put ourselves in their shoes, since we have a different perspective of life.
Let's pretend that a human has an active, healthy body for 15 years. That means that a Elf knows he's going to have that same body for 75!
Their culture is much much slower compared to our fast-paced rat race. There is no rush for them. It's not procrastination, it's just a level of patience that many people (ourselves included) can't even get close to.
And that will lead to the text about their customs, and how they take the time to live, how they think and how their culture works.
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