Age and the Elven Character...

It was a hundred years ago that the Lich-King Agrilad was laid to rest in a barrow near Oxton.  This is ancient history, especially for a party of upstart adventurers barely out of their teens, lost even to their great-great grandparents; and if they’re wise, they’ll consult a sage or at least an old-timer in town before setting out.  But wait a minute.  Elandil, the party’s lone elf, is an impressive two-hundred years old.  He actually remembers the event.  Moreover, he was old enough to know, and really understand, what it all meant...

But what does it mean to have such antiquity in a low-level party?  Elves are immortal or nearly so, and even dwarves, abbreviated against to their pointy-eared friends, lead very long lives, at least by human standards.  How do we handle this in a game where knowledge is quite literally power?  Treat it as another racial ability?  We could do that.  

The question takes on new meaning when we look at the starting age tables in the original Dungeon Master’s Guide.  Here we learn that a newly minted elf is somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred years or more!  What do we make of this?  Do elves age more slowly, remaining as children at a time when human lives are long-finished?  And assuming time is experienced the same way for both races (which isn’t necessarily so), plenty of knowledge and experience is gained in those decades.  The youngling elf can’t help but possess insight beyond anything their round-eared friends could ever aspire to unless they somehow learn and grow differently, remaining in a Peter Pan-like state of prolonged immaturity.  Of course, this assumes that elves aren't waiting longer to leave home and go on adventures, which is possible.  But the result is still more knowledge...   

Elves, with their longer lifespans, risk being
inaccessible as player characters unless steps are taken... 

And who knows?  Maybe they do.  But it seems odd for a race otherwise known for their intelligence and wisdom.  And children are constantly learning and applying knowledge gained in mere years of their short lives.  Of course, this is only a problem if the referee has a problem with first level characters possessing extra knowledge, at least as far as history is concerned.  But there’s a way out.  One need only imagine that elves grow much like humans except that once they reach their thirties (or maybe their early forties) they just stop.  I mean, they live on barring accident or injury and enjoy the seemingly endless summer of elven longevity envied by mere mortals.  But they no longer age physically.  This is the approach I prefer because it makes that elven teenager a greenhorn; a kid with no more experience than their adventuring companions.  And no more than the players themselves.

In other words, that first-level elf is sixteen years old (or whatever), just like their human peers, except, of course, that the elf can look forward to centuries of vitality and life.  I’ve long opposed the notion of elves as humans with pointy ears, perhaps as much as I dislike the donkey eared internet variety.  Elves aren’t, in fact, human, and as they age, the differences only grow; a fact which makes non-player elves valuable sources of insight.  Why consult a human sage when there’s an elven settlement nearby, especially when your typical adult remembers the Renaissance (for instance) like we remember high school?  But this assumes they’re even accessible.  As a rule, I eschew the idea of an Iron-Age Star Trek with its elven shopkeepers.  Most humans should have never seen an elf, for elves have their own concerns and change with time beyond the openness of their youth...

And maybe this reclusiveness only increases with age until, at last, they succumb to that undeniable urge to leave our mortal realm for far-flung shores, doubtless to remember (perhaps with fondness) their adventures with those quaint, round-eared humans.  Fantasy games thrive on the notion of antiquity, and elves can serve as a link to the campaign's distant past and help to explore issues of mortality which impact us in this all-too-real life!