avwolf wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:17 pm
We can also safely assume that there are methods to extending life -- or something approximating life -- outside of the Masks' intervention. Euchre (presuming he is not in league with the Masks) and Rose pretty well require it. They're both far too old for Keidran. It's suggested that their family has good genes and is prone to long life, but they both have exceeded the bounds of "good genes" by a pretty solid margin and are well within "a wizard did it." (The "wizard" in question need not be Trace. Euchre is almost certainly responsible for himself, and he may well be responsible for Rose as well -- I'd imagine he felt quite guilty about his actions when she was captured by the Templar and may have tried to make it up to her after Mary threw him out. Though personally, I still think Rose is a product of Trace trying to retain anything and everything that reminds him of Saria, and her close friend -- Snow Wolf Keidran or not -- would do the job.)
Per Tom's comments on the issue:
Tom wrote:The average Keidran lifespan is 20 years.
Keidran typically die of old age between the age of 19 and 21. Yes, there are a few rare individuals who manage to live until they're 25, but it's not very common. That would be very old, equivalent to a human aging beyond 100 years. And it's just as likely a Keidran could die at the age of 17. There are some exceptional Keidran who can keep themselves alive for longer by magical means, but that's extremely rare.
The mask are just a big-ol reset button...
We were told that Euchre was able to cast something called "perfect transformation". So he could turn every bit of himself into human instead of simply disguising as one. To the point he managed to have a child: Raine. With a human.
So a *"simple"* explanation is that he managed to copy human physiology on cellular level and thus will be able to live as much as a human.
On the other In a Deviant art post, Tom also explaned that Raine might end up being the longest living wolf for a similar reason, her shapeshifting skills.
A similar spell could have been cast on Rose, after all Trace turned Mary Silverlock into a Keidran, probably after being tauth the spell by Euchre, leading to her longevity. Or who knows? Maybe it is just necromancy by good old crazy Trace.
amenon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:23 pm
avwolf wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:17 pmWe can also safely assume that there are methods to extending life -- or something approximating life -- outside of the Masks' intervention. Euchre (presuming he is not in league with the Masks) and Rose pretty well require it. They're both far too old for Keidran.
This is no longer necessarily the case, since the canon around this shifted somewhat when some of the book changes were backported into the archives.
Relevant page. I would now view 30 as something like 100-110 for a current era real world human. Very remarkable, but not impossible.
Of course, the plot point of
Euchre lying about his age remains, so... there's something up with that regardless.
There's also
this nice reference for keidran aging.
There is also one thing. Despite living very little Keidran seem to be very Healthy in their last years. When was the last time you saw a 100 year old strolling? Most 90 year olds i know need a walker. And in that patreon post Maeve looks a bit hunched but perfectly capable of standing and walking. So yeah 30 tops seems more likely...
amenon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 8:48 pm
But, on the other hand, while we currently have no medicine that will directly make you live longer, having access to good medicine is going to be rather beneficial to your lifespan on average. I think that's how it is with magic in the Twokinds world.
(Well, it's presumably
also that way with medicine. But you get the point
)
Just as food for thought. Life expectancy has risen dramatically on the past century. Just to provide local data, back in the 1930 life expectancy in my country was around 33 years. Then modern medicine happened and these days is around 75 years. So maybe the whole thing with Keidran is that their medicine really sucks...
*I am using the term very lightly here
--EDIT---
(I also think the feral thing is silly, and, on top of that, extremely confusing since the Keidran already canonically have those "feral form" and "gone Feral" things going on. No wonder the Humans think they're just animals -- they're constantly just "feral" this and "feral" that. Consider if there was a race of people who had "Barbarian Rage" and "Barbarian Form" and a "Barbarian Phase" of their lives, surely the stereotype is that they wouldn't be models of civilization, right? Let's please pick a new word other than "feral.") As is probably clear, the Maeve Age chart is a contributory factor to my lore despair.
We all have that teeny-tiny thing about the comic ** that bothers us deeply and we just can't agree.
**Movie, videogame, book, topic anything really...