Lore Change - Racial Updates

[squakhawk 14038]

 

 

 

Hey guys, Squak from Administration here with a round of updates to the various races of LOTC.

 

With the recent rule addition regarding the ban of romance rp between sub-18 (save a two year difference) characters, we had seen it fit by the ST and Administration to remove any gray-area or confusion between cultural age, physical age, and the delayed age of some races. While it does create a mild thematic oddity, it's ultimately best to prevent future confusion or enabling that it may cause to ensure the safety and best for our players. Aswell, we've included a small tweak to the Elven Racial Curse at the bottom, given some miscommunication on the matter.

 

 

Humans

Humans have always been a fairly consistent race and though thematic on lotc, aren't necessarily very far off from our IRL selves. Given this, and the lack of any vague-ness or variance, humans still have and always will mature at 18 without exception. There are no changes done to the lore or needed from the human racial/subracial lore with this update, being included simply for posterity. 

 

 

Elves

Elves have a common misconception of maturing at 50, which is simply untrue. With this, even with the clarity in the current racial lore, we've removed it all together from lore as culture is not meant to be deeply integrated into fully-factual racial lore. Elves mirror (IRL) human development, and thus, will mature/age normally until 18 where their age can then vary visually, at player-option akin to their current lore. 

 

 

Exact changes 

Spoiler

Lifespan

All elves age similarly to humankind for the first two decades of their life. As with humans, they mature at age 18 both physically and mentally. However, at this point the aging of elves and humans begin to diverge. At this point, an elf will retain the generally young appearance of someone between the ages of 20 to 30, seemingly frozen in time compared to a human who will begin to age further and grow old. The elf does continue to grow and develop as any person does on a spiritual, emotional, and social level. However, physically, they are frozen. It is perhaps of the longevity of elven lifespan that the traditionally accepted cultural age of maturity is 50. However, this is an in-character cultural milestone. As stated, an elf is both physically and mentally mature at age 18. An elf will retain this facade of youth for upwards of one thousand years. There is no true upper limit to elf aging, but elves are still susceptible to disease and poison and wounds. As such, it is rare for an elf to live to one thousand or beyond. Should an elf manage to live this long, they will grow increasingly susceptible to mental illness, erratic behavior, and insanity. This is due to the sheer fact of living several human lifetimes, seeing nations rise and fall and entire lands come and go. As an elf reaches their 8th century or 9th century, the beginning of this will start to encroach. By the time they are a thousand years in age or beyond, it ought to be in full force. This can culminate in any number of conditions, but no elder elf is left truly unscathed by the passage of time. Some even seem to grow physically old and decrepit from the strain of their long life, though this is not exactly common.

 

Curse

“Malin, I curse you with sterility, you and your kin shall forever lack the children they need. May your forest halls forever be silent, and your hearts heavy with sadness.”

 

The curse of the elves, as granted by Iblees, is infertility. It is juxtaposed with their long lives, it being much harder for an elf to conceive children than for any of the other Descendant races. This culminates in a variety of traits and details to all elves, as a result of their curse. For example, having twins is virtually unheard of. Between two full-blooded elves, twins will rarely ever be conceived. Elves are only capable of having children every 15 years, applying to both men and women. Should they have a child, they will be unable to conceive another for a full in-character 15 years. Elves have an identical gestation period to humans, that being around 9 months. Culturally speaking, it is discouraged for an elf below the cultural adulthood of 50 to have a child. However, given an elf is physically and mentally mature at 18, it can happen after 18 and beyond. Finally, an elf becomes fully sterile after becoming 500 years old. Any reproductive capability they have is gone, and they are fully sterile for the rest of their long lives.

 

 

 

Dwarves

Dwarves are a surprise to see here but have a required change in their lore. Dwarf lore currently states that a dwarf, ages 11 and up, matures at roughly a quarter the speed a human does. This can lead to tricky and weird situations, and the age of 11 is simply being raised to 18 to accommodate this rule change to prevent 25 year old dwarves from irply behaving as teenagers. 

 

 

Exact changes 

Spoiler

Lifespan

For the first two decades of a dwarf’s lifespan, they age similarly to humanity. However, between the ages of 11 18 and 50, dwarves mature roughly at a quarter of the speed a human does, a fifty year old dwarf comparable to a thirty year old human in maturity and responsibility. Dwarves between the ages of eleven and forty-nine are considered adolescents with fifty being the age of majority.

 

 

 

Orcs

While interesting for the orcs to have a unique "childhood" ripped from them as they're required to be warlike at a very young age, in their current lore they mature "as early as" the age of 12. While it's understandable the purpose for this irp, it is simply best we standardize this to 18 to prevent any form of bad-faith or behavior as we've seen in the past that the lore may enable.

 

 

Exact changes 

Spoiler

Lifespan

Centuries of being bred to become warriors has led to a biological and social demand for the children of orcs to mature grow quickly and become battle ready and it has become the case that orcs of all kinds may physically mature as early as at the age of 12 and at the age of 18 as the latest. This of course Despite the time, the size and strength of the average Orc puts a great amount of strain on the youth, the most noticeable repercussion of this would be stretch marks across the body of those who mature very quickly. For a cub to grow from the size of an infant to being taller than 6 feet tall in just under over a two decades will not only stretch the skin but it will also require much food to support such a vicious pace of development.

 

 

Halflings

As with dwarves, halflings are simply having their age-floor raised to 18 to prevent any enabling of bad actors or members in accordance to keep the new rule change in force, aswell as the oddity that comes from a 9 year old halfling, in current lore properly roleplayed, acting like a three year old.

 

Exact changes

Spoiler

Lifespan

“If you are a god, then show us!”

--An elf, moments before lightning had struck Lord Knox’s Shrine in response.

 

Halflings are, similar to humans, short-lived in comparison to other races. Halflings will live up until 150 years, potentially due to a latent curse of human ancestry. They mature, both culturally mentally and physiologically at the age of 33 18- From then on, they age twice as slow as humans. 

 

 

Ologs

While being something long enforced by ST since 2019, this line was forgotten to be included in the racial rewrite based on the fairly common sense clause we have had for it. Ologs are disallowed in any part from FTBing or romance-related rp, as they're mentally equivalent to toddlers or small children; and thus should not have any excuse to be involved in such roleplay. 

 

 

 

Exact changes

Spoiler

-Ologs are incapable of learning complex skills or feats such as the forging of ST-Signed materials, Alchemy, etc.
        -They may, however, use crafted items such as potions or ST-Material weapons, provided their function is not overly complex.

        -The only feats accessible by Ologs are Seer and Sycophants of Boletius.
-Ologs are incapable of learning magic, and cannot utilize activated enchantments.

        -Housemagery and passive non-activated enchantments are excluded from this rule.

-Ologs are incapable of holding any form of romance, and are disallowed from FTBing.

 

 

 

 

 

Elven Racial Update (Fertility)

Aswell, we are including a change to Elven Racial Lore unrelated to the recent rule change. With some confusion and misinformation, it came to our attention that during the transition from the Racial Rewrite Project and posting onto the forums, that the line for elven fertility was edited during administrative discussion. The ST and playerbase who had written the project had mostly left this unnoticed, although it's proving to be a problem with how unclear it is. With ST and Administration at back, the line has been amended to it's original intended statement with some added text to hopefully clear any confusion and allow for interesting roleplay to go further. 

 

 

Prior line;

For example, having twins is virtually unheard of. Between two full-blooded elves, twins will rarely ever be conceived.

 

Edited line;

Twins, by elven physiology, are impossible. While one may be able to theoretically, albeit extremely rarely conceive twins, it is with complete certainty the mother would die in childbirth without chance for revival from the inhumane stress placed upon their bodies.

 

 

[wowj 9747]

-Ologs are incapable of learning magic, and cannot utilize activated enchantments.

MY ******* 9FT TALL ENCHANTED SPOON WHYYYYYYYY

[Wyrvun 1808]

"Yeah, I know we're infertile. Anyways, here are my 8 brothers, 6 sisters, my mom and my 2 dads, my 4 uncles, 6 aunts, my 19 cousins, 3 daughters, 6 sons, and here is their dad. I know it's not a lot but I'm only 50 right now."

 

        - Most of the elf community

[someome 2053]

Haha twins go bye

[Lockages 548]

kill the twins. all of them.

[winterblood 11181]

will this finally end massive elven families? 

[frankdh 2418]

8 minutes ago, SquakHawk said:

we've removed it all together from lore as culture is not meant to be deeply integrated into fully-factual racial lore.

 

 can you clarify this a little more? I'm not sure how this alters the culture in rp at all. I don't see what the lack of mention will do to fix the conflict between physical maturity and cultural perspective, especially when this has been a cultural thing for years

[1_Language_1 1671]

I don't even know what to say about this, because it could have just been easier to have a reminder placed on persona cards rather than mess around with years of lore for other races.. I mean I know the elf thing needed to be addressed and that was going to be a sticky situation regardless, but holy shit-- was there a different way to do this other than everyone at 18? I mean obviously no one should have maturity below 18 but I don't know how to really word what I'm trying to say here other than everything feels a little weird--

 

 

However I do agree with the Olog change that should have happened long ago.

[King_Kunuk 3022]

I hate Elf Role Play

[L0rdLawyer 2272]

Kind of lame how humans grow faster than orcs. Nice nerfing of the orcish race. @SquakHawk

[squakhawk 14038]

3 minutes ago, frankdh said:

 

 can you clarify this a little more? I'm not sure how this alters the culture in rp at all. I don't see what the lack of mention will do to fix the conflict between physical maturity and cultural perspective, especially when this has been a cultural thing for years

 

Players, nations, groups, etc. can interpret age however they might want to. But this removes the confusion that was spawned from a few players roleplaying 40 year old elves as children because of how misconstrued the line seemed to be. It clears and confusion and leaves you with a fully factual, zero-misintepretation or vagueness piece of lore. The goal is to remove any potential misinterpretation, as we saw a lot of.

[L0rdLawyer 2272]

2 minutes ago, SquakHawk said:

 

Players, nations, groups, etc. can interpret age however they might want to. But this removes the confusion that was spawned from a few players roleplaying 40 year old elves as children because of how misconstrued the line seemed to be. It clears and confusion and leaves you with a fully factual, zero-misintepretation or vagueness piece of lore. The goal is to remove any potential misinterpretation, as we saw a lot of.

Yet you nerf an entire race without even talking to us. Orcs grow big and stronk fast. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by L0rdLawyer

[ScreamingDingo 20568]

2 minutes ago, L0rdLawyer said:

Kind of lame how humans grow faster than orcs. Nice nerfing of the orcish race. @SquakHawk

kind of lame orcs having sex at 12 tbf

[Frisket 4538]

*st cackle in elven twins

[frankdh 2418]

Just now, SquakHawk said:

Players, nations, groups, etc. can interpret age however they might want to. But this removes the confusion that was spawned from a few players roleplaying 40 year old elves as children because of how misconstrued the line seemed to be. It clears and confusion and leaves you with a fully factual, zero-misintepretation or vagueness piece of lore. The goal is to remove any potential misinterpretation, as we saw a lot of.

 

okay, I understand a bit better now. thank you! I misunderstood that people were confusing the aging to such an extent. thank you very much!