Population renewal & other worldbuilding questions

Quickies before I completely forget what I was trying to figure out:

• Gifted are effectively immortal, what with the lack of aging and popping right back up from the dead, correct?
• Are children still being born for bipeds? Dragons?
• I swear I read a mention in some quest text that the dragon Rite of Passage to adulthood has been around for quite awhile, it just used to be a non-magical "grats on not being a kid" ceremony like what many cultures celebrate in real life. Did I hallucinate this? Regardless, does that sound right?
• Does anyone else ever start out thinking "oh, I should write up a little something about my character's childhood" and then find themselves poring over timelines and trying to look up deity realms twelve hours later? X[

Can't respond to your first three points (haven't the knowledge), but, yes, when trying to work up a "back-story" for Morinare, I quickly found myself under a pile of this, that, and the other thing, couldn't correlate any of it, and retreated to the fall-back position of "Morinare's memories of his pre-Gifted life are hazy and spotty." Feh.

Of course, this also brings up another question in my mind, that I've never seen explained (might be there, just haven't seen it): why are Dragons "re-born" as relative infants, while bipeds are reborn as adults? Did all Gifted Dragons die as hatchlings?

I'd think, personally, that due to game mechanics, a newly cretad dragon must be hatchling. On an other paw, in RP, we can still say the dragon can have discovered being Gifted as adult, or even ancient.

Some of my dragons I'm getting to adult before throwing them into the community. Makes it easier to discover the gift afterward though having a dragon from before the rites is stretching it a little.

I'd assume gifted or not can still have children. Could have sworn there was a quest where an NPC mentioned her daughter but I may be remembering wrong.

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Originally Posted by Thicklesip

Gifted are effectively immortal, what with the lack of aging and popping right back up from the dead, correct?

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That is my understanding of it. There is player lore for handling people that quit ("Fading"), but as far as the game is concerned, Gifted people are pretty much demigods. If I recall correctly, the Gifted also do not need to eat nor sleep (but many do out of habit, for pleasure, for the benefits, etc.)

There are a lot of unanswered questions though. Would you be able to tell that you're Gifted because you never seem to need to eat? Or would the benefits of being Gifted only begin after you'd died? Are you stuck at the age where you discover you're Gifted? Or do the Gifted age to their relative "primes" and then stop?

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Originally Posted by Thicklesip

Are children still being born for bipeds? Dragons?

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I assume so, but I cannot recall anywhere in the lore that it is specifically mentioned. There are still unGifted people (even dragons) around though, which to me supports the idea that population is not totally stagnating. There are certainly quests where NPCs mention offspring too.

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Originally Posted by Thicklesip

I swear I read a mention in some quest text that the dragon Rite of Passage to adulthood has been around for quite awhile, it just used to be a non-magical "grats on not being a kid" ceremony like what many cultures celebrate in real life. Did I hallucinate this? Regardless, does that sound right?

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I'm not sure. I don't remember anything about that, but then I also have not done the RoP post-revamp.

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Originally Posted by Thicklesip

Does anyone else ever start out thinking "oh, I should write up a little something about my character's childhood" and then find themselves poring over timelines and trying to look up deity realms twelve hours later? X[

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Ahahah.. yes. x3

Thanks everyone, going to be running with "Gifted are immortal, everyone can have kids (but the dragons are still reeling from the Draak massacre), history is silent on the subject of adulthood rites prior to the Sleeper fiasco, and character backstory groundwork is a dangerous thing to my time." :D

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Originally Posted by Thicklesip

I swear I read a mention in some quest text that the dragon Rite of Passage to adulthood has been around for quite awhile, it just used to be a non-magical "grats on not being a kid" ceremony like what many cultures celebrate in real life. Did I hallucinate this? Regardless, does that sound right?

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What I remember from the long long ago that I went through my Rites is that, in the long longer ago, before the Sleeper disaster, dragons aged like "normal people" ie, they were hatched, the years passed and they became adults, then more time passed and they became ancient.

Then the Sleeper disaster happened, and time literally stopped for all dragons. They never grew older. Hatchlings stayed hatchlings, Adults stayed Adults, etc. Eventually, after a long time, we discovered a quest we could go on and move time forward for hatchlings in one big jump, ie Hatchling to Adult. Then some time later, we discovered a second quest that would allow us to take the next step.

Now, I don't recall how this relates to non-Gifted hatchlings/adults(if any survive)/ancients(if any survive). I don't recall if it was said if the non-Gifted could perform the Rites, perhaps with the help of the Gifted. That I don't recall.

created*, not "cretad", sorry :/

I was reading one of the Lunus ROP write-ups (of the old version I think) the other day and caught that at one point Valkoth praises you for your battle prowess, then remembers that you're Gifted and could have just buried your foe under a mountain of your old bodies until you prevailed which lessens your street cred somewhat.

Thus I assume the Rites don't care whether you're Gifted or not, they're just massively less deadly when, uh, you can die repeatedly.


I should note that my idea of rites of passage in the olden days would be some sort of non-magical affair. Maybe go out and kill a really big monster, or survive a harrowing journey-- something impressive to prove you're worthy of being viewed as an adult, NOT a fetch quest for some magical ritual. Regardless, I feel safe claiming it could have been a tradition among some families/groups. Hooraaaay artistic license!

The way I have always like to thing of the difference between gifted or non-gifted is that people are born into the world as regular aging people, but at the time of their (violent) demise there is a small chance that this person is revived by the gods themselves and “chosen” by the same gods to fight against the forces of darkness.

This story has always worked for me, however I have never been able to truly explain to myself how an Adult or Ancient dragon could revert back to its Hatchling status.
The only thing I can think about is that from the moment a dragon is hatched they can defend themselves better then biped infants and due to that the dragons are revived back into this state. While in a way bipeds tend to be useless in combat the first 10-15 years of their lives so it would be more logical to revive an adult shaped biped. (The fact that bipeds don’t have the 3 stages Infant, Adult and Elderly seems to provide a logical reason for this point of view.

This is just my 2c about the subject, I have no idea how or if it can be linked with any official canon lore that is available.

Maybe it's as simple as no adult or ancient dragons were Gifted. Pretty easy assumption for ancients, as there WEREN'T any until the council came back through the gate of embers. Might be a stretch for adults, since there's a lot of those around though.

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Originally Posted by Maneso

Maybe it's as simple as no adult or ancient dragons were Gifted. Pretty easy assumption for ancients, as there WEREN'T any until the council came back through the gate of embers. Might be a stretch for adults, since there's a lot of those around though.

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There were NPC ancients before the ARoP was in-game, even at release if I remember right. The Gift doesn't only apply to newborns though, so any points about the age of the dragon are moot anyway.

I really just take the fact that you start on Skalkaar as a hatchling to be part of game mechanics that don't necessarily carry over to RP. There are hatchlings born into families on Order that in-character may never have seen Skalkaar at all, yet everyone knows that the character technically started off on Skalkaar.

I don't think that when a Gifted adult or ancient dragon dies the first time, they revert to a hatchling. I think they are reformed exactly as they were. It wouldn't really make any sense for it to work any other way. Game mechanics are game mechanics; you have to work around them sometimes.

Ha! I'm late to post ;p

On to the points though. For the first point, yes, Gifted seem to be immortal (that is, they don't appear to age, and of course can't be killed). I've never encountered lore stating specifically that they are ageless, and I like to imagine that they are not, experiencing the Fading that Raptress mentioned when their natural time is up. That is just my personal preference, however.

To point two, there are simply too many dragons with children for it not to be accepted ;p No where does it state one way or the other that Gifted can have children or not, and Maekrux's inability comes from a matter unrelated to the Gift. As such, I'm sure the answer is yes, and I'd go so far as to say that the Gift might have a better chance of being passed from Gifted parents. (Given its magical origin, this could or could not be likely, so again, my opinion.)

Point three, yes, the original Rites of Passage did include a visit to the Sleeper and was more of a coming of age thing than a 'get a body that works' thing. Until the Sleeper was shunted to the Rift, dragons naturally aged to adult status. It should be noted, however, that Ancients did NOT occur naturally. They were gifted only from Drulkar via the Gate of Embers after his departure, and changed bodies much in the same way that the hatchling-to-adult rite does now. It is likely that the post-Sleeper rite is in part based on that ancient transition, but that's speculation on my part.

Point four, not for a very long time. I've been around too long. >.>;

And to the discussion - when I was around ages ago before the rites were actually in game, several hatchlings did RP that they had been adults prior to their First Death, and it was somewhat common, though, perhaps, less credible when they proved to be really hyperactive. ::cough:: If dragons who die after reaching adulthood turn back into hatchlings upon First Death, it might make some sense, considering that aging does stop for hatchlings at a certain point.