A lot of people get upset about the idea of Elves not being mature for a century.
Here’s a real life example to chew on.
Scientists have identified a Greenland Shark as being an estimated 512 years old. Greenland Sharks take 150 years to mature.
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At what depths do elves typically live?
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Sharks are much much bigger than humans (or elves) so it’s not a big surprise that they have a huge development time, especially when living under such conditions.
But generally true that maturation rates can vary, yes. Also true that having a huge lifespan might afford them more development time, but this also depends on evolutionary pressures such as risk of predation (sharks are at the top of the food chain), aggressive competition, food availability, fertility rates etc.
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Not as babies they aren’t.
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What about as adolescents? We kinda need to know precisely how long it takes them to cross the line into the territory of being generally safe against most predators, and I’m betting it isn’t 150 years.
Which we can now debunk because of the Druids of the flame questline.
We are now told we have an entire generation of night elves now who have never know immortality and some of these said night elves are fighting for the druids of the flame.
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Listen, you do not WANT to know the depths I’ve sunk to…
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How low does your depravity go? Easily thrice that.
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Azshara was alive and going deeper as she bumped into Nzoth.
There is no depth beyond the elves.
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The heritage quest for night elves features an elf born post wc3 that is already an “adult”.
At least adult in terms of already being an adventurer, possibly becoming a sentinel and using the regular night elf model.
So physically I think thats enough evidence that night elves reach adulthood in a similar pace to humans.
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That’s the assumption my character opertes under having been born just before the Alliance and Horde invasion of Kalimdor,
In terms of aging the rule of thumb seems to be all races barring Orcs age at the same rate as humans, mentally and physically, until they reach their prime, and then it dramatically slows for some of them. A 25 year old Kaldorei is still as mentally and physically mature as a Human of the same age, and would be considered an adult by Kaldorei (since earning markings as a coming of age thing was retconned somewhat). This doesn’t mean that a 10k year old Night Elf dating a 25 year old Night Elf wouldn’t be considered very strange or nearly taboo (because ew), but the latter wouldn’t be considered children.
This also applies to Draenei, as far as we know, barring one outlier in one novel (Rise of the Horde). We see a Draenei child in Draenor Nagrand who is the grown innkeeper in Outland.
Which, frankly, is the right way to do it to sidestep all the other weird implications. I wish they’d retcon the implied aging rate of Orcs too, or give more clear ages and lifespans of races. It’s a core worldbuilding aspect that’s just… not present.
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Not to mention the elf mage from the nelf heritage questline literally never experienced Felwood before it became tainted as he wasn’t alive, in fact he was born some point after the battle of mount hyjal in wc3. And he’s considered a young adult.
And in the book: Illidan. It’s stated that a mature adult would be from 20 years old.
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So most Druids of the Flame are angsty teenagers?
“It’s not a phase, Mum. I’m expressing my anger at not being immortal.”
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That must be how Caim felt about Adam and Eve.
They are only weird from a Human perspective. Elves and Drenaei and others are NOT Human.
There’s a fairy tale about a family being entrusted with a dragon’s egg… which doesn’t hatch until six generations of the family later.
I wanna say 7. Just 7 depths.
Gross. A child army.
Like those Jedi Padawans drafted into the Clone Wars?
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Lol. I like that.