(Yeah, I know, not the most unique topic or the first, but bear with me, I got some ideas to bounce.)
It seems one of the great WoW lore mysteries is the precise nature of the Draenei’s lifespan. Namely, that they don’t really seem to have one. And there doesn’t seem to be any particular stated reason for it. Even Night Elves were gifted it by the Dragon Aspects (Nozdormu primarily) so they could guard Nordrassil and the new Well of Eternity, and that stint lasted 10,000 years. There are Draenei literally older than the entire length of the Kal’dorei’s span of (technical) infinite longevity. And there are no signs of someone like Velen dying from natural causes any time soon thus far.
I personally speculated that they might’ve had stasis tubes or something they go into for long distance travel, like in select sci-fi franchises, like some Protoss in Starcraft 2 for a specific example. It’d make sense to help elongate their lives, and to be real I imagine that thousands of years traveling in space or the Great Dark Beyond would get spectacularly boring very quickly.
But if I’m not mistaken, in Legion a new group of Draenei popped up, and with them some old classic heroes that apparently were fighting a 1000 years of war condensed in however long their absence was (I think about 40 years?). These were the Lightforged Draenei of course, with Turalyon and Alleria in tow. Got me wondering for a bit, though a quick google search illuminated the system on that, such as Lightforging helping to slow or stop the aging process, as the Twisting Nether is inconsistent with the flow and progression of time from place to place (which is how Turalyon, a human, was able to survive in that timespan despite being human).
So that in mind, two new ideas come to mind that I wanna just toss out there. 1) Did their extended wandering and inhabiting of their vessel in the Twisting Nether have an effect on their species’ lifespan and aging process? Did that relativistic realm rub off on them as it were? Or 2) Did the Naaru of the Genedar provide perhaps a less invasive form of “Lightforging” as Xe’ra did to the Draenei on the Xenedar to help combat the aging process?
These are actually in-game. They appear as static environment objects at Tempest Keep, and I believe their file names are even called something like “stasischamber.”
About 24 years.
I always chalked it up to being pumped full of arcane for however-long before they left Argus.
Aegwynn, a human, lived to be over 800 solely through the arcane, so I imagine consistent exposure over the course of at least 25,000 years (just their trip through the Nether, not including all the years on Argus) would extend their lifespan quite a bit, similar to the night elves before being granted immortality.
Though I’ve got to say, an unintended affect of traversing the Nether for so long is a pretty fun theory.
Were they mentioned at all in the book Rise of the Horde? Because if so, then my stasischamber theory might’ve just been actual lore that somehow regressed into a head-canon bit due to them not being mentioned for a long while, apparently.
There’s also the fact that the Nightborne apparently benefited from a temporal artifact heavily based in arcane energies. I have to say, the thought of arcane exposure didn’t factor into my thought process as of writing the original post. It’s a sound guess though.
But them making a transition to a Light worshiping society would have an effect on any longevity granted by their arcane roots, no?
That’s a good question, I’m not certain they ever are. I remember coming across the stasis chambers in the files first, and trying to do research from there, but I’m foggy on what I was able to find. I think the stasis theory is at least minorly supported in the lore.
Possibly? I’m not aware of any significant interactions with the Light and arcane to make something like that go away, but the Light could’ve acted as a permanent replacement if they did get a Lightforging-lite version like you said.
If I’m remembering correctly, the Night Elves originally were immortal via the Well of Eternity. After it was blown up they were briefly mortal, until Nozdormu gave them his Blessing on Nordrassil. If that’s the case, and their original immortality was derived from the arcane magic of the Well, then it’s possible that the Draenei’s longevity could be arcane-related from their hijinks back on Argus.
Let’s not also forget the Krokuul, a race of broken Draenei, some of whom were alive when Velen and the others left. So without any Naaru ship, light magic, and on a planet inundated with so much fel they were mutated, they’ve lived for over 25,000 years. This is not even counting how the passage of time is not consistent in the Nether, which is where Argus came to exist upon it’s corruption by Sargeras.
And even though Velen shows no signs of old-man ailments, he has aged. His hair was shorter and black in his flashbacks to Argus. His hair is now of course longer and stark white. Similarly his skin is described as “alabaster” which appears to be some reference to a sign of aging for Draenei. I believe his skin was a bit darker and fuller in the flashbacks as well but I’d have to double-check.
Draenei seem to have a life-span numbering well over 100,000 years.
Demons enjoy a bit more than longevity, they are effectively immortal (besides killing them within the Nether). Being transformed into a demon typically takes more than fel exposure, too. Fel exposure by itself just seems to twist and mutate victims. Krokuul, Fel Orcs are two examples of races that are not demons despite fel exposure transforming them.
So I don’t think that’s it, but who knows it could be twisted that way.
His aging may also be stress related given the fact that he’s been a leader for all that time and what he’s been going through. Just look at how Presidents age in the relatively short time they’re in office.
