Life Expectancy

[Jimborg]

Is there a chart or something that gives the natural life expectancy of the various class of Exalted? I'm guessing it would be a function of their Essence score. So far, what I have looks like this:


Terrestrial: 300-400 years


Solar: ~1000 years per dot of Essence


Lunar: ~1000 years per dot of Essence


Sidereals: Defined by The Loom, but generally never less than 3,000 years.


Abyssal: Immortal


Infernal: ???


Alchemical: Theoretically immortal?

 

[Persell]

Solars and Lunars live for ~3,000 years.


Sidereal have a set date for death but never more than ~5,000.


DBs usually live for ~700 years.


Abyssals and Alchemicals are functionally immortal.


Infernals are inferred to able to gain Apotheosis before a death of old age would be a concerned.


Of course this is barring any use of magic to extend their life. Except for Sids, they can't extend past their due date.

 

[Kyeudo]

DBs usually live for ~700 years.

Actually, I believe its ~300 years for Dragon-Bloods, but they have the easiest access to life-extending techniques. This is part of why the Scarlet Empress, who was over 700 years old IIRC, was so amazing. She still looked to be young and showed no signs of being anywhere near death, but no one had any evidence that she was using any of those age-staving techniques like the ones her daughter, Memnon, uses.

 

[Jagane]

Wouldn't breeding factor into the DB lifespan? I'd think that a 1-2 breeding DB would have less life expectancy than a 5-6 breeding DB.

 

[Plague of Hats]

The expected "natural" life spans of the Solar and Lunar Exalted are noted as 2,000 to 3,000 years. Solars of the First Age developed Extended Life Prana that gave them a theorized life expectancy of 5,000 to 7,000 years. With anagathic treatments they might have seen as many as 10,000 years. Lunars possess Time-Bending Chrysalis, which allows them to age their bodies in reverse at half the rate that time flows forward. Sidereals have a set time but never live more than 5,000 years. There's no actual system for determining when such characters will die of old age. Most of this is in Dreams: Lands, with the exception of the Lunar Charm which is in Glories: Luna.


Abyssals and Alchemicals can't die of old age. Infernals are an unknown quantity.

Wouldn't breeding factor into the DB lifespan? I'd think that a 1-2 breeding DB would have less life expectancy than a 5-6 breeding DB.

Yes, sort of.
Dreams: Lords has Well-Tended Garden of the Soul on page 85, which is where you can find life expectancy rules for Dragon-Blooded. The Charm improves the Terrestrial's life expectancy and requires Breeding 3+ to learn.


At 250 years of age, a Terrestrial starts rolling to see if they will die of old age in the coming decade. They make this roll at the beginning of every decade thereafter. It is a (Stamina + Resistance) roll that starts at difficulty 1 and rises by one every decade. Well-Tended Garden of the Soul adds (Essence + Breeding) to the dice pool. At Essence 6+ an appropriate stunt emphasizing the character's physical and spiritual purity in the preceding decade prevents the difficulty from rising for that decade.

 

[Haku1]

And then some jerkass Dragonblooded discovers that hey, fey artifacts allow them to... y'know to just stay alive... by making them beat any and all Stamina + Resistance + Staying Alive rolls.


Any oath with the Imposition of Law set to Stamina + Resistance + Staying alive = fun times.

 

[Teln]

Wait, if Sidereals can't extend their life expectancy, why did the Bronze Faction go to the trouble of offering Kejak a Gem of Immortality (which got turned down)?

 

[Plague of Hats]

Wait, if Sidereals can't extend their life expectancy, why did the Bronze Faction go to the trouble of offering Kejak a Gem of Immortality (which got turned down)?

Pick one:
a) An author forgot or didn't understand the fixed lifespan of Sidereals. This would not be the worst or most obvious mistake in Manual: Sidereals.


b) An author actively wanted to change the way things worked and kludged it in without regard to...well, most anything else that might have bearing on the subject. This, too, is not unprecedented.


c) An author wanted to portray Sidereals as being potentially stupid or un-self-aware enough that they would do something so blindingly dumb as to give Chejop Kejak a useless rock for a birthday present.


My money's on "a." "B" is not too unlikely a candidate, considering why and how the changes were made to the Sidereal Charm set. "C" is just ungenerous.


In any case, the standing canon is contradictory, with the caveat that word of the latest author is that he was well aware of that sidebar and deliberately contradicted it because it was dumb. If it comes to errata, it will almost certainly side with him, barring major impact from the hefty Sidereal errata that's coming.

 

[Kyeudo]

My personal explanation is that Sidereals don't die of old age very often, so the inability of a Sidereal to benefit from life-extending techniques might not be common knowledge. In fact, it may be something only a few select individuals suspect, such as Chejop Kejack.


Of course, it might just be Chejop Kejack going "You know what? I'm tired of running the show. It's so much work and stress, I'm looking forward to being dead." but that's one I don't believe. Chejop Kejack believes that its his work that keeps the world turning and that if he left it up to the other Sidereals, they'd bungle the job.

 

[FluffySquirrel]

Actually, it's because Chejop knows of a prophecy where he does heinous things to creation .. except the time is -after- the date he's ordained to die on.. so he refuses to attempt to extend his life in order to not bring about the events of the prophecy.


Except it's a sidereal plan, and therefore he'll probably just get turned into a servant of the neverborn in the end and do it anyway, and trying to find a way of living past his time was the only way he could have avoided it in the first place and thus he made it a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Fabricati]

Or it could be that his death is literally what ends the Age, and he knows it; extending his life extends creation's Age of Sorrows, and that his death will usher in a better Age. He resents this terrible fact, but cannot deny it. And to extend Creation's pain for a few more moments in that Age... Such would deny everything he has worked towards.


Chejop is a bitter, bitter man.