What would a ten ear old be in Altmer years? 20, 25, what?

Mer mature at the same rate as men. A ten year old would be the same as a ten-year old. A 20 year old would be the same as a 20 year old. A 25 year old would be the same as a 25 year old. Mer just have prolonged lives.

Are you sure about that? I was thinking it was different.....

Barenziah matured the same rate as men, and she is now 450 years old. I'm pretty sure, from accounts of Barenziah's life.

Are we inferring this from everyone's favorite queen's time as a prosttute?

No. I said nothing about her favorite pasttime. Just that she grew up at the same rates as the Nords.

Just divide maximum age by willpower and voila.

What I find strange is the her friend the author (I'm too lazy to check his exact name on UESP) mentioned that when he first met her, she was "young" and not queen at the time. Yet now, the people of Mournhold refer to her as being "old". It would seem odd that a Dunmer and Imperial have both been around for similar amounts of time.

Barenziah is 450 and no Imperial can live that long.

Count Hassildor can. Okay, that's outside the parameters of what you meant.

But seriously, Sirollus Saccus, the guy who lost the Armorer's Challenge, was still living in Morrowind 300 years afterwards. And he's finally reached 100 in Armorer.

But hey, I'm just quoting what they said in-game.

Nothing says it's the same Sirollus Saccus. Could be a descendant. That seems more likely to me.

Or he took the name as a title after he reached 100 in armorer.

Isn't it possible for humans to lengthen their lives if they are magically powerful, just as certain elven mages do?
And I'm not saying that Sirollos Saccus did this. I was just continuing on the "no Imperial can live that long".
But then again, I seems to remember some annoying stuff about Necromancy and it's arts.

Well, Hassildor's excuse for living long is that he's a powerful sorcerer; so evidently knowledge of the restorative arts extends the life of men as well as mer.

Good point. I'd forgotten about this..interesting.

Was there any lore prior to Oblivion that ever mentioned a person of the mannish races living a very long time?

He's also a vampire, and we know that makes people live until someone cuts them down. Hassildor is not a typical human.

It's not about what we know.

It's about what the people of Cyrodill assume.

His front is that he's a powerful sorceror, and that seems to satisfy everyone. Apparently it's not unheard of for a man of Imperial lineage to extend his life indefinitely with sorcery. Which is interesting, but makes sense. If Dunmer can do it, why not Imperials?

Because Dunmer live quite a bit longer naturally and will figure it out later. I just think if we have no evidence that they live longer, we shouldn't assume they can. All we have is extremely circumstantial and we don't know what the residents of Skingrad's initial reaction was when he first turned 150. They may have just gotten used to it. It satisfies everyone because that's just a facet of life. People can believe the silliest lies if it is passed down. And it may well be that the people know his nature but like his rule and condone it. Someone must of figured out that he's a vampire.

I dunno...it seems as if literally nobody questions his longevity nor the fact he looks remarkably fit and healthy for a man his age. It seems as if there's some precedent for men living over 150, and that sorcery seems to be an easily accepted explanation.

I'm just saying it's not entirely improbable that some person or persons of mannish descent has prolonged his or her life using sorcery before. Certainly not to the extent of a Telvanni wizard but long enough to be notable.





All of his inner circle at the castle obviously know, but if they've told anyone, it's not apparent in the rumor mill. You may well be right that he's known as a vampire, but everyone seems to accept that he's a sorcerer. That's what leads me to believe it's not unheard of for powerful wizards to extend their age, even without using necromancy.

Certain potions, enchantments, gems or spells from the Restoration school might possibly aid a person in slowing down the effects of age. A certain variety of resist disease or fortify health/fatigue, perhaps.

Not impossible but improbable. Don't you think we would have heard of mannish sorcerors that powerful. Again, people, especially medieval people believe the silliest things. Egyptians actually thought that there Pharoahs were gods, many peoples actually believed in sea monsters, and for thousands of years, no one really questioned any of the religions. And again, we don't know the initial reaction. Maybe they were shocked at first, and now assume he IS the precedent, and he is the first mannish sorcerer to be able to do it.

You really think that his inner circle never told anyone? What about the ones that are not there anymore. What about the families. I always kind of assumed most people knew, but didn't care to bring up, because they were happy. And nothing that isn't directly related to you is in the rumor mill in Oblivion. Everything is related to you or a quest. Not reliable. Plus, I'm sure be this point it's old news. And the Emporer and Ocato must have known as well.

Yes, but men deteriorate much quicker without help from disease. We still don't know how long a mer can live without magic or disease. Barenziah is 450 and healthy, and she is just an aristocrat. We know men will die from just old age and a deteriorated body around 100. Even Dunmer can last at least 350 years more. All they have to is prolonge 450 years to 1000 opposed to 100.

Well technically, in real life, men have a maximum cut off age of around 120...nobody has reliably been observed to have ever exceeded that age. Oddly enough, fallible as the Bible is on many scientific aspects, it's the first mention of 120 as a maximum age for humanity (after the fall). Just a tidbit..no need to use that as evidence for anything or get in any sort of religious discussion.

But I digress..it's just me being picky..you say 100, I say 120...the differences at that point are minor..it's around the same age.

150 is just enough of a stretch to raise some eyebrows but like you said, people were naive. No need to argue my point too hard when that seems to suffice. I still insist that wealthy aristocrats and sorcerors would have access to life prolonging potions, however, even if they died at 100 or 120. Such things seem easily available with the powers of alchemy in the ES universe.

From http://www.imperial-library.info/interviews/alvur.shtml:


He has heard of people 200 years and older. That implies Dunmer seldom becomes much older. He also says that he'll be old at around 100. You have to be an aristocrat with a good supply of money for medicine and such, or a mage of power, to become much older, it seems.

Not a question of physical age, but mental age. Elves take longer to mature than men, as they can live longer. It was mentioned in Barenziah's stories, I believe, that Dunmer women take longer to sixually mature than humans, and that they become true advlts a little later in life than humans.

At least, that was what I interpreted from it.

"House Telvanni is one of the three Dunmer Great Houses on Vvardenfell. Their nobles are thousand-year-old wizards. " (Caius Cosades on "House Telvanni")

___TWM

I know. Commoners never live any where near as long as aristocrats. That was the case here in RL back in the day as well. It seems that a poor Dunmer will only live up to 100 and maybe up to 200. We already know that aristocrats live much, much longer as Barnziah is 450 and Symacchus must have died around 400 (due to being poked by a sharp stick). It's like the average life expectancy for a commoner in Medieval times was roughly between 30 and 35, there were people around 40 who were old and some people made it to 50 or 60. But aristocrats made it to 70 years old quite often. Some even made it to 80. That is double the life expectancy of a normal commoner.