ParanoidObsessive
Mongoose
Ghost of Landar said:I'm not sure Chiban and the like can even be used at all. Think about it. By the time LW is halfway through his Magnakai adventures it's 5061 or so.
This is very much a grey area, I'd think.
We have no idea what the general life-expectancy of Magnamund is. On the one hand, a pre-Industrial world should peak at around 40 or so... but with magic, laumspur, and the like, disease seems to be far less of a factor. Plus, as much as we tend to equate the people of Magnamund with humans (well, MOST of them), they could just as easily be on a different scale.
The reason for this sort of reasoning comes from some of the entries in the Gazetteer - basically, if Queen Evaine was Queen of Talestria in 5000, but still in charge in 5057 or so (book 8), then she'd have to reign for at LEAST 57 years... but since she's still Queen in 5078 or so (Book 18), that's a LONG reign.
About the only alternative I can see would be if it was TWO Evaines - mother and daughter, as it were - but she's not the only one who seems to have a long period of rule. All of the Shadakine Wytches, the Mayor of Casiorn, the Prince of Eru, Sarnak of Lencia, Sommerlund, Durenor, Shinzar in the Hammerlands (who's HARDLY a decrepit old man when you finally meet him decades later), Cadak... and so on.
So, it seems like either the people of Magnamund live far longer than you might otherwise expect (a valid argument, when you consider Tolkien's Numenoreans lived at least 200 years or so), or a LOT of people in charge take advantage of life-prolonging magics.
If a GM decided that even the common people live twice as long as in the real world, then any number of people who appeared to be late middle-age or older could easily show up in a game in 5000.