@Aify Novella length perhaps; yes, I'm writing it.

@JDługosz I might be able to do your concept art for the character (or find a willing artist, I know many).

@Aify cool! I can share some prose descriptions and details. Someone with an artistic bent might even help me refine her actual appearance.

@JDługosz I also need to know if you'd be paying for the art or if it'd be volunteer - as that would narrow down which of my contacts to actually contact lol

does anyone have any good ways of showing immortals ages without making them seem really old? To expand on this, i have an immortal race who, because of their longer lives, mature slower, resulting in them reaching the maturity an adult around 60, but when i say "they are 60 or older" i dont want people to picture someone who is "old" because they look 20. Any help?

@ajnatorixzersolar Most of the time this is done in a rather easy fashion. You simply state something like "Elves mature more slowly than humans. They reach adulthood at an age of around 60 years and seem to stop aging at that point. Only when they get closer to death, at an age of around 550 years, they start slowly aging again, similar to a human, until most of them die at 700 years." By leaving out the rest after "stop aging at that point." you could have your immortals.

If that's not what you want you could for example say that "they start with a similar aging process to humans, but their aging slows done as they mature, until it seems to come to a halt, at least from a human point of view, at an age of around 60 years when they first look like an adult human."

@Secespitus thanks :) any other things i should bear in mind about this?

@ajnatorixzersolar If you have mortals in your story you can have them say that "Although [immortal's name] looked in his prime they were actually as old as [mortal's name's] father/grandfather/village elder."

@ajnatorixzersolar What do your immortals do about scars? Do they have massive regeneration abilities or invulnerability? If they simply don't age but are still vulnerable similar to a human the older ones would surely have a lot of scars and you can use this to for example describe their rough age and show their status

@Secespitus the older ones do tend to have more scars from war but it can vary, they are immortal but not invincible.

@ajnatorixzersolar And how many children do they have? For example I am currently reading a book about "Albs" as opposed to "Elves" who have an immortal life and heightened regenerative capabilities, but the females rarely bear children. And each time they do they get a yellow coloured streak of hair, which is a status symbol.

@Bellerophon so using comparison?

@ajnatorixzersolar It can pretty well if you have a human protagonist.

@Secespitus usually 1 or 2 but three is rarer (i dont have any examples of more than three)

@Bellerophon i have a rather hilarious event where a 60 year old fighter and war commander has to fit in as a 14 year old in a school in our world

@ajnatorixzersolar In that case they are slowly going down as their numbers dwindle over the centuries

@Secespitus ah, i might have to rethink that then.

@ajnatorixzersolar It can be a plot point - it is one in the book I am reading for example.

They have unlimited time to come up with a solution after all so long as they are not regularly killed in war or because of disease.

@Secespitus well they have been at war for pretty much all of history and i need to keep the numbers up, so that becomes an issue

@Secespitus apart from having more kids any other ways to boost the numbers?

@ajnatorixzersolar Yes, in that case you may want to postulate something more along the lines of "A child every two or three hundred years."

@ajnatorixzersolar Make hybrids with other races possible where the hybrids simply have very-very-elve-like-long-lifes

Or allow transformation - think about vampires.

@Secespitus is it feasible to keep the gestation period the same as humans?

If they have 100% child survival then they only need to average 2 children per couple.

@Bellerophon unfortunately because of war thats not always guaranteed

@Bellerophon If there is regular war where they regularly die they need more children to compensate for those losses

Sure, so they probably want to average about the same as modern humans, maybe around 2.6 children per couple.

@Bellerophon 2.6! is that two and a pregnancy?

It's the global average.

right so i want to raise the average by, how much do reckon i would need?

Just make 2 or 3 children the norm with 1 or 4 being occasional and more than 5 being rare.

ok

@ajnatorixzersolar Use life stages, not years. E.g. He's a journeyman in his 4th career. I think they will be cyclic, starting a new cycle with school/training and then stages of career and prominence in the field.

erm what?

;p

@JourneymanGeek Was referring to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman a skilled worker between an appentice and a master.

@JDługosz I know ;p

hey there @Green @JourneymanGeek @JDługosz

Hello @Shalvenay.

how're things going?

Pretty good. Been looking at Universities and making hot cross buns.

How're you?

OK, and hey again @Green

@Bellerophon how are you getting those rabbits angry ? ;p

@JourneymanGeek Trapping them for 3 hours in a warm room seems to do the trick.

;p

:( poor rabbits

hey there @ajnatorixzersolar

@Shalvenay hey

@Shalvenay how are you?

doing OK as for you?

fine, not much going on though

So, if my understanding of lunar bodies capable of triggering total solar eclipses is correct, the lunar body needs to be as many times closer to the planet as it is smaller than its parent star, right? Am I then being just completely unreasonable if I want three terrestrial moons that can cause solar eclipses? Agh

@Pleiades I'm really not sure how eclipses work when you have many and/or small moons

if you'd see more of a non-totality effect where the eclipse would be visible as a dot or ball transiting the sun vs the 100% peak totality we get here on Earth

also, hey tere @Green and @Pleiades

@Shalvenay I'm still trying to make sense of it myself, but I think so long as the moons are in orbital resonance with each other, everything should still be good. I don't know @_@

yeah, that'd be a good question for HDE if he turns up

Or Green, who I thought was pretty well-versed in that sort of thing, but I could be wrong; I'm horrible with names

hey again @Green

hey there @Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Ni hao! How're things?

We've had a snowy day here, which is really odd for mid-March

alright here, came up with an ignoble end for Ser Clegane should he and the Lannisters be dumped into today's world. as for you?

and want to hear the ignoble end for Sir Clegane I came up with?

@Shalvenay I'm interested.

@Shalvenay Sure, why not?

@Bellerophon so he's riding shotgun, so to speak, on the Lannisters' carriage, and they're going through the streets of beautiful Durham, NC, but in a bit of a hurry....and welp, they don't realize that with Ser Clegane on top, they're a bit tall to fit under the infamous Gregson Street Guillotine. The coach-driver , for all he's worth, doesn't know what a Low Clearance sign looks like and can't read OVERHEIGHT TURN NOW, either....

I believe I can see where this is going.

so the first announcement of trouble for everyone else on the carriage is Sir Clegane's head meeting the crash beam.

ouch.

If someone has a better eye than me I need an opinion on the scales of the various body parts of the below image. Something seems wrong but I can't pin it down.

@Bellerophon hrm, he seems ever-so-slightly tilted to one side, maybe one arm is lower than the other?