Skaven longevity?

[Skywave]

I just finished the third Nagash book (warning, might contain some minor spoilers), and I was quite surprised to see throughout the book that it was the same Skaven characters all that time. The Skaven appears in the year -1325, and the story stop at -1151, a good 175 years span, and the same Skaven are still kicking around!

I always pictured the Skaven relatively short lived creatures (natural life span that is), but considering one of them was already a Lord of his clan, he was probably well over 200 years old by the end of the book.

I know Black Library books are not totally legit in term of fluff and accuracy, but are Skaven really that long lived?

[Arnizipal]

The Council memebers tend to live very long (as in several centuries) through magical means.
Grey Seers might also be able to do this.

Warlords might live for a couple of decades through acces to better food, equipment and medicine, but the average Skaven lifespan is about 20 years IIRC.

[Tresidentevil]

Can't remember where I read this (very possibly here) but I seem to remember the AVERAGE Skaven lifespan being 20-30 years. Obviously this takes into account the absolute chaos and filth they live in. It's my understanding higher ranking Skaven and especially the 13 can live a lot longer, either through fulfilling their 'potential' lifespans (with better food, lifestyle, medicine) or by magical help.

[woodster17]

'Average' lifespan is certainly less than 20-30 years, 20 being probably the maximum if the Skaven lives in to old age. Even Thanquol is an old rat a mere 20 years after being young in Skavenslayer. The Council of 13 certainly use magical augments to live for a long period of time, but without it their lifespan's would be very short indeed.

[Urgat]

Yesyes, I remember huge discrepancies mentioned in the same sources. Clanrats seem to die-die quick-quick, while grey seers and the members of the councils can last long-long, like hundred of years.
I suppose warlords enjoy longer lives than the regular rabble through better hygiene (hahahahahahahahaha), better meals, etc.

[Craze_b0i]

The current Lords of Decay are all over 200 years old, they have all survived in the position since the Summoning of the Horned Rat. Based on the skaven timeline Seerlord kritislik is at least 500 years old. Meanwhile Ikit Claw who is not even on the council is at least 400.

[unwanted]

Old age for the unwashed masses are generally considered to set in around 20 years of age, as others have already stated, as well as numerous examples of Lords and Seers living longer. I'll try to surmise some of the various reasons, that hasn't been explicitly stated, as well as any information that hasn't been provided. First off, as Craze_boi states, the current Lords of Decay are all well over two centuries old, which is possibly due to the blessing of the Horned Rat that is granted when they touched the Pillar of Commandments and survived. Meanwhile, other Skaven go about achieving longevity through various means, such as access to better food and shelter in the case of any Skaven that've managed to rise above the throng. This could well be the case with Thanquol, who attributes his 3 generations to him being more intelligent and capable than the rest of his litter. Ikit Claw is a rather special case, as he's partially mechanic by now, and in the old AB from '93, he'd pretty much unlocked all the arcane secrets of the world, able to take spells from every lore of magic, except Waaagh! Magic, but interestingly enough including Necromancy. Throt has kicked around for a considerable amount of time, thanks to his unnatural metabolism, while Skrolk is much older than your average Skaven too, thanks to the equilibrium of diseases and decay keeping his putrid form together. There's plenty of ways for Skaven to outlive their ordinary span, but the means to this seems restricted to those who've amassed at least some power and influence, again making the attainment of such privileges highly desirable, as it potentially lengthens your otherwise short and pitiful time in the Warhammer-world.

[Skywave]

The two Skaven in the book didn't strike me as particularily "high ranked" or influencial throughout the story to have access to many external help like magic or advanced medicine or something like that. One is a lord, but is soon replaced by a higher ranking Skaven (a Grey Lord or some such) and is sent to war for the most part with the assassins raiding party. The second one is the leader of those assassins/scouts. They both seems to have some hard time on the field with their constant raiding, and weren't really chilling back enjoying some hot meal!

But wether it's accurate or not, I still liked those two, they weren't acting like I expected Skaven to act, and were quite funny in their own way

[Craze_b0i]

In that case I'd say its just bad writing.

[unwanted]

I agree, someone didn't do the research, or else didn't consider the actual passage of time in question. Also, if their behaviour was distinctly un-skavenlike, the writer may not have delved too deeply into Skaven lore. As an aside, can you maybe elaborate, without spoiling too much?

[Sandlemad]

Looking at it demographically, the average may be skewed by the incredible amount of skaven that die as clanrats or as young. Considering the size of the skaven population, there's room for more outliers who live well above the average age, even beyond those extend their lives with magic/warpstone.

[unwanted]

While I agree with your assertions of the actual scientific measure of average lifespans, I doubt the writers at GW actually had this in mind when they described Skaven lifespans

[stazba]

IIRC in the case of the Skaven in the Nagish series:

The warlord would have had great wealth (even when he seemed down) based on the amount of "godstone" that was being mined each day and the fact that he was the titular head of the expedition and his cut. With great wealth, as it is pointed out several times in the book, high ranking Skaven could buy medicines to slow down aging and also have better access to chirurgeons. Also, it is likely his clan while being enriched by the godstone being mined probably did everything they could to make sure that their source of wealth stayed alive.
Both of these facts however seem to fly in the face of the assignments given to him before the last great battle with Nagash which seemed to be designed to kill him, meaning why would they still have to give him his cut?

After the last great battle, and when the Skaven made their slaves for godstone deal, IIRC the liason for the grey councle actually gave the warlord the meds to keep him alive until a chance came to backstab Nagash.

As for the assassin, god knows how he survived unless the warlord was giving him some age slowing medicine as well.

[Arnizipal]

The warlord would have had great wealth (even when he seemed down) based on the amount of "godstone" that was being mined each day and the fact that he was the titular head of the expedition and his cut.

IIRC Skaven care very little for gold as they have no real function for it.
All they care for are metals to forge weapons from and warpstone.

[Urgat]

God, not gold, Arni I suppose that's some weird way to call warpstone. Doesn't sound very skaveney...

[stazba]

God, not gold, Arni I suppose that's some weird way to call warpstone. Doesn't sound very skaveney...

again IIRC, "godstone" is what skaven call warpstone in the nagash series, just like nagash calls it burning stone (or something like that). agree though that it sounds a bit stupid.

[Athelassan]

I felt the Skaven in Nagash were "off", slightly, in a way that can't be explained away just by the fact that we're seeing them pretty early in their cultural development. Their speech was wrong; their mannerisms weren't quite there; they were too honest and honourable, and so forth.

Of course, (almost?) all the previous Skaven-centric stories published by GW/BL were by William King or C.L. Werner (who consciously modelled his Skaven on King's) and this was a pretty heavy departure from that style, whether intentional or not.

I agree that the Skaven seemed too long-lived: although long-lived Skaven aren't unheard of in the rest of the canon, they're a rarity and seem to need some sort of magical sustenance. There was also a disappointing lack of politicking. Any respectable Skaven army would have torn itself apart and appointed new leaders dozens of times in that time frame, and yet by the end of the war the command structure and personnel are near-identical. It's not just the Skaven, though. Nagash sticks with the same increasingly mouldering corpses of his original leaders despite there presumably being several generations' worth of fresh batches to choose from that we never even get to see.

I think it's just a case of the author not giving serious consideration to the length of the war or its implications, and telling the story he wants to regardless of the context (he's good at that). I got the impression a few times that the dates were just numbers. I also felt the Alcadizaar plot in the last book was absurdly elongated when by all rights it should have been dealt with in a single human lifespan. Meh.

[unwanted]

Eh, so the writer couldn't be bothered to do proper Skaven, not even getting warpstone right. I mean, Nagash may well have used a different name for it, but I hardly think a concept as central to Skaven society as Warpstone has changed meaning over time. Was there a lot of dialogue between the Skaven and Nagash/his servants? That could be an acceptable reason for the different wording. Also, did the Skaven use their trademark weapons such as the Warpfire Thrower or poisoned wind? Those shouldn't really have been around at that time, and that'd definitely give some insights to the writers familiarity with Skaven, Warhammer and the timeline... Was the rest of the books any good?

[Craze_b0i]

Since various possible age figures have been thrown up on this thread I thought I would do some digging. The current armybook seems to have nothing however wikipedia has the following:

The Skaven centric Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement "Children of the Horned Rat" gives the average Skaven an expected lifespan of about 20 years, asserting that, were it not for the (often violent) internal competition of their species, they might live well past 50.

So if you took away the infighting the natural skaven lifespan would be roughly the same as a human. Though of course as already mentioned the uber-powerful skaven like the Council seem to use some type of magic to keep themselves alive longer.

[Skywave]

I agree, someone didn't do the research, or else didn't consider the actual passage of time in question. Also, if their behaviour was distinctly un-skavenlike, the writer may not have delved too deeply into Skaven lore. As an aside, can you maybe elaborate, without spoiling too much?

I felt that they weren't "backstabbing and treachering" enough. From the little knowledge I have of Skaven, the book was prety tame when it came to Skaven "reputation" No real treacheries or assassinations in all those 175-odd years, despite some characters not liking/trusting each other from the start.

IIRC Skaven care very little for gold as they have no real function for it.
All they care for are metals to forge weapons from and warpstone.

In the book they still have gold and use it as a form of currency. Can't they use both gold and warpstone for currency? Or was it in their fluff that they don't care about gold at all?

I felt the Skaven in Nagash were "off", slightly, in a way that can't be explained away just by the fact that we're seeing them pretty early in their cultural development. Their speech was wrong; their mannerisms weren't quite there; they were too honest and honourable, and so forth.

Of course, (almost?) all the previous Skaven-centric stories published by GW/BL were by William King or C.L. Werner (who consciously modelled his Skaven on King's) and this was a pretty heavy departure from that style, whether intentional or not.

I agree that the Skaven seemed too long-lived: although long-lived Skaven aren't unheard of in the rest of the canon, they're a rarity and seem to need some sort of magical sustenance. There was also a disappointing lack of politicking. Any respectable Skaven army would have torn itself apart and appointed new leaders dozens of times in that time frame, and yet by the end of the war the command structure and personnel are near-identical. It's not just the Skaven, though. Nagash sticks with the same increasingly mouldering corpses of his original leaders despite there presumably being several generations' worth of fresh batches to choose from that we never even get to see.

I think it's just a case of the author not giving serious consideration to the length of the war or its implications, and telling the story he wants to regardless of the context (he's good at that). I got the impression a few times that the dates were just numbers. I also felt the Alcadizaar plot in the last book was absurdly elongated when by all rights it should have been dealt with in a single human lifespan. Meh.

Yes, honest and honorable is the right word to describe how I perceived them in the book. Not chivalry honest and honorable of course, but more that I imagined Skaven to be. Their speech I can understand, there's a good portion of the book about the Skaven, so if all of it was more Skaven-like it could become tedious/annoying to read. And since the characters are mostly high-ranked, maybe they are just better at speaking correctly :P

And yeah, Alcadizaar story was incredibly strectched over time, staying 25 years at the temple to raise in rank, another 25 years with the desert tribe just to be accepted as one of the group, etc.

Eh, so the writer couldn't be bothered to do proper Skaven, not even getting warpstone right. I mean, Nagash may well have used a different name for it, but I hardly think a concept as central to Skaven society as Warpstone has changed meaning over time. Was there a lot of dialogue between the Skaven and Nagash/his servants? That could be an acceptable reason for the different wording. Also, did the Skaven use their trademark weapons such as the Warpfire Thrower or poisoned wind? Those shouldn't really have been around at that time, and that'd definitely give some insights to the writers familiarity with Skaven, Warhammer and the timeline... Was the rest of the books any good?

No, Skaven barely had any talk with the undead after the alliance was formed. The use of god-stone was from the start of the book, and very rarely did I see the word warpstone used. There were some Clan Skryre machine in there, but it some kind of catapult, nothing too advanced from what I could tell.

I looked back at the book to get more info on the timeline. After 25 years of war, the Skaven lord was sent by the Grey Lord for about 15 years on the field, making constant raid against the undead. At some point during these years both the lord and the master assassin were seriously injured, and their clans spend great ressources to treat them. And they were sent back to raiding as soon as possible by the Grey Lord, who clearly want them them dead and is the reason the lord is sent to the front in the first place. After those 15-or-so years the lord pretty much stay back at the forteress. So it is possible that he managed to extend his life during all those "off" years. In the first 25 years of the war it is actually said that the lord and his clan was now rich enough to afford sorcerous potion to extend his youth, but it seems to just go downhill from the moment the Grey Lord arrive.