Age and Aging

Age and Aging

As discussed under Age, you can start your adventuring career at any age that falls within your race's usual lifespan. However, unless you are Unaging, you will experience gradual decline once you age past a certain point.

Beginning at age 50, make a series of "aging rolls" each year to see if old age is taking its toll. (If you did not note an exact birthday, roll on the first day of every game year.) At age 70, roll every six months. At age 90, roll every three months!

If you have Extended Lifespan, each level doubles the age at which you must make aging rolls (50 years), the ages at which aging rolls become more frequent (70 and 90 years), and the time intervals between aging rolls (1 year, 6 months, and 3 months). If you have Short Lifespan, each level halves these numbers.

Aging rolls are a series of four HT rolls – one for each of your four basic attributes, in the following order: ST, DX, IQ, HT. You may not use any form of Luck on these rolls.

Modifiers: Your world's medical tech level minus 3; e.g., -3 at TL0, or +4 at TL7. +2 if you are Very Fit, +1 if Fit, -1 if Unfit, or -2 if Very Unfit. On a failure, reduce the attribute in question by one level. A critical failure, or any roll of 17 or 18, causes the loss of two levels. Exception: If you have Longevity, treat any roll of 16 or less as a success, and treat a 17 or 18 as an ordinary failure – and if your modified HT is 17+, only an 18 fails!

When you lose an attribute level to age, reduce your point value accordingly. Reduce all secondary characteristics and skills based on that attribute to reflect its new level. For instance, if aging reduces your IQ by one, your Perception, Will, and skills based on any of those three quantities also drop by one. If any attribute reaches 0 from aging, you die a "natural" death.

At the GM's option, you may lose advantages or gain disadvantages of equivalent point value instead of losing an attribute point. For example, your Appearance could decline, or you could gain Hard of Hearing.

Artificial Youth

In some settings, magic or technology can halt or reverse aging. Should you become younger through anymeans, you regain all attribute levels lost between your new age and your old one. This simply increases your point value; you do not have to "buy back" the recovered attribute levels. Even without magic or high technology, you can spend earned character points to raise your attributes to combat aging.

See Also

• Mutation Repair (TL9)
• The Genetics of Aging