In rules about young characters there's a caveat that a character can become an adult (at least mechanically) by going through some life altering event. Well, I'd like to use that as part of my world building, so I'm looking for ideas on a replicable, relatively consistent event that wild elf society can have their young go through to reach adulthood faster.
One thing it could be is young elves going on an adventure as a tradition.
The obvious answer is a rite of passage; a ritualized event that marks the transition from childhood to maturity. This can be handled in a LOT of different ways. It could be some kind of adventure, as you say. Another could be a hunt or great journey. It might involve the first time a being takes the life of an animal, or a person.
Perhaps its the discovery of a new tree or plant; recovering a sliver of an ancient ruin; the complete retelling of the tribe's history from ancient scrolls; a dissertation of an original thesis composed by the adolescent; mastering the use of a particular weapon or vehicle.
How does your own society mark such occasions in the real world? What does a kid need to do to prove their adult status? Graduate HS? Drink a beer? Lose their virtue? Perform a religious rite?
Or it could simply be the loss of innocence; some kind of trauma that forces the child to no longer see the world as a place of wonder but instead as a place of pain and absolutes. Perhaps the death of a loved one or some tragedy that personally affects the child is enough.
Without knowing ANYTHING about your game world and going solely off the words "Wild Elf" I would have a ritualized hunt. The children train for years with Simple and "Elf" weapons for the sole purpose of bringing down enough game to feed their families. Then, at the time of expected maturity, the young are handed their weapons and an edict not to return without proof of their first kill.
Since this is PF and a single level 1 NPC Warrior 1 with no armor likely couldn't drop a Medium sized woodland prey of the Animal or Magical Beast type, the children are grouped (like parties of adventurers) and must survive for 3 nights in an area beyond the protections of their settlement. Upon their return on the 4th day each group must present a trophy of their kill. The beast must have been of Medium size and, since so much meat likely won't be consumed in this short amount of time, any food brought back by the now adult children is featured in a feast held in their honor to mark the occasion.
A clarification because it seems in my hurry I was being unclear. I'm not talking about "expected time of maturity". I'm talking about this:
Quote:
Reward: The pace at which characters gain experience varies widely from campaign to campaign. In one campaign, a character might gain multiple levels in a single month of in-game time, while in another a character might spend years at the same level. If adulthood were purely tied to the passage of time in a campaign, a young character might gain extensive adventuring experience but still be restricted to selecting only NPC classes.
A GM may grant a young character the option of passing into the adult age category early after achieving some noteworthy goal. Potential accomplishments include surpassing your instructor’s skill, defeating a powerful adult foe, overcoming a threat to your home, or completing a lengthy journey. The completion of a published module or adventure of similar length might warrant a youth advancing to adulthood, or perhaps attaining a certain level in an NPC class (perhaps at 3rd or 5th level). If your GM grants your young character the ability to advance into adulthood early, you may choose when to take advantage of that benefit. Your ability scores do not change to reflect your new age category until you retrain an NPC class level.
I'm looking for ideas on an event that young wild elves can go through to deliberately speed up the process of reaching adulthood, because in the wild you wont survive as a society if your young take a 100 years to become adults.
Ok how it's this: most of the warrior go hunting and the village only have elders, children and less guards to protect the village, sudden the village it's under attack and the guards need help the children with more age (puberty) decide to help. Later if they still alive most of the guards are dead/wounded and they need reinforcement but can't go because the have to stay and protect the village in case of another attack; so they only answer it's to send a group of teenager to find the hunting group and came back to help in the defense.
In the end if they still alive they will be considered adults
Hmm, back when I dug into the life cycles of the long lived races, I ran across a similar issue with verisimilitude. Eventually, I settled on a process that I once read in a science fiction book, that the species in question chose when it would begin to reach maturity. Whether that is through a purely mental decision, or the intake of a certain kind of substance (as though a magical ritual or natural substance), the exact process is irrelevant in this comment.
To keep it short and simple, perhaps elves do not biologically age after a certain point until they choose to undergo the development into mature adults. After that point (depending on your own personal mythology on elves), they are not longer effectively eternally young and have a max age. This kind of balances out the whole immortality is only for those that cannot reproduce.
If it is for custom world building... it is worth noting that the age ranges listed in the playable race entries are the ages associated with them in the Golarion world. A campaign taking place in a different world &/or universe doesn't have to adhere to the same exact lore. Elves in your world could mature at the same rate as humans for the first 20 or so years of their life before their longevity kicks in and causes them to seemingly stop aging for the next few hundred years... And as you asserted, a race that lives in the wilds would likely not survive as a society if their young take over a hundred years to mature, so such elves would not only physically grow into maturity at a faster rate, but they would also be guided into mental maturity at a faster rate as well by necessity.
I always laughed at the starting ages for non humans. Are elves really so developmentally challenged that it takes them 110 years to learn as much as a human does in 15? Does it take an elf 7 to 23 years to be potty trained? Do they crawl around for the first decade of their life before learning to walk? Do they not hit puberty until they're 95?
In my home game setting, all humanoids reach maturity at roughly the same age.
I always laughed at the starting ages for non humans. Are elves really so developmentally challenged that it takes them 110 years to learn as much as a human does in 15? Does it take an elf 7 to 23 years to be potty trained? Do they crawl around for the first decade of their life before learning to walk? Do they not hit puberty until they're 95?
In my home game setting, all humanoids reach maturity at roughly the same age.
Depending on who you ask and what lore you read, the reasons for the 110years to reach adulthood varies quite a bit...
reasons include:
1) reduced physical rate of aging... some races don't just live twice as long or 5 times as long as humans, but they physically grow at a reduced rate equivalent to how much longer their lives are. As such, they reach adulthood much later in life, an elf at the age of 25 might look like a 7 year old child.
2) extensive education... sometimes races with exceptionally long lives put an even greater focus on educating their "young" than short-lived races do. In this case a long-lived race might mature at the same rate as a human, but they are not considered an adult in society until they have completed their education. A race that lives for multiple centuries often view the first century no differently than a human might see the first decade or two of their life.
3) understanding societal & lifestyle differences... long-lived races often have difficulty interacting with shorter lived races early on in their life. The sheer difference in lifestyles is a cause for confusion to many, and it isn't until they have witnessed how short other races lives are that they start to understand. Because of this, long-lived races often do not consider themselves to enter adulthood until they can properly socialize with and understand the life choices of the shorter lived races.
4) cultural rituals and rites of passage... some long-lived races have complicated rituals that they undergo before being considered an adult. These rituals often take several decades to complete, and usually are preceded by many decades of preparation and training.
Ideas for events that elves can participate in that speed up maturity:
1. The Great Blooming::
Wild Elves of the Everbloom Tribe cannot afford for their younglings to spend a century maturing. At the appointed time, when a brood of younglings have proven themselves both worthy and hearty enough, they are taken to the Greenhart; the eldest known tree of the wood. Long ago the elves awakened a power within the sap of the tree which, when consumed as part of an ancient ritual, will age up the younglings to physical maturity (roughly a hundred years time). This takes its toll on the bodies of the children; not every youngling survives the trial.
The rite has a second effect, not just physical. During the Blooming the potent substances consumed by the children also open their minds to all their ancestors who have gone before them into the Deep Roots (a metaphor for the grave). With their minds laid bare they are imparted much of the knowledge, skills and training they would have experienced over the years. Just as with the physical effects, many younglings do not survive the mental strain of the communion.
It is common for those who survive The Great Blooming to feel a great sense of loss or anguish when the rite is complete. Some few have their minds permanently broken by the trial; they become the Touched of the tribe, forever existing on the fringes of Everbloom society. Others however recover from the ordeal through counsel and care by the tribe over a matter of weeks.
A rare few however require solace to fully heal. While their minds are intact and their bodies hale, the immersion among their ancestors leave echoes of the past reverberating in the adults' new minds, like a drumbeat that never fully subsides until they are away from their kinfolk. These special initiates are referred to as the Striders for they must remove themselves on a long walk, sometimes lasting years.
The Striders are the adventurers, heroes and true dreamers of the tribe. While some never return to the Everbloom homelands, those that do bring with them news and lore of the greater world. Many of the new magics and weapons the Everbloom have mastered have come from the wanderings of their Striders. They who return are hailed as legends and earn favored places within the tribe.
2. Twilight Pods::
Noble elves of Calestrialis, a high-elven enclave deep in the Hyborean Wood, have a need for their brood to assume places of power among the Eldritch Citadel far faster than their natural processes would allow. Those wealthy and well connected enough have access to Twilight Pods; Fleshwarping chambers filled with alchemical mixtures augmented by numerous transmutations.
These chambers impart physical and mental maturity on their subjects over a matter of weeks. During their time within the Twilight Pod, a subject is bombarded with programmed auditory illusions imparting the occupants with lore. Some select few can even upgrade the process (for extra fees of course) to include specific training modules delivered through mental transmissions. Modules include martial techniques, arcane lore or even some socio-political vocations
For more defined, extended events, try this on for size:
3. Walking the Spiral::
The Green Elves of Earthlore Forest are well acquainted with the various fey clans bordering their lands. There are portions of the forest even the Green Elves avoid as the wild dominion of the Faerie Folk. There is however a place of unity between these neighbors, an open-air fortress of wood and stone called Kul Badoon.
Once a month the fey and elves meet to barter, perform rituals of honorarium and generally help keep the peace between them. Of course the Faerie Folk make merry and delight in pranking their far more mortal and pragmatic friends. The Green Elves, for their part, vacillate between stoic indifference, good humor and begrudging tolerance of the tomfoolery.
There is one rite the elves visiting Kul Badoon regard with a mixture of awe and fear. The Walking of the Spiral is attended specifically by the youth among the elves. It consists of a night of maze running by the young amid a gauntlet populated by the fey and their magics. While the experience is different for each applicant and not every elven child is required to attend, there are 3 events that occur for all who enter. They may occur in any order, at any time throughout the maze, but each marks a moment of significance in who the child will become.
The Battle of Legend sees the child partaking in a mythic battle with an eldritch creature. The foe is not always the same but it is always a melee skirmish of some kind. The fey never permit the death of a novitiate, using only bruising and bludgeoning blunted by their own magics. Some children are rendered unconscious by the assault but those who win through likely have some level of martial tenacity in their future.
The Riddles of the Moons occurs as three objects resembling a crescent, a full and a half moon visit themselves upon the novitiate. While the riddles are not always the same, each of the three will ask one in turn. The Novitiate must answer each; failing any of these will deposit the child randomly within the maze, adorned with a pointed had referred to as the Cone of Ninnymuggins which will remain in place throughout the rest of the gauntlet and immediately elicits giggles from the Faerie Folk. Those who answer all three correctly however are anointed by a Lunar Mark, an arcane sigil that glows in the moonlight upon the Novitiate's forehead for the next 30 nights and generally marks them for a degree of cunning and a clever mind.
The Heart of Bravery is a test of wit, courage and force of character. While the trials are not always the same, they involve feats overcoming the fears felt most closely by the novitiate involved. The fey can read these fears on the hearts of children like scribe at their scrolls. When exposed to their fear many children flee back into the labyrinth and the fey make wide berth for the terrified lambs so that no harm comes to them. Those who endure and conquer their fears though are likely to become people of courage and tenacity.
Regardless of their success or failure the children who Walk the Spiral are transformed into mature young adults by the ordeal. Those marked by victories over some or all trials however tend to have an inner confidence and drive to excel among their Green Elf kinfolk. They become warriors, arcanists, druids or even champions of the tribe
Now, these have a sort of obvious, maturity-inducing component to them and with a few tweaks could be adapted to a lot of settings.
From what I read in the material you quoted, the event could in fact just be a singular event, like besting a mentor or something. These can be tailored to the character as needed. For example:
A melee martial type had to defeat a mentor in single combat
A Ranger, Hunter, or Druid had to befriend and train one wild beast considered a predator in their home region
Skill monkey types had to overcome some test of one or more of their primary skills; suggestions include climbing a rope ladder adorned with bells without making a sound, disassembling and reassembling a lock blindfolded, or balancing on a tightrope in high wind
Arcane types must master and cast three Cantrips under duress; perhaps Spark to warm themselves after an hour in the cold, conjure a Light spell in pitch darkness over a chasm, and casting Haunted Fey Aspect while a foe tries to pummel you with slaps and screams at you
Of course any learned folk, of both Arcane or Divine magic could also simply have to recite lore in a stressful situation like in front of a crowd or under threat of stern reprisals
Paladins, clerics and other devout PCs are fun; pick any aspect of their religion and personify that into a trial. For example, say you have a paladin of the Golarion goddess Iomedae. Her favored weapon is the longsword and her paladins often carry one. The paladin then had to spend an entire night in prayer, holding their longsword aloft before the altar, while kneeling on the floor of the temple or shrine the entire time
Marriage is an old ritual closely associated with becoming an adult. Founding your own household (independence), being responsible for others.
If facing an actual beast or the elements is too dangerous, there's precedent for facing unreal ones while under the influence of something or another. In a PF world that might mean a magical illusion.
