[SPOILERS] What age are the Five?

TethorilofLathander

Balthazar can't be too old, but the rest are Fire Giants/Drow/Elves and Dragons so they've got to be hundreds, if not thousands of years old?

Quartz

Miiiiight wanna put a spoiler warning on this one.

TethorilofLathander

Isn't there a spoiler warning in the general discussion area?

Alkalurops

Nobody is born a thousand years old.

MERLANCE

They are all between 12 and 1500. I think Bhaal ascended around the fall of Netheril, then died during the time of troubles.

riyahhassett

I don't think any of the bhaal spawn are over 30 years old based on what I read in the time of trouble series. Anyone read anything different?

TethorilofLathander

@MERLANCE

That would make sense! I'm sure he didn't forsee his own demise back then but probably still had children, just for the sake of it perhaps. Then with the prophecy coming around, the wisest of them realised what their fate might be and sought destruction.

Lord_Tansheron

This has been a topic of debate before. Basically, we arrived at these possibilities:

- Bhaal foresaw his death well in advance, many decades or even centuries before the Time of Troubles. He could have sired children during any of these years, accounting for large age gaps between them (some even had children of their own, e.g. Abazigal)

- Bhaal's children age differently than normal members of their race. Elves, for example, would normally take very long to mature, but Bhaal's heritage speeds things up

- A wizard did it (=plot hole that the writers did not further explain or take into account)

Madhax

I think it's a plot hole with no good explanation. Sarevok and Imoen's ages neatly coincide with a prophecy preceeding the Time of Troubles by ten years, which also works if Charname is human (or another race with a human's lifespan). As far as I know, there's no evidence of Bhaalspawn older than ~20 years in the entirety of BG1 or BG2. It's always seemed to me that, in the effort to expand the saga to more mythic proportions for ToB, they ignored the timeline to allow for Bhaalspawn of significantly different races.

After all, if Bhaal had hundreds of years to prepare for his death, couldn't he have worked out something better than just Zeusing everything that moved and hoping for the best?

Alkalurops

To clarify my previous post: Dragons don't poof into existence. Some dragons, giants or drow you encounter will be adolescents. As far as baldur's gate is concerned, an eighteen year old human looks just the same as an eighty year old human.

For example, Drizzt is only 71 years old when we encounter him. That's the equivalent of an 18 year old by human standards.

Lord_Tansheron

@Madhax: the only real example of an "older" Bhaalspawn I can think of is Abazigal. Having a grown son is a bit of a stretch for ~20 years...

Mathmick

They are n years old, where n > (Total in-game playtime).

TethorilofLathander

I've just made another post about a new possibility to do with age. I know it's been a topic before on the forums but I'm not sure if this aspect of it has been involved.

Madhax

@Lord_Tansheron

Illasera and Sendai are elves, who I believe don't reach adulthood until ~60 years of age last I checked, and at ~20 they're basically children. Illasera could probably be taken on in BG1, but Sendai is an immensely powerful Drow priestess. It's been a long time since I played ToB, but if her clerical powers are derived from Lloth, that's doubly impossible because her place in Drow society would be almost nonexistent.

I don't know what the maturity age of fire giants is, but according to a wiki they live to ~350, so I assume Yaga-Shura shouldn't be anywhere near the age of adulthood. And, of course, Abazigal as a dragon can't realistically be that big since a dragon's strength is directly proportional to their age, even before you consider that he also has a full-grown son who is similarly powerful.

Lord_Tansheron

@Madhax: I completely agree, which is why I'm personally in favor of the version that has Bhaal hopping beds well in advance, for centuries.

ZanathKariashi

I was pretty sure people would get it through their heads that Bhaal starting his "gardening" long before the time of troubles happened, seeing how the opening video of BG2 explicitly says so.


And Alaundo predicted the Bhaalspawn crisis in detail 1700 years before the start of BG1, so....Bhaal has PLENTY of time and foreknowledge to work with.

Abazigal is clearly a full blooded dragon because a half-dragon doesn't have a dragon form, and both Bazzy and Draconis have full dragon forms. This means Abazigal needs to be at least 700-900, in order for Draconis to be as large as he is. Which is still nearly a thousand years after Alaundo's prediction.

SpaceInvader

Lord_Tansheron said:

This has been a topic of debate before. Basically, we arrived at these possibilities:

- Bhaal foresaw his death well in advance, many decades or even centuries before the Time of Troubles. He could have sired children during any of these years, accounting for large age gaps between them (some even had children of their own, e.g. Abazigal)

- Bhaal's children age differently than normal members of their race. Elves, for example, would normally take very long to mature, but Bhaal's heritage speeds things up

- A wizard did it (=plot hole that the writers did not further explain or take into account)

1) Bhaal must have been a hell of a Math genius.

2) "I swear she was 18!!"

3) ???
Profit!!!

Lord_Tansheron

I can just imagine the talk with the parents...

"You don't understand, dad, he was a GOD! The God of Murder!"

"Oh, I'll show him the God of Murder alright!"

Kaltzor

I still think it would make more sense that all races grow up at about the same rate so that they're around the same age as CHARNAME (+/- about 10-15 years)...

Either that or ToB is mostly just a big plothole to begin with.

lamaros

Some of us like to pretend ToB doesn't exist.

ZanathKariashi

Yeah....though even in BG1, they basically flat out say that only a human (baseline development), half-elf (1-2 years behind), Half-orc (1-2 years faster) can be canon races. You can be something else, but have to ignore basically every speck of text about your past (or be blissfully ignorant of the development rates for most other demi-humans. Halflings are pretty close, but dwarves/gnomes and especially elves are no where near 20 years from infancy. Gnomes and dwarves are both around 30-35 for 20, and Elves are about 50-60 for the same. Elves though are unusual, most of the races age at a relatively stable rate, but elves age at roughly human speed until they reach puberty at about 13-14 years from birth (roughly 11-12 developmentally by human standards) and then slow to a crawl not reaching the equivalent of 18 until about 40-45).



ToB though is full of plot holes, since it was so rushed they didn't have time apparently to go back and fact check established lore.

Drugar

I don't see why it would be illogical for Bhaal to have been siring children dozens or hundreds of years in advance. Alaundo's prophecies are well known in Faerûn (among the learned anyway) and if your title is "The Lord of Murder" and one of the prophecies is "The Lord of Murder will perish" then you sit up and pay attention. He had hundreds of thousands of followers over his 1500 year reign as deity of Death. Surely one of them read a book in their life and picked up on that line, then called the home office.

Bigger question: Did he spawn a score of mortal progeny because the prophecy told him to? And would he still have done so if there were no prophecy? If no, wasn't the prophecy basicly self-fulfilling?

rdarken

Lord_Tansheron said:

This has been a topic of debate before. Basically, we arrived at these possibilities:

- Bhaal foresaw his death well in advance, many decades or even centuries before the Time of Troubles. He could have sired children during any of these years, accounting for large age gaps between them (some even had children of their own, e.g. Abazigal)

- Bhaal's children age differently than normal members of their race. Elves, for example, would normally take very long to mature, but Bhaal's heritage speeds things up

- A wizard did it (=plot hole that the writers did not further explain or take into account)

If they mature faster, do they also age faster past a certain point?

Lord_Tansheron

@rdkarken: the only source we have on that says no, as Abdel Adrian (a human) is still alive and in good health hundreds of years after the Bhaalspawn Crisis.

AendaeronBluescale

Perhaps physically he didn't do it all, but just 'posessed' certain creature's bodies to procreate (Immortal (2004 movie) style), maybe he even knew his certain demise long before Alaundo (which is quite possible - Bhaal was a god, Alaundo not)?

Body possession would explain Abazigal and other odd children of Bhaal.

DarkDogg

Alkalurops said:

For example, Drizzt is only 71 years old when we encounter him. That's the equivalent of an 18 year old by human standards.

........................................ elf ........ half-elf ...... human
Early childhood ............... 0-5 ......... 0-3 ............. 0-1
Middle childhood ............ 5-12 ........ 4-6 ............. 2-4
Late childhood .............. 13-20 ...... 7-10 ........... 5-12
Adolesence ................... 21-50 ..... 11-25 ......... 13-15
Young Adulthood .......... 51-79 ...... 26-39 ........ 16-17
Recognized as full adult ... 80 ........... 40 ............. 18
Adulthood .................... 81-349 ..... 41-175 ...... 18-30
Middle Aged ................ 350-500 .... 176-250 .... 31-40
Gettin Really Old ......... 501-700 .... 251-350 .... 41-60
Very very old .............. 701-800 ..... 351-400 .... 61-70

Metalloman

Alaundo was a prophet and he told the famous prophecies;
Bhaal foresaw his future himself (or via other ways/media), as said here, for example: ...More importantly, Bhaal foresaw his death...

or here: ...It is said that Bhaal foresaw his death during the Time of Troubles and came to Toril before the climatic event, mating with females of almost any species, not all of them humanoid.

Surely Bhaal needed not to hear Alaundo speech.

Regarding how he could mate with almost any species we have to remember that he WAS a god, and also this form that he used to transform in was useful for the purpose, i suppose: ...Kazgoroth is an aspect of Bhaal that takes the form of anything it wants to...

lamaros

Maybe he just liked getting around, and they were his older children from just a few fun adventures - before stuff got too serious.

Madhax

I didn't realize Alaundo predated the series by that many years. I always assumed he was more of a contemporary prophet. It's been quite a long time since I've played BG2 and ToB, since I've been waiting for the Enhanced Editions of each ever since they were announced.

I suppose it's fair that Bhaal may have started earlier, but that still seems really awkward to me. A dragon demigod, his quarter-god son, a drow demigod priestess, and a fire giant demigod were all parading around for anywhere from decades to centuries before the Time of Troubles, and none made significant power plays? Doesn't add up to me.

Sendai should be running the whole damn Underdark if she's got a couple centuries under her belt. Abazigal and Yaga-Shura should have already become major threats to the surface world. Why were they all waiting for a decade AFTER Bhaal's death to become relevant? For Charname/Sarevok/Imoen it's a matter of maturity. If the Five are older than the other Bhaalspawn, they've been sitting on their asses for centuries for no good reason.

TethorilofLathander

Some of them might not have know of their powers for a while. But as far as Sendai and Abazigal go, they would have some barriers. Sendai would have had to beat all the neighbouring matron mothers to gain such power, which eventually she did but that would take time. Abazigal had an army of dragons and wyverns by the time he is defeated I think. Cultivating such a force wouldn't go unnoticed, so perhaps he had some troubles while gathering the armies. As for fire giants, I can only assume that the Marching Mountains are the only best suited lands for their kind in Tethyr. Balthazar was preparing himself for ritual suicide once the other Bhaalspawn were defeated. Fuck knows what Illasera was doing, but there is a possible answer from the Forgotten Realms Wiki:

"Illasera was one of the Five who is not indicated as having a small army of her own, though the warriors accompanying her could well be part of one"

Battlehamster

ZanathKariashi said:

I was pretty sure people would get it through their heads that Bhaal starting his "gardening" long before the time of troubles happened, seeing how the opening video of BG2 explicitly says so.


And Alaundo predicted the Bhaalspawn crisis in detail 1700 years before the start of BG1, so....Bhaal has PLENTY of time and foreknowledge to work with.

Ironic possibility - Bhaal foresaw his murder because this Alaundo dude prophecized his fall. In hearing this mortal prophecy Bhaal looks into it just to be safe, finds out this mortal dude is actually correct and goes on a nearly 2 millennia long murder and rape-spree.

Long story short, had Alaundo kept his mouth shut Bhaal may have been none the wiser and BG may have never actually happened. Total postulation of course but I find it a humorous possibility.