HI!

In several intances I've seen mention of extreme lifespans for 'notables' of the Imperium - upwards of 300 years or so in some cases.
How official is this "fluff"? How common? How do you guys/gals rule this (are there rules somewhere on this)?

Thanks!

L

Its reasonably official as far as I'm aware. Dan Abnett goes into fair detail with it. Many Eisenhorn and Ravenor characters are quite old indeed.

The Ad Mech of course has crazy huge lifespans, as do space marines. that is definitely official.

I rule anyone with serious wealth has access, ( Nobility and Senior Adeptus) to rejuvenant to increase their lifespan to circa 200ish years. After that things get more complicanted are more organic material needs to be replaced. so only the incredibly wealthly or influential who are willing to become effectively inhuman.

Is that where the tube & cable (T&C) fetish comes from? Really old people with ugly tubes stuck everywhere! The latest beauty trend in the far future!

L

Well, Commander Dante (Chapter Master of the Blood Angels) is around 1100 years old, and, other than Dreadnaughts, pretty much the oldest Space Marine alive. Eisenhorn and Ravenor were also a few hundred years old too.

So yea, it's only for the very, VERY rich, or the very, VERY powerful (or both), but yea, there are people in 40k who are over 2-300 years old.

Navigators live up to about 4-500 years old.

Probably part of that being due to time dilation and wealthy families gives them access to Juvenat.

Hi!

Juvenat?

L

Imperial term for anti-agathic treatments (treatments to prolong the human lifespan), especially ones that give the appearance and physical state of relative youth rather than prolonging old age.

My personal way of thinking is that amongst the cream of Imperial society it is normal to still be active and reasonably healthy well into your second century with a combination of drug treatments and enhanced medical care. Without either non-standard physical makeup (Marines, Navigators and some Ogryns) or heavy time dilation due to warp travel, by the age of 200 any human is going to be noticeably old, and will be reliant on life sustaining treatments and probably at least some bionic organs. By the fourth century these treatments will become constant requirements, and mental degradation will be a real problem.

The likes of Dante are outliers amongst outliers, being among the longest lived of an unusually long lived Space Marine Chapter. Again, time dilation is likely to be a factor.

MILLANDSON said:

You forget about the Wolf Priest - Ulrik the Slayer. Ulrik recruited Logan; and Logan has served as Great Wolf of the Chapter for over 700 years. Figure Logan is probably about as old as Dante, but Ulrik is possibly as much as 1000 years older still; though I suspect more likely within 500 years. Nothing definitive though.

-=Brother Praetus=-

And, of course, the Veteran Scout Sergeant that recruited Dante is still going strong. I believe he is the "oldest" canon marine outside of a dreadnought (or sus-an or stasis), having been at least 300 when he inducted Dante, although I can't remember his name. Of course, if we discount the Blood Angel practice of sus-an hibernation in their blood-coffins, Ulrik probably wins. But, if you include time spent in sus-an, the record goes to a Dark Angel (Sgt. Mabon, iirc), who drifted in sus-an, across a fair whack of the galaxy for almost 10 millennia (he was executed by his chapter shortly after his recovery, and the records suppressed, on the grounds that he was a member of the Fallen, which wasn't the case).

Aside from the various post-humans, the methods of extending human life seem to be:

1. bionic and augmetic replacements
2. anagathic and anti-agathic Juvenat drugs
3. significant time in warp space (although you run the risk of spending months in warp compared to days of real time, effectively losing years from your body's clock)
4. stasis pods
5. life-support pods, akin to dreadnought sarcophagi
6. total body rejuvenation.

That last one is interesting, but probably useless in a campaign: it involves growing a clone of the original person, and, while the clone is still at a young and malleable age, psychically cut-and-paste the soul of the original across (note, this is usually fatal, but to make sure, the original body is disposed of anyway), then spend the next couple of decades rebuilding muscle memories, re-learning skills lost in the transfer and generally teaching the clone who they used to be (apparently having your soul psychically ripped from your body and shoved in a new oneis a traumatic experience. Who would have guessed?). Yeah, 20+ years is a long time, but when you consider potential life spans of 200+ years, it's not that much.

Bjorn the Fell Handed, a Space Wolf Dreadnaught who knew Leman Russ is probably amongst the oldest Imperials (saving the Emperor and any Primarchs which return) as he's over 10,000 years old. Lots of very old Traitors too.

SJE

SJE said:

True, but Bjorn does spend a considerable amount of time sleeping these days. He's still my favorite for "who's oldest" discussions, but we've mostly been talking non-dreadnought marines and the "merely mortal" human form. As to that, there is a lot to consider when speaking of a persons age within 40K. Warp travel is often complicated by time dilation effects. A trip that takes a month in Warp could see a year or more pass in the material world. So, physically the traveler is younger then he is temporally to the rest of the galaxy. This is to blame for a small portion of the 200+ year-old humans in the Imperium.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I'm with Darth Fanboy. The wealthy can easily get to 200. Abnett had Eisenhorn at a50 odd looking about 40.

Once you get to 300, you are looking old and probably going a bit mental too.

400 and up is reserved for those who really, really don't want to die and have the means to persevere, or those who are not really fully human, admech, adeptus Astartes, navigators, etc.

The 40k universe though is a weird and wild place, goodies and baddies with over a millenia aren't unheard of as the above posts testify.

Its easy to think of fun ways to reach such age. Xenotech, psyker abilities, sorcery, advanced bionics, uploading, soul transfers (as mentioned above).

Also, as noted, repeaded warp travel can create an 'effective' longer life, as your only experiancing a couple weeks to the outsides few months. A warp accident can make it even more dramatic, with ships missing scores of even hundreds of years not unheard of. While were giving examples, Inquisitor Kryptman is around 250 and going strong, though he's had access to some pritty weard xenotech.

If memory serves me right, the official adventure "Rejoice for you are True" from Purge the Unclean for DH included a mention that a juvenat-user will, after some 150 years, look fairly amorphous and featureless in the face, after which it's not really possible to tell their age from their looks.

Konrad von Richtmark said:

Lords of Terra are very very old too.

LETE said:

Astartes are functionally immortal but unlikely to reach great age as they never retire. Sooner or later they're going to take a heavy weapon to the face and it's game over for them. Even before the Astartes though the Emperor was using rejuvenation/life extended biotech on his soldiers and allies. There's several characters in the Horus Heresy series who have been with him for centuries since he was on Terra and pre-date his creation of the primarchs and therefore the Astartes.

You don't really need this for a Rogue Trader campaign though unless you're going to skip large chunks of time (or play for a very long time!). If you wanted to have your players skip 50 years of play, give them a few thousand exp and shunt them along in their story that's not unreasonable. They and their key servants could certainly have received juvenat or other treatments which would keep them alive for several centuries.

I would suggest that any juvenat treatment (effectively rejuvenating parts of your body that are suffering from aging) takes several months and requires Ad Mech assistance. You could decide that there's a chance the medicae have to fit someone with something cybernetic to cope with an organ or limb that's just beyond their capability to regenerate.

They might even find Archeotech that can help them significantly. A limited supply of blood supplement for instance that gives them an enhanced version of Auto Sanguine (same effects but dramatically reduces speed of aging).

One can Easily imagine juvenat treatments also including stuff like this. (From the film 'Brazil')

I read yesterday in the first of the grey knights books, that their life expectancy was around 300 y old if not kill on the field.

i will try to find the exact passage this evening.

LETE said:

I've always considered T&C as the imperium's understanding of bionics in general. T&C probably don't do anything for the bionics or host but thats how the blueprints seem to read...

Besides, in the future there is only tubes!

The T&C thing is about quality.

The wealthiest in the Imperium are noted for looking purely human as they age. However, that fine level of detail is expensive and more difficult to maintain. So most people get the cheaper, more obvious biotics/life extensions, and most military personell get the more durable/easier to maintain biotics.

Meph said:

Hey, that's Jim Broadbent - funny, never realised that was him before. Of course, Brazil had a setting that wasn't too far off the mark for 40K either. Harry Tuttle, Heating Repair Heretek.

SmokedHalibut said:

Extremely rare, as you are correct that most almost certainly die in combat, but the fluff suggests it happens.

I was not aware that any Space Marines had died of old age. I thought that as a Space Marine ages his reactions slow, as that is what happens when you age, eventually take a heavy weapon to your face. Which normally 100 or 200 years ago the Space Marine would have been able to avoid.

I guess Space Marines that were invalided out have to die somehow.

The Blood Angels seem to be a special case though. They don't seem to age, so no slowing of reflexes. So a 1000 year old blood angel has the same quick reflexes as a young 200 year old + a ton of experience.

The Blood Angel that remembers Dante as a scout is Veteran Sergeant Cletus, Guardian of the Shroud of Sanguinius.

The specifics on Space Marine aging change depending on where you look. Ben Counter certainly says they do (iirc, the Soul Drinkers (pre-excommunication) had a chaplain that had retired. Also, I seem to recall that the Grey Knights books had an apothecary who had retired from old age). A lot of the stuff out there says that Blood Angels are extraordinarily long lived, which indicates that they do age. But I know I used to think they were effectively immortal as well (now I've just kind of stopped worrying about it since it just causes arguments and they all die in battle anyway )

Although, I don't see why Space Marines couldn't get Juvenat treatments either. And the Techmarines would live longer for the same reasons as other AdMechs.

I just wish the RPG would just come out and openly and fully discuss this subject instead of leaving it in the dark of vague impressions and non-RPG fluff suggestions.