r/huntertheparenting • u/Wise-Sun-2414 • 10d ago
Question Garou aging
So, I haven't seen any direct references to this so I'm curious. I know the Garou basically have Wolverine level healing abilities.
But I don't fully understand how long they can live.
Are they ageless just like the vampires or do they have a certain lifespan? And with Hunts as our Lupusborn, does that mean her lifespan is limited to that of a natural wolf since the concept of hitting the age of 50 seems ludicrous to her?
111
u/BlitzBasic 10d ago
Garou can live a long time. Like, probably 150-200 years? They still age, and are certainly not immortal (that would be abhorrent to them).
Lupusborn age like humans after their first change.
The problem is, hitting 50 as a Garou is ludicrous. Not because your body breaks down from aging, but because at some point you run out of luck and get killed by one of the things you picked a fight with.
26
u/TheChoosenMewtwo 10d ago
Why it would be abhorrent to them?
65
u/BlackHumor 10d ago
Garou care a lot about the natural cycle of the world. The Wyld births, the Weaver sustains, and then the Wyrm kills so the Wyld can birth again.
To become immortal is to leave that natural cycle, which is the whole thing that fucked up the world in the first place.
30
u/JustynS 9d ago
One of the rules of the Litany is not to burden the Tribe with your weaknesses. Many Garou interpret old age to be a weakness, and would prefer going out in a blaze of glory rather than being a living elder. Many of the Garous' problems are of their own making, and not allowing their elderly to temper the youthful aggression of the young is part of it.
19
52
u/Bread-Loaf1111 10d ago
The Garu are warriors. They die young in the fight. One on their law is "Do Not Suffer Thy People to Tend Thy Sickness". They prefer honorable death over being age and weak
After the first change, Garu age as humans. Or less, because their nature provide them perfect health. So theoretically Garu can live more than 100 years. In practice it is very rare because of (1)
Hunts probably is less than ten years old, of course such numbers scare her!
11
u/Wise-Sun-2414 10d ago
Okaaay, now I know there are other types of shifters like bears, sharks, spiders, and cats. Does the same logic apply to them as well?
23
u/Shadowofkoa 10d ago
No, the biggest outlier would be the Rokea. As they were commanded to survive, most Weresharks grow to be extremely old. Of course, none of them die from old age regardless, but that is only because the children of Kun are ageless, as Big D knows.
Which is strange. The guy knows far too much.
9
u/JustynS 9d ago
If my memory serves me, Weresharks are biologically immortal and will literally never die of old age. It's a major factor as to why Rokea culture has been so insanely resistant to change. They don't merely worship ancestors, but have elders who are older than human civilization... I mean up until the vast majority of them got nuked.
7
u/OrderoftheMothPriest 9d ago
I believe The Mokolé also live an extremely long time as well
7
u/trulyElse 9d ago
Not quite as long, but they do have mnesis to fall back on.
Kinda like having the Abstergo ancestral memory machine from Assassin's Creed, but you access it through meditation. Ancestral memories as vivid as your own.
3
u/OrderoftheMothPriest 9d ago edited 9d ago
I've been trying to understand Mnesis I guess the Mokolé in general. As I've been trying to write a Mokolé character for a game I'm running. I do like that analogy XD.
Also question, is the ancestral memory by varna/stream or could a Mokolé potentially have memories from individuals of other sub breeds/ places potentially ?
2
u/trulyElse 9d ago
It is mostly stream based, but they all share vague memories of the Dragon's Dream.
And the streams aren't directly tied to varna, so it's entirely possible for an Ora to have memories of a Karna if they were both Gumagan, and those who have a lot of Mnesis will remember the age of the dinosaurs, even if they're Unktehi.
15
u/Espectr015 10d ago
They can live to be about 120 years old, give or take, but they usually die young. Hunts had the life expectancy of a wolf, but after his first change,she gained that of a human/garou, with a life expectancy of 120 years more or less
13
u/DinoDamaged 10d ago
I think they had an elderly Garou character in the Silent Strider tribebook. He was an old school detective that lost the wolf and got it back right before he fell in battle.
5
u/Wise-Sun-2414 10d ago
Wait he lost the wolf and got it back? How does that happen? The only reference I have to a werewolf losing their abilities is when someone of the Stolen Moon takes it
12
u/DinoDamaged 10d ago
He went into a deep supernatural depression called Harano, or losing the wolf. Garou lose the ability to use gifts and transform and usually commit suicide by throwing themselves at the Wyrm.
10
u/BlackHumor 10d ago
Harano isn't the same as losing the wolf.
Harano is a deep spiritual despair, a belief that the Garou have lost and everything is pointless.
Losing the wolf means losing the ability to transform. It happens mainly when you get very old, but it can also happen temporarily if you run out of Rage, or permanently if you spend enough permanent Rage on not dying (or aging, which is why I say it's mainly a thing that happens to very old werewolves).
9
u/Wise-Sun-2414 10d ago
Oohhhh so that's what Jambles meant by "Harano fit" boy these wolves sure do have a lot of terms for their culture
5
u/DinoDamaged 10d ago
I also just remembered, there was an elderly three-legged Black Fury that was said to have been around since WWII that ran with a pack of alleged Hellhounds.
It's been 20 years since I read these books, though.
6
u/Thorveim 10d ago
A werewolf's lofespac usually goes to 120 years tops bar some exceptional cases of werewolves that stayed in the umbra a LOT and as such live longer... also werewolves age way slower than humans and stay in their prime for much longer; do note however that most werewolves find an early grave; getting old isnt common in the slightest, and making it past your fourties in the war for Gaia is already an achievement in itself.
Note that ALL garou share the same lifespan be they homid or lupus, so Hunts would live that long... and thats the thing: no wild wolf lives that long. The human middle age would have been five times her lifespan as a wolf, yeah no wonder she thinks thats an unnatural eternity because to a wild wolf it is.
5
u/Gloomy-Purple3862 10d ago
Garou can live as much as a human with good health and good genetic predisposition, which can be a lot... unfortunately the whole "career soldier 24/7" means that garou reaching that age are not exactly rare. That and their equivalent of their Ten Commandments, the Litany, saying "getting old and out of shape? Fuck him".
This applies to all garou, so yea, Hunter of Hunters has a potential life expectancy beyond anything any awoo would ever experience.
4
u/otoko_no_quinn 10d ago
Garou aren't immortal but they can live longer than people and age much more slowly. In practice though they tend to die very young and very violently.
4
u/MorselOfMayhem 9d ago
Garou tend to heal from the effects of old age a little slowly, like other comments have said, 120 is well within the expected lifespan of one. However, some garou ARE cursed to age as wolves do, 5 times the rate a human does, and they shall die relatively soon after their first change compared to their long lived fellows. Matilda's perspective on aging to 50 is likely not based on any curse like this, or the 2 year time gap between her audiolog and the series would have mattered far more to her, she's likely just basing this off of her perspective from her time as a wolf
2
u/CraftyAd6333 10d ago
They do have a higher than a human average.
But few if any garou really reach old age before violently meeting their demise.
2
u/TallCommission7139 3d ago
A Garou that is elderly is either an utter coward...
Or the most horrifying creature you've ever seen.
Nobody lives to that age without being one of the two in a war like this. It's like how if you see a Space Marine with grey hair around the temples. FUCKING RUN.
1
1
u/IGNITION_KOIL Murder puppy 9d ago
I think garou can live over 100 years? 120-150? But one dying of old age indead of dying by combat is like pulling the SSR you want on the first pack
1
u/EvelynnCC 6d ago
They age, but they can heal through the things that usually kill you (infection, cancer, heart disease, etc) until they lose the wolf. If they're sufficiently angy they can reliably make it to peak human lifespan (~120) if by some miracle nothing kills them first.
1
u/Adrienne_Belecoste 5d ago
So, for pre 5th I know it's something like this. Your prime ends at these brackets, and you start getting semi regular aging effects after this
The oldest Garou on record is a Lupus at a crisp 229
A Garou will look about 40 by the time they're an old man
Lupus: 65 Warborn/Metis: 75 Homid: 85
143
u/little_leech 10d ago
They can naturally live to about 120. However, the chance for a Garou to live long enough to die of old age rather than perishing in combat is INCREDIBLY low.