Also, question, how long-lived are people? It's clear that elves have long lives just from the evidence of the Regnal Years, but our character is listed as young when she's 46, which implies that Hobgoblins would not call that middle aged either?
Devils are the most long-lived, because their life expectancy is just "yes". They are biologically immortal, as far as they have a biology. They can be killed, but they are immune to disease, aging and the like. Their bodies are globs of chaos-flesh constantly evolving towards new forms. Often even when killed, the devil will reconstitute itself back in a year or a decade - though as a new personality, so perhaps it's more birth than healing.
Elves are
not biologically immortal. They simply get resurrected when they die. This is handy when gutted or shot, but since this divine blessing/random quirk of arcanobiology only restores them to a state of previous aliveness, anything long-term is still there. Tumors will continue to grow, minds will continue to degenerate.
The usual age when an elf grows too haggard from cancers, failing organs and dementia to continue to function is around 350-400 years, but it can go better or worse based on genetics and luck. Most choose to incinerate themselves at that point, but stubborn souls require a bit of outside help. This can be as horrifying as it sounds.
The way to final death requires excessive force and trauma - incineration of the whole body is a typical choice when you want to make sure, but any sufficiently messed up injury will do. The exact limits are not understood. Some have theorized it's more about the extent of mental trauma from dying rather than physical.
Hobgoblins typically live around 120-160 years. Traditionally, dying of old age rather than violently has been considered shameful, but the new generation with its intellectuals are trying to get rid of this stigma. Raka being described as young is... fair enough for hobgoblins. They reach biological maturity at about the same time as humans, but culturally only your 30s is considered to be the end of young adulthood. One imagines elven cultural norms have shaped these beliefs.
The stony skin of dwarves erodes as they age, with older dwarves visibly smoother and rounder. At a certain point the process also smooths out their insides, killing them. This varies heavily with the stone and skill used in their construction, but almost none die before 100 years from natural causes. The oldest known dwarves clock in at several centuries. The dead are then reduced to rubble and reused in the shaping of new dwarves.
Halflings have slightly shorter lifespans than humans - around 60 years is a fair assumption if you survive childhood. Infant mortality remains high, especially among the peasantry. They give birth to twins and triplets most of the time, which perhaps compensates.
Humans have human lifespans. Surprising, I know.
There are more races than these in the world, though other Kin are fairly small minorities in Arne. As far as demographics go, halflings are the largest population, hobgoblins the second largest, elves the third, humans the fourth, dwarves the fifth, and the rest coming in after that.
(I'll add this and more to the second post soonish, now that I've written it out.)
Also, Photo, I'm applying all of my autism to moving little guys around on hexes so far, but I just want to say your prose and worldbuilding thus far have been fantastic. The vignette glimpses into enemy officers as we pants them have been great, and do a great job of portraying both them as individuals and the sort of society that we're in the middle of.
That's lovely to hear. I'm aiming for one vignette/scene a Round to flesh out the little guys in the Hexes, hopefully revealing the world through them one piece at a time. But I'm equally glad to see so much thought being put to moving the little guys. Your plans are often better than what I could have come up with!
Along those lines,
@Photomajig , when the routing Hob Militia reforms, will they be under our direction/control tactically?
I'll give you the opportunity to give them general orders, but you can't control them action by action.
