How old is your oldest character?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by katina, Jan 3, 2020.

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  1. MissBadWolf

    MissBadWolf Senior Member

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    My MC and his twin are several thousand years old. Wait their parents are probably older.
     
  2. Mark-AN-D'yea

    Mark-AN-D'yea New Member

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    Not even close. At least three characters mentioned here are older than time itself, without even counting mine.
     
  3. newjerseyrunner

    newjerseyrunner Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    My WIP is a sci-fi space opera, so I have a variety of ancient characters. The oldest human character is just over a hundred and based on Carl Sagan. In my world, that's near the end of an average life, but he's still in pretty good health. They meet up with a robot on an abandoned space station who was build about a million years ago. Then they come across a planet controlled by a god-like creature who claims to have been born mortal about three billion years ago. He's the oldest character that has any real scenes in the story, but he makes passing references to creatures who have existed for even longer and exist in such a way that measuring time the way that we do is meaningless.
     
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  4. J.D. Ray

    J.D. Ray Member Supporter Contributor

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    This doesn't exactly have characters, but describes beings from outside the universe. I originally wrote it having been inspired by Herbert's "Orange Catholic Bible". As it turns out, it's fairly appropriate to Moran's "Zaradin Bible" (I told him once that I accidentally wrote a passage from said bible, and sent him the link. He liked it).

    https://www.writingforums.org/threads/in-the-before.159705/
     
  5. davcha

    davcha Banned

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    In my case, I have a whole civilization that came from another spacetime frame. So, in the new context they are really ageless aswell.
     
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  6. Bowie_the_Birb

    Bowie_the_Birb Member

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    My current oldest character is the main character at exactly 699. The year is 2525 and she was born in 1826, her brother born in 1836. There's another character older than the main character, but I don't know how old they are yet.
     
  7. Fervidor

    Fervidor Senior Member

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    Have a fanfiction OC who's a bit over two thousand years old, if that counts.

    For the original project I've been planning, one of the main characters is technically several centuries old, but he spend most of that time frozen in suspended animation, Captain America-style. There's also several gods, who are immortal and have all been around for several millennia. (I'm being a bit vague because I have yet to bother creating a timeline with defined numbers.)
     
  8. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, I suppose my Eternum is just removed from time. So IDK.
    I have an Egyptian Elder approximately 120 years old. He's plain old human, but he's able to harness a bit of energy to ease suffering and do a few other things. It's definitely not magic, just a deeper understanding of nature. He's nearing the end, and he has an acceptance of it that transcends.
    He fears nothing, even when there is much to fear. It's uncanny.
     
  9. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    I'm writing contemporary, and my characters range from 9 to 54 years old. I'm all for variety :D
     
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  10. ThunderAngel

    ThunderAngel Contributor Contributor

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    Gabriel, my main character: is a 246 year old teenager/young adult.

    Laura, a secondary character, and reformed vampire, has existed for 340 years.

    The Founder, the most mysterious character in my series, is around 260 to 270 years.
     
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  11. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    270 = 340? Quaerack?? :eek:
     
  12. Necronox

    Necronox Contributor Contributor

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    I've got a single character in my book, a type of 'spokesman' for life/death is one of the first 7 humans created and his age is unknown (at least tens of thousands of years). However, I have entities that are not character strictly speaking but are older then universe and everything else.
     
  13. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    My main characters in my finished novel are in their mid-20s. The oldest characters are the ages of their parents ...although many of these are not actually their parents. No characters of a 'grandparent' age in this novel, but that will change in my next story, which involves many of the same characters.

    This is a historical novel, not a fantasy. These characters are certainly not immortal. :)
     
  14. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Somewhere between 50 and 60.

    I rarely give my characters exact ages. Children are an exception, especially when they are quite young simply because the difference between one year and the next is so much greater when you're young. A six-year-old is not remotely like a 10-year-old, but thirty years later and that difference of just four years is barely worth mentioning.

    I tend to engage my characters more generationally. Brenda and Randel are the ones who are somewhere in the 50 - 60 range. The MC, Patrick, is 30-something. The other MC, Timor, is 20-something. Bud and Effy are 10 and 9 respectively.
     
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  15. Viserion

    Viserion Senior Member

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    Proven? Several thousand years at least.
    Unproven? Older than the world.
     
  16. Rin Silverstar

    Rin Silverstar New Member

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    If I remember correctly, my character, Khaldir Angiron, was about ten thousand-five hundred-and-fifty-some years old.
     
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  17. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Is he a giant tortoise? :)
     
  18. Lazaares

    Lazaares Contributor Contributor

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    The "older generation" in my current project are between 50 and 70. That's mostly the oldest of them all, except for the rare exceptions of one character who's in her 1200s and a pair who have been pretty much "around for a long-long while", eg, longer than recorded history.
     
  19. Rin Silverstar

    Rin Silverstar New Member

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    No, he went to sleep for ten thousand years inside a magical tree created from him.
     
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  20. Samuel McKallan

    Samuel McKallan New Member

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    One of my two protagonists is 827 years old. He's a dragon.
     
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  21. jej_jones

    jej_jones Member

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    65. Portag’s father who is living in a psychiatric facility
     
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  22. Mistress Spike

    Mistress Spike New Member

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    My oldest character in my current story is 1500 years old . He is one of the main characters and the story evolves around his life and the life of his 2 lovers.
     

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