Werewolves and Old Age

[Renorei]

After all, shifting is a natural thing for werewolves to do, why should it be so hard?

You could ask the same thing about human pregnancy. Sometimes...natural things are just hard.

Typically, natural things that happen (well, to humans at least) frequently aren't terribly hard. Shifting is something that would happen on a very frequent basis, whereas pregnancy doesn't happen too often.

[bloodwolf_345]

Wouldn't the regenerative abilities of a werewolf prevent the aging process from taking hold. Of course the Werewolf would age, but he/she would still look and act as a 20 or 30 year old when he/she is close to 100.
I believe for a Werewolf to actually feel the effects of aging, and given the regenerative abilities, the "golden years" of a werewolf would be when it is closer to 200 or 300. The regenerative process would give the Werewolf extreme longevity. I believe that a werewolf could live to be at least 500 or at most 600. That would be long enough to see and sire many generations of children. He/she would be able to watch 15 generation grow up.

[Kirk Hammett]

Wouldn't the regenerative abilities of a werewolf prevent the aging process from taking hold. Of course the Werewolf would age, but he/she would still look and act as a 20 or 30 year old when he/she is close to 100.
I believe for a Werewolf to actually feel the effects of aging, and given the regenerative abilities, the "golden years" of a werewolf would be when it is closer to 200 or 300. The regenerative process would give the Werewolf extreme longevity. I believe that a werewolf could live to be at least 500 or at most 600. That would be long enough to see and sire many generations of children. He/she would be able to watch 15 generation grow up.

I guess Im inclined to go with Bloodwolf on that (Perhaps living until a later age). But that again as I said depends on my story I'm writing.

As for acting the age though, aging has nothing to do with how you act unless it's hormonal imbalances and all that puberty and menopause stuff. To me, the way you act is determined by your experiences in life; so a werewolf of 100 may look 20, but they will act mature and older depending on the sorts of experiences. Someone who is treated like a child for 100 years and knows nothing of the outside world...will act much like a child. Someone who has suffered and/or seen the world and many things in the world at 20 years of age, will act older. Those are extreme examples, but yeah.

On saying this, depending on the story I am thinking of or writing, if the wolf naturally grows up slower, and is a different species and their brains work differently (Assuming in the story they are different species), then they may not hit puberty until 25 years of age, or even 50-100 years of age depending on how long they live. But for this they'd have to mature very very slowly.

I left my beer out there. -Sighs- I have to get off my fluffy tail and get it.

[mexwerewolf]

In my opinion, the WW regenerative abilities should not avoid the aging process. All creatures have regenerative abilities, cells continue to duplicate and later die. The aging process is also coded in our DNA. If not, we would become like a Cancer to nature, as we would totally overpopulate the world in a few generations.

My conclusion, no matter how fast the regeneration abilities in a WW are, the aging process should go on, slower perhaps, but still.

And about werewolves living up to 120 years, that means that a 60 year old werewolf in human form will look like a 40 year old human?