Skeletons and Unaging

[Kheoteour]

I have a question for the masses out there. Why do Skeletons have Unaging as an advantage? The Skeletal Servitor in DF9 does not have it but every other template I have seen does. Robots do not have it, neither do elementals.. so why skeletons?

Was Unaging not being on the DF9 Servitor Skeleton an oversight or was it intentionally left off?

Thank you for your time.

[Flyndaran]

DF omits many things that make sense for detailed and long term settings.
It's more of a genre convention to not sweat the details.

[Walrus]

Moreover, Skeletons can "wear" naturally as well if you don't imbue their "youth" with additional magic. This is the same reason as not to include Unaging for robots. Elementals may or may not have this advantage as well.

[Phantasm]

One thing with animated skeletons is that they're just bone and cartilage, and in most of the source material magically animated skeletons don't break down unless injured, able to operate for centuries if not millennia without issue. Some golems are the same way, particularly if made from stone or bone.

Just my $0.05 worth.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Kheoteour

I have a question for the masses out there. Why do Skeletons have Unaging as an advantage? The Skeletal Servitor in DF9 does not have it but every other template I have seen does. Robots do not have it, neither do elementals.. so why skeletons?

Was Unaging not being on the DF9 Servitor Skeleton an oversight or was it intentionally left off?

Thank you for your time.

It's probably not on the Servitor Skeleton because its utility to its master doesn't outlive the master.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Kheoteour

Was Unaging not being on the DF9 Servitor Skeleton an oversight or was it intentionally left off?

I do not believe Unaging is ever found in DF. Age related traits are not present in the racial templates either.

[Ulzgoroth]

I'd say most fictional undead skeletons are extremely persistent, and will 'work' perfectly well if some unfortunate wanders by hundreds or thousands of years after their original animation. (And if they're non-persistent it's usually falling apart immediately when some keystone, like their master, goes away, not wearing down by the ravages of time.)

Cinematic robots are sometimes like that too, and those should be Unaging. Realistic robots are usually not, though.

[Anthony]

DF doesn't give unaging to anything, on the theory that it's irrelevant in DF, but it's debatable whether they should have unaging anyway.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kheoteour

I have a question for the masses out there. Why do Skeletons have Unaging as an advantage? The Skeletal Servitor in DF9 does not have it but every other template I have seen does. Robots do not have it, neither do elementals.. so why skeletons?

As noted by others, skeletons typically last for centuries as guardians, unaltered by time. They are always as fresh as the day they were made (thanks to Magic). Robots and the like typically have distinct lifespans as parts wear down, memory becomes corrupted, and so forth.

Originally Posted by Kheoteour

Was Unaging not being on the DF9 Servitor Skeleton an oversight or was it intentionally left off?

Note Unaging is also missing from the Elf templates in Dungeon Fantasy. The description (DF3, p.6) calls this out explicitly - "They’re also long-lived, but this has no effect in dungeon fantasy – monsters with aging attacks always afflict victims in proportion to racial life expectancy. Thus, elf templates omit Unaging." In short, Unaging isn't a trait in DF - while a given character/creature may indeed never age, this doesn't matter for the scope of a DF campaign.

[Kromm]

Traits tied to age and aging are omitted across the board in Dungeon Fantasy because that series doesn't care about long-term evolutions. It's hack 'n' slash: You quit before your age ever matters, and the players of elves would cry if "you'll live long past the campaign's end date" sucked away 2 points, never mind 15. ;) Aging attacks take the form of scary, permanent HT-draining afflictions and the like in this kind of game, and since they're unnatural, they affect even those who don't age naturally, like elves.

Animated skeletons generally qualify for Unaging outside of Dungeon Fantasy because they're sustained indefinitely by magic. They do not wear down, break down, embrittle, or otherwise fail in the manner of real-world skeletons . . . for the same reason why they walk and attack people when real-world skeletons do not: It's magic!

Robots generally don't qualify for Unaging because they're not magical. They have to obey the laws of physics. They do wear down, break down, embrittle, and fail. How long does your average toaster last? How about a computer? Complex machines have lifespans as surely as living beings do; these just tend to result from the wear of use rather than from any kind of cellular clock.

That said, a lot of superscience amounts to magic. Superscience robots may well have Unaging by the same device as animated skeletons: Woo-woo, hand-waving plot reasons. Of course, in a space-opera game that ignores long-term evolutions and amounts to bug hunts in spaaace, Unaging and other traits linked to age and aging would probably be ignored . . . exactly as in Dungeon Fantasy.