States Designs and Backstory

Ages and apperance and whatever else my rambling leads to

I really feel like talking about this so here we go.

The way their ages work is kinda weird. Their actual age is however old their land is. But, their physical age, and their mental age, by no means reflects that.

What their physical age is depends on a few things and it's not a cut and dry thing.

To start off, how they're 'born'. They kinda just appear. They will appear pretty much at random. They'll definitely appear well before their state actually exists, but the time they pop up is different for all of them. As is the age they appear at.

Most will appear as children or babies, some may appear as teenagers but usually nothing older then that.

Some examples, Cali appeared as a toddler, say 3, New York appeared as a child, about 5, Alaska appeared at about 6-8, Hawaii appeared at 10. None of the states actually appeared as teens, but, that doesn't mean they didn't get to be teens fast.

The way they physically age is also quite random. They might not age for years and then they'll suddenly go from looking 5 to 20 in the span of a year or two. Sometimes there's a direct reason for their physical age, sometimes that's just what it is, no rhyme or reason to it.

One reason they may suddenly age up fast might be that they're getting more responsibilities. Another could be they're getting more land. Or they're just aging up cause they're aging up. They don't have control over it.

They can also age backwards. This is pretty uncommon but it definitely happens. Usually when it does it doesn't go back by much. Like, you're not going from 20 to 5, maybe from 15 to 10, but usually not more then five years.

Another thing to note, they're mental age or mental capacity matches their physical age. If they look 5 then they'll think and act like a 5 year old would. They would definitely be on the more intelligent side as they need to help run a state, but they would still be 5 in this example.

Their physical appearance also doesn't always reflect how old they are compared to another state. In terms of oldest sibling to youngest sibling. Which, for my versions of them at least, isn't really based off of anything in particular. Some are based off of land size or when they became a state, but most of them are just whatever felt right or whatever worked best for story telling purposes.

For some of them you might not even be able to exactly pin point an age. Sometimes it'll be as easy as "Oh, you look 5.", sometimes it'll be "you look like you could be 8-10.", sometimes "you look like your somewhere in your teen years.", and sometimes it's as broad as "Young adult ish? Maybe in your 20s but hard to say."

The older they get the more likely it is it won't be to easy to pin point. And most of them stop aging around the young adult to early 30s range, but some keep going.

Also kind of related but also kind of not, they're appearance in general. They're appearance can change significantly or not at all over time to reflect who they are or what their land is. Like, they could go from black hair to platinum blonde as an example. Everything about them from eye colour to facial structure can change.

But yeah, that's how that works. I just really wanted to explain that cause why not. Next I'll probably do how death works for them.