I've got a player who has Strong Faerie Blood. She's assuming she does not need to make a Longevity Ritual until she hits age 50, but she also has Venus' Blessing, and cares about her look so she might want to start a ritual earlier.
SO, I'm wondering if her apparent ages only changes when she hits age 50 or if she will have her apparent age increase at age 35 or some variant thereof. Basically, what will her apparent age be at age 50, if she does not make aging rolls until then?
On pg. 169 of ArM5 it says "A character under the influence of a Longevity Ritual should roll on the table no matter what his age, but treats all rolls of 10 or more as rolls of 9 until he reaches the age of 35." So first I'd say that WITH a ritual, she at least has the possibility of of looking younger than her age.
The way I see it, Strong Faerie Blood just affect when your body starts "breaking down", that is, when Decrepitude and Aging Points and all that unpleasantness comes into play. So that while you look your years as a Master of fifty years, you'll be jumping around like a spry Apprentice of a bare twenty-something. If she wants to appear not to age as well then she is free to seek out the Unaging Vitue.
There's also the point that age doesn't directly affect the Presence Characteristic (which includes appearance), except by the normal course of aquiring Aging Points.
I'd let someone with SFB simply decide how they want to age before 50.
It's a 3 point virtue.
People with SFB are supposed to have uncanny looks.
Looking young for way too long fits the virtue way too well for many faerie types; similarly, someone with dwarf blood who has a thick dwarf beard and craggy skin before he's 20 also fits.
Why did you leave out the rest of the quote? "At the players and storyguides discretion, this may also apply to characters with modifiers to the aging roll from other sources".
A faerie blooded "looking their age" at 50? And then maybe living 20-50 years extra? NOT very "faerie" id say!
I always let people with aging roll mods start rolling either at 15 or at 10 depending on players preference and sometimes on how big the modifier is(even by RAW its quite possible to start out a character with a -9 modifier(living conditions, Strong Faerie Blood, Healthy Feature*3 ), or as Ovarwa just let players decide on the looks if thats more proper to the character...
Letting someone like that age normally up to 50? To some characters that will make SFB a BAD thing instead of a good!
As Strong Faerie blood is a major virtue I would be quite happy with a character with that virtue continung to look appropriate to the faerie blood regardless of their age. So a character with strong Sidhe blood is likely to look younger than their age and as age comes to them they will age gracefully still looking unworldly and attractive until they die.
While someone with strong Goblin blood may look as if they age faster than normal for a human rapidly starting to look like a withered old crone
But we've always made the rolls, if there were any modifers (greater than simply living conditions), just to see how Apparant Aging progressed. So using longevity before you have to, or strong fey blood, comes to mind.
I have a Flambeau ice maga who is quite vain. She made a pretty good longevity ritual early on, has strong sidhe blood and always lived in good conditions. Plus she was lucky. She is 53 and looks 19. Good for her vanity, but poor for her commanding presence as a kick-ass hoplite. She has fine rep as an efficient hunter and killer, but has problems getting recognized - since people heard about 'that maga in her fifties' and here is a young strumpet who claism to be her.