Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20181123023529/@comment-26006155-20181123220714

Starscream1998 wrote: BlackfootFerret wrote: I see thanks for that, I was just wondering about how old particular Monster characters seeing as the overall Monster population seems to be quite small all things considered. Well, the plan Asgore and Alphys made together involved harvesting the souls of dying monsters in a slow burn over generations, whichwould allow the monster populartion to regenerate and persist while monster soul energy was slowly collected over time, until they had enough to break the Barrier.

Normal monsters do age. Gerson is pretty old, and if he had to explain why Boss Monsters without children aren't subject to aging, then aging and having children is a common thing among monsters, just like it is with humans.

Jacksepticeye pointed out that turtles are very long-lived, so making Gerson a turtle would certainly give him a longer lifespan than average, enough to know the world before the Barrier. I imagine lifespans are different with different species of monsters. But it seems like only the Boss Monsters can be truly immortal.

Monsters used to life on the surface, and generations of darkness and neglect in a sunless void under the Earth certainly hasn't been great for them, so getting out of that place and back into the Sun is certainly a high priority for monsterkind in general.

Especially if there's a soul thief systemmatically picking them off down there.