[catabur]

Take from the wiki:

"Also, while people are welcome to age their characters if they want, please respect it if another player does not. Sigrogana is a very unique world where the blood of gods has trickled down to man, where magic exists, and some things are very hard to explain. Basically, hand waves are quite possible and helpful where needed, so it shouldn't break your immersion if the world doesn't move along with you."

There are plenty of times where I'm gone from a week to a month straight, giving me no access to SL2 (and it could be 6-8 months of downtime due to reasons).

Do I honestly feel like I should age my 16-18 year old characters even though they haven't had any character development, or interaction, due to my absence?

I'm not sure how much this affects you personally, Rendar, since I haven't seen you play the game in a long time.