Old Age & EA Tien Chi?

[Hellboy]

Just picked up Dom 3 (looks nice!), I've played just a bit sp w/ Tien Chi (one of my old favorites under Dom 2). I haven't played this enough to say this conclusively, but it seems like Early Age TC has been generally improved, with the big, huge exception of old age effects on Celestial Masters. afaict, my celestial masters are picking up afflictions left and right, and this makes it unwise to invest in empowering these guys, as they will likely die during the game.

Is anyone else experiencing this in a full game w/ TC? Or am I perhaps just having a run of bad luck in this game?


Also, two aging related questions:

1) Is it possible for a character to simply die of old age? If so, is there any notice of the character has died under the messages? (and, yes, I think this happened in my game)

2) Is there any kind of random factor in aging? I could swear I've seen some of my CM's age faster than 1 per game year...