Elves in previous Divinity games also didn't look like they were literally tree people and they didn't have horns. It's like Larian goes out of its way to deliberately wipe their minds out of all previous continuity between games.
Just pretend that these are Dryads which are calling themselves Elves.
My personal theory is that these Elves are just a specific group of elves with their own culture and history.
Which for a fantasy setting is unheard of (ALL races that aren't human typically have ONE culture)
