Yeah, I get that.

But Divine Divinity's 14 years old now (holy crap!), from a practical standpoint I can understand if they want to retcon a few things to try out some new ideas. It's practically necessary with a setting this long-lived to stop things getting stale. And I'm all for it in this case, since I like the new elves more than the slightly more generic ones in DD.

From a lore standpoint OS2 is set a loooong time (by Rivellon standards, the gap includes 2 almost-world-ending cataclysms) before DD. For comparison, it's about as long as the time gap between DD and The Dragon Knight Saga. And in that timeframe some of the elves in that picture had been transformed into this:

[Linked Image]

It was all explained in the game though, in broad strokes anyway (megalomaniac mage, a little dragon blood, and presto). When you have that much time to play with and a world as fantastical as Rivellon, it's pretty easy to justify almost any change. Plus Larian seem know how not to take themselves too seriously and have fun with the setting, which leads to even more variety. It's part of their charm for me.