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:
Is it? The timeline is very sketchy. But it is known that Dragon Commander happened 8000 years before Divine Divinity, DOS1 100-1000 years prior Divine Divinity and DOS2 100-1000 after Divine Divinity. More details I hope will be shed in a lore book coming with release.
But either way 10 thousand years span (give or take) is surely not enough to [de]evolve so drastically. I think something weird happened to the elves, like they caught a severe case of retconitis.
