Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elven Representation - And all things elvish!

Hello guys! I hope you are doing well today! To be perfectly clear from the get-go, this is the perspective of a player that has always played elves, and has a special corner for The People in her heart!

I'd like to get started saying that I was thrilled when Larian Studios picked up Baldur's Gate 3 development, since it quickly became one of my favorite game creators. And I still am! I knew exactly what kind of end result to expect considering it was obvious the game would have your touch, and I actually really like it.
There are however some things that I would like to discuss in this topic, I am not only a gamer but also a roleplayer, for many years now, and what irks me the most is the way elves are usually portrayed in games, or as characters. Starting with the appearance, the elves seen in the pre-alpha version of the game look disappointingly human, and lack the alien appearance an elf should have; very high cheekbones, tilted, cat-like eyes, pointed chins, colorful eyes, etc.



Then there is the fact that elves as a race, are a dwindling one. There are many elves out in the world outside of realms such as Evermeet, but they tend to be a minority and rarely seen outside of places where elves live, the most seen subrace being the moon elves and then all sorts of adventurers. I am saying this because it brings me to my following point. While it is completely possible to cross paths with all sorts of elves; they are still a minority. Not just that, elves are also a tight-knit people, they share a deeper sense of communion and love towards nature and one another than most races, which is evidenced not only in theirr art, architecture, and mental attributes, but also in their own unique traits. There is plenty of information about this traits in the manuals if you google it, so I'll very quickly summarize some of them up:

- Communion: All elves have the inborn ability to share their experiences, their feelings, and their lives with those elves they love or trust implicitly. This sharing, called communion, can only be undertaken by fully willing elves. It does not work with half-elves, nor does it function when one of those participating has even the slightest reservation. This includes those under the influence of charm related spells, for they hold qualms deep in their hearts, even if told they do not.
- Lovers bond: Though not truly part of their physiology, the Elven bond is related to the Communion on a deep spiritual level. An Elf can form a mystical and unbreakable bond with another being, and that being is not necessarily another Elf. Sometimes this bond is formed with all the pomp and ceremony of certain Human marriage, and at other times, it is a quiet and personal thing. For each Elf it is different, as different as love itself, and the gifts exchanged can vary from a simple flower to an elegant crown of emeralds.
- The Reverie: Yet another difference between elves and the other humanoids of the worlds they share is that elves do not sleep in the typical sense, though they can enter that state if they desire. Instead, they gain their rest through a process known as the reverie. The reverie is akin to sleep, yet is very much unlike it. When elves enter this state, they vividly relive past memories, those both pleasant and painful. Like the dreaming of humans, elves have no control over which memories rise to the fore when they relinquish their bodies to the reverie. Occasionally, elves do actually dream, but this is not a frequent occurrence and mostly occurs only when they truly sleep. Elven dreams, when they happen, are sometimes prophetic. When they enter reverie, elves do not usually close their eyes unless there is a bright light present. They relax their bodies entirely, each muscle losing its rigidity until they are absolutely calm. Their faces relax into a dazed and distant look as if they were seeing another land or another time.
During this time, they are aware of their surroundings, but they cannot act to influence them any more than a human can while asleep. Only by an act of will can an elf tear herself from reverie, and she will be confused for a short time, just as a human would be who has torn himself from sleep.
Although the reverie provides rest, it is primarily an important memory tool that helps the elf maintain a strong sense of identity. Since their lifespans are so great, elves must periodically recall the events in those hundreds of years that were integral to the making of their personality.
The fact that elves go into this reverie, rather than enter actual sleep, could help to explain their natural resistance to sleep spells. Since sleep is, for the most part, alien to their nature, they can ward off its effects easily.

So there are a lot more things that set apart an elf from any other race, I could go on and on about the many different attributes and this could occupy a whole page, but I reckon nobody wants to read that right now, lol. My point is, the two elves shown are, a vampire spawn who sleeps, and an edgy 'dark cleric' called Shadowheart (Though she might be a half-elf, I'm not sure it was said. Both of them looked very human, with pointy ears) and I find two issues with that. The first one being that both of them are clearly evil inclined, for a race that is explicitly described to be the least likely to be of an evil alignment. The vast majority of elves are chaos and good-aligned. Not only that, but they show no regard whatsoever for one another, acknowledging each other as kin.
Sure, it can absolutely happen, Faerun gives the player the resources needed to create most anything. They can be evil, and not give a damn about other elves, but I find it curious, and disappointing, that there is not an option to play a traditional character rather than the exception. This happens more often than not in every platform and every campaign, that elves are rarely ever portrayed as the average elf is supposed to be. I would very much encourage you to think of a companion with a good alignment and a more traditional backstory, and if not, to keep this still into consideration for the elven NPCs around the world.

I'm also interested to hear whatever you guys think about this! If you have thoughts and ideas of your own for elven-related things, maybe we can make this thread a center for it <3

I'll second Goldberry here. I think it's alright to pick edge-case characters that stand out, but it would be doing the setting a disservice to not better represent elves and have the game recognize that the very un-elven Elves are seen as pariahs or exceptions to the otherwise pretty universal rule.

Forgotten Realms has helped a lot by doing much of the race creation and setting development homework for us, and the way they've developed the races outside of humans is more interesting than most people give it credit for.

Don't forget the Northern long neck Elves. I here they are meat-eaters. :P

Hahaha, I actually kind of loved DOS2 elves. The cannibalism was a little bit difficult to digest at first ;D Pun intended.

But it worked just perfectly in the end. Oddly enough, elves of another setting seem to have a deeper sense of communion and belonging to one another than those of BG3 so far, even though it is explicitly stated in so many different sources.
In my first playthrough, I didn't want to play an elf because they didn't feel like the type of elf I usually play, so I went with human instead. As soon as I met the first elf being harassed by humans, the one that brings you to that elven cave in Fort Joy, I started to get FR flashbacks and started over with an elf instead. Funny huh!

It's a new member thing. I've moved you to the regular members' group so formatting and stuff will now work as expected.

almost half of the races revealed so far are elves or elf related.
Two of the origin characters are elves or half elves

Yep, truly is a DnD game.
A whole boatload of elves

AS for the looks.

DnD elves have become increasingly more human (and increasinlgy more short)
If you want Ayy Lmao looking elves youll probably have to turn to Elderscrolls or Vermintide

Im actually happy enaugh that the player characters look somewhat attractive by normal human standards so im not realy miffed by the elves not looking... overly fay like.
This all leads to the question of character creation tho.

Will there be sliders? i better hope so but larian doesnt usualy do that, also the faces look very handcrafted...
Tho, for your point i guess beeing able to make a very elfin lookng elf wouldnt satisfy you as your point is to make elves as a whole look alien.

I guess FR is just too much of a fetish fest for ugly elves

And all of them so far are edgy. I mean, one calls herself Shadowheart.

For me, looking like 'attractive humans' takes something away from the Elves, makes them less interesting. If it's a fetish fest of 'attractive Elves' you're looking for, the Underdark's got just the ones for you - but mind their temperament! On a more serious note, people are entitled to like their knife ears either way, but I've seen plenty of examples of very exotically attractive Elves in the "Ayy lmao" style; it isn't a hard thing to achieve when the whole race has aesthetically chiseled features.

They live for hundreds of years, sometimes a thousand, their sense of community and mutual obligation is in their nature, they will pick up and drop a craft over a century just for the fun of it and coin is an entirely silly and frivolous concept to them when perfectly good barter exists. They almost never seek to expand beyond their borders and keep their numbers relatively the same - a large number of Elves being born at once in one place is a terrible omen that indicates there has been a good deal of death, and more yet to come.

Humans as a race have a great variety of political stances and personal expressions, and it can be generalized that most will start somewhere in the relative area of Neutral on the alignment chart. Elves straight up start at Chaotic Good, and often go somewhere within the CG-NG-TN-CN spectrum. Evil Elves exist, there's an incredible example of one in the character Elaith Craulnober (Whom I love); it's just as rare to come across outside of Drow as a beardless dwarf in a dress when you take the view of the entire race and compare it proportionately to Humans.

It may sound like I'm rambling; what I'm doing is underlining just how -different- Elves are from Humans in their cultures, beliefs and core concepts. BG2 Aerie's portrait is a fair example of an Elf - note her slanted eyes and narrow features, as she was an Avariel or Winged Elf. There are differences between a Moon Elf and a Sun Elf, the Elves aren't uniform in their tendency, but they tend to land in much the same areas.

To cap off my own terrible opinion/rant, Elves looking like prettier Humans feels watered down for mass consumption. This is a game, I understand that. It has to sell to a lot of fans, new and old, who might not have even played D&D (As much as that bends my brain). But if there's any time to offer this sort of feedback or opinion on something in game that could change, it's while the game's in early enough production that they -can- afford to change it all. That strange, ethereal, Fey-like quality they have is a charm all of its own that I think would be a shame to see missed.

I'm reminded of a description in one of Raymond E Feist's novels (I forget which one, it's been years) which was, to paraphrase, that elves were typically attractive but at the same time had an uncomfortably alien look about them.

One thing I noticed from the gameplay vid, is that they use generic D&D terms for the various subraces. Please don't use "High Elf" or "Hill Dwarf" in a FR game. It's Sun Elf and Shield Dwarf. Might be a small detail for some, but with BG3 we need convincing that this is Faerûn, the same world of the past games, and also signs that the people making the game understand this setting, like old Bioware and Black Isles did.

The Uncanny Valley

In a way. I've interpreted that description as being more about facial expressions but whether or not that's the case, it describes it well enough.

Personally I prefer human-looking elves to alien-faced elves. I'll never play an ugly elf.

DnD lore be damned, half of it is garbage anyway.

My next custom character will be a half-elf because he´s the son of Jaheira and my character from BG1/2.

Huh. Nobody is asking for Skyrim-Ugly elves. It's all in small details. It's completely possible to make elves both stunningly beautiful and different from humans at the same time. To quote straight from the player's handbook:



Asking for ugly, insectoid elves would be against an accurate representation. Have you guys seen the Witcher series recently? That show was bad for many reasons. When it came down to elves, all that it took for them was to put on a hat and hide the ears and nobody would realize they were actually elves. That is exactly what we are trying to prevent here, that the ears are absolutely everything that defines an elf physically.

I will post some examples of elves that have an alien feeling to them, something 'haunting' as described so often, while still being conventionally attractive:

I have always preferred that elves have an alien beauty to them. I do not want elves to be merely thin, skinny, or gaunt humans with large pointy ears; that instead should be reserved for half-elves.

The problem is that he more inhuman/uncanney valley you make them, he less beautiful they will become (to most people at least... "special" cases, like the furries, exist.)

I think that is fine if they are less "beautiful" by conventional Earthling standards. After all, there is a reason that western and eastern cultures have different ideas of what is considered "beautiful". Why should Faerunian beauty conform to what we consider "beautiful".

Because most people want beautiful elves, not alien elves?

And Faerun standards are irrelevant, elves should appear beautiful to us. I mean, I can go and say that the Xenomorphs and facehuggers from Aliens are beautiful by their own standards, but they are ugly and I'd never want to play as one, period.

Speaking of elves...that companion gives me very disconcerning vibes.

Shadowheart for a name? Black mascara under the eyes? Coldsteel the Edgehog called.