Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elves are not Elven - Tel-quessir feed back ;)

@FatePeddler
It is using the baldurs gate brand, D&D brand and FR setting. In all of these elves have a consistent description and aesthetic. Moving past that elves originate from northern mythologies. Changing this and saying it is your interpretation is creative bankruptcy. I don't remember much complaint about how elves where portrayed in their own IPs.

Lovely post, Goldberry. Very well documented.

+1 on wanting elven faces that are closer to how they've been depicted in DnD in the past.

My opinion is that if they got a deal with WotC to make a DnD game, I say they should stick close to the source material. Elves are not pointy-eared humans. If they already have these faces, it's fine, no one is asking them to take them out, but rather to add more faces, and have at least a few that conform to previously established elven aesthetics.

There is well documented source about the way elves are supposed to look like. Clearly, after six pages of a thread, there is also people out there who cares. I understand if you don't, though. And that is okay

Let's just not make an argument over it back and forth, I don't want this thread to be full of people throwing accusations and drama needlessly, let's try to keep it positive and constructive. This is not about demanding anything, or policing anything. Most of us have very deep feelings when it comes to BG and DND, for many of us it is a childhood thing, and we care for the proper representation. There is nothing wrong with talking about that.

P.S: Thank you for all the positive feedback and kind words! I can't reply to everyone personally, so just... Thank you!

Thanks for making this its own thread!

But yes, 100% agreed. I also wondered if there was some sort of oversight and the male half-elven faces got swapped with the full elf ones. I'm not even against the devs giving the elves a more "human" look, such as Astarion, who I think is a good compromise.
And even Astarion is far more fine-featured than just about every male elf head in the character creator. The one you posted in the opening could, imo, almost work as a dwarf face if you gave him a beard lol.

I'm not exactly his #1 fan but I'm looking forward to playing as Astarion - as all the origin characters we've seen so far! His appearance is marketable and most people seem to like it, so I think Larian will stick with it without any hard changes, but I'd definitely love to see more lore-friendly face options for custom elves.

This does leave the problem of the lore-friendly faces standing alongside the marketable faces in the game world, but you can't have everything and that topic's already been well covered in here. Suffice to say it'd be jarring but better than nothing at all. Maybe Larian could consult with WotC about a reason for the differing faces?

exactly this, these stopped being Larian's elves when they got permission to slap the D&D and forgotten realms label on the game now the game is part of a eistablished IP, it's not more differant then in Larian did KOTOR 3 and wookies for some reason had tails. Giving Larian feedback on their faces not looking quite right, is honestly valid, because for fans of the franchise, stuff like that is important. Larian managed to catch that elves trance rather then sleep. so that deserves applause, but yeah, suggesting they make elven faces more angular because "they don't quite work right" is legit feedback

The male elves all look terrible.

Drow 'selective breeding' my ass.

Heh, Asian faces. My dwarf has one very Asian looking at certain angles...

The female dwarf head? It's quite funny in that when I looked at it in character creator, it seemed quite fitting for a (relatively fine-featured) dwarven lady, but then I saw a screenshot (different angle, as you say) and it looked like an angry Asian mom.

i will throw my $.02 here and agree with the elves not looking quite elven. The characteristics of an elf is angular features, almond shaped eyes, and a thin, elegant build. They are supposed to look almost fragile, even the fighters that rely more on dexterity than strength for their attacks. An elf will build strength, but never look like they large muscles. Kind of like getting wiry as opposed to muscular. In D&D, on average, they are slightly shorter than humans. Males being around 5'6", where females will be get to be around 5'4". Eyes tend to be very light or bright colors, mostly greens, blues, or gold. Very little rounding to the features, more sharpness. Anyway, just trying to help.

Yeeep. Drow and surface elves should look different in theory, considering they do selective breeding.

+1.

If I can't go Aasimar Paladin I will be an Elven Arcane Trickster so this is pertinent to my interests

I figured this would be a good place to pose my query, what with it being all about Elves and lore accuracy (Very minor spoilers about appearance of an NPC ahead):

Astarion's master Cazador looks suspiciously elf-like, but he's got facial hair - a little goatee, but still something. Elves don't grow that at all, and even at a stretch Drow males usually just grow sideburns. Does anyone know what race Cazador is supposed to be? An unusual tiefling, maybe?

I hope it's not an elf and Larian tossed out the no facial hair thing they remembered to keep on the character creator.

Maybe Cazador is an elf and just wears fake facial hair to feel special? :P

Or a half elf...

It was pointed out to me that his ears are waaay too long and pointy for a half elf, or I'd agree with you.

His ears do look too long, sadly the only indicative in this game that a creature is an elf. He might be a half-elf though, yet again, being unable to differentiate them is odd.

Just like there are tieflings everywhere, there are elves and half elves everywhere and all of them are very humanized in all regards, from appeareance to behaviour.

Small bump for this thread.

I don't think we need to eliminate any heads but some "otherworldly" heads would be nice. I like my freckle faced beauty but I'd also like a character who didn't seem to belong in the real world.

+1 for making the elf heads more elven! I haven’t played around with anything other than female drow in character creator yet but seeing those male elf and half-elf heads next to each other - I have to wonder if it’s an EA bug and they were meant to be the other way around? Agree with others that Astarion looks decent in terms of elven features, though.

Also I didn’t even realize that Halsin is supposed to be a full-blooded elf until reading this thread. I had assumed that he must be a half-elf or a human with an even smaller percentage of elven blood, and the only reason I thought he must have some elven blood is his ears. Otherwise I would have thought he was full-blooded human.

As a PC.........there should be as many options as possible since the players imagination is the important thing. As for NPCs they should mostly stick to stereotypes as this will help define a race and allow players a baseline as to what a standard race member should look like. As a table top GM this is a great way for background information.

So, for all races we need more options and ways to customize our characters but also give the baseline looks as well

My thoughts as well! I was really hoping they would go that route but so far I have seen very little of race specific content, switch the appeareance and most NPCs could really be any race.