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

I'm throwing in my support here (and compliments to Goldberry for all the work put into this - give my regards to Tom Bombadil, BTW).

After seeing the weird, interesting stuff Larian did with elves in OS2, I had high expectations for how they'd handle the semi-alien beings of this setting. Apparently they went the "humans with pointy ears" route instead. Very disappointing.

I dont have much interest in this, but for the sake of the whole fantasy setting ... verisimilitude, spit... blargh... what a disgusting word, it would be preferable to have this race be at least a bit more original then just "pretty humans" they were morphed into.

Maybe the bodies could be made slender and not as tall as humans, maybe not. Maybe the facial shapes can be adjusted a bit like already covered here.

But i would like to suggest one relatively very easy to implement addition, that although it may not be supported by the actual official lore material - which btw, stole most of their fantasy races ideas from J.R.R Tolkien and turned them into mass marketing product - would make Elves and their hybrid variants stand out in a very recognizable and unique way.

We already have several types of demonic eyes based around the concept of black sclera and radiant irises.

I suggest elves get their own unique types of eyes which would be full color iris and sclera (the white part) with some kind of a pupil. The sclera and the iris would be of the same color with options of different color variations, darker and lighter blue or green and so on. These kinds of eyes would very visibly present an "alien" and "fey" aspect of another different race. While Tieflings have their demonic eyes, Elves should have the "heavenly variant" as a contrast. The iris and the pupil can also be shaped a little differently to enhance the sense of otherness.

Actually real elves should be the size of a halfling or a gnome.. if you want to get technical.. Tolkien changed elves to be man-sized, D&D just copied Tolkien.

I assume BG3 is following wotc which imo is pretty far and gone from original D&D..




Some people do look like Elves to me.

I also reacted to the elves not looking very elvish - ESPECIALLY the male ones, most of their faces just had me like "??????" ...

There was literally like 1 male face and 2 female faces that I am okay with for elves - rest just didn't feel elven at all to me.

However, I'll give Larian the benefit of the doubt and ASSUME that the small sample pool is because the game is in EA. One can hope, at least.

And, I also reacted to there being hardly any lines appointed to elves. I believe there is one with SH (?) and one with the dream-person ("Dafork, I am an elf, why am I dreaming?")... I hope they got some more flagged lines in general (not just for elves) coming! ^_^ (oh, and also BUMP! Larian, take notes!! )

Yep. The few elven lines I found were rather shallow and silly. There should have been special interactions with Kagha, I know for sure I'd like to shame her about worshipping a human god :'D (Even though it isn't true.)

A beautiful original post. As an all time fan of elves, I'd like them represented a little better. The suggestions on this thread could go a long way.

Maybe the current elven heads will be available for humans after they put in the actual elven heads?

I don't usually like races looking too weird or fantastical, but BG3 elves do look completely human. Even the LotR elves in the movie look more elven, and they were played by humans.

Wood elves get a special interaction with Kagha. I don't remember them getting unique lines anywhere else, though (aside from the few generic elven ones).

But I should give Larian props for the "dream sequences" you get if you rest right after the tutorial, before recruiting anyone. Each variety of elf imagines something different.

That first picture of elf and half elf is hilarious. The elf looks like you stuck pointy rears on a mutant human that injects steroids directly into into his chin before doing a 250lb bench press with his lips. A chin so square you hang a breast plate on each side of his face.

The examples of "real elf" are perfect.

Thank you all so much for your positive responses, I was not expecting so many people to feel similarly! I am most pleasantly surprised!



I know, that's why I said I was expecting to be able to deity-shame her, lol! The special wood elf line combined with all of the elven NPCs around the druid grove make it seem as though it is standart for a wood elf to worship Silvanus.
And while some wood elves do, the Seldarine are literally their ancestors, so it makes so much more sense to go with Rillifane. Anyways, I get that not every deity gets to be included in the game, there are so many! But all the details add up.

Drow also have a unique dialogue with her.

Agreed with @Goldberry, this is something that should be noted. Elves who worship human deities take themselves out of the cycle of reincarnation, to leave the elven gods behind is to leave the elven community for all of eternity.

The whole idea of elves having special connections with each other (and their gods) seems to have vanished. No special elf-related dialogue with Astarion at all. I might be hopelessly out of date - are communing and bonding even things in the lore anymore?

Real elves should be made of mist!

Reverie seems to have changed. It's now connected to memory and the recall of past lives. It's not clear if other elven souls still commune with one another in reverie. Although its certainly possible that Tav and Astarian might discover that they knew each other in previous lives. Elves can also choose to avoid reverie and sleep instead where they will dream and sometimes the dreams are messages from Sehanine Moonbow. Drow can dream but don't remember past lives -- just darkness.

Agreed with OP, elves appearance needs some additional work in overall. Some heads should be moved from elves to half-elves (mongolian and african for sure), some other heads should be moved from half-elves to elves. Halsin needs either appearance rework, either change of race to half-elf.

And this thread should be moved to suggestions and feedback section. It's quite important feedback, cause now elves are just humans with pointy ears and that's sad.

I kind of agree here and I really hope that the Elf face templates in the character creator are just placeholders tbh.

I'm all for inclusivity however, so here's a bunch of faces I think would work fine for elves while still allowing representation. Elfin Faces personal headcanon examples

Don't get me wrong but Faerun has it's own people of color as human subraces and having elves looking exactly the same makes no sense and again turns them in humans with pointy ears (probably on glue).
May an elf share some facial features with those human subraces? - Yes, as long is it doesn't contradict elven specifics for those features. It's even normal for wood elves to have brown or yellowish skin. What we have now with some elven heads is not the case, unfortunetly.
If you take a look at elven portraits from NWN there are some good examples of how an elf may look more mongolian or african and elven at the same time.

Yeah there's lots of afro-descended or partly afro-descended looks that could work as elven. But they still have the main elven traits down. But Elf Head 3 is bad for elves the same way Elf Head 4 is. Too jawy, too broad, too weighty, too human.

Agreed with Zellin, I think fantasy races shouldn't reflect real-life human ethnicities, unless there is a good lore reason for that (tieflings). Elves are visually closest to Caucasian features with some Asian aspects (as I see it), but above that they should be their own thing. That said, asheraa provided some real faces with good guidelines for elvish features in humans. This is how half-elves should look like imo.

My favorite video game representation of elves and dwarves was in the first Witcher game, they were all clearly inhuman, but without looking unreal. The later Witcher games watered them down, I'm assuming because they were modeled on real people, but I'd still like if, elves especially, were made more otherworldly.