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

I get that it can be hard to tell the difference. I have the same issue with gnomes and halflings and such. Druid in the secret tunnels. Is he a gnome? A halfling? A dwarf? Another example, Ed... is he a dwarf or human? He looks like a dwarf to me, but his siblings are human? Are they siblings or just fellow cultists?

The point is, it isn't just elves versus humans. Sometimes it's hard to tell race just by looking at a character unless they are stereotypical versions of their race.

But stereotypes are boring. There is no diversity at all, then. It also doesn't make sense. I like that Larian tries to avoid cookie cutter NPCs, making various models. Some are obvious. Others are not.

So yes, make some tweaks so we definitely have some stereotypical elves and dwarves and gnomes, but don't necessarily take away from what we already have. That's all I'm saying.

Character examples that stand out - in and of themselves - aren't automatically detrimental to immersion. That said, "standard", "baseline" and "average" are less negative than "stereotype", yes? I think most people agree that a starting point/common ground when it comes to basic racial characteristics is fine. Otherwise, what makes x race x race (especially when it comes to a given franchise)?

He's a pretty boy compared to Jander Sunstar (a vampire Gold Elf from The Forgotten Realms).



In any case, what differentiates a "vampire spawn" from a regular vampire?

What Ragitsu no offence do not find your latest picture not enough pretty he is clearly old for being an Elf that should live long without age symptoms and not handsome or pretty. Astarion is fine yes. I dont get that some consider The Vampire Diaries to teens series. The only drawbacks from The vampire diaires Tv series (I have seen all seasons and now slowly seeing through spinoff series Originals) is to much romance, not enough scary (hardly any scary ever) and repetitive and little bit feeling Vampire theme meets a soap opera with pretty faces, but not really good plot. Yeah and I have also seen all seasons of True Blood tv series. On the other hand I do not find most Horror movies enough scary to my taste.

About Vampire Spawn:
Most of a vampire's victims become vampire spawn — ravenous creatures with a vampire's hunger for blood, but under the control of the vampire that created them. If a true vampire allows a spawn to draw blood from its own body, the spawn transforms into a true vampire no longer under its master's control.

Well so Vampire spawn are often in movies more primitive, dumb Vampires lesser ranked then true full Vampires to make it complicated Vampires among themselves can also have hierarchy a Master of the Vampires that in turn controls Vampires.

Vampires kind of are smarter and not only perhaps act on ravenous blood lust.
Now Astarion is not dumb seems. However if he would meet his maker the Vampire then he would be like a puppet following his masters Vampires commands at least so if the Vampire truly commands him and not say like could you please fix this.

It's a servant of a vimpire, he's weaker and cannot refuse his masters will. But he can become a vampire if his master will be so generous to feed the spawn with his own blood.

I saw this video a while ago and only now remembered it. The Bard bring up some salient points about how elves are depicted, it's directly about how it differs in the West and in Japan, but interesting nonetheless.
YouTube v=p8fDhdmmDYg&t=429s Link: BardicBroadcasts - Dragon's Crown Elf Figure - Unboxing and Review
I've time-skipped the figure review(not really interesting to me) after which he talks about elves.

He also has a great video on the difference between a Barbarian Hero and a Chivalric Hero.

Re: Vampire Spawn. Oh...of course! Wow, it has been a long time since I flipped to that section of a Monster Manual. Anyhow, I suppose "Vampire Spawn" is easier on early-level game balance than a true "Vampire".


Interestingly enough, Japan still favors the old-school porcine orcs.

Exactly. Goblins are one of the evil races - exceptions are just that...exceptional - and they're not supposed to look good or even "average" in comparison to humans. Why oh why someone allowed them to be humanized is beyond my comprehension.

Actually , looking at old RPG, i'm glad Larian made Elves attractives. Often in games such as DOS2, you'd have to sacrifice attractiveness/ appeal of the character to go another race. Like Elves were super elongated, you could go reptile and undead. Sure it's fun, but what If I want to play a sexy succubus? A manly , strong dwarf? A delicate elve? I want to be able to identify to the character to some degree, and I don't think its a good things when all others races are too foreign / too differents. Just my tastes though.

I agree with you in some regard at least the part with attractive Elves and succubus.

At some point I will add a picture of example of what I find attactive Elf, but not today.

I would say perhaps I am in the middle ground at the end of the day.
I agree with OP Elves could look more Elven, but since I like Tolkien Elves they do not have so such exteeme angular faces in LOTR movies.

Well and here is my point. The women Elf look good...
The default male Elf look slightly to human for my taste with his long hair he could be popstar singer some male humans in real world also have long hair.

Conclusion:
Well if you think about humans not all humans look same.
Perhaps some Elves could look as angular in face as OP post. Other Elves as Tolkien Elves or say less angular in face then OP post.

Funny is that after trying the female head 2 from Half-elf I think that one has the feeling of an Actual elf than all the elves' actual heads tbh.

Well and I noticed when I take ideal drempartner at charcacter creation. I only find ONE human face as super attractive rest semi attractive or worse ugly and not what I would call a dream partner. Well and then HALF-ELF woman super attractive. I guess that is offtopic but the human women choices are miserable in this game. Perhaps it is early access but I think they could make multiple the amount the choises you could pick for all races as face or make we can manually change looks in face and body with sliders.

However I think in slider thread the system admin mentioned that Sliders to this game is very unlikely. If so they could multiple the choices for looks in character creation and we can wait for community made mods.

Well, I wouldn't have an actual problem with the heads, if they knew how to smile, at least the human heads XD

Your example is beautiful enough no worries would have sex with her happily. That said I do not want to say what human faces or looks I do not find attactive since some people might get offended by that. Actually I did once told what I do not find beautiful and was warned by a moderator it is not good idea to do that.

Here example of beuatiful Half Elf woman face:


Half-Elf woman without tattoos her body is also nice the bo...


However lets not post what we consider ugly. That could upset some people.
It is not that you could not create enough attractive. I wish there would be much more character faces , etc choose from then currently provided.
Well and we could make some of those faces as angular as OP wanted. Others more like Tolkien Elves of my Half-Elf example of a Dream woman.

Well and that is the male ELF that I have a problem with. He looks like a young rockband member with long hair human if you forget the pointed ears.

I checked a Wood Elf you can make her look nice as the above model.

Which RPG did you have in mind? This bunch mostly looks human. Are you implying that standard D&D elves aren't?


The default for D&D elves is definitely angular, however.


To be fair, if the topic of attractiveness is on the table, there is an implication that something or someone or some metric of physical appearance is unattractive...perhaps ugly. No light without dark, yeah?

I agree with the consensus that the majority of pure elf heads are a bit too meaty/rough and ugly and the half elves look far more delicate and more like pure elves. I wonder if any work will be done in this regard, or if at least we'll get a larger variety of head shapes in all races by release time or if this is all we'll get?

To me the pure elves look more like what I imagine half elves jacked up on steroids would look like.

There's always been a silly amount of diversity in D&D, even before it became the functional religion of the elites. So much so that the stereotypes for (male) elves are largely lost. The abnormal has not only become normal, it's completely subverted it - and with it come full circle and kicked diversity in the teeth.

Subverting expectations, particularly when it comes to elves, seem to be a recurring trend from Dragon Age, to Divinity Original Sin, to Baldur's Gate. I posit elven stereotypes wouldn't only be appropriate and wanted by the community, but actually somewhat of a breath of fresh air considering.

I agree there's little point discarding the work done already however - unless the task is resource intensive and Larian feels adding more elven options would require additional work for all other races/genders to balance the tally.

Kind of like how the "everyone is morally grey/secretly reprehensible" subversion in the heroic fantasy genre has been slowly losing ground to classic "good versus evil". It turns out that simple escapism isn't so terrible after all. Crazy, huh?

But, uh...that aside, there has to be a starting point/common ground in order to define what makes an elf an elf (physically, in this case). You can't really subvert something unless you can define the basics.

Holy smokes - I leave the forums for a few weeks due to school and everything explodes. D:

Anyways - in most aspects I (still) definitely agree with OP. I realize that player customization freedom is important and should be prioritized, and hence I would never ask Larian to remove any of the existing faces... But for the love of Corellon - give some proper options for the people who enjoy the typical (FR) elven features.

Personally, I stand in somewhat of a grey zone - judging by the debate. I adore almost all kinds of elves - Tolkien elves (both the dancing and singing elves from the book, and the more elegant ones in the movies) have a special place in my heart as I grew up with the books and the movies and they were my introduction to fantasy (like the audience Alexandrite hinted at), but I have grown to love pretty much all different elven cultures that I have crossed paths with ever since.

Warhammer elves? Love them, especially the wood elves. Dragon Age elves? YUP - dalish elves have grown to be one of my all-time favorites. <3 WoW elves? Yup, I like them (strong preference to the night elves though). The sylvari of GW2? While they are not elves, I absolutely love them and they are my favorite race of GW2. Divinity elves? Yup. Love them as well - horrendous bodies or not. Pathfinder elves? Yup! Took some get-used-to (just like the Divinity elves) - but now I love them as well. <3 Final Fantasy elves? Uhh, still getting over to the "extremely-tall"-thing they got going for them but yeah! I like them. c: DnD elves? Of course - with a special love for Wild Elves and Sun Elves in particular. c:

However - I do prefer if my games stay true to whichever universe they are representing. This is personally more important to me than the characters matching my personal preferences and liking. *BG3 takes place in FR* and hence I'd imagine that the players should AT THE VERY LEAST have the option to look like the elves described in the handbooks and lore, and OP (and Ragitsu) are correct regarding the faces - most elven faces in BG3 do not strike me at all as "elven." Not by the "general" standard, but also (and much more importantly) not by the FR meta standard neither. ESPECIALLY the male ones. The female faces I can at least sorta accept (at least 3 of them) - but some more traditional elven features, even if it is very subtle hints like just tuning the cheekbones, give them a more triangular jaw and/or some sharper lines.


I do hope the "everything gotta be morally grey"-segment disappears soon. I absolutely hate it in RPGs. Most of the times the writing comes off as anything but clever and intriguing when they try way too hard to make all choices "neutral" or "lesser of X evils."

Also, completely off topic (and I apologize for that, but this is IMPORTANT) - I adore your avatar. It goes so well with your way of arguing. Absolutely made my day.

School? Sounds you are younger then me in spoiler offtopic real life:
Agree Elves can look like in LOTR movies or the picture above I posted previous post and some Elves as OP posted. Well and I am very nasty in some aspects of morals and Belle Delphine CELEBRITY dressed as an Elf is wonderful... I am her fan and she has millions of fans. Well and I do not know many CELEBRITY persons who have dressed up as an Elf at least to find such CELEBRITY pictures is very rare. She is currently 21 years old and in Elf pictures she is 18-21 years roughly.

Regarding companion morals some other people in forums told me that BG3 likely will get say more good alignment characters later in the game. They could add more companions in Act 2 also and not do so we can meet all of them in Act 1. Another theory is that Early Access does not show everything Act 1 will have at full release regarding companions.