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

Elf blood is also acceptable, but it must come from either the signee or a willing donor.

Ah. Is your avatar supposed to be a Half-Elf?

Once upon a time, due to an artist's error, drow males were briefly shown to sport rather fierce mustaches.

That's part of the fun/experience, yes. Elves are like that old leather jacket you favor: well-established and comfortable.

I agree, I just meant that in this case they are just following 5e. In the end it's part of the generally lack of customization for your own character. I really enjoy this game though, just that part is sadly lacking in my view. And on top of that, I find the visual representation of the elves not great. : )

Myself, I live for the nuance, the small details and the adherence to long-established lore. I can't simply be content with "It's a decent game"; I desire a solid Forgotten Realms game that is unabashed to be in accordance with the collective works that came long before.

I just want elves to look like elves, not humans with pointy ears.

Greetings. Please, take a seat (any seat) and partake of our hazelnut pie and nectar juice.

I demand a reaction/like system for these kinds of comments... :<

In other words: their level of geekiness was not sufficiently geeky .

Thanks. Incidentally, if you played an elf in my campaign, I would expect you to give your best effort.

Funnily enough, Moon Elves, Wood Elves, Winged Elves, Aquatic Elves and Dark Elves all defy the "Aryan elf" stereotype. Even Sun Elves defy it to an extent...they possess bronze skin and do not possess blue eyes.

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Jaheira's BG2 face is awful, whoever photoshopped that tilted the head but did not adjust the face features, with the result that they are misaligned. One eye is at a different angle then the other and the nasal bridge moved to the left. I'd not rather have any heads like that in BG3. I've never understood why they've changed her BG1 portrait, it fit a druid/frighter.

Aerie's eyes are also at different angles, but at least her nose is in place.

I was not a fan of the BG2 portrait art. I found the color palettes garish and the figures rather poorly drawn. I would typically substitute the BG1 portrait art for Jaheira and for all the continuation companion characters who carried over into BG2. It just had better art direction and better shops for my taste.

As a Half-Elf I thought the BG1 Jaheira portrait felt more appropriate, and left more open to interpretation.


I'd also use the Icewind Dale portraits, since I found them more appealing. There is a redux of basically every BG1 NPC in IWD1. The MB peeps who did the artwork basically made it to work with BG too and assumed they'd be interchangeable. For a Half-Elf I always liked this one from IWD. Even though she's decked out more like a mage than a fighter druid, sometimes Jaheria would sport that look, mainly if I wanted a little green in the portrait lineup, since it looked a bit like the BG1 portrait. Like it was her regular gear when she's not out helping nature take the life she gave, but just sort of hanging out and watching the plants grow...


Or like this if she was just going for the plate and club clobberfest since it matched the avatar pretty well and clubs looked like maces anyway in BG2 lol


Still I think that Elves should have more looks available than just the LOTR rendition. Adding Elf ears to human heads is relatively simple. Creating a unique template for Elves called "Ancient" or "Traditional" or "Classic" I'm sure would find many fans. BG1 did not go that direction, but BG1 also had custom portraits, so you could make Xan look more like this...


than this...

Or get an Aerie going more like...


Weirdly, IWD seemed to make their Half Elves a bit more Elven than the Elves, similar to what we see in BG3. Hehe can't win em all. But they could do better I think in BG3, offering more variety in both directions.

Problematic or not, no one is going to be confusing Aerie and Baldur's Gate 2's Jaheira for humans with pointy ears .

That's because Jaheira looks like a drunken doppelganger.
Now BG2's Viconia on the other hand could be almost mistaken for a human...

One Elf in Baldur's Gate 2 versus virtually every Elf/Half-Elf in Baldur's Gate? That's an improvement.

My feeling is I do prefer more Tolkien style elves, some of the d&d ones kinda went to alien for me, but I think the half-elf heads should be added to the roster of elven options. Finding a good-looking male face for the Dream character amongst the male drow heads was sort of hard, they were too wizened for my preference.