Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elves should look more otherworldly

Elves are completely different beings from humans, they literally come from another world (Feywild), so for me the way they are being represented now is completely wrong. The faces are very "human", especially in males, who have extremely strong male features, while both they and females should be much more delicate and ethereal. On top of that, they put Asian faces as options for elves ... wtf Larian? I don't think i need to explain it, but Asians are human, and elves are not.

To conclude my point, I think that the elves must be completely remodeled, with elven, not human, features. And human characters must have options for Asian features.


Thanks for reading. I hope everyone is doing well.

Why do Dwarves have Scottish accents? Besides, I have /rolled a Drow and I have never seen an Asian with blue/grey skin /shrug. Oh, and what about half-elves? You are welcome to your opinion, but obviously I disagree with it strongly.

Why can't elves have Asian features? They seem to have very white features otherwise.

Larian has stated from the beginning that they want this game to be inclusive. They have features that are representative of our world so that people can play a character that looks like them. Who cares if their elves can appear to have Asian, European, or African features? Its not about being accurate to a fantasy world its about making sure everyone is represented. If you have an issue with that maybe you should reevaluate your life.

I think this frames both points of view quite clearly. I am very cautiously leaving this open but let's be careful where we go with it. Thanks.

What would you consider elven features?

In many D&D art they have both sharp facial features but also look androgynous.

I suspect nobody would mind if there were more classic elven faces. Right now the choice is kind of limited.

I am of the opinion myself that elves don't have to represent anyone but elves, same goes for all non human races. And they are not meant to look caucasic either, I do not know why people complain about caucasic elves when they were not represented that way in forgotten realms, plus, they come in a variety of shapes and colours.

Humans on the other hand, are the counterpart that has many kinds of cultures with parallels to our world, and it is both accurate and appropriate to represent them.

Either way, it might as well be beating a dead horse, this is the direction the creative team took.



Very angular features, with an inverted triangle shape, arched brows and slanted eyes, very thin and delicate features. I like this artwork the most, it is in the player's handbook of one of the older editions. It really does not look caucasic to me, but something entirely else, and very mixed depends on where you focus.

I just cycled through the human and elven preset faces and there isn't really an emphasis on Asian features for elves in the character creator. Did the OP mean elven NPCs? I didn't personally notice if they were predominantly Asian-featured, but I wasn't really looking.

I found the human faces suggest a mix of Caucasian, Asian and negro. With just over half-a-dozen basic starting faces, that's not bad for a diverse ethnic mix. You're never going to represent all ethnic backgrounds with so limited a selection, and I am not exactly enthralled by the faces on offer (I usually go for 'least-worst' looking), but hats off to Larian for what they have produced.

I haven't, I should say, looked at the elves. Elves are superficial and narcissistic enough, without them having my attention.

are you calling Asian, humans?......

lol i kid i kid

Well the character creator is missing a lot of features I believe?
From gameplay pov not being able to choose your starter equipment and neither the variant rules.
And Aesthetics of missing faces.

As for the OP itself, me being an Asian fella, whats the issue of allowing me to do a character from other races that I could relate with? Faerun already have Kozakura that is basically Japan in Faerun. So having other races with other cultural takes is not far streching it. I understand the cultural root of the Folk being European, but thing change or it would be a constant copy pasta of Tolkien, changes like this for example allow you to be a European heavily armored knight to fight Onis and other Folk creatures that with a ultra conservative(in the sense of no changes not the political spectrum) wouldn't allow to.

This is not a matter of diversity and inclusion really, at least not to me, and I am of mixed heritage, I do not look caucasic. To me it is about building an immersive world that makes sense, and if you are going to have races that are not human, they should be represented in... Well. A non human way. Otherwise what is the point of them. They are not supposed to look caucasic, black, indian, asian, or anything other than their own.

Every time you take a fantasy race, and you strip it from the things that make it unique and different, and humanize it, well... The world is less rich, and less interesting.

True, but the issue is, elves should neither have Asian, nor Caucasian faces... they should have elven faces. Besides, Badlur's Gate is quite a ways of Kara Tur, Shou Lung and all the other, east asian inspired kingdoms. Not really topic of the discussion, though.

Well they have human like features like you can recognize the basic facial structure, jawline, eyes with iris, teeth, face ratio and so on. From what I'm getting from the topic is that elves are not Androgynous enough? The only thing make humans different from elves is the ears, therefore the good old elf cursing "God damn knife ears"

I know you dont want to discuss this right now to avoid derailment of the thread itself but given its high magic setting ,people can travel fairly easily from point to point. If it were a low magic setting I'd agree with the statement: How the hell you got here from bumfuck nowhere?

Now returning to the thread itself appologies to OP, maybe I'm missing the visualization of elf the non human elf features. I can think of Kerillian in Warhammer Vermintide 2, she has almost alien features with her black sclera and face shape.

I'm glad the moderators use a light touch on this forum. @Goldberry took the conversation in a productive direction with the photo from the player's handbook. I would also like to see more angular, somewhat alien features on elves. Ethereal, otherworldly.

As much as I was wowed by special effects in Jackson's Lord of the Rings films I was always annoyed that that cgi that made the faces thiner did not do the same to the noses -- Galadriel looked lovely but her nose was two sizes too big for her face. BG3 isn't under the same constraints -- someone with 3D editing skills can modify some of the heads to make them see otherworldly. Also, combine the existing elf and half elf heads -- currently the half elves look more like elves than the elves do.

Offensive comment removed. The topic has otherwise been going pretty well, let's keep it that way without anyone getting banned. Thanks.

D&D3/3.5 and Pathfinder elves moved in quite a different direction for a time, making them less like Tolkien's supermodels with pointed ears and more like an alien race. I preferred that treatment, but I understand that there are many who prefer the old look.