Shouldn't "Dark Elves" be very light-complected if they live underground? And "Light Elves" be dark skinned if they primarily live in the sun. Wood elves are always obv brown
Shouldn't "Dark Elves" be very light-complected if they live underground?
Shouldn't "Dark Elves" be very light-complected if they live underground? And "Light Elves" be dark skinned if they primarily live in the sun. Wood elves are always obv brown
It could be a cool twist for a setting.
I'm think there's like corrupting dark magic and stuff in the old lore that was why their skin was unnaturally dark and their heir exclusively white.
>It could be a cool twist for a setting.
Already what basic-bitch-ass MCU did with dark elves.
Doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
Why do you lie by cropping
Literally the dude next to him is Black
>he thinks the MCU did it first
>includes dark elves
>they're pale humans with pointy ears
what a shame, we could have had cool space dark elves in a mainstream film series
You don't understand, they wanted to ensure this bland ass movie had no redeemable qualities.
right, from what I remember that movie felt like a pilot for a shitty TV series
yes.
This is pretty good. Is it AI?
Yes.
These spaceship pics are my favourite.
No, they're just humans with pointy ears. They still come in melanin enhanced flavors, if you're into that.
It's good to see Elves and Orcs can put aside their differences and fight for the same cause
Eccleston is Scottish so he's more Orkney than Orc.
i'm pretty sure the original logic was just 'if they're black they're harder to see in the dark, so it makes sense for them to be black' -in the 70s or whatever before the internet where you could google that stuff
>I'm think there's like corrupting dark magic and stuff in the old lore that was why their skin was unnaturally dark and their heir exclusively white.
For both drow and dunmer, they were literally cursed by a god to have that coloring.
It's to protect from underdark radiation, moron
>literally just a color swap
>WAT A SUBVERSION OF EGGSPEKTAYSHUNS!
Last Jedi was shit, Rian. So was Glass Onion.
Drow are that way because of a curse, not evolutionary selection. Frick you OP.
very mormon of you anon. "the black skins are cursed"
Well they are.
source?
2 Nephi 5:21
Nah, they are the curse
This and the thought of impregnating a dark skinned elf girl without actual Black features makes my dick hard.
The Curse of Ham wasn't even a Mormon exclusive thing.
duergar and svirfneblin are also cursed?
there're so many conflicting lore I dunno that was ever canon, anon
It's not conflicting, it just changed over the course of several editions.
Pick your lore from whatever edition you like the most. Or just stop and make your own.
>several editions.
Could be that not denying it, but it's conflicting when in some sources it says they were always dark skinned, in others that they evolved dark skin to hide in the darkness of the underdark, etc
They are that way because of both. The "what about muh evolution?" is a red herring - it is actually covered as well. That era of authors actually took time to cover ambiguity and varying kinds of interpretations regarding how the current state of things came to be, allowing multiple different types of explanations.
people only become albino on the basis that they get some sun, eventually.
after a certain point it would be evolutionary beneficial to turn black to fit in with the shadows generated by torchlight/whatever lights stuff up down there
I think it could go both ways, but if there's literally 0 light down there then you're not blending in with the darkness; nothing can see to begin with. Even if things have darkvision via D&D logic, it's still colorblind so it wouldn't matter.
If there's some light, then it would depend on if they were more frequently hunters or hunted. If they were the hunters more often, they would probably get paler, as they have no need of camouflage or UV protection. If they were the hunted instead then they may indeed get darker to hide better.
This wouldn't really apply to D&D Drow though.
You think hunters don't need camouflage? Does anyone on this board think at all before they post?
Sure do. But skin color has zero efect on stealth checks.
Nope. I don't permit you to switch to using game mechanics to defend your argument when you were talking about in-universe justifications in your post. Revise and resubmit.
Get fricked.
Elves are built different. They don't just adapt to their environment but also mimic it. Wood elves are brown because they mimic trees, not because they are tan.
It also causes them to camouflage well.
then are almost all animals that live in caves or deep in the ocean albino or transparent? shouldn't they have evolved dark skin at some point in the last billion or so years?
then why are* (obviously)
>or deep in the ocean
You mean like black swallowers, stoplight loosejaws, anglerfish, and all the other deep-sea fish, practically none of which are albino?
I'll give you caves, but you really fricked up mentioning the ocean there.
Cave animals are almost always white, but a lot of deep sea fish are black or red (which for them is effectively the same thing, as almost all deep sea animals can't see red color). In fact, some deep sea fish are literally the blackest things found in nature, with skin so black it absorbs 99% of light.
It's actually not entirely clear why this is, but it's likely the result of bioluminescense being common among deep sea animals. Cave-dwelling animals are usually completely blind so it doesn't matter what color they are, but many deep sea fish actually have good vision (aside from being partially color-blind) in order to detect bioluminescense of other animals, which then leads to them evolving cryptic coloration to help hide themselves.
So I guess if the drow and other underdark creatures have retained their vision it actually makes sense for them to be black because it makes them harder to detect, especially if there's some sources of light like bioluminescent organisms or glowing magical crystals or something.
The Underdark being more like an underground equivalent of the deep sea instead of an actual cave environment is a neat idea, though it would risk getting very Magical fast since you end up with underwater vore hell 2: now with less water and more elves.
>Shouldn't "Dark Elves" be very light-complected if they live underground?
Dark elves, and by this you likely mean drow, are dark skinned because of weird magical underground radiation that fills the regions they inhabit. It is also in some settings a curse making them essentially photo negative colored version of elves, brought about by a cruel and evil nature, making their skin purple instead of a dark brown.
There is little to do with real world biology and the nature of cave dwelling creatures in regards to "dark elves"
>And "Light Elves" be dark skinned if they primarily live in the sun.
Light elves do not exist, if you mean sun/gold elves, then they are bronze skinned, if you mean the standard elf, variously called a moon or silver elf in some settings, then no, they reside in European type regions, often in highly wooded regions that make them light skinned. These are more biologically based.
>Wood elves are always obv brown
Ive never understood why the wood elves are brown, and reside in what is very much northern woodlands, while their moon elf cousins, who reside in much the same type of terrain, arent. I get they are meant to be jungle primitives, but calling them wood elves is very silly.
Honestly, I prefer Pathfidner's take on elves, where they are light or dark skinned, like humans, depending on the latitude they sit at. So you have African dark-skinned elves, European light-skinned elves, and then you have the drow who are purple negative elves (at least before they get completely retconned out of existence because of being OGL). No silliness with a dozen elven subraces, just elves, a few heritages that can be applied to most any elf, and their various culture groups scattered around the world with light to dark skin.
>though it would risk getting very Magical fast since you end up with underwater vore hell 2: now with less water and more elves.
In most official settings, it already is.
The real question is just what is it about latitude and jungle environments that makes evolution reward things like dreadlocks, spears, broad noses, and gage piercings. I'm really not sure what the connection is.
I mean imagine an environment in which so many people die of Malaria that Sickle Cell Anemia becomes a ubiquitous evolutionary advantage, as it provides like a 15% higher survival rate for the disease.
Of course this produces a weird culture, every jungle culture is weird, and their only rivals for the title are desert cultures. Africa is basically split up between those two with some temperate zones in the North and South.
purple spider mommies are hot
The terminology originated in era when it was normal to associated dark skin with evilness and pale skin with goodness. It has nothing to do with what would be plausible biologically.
So the current era then
No.
Since you're using drow as a reference point when it comes to dark elves, we'll use that.
They're mean to be a counter to elves and fairies.
As dark, as fairies are bright.
Taking on characteristics of svartalfr from norse myth.
I know the name drow is from trow, that is not relevant here.
Druuchii doesn't have to be that, since warhammer dark elves are something very different from drow and uses a different reference point.
They're not that way because of human evolution, because they're not human, they're drow.
Also they're not dark-brown, they're black, no brown tint in them.
>Wood elves are always obv brown
Also no
Melanin's primary purpose is to protect from certain forms of radiation. The closer a population is to the poles the lighter their colorization tends to be as the less UV radiation they need to deal with. If the underground has large amounts of radiation that Melanin can protect against, darker skin could develop even underground.
If the magical radiation in the underdark is strong enough you could in theory have elves tan to near black while their hair bleaches to near white over hundreds of years.
Drow are not dark because of melanin, because melanin is brown and drow are a grayish tone. It's a different pigment. Drow most likely have almost zero melanin (they don't need it because no sunlight), but use a different pigment instead for protective coloration, because there's still enough bioluminescent light down there that low-light vision works.
This. It's not UV radiation, so they don't need melanin, which blocks UV. It's a magical radiation. So they need a pigment that protects from that magical radiation.
They so used to be spell resistant in older editions. Guess why.
Enough Melanin will lead to some pretty dark blacks (Melanin density is what makes pretty much every "black" animal black) and the "greying" of Drow is a more recent thing. The original OD&D/1e drow were pure black.
Melanin reacts to pretty much all radiation not just UV. Check out this spectrum of frogs from around Chernobyl. The darkest varieties originated in the areas where radioactivity was the heaviest after the disaster.
Gary Gygax literally said Underdark radiation in AD&D, same reason why their magical weapons and armour decays on exposure to the sun.
Mystera had pale underground elves.
The only metal that can offer reliable protection from high frequency radiation is lead. Even if you've got enzymes coming out the arse to handle the lead ions before they go rampant and damage your organism, the resulting skin colour wouldn't be black or even dark, that's out of the question. It could be pale white, yellow or red, I can't say that with certainty.
elves are inherently magical and not subject to realistic evolutionary pressures so different groups can have almost any skin color
>And "Light Elves" be dark skinned if they primarily live in the sun. Wood elves are always obv brown
how dark skinned are we talking here?
1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 are all acceptable dark elf colors to me
The Hollow Earth subsetting for Mystara/The Known World (the core setting for BX D&D) had their own dark elves known as Shadow Elves and they were all pale skinned and lived in an "upside down" city
They're also not evil spiderfrickers though. If anything they probably share the most with the shadar kai, except they still hate surface elves, just now for legitimate reasons, because they're a bunch of no account colonial squatters.
It's a curse, you frickwit, and I'm only responding to post a picture that you don't like.
If you played actual games you wouldn't make shit threads like this.
>I'm only responding to post a picture that you don't like.
added ;D
https://pastebin.com/XxgRCpUK
>AI generated.
Explain the pastebin to me like I'm stupid. Because I am and I don't understand it.
Image hashes that are supposed to automatically filter and hide posts with these images in the list, using browser extensions.
He's mad that someone posts male elves in his fapbait no-games thread.
you install Gankerx and paste the image hashes into the image MD5 filter box (accessed through the wrench icon in the upper right corner -> filter -> drop down menu that says "Guide").
Boom instant significant reduction in mentally ill spite spam.
Bonus knowledge: you can use J and K to select posts and 5 to filter images on the fly
>Boom instant significant reduction in mentally ill spite spam.
but I can't filter your dogshit posts with your ai images. You should really put on a tripcode so I can filter it
Ah, the "edda accurate dark elf" thread archived. That's why this one exist.
>Shouldn't "Dark Elves" be very light-complected if they live underground?
You'd know why that's not the case if you bothered to look up even a single shred of lore before complaining.
You know how the Underdark has fluorescent fungus? What exactly do you think is making them fluoresce?
>https://www.science.org/content/article/new-species-water-bear-uses-fluorescent-shield-survive-lethal-uv-radiation
What purpose do you think melanin serves in the body?
>https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28256187/
>https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/darker-birds-better-adapted-higher-radiation-chernobyl/
>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2671032/
Why might there be so many mutant abominations in those caves? Could there be something mutagenic down there? Something that one might need shielding from, through say pigment adaptations to absorb and then release or scatter certain forms of ionizing energy?
>https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Faerzress
Read a frickin book.
>be me.
>be adventurer escaping from Drow lab.
>get blasted by a Drow wizard while exploring under dark.
>feel fine.
>kill them then escape.
>get sick on my way out, vomiting out both ends.
>finally make it to surface.
>go to my regular cleric for a check up.
>it's cancer.
>mfw
mutherfricking darkies have cancer rays now.
I mean my first character was basically a crackhead wizard and his favorite spell was what he liked to call an Aids Beam, so I don't judge
Uh oh, big melty
Also is pic related a light elf or more wood elf in your mind OP?
The sad part is that this is what OP deserves.
Or wanted.
I don't like the idea of an all-evil race for similar reasons to Tolkien. I like the idea that well dark elves are predisposed towards treachery and sadism, these things can be overcome with faith, hope, and love.
Dark elves as neutral-to-evil are the best take for campaigns. Thus you can have dark elf PCs still work with a party and dark elf npcs ranging from (temporary) allies to badguys and anything in between.
Honestly, FR has some great examples of why evil societies really shouldn't work. The drow shouldn't work; the Zhentarim shouldn't work.
Places like Sshamath work. Thay mostly works and is a good example of an evil country that does.
If anyone's familiar, the Scarred Lands has Calastia, which is my favorite portrayal of Lawful Evil. Everyone's an ambitious douche and the country is trying to conquer the world, and their primarily god is the god of conquest and slavery...but no one's burning down orphanages just for the lulz.
>the Zhentarim shouldn't work.
Why not? It's an evil wizard's private army that turned into a lawful evil theocracy, and I think there's a certain logic in that, I don't think that Bane could have wrought the Zhentarim by himself. I wouldn't expect them to remain in their 3e-era form forever (and I have no idea what they're doing now) but the basic idea seems good.
>these things can be overcome with faith, hope, and love.
That is the correct treatment of drowfus, that and D
No,because dark elves are evil and dark skin is the ark of evil
Isn't this the case in Warhammer (fantasy AND 40k) and a decent number of other settings? I prefer dark elves that are sickly pale or weird, light blue/purple.
It's a magical curse
Also, in my setting there is no such thing as atoms, molecules, genetics, or evolution so how it works in the real world has no bearing on how my world works
Their pigment is less like melanin and more akin to chlorophyll keyed to subterranean fluorescence (mushrooms, crystals, etc.)
gays like you who keep regurgitating and vomiting threads like tis need to be given the fricking boot from tis board and in the ass
>female elf in the OP
>generic world-building question
>not attached to a single game or system
Recipe for disaster, yet a daily occurrence on the /tg/.
The Underdark is full of magical radiation, to the point drow equipment and enchantments rely on it. Gygax wanted human grade enemies instead of mindless beasts and so came up with drow, where even if you loot all their high powered gear and weapons, it degrades upon leaving the Underdark. This magical radiation tends to frick things up over long spans of time, so the drow, and other jet black Underdark species, evolved a form of pigment that protects them the way melanin protects humans from the sun. They actually have zero resistance to getting sunburned, what with having no melanin of their own, and I vaguely recall some story about drow attempting a surface raid only to learn about the sun, and winter, and rain, and other surface features that eventually made them wonder if the effort was worth it to return to the nightmare realm above their nice caves.
how do you give a reasonable and immersive explanation for the extremely high libido brown dark elves have? What consequences does this have on their cultures and societies as well as interactions with other peoples?
I get the reference
You're making the mistake that most D&D kids make and thinking elves are just humans with pointy ears. For all we know, their "biology" means that light bleaches pigmentation chemicals in their skin, or light chases the darkness from them so that they appear paler but their shadows are much darker than they should be. Or even they absorb light and then release it again as a form of metabolic refraction.
And this is only a really basic exploration of the idea in a couple of minutes. Think bigger.
Drow and dark elves being dark skinned might just be something that was sexually selected for, since well the underdark isn't totally dark right? And other such similiar things. Such as luminous mushrooms and the like.
Or they blend in better in the shadows, so it's natural selection. Or their deity made them too close to the fire of creation and it scorched them forever. Or they ritualistically bathe themselves in a concoction that gives them immunity to toxins where they live, but stains them. Or they've been cursed by a powerful entity that physically marks them as owned by it. Lots of different options to pick from.
Drow already practice eugenics in their reproduction, especially the nobles, as part of their racial superiority schtick. So they're all beautiful but kinda look the same is already canon.
At least it is in Forgotten Realms, which is the presumed setting here for all no-one dares to mention it and pretends all depictions and mechanics of Drow are the same everywhere.
Hello.
May I introduce you to Mystara?
Op, what the frick are you talking about?
There is lots of radiation in the underdark. Though not much is said about the effect of faerzress.
Yes, but the dark elves are dark because "DARK=EVIL".
If you want your pale cave elves, go Falmer.
The Dragon Prince does a pretty good job of this. Though nobody lives exclusively underground the Sunfire elves are of darker skin while the Moonshadow elves are pale. Startouched elves are something altogether more magical.
Sunfire elves are my favorite black elves (I think they're cooler than drow). I get how fire=sunlight and they spend more time aboveground, so it makes a kind of biological sense for them to be black, but the bottom line is that their skin color was chosen to fit their color scheme. That's how you're supposed to do it.
why do they have horns?
also is show worth watching or is it generic netflix goyslop
I see Black person elves in that pic, it's goyslop anon, get your radar checked.
>horns
For sucking willy!
>Elf from Aelf meaning White beings
>/tg/: the normal elves should be black!
Okay, if not drow black, what's your prefered skin tone for dark elves?
A bluish grey sorta like pic rel
Grey works very well, though getting too blue or purple often comes across as overly WoW looking to me.
No, but there are skin tones to reference
Meant the second reply for
Elves are so fricking varied that it is a joke at my table. I doubled down and made a distinction between Dark Elves and Drow in my games. Dark Elves have freed themselves from Lolth and as part of their redemption their skin color runs a gambit. If theyre out during the day their skin has a grey tone while those who still only come out during the night have their skin turn blue or purple. The idea is the sun bleaches their black skin into a grey while the light reflected from the moon turns their skin blue-purple.
I don't know what the state of race is now in pathfinder, but during the playtest they said "elves acclimate to look like their environment but all elves have the exact same racial attributes", I thought that was a cool take.
>runs a gambit
Gamut.
Now that im sober, im just trying to figure out why i said gambit.
A neat take, I like that it's not just leaving Lolth but sun or moon exposure too that changes how they look.
I've seen people make that mistake while sober, at least you have an excuse.
I stopped playing WoW when they got rid of Sylvanas
There is not a single elf in that picture.
Neither is there one in your goyslop AI garbage.
Fantasy world races don't evolve, they're created and/or modified by Gods, your evolution based logic does not apply to divinely chosen aesthetics.
No.
There are two explanations existing for why drow are black. There's the mythologized version, and the realism version.
In the first one, the myths and legends establish that they were cursed in a tangible and real way, and they and their descendants were made black, due to divine shenanigans.
In the second one, the evolution-based "realistic" explanation is that the Underdark is full of actual, literal radiation, the implication being that over time, drow/dark elves became dark due to exposure and dealing with the inherent effects of that. People think that it's just UV radiation because "UV make muh skin darker!", but base pigmentation in the form of melanin helps the skin deal with almost any type of radiation, not just UV.
So they should all be a deep and dark but pale/dusky pastel-y black, because they'll have tons of naturally occurring melanin, literally pitch black, but none of the kind of melanin and skin coloration that comes from normal UV exposure.
If they actually evolved underground, perhaps, though in D&D there's a recurring theme of darker-complexion versions of creatures in the Underdark (Derrow, Duerger, Drow, seriously all these fricking D-names dude) so maybe there's some environmental effect down there that literally causes their skin to turn blue like people who overdose on silver. That wouldn't explain it being hereditary of course but maybe it's magical.
In the old editions at least it was that drow, duergar and svirfneblin all have some pigment other than melanin to protect them from the magical radiation down below. It does squat against sunlight.
They have fey genetics so if they pick the path of 'good' or 'bad' as understood by fey morals their appearance changes to show their allegiance to the 'light' or 'dark' sidhe.
Elves grow paler when exposed to the sun.
Dark elves practice primitive genetic engineering by way of a caste of eugenicist midwife priestesses. They gradually adapted their race for life underground, including dark vision and pigmentation camouflage (and mutating their labor and untouchable classes to be dimwitted and subservient, their warriors to feel enjoy pain etc.).
They're actually remnants of the mutinous command staff of the derelict starship concealed at the core of the planet, fighting to prevent the other elves from reaching it's AI core and contacting their distant star empire whose arrival would be apocalyptically bad for every race living on the planets surface.
>"These are the secret commandments handed down to us from our great founders."
>"Why are they all variations on "Do not activate the distress beacon!"?"
Every race on the planet is a remnant of one of the star-gods engineered slave races assigned to a different department of the ship. They went wild after part of the crew mutinied and stashed the ship inside a planet to hide it from their masters. The elves are just the only ones with long enough generational memories to still be fighting over it.
Humans were the redshirts.
Depends on how you look at it.
I see them as playthings of a mad god, so their complexion not fitting with what is usual for cave adapted species on earth comes from them not being a normal cave adapted species by earth standards.
Yes but the writers wanted to make the black ones evil and the light skinned ones good for some reason.
Their skin is dark because they are evil
Four days to go.
autism