So what do your elves look like?

[theduck]

I've been working on trying to build up a campaign world, and that has gotten me thinking about a world actually inhabited by different groups of humanoid species. Now, I know it is probably no better an idea to apply biology to a DnD world than it is to apply physics, but I kinda want to apply a little at least.

So, think of all the diversity in how people look - the range of skin tones, hair textures, facial features, body types, what have you - and think that that is confined to a single species. As a whole, humans should look more like other humans than they should look like elves or dwarves, but normally elves look really similar to people, just a bit more slight and with pointy ears. I feel like the LotR films, while good, are especially guilty of this, and Dragon Age 2, despite it's many faults, at least made the elves look very distinct from the humans. Dwarves and halflings are at least distinguished by proportions and size, normally. So how do you distinguish between the species? How do you describe each one to make them look distinct and not simply human + ?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Nifty question! I think there's a lot of ways you could go here.

Snake-eyes (or reptilian eyes in general)--I think Wheel of Time had this, for the Aelfinn creatures.
Living hair--it moves and ripples of its own volition, like flame across an elf's shoulders.
Porcelain skin--and I don't just mean color, I mean having a totally foreign texture.
Feet like roots--if you want to tie elves to nature.

[D-naras]

Magic's Lorwyn set had distinctly awesome elves. A cross between a typical elf and an antelope/gazelle/deer.
Lorwyn Elves
And again.

[Fayd]

My DM's setting has elves as a race with a major sexual dimorphism problem. female elves are what you expect. Beautiful, small, and deadly with a knife. Pointy ears and all that.

Males are wolfmen, gnolls. And kinda generally awful people. (it was a curse)

[NowhereMan583]

You could try using subtle but really off-putting differences from humans.

Examples:

• Pointed teeth -- maybe in multiple rows.
• No fingernails or toenails.
• Extra joint in their toes.
• Slitted pupils.

[Wyatt8000]

You could try using subtle but really off-putting differences from humans.

Examples:

• Pointed teeth -- maybe in multiple rows.
  [...]
• Slitted pupils.

As an example, study this elven commander of a great elf-fleet:

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I have a couple of things in my universe that started off as Elves, but aren't anymore.

The Neyferi are, at the moment, a slightly-built blue-skinned species, possible with four arms. (I've been redesigning them to make them look less like small Na'vi, and so far "Four arms" is all I've come up with.) Their big distinguishing characteristic is a weak hive mined shared across their entire race - they have independent personalities and make their own decisions, but they'll occasionally have dreams of one another's memories, empathically sense one another's emotions, and automatically organize in a variety of ways. The hive mind is also responsible for their reproduction - a lot of the genetic information comes from somewhere else in the communal mind, rather than either individual parent.

The Neyferi are currently dominating my universe due to three advantages: First, the reproduction thing means that they've evolved to focus on the good of the group rather than the good of the individual (the hive mind tends to favour genetic material that comes from those that have been of benefit to the collective), so cooperation is automatic. Second, they get free efficiency with almost no investment in logistics - their traffic organizes itself, their quartermasters know who needs more food and ammunition, etc. Finally, Neyferi will tend to have dreams relating to information they badly need - this could mean dreaming about the deaths of the last group to be killed by the monster they're currently facing, or dreaming about the great insights had by a master in the craft they're learning.

Once I decided they Neyferi had drifted too far from Elves to be called Elves anymore, I came up with a new group (that aren't Elves anymore, either) - Changelings. The idea is that, a few centuries ago, human infants began to disappear and Changeling babies were left in their place - the Changelings would generally match the obvious characteristics (race, gender, hair and eye colour) of the missing infant, but beyond that be a really poor facsimilie. The Changelings themselves have no idea where they came from, but are often persecuted for their origins - though early on, when the abductions were still taking place, Fey would often intervene to punish anyone who actually killed or overly tormented a Changeling.

Physically, I'm still working on what the Changelings look like - right now, I'm thinking they look like uncanny valley humans, with slightly wider bounds. (So, they may be unusually tall or short, narrower or more rounded eyes, greater or lesser intelligence - again, like they were made by someone who was trying to imitate humans, without ever realizing how good humans were at recognizing one another.)

[Rhynn]

Gloranthan elves are the best elves.

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Otherwise, depends on the setting. Either the traditional Tolkien elves (pointed ears!) or the short, slim D&D version.

I do like Athasian elves, though: tall, gangly, with hard, weathered skin, coarse hair, sharp, angular features.

Middenmurk has awesome elf ideas. For instance, your elf might have disconcertingly sharp teeth, a cow's tail, speak in a raspy whisper, cast a pale shadow, and move with feline grace.

[hymer]

So how do you distinguish between the species? How do you describe each one to make them look distinct and not simply human + ?

Elves in most of my campaign worlds are defined by their mutability. With such long lives, they need to be able to evolve personally rather than as a species. If an elf lives underground long enough, his skin turns black to help him hide, e.g. Elven physical features are also responsive to their mental and spiritual state. An elf with a physical scar is an elf with a mental scar, or the body would have repaired the scar within a year.

[BWR]

As I tend to run established settings, the elves there look like the setting says they do, which is basically slightly smaller and lither humans with pointy ears.

I don't really see any need to chage that. If that's what the D&D elf is, fine. If I want something else, I'll make something else with another name.

[Slipperychicken]

Playing PF, we realized that the weight/height generation gave elves proportions like 6ft tall and 120lb (which is a somewhat unhealthy weight for a human). That was when I realized where the -2 Con came from: Elves are supernaturally thin (I'm thinking slenderman plus facial features) and might have hollow bones too.

EDIT: That also makes it easy to see why elves and humans wouldn't normally mate: Elves look like anorexics to humans, while humans look like fatasses to elves.

[Cyrion]

In my most recent extended campaign, the non-humans were NPCs and all were tied to a particular element. Elves were air and looked like the figure on the front of the Broadsword and the Beast Album by Tull. Gnomes were fire and looked like the fiery critters from Labyrinth, complete with removable heads and body parts. Dwarves were earth and looked like giant aye-ayes. Goblins, being water, were shape changers and looked like whatever they needed to look like.

[Felhammer]

I've always liked the idea of elves being very lithe and angular. They have large, cheek bones that jut out sharply; gaunt faces; pointed chins; long, swooped back foreheads; small eyes, hidden deep in a recessed sockets. Long pointed ears. Flowing, thick hair. Long, spindly limbs. Alabaster skin.

[Deffers]

Well, a friend and I came up with this really cool idea about capricious, fair-folk styled elves and--

Elves were air and looked like the figure on the front of the Broadsword and the Beast Album by Tull.

Welp, nevermind. This right here is the best elves. We can stop the thread now.

If you were actually interested in elves I helped come up with, which is unlikely, because that idea is SO COOL...

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These guys have deep green skin, except where they have bark instead of skin. Sometimes twigs can grow from the bark. The rest of the skin can sometimes look mottled. Five feet tall is considered the average height. Pointy ears, no irises or pupils-- eyes are solid colored. They're haughty, debauched *****, to the last. Sometimes, instead of exacting some cruel and magical punishment on you, they will simply arson your house down with regular fire-- and they're a PC race.

[Janus]

Humans with pointy ears, skin tones depending on whether they're High, Wood, or Dark Elves.
My intro to fantasy settings was Norrath, the world of the MMO EverQuest, partially famous for the sexy elf lady on the (textured) cover.

[EccentricCircle]

When rereading the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion a couple of years back I was interested to note that no where did I find mention of elves having pointed ears. I'm consequently not entirely sure whether this is a trait which was taken from folkloric elves and applied to Tolkienian elves, and thus whether Tolkien actually intended his characters to have pointed ears. I also read somewhere that in some of the earlier drafts of the silmarillion High Elves are refered to as gnomes, I wonder how different modern fantasy would be if that had stuck.

[erikun]

I find that the problem with trying to radically change how elves (for example) look is that, when I say "elf" as the narrator, the players at the table imagine what they think an elf looks like, not what I imagine. I could have elves with bug eyes and mandibles, but unless I want to bring that up continuously, the players will just be imagining Lord of the Rings or Legend of Zelda or whatever their preferred elf-source is.

[Rhynn]

When rereading the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion a couple of years back I was interested to note that no where did I find mention of elves having pointed ears.

Tolkien explicitly describes them (in the letters, IIRC) as having "leaf-shaped" ears. This is basically like the "Balrog's wings" issue among Tolkien fans.

Also, yes, Noldor were "gnomes," because (despite being derived from neo-Latin of uncertain origin) the word sounds like it shares a root with e.g. "gnosis," and thus has implications of knowing things. They were also called "Deep Elves," implying depth of knowledge.

[TheCountAlucard]

My elves are the Fae princes of the Unshaped lands, banished to the perilous shores of ordered Creation. They wear assumptions of elements or bestial visage, or of dreams and passion or cerements and bone. Some command retinues of hobgoblins or drive prides of lions before them. Others bear crowns of silver or swords of molten glass or other strange sorceries, but rare indeed is the raksha lord who would wield iron against his brother.

But yeah. Oftentimes they have pointed ears.

[Mr. Mask]

As I tend to run established settings, the elves there look like the setting says they do, which is basically slightly smaller and lither humans with pointy ears.

I don't really see any need to chage that. If that's what the D&D elf is, fine. If I want something else, I'll make something else with another name.

Bees With Rum has summed up my position on this nonsense.

[Kid Jake]

In my personal setting, elves basically are just people to start out with. Long lived, completely insane, tribal people. But people just the same. It's not until later in life that they get to be a little freaky. They're divided into two tribes:

The backwoods Dusk Elves that believe their race and the world as we know it is coming to an end. They cling to the old ways; venerating their ancestors and land, marking their bodies with tattoos that tell their personal/family history, and practicing ritual cannibalism and personal mutilation to grow closer with the dead. They're a bunch of paranoid isolationists that don't have to tell outsiders to leave them alone twice.

On the other side are the somewhat naïve and optimistic Dawn Elves that believe that their race is on an upswing. They've sold out the old ways and their ancestral lands for fast profit and easy living. They want everyone to see how prosperous and civilized they are(unlike their unwashed cousins), so they take great pains to project wealth and power wherever they go. They turn valuables into permanent fixtures, wearing elaborate bejeweled piercings and literally several pounds worth of precious metals twisted into irremovable gaudy bands. They're a bunch of hedonistic simps who's racial motto is "Look at me!". Needless to say those without bodyguards wind up naked in ditches.

Both groups absolutely hate each other and take extreme measures to distance themselves from anything resembling the other. By the time the Dusk Elves have a few centuries on them they're usually wild looking; with extensive tattoos and scarring that covers most of their body. The Dawn elves eventually run out of room to carry jewelry and start dipping themselves in liquid gold or platinum until they just look like a Bling Elemental.

Sometimes elves look at both sides, shake their head sadly and walk away. Then you've got your standard pretty elf, otherwise they just rapidly spin out of control. I figured since elves are always expected to be in decline I'd include a built-in reason: They're all primitive idiots.

[BeerMug Paladin]

In the novel I've been working on for some time, elves look like mary sues, more or less. They have fair skin, are tall and slender, have pointed, angular faces, and their eyes can be just about any color. Having two different eye colors isn't common, but it's not rare either.

Every elf also has two hair colors. A primary color, and a secondary, highlighting color. Blonde and crimson, green and white or blue and silver, for some examples.

[GenericGuy]

Culturally my elves are much more Arabic and Persian, and typically have a more tanned to brown skin tone, rather than the pale/fair skin they almost always have

Most elven men and women are over 6ft tall

Long pointed ears

Slender built

Long necks

Their hair is naturally white, but most dye it, and can't grow longer than shoulder length

Like other apes (besides humans) the black ring around the iris takes up much more space leaving no white areas of the eye visable.

Eye color's are yellow and red, those who have "natural" colors (blue green brown) suggest they have human ancestry.

[Averis Vol]

I have been recreating the races for my custom world, though I only have goblinoids and elves fully fleshed out, and I really enjoy the way I diversified elves.

Ardhon Elves have:

• eyes like pools of liquid mercury
• Elongated fingers
• toeless, rectangularish feet
• hair that changes color with the lunar cycle
• pointed ears with multiple canals that enhance hearing
• enhanced senses during night time

This series of changes come from the fact that elves in the world I made are not native to earth, but actually originate from the summer moon. The original species launched a meteor into the earth, and when it burnt up on entry it sprinkled the encased seeds all over. They were then birthed from the plants that grew, and basically overnight became a fully fledged race. they were regarded with hostility at first, but none of them knew their origin, they just assumed they were some kind of sylvan seeing as they shared some features like a respect for nature and their affinity for the moon, so most folk just accepted them as a subspecies. while some retreated to forest to further search for their origins, others spread out and adopted cultural norms of other races where they went, leading to basically a super agile but extremely frail humanoid creature with extensive lifespans.

[Jay R]

I have three ideas of how elves look:

1. Like they were drawn by Arthur Rackham,
2. Like they were drawn by Maxfield Parrish,
3. Like they were drawn by Garth Williams.

In all three cases, they are clearly distinguishable from humans.

[I note that Maxfield Parrish drawings fit the androgynous character of OotS elves.]

[originalginger]

I have four kinds of elves in my settings.

Forest Elves Dark hair, angular features, tan skin, and brown to hazel eyes. Tend to be VERY wild in dress and general appearance. Often wear clothing make of skins, feathers and various plan fibers. Live in treetop cities high above the forest floor.

Snow Elves Light hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. Shortest and stockiest type of elf. Wear layers of furs, and live in cities carves from snow and ice, like fancier and more permanent igloos.

Deep Elves/Drow A huge departure from canon. Pinkish white skin, not pale, but white. White hair, light blue or pink eyes. Albino. Live underground, and as a result have lost all skin and hair pigment, as well as sight as we would understand it. Can still 'see' but it is more like magical sight than true sight.

High Elves/EladrinVery tall, blonde hair, green or blue eyes. Extremely angular features. Dress in silk and natural fabrics. Live in cities of stone and metal.

All of these varieties have the 'super long ans straight out' anime style ears, and none can grow any kind of facial hair. For the most part they have little outward sexual dimorphism, and most races would at a glance believe them all to be female. (for the record, my dwarves have this too, but the opposite, they all appear male, and the women have large beards and deep raspy voices)

[TechnoWarforged]

For some strange reasons I always picture elves as scandinavian.

[Rhynn]

For some strange reasons I always picture elves as scandinavian.

What on earth might the reason be...

[GenericGuy]

For some strange reasons I always picture elves as scandinavian.

A lot of people do, but for me since a lot of fantasy settings go for a medieval time period, I like to make them more "southern."

If the elves are a waning power, it calls to mind the Roman Empire, or if they're still the most "advanced" peoples on the earth, the middle-east and Muslim world were miles ahead of Europe at the time.

[Isamu Dyson]

A lot of people do, but for me since a lot of fantasy settings go for a medieval time period, I like to make them more "southern."