*Spoilers* Blood Elf Skin Tones and hair colors

[Hitei]

"Hey guys, can someone explain to me why are different skin tones never seen before being added in Shadowl-"

YOU RACIST PIG SHUT UP

Did people like... not play burning crusade or something? Because the blood elves who double dipped fel exposure had varied skin tones including dark.

Anyone who close to fel magic; a warlock, the child of a warlock, sunfury and felblood desenters, etc. Is likely to have unusual skin tone in addition to the green eyes gained from passive Quel'thalas exposure. Much like second generation orcs are green and not brown.

The game consistently shows skin color is one of the easiest things to change from exposure to magic of any kind or environment. Dealing with ragnaros and being undeground turned the dwarves black and grey. Demon blood turned the orcs green, even more fel corruption turned them bright red. Half of them turned grey or black for various reasons. Trolls basically just turn the color of nearby terrain, night elves turn all purple, red and black when exposed to fel magic and get even darker when exposed to raw arcane magic channeled through a titan relic. Draenei go darker, red, black or green from fel exposure and get nearly white from exposure to the light. Like 90% of animals in game have strange color variants either from magic or just alternate environments.

I don't even know how this is a debate other than people getting triggered over their weird projected political shit. Basically every race in the game, including most NPC races have wildly varying skin tones, and even the most casual brush with magic changes that shit. The real question is how the High Elves even became their base all pink version when they are arcane-influenced ancestors of Night Elves, who have a wider variety, who are from trolls who have an even wider variety--when in most cases magic influence makes skin tones go crazy not uniform.

[Springrunner]

Can I say yikes? Like the only reason thalassian elves are white is because they are derivative of Tolkien -as pretty much all fantasy elves are- what's the problem with Blizzard updating their aesthetics for variety's sake? When the only "lore reason" why most humanoid races are white is just common fantasy conventions, being beholden to them is just... lame.

This is the same reason people want high elves though. Blood elves are somehow... not traditional elves enough.

That said I don't see the problem in adding more options, just, the majority of blood elf NPCs should have lighter skin tones because that's what their color palette is like. Some individuals are darker already. Blood elves also typically have blond hair, often white or red too, brown is less common, black is rare-ish.

[Sigxy]

Anyone who close to fel magic; a warlock, the child of a warlock, sunfury and felblood desenters, etc. Is likely to have unusual skin tone in addition to the green eyes gained from passive Quel'thalas exposure.

Aaand that's all I wanted to know to see if I could make sense of it! \o/

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Like... I'm not sure how to even comment on something like this properly...

I am absolutely sure I can get used to Blood Elves of such... colour. But I just don't know how it makes "sense", ya know? Quel'Thalas is an autumn like land all the time and I don't think we ever had Blood/High Elves ever live in really hot areas before...? Kinda like having a Drow in Forgotten Realms suddenly have white skin for some odd reason?

Like realistically, Blood Elves can have *any* skin color, because it literally just depends of how fantasy genetics work, and in the case of WoW's elves, how does the melanin variation in Kaldorei -and dark trolls- was affected by the transition of a diurnal lifestyle. All the explanation we may need is that dark night elven skin became even darker skin as high elves because of sun exposure. More so, since it's fantasy genetics, we can't even assure that melanin in elves is the product of adaptation to sun exposure, because they are not earth humans.

There was no lore reason why Blood Elves were white, they just *were* because common fantasy conventions.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

This is the same reason people want high elves though. Blood elves are somehow... not traditional elves enough.

That said I don't see the problem in adding more options, just, the majority of blood elf NPCs should have lighter skin tones because that's what their color palette is like. Some individuals are darker already. Blood elves also typically have blond hair, often white or red too, brown is less common, black is rare-ish.

I don't get the argument of purposefully limit a race's appearance "palette" in a MMORPG where the point is to offer the player more choices.

It's okay that in fantasy isolation of certain groups that leads to limited phenotypes as it can be used to build the world itself, but on a setting where the idea is to allow players to make the characters they want, it makes far more sense to build in variation within the possible player choices.

[Aucald]

Let's pivot away from discussing real-world racism and identity politics, and focus on the customization options on offer here in a fantasy context.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I don't even know how this is a debate other than people getting triggered over their weird projected political shit. Basically every race in the game, including most NPC races have wildly varying skin tones, and even the most casual brush with magic changes that shit. The real question is how the High Elves even became their base all pink version when they are arcane-influenced ancestors of Night Elves, who have a wider variety, who are from trolls who have an even wider variety--when in most cases magic influence makes skin tones go crazy not uniform.

Basically this. It's not even a case of a retcon to explain more varied skin tones -which I don't see why is it even an issue if the point is to add player choice variety- it didn't even have a deeper reason of being as such that "well elves are usually white." It was not a thoroughly thought out aspect of the lore, it was just defaulting. And in WoW, especially since elves are eevees, we can explain any sort of variation coherently.

As for the lore itself, since the high elves came from the surviving highborne, there was always the possibility of grandfathering their own skin variety on highborne skin variety, which could have been far greater on an empire that encompassed the whole continent.

[Verbatim]

I don't really care about all this, customization is always fun, but don't act like it hasn't ever been clear exactly how blood elves look and don't look. Any pushback likely comes from this being added 10 years after Blood Elves were introduced, if they had had these options from.the beginning I don't think it would have been an issue.

It's not an issue.

[Alixie]

So does this mean the high elf thread will finally die

No. The writers need to pillage it for ideas to give to the blood elves.

[Caerule]

I don't get why people think skin color in WoW depends on sun exposure due to geographical location. Evolution has veeery little to do with how races appear on Azeroth.

Case and point is all the different "ethnicities" Stormwind is home to. These don't really seem to be ethnicities, as they are in the real world. Just normal genetic patterns found in the race, as natural variation among the races of pale skin. I'm fine with that. Azeroth has never had to stick by Earth's evolutionary models. Many rules are clearly different. This is just one more.

I get that this doesn't match the image people had in their head. And that's fair. It's an instinctual response to dislike a change to an existing concept, unless this was already a change that you wanted. Trust me, not everyone liked purple Night Elves either, when they came into existence. That's not how people wanted their "Wood Elves" to look.

This is not an option I was looking for either. But, I had several guildies log in today that were excited about this, and celebrated it as important to them. This was an addition that isn't done for the sake of political statement. It's being done because there is a market and desire for it among a good number of folks. Does that really outweigh the mild annoyance of those not used to it yet? Not for me. I'm moving on.

- - - Updated - - -

Besides, we did have one kind of brown elf model in the game before this.

[Alixie]

Well I guess they are high elves as well

They might as well rename the blood elf race to the high elf race. Then quietly delete all the old high elf NCPS in the Alliance, and deny they ever existed. It'll be funny.

[Caerule]

This can be fixed though pretty easily by just adding NPCs with darker skin tones, or retconning certain NPC's skin tones or introducing a subgroup of blood elves that look like this, aristocracy, warlock's guild, what have you.

I'd be surprised if they didn't turn some NPCs darker, yeah. Shouldn't be too hard. Unknown vendor here and there. Town guards. Done.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I'd be surprised if they didn't turn some NPCs darker, yeah. Shouldn't be too hard. Unknown vendor here and there. Town guards. Done.

Will the though? mostly because they have yet to add any NPC's with golden eyes besides Liadrin AFAIK lol

[Maxilian]

Remember, HS isn't canon. Just because concepts have been canonized ala Tortollan, doesn't mean everything is canon.

To be fair, purple eyes while casting, is canon for almost all races, we have seen it happens with humans too.

[Seiklis]

I know someone will lose their mind and call me a racist for saying this, but I think a blood elf with dark skin is just wrong. Blue eyes make it even worse. And I'm only considering this from a lore perspective.

Eh for Warlocks and Demon Hunters dark skin fits fine

[Taeryc]

Eh for Warlocks and Demon Hunters dark skin fits fine

Agreed, if only because dark skin tones for blood elves literally already exist in game for BE Demon Hunter.

[Doffen]

More options, more fun.

My night elf demon hunter is dark skinned, very close to the belf examples here. While my Blood Elf Demon Hunter is white as snow, and I know they can already be very dark skinned already as well.

Variety is king!

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Frankly I kinda like it. I wish we had a skin like that back in the day.

Also curious about the eye colors. Could make some interesting characters this way.

[Caerule]

Will the though? mostly because they have yet to add any NPC's with golden eyes besides Liadrin AFAIK lol

Someone told me they added it to Paladin NPCs at least, but I haven't been to Silvermoon to check.

[Pandragon]

I know someone will lose their mind and call me a racist for saying this, but I think a blood elf with dark skin is just wrong. Blue eyes make it even worse. And I'm only considering this from a lore perspective.

Blood Elves have always had varying eye color in the lore based on the magic around them. Their natural eye color is blue. It's only in game that they all share green eyes from a design standpoint. They have had White eyes, Valeeras eyes turned purple when absorbing a Sea Witches power, golden eyes from the Sunwell like Liadrin. Yes this makes sense from a lore standpoint.