Raineh Daze

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

@Myrna Minkoff Please drop the argument. Even your own quote indicates a two-factor source: beginning with dark skin and diet to maintain it. The skin tone of dark elves is neither up for debate nor is this science remotely relevant.

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

The paper you actually linked contains no such claim and contains absolutely zero occurrences of the word Inuit, albeit mentioning that the depigmentation of Greenlanders is much slower than might be expected due to alternative dietary sources. The web article at least does give fish as an alternative source of Vitamin D, but this only explains how a population would maintain its tone. Ergo, even in the absurd case of wanting to apply real-world biology to a fantasy setting, it's a moot point.

As for Dark Elves and snow... they live underground. This isn't an "they live in the north OR in caves", it's "they live in the north in caves".

Now, please drop the science discussion, I have to read papers often enough day to day without doing it when I'm looking at fantasy.

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

The abstract for that paper clearly identifies the primary correlation with skin pigmentation as UV levels; furthermore the conclusion continues the same premise. Pages 72 and 73 identify the alternative reason for how both native Greenlanders and the Inuit maintain a darker skin tone in such northern climates (maintain, not develop) in the high degree of Vitamin D available in their diet. Therefore, if a fair-skinned population were to move north, there would be no overriding pressure to increase pigmentation, and thus they would retain a pale skin-tone. i.e. a darker skintone moving north is the baseline taken when assessing changes in relative melanin content in humans; increased Vitamin D in the diet would not have the same effect.

Otherwise, the mass domestication of chickens would have had a really strange effect by now.

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

If you want to make a character and relevant information isn't in the first post, ask for clarification before making the bio.

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

There is a clear distinction between asking for information on something, and your current attitude of passive-aggressively insisting on filling in the blanks and how it fits in what you've been told. It makes it quite clear that even if the questions were answered fully, roleplaying with you would be a trying and extremely frustrating experience at best, one which I have no interest in GMing.

As for anyone else who might be interested in Dark Elves: living underground in a fantasy setting, the majority of their diet is carnivorous or fungal in nature, including those things that might otherwise get in from above. As the underground is as expansive as you might expect when an entire subclassification of elf has moved there, there are always a lot of geothermal or magical hotspots to provide the initial nutrition that feeds the food chain. Having their own access to magic both arcane and via beseeching deities, this tends to work out reasonably well, but does leave them quite poorly suited--like naga and some drider--to being accustomed to the cuisine of Estival.

As elves were ancestrally pale and have had no reason to consequently derive a dark skin tone to protect from the sun (along with long generations and agelessness), they're all to some degree pale, though the lack of sunlight tends to make the dark elves particularly pallid due to lack of tanning.

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

@Myrna Minkoff I'm sorry, but since you're obviously dead-set on questioning every setting detail that isn't mentioned† and now trying to use (incorrect) science to insist on not having to find a more appropriate appearance, I'm going to have to say that this roleplay isn't going to suit you, please leave.

† You know it's an OP, not an encyclopaedia, right?

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

@Myrna Minkoff ... why would you have a dark-skinned complexion when you live underground?

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

@Myrna Minkoff This one is quite quick: no.

I feel I have to post this because somehow it hasn't occurred to everyone, when using one of the less-native races, to actually ask any questions:



Please, ask, don't just assume that because a setting has dark elves they're evil dark-skinned backstabbing lunatics who worship strange gods, or that you can randomly insert a large volcanic area into the damn country (which they aren't even native to).

The OP covers the generalities and the local area. At least ask if your idea fits the setting before writing an entire bio on a false premise!

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

Well, everyone is already signed up as adventurers, so there's no reason they could all be strangers (especially with people being about the same ability level), but it's not like there's a fixed party requirement.

Damn, there goes that idea. My original plan was to create a sentient undead that woke up in a field a while back with no memory of their former life, not even realising their undead nature for the first few months after awakening, given sapient undead look like normal people as far as I can tell. The idea was to have their inability to find out who they were previously and the realisation that it really doesn’t matter be the basis for their personality and the lack of memories being their drive for becoming an adventurer. Unfortunately, that’s more of a character gimmick than a good reason to play a sapient undead, so I don’t suppose that’d be acceptable? Figured I'd check anyway.

@VitaVitaAR@Raineh Daze

@TheMushroomLord

Not a good reason to be undead, no. Particularly as undead might not look undead but it wouldn't take months to realise "wait, I don't need food or rest".

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer

Sentient. Undead. Aren't. Predictable.