D&D 5E Tasha's Drow Art and the Future of Their Depictions in D&D

[J-H]

The Tasha's art was pretty meh to me. Viconia DeVir in Baldur's Gate II was depicted as blue-ish... or at least, that's how it looks to my eyes.

Blue-gray, gray, whatever... I totally see the artistic reason for moving away from coal-black skin. Based on what I've seen of the Snyder Cut and Infinity War though, grey skin (Darkseid, '80s Metal Band, etc.) is pretty boring. Some kind of navy blue or something may work better - or better, establish a range.

I think there was something with one of the edition changes and undoing a curse something something something that changed some of the drow to brown skin, wasn't there?

Didn't they change the orcs to grey skin also? Or was that just some of them? I like them better as greenskins. Grey as a skin color looks unhealthy and undead-ish.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not 2e, but the 1e MM decribed dwarves as "Dwarves are typically deep tan to light brown of skin, with ruddy cheeks and bright eyes (almost never blue). Their hair is brown, black or gray."

So, there's some (light) brown-skinned demihumans. Unfortunately, no D&D dwarf art that I'm aware of has ever depicted them as such skin tones.

I think this is from 3rd edition.

 

[Oofta]

View attachment 135578
I think this is from 3rd edition.

I was just about to post that. According to the FR wiki, it's 5E. The 3E depiction mostly shows armor and not enough skin to tell color.

 

[Charlaquin]

But why?

Cause I think it’s cool?

Natural selection or adaptation has nothing to do with their skin color.

I like leaving scientific explanations for such things an open possibility.

They have been cursed with dark skin for worshiping Loth and comiting evil deeds, and their offspring inherit this curse.

Right, that’s super problematic. If you like dark skinned drow, that’s fine, but having that dark skin be the result of divine punishment for worshiping the wrong gods is a terrible look.

 

[Azzy]

View attachment 135578
I think this is from 3rd edition.

Ooh! We've got one.

Now if we could have more. ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Paul Farquhar]

 

[Stormonu]

Eh, just waiting for the counter “now you’ve turned them all into white supremest elves”

”But...but, they’re grey”

”Looks white to me”

Maybe they should lavender/purple skin as I’ve seen in some depictions.

 

[TheSword]

The Tasha's art was pretty meh to me. Viconia DeVir in Baldur's Gate II was depicted as blue-ish... or at least, that's how it looks to my eyes.
View attachment 135577

I think the Virconnia art is my favorite depiction over all. Light grey with shades of purple for colour. It’s a great piece of art.

 

[jayoungr]

Page 147 of the 5E PHB has a dark-brown-skinned dwarf. I can't seem to find the right search terms to find an online image to link to. It's one of my favorite illustrations in the PHB.

 

[Scribe]

Eh, just waiting for the counter “now you’ve turned them all into white supremest elves”

”But...but, they’re grey”

”Looks white to me”

Maybe they should lavender/purple skin as I’ve seen in some depictions.

This is why we can't have nice things.

People will always see what they want to see, be offended if they feel offended, and make logical leaps others find comical.

We can go around in circles on this (like the stupid Orc discussion) forever.

And it will continue until folks who don't like the changes leave.