D&D General Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings of Color

[Kobold Avenger]

Elves have copper instead of iron in their haemoglobin equivalent.

That's basically Vulcans and Romulans in Star Trek, as I'm sure that's the reason their blood is green.

 

[Li Shenron]

Personally, I do feel that Humans should be the only race with 'diversity as a thing'.

Not in every way.

The aspects in which I don't want all demihuman races to be "equally diverse" are the (1) culture/history and the (2) mechanics. Where I DO want the same diversity is (3) alignment and (4) ethnicity links to real life.

(1) and (2) is why I like the PHB races: elves have a certain history which (mildly) influence your roleplay, without restricting it: you don't have to like magic because you're a High Elf, but you then have to deal with the fact that High Elves as a community do so. Every race with a delineated culture/history always provides you with the choice to roleplay anything between typecasted or against the type. Some demihumans even have multiple subraces so as to offer more starting points.

Humans as a whole do not have a typecast, which also means there is no such thing as playing against type. But the idea is often that a specific fantasy setting will bring back the typecasts by introducing different human regions and cultures, if you want.

As for (2) I am totally fine with demihumans having different stats than human. In general I do not like the idea that demihumans can mate with humans, I prefer them to be simply separate species, and the mechanical differences emphasize that. If the mechanical differences bother a player, I have no problem letting them use alternative stats for THAT specific PC, but I'll keep using the original for the rest of their kin.

On the other hand I do think that (3) alignment should be largely free for PHB demihumans, even though I like them as separate species, they are still the closest to humankind, so I think that morally-wise they should be more or less the same. However Drow and Tiefling are already farther away (in fact, I wouldn't have even put them in the PHB but maybe in the DMG) and therefore it's appropriate to me that they have an alignment "trend", just the same way I am ok with treating the alignment of races even farther away as a stronger trend, and then enforcing an absolute alignment on creatures that are totally alien such as fiends or mind flayers.

(4) When talking about skin colors or other traits that can be linked to real-world nationalities, I am very much against differentiating the close demihumans. This is because of fairness to the players, not to the characters. I have friends of all colors, as well as all genders and orientations, and I want all of them to feel represented equally by game characters. So yes to caribbean elves and chinese dwarves and arabian hobbits in my games.

Otherwise color and gender should have zero effects to the gameplay. I know that D&D is full of convenient color-coding of creatures, but that doesn't have to apply to ALL creatures. There is no reason why different colors MUST be applied to humans of different regions in order to be able to identify them by sight, use something else.

Drow instead are still pitch-black in my games, a coloration totally non-existent in the other basic races, so that it cannot be confused. A black elf (meant by the player to look like an african-american version of elves) will always be clearly different from a drow. And obviously dragonborn have their own funky colors, which has never been a problem since nobody expects to be able to apply real-world human traits to a reptilian.

It's fairly easy to see: if a demihuman race is still close enough to humans that real-world human colors and traits are applicable, then allow ALL of them, so that every player has representation. If it's far enough then you don't have to worry: orcs have grey-green-purplish skin, tabaxi have feline fur, so no players can feel underrepresented when playing one.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Tat said, the art doesn't seem to reflect the text, and most depictions of all four races--on memory--are more pale/white.

This has always been the crux of the issue. For example, elves have more or less always been described as having "nut-brown" skin. In the Dragonlance books, almost all the elves were described this way as well.

Apparently nobody told the artists, because basically all Dragonlance art was populated with the whitest skin tones you ever saw, with the sole exception of the character who was explicitly and repeatedly described as a black man.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This has always been the crux of the issue. For example, elves have more or less always been described as having "nut-brown" skin. In the Dragonlance books, almost all the elves were described this way as well.

Apparently nobody told the artists, because basically all Dragonlance art was populated with the whites skin tones you ever saw, with the sole exception of the character who was explicitly and repeatedly described as a black man.

Yes this has been the problem. When I was a kid, it really vexed me. I immediately assumed "text right, artists wrong", because, frankly, even at 10-11 I knew that was how the world worked lol, but it was quite vexing.

I would note that in 2E, IIRC elven skin tones aren't described at all in the PHB - IIRC only Dwarves and Gnomes have their skin tones noted, and in both cases it's brown.

You're misremembering the Dragonlance novels though. Virtually all the Qualinesti are described as pale-skinned, fair-haired and blue-eyed. Laurana for example had "alabaster skin" if the wiki is correct and I suspect it is. Same for the Silvanesti (though more of them seem to have dark hair).

 

[Fanaelialae]

IMC, the starting area is typically a melting pot, and characters can have whatever appearance they want. There are more isolated groups in the world whose appearance is more uniform. Even then exceptions can be made. Given that a sahaugin can have a child that looks like an elf, I see very little reason that your character can't look the way you want. It could be a fluke of genetics, an act of the gods, a portent, or something else at work.

 

[reelo]

My take on it is, if a fantasy region (desert, jungle, tundra) has humans that have the ethnical look of real-world counterparts, then it is only logical that the demihumans living in the same region also have such characteristics.

Meaning, elves living in a primal tropical rainforest similar to sub-saharan Africa would be dark-skinned.
Dwarves living in an arid mountainrange like the Arabian Hejaz would be black-haired and olive skinned.
In the real world, physical characteristics like skin-, hair- and eye-colour are the result of natural factors, the environment selecting the gene-pool. I'd like to think those factors work the same on humans and demihumans alike.

That's why I'm also in favour of Underdark races (including drow) being pale.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

OTOH, elves always looking the same almost everywhere would highlight their alien nature.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Gnomes were first mentioned in the Renaissance and somehow became a caricature of Jewish people.

I know all about Paracelcus, but I have never heard of any connection between gnomes and antisemetic stereotypes?

Anyway, in my Islands World campaign setting, anglo-looking folk are the minority amongst the near-human folk. THere are no humans in this world, so the others are where RL diversity shows up, with regions that resemble different island based and coastal cultures all over the world. There is a region heavily influenced by celtic and norse culture, and it's really the only place with pale folk. Even Capet, the vaguely French by way of French romantic literature kingdom run by Eladrin or High Elves, is mostly brown skinned.

But yeah even in 5e there is a lot more anglo-white than anything else in the art.

 

[Blue Orange]

It's your game, so you can do what you want, but I'd go with the whole 'skin color matches the climate' bit--there's at least some practical basis for it. A player can play whatever color they want, I'd imagine--if they look different, maybe their character voyaged there from somewhere else. They're adventurers after all.

As an aside, in the 1991 1e AD&D CRPG Pools of Darkness the drow were blue and purple. (They had been black two games prior in Curse of the Azure Bonds though.) The combat icons were purple for the two that cast cleric spells and blue for three out of the four that cast wizard spells (there was one purple wizard though). So you could run from that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

IMC, all the elves are dark skinned and by extension so are most half-elves.

Dwarves are a manufactured species and have strata-based skin colors.

Halflings are from human stock divinely blessed and so have the full human range (which include blue-tinted as they were pulled from three different worlds)

Orcs, trolls and ogres are from a common ancestor and go from green to orange to rust

Gnomes are a distinct shade of non-existent.