Forums of the Megaverse®

Was rereading fantasy recently and wondering why all Palladium fantasy elves are dark haired. I'm interested as to why there are no blonde, red, or elves with light hair color on the Palladium world. Anyone have a clue?


Things I wonder about...

My guess would be to differentiate them from tolkien elves, as they are tall like tolkien elves, rather than the midgets of the dnd world.

They are? Are you just looking the black and white art, if so how would you be able to tell hair color here? Besides the art work for the NPC Lady Shandra Hursai III (Land of the Damned 2 pg18) shows an elf in b&w, but the hair isn't filled in indicating black/dark hair IMHO (can confirm this happens I think with the Deevil Features artwork on pg55 or pg58 with Haunted lineart or the guy on pg69, pg70 has two elves with different hair in the foreground for "yelling" I believe it is depicting).

If you are talking color prints for covers or other material (like inserts in the Rifts main/ultimate book) you might be missing details. I mean the guy on the cover of the PF2E Main Book looks like an Elf with pointy ears AND white hair (okay, age might be a factor here).

It looks like there is an Elf on the cover of 2E's Adventures on the High Seas with brown hair (archer, admit this is a maybe). Bizantium Book cover has a redhead elf woman (I think she's an elf, with the curved "energy" blade I think it is in the front). Not sure of any other "elf" depictions on covers exist either.

Really it may just come down to artist preference for what "hair color" a given character has in their artwork.

ShadowLogan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 11:17 am They are? Are you just looking the black and white art, if so how would you be able to tell hair color here? Besides the art work for the NPC Lady Shandra Hursai III (Land of the Damned 2 pg18) shows an elf in b&w, but the hair isn't filled in indicating black/dark hair IMHO (can confirm this happens I think with the Deevil Features artwork on pg55 or pg58 with Haunted lineart or the guy on pg69, pg70 has two elves with different hair in the foreground for "yelling" I believe it is depicting).

The elf entry has them having brown or black hair. I seem to recall that one elf Kingdom was noted as being fair-haired, and I *want* to say it's in the Western Empire, but I am not 100%.

The elf enclave could be the vequerrel elves and i thought they were described as being fair folk rather than being fair haired. I will have to look it up

Other explanation: Genetic Bottleneck due to the Elf-Dwarf War. The dwarves figured out the ward symbols for "blonde" and killed thousands of elves before they were stopped.

Library Ogre wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 3:38 pm Other explanation: Genetic Bottleneck due to the Elf-Dwarf War. The dwarves figured out the ward symbols for "blonde" and killed thousands of elves before they were stopped.

Including those elves who cosmetically changed their hair color.

This lead to the collapse of the elven cosmetic sorcery and alchemical cosmetology industries. This is the REAL reason behind the Elf-Dwarf enmity even after thousands of years.

thorr-kan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 4:24 pm

Library Ogre wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 3:38 pm Other explanation: Genetic Bottleneck due to the Elf-Dwarf War. The dwarves figured out the ward symbols for "blonde" and killed thousands of elves before they were stopped.

Including those elves who cosmetically changed their hair color.

This lead to the collapse of the even cosmetic sorcery and alchemical cosmetology industries. This is the REAL reason behind the Elf-Dwarf enmity even after thousands of years.

Great Scott! It all makes sense now!

That's just unimaginative and boring. In my campaigns, I give them a variety of hair colors.