Simple question really, after I saw the new skin color options that are available for blood elves/void elves (which I’ll be honest, I find it rather odd and random).
How exactly lore wise, does a blood elf get dark skin tone? Were they always around?
The only way I could think they would have a different skin color overall is from either:
Magic
Being dead then resurrected
Breeding with another race that has that skin tone.
Does this mean other races like Night elves could also get the generic blood elf skin tone, or even orcs?
Bold question that people might find sensitive but let’s be civil here.
I’m under the assumption Blizzard hasn’t really put much thought into it and just added it for variety purposes. So yes, arguably in the future you may see a night elf that is as pale as Anduin.
Whether it’s actually a good idea to add many appearance options on every race thereby potentially reducing their ‘uniqueness’ is another question altogether.
Lore wise though, you can probably just assume that they’ve been always around (the safest and least needed to be explained route) since the beginning such as how there are dark fur taurens and then light fur taurens.
Or maybe some elves got a different skin tone from the Sunwell when they first started changing to high elves?
I did always find it hilarious that dark skin elves are the ones that are nocturnal while the pale ones that spent all the time around the sun are pale.
But in conclusion, it’s fantasy and Blizzard can add whatever they want without any real explanation ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
So the work around is, that since Alleria took in the Ren’dorei she would teach them how to control their void powers so the assumption being that eventually they would be able to switch in and out of their void esque forms much like her plus there are High Elf Wayfarers coming in to replenish their ranks, they can likley learn the racial but dont have the same corruption like the exiled belves do. As for the Blood elves blue eyes, we were told that eventually the fel in them would be washed away with the recognition of the Sunwell which is now a font of Arcane and Holy energy. Hope this helps!
I would have gone with customization based on variations we have seen in the game rather than real life comparisons. I don’t think the different skin tones will translate as well as they do for humans.
Humans and human-looking races (e.g. Blood Elves) have human-like skin tones. Because why not? It lets people who want that for their character have it, and those who don’t, don’t.
I am truly metaphysically emotionally ontologically physically psychologically spiritually exhausted at the threads due to the new customizations that try to do Race Science But World of Warcraft.
But I’ll entertain this because I think there’s interesting lore implications specifically for Blood Elves
We know this to be true for elves. More power Night Elves had golden eyes. When the Highborne got to Tirisfal, the void corruption under the land led to them losing their blue hue in their skin, and as they consumed arcane magic via the OG Sunwell, their eyes turned blue. When they began draining fel crystals, their eyes turned green. When some of the Kaelthas forces began drinking demon blood (Felblood Elves) or consuming demon souls (Belf DHs) their skin turns red and sprout wings. When the Sunwell was restored via The Light, their eyes turned Yellow, and the Sunwell became a font of both Arcane and Light. Likewise post Sunwell Belves exposed to excess of Void turned purple skin with blue-white eyes.
It stands to reason however, that just as void turned them pale, perhaps light (the opposite), makes them dark, in a similar way that excess/prolonged fel magic began to turn them red.
Sure, decay process can cause darkening due to some bacteria/fungus.
Please don’t use the word breeding. These are fictional people, not livestock. Using the term breeding for human beings has a long, dark, vile history rooted in treating and considering some humans like animals during the late Medieval and early Modern/Colonial periods, as well as more recent classism where being rich or being poor implied different “breeding stock” i.e. almost different genetics, as if wealth was a genetic trait.
ANYWHO: yes, if a daddy blood elf and a mommy human love eachother very much and one or both is darker, the children can came out either one or the other or incomplete dominance (ie mixed color) of both, assuming IRL phenotypic expression applies here. Certainly we see Veressa’s half-elf kids have shorter ears, an inbetween incomplete dominance of High Elf ears with Human ears.
While there’s nothing canonical stated about it, that example at the very least might be feasibly explained by the demon blood behind their respective transformations coming from different sources and processes. Despite both being pit lords, Magtheridon’s not actually the same guy as Mannoroth, so it’s always possible there might be individual symptoms specific to corruption by each of their blood being imbibed.
Plus AU Gul’dan implied in questing that he was still amassing more blood to grow the Legion’s own army of orcs in spite of Mannoroth being dead again before the expansion began (and based on precedent in the MU, with Mannoroth dead it would make sense for his blood to have lost much of its power anyway), so the stuff being drank by WoD’s Fel Horde might not have been pit lord blood at all. It might have come from other demons or possibly even been a result of the Shadow Council army deliberately “farming” their own ranks by sufficiently corrupting individuals and then draining them.
