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BarryManilow
Sep Member 2016

BarryManilow

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Midwyn said :
Stuff.
Oh come on, you're trying way too hard to be politically correct.

I do find it a bit strange that some of the elves are black. But we also need to ask ourselves why humans are black.

We know that humans as a species showed up around 100,000 to 50,000 years ago. Over this period of time, we evolved different hues of skin color. The original humans came to Gielinor around 12,000 years ago. It's been roughly 12,000 years since the dawn of agriculture in the real world, which is when people started settling down. I don't really think that humans in Runescape evolved skincolor wise in those 12k years they've been on the plane. In my opinion, a lot of the differences were probably BEFORE the humans arrived here.

I doubt that elves got their dark skin while they were here. A portion of the elves were probably already black skinned by the time they got here. Perhaps one of the clans were predominantly black and they interbred. IIRC, there are hints that showed that which clan you belonged in is reflective of what trade skills you're good at. It could be that dark skinned elves had a pretty diverse skillset which allowed them to join all of the clans.

We saw a very small portion of their homeland so we don't really know what the rest of the realm looks like. It's entirely possible for black elves to exist on their plane of origin and the clans were organized by trade skills, so they were just assimilated by talents instead of skin color.
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28-Aug-2015 00:24:25

Rondstat

Rondstat

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Why should we assume elves even have melanin? Perhaps the colour of their skin is a much more malleable trait. The same litter of cats can have calicos, tabbies, and colour points. I see no reason why a light skinned and dark skinned elf couldn't be siblings.

I've always thought it rather refreshing that RS doesn't use the old Tolkien archetype of elves as beautiful ageless Aryans, and introduces a little variation. There's no reason from them to be black, but there's also no reason for them to be white.

28-Aug-2015 03:20:49 - Last edited on 28-Aug-2015 03:29:46 by Rondstat

Cthris
Dec Member 2023

Cthris

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Rondstat said :
Why should we assume elves even have melanin? Perhaps the colour of their skin is a much more malleable trait. The same litter of cats can have calicos, tabbies, and colour points. I see no reason why a light skinned and dark skinned elf couldn't be siblings.

I've always thought it rather refreshing that RS doesn't use the old Tolkien archetype of elves as beautiful ageless Aryans, and introduces a little variation. There's no reason from them to be black, but there's also no reason for them to be white.

If you jump on board with the meilyr theory that elves and humans stemmed from the same evolutionary ancestor, which makes a lot of sense as otherwise you would have to assume that there was an insane amount of convergent evolution to make very very similar humanoid races, then this would probably not be the case, and elves would probably develop skin pigmentation very similar to humans.

Similar to this topic, Hazelmere is black, is he not? The thing is that gnomes spent the entire God Wars underground, so that is roughly 4000 years. Op do you know how many generations of living underground would turn a race albino? From an evolutionary stand point, should Hazelmere still have his dark pigmentation after his ancestors had spent so long underground. Do keep in mind that gnomes can live quite a bit longer then a human.

28-Aug-2015 03:59:11 - Last edited on 28-Aug-2015 04:05:20 by Cthris

Rondstat

Rondstat

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Cthris said :


If you jump on board with the meilyr theory that elves and humans stemmed from the same evolutionary ancestor, which makes a lot of sense as otherwise you would have to assume that there was an insane amount of convergent evolution to make very very similar humanoid races, then this would probably not be the case, and elves would probably develop skin pigmentation very similar to humans.


Significant convergent evolution is absolutely a thing in the Runescape multiverse. Besides that, I think life just tends to coalesce into a humanoid shape - look at Mahjarrat. Undeniably no ancestors or descendants (except maybe Moia), and they look pretty durn human.

28-Aug-2015 04:11:04

Cthris
Dec Member 2023

Cthris

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Rondstat said :
Cthris said :


If you jump on board with the meilyr theory that elves and humans stemmed from the same evolutionary ancestor, which makes a lot of sense as otherwise you would have to assume that there was an insane amount of convergent evolution to make very very similar humanoid races, then this would probably not be the case, and elves would probably develop skin pigmentation very similar to humans.

Significant convergent evolution is absolutely a thing in the Runescape multiverse.

Actually I do not think so. Lots of it can be explained by portals. The most popular theory is that an ancestor to the human race which originated on Terragard unknowingly activated the scism and managed to teleport themselves around the multiverse, these isolated groups of human predecessors would evolve differently in the different environments of the worlds creating icyene, werewolves, elves and monkeys etc. As far as gnomes, dwarves, and leprachans go, there is nothing to suggest that they did not come from terragard. In fact the absence of their world in the world gate greatly supports this as the gate was supposed to contain all the places that guthix and zaros had visited, and supposedly used to bring races to gielinor. As there is no dwarf, or gnome world on there, and we know that guthix had visited a world filled with stout workers, we could assume that the world of stout diligent workers was actually terraguard.

Then you also have to factor in that Saradomin spread the humans through the multi-verse and who knows who preformed genetic mutilations on them.

Finally we know that the elder gods but very basic life forms on all the worlds, so that can be used to explain how we can have say a hell rat from infernus and a rat from gielinor.

The dreams of mah look humanoid because mah made them look humanoid, there wasnt any evolution required.

28-Aug-2015 04:23:09 - Last edited on 28-Aug-2015 04:24:17 by Cthris

Hguoh

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Cthris said :


My pet theory is that the Schism is actually the path the elders took on their way through the multiverse, literally ripping through the fabric of space-time and leaving behind an unstable location on any given plane (ex: the Daemonheim Rift). This would explain why both the Rift and Schism can open onto any plane with so little energy as the passage of the elders left a direct route along their journey (much like the World Gate is the result of the elder blade creating a direct path without obstacles between multiple planes).

Of course, I can't prove the theory, but it would be interesting if it were true.

28-Aug-2015 04:32:13

Cthris
Dec Member 2023

Cthris

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Hguoh said :
Cthris said :


My pet theory is that the Schism is actually the path the elders took on their way through the multiverse, literally ripping through the fabric of space-time and leaving behind an unstable location on any given plane (ex: the Daemonheim Rift). This would explain why both the Rift and Schism can open onto any plane with so little energy as the passage of the elders left a direct route along their journey (much like the World Gate is the result of the elder blade creating a direct path without obstacles between multiple planes).

Of course, I can't prove the theory, but it would be interesting if it were true.

That reminds me of the Flume network from this book series I read when i was little called Pendragon :) I like your theory, sounds very likely.

28-Aug-2015 04:44:52

Lego Miester
Nov Member 2023

Lego Miester

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They have mastered makeover magic, to the point they simply decide what they want to look like.

Unfortunately, like the crystal shapeshifters, they have become addicted to it, to such an extent their forms are stretched like taffy, and reach deep into the valley of the uncanny. Headcanon Haven, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
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28-Aug-2015 04:52:26

Lego Miester
Nov Member 2023

Lego Miester

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Cthris said :
The most popular theory is that an ancestor to the human race which originated on Terragard unknowingly activated the scism and managed to teleport themselves around the multiverse, these isolated groups of human predecessors would evolve differently in the different environments of the worlds creating icyene, werewolves, elves and monkeys...gnomes, dwarves, and leprachans...

Wow, V sure got around. I was wondering why he wanted to borrow my enchanted key. Headcanon Haven, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
OSRS Lore: Xeric
Slepe Tight - Slepe Lore

28-Aug-2015 04:54:39

Rondstat

Rondstat

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@Kastor: I understand this thought, and I think there probably are some races in the Runescape multiverse that share a common ancestor - it's speculated by at least 3 characters ingame, and the human diaspora is a major lore point. But I also think humanoids, for whatever reason, just tend to occur.

Mah, having never left Freneskae, with no outside knowledge, gave most of her creations a humanoid visage. Human-like creatures are all across the multiverse. And even Infernus, likely the first plane to bear intelligent life, prima facie, gave rise to its own humans (demons like Mazc*na and Ac*tryn).

There are common ancestors, but there's also probably a heck of a lot of phenotypical convergence. And from where I'm sitting, it looks as likely it could be one or the other for elves.

@Hguoh: That's a really cool theory! Since 1oak's retcon of the origins of Daemonheim dungeons (which, for the record, I think was a good thing), the original theories about the rift have become less relevant, as they'd have to have some appeal to the Kin. This makes a lot of sense, and nicely ties a few different threads together.

28-Aug-2015 05:01:34

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