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Post by Iddy on Oct 1, 2018 3:00:01 GMT
Why would dark skinned dwarves like Frandlin Ivo exist?
They are born in a place where they don't need protection from sunlight, so there isn't much of an evolutionary incentive for that trait.
And why are some Qunari so bloody pale? Don't they live in a really hot climate?
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Post by vertigomez on Oct 1, 2018 3:33:45 GMT
Qunari were originally from somewhere else, so any number of things could've influenced their coloring. And since they don't really fit on a human pink-tan-brown scale so much as a qunari grey-bronze-black scale, maybe they're just different? Not to mention IRL we've got humans native to Alaska and humans native to Sweden who despite living along the same latitude look very different from each other.
Dwarves manage to not die despite being surrounded by lava and Titan juice and darkspawn, so skin color is the least of their worries. Some of their ancestors could've lived topside before culture dictacted everybody needed to stay underground and they've got a small gene pool to work from.
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Hanako Ikezawa
Fan from 2003 - 2020
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Oct 1, 2018 3:45:31 GMT
Qunari were originally from somewhere else, so any number of things could've influenced their coloring. And since they don't really fit on a human pink-tan-brown scale so much as a qunari grey-bronze-black scale, maybe they're just different? Not to mention IRL we've got humans native to Alaska and humans native to Sweden who despite living along the same latitude look very different from each other. Dwarves manage to not die despite being surrounded by lava and Titan juice and darkspawn, so skin color is the least of their worries. Some of their ancestors could've lived topside before culture dictacted everybody needed to stay underground and they've got a small gene pool to work from. To add to the dwarves, perhaps it is an evolutionary leftover from when they lived with the Titans. After all, when we were inside the Titan we saw an area that generated artificial sunlight.
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alanc9
Old Scientist Contrarian
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February 2017
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Post by alanc9 on Oct 1, 2018 3:47:20 GMT
Dwarves wouldn't have any selection pressure to move tolighter skin underground. Without any sunlight at all, there's no advantage.
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thats1evildude
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Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition
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Post by thats1evildude on Oct 1, 2018 8:20:25 GMT
To add to the dwarves, perhaps it is an evolutionary leftover from when they lived with the Titans. After all, when we were inside the Titan we saw an area that generated artificial sunlight. I would also assume that any oddities in dwarven physiology can be attributed to the Titans. It really is intelligent design, at least in this case.
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights
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Post by gervaise21 on Oct 1, 2018 9:08:18 GMT
It seems highly likely that Qunari colouring is due to the admixture of draconic blood. Their skin is said to be tougher than human skin and they can use vitaar to strengthen it still further without any ill effects, whereas it kills anyone else, so clearly whatever happened in the past it has left them with profoundly different skin to that of humans and so would not have any of the skin traits we associate with the latter.
As for dwarves, the Kal-Sharok inhabitants are said to have paler skins but until we learn more about how they survived the last 1000 years or so, it may be assumed it has something to do with that rather than merely living underground. Since the majority of dwarves seem to have darker skin tones it probably has nothing to do with melanin but, as others have stated, either a left over from when they lived with Titans or the fact that they are more closely associated with the earth/stone and their skin originally was a refection of that.
I think it would be a mistake to attribute human physiology to other races. After all, look at the variety of skin tones among elves, yet they all come from the same source race and not enough time has passed for it to be the result of evolution (if evolution is even relevant in Thedas)
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Blaze
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Everyone seem normal till you get to know them
Posts: 893 Likes: 952
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Everyone seem normal till you get to know them
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Post by Blaze on Oct 17, 2018 6:36:34 GMT
different biology. also dwarves might get tan from the lava lakes =P
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copper
N3
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
Posts: 567 Likes: 1,084
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copper
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
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Post by copper on Oct 17, 2018 23:11:26 GMT
At risk of drifting too close to the whole Tali sweat thing, what would a Qunari's skin feel like? Presumably it wouldn't be as soft as our skin would since it's so much tougher.
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Sifr
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Aug 25, 2016 20:05:11 GMT
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
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Post by Sifr on Oct 20, 2018 7:20:37 GMT
Qunari were originally from somewhere else, so any number of things could've influenced their coloring. And since they don't really fit on a human pink-tan-brown scale so much as a qunari grey-bronze-black scale, maybe they're just different? Not to mention IRL we've got humans native to Alaska and humans native to Sweden who despite living along the same latitude look very different from each other. Dwarves manage to not die despite being surrounded by lava and Titan juice and darkspawn, so skin color is the least of their worries. Some of their ancestors could've lived topside before culture dictacted everybody needed to stay underground and they've got a small gene pool to work from. Perhaps each dwarven thaig had slightly different skin tones from each other? The current range of skin tones in Orzammar might be the result of dwarves from across the Empire fleeing to the capital during the First Blight, which introduced more variation into their (now limited) gene pool.
We know that the old Dwarven Empire spanned the length of Thedas and they had outposts on the surface. So depending on where in Thedas those thaigs were located, as well as how much UV exposure on the surface that the resident dwarven population received (if any), could that account for development of different skin pigmentation in dwarves?
(Or are we all vastly overthinking this?)
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Oct 20, 2018 21:37:53 GMT
(Or are we all vastly overthinking this?) Absolutely we are, but since when has that stopped any of us?
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Andraste_Reborn
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Posts: 1,444 Likes: 6,267
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Andraste_Reborn on Oct 20, 2018 22:07:37 GMT
Once upon a time, I sat down and worked out if a traditional dwarven diet could provide all the nutrients a human being on Earth would need. 'Overthinking this' is the natural state of Dragon Age fans.
(For the curious: dwarves would be very short on Vitamin E, unless they are eating a lot of cave fish we don't know about, and Vitamin K unless some of the lichen in their diet contains it. But maybe they can synthesise those two vitamins like most creatures synthesise Vitamin C.)
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I refuse to believe that the cake is a lie
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Feb 27, 2024 12:53:29 GMT
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ArcadiaGrey
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September 2018
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ArcadiaGrey
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by ArcadiaGrey on Oct 20, 2018 22:42:03 GMT
Once upon a time, I sat down and worked out if a traditional dwarven diet could provide all the nutrients a human being on Earth would need. 'Overthinking this' is the natural state of Dragon Age fans. (For the curious: dwarves would be very short on Vitamin E, unless they are eating a lot of cave fish we don't know about, and Vitamin K unless some of the lichen in their diet contains it. But maybe they can synthesise those two vitamins like most creatures synthesise Vitamin C.) I wondered about that, like omega 3 and 6 and vit D. Seeing how spirulina contains a bunch of those things I just imagine them going to the dampest caves and licking the rocks.
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Sifr
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Aug 25, 2016 20:05:11 GMT
August 2016
sifr
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
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Post by Sifr on Oct 22, 2018 3:37:34 GMT
(For the curious: dwarves would be very short on Vitamin E, unless they are eating a lot of cave fish we don't know about, and Vitamin K unless some of the lichen in their diet contains it. But maybe they can synthesise those two vitamins like most creatures synthesise Vitamin C.) Fish may have been a staple of their diet, at least in the past.
There were multiple rivers shown running through Thaigs in Origins, so Dwarves may established their thaigs around (or diverted) rivers to provide them with an abundant source of food and water. They'd have needed to be fairly self-sufficient, as even before their Empire fell, thaigs often seem to have been spaced far enough away from each other that importing everything wouldn't have been practical.
On a side note, I don't know if it's ever been said how Orzammar gets it's fresh water? We never see any sign of any waterways (only lava), so my best guess would be that their water comes from natural springs or melted snow from the Frostbacks?
Their crafters are referenced as getting their clay from the Aedros Atuna river, but it's not clear whether that's located inside Orzammar or in part of the Deep Roads that they still have (some) control over? But that's one potential source of fish and drinking water (and the only one I can think of) that they may have available to them.
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Mar 27, 2024 14:15:10 GMT
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August 2016
gervaise21
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights
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Post by gervaise21 on Oct 22, 2018 8:34:26 GMT
Once again I would say that attributing the same nutritional requirements to dwarves as we have in our own world would be unwise. Even humans don't seem to have the same needs as we do in Thedas. Whilst we occasionally hear of famine or plague, there is no mention of the diseases caused by deficiencies in diet, such as scurvy and rickets.
On the face of it dwarves seem to live off a diet of bronto, nug, fungii and lichen. It is amusing that the recipe book in WoT2 has no traditional dishes associated with the dwarves, so presumably the (alleged) local author of this collection thought there was nothing worth reproducing from dwarven cuisine.
It does seem unlikely that at the height of their civilisation the dwarves were wholly reliant on the surface for food. So there must be other sources of nutrition available to them that we have not been told about underground. Since this is a fantasy world, there could be vegetation in the Deep Roads that does not exist in our world. Of course back in the time of the Titans it would seem that there was an entire ecosystem maintained by them underground, so before the Blight they may well have had access to remnants of this in the Deep Roads.
The Alamarri in times past and the modern Avvar apparently relied on pickled krone fish to see them through the winter, so this may well be something that the dwarves use as well, whether found fresh in underground streams or imported in its pickled state. This may also be true of other items such as dried/pickled fruit and vegetables.
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Champion of Kirkwall
1212
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8,023
Sifr
3,737
Aug 25, 2016 20:05:11 GMT
August 2016
sifr
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
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Post by Sifr on Nov 2, 2018 6:58:52 GMT
Once again I would say that attributing the same nutritional requirements to dwarves as we have in our own world would be unwise. Even humans don't seem to have the same needs as we do in Thedas. Whilst we occasionally hear of famine or plague, there is no mention of the diseases caused by deficiencies in diet, such as scurvy and rickets. True, it's canon that Dwarves possess a hardier constitution and greater resistance to disease than most species in Thedas, so their dietary requirements might be completely different from those of Elves, Humans or Qunari.
Same with Qunari, as Sten implied* his people can go for nearly a month without any sustenance before starving to death. *We can't be certain Sten was being entirely truthful or if he was merely exaggerating.
He had been in the cage for 20 days and most people in Lothering were surprised he wasn't dead yet, but he may have survived longer because his confines meant he couldn't exert himself, so he was able to conserve his energy.
It could also be that Qunari engage in ritual fasting (for whatever reason) or train their soldiers to endure extreme survival conditions, such as if they were stranded somewhere where food and water may be scarce.
Or maybe Qunari (the grey ones) do possess an inherent fortitude that can allow them to naturally forego food and water for a time, but some train themselves to enhance this ability, allowing them to go even longer without sustenance?
(Is it obvious yet that I'm fascinated by Qunari and what makes them tick?)
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Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Nightscrawl on Nov 2, 2018 7:33:25 GMT
Once again I would say that attributing the same nutritional requirements to dwarves as we have in our own world would be unwise. Even humans don't seem to have the same needs as we do in Thedas. Whilst we occasionally hear of famine or plague, there is no mention of the diseases caused by deficiencies in diet, such as scurvy and rickets. This is just silly. You are usually more than happy to assume things when it comes to these games and lore, yet you aren't willing to take a leap and say that, even though it hasn't been directly mentioned in the games, there are dietary dangers such as scurvy and rickets?
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Post by vertigomez on Nov 2, 2018 7:49:57 GMT
*Aveline does call Isabela a "scurvy tramp" at one point... so, scurvy is a thing in the DA 'verse.
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Sifr
3,737
Aug 25, 2016 20:05:11 GMT
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
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Post by Sifr on Nov 2, 2018 9:34:50 GMT
Cholera exists as well, as Gamlen says it claimed the lives of Hawke's maternal grandparents during their second bout of it.
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