[quote=VitaVitaAR]From the Far North, Dark Elves are mysterious folk who dwell so far to the North that the sun rarely pierces the snowstorms.[/quote]

[quote=https://scienceline.org/2007/06/ask-dricoll-inuiteskimos/]As early humans started migrating north into Europe and east into Asia, they were exposed to different amounts of sun. Those who went north found their dark skin worked against them–preventing them from absorbing enough sunlight to create vitamin D. To adapt, these humans started producing less melanin.

But Inuits’ vitamin D intake wasn’t dependent upon the sun. They get all that they need from their diet, heavy on types of fatty fish that are naturally rich in vitamin D. The plentiful amounts of the vitamin kept them from developing less melanin. In fact, before milk was fortified with D, people living outside of Northern Canada and Alaska loaded their diets with fishy products, such as cod liver oil, to get their daily supplement. So despite their chilly climate and lack of sun exposure, it’s the Inuit diet that has kept them in their natural glow.[/quote]

The same reason you can be darker than the average Mediterranean without seeing the sun for most of the year. Or never seeing the sun at all, if you live underground.

To edify, the lore has not yet given me reason to believe that the people in the Far North are capable of subsisting on a grain-based diet, as will be typical for the world's temperate zones. They're certainly not [i]raiding[/i] grains from agrarian societies (as you very politely informed me,) and the lore makes no mention of them using magic to create artificial conditions fit for agrarian commerce. This leaves hunting and foraging to sustain sizeable populations living in the Far North, and I don't see what's so unlikely about at least [i]some[/i] of these societies eating mostly fish, a food naturally rich in Vitamin D, thus the indirect cause of northern peoples being darker in complexion.

... and because I like the faceclaim and would like to keep it. :dreamy