Hello everyone. Long time lurker first time poster. But I dont know if this has been asked before. I have a question that might be considered controversial. One aspect I liked about .47v of dwarf fortress is that civilizations, at least in the begining, had pretty similar genetic traits. Like colors of hair, eyes, skin tone, etc. When discovering my first civ had a people of purple eyed bronze skined brunettes I was very entertained. And could more easily distinguish other dwarfs of other civs with different characterists using the lazy newb pack portrat painter tool. I noticed this with other embarks as well from similar or different civs. It was also facinating that one civ spawned on savannah mountians so I thought that played a role in skin tone dwarfs had. At least initially. In the real world skin tone in humans or other creatures is influenced by their amount of UV sun exposure over generations. Darker skin tones better resist UV damage, lighter tones better absorb light for vitamin D. And part of me considered that a reason why the skin tones of dwarfs were darker.
But the steam release kinda changed that it seems. Its more like American demographic diversity where every tenth dwarf is of a deeper darker skin tone. I understand why, like culturally or to target a certian audience. But I miss the idea of like a dark or light skinned variety civ of dwarfs, elfs, or humans. It makes more sense that over time all dwarfs that live under ground get lighter skin tones. But to me this took away a bit of that suspecion of disbelief I had enjoying this game before. In terms of fantasy simulation it made sense to me. Same way the rainshadows were calculated behind mountians. Or available civ metals/materials effected the armor/products they produced. A consequence of circumstance.
So my question is, was this ever a feature that civs would intially have similar asestetic genetic traits? Or was this all head cannon created by coinsidences? If so why was it changed?
Thank you for your time.