Quote Originally Posted by Palladiamors View Post
Swarthy means weathered or rough. I didn't even know about the dark skinned definition until now.
"Swarthy" being used to mean "weathered" or "rough" is kind of a new, non-standard idea, though. And it's almost entirely due to people reading the original uses of "swarthy" meaning "dark-skinned" (or "dark complexioned", I suppose), seeing the context of it as "swarthy hordes" or "swarthy primitives", and then assuming "swarthy" meant "rough".

The word itself is fairly old, and has always meant "dark-skinned" or "dark" (or some such colour, eg "grey" or "dusky"), but I speculate most people nowadays first read it or heard of it in the context of classic sword-and-sorcery stories like Conan The Barbarian. I'm not sure if the Conan stories themselves use "swarthy" as a descriptor for "primitive enemy hordes", but a lot of stories inspired by that style do. (As an example, some descriptions in the Lone Wolf gamebooks are hilariously racially problematic, in extolling the "fair-haired, fair-skinned" protagonist over the "swarthy minions".)

I am aware the localization team generally works under tight deadlines and whatever we see in the end product is likely the first thing that comes to mind, but it does get a bit weird when the localization not only does not directly match the other languages, it's not even the correct word. It's as misplaced as calling that NPC "Bald Sailor"; the reaction is "but he's... not bald?"