Female dwarves

[Miloch]

Serious question actually (well sort of ). Do you actually think of female dwarves as bearded? Particularly if you play a female dwarf PC .

 

All female dwarves (and female gnome mages) have beards in BG. This bugs me... not so much because they're bearded, but because they use the same animation as male dwarves. So I broke out Races of Faerun:

 

Arctic dwarves: males only have short white beards

Gold dwarves: males "and some females" have long beards

Duergar: males only have long gray beards ("both genders are usually bald" though)

Shield dwarves: males "and a very few females" have long beards

Urdunnir dwarves: males "and some females" have long beards

Wild dwarves: doesn't say, but the picture shows a beardless female

 

Female gnomes do not have beards (and even the males usually only have "neatly trimmed" beards if they have beards at all).

 

Being as how most dwarves on the Sword Coast will be shield dwarves, "very few" of them will have beards.

 

Since there are very few female dwarves in BG anyhow, I'm considering tweaking them all to use the female gnome animations (except the mages which I'm giving thief animations, since they'd otherwise also have beards).

 

[Next poll: do all dwarves have Glaswegian brogues?]

[berelinde]

Yeah, I kind of think that dwarvish women could grow beards, if they liked. I always thought that possibly the shield dwarvish womenfolk who live among humans tend to shave to better conform to human standards of beauty.

 

Admittedly, this comes from Tolkien lore, rather than FR cannon lore.

[Kulyok]

Do you actually think of female dwarves as bearded?

 

Nah, that's creepy.

(But then again, I keep thinking about underarm hair as unpleasant, too, and dwarves probably get loads for both genders. Yuck).

[Chev]

Yes, they have beards. From my early days with AD&D (before the Forgotten Realms were published) dwarf women had beards below the chin. So they would not have a moustache and you could see the 'full' face.

 

Yes I think most 'sundered' dwarf women would shave to better fit in with humans, half-elves and halfings.

[Miloch]

Admittedly, this comes from Tolkien lore, rather than FR cannon lore.

Really? I can't recall a single female dwarf character in Tolkien. I think even the dwarf genealogies in the appendix were exclusively patrilineal (though there may have been a female dwarf or two mentioned but not described).

 

'Course, I haven't read all umpteen 'Histories of Middle Earth' or whatever that C. Tolkien has flung out there. Maybe there's some dwarf women in them .

 

By Terry Pratchett's logic though, some of the male dwarves could've been female, as there is no obvious distinction by outward appearance in Discworld. But that's not the FR of course...

 

Early DnD canon had a similar indistinction (as Chev implies) and I seem to recall female dwarves were also more rare than males (something like 1 in 3). Also not FR though.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Yes they have beards. No I have not and most likely will not play a female dwarf.

[Chev]

OT, but I wonder how many women would 'see' themselves as a dwarf (with or without a beard)? More likely to create a mod than play as a dwarf. I would think they would think of themselves as a human, elf, Half-elf, or halfling.

[berelinde]

I'd play a female dwarf if there was a romance for one. But I might not be the most representative of the female gaming population.

[Gabrielle]

Female dwarves have beards in the Forgotten Realms I believe.

 

Me play as a dwarf, a female at that? Perish the thought.

[Domi]

Female Dwarves do not have beards in the Handbook, and at any rate a bearded female looks like a male authomaticaly. Tolkien said that his males and females look the same, but for FR they look different. The new generations of the games set in FR do not have beards on the female avatars.

 

So, Tolkien can go and play a bearded female in his afterlife. But not me.

 

I indeed don't play dwarves, simply because I don't like the race, but Bio idiotic avatars poisoned my enjoyment of playing gnomes for years. I'm vehemently opposed to any race having the same avatars for male and female.

[Twani]

If I'm remembering correctly, in second edition, they did. Third edition, not so much. I'm pretty sure Greenwood intended dwarves to have beards- I seem to remember a few posts about that, when he was statting up female dwarves- but I don't think it's a big thing. Also, I could be remembering things totally wrong. I do that!

 

I know IWD1, if you talk to the first female dwarf you meet, she does have a beard and gives you a sort of 'er, DUH' type line about it. On the other hand, I don't consider computer games that accurate for FR 'canon'.

 

I tend to assume female dwarves have beards, as it's another way their different then humans rather then being 'short and scottishish' or whatever. ^^

[BigRob]

From what I recall reading in the 2nd Edition Dwarves Handbook, it was a case of "some, but not all".

 

I didn't know that male and female dwarves had the same avatars in BG2, but I can kind of accept that, though they probably should have stuck a beard on the female gnome or halpling to get the effect. Still, I wouldn't mind having an obviously female avatar for female dwarves. I just figured there were none in the game.

[TheWizard]

There is no "it depends" option in the poll, but that would be my answer. Some female dwarves I picture with beards, some I do not. Honestly, it's up to the creator of said character.