NSFW: Dwarven Women TOTALLY BEARDLESS!

[brian 333]

It's true! All of the dwarven women appearing in this comic are TOTALLY BEARDLESS! These shameful hussies waltz around all day showing off their CHINS!

We dwarves must put a stop to this deviant behavior. If Thor didn't want dwarven women to wear properly groomed beards, he would have made them with BALD FACES! Why, if we don't put a stop to this where will it end? Will they also shave the gods-given hair from other places on their body? Scandalous!

Paid for by Dwarves for a Moral Society.


I do wonder about the author's decision to make his dwarven females beardless. I had assumed Hilgya was a deviant who shaved. After all, she is a cleric of Loki, and who knows to what lows such a creature will stoop? However, to date I have not seen a single chin-whisker on any of the female dwarves in this comic.

[Keltest]

Where is it written that all dwarven females must have beards? Certainly its not an unheard of thing to do, but its not exactly a universal consensus, unlike their accents.

[brian 333]

Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says that dwarven females are so like their men that many folk think the race is composed only of men and dwarven babes spring from the rock.

Dragonlance says that female dwarves who shave are brazen hussies.

Okay, that's only two sources, but that's enough for me!!!

[SavageWombat]

All the dwarf women nowadays go beardless. It's like wearing skimpy armor.

[Keltest]

Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says that dwarven females are so like their men that many folk think the race is composed only of men and dwarven babes spring from the rock.

Dragonlance says that female dwarves who shave are brazen hussies.

Okay, that's only two sources, but that's enough for me!!!

You say "sources" as if they are authorities on what universal aspects a creature must have to be considered a dwarf. There is nothing saying that Rich must make his dwarven women as bearded as men, or able to grow beards at all. Its his world, he can give them as much or little facial hair as he wants.

[evileeyore]

You say "sources" as if they are authorities on what universal aspects a creature must have to be considered a dwarf.
Yeah, and he didn't even mention the most important Authority on Dwarven women in fantasy literature:

Terry Pratchett.

[druid91]

Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says that dwarven females are so like their men that many folk think the race is composed only of men and dwarven babes spring from the rock.

Dragonlance says that female dwarves who shave are brazen hussies.

Okay, that's only two sources, but that's enough for me!!!

Also Discworld. Where Dwarven courtship involves a stage of politely inquiring to find out the gender of the object of your affection.

And Dwarf Fortress.

[CaDzilla]

It's true! All of the dwarven women appearing in this comic are TOTALLY BEARDLESS! These shameful hussies waltz around all day showing off their CHINS!


That Dwarven woman in MiTD's circus had a beard

Also, don't forget that Hilgya is a very liberated person by Dwarf standards, of course she wouldn't grow a beard

[Legato Endless]

You say "sources" as if they are authorities on what universal aspects a creature must have to be considered a dwarf. There is nothing saying that Rich must make his dwarven women as bearded as men, or able to grow beards at all. Its his world, he can give them as much or little facial hair as he wants.

Source is a perfectly valid usage. Order of the Stick is a DnD pastiche, and DnD dwarves were lifted wholesale from Tolkien. Direct inspiration from Norse myth came later. Authoritative is a bizarre interpolation to relate to any independent work, but that's not really the odd thing here.

Most stock fantasy settings don't follow the hirsute female Dwarves trope (most commonly one suspects simply because of aesthetic preferences), so I'm not sure why this is noteworthy. It would be more surprising if the Giant had included it.

[Fumble Jack]

To add to the sources as it were, there are also the Dwarves of Dark Sun, whom go a bit more than beardless on either side of the gender line.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

IIRC, the dwarves in The Death Gate Cycle had beards. I am unaware of any hard and fast rule that says "Thou shalt not draw or describe female dwarves without beards", however.

[Gnoman]

And Dwarf Fortress.

If you see a bearded dwarf woman in DF, the player in question (or whoever distributed it) modded the game. By vanilla, DF Dwarven females do not have beards. Toady did leave the tag in (commented so it wouldn't process) to make it easy for people to add it, but it isn't part of the vanilla world.

As for Tolkein, there is very, very little support in his works for bearded dwarf women (the line from the movie was an addition, not in the original work), and what little support there is comes from his unpublished work by way of Christopher Tolkein. NOTHING published in his lifetime includes the concept (or, for that matter, a dwarf woman).

[SavageWombat]

Tolkien apparently also never directly said that elves have pointed ears. You have to get that by interpreting some of the material. (Or so I'm told.)

[Legato Endless]

As for Tolkein, there is very, very little support in his works for bearded dwarf women (the line from the movie was an addition, not in the original work), and what little support there is comes from his unpublished work by way of Christopher Tolkein. NOTHING published in his lifetime includes the concept (or, for that matter, a dwarf woman).

Lord of the Rings Appendix A:


It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart.

[Gnoman]

Funny, that isn't in my copy, or my other copy. I checked before posting.

[Legato Endless]

Hmm, that was based off a wiki. I'll check my hard copy.

Edit: It's at the very end of Appendix A, just before the chart of the Dwarven family tree.

[jere7my]

Where is it written that all dwarven females must have beards? Certainly its not an unheard of thing to do, but its not exactly a universal consensus, unlike their accents.

If you follow the teachings of Saint Gygax, all dwarven women have beards. But there has always been heterodoxy, even within the hallowed halls of TSR in the early years.

[Gnoman]

Hmm, that was based off a wiki. I'll check my hard copy.

Edit: It's at the very end of Appendix A, just before the chart of the Dwarven family tree.

It isn't there in my copy. Probably something that was added in later editions, as both of my copies are relatively early (the newer one is one of the first printings that contains his famous anti-allegory preface, while my paperback copy is somewhat older.)

[Legato Endless]

It isn't there in my copy. Probably something that was added in later editions, as both of my copies are relatively early (the newer one is one of the first printings that contains his famous anti-allegory preface, while my paperback copy is somewhat older.)

Ah, that explains it. Yeah, I have the revised edition. The only non updated version I have is a copy of the Hobbit before he changed the riddle scene.

[Hacktor]

http://aventurandose.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/female-races-dd-3-5.jpg

The iconic dwarven women of 3.5 didn't have beards :)

Edit:typo

[factotum]

I was about to say something like Hacktor just did--I'm pretty sure that every pictorial representation of a Dwarf woman I've ever seen in the D&D canon does not show them with beards. I also agree that the Tolkien quote mentioned above does not indicate that Dwarven women are bearded; in fact, does Tolkien even ever say that all Dwarven *men* have beards?

[Vinyadan]

Tolkien apparently also never directly said that elves have pointed ears. You have to get that by interpreting some of the material. (Or so I'm told.)

As far as I remember, he only said that about Hobbits, and he used the adjective "elvish" do describe their ears.

Interestingly, elven ears (as seen in the films) are actually closest to pig ears.

[Dragonus45]

Exactly, but it doesn't say that they're bearded. If there are male dwarves that shave, it immediately makes it possible that a heavy-featured, stocky, deep-voiced female could be mistaken for a male without the need for a beard.



In LOTR Dwarves don't shave.

[BaronOfHell]

*Looks at OP*

*Looks at posts*

There is nothing saying that Rich must make his dwarven women as bearded as men, or able to grow beards at all. Its his world, he can give them as much or little facial hair as he wants.

I think you're missing the point.

[SavageWombat]

[QUOTE=BaronOfHell;18118151I think you're missing the point.[/QUOTE]

No, that's elves - he's missing the beards.

[The Smallest]

I highly suspect that no matter how much you want it to happen, nothing you do or say is going to make Rich put beards on the dwarven women. After all, he writes the comic, and if he'd wanted all dwarves to have beards, they would have them.

[Zea mays]

It's true! All of the dwarven women appearing in this comic are TOTALLY BEARDLESS! These shameful hussies waltz around all day showing off their CHINS!
...
I do wonder about the author's decision to make his dwarven females beardless. I had assumed Hilgya was a deviant who shaved. After all, she is a cleric of Loki, and who knows to what lows such a creature will stoop? However, to date I have not seen a single chin-whisker on any of the female dwarves in this comic.

Look a the dwarf women depicted in the latest strip. Now imagine them with flowing beards down their front their front.
Do you really want to see "Is Sigdi Durkon's Mother Or Father thread mark VII"?

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Look a the dwarf women depicted in the latest strip. Now imagine them with flowing beards down their front their front.
Do you really want to see "Is Sigdi Durkon's Mother Or Father thread mark VII"?

I think that issue could be easily avoided by having Durkon call her "mother".

[Vinyadan]

I think that issue could be easily avoided by having Durkon call her "mother".

He just can't spell it properly.

[Kish]

It probably is a combination of "beards make characters harder to draw" (maybe) and "beards would make it harder to distinguish male and female characters in the, shall we say, minimalist art style" (definitely).

[GAAD]

No guys. Clearly dwarves and elves are in the same boat. Unless they go out of their way to FLAUNT their gender, dwarves and of either gender look interchangeable. Ergo, Durkon is actually female, and hiding it. So there's your refutation right there.
From everybody. Including HPoH. Because she is Just That Sneaky.

[allenw]

Elves and dwarves are different genders of the same species.

[evileeyore]

Elves and dwarves are different genders of the same species.
Stop cribbing my campaign notes!

[GAAD]

Stop cribbing my campaign notes!

Why? What's in them? Please tell us ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING
Paid for by the Rob U While U Sleep Inn

[Spanish_Paladin]

As an humanoid race, it's safe to think that dwarves have gender dimorphism and a diferent hormonal coktel. Also i don't remember any Tolkien text where he said female dwarves have beard, he only suggest that humans never see female dwarves and asume they are all males.

[Petey7]

Something that amazes me is that every time a discussion of whether or not female dwarves in 3.5 should have beards, the actual 3.5 books are almost completely ignored. People always talk about Tolkien, Dragonlance, Dwarf Fortress, but not the actual Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 books. In the Player's Handbook, page 14, it states "Dwarf men value their beards highly and groom them carefully." Emphasis mine. It makes no mention of dwarf women having facial hair. Races of Stone, page 7, states "While dwarven clothing options might seem staid and homogeneous when compared to those of the elves or humans, it is only because clothing has little value in their culture. Instead, the dwarves prize their hair, whether it is on their scalps (for both genders) or on their faces (for males)." This clearly indicates that at least as far is supplement material is concerned, female dwarves do not have beards.

Now, as I am sure anyone here would be happy to tell me, just because a book says it, does not mean you have to follow it. This is true. No matter what the books say, whether or not female dwarves have beards is ultimately a matter of fluff. Any DM can say "In my campaign, dwarf women have beards." Similarly, Rich could choose to say that female dwarves in OOTS have beards. However, he chose very early on to have female dwarves without beards. We could say "But Helga is odd case." And while that may be true, Durkon is one for tradition, and did not react to it at all. He thought Helga was a run of the mill dwarf until she said she didn't care about duty. For Rich to choose to have female dwarves with beards now would just break the internal consistency of the OOTSverse, and that would just be bad story telling.

[SavageWombat]

That's because the 3.5 books force dwarves to conform to humanocentric standards of beauty, instead of embracing their natural dwarfness. You find the beard-removal products at fantasy Walgreens next to the hair-straightening chemicals.

[Kish]

For Rich to choose to have female dwarves with beards now would just break the internal consistency of the OOTSverse, and that would just be bad story telling.
As someone already pointed out, Start of Darkness has an explicit reference to a female dwarf with a beard, which hinges on a beard not being out of the ordinary for a female dwarf in the same way it would be for a female human. I don't expect Rich to ever draw a bearded female dwarf (though I wouldn't be amazed if he did), but one explicit "Yes, they can" statement trumps any number of "This one doesn't" statements.

[Petey7]

As someone already pointed out, Start of Darkness has an explicit reference to a female dwarf with a beard, which hinges on a beard not being out of the ordinary for a female dwarf in the same way it would be for a female human. I don't expect Rich to ever draw a bearded female dwarf (though I wouldn't be amazed if he did), but one explicit "Yes, they can" statement trumps any number of "This one doesn't" statements.

I have pulled out my copy of SoD to review the scene in question

In the scene in question, a bearded female dwarf is shown as part of a freak show. One person in the audience says "That's just a female dwarf." and one person says "boo". Its literally just one panel.

The scene in question could be interpreted that way. It could also be taken to mean that people in the audience merely assumed it is not very unusual for dwarf women to have beards. As Rich has pointed out in the past, one character's point of view is not necessarily accurate in any way. What isn't open to interpretation is that its a one panel joke in a prequel book, making allusion to this very debate. Its hard to extrapolate accurate information about the OOTSverse from a single panel. It is my understanding that Rich writes the main comic assuming most people haven't read the prequel books. If that is the case, it does not make sense to try to make what seems to be a significant part of the online comic (I assume we're going to see a lot more of Durkon's memories) consistent with one panel in one prequel book, which probably 90% of the readers have not seen, rather than the rest of the online comic. It was still a good point to make however.

I am no longer saying "I'm right, and your wrong." It is certainly proof that if Rich decided to include other female dwarves with beards, it would not be unprecedented. It was my mistake to not check SoD after reading CaDzilla's post. All I remembered from the scene at first was that she was very specifically part of a freak show. What I think we can agree on, is that one fantasy setting's rules of dwarves clearly doesn't apply to another, which was the main point I was trying to make.

[Reddish Mage]

Sigdi presence is working very well to make Durkon much more relatable and even human. It shows him having a family and a very strong, very relatable super-mom figure who could be in the army, over-come a disability, and be a loving capable mother and hostess. If she had a beard and looked like a man that would just look strange and totally distract from all her other qualities.

[Chantelune]

Regarding SoD :

I tend to think that it was little more than a joke, mostly because prior to that, all and every dwarven women we saw didn't have any sort of facial hair, starting with Hilga. That the humans comment about "it's just a dwarf woman" might also be nothing more that what we have with this thread : human assumption that dwarven women must have beards.

[allenw]

No matter what the books say, whether or not female dwarves have beards is ultimately a matter of fluff.

I See What You Did There. :smallwink:

[breathandpaper]

Rude people completely ignoring the joke.:smallyuk:

I thought it was a Discworld reference, at first, but apparently I was wrong. I just really like Pratchett's portrayal of dwarven women. They're there, it's just really rude to point out their gender.

But it would be a little redundant to have both Varsuuvius and Discworld dwarfs in one setting, yes it would.

[Lord Torath]

IIRC, the dwarves in The Death Gate Cycle had beards. I am unaware of any hard and fast rule that says "Thou shalt not draw or describe female dwarves without beards", however.No, females dwarves had "side whiskers" which to me translates as long side burns. (Grundle was constantly shaking hers at Haplo)

The A series of AD&D modules featured a bearded female dwarf in several images, and even on a cover if I remember correctly. That being said, Rich (and anybody else) is certainly entitled to either or both versions in their worlds. (In my campaign, they get the side whiskers from Deathgate). I remember reading in someone's campaign that female dwarf beard hair was among the softest and silkiest hair anywhere in the world.

So all you chin-o-philes, go ahead and drool at the bare female chins shown in this comic! Everyone else? As you were!

[Raphite1]

Tolkien's line about female and male dwarves being similar in "garb" and "appearance" doesn't specifically mention beards. Female beards are a natural assumption based on the apparent ubiquity of male beards, but it isn't specifically stated. In the recent Hobbit movies, female dwarves are shown fleeing from Smaug, and this line was interpreted by giving the females very long sideburns or wispy beards along the jawline.

Tolkien's personal notes said that elves had leaf-shaped ears which were more "pointed."

[Vinyadan]

A relevant detail is that the garb seemed to include a cloak, so getting a good look could have not been all that easy.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

No, females dwarves had "side whiskers" which to me translates as long side burns. (Grundle was constantly shaking hers at Haplo)

Oh, yeah, that sounds right. I must have misremembered that as whiskers.

[Vinyadan]

No, females dwarves had "side whiskers" which to me translates as long side burns. (Grundle was constantly shaking hers at Haplo)

The A series of AD&D modules featured a bearded female dwarf in several images, and even on a cover if I remember correctly. That being said, Rich (and anybody else) is certainly entitled to either or both versions in their worlds. (In my campaign, they get the side whiskers from Deathgate). I remember reading in someone's campaign that female dwarf beard hair was among the softest and silkiest hair anywhere in the world.

So all you chin-o-philes, go ahead and drool at the bare female chins shown in this comic! Everyone else? As you were!

There's the Goblins webcomic.


Female dwarves do grow beards, but not in the same way that males do. Female beards are located at the bottom of the chin (they're not neck-beards) and don't grow very long. They're incredibly downy and considered by all to be the softest, most feminine hair any humanoid can grow. Most non-dwarves who are lucky enough to run a hand through a female dwarf's beard, quickly abandon any thoughts of the beard being purely masculine. Like the males of their species, the female dwarven beard takes much longer than the human beard to grow out, averaging one quarter inch per year. Female, dwarven beard hair is highly sought after and fetches a high price, especially among non-dwarves. There are legends of human men buying female, dwarven beard hair in a market and finding it to be so soft and beautiful, that they'd fall in love with the dwarven lady without ever meeting her. Also, some dwarven clans consider it perfectly legal for a female to kill a male for uttering that all too common "Gives me something to hang onto" line.

[Giggling Ghast]

Does the NSFW in this case mean "Non-humans Seeking Furry Women"?

[paddyfool]

Elves and dwarves are different genders of the same species.

Also, gnomes are what you get if you leave out a key component of the dwarf diet (EtOH), and halflings are elf children. It's a complicated life cycle.