Art: Bloodfury Savage: Since when do half-orcs shave their pits.

[Nightchilde-2]

1. Dragonborn are mammals.
2. Dragonborn fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of dragonborn are to flip out and kill people.

Dragonborn can kill anyone they want! Dragonborn cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out AL the time. I heard that there was this dragonborn who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon, the dragonborn killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a dragonborn totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

 

[steenan]

I can easily see why people are disturbed by dragonborn breasts. It's something akin to the so called uncanny valley. We easily accept creatures that are very human-like and these that are definitely nonhuman. Elves and dwarves are very similar to us. It is even possible to perceive some of them as attractive. Dragons and beholders are far to the other side and thus also pose no problem. But when we get a race that is more alike us than being generally humanoid in shape and at the same time differs from human in important details, our minds raise an alarm.
"Logical" and "realistic" explanations change nothing here, they can't overcome a basic instinct. It is a human and it isn't - it is wrong, deformed, ill. One does not consciously perceive this, but he feels a discomfort. And - finding a discomfort, something "not fun", in a game that places "fun" in its center - he protests.
As different people have their uncanny valleys placed a little differently, something that an artist found fun is disturbing for some. IMO, WotC would do better if they either made dragonborn more alike humans (giving them human faces) or more monstrous and draconic (discarding the boobs). Both would help, at least from my perspective.

It's also the reason why the "dragonboobs" are much more intensely discussed than shaved half-orcs. Barbarian's shaved armpits are stupid and make no sense, but it is purely intellectual observation. They do not trigger a basic emotional response, thus activating much less "psychological energy" than the dragonborn. Shaving body hair is a very modern idea, the evolution didn't imprint us with any instinctual meaning for it.

 

[pawsplay]

I don`t understand why you find the mere presence of dragonboobs offensive.

I`ve always thought the whole reason for them is to make it obvious whether artwork depicts a male or female dragonborn.

And what purpose, exactly, is served by identifying the gender of a dragonborn?

 

[pawsplay]

Going back to the whole armpit thing... one of the functions of armpit hair is to disperse pheromones. What if orcs don't have armpit hair, because unlike humans, they are not ready for intercourse any day, any time? Perhaps, like gorillas, females can be identified by sight or smell as being in a fertile state, and male orcs then simply battle over the female.

Then again, I fight in boffer games, and I usually shave my pits at the beginning of the summer, purely for comfort reasons.

In Tolkien, orcs were created from elves. Perhaps apart from their shaggy manes and facial hair, orcs are mostly hairless.

Maybe half-orcs, as hybrids, tend to have out-of-control body hair, and some half-orcs shave their pits because of the long braids of armpit hair that sometimes grow.

 

[chaotix42]

And what purpose, exactly, is served by identifying the gender of a dragonborn?

The same purpose that's served by identifying the gender of a rakshasa?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

...Is this really turning into another dragonboob argument? Seriously? Didnt people get it out of their system a year ago? In a world where we can have half dragon COWS, singing swords, and a goddess with a spider for a butt, a pair of fatty deposits on a scaley humanoid gets you upset?

Let's play a game; it's called Who Didn't Read The Thread!

People are arguing at cross-purposes. One faction is arguing that dragonboobs can be justified in the setting with arguments ranging from "Dragonborn are egg-laying mammals so they should have breasts" to "there are more unlikely things in the world that are accepted so dragonboobs are okay."

The other faction is arguing that the dragonboobs were added purely because the designers thought a female race must have pronounced breasts to be (a) female and (b) attractive to play as a race for female players and (c) the role-playing challenges of a gender-indistinguishable female character were too much for the players.

Both arguments are right, and neither argument pertains to the other. In particular, using the first argument as a counter to the second does not make sense.

It looks like the winner of our game is Shaffer!

 

[pawsplay]

The same purpose that's served by identifying the gender of a rakshasa?

Ok, I give. What is the purpose of the players being able to readily identify, from a GM's description, the gender of a shape-changing fiend they will practically never see in its natural form until right before they kill it?

 

[chaotix42]

Ok, I give. What is the purpose of the players being able to readily identify, from a GM's description, the gender of a shape-changing fiend they will practically never see in its natural form until right before they kill it?

Pathfinder #9 - Escape from Old Korvosa

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...

Hmmm? Oh, sorry. Got distracted.

 

[Nymrohd]

That is not a rakshasa that is a chick with a lioness head and inverted hands.

 

[chaotix42]

I'm curious, because I don't know - is that your opinion or do you own the adventure? Looks like a rakshasa to me, but I don't own the adventure.

Either way, I'm thinking about re-subscribing to Pathfinder! They'll put boobs on anything!