Bearded Female Dwarves: The Latest Word

[Templetroll]

actually Platypi aren't mammals nor marsupials but Monotremes (one of the two surviving members of this order). They have far more retilian traits than they do mammalian and a minority opinion is infact that they are therapsids (mammal-like reptiles)

which may give an explanation of where Kobolds might fit too. Evidence (and confusions)would suggest that Kobolds may be better categorised as evolved Therapsids

Yup, Mamtiles... Repmals... hmmmm.....

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Please be explaining this then:

That is frrom Races of Stone.

Easily explained, of course.

That is a modern, and not particularly well-done, fantasy illustration drawn by an illustrator completely ignorant of the lore of dwarves.

As I have continually pointed out, find a single example of a beardless female dwarf in any drawing or similar depiction done prior to 1900. You will not be able to, because all such illustrations show dwarves with beards.

Pedantically yours,
Gary

 

[jaycrockett]

Proof of bearded female dwarves

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

No on can dispute the word of Pratchett supported by the final decision of Gary.

Since Tolkien agrees too, we have a holy trinity.

Olgar "Bearded Dwarven Women since 1981"

 

[toberane]

Enlightened Readers!

Please note the following passage quoted from Terry Pratchett's novel, The Fifth Elephant, page 35 of the Harper Torch paperback, 2000:

"Cheery had retained her beard and round iron helmet, of course. It was one thing to declare you were female, but quite unthinkable to declare you weren't a dwarf."

I assert that this settles the contraversy once and for all time. All female dwarves have beards, and removing them by any means, shaving or magic, means the perpitrator has renounced dwarven heritage and in turn is an outcast from dwarvenkind.

Sincerely,
Gary

It does my heart good to hear one legend quoting another.

 

[Bront]

Someday, I shall have to play my idea of a Dwarven wizard, raised by elves, who shaves to fit in. Of course he'd have to shave like 5 times a day...

 

[jonesy]

Since Tolkien agrees too, we have a holy trinity.

Tolkien never said anything about beards. He just wrote that other races couldn't tell male dwarves from female dwarves. For all we know he could have meant that the females have moustaches or male'ish features or something. Heh.

 

[snarfoogle]

At first I denounced Terry Pratchett, but then I noticed that this was a Gygax topic. If Gary Gygax says that female dwarves have beards, then female dwarves have beards.

 

[Orius]

Please be explaining this then:
That is frrom Races of Stone.

That of course is 3e heresy. I remember back when Dragon was still running PC Portraits, the art editor edited all the female dwarf portraits because the 3e designers decided that female dwarves were beardless. I decided at that point that all female dwarves in my campaign would henceforth have long, luxurious beards because I didn't like the idea of the editor taking it upon himself to edit the artist's work.

 

[shilsen]

No on can dispute the word of Pratchett supported by the final decision of Gary.

What he said. And anybody who disagrees has to go through this...

*picks up Detritus' Peacemaker and puts it on the tabl... er, wagon in front of him*


On a more serious note, The Fifth Elephant has some excellent material for anyone wanting to describe a dwarven culture. Here's one of my favorite examples, about the 'knockermen':

***

'…Tell me… those robes some of the dwarfs were wearing. I know they wear them on the surface so they're not polluted by the nasty sunlight, but why wear them down there?'

'It's traditional, sir. Er, they were worn by the… well, it's what you'd call the knockermen, sir.'

'What did they do?'

'Well, you know about firedamp? It's a gas you get in mines sometimes. It explodes.'

Vimes saw the images in his mind as Cheery explained…

The miners would clear the area, if they were lucky. And the knockerman would go in wearing layer after layer of chain-mail and leather, carrying his sack of wicker globes stuffed with rags and oil. And his long pole. And his slingshot.

Down in the mines, all alone, he'd hear the knockers. Agi Hammerthief and all the other things that made noises, deep under the earth. There could be no light, because light would mean sudden, roaring death. The knockerman would feel his way through the utter dark, far below the surface.

There was a type of cricket that lives in the mines. It chirruped loudly in the presence of firedamp. The knockerman would have one in a box, tied to his hat.

When it sang, a knockerman who was either very confident or extremely suicidal would step back, light the torch on the end of his pole and thrust it ahead of him. The more careful knockerman would step back rather more, and slingshot a ball of burning rags into the unseen death. Either way, he'd trust in his thick leather clothes to protect him from the worst of the blast.

Initially the dangerous trade did not run in families, because who'd marry a knockerman? They were dead dwarfs walking. But sometimes a young dwarf would ask to become one; his family would be proud, wave him goodbye, and then speak of him as if he was dead, because that made it easier.

Sometimes, though, knockermen came back. And the ones that survived went on to survive again, because surviving is a matter of practice. And sometimes they would talk a little of what they heard, all alone in the deep mines … the tap-tapping of dead dwarfs trying to get back into the world, the distant laughter of Agi Hammerthief, the heartbeat of the turtle that carried the world.

Knockermen became kings.

Vimes, listening with his mouth open, wondered why the hell it was that dwarfs believed they had no religion and no priests. Being a dwarf was a religion. People went into the dark for the good of the clan, and heard things, and were changed, and came back to tell…

***

Brilliant!