Bearded Female Dwarves: The Latest Word

[D-rock]

Dwarven females without beards.........I tell ya, that is just crazy talk.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Pah.

Everyone knows Dwarves have no female gender, and in fact have no gender at all, but reproduce by asexual budding. We in our human prejudiced tendencies have laid the male gender upon their species through our preconceptions.

Anyone who can gladly produce physical proof (not paintings or some such Bigfoot-ish tomfoolery) that Female Dwarves exist, and I'll gladly retract my statement.

Actually Norse dwarfs did in fact have no females, instead taking human and even godly wives if they could.

Then some fan wondered 'then how do they continue as a species?' and the answer was 'female dwarfs have beards! The Norse simply didn't recognize them as female!' Possibly with a few more exclamation points for good measure.

The Auld Grump, who outright stole Pratchett's dwarfs... Fifth Elephant was such a wondrful look into their culture.

 

[Matt Black]

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

This is a sensitive topic for EN World's antipodean community, and I'd like to straighten it out on all of our behalves. Monotremes are mammals, as are marsupials, although both are far less common than the dominant placental mammals. The defining mammalian features are possessed by all three classes - having fur or hair and producing milk to suckle their young.

With this definition in hand it is clear that dwarves are mammals, having both hair (esp. on faces of females) and producing milk. The misconception is that dwarves are placental mammals. They are, in fact, marsupials. After a long gestation, the tiny (although already bearded) foetal dwarf leaves the uterus and migrates to the mother's beard, where it lodges itself for the next six to eight months. There it receives ample nourishment from 'nutritional overflow', sharing the mother's altered diet of lactose-supplimented ale and dirt. The normal diet of whiskey and granite is resumed at late stages of development. The infant dwarf springs from its mother's beard some 18-24 months after conception, already able to walk and wield small axes.

This long gestation and incubation period has led to the misapprehension that dwarves are asexual, and that infant dwarves simply 'bud' from adult dwarves. Nothing could be further from the truth, although there are as yet no reported eye-witness accounts of the dwarvish mating process, thank the gods.

 

[punkorange]

Of coarse dwarven women have beards. In fact if a dwarf is ever with that of another race he often desires the use of a strap on. And by strap on I mean a false beard.

 

[woodelf]

Out of curiousity, where did the notion of female dwarves without beards come from? I started playing D&D with the Basic boxed set and 1st Edition and, by god, female dwarves had beards! The first I had heard of dwarves without beards was in the Darksun setting, but that was males and females and they were bald too, so no biggy.

Why the shift? Is this another one of those Tanari/Baatezuemon/Devil things?

First i ever heard of beardless female dwarves was D&D3E. I don't think AD&D2 said one way or the other (at least in the PH), so we just assumed it was the same as AD&D1 (i.e., bearded).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

First i ever heard of beardless female dwarves was D&D3E. I don't think AD&D2 said one way or the other (at least in the PH), so we just assumed it was the same as AD&D1 (i.e., bearded).

And at least one AD&D module had a bearded female dwarf in the illustrations. (Slave Pits...)

The Auld Grump

 

[MonsterMash]

Of coarse dwarven women have beards. In fact if a dwarf is ever with that of another race he often desires the use of a strap on. And by strap on I mean a false beard.

Is this one of the reasons we don't have half-dwarves in the core rules?

 

[Captain NeMo]

As cool as ol' (errr...young and youthful!) Gary is, female dwarves with beards reminds me far too much of certain elderly relatives of mine. And seriously, who wants to be reminded of Great Aunt Victoria when your dwarf paladin is chatting with that priestess of moradin?

 

[Li Shenron]

I have posted this thread in hopes of settling the matter once and for all time.

It still keeps open a couple of issues to me, sir Colonel. Does this happen with all dwarven subraces? What if a dwarf mates with someone of another race and has offsprings? And just for curiosity, do all dwarven female have chest fur as well?

 

[Wolv0rine]

With all due respect to the good Col., I myself have never been able to envision bearded females, even dwarven ones. And I assert that all occasions of "bearded female dwarves" were in fact nothing more than dwarven cross-dressers and/or transvestites. The dwarves simply allow the other races to believe that these are, in fact, their females because they are too ashamed of these deviants. The dwarves guard their females jealously from the eyes of other races, because they are so darned pretty.