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!

Spoiler: SOD Spoiler

Show

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...ces-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).