Female Dwarfs

[valiant12]

How are high fantasy female dwarfs supposed to look ?
I plan to write a story where the main characters are dwarfs. I also plan to make one or two of the main characters female dwarfs.
I googled female dwarfs and some of the result pictures depicted females with beards. How did this ridiculous idea originated ?
I'm not sure if I should depict the female dwarfs with low sexual dimorphism or with high sexual dimorphism. Any suggestions.

 

[pmmg]

Female dwarves have long been traditionally depicted with beards. You can choose to show something different.

Other than that, they look kind of like stocky smaller humans, with female bits.

 

[Orc Knight]

Yeah, what pmmg said. They have a tendency to be mostly stocky humanoids, bearded or no. Dragon Age went without the beards and several other forgo them. And it's not so much a ridiculous idea as it's just what came out of dwarfs being portrayed as mostly male and no visible women. So even they had beards. And lo, one couldn't tell if they were talking to male or female. Though obviously assumed the former.

I do tend to play the Dragon Age way with my dwarves in looks. But as they count as Fea they get some more non-dwarfy things from time to time. Pointed ears and the like. As it stands, it is still Fantasy so you choose your dwarfs looks, culture, clothing and whether they eat rocks or rock out.

 

[Svrtnsse]

If you don't want to go the traditional route with bearded females dwarves, take a look at World of Warcraft - specifically fan art and concept art.

 

[elemtilas]

My opinion is that they will look like what you want them to look like! That is, how you describe (or choose not to describe!) them to your readers.

If you want to go full-on braided beard with gold rings and gems woven in, then that's what they'll look like. There are nine excellent concept art images here: Dwarf Woman artwork 1.jpg (just replace the "1" by various other digits) that show a wide range of possible Dwarf women. The higher the number, the lighter the beard.

Some Dwarvish children as well: Nál ; Líf

If you want them to be beardless, males included, I think that would be fine as well.

 

[WooHooMan]

I liked the idea of making male dwarves look like traditional dwarves and Gnomes while female dwarves look more like fairies or pixies or nymphs. I've heard people suggest this idea here and there but I've never seen anyone act on it.
I like it because myths and legends tend to always make dwarves (and goblins) male while fairies/pixies and nymphs are mostly females.
I've debated including a Dwarven society into my current setting-in-progress where their gimmick is extreme gender difference/separation/etc. since humans in this setting are pretty egalitarian.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Female dwarves have long been traditionally depicted with beards. You can choose to show something different.

Other than that, they look kind of like stocky smaller humans, with female bits.

But this leads to the belief that there are no dwarf women. And that dwarfs just pop out of holes in the ground, which is, of course, ridiculous.

 

[Gurkhal]

While I am normally rather conservative I've never seen the appeal of bearded Dwarf women. If I would ever write about a classical fantasy race like the Dwarfs then they would be beardless, taking the looks from WoW.

 

[Alexius]

Essentially your creation, so you can do what you want with them. That's the beauty of the genre - you get to decide without anyone nit-picking "factual" details.

 

[valiant12]

But this leads to the belief that there are no dwarf women. And that dwarfs just pop out of holes in the ground, which is, of course, ridiculous.

How exactly will this idea originate.
Even if dwarf women have beards they are mammals and mammals get pregnant.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

How exactly will this idea originate.
Even if dwarf women have beards they are mammals and mammals get pregnant.

I was just paraphrasing LOTR there. But, to give a modern example, people as late as the 1960s thought that Mormons had horns. Soooo, people will do what they want and make things up because people are different.

 

[pmmg]

Wait, mormons dont have horns?

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Wait, mormons dont have horns?

*Feels head* Nope. *hides file*

 

[valiant12]

I was just paraphrasing LOTR there. But, to give a modern example, people as late as the 1960s thought that Mormons had horns. Soooo, people will do what they want and make things up because people are different.

I always assumed that this is a joke.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I always assumed that this is a joke.

Sadly it's not. People from Minnesota asked my dad, who at the time was not Mormon but from Utah, frequently if Mormons had horns and expressed legitimate surprise they didn't. He even took advantage of this once to let a girl feel his head for horns by pretending to be Mormon when he was a teenager.

 

[Svrtnsse]

How exactly will this idea originate.
Even if dwarf women have beards they are mammals and mammals get pregnant.

Not necessarily - it depends on your setting.

The dwarves in my setting are the fruit of the Giant Rock Marshal, which is a type of fungus. As far as gender goes they come only in one kind, and I'm not sure they even have a gender at all. The beard is mainly used for catching mineral particles out of the air - kind of like how whales filter plankton out of water.

 

[Orc Knight]

Sadly it's not. People from Minnesota

Geeze, what part where they from? Sounds a bit like my area except that never came up. And also, fungoid dwarves is a neat play on 'em.

 

[valiant12]

Sadly it's not. People from Minnesota asked my dad, who at the time was not Mormon but from Utah, frequently if Mormons had horns and expressed legitimate surprise they didn't. He even took advantage of this once to let a girl feel his head for horns by pretending to be Mormon when he was a teenager.

I was talking about the scene in LOTR.