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Is it just me, or do dwarven PCs never get talked to by the NPC's at all? No romances, and only one inquiry so far off ol' Yoshimo. Is this gonna continue throughout the game? Why doesn't anyone like him? WHY?

I don't think evles and half-elves are attracted much to a surly dwarf. Excpt maybe Aerie (because Quayle is a gnome). Face it dwarves don't have the greatest reputation for being charmers.

Except, of course, with other dwarves...

And maybe halflings.. they are distant relatives aren't they? (I read 'the Silmarillion' about 10 years ago, and I don't even know if it is applicable to Faerun)

Besides, the pc wouldn't be attracted to the ladies, because unlike dwarf women, they don't have beards!!!

Hobbits are most definately not related to dwarves in middle earth, although the harfoot strain have historically had stronger social links to drarves than other strains of hobbits.

Hobbits are a subclass of humans

I don't see the point in denying romances to dwarf PC's. Why, doesn't the fair Lady Irlana (a human knight) marry the gnome Cyrlando? If so, why not the poor PC? Seems that even being a god doesn't give you the easy way with girls if you're ugly

In PnP ADnD Darksun campaign you had Muls which were half dwarfs. So I suppose there is nothing to stop Dwarf/Human relationns

This whole "dwarves are ugly only to other dwarves, but elves, hubba hubba" is pretty silly. It's due to dwarves and gnomes having been moved directly into modern (the last century) fiction from Teutonic and Slavic folklore. Edwardian British writers regarded anything un-British as possibly fascinating but definitely dangerous and usually ugly: Jews were ugly and subtle, Russians were large and vicious, the Japanese were two-tongued snakes, etc. Dwarves accordingly lost whatever charisma they had when they made the trip west into Britain. Dunsany, who established the pattern Tolkien followed, never came 'em a chance.

But elves, sprites, pixies--these were Celtic. The spirit of nationalism meant that all the negative traits (and there were some truly disgusting looking elves in Celtic folklore) were banished, while the good stuff was emphasized. Dunsany made 'em incredibly attractive, while Tolkien, who yearned for a non-Industrial England that existed only in his dreams, added the "green philosophy" to elves.

I agree, dwarves got a bum rap. Sure, they're short and sturdy, but in non-Celtic lore the females weren't unattractive at all, and some of the males were handsome. The kings were magisterial and profound; they were masters of the earth element, while the Celtic elves were masters of air. The elves moved over to earth during the 19th century, when pixes and such were confused with elves.

Hope that helps.

Fable,
Would you prefer a short, overly muscled, bearded woman or man or a taller (but still short) serene, gentle, fine man or women. I guess if you like beards you go for a dwarf but elves in Celtic mythology are designed to attract humans, excluding the dark elves which are much like drow in attitude.

Has anyone ever seen a picture of a female Dwarf with a beard?

I've seen one of a beardless and no doubt attractive (to the vertically challenged) Dwarf lady. Somewhere on the NWN site, IIRC.

[Edit] Oh, and the D&D3 manual also depicts the Dwarf female as definitely beardless.

Wasn't it one of Gary Gygax's less appreciated thoughts that they did have beards? Must've been one of his worst ideas...

[ 08-14-2001: Message edited by: Xyx ]

Well dwarves in order to preserve their race kidnap human women and have children creating half-dwarves.

The thing with dwarves is that they do not want to intereact with other races, and aren't to fond of the idea of being clean.