Dwarves

                Classes     Warrior   Stout Warriors in heavy armor guard the high mountain halls and deep cavern furnaces of the Dwarves. They are stubborn, fearless, and well-versed in the battle-lore of many wars of vengeance. Like Gimli, Dwarf Warriors make steadfast friends and implacable foes.       Warlord   Dwarf Warlords charge towering enemies and hew them down with mighty axes. They take grim delight in tirelessly battling on, heedless of even the gravest wounds. But the valorous Warlords are also great protectors who gladly hurl themselves between enemies and those in their care.     Berserker   The joy of battle is a heady brew, but some grow too fond of it and fall into the madness of war. The ferocious Berserkers live for the din of the fray, where the blood pounds and the cares of the world disappear. Reckless in their rage, they forfeit much of their ability to defend themselves. But as long as they stand, wounds only serve to fuel their unquenchable wrath.       Dev Quotes     The Great Dwarven Female Beard Debate - LOTRsChris - 07/16/2003
It's almost as hotly debated as the Great Balrog Wing Debate, but not quite. Mostly because Female Dwarves, whilst fearsome in their own regard, cannot quite eat you like a Balrog can if you come down on the wrong side of the issue.



There is certainly a very strong case to be made for DFs to have beards. There is the possibility that the famous quote regarding DFWBs was taken out of context or it's some kind of subtle Dwarf humour. Not that I'm exactly sure that Dwarves have subtle humour (or perhaps their humour is the subtlest of all -- but that could be the start of the Great Dwarven Humour Debate), but that's the way it was presented to me.



We're still working on the DFWoB and DFWB issue. Perhaps some DFs are DFWBs and some are DFWoBs. If it's true that there are no DFWoBs and there are only DFWBs, then we're hesitant to proceed to the next logical step and interview Dwarves to find out how they can tell the difference -- which is implied by the fact that the Dwarven reproduction has not been hampered by the lack of visual differences between the genders.



We've been scouring the Books for the actual role of Dwarven Females in Middle-earth society and how they are viewed by the other races to see if we can solve this Issue of Importance.



In a more serious note, we've talked internally about Dwarven Female PCs. Obviously, in the source material we have access to, there just isn't a lot of details for us to gleen about Dwarven Females, especially Adventurers. There is quite literally no outside contact in the LOTR timeframe between Dwarven females and the other races that we know of (or that they know of, for that matter). We very much want to represent Dwarven Females as accurately as possible, whist still allowing as much player control over their appearance as possible. Since we have been wrangling with this debate internally, and we haven't been able to come up with a solution that satisfies us at this time, we are tabling Dwarven Female PCs for now. Once we get a good handle on how they should be represented within the game that satisfies the various sides, we will make them available. I am not sure of the timing of that. With the exception of the Elves, no one race (and gender combination) has caused us quite so many problems to pull off as the Dwarf Female.



Finally, the current racial concept art is very much just that -- concept art. We're moving on to new Dwarven concept art, and then we intend to redo the Elven concept art as well. After some internal production and review time, we will be updating the racial concept art on the website.



As usual, if you have any questions or comments, please let us know.



Thank you.



pax,

-Chris (Thread)     Dwarf Beards - Superscooper - 11/19/2003
That's a negative on short cropped beards for dwarves. If you want to play a character with a goatee or soul patch then I suggest playing MEO as a human. Humans will have much shorter beard styles but Dwarves will not. Dwarves will have nice full beards to choose from that befit the lore. (Thread)