Hello! I am Confy / Miss_Confined and I have played dwarves and half-dwarves on and off for the past three years. I am suggesting some additions onto the dwarf race as a whole to try and get more players to play them. I haven’t really seen many active dwarves. Actually, I’ve only seen two other dwarves which happened to be male. Nothing against male dwarves, I’m thrilled that any dwarves are being played at all, however, female dwarves leads into what I’m about to suggest. My suggestion is that female dwarves have beards. And I am going to weigh the pros and cons for others to see reasons why we should and should not have an option of beards for female dwarves. First, I’m going to pitch my idea: I believe that female dwarves should have the option of having a beard. I believe that it could help spruce up the race a bit more, make their design more interesting, and give them a chance to have a more varied appearance as well as play into culture. (I am intending on drawing some dwarven beards for both males and females to illustrate what I mean.) Now, pros and cons. Pros: Female dwarves having beards can cause more variety in appearance. This can potentially spark more interest in playing a female dwarf. The beards would be optional so that if a player didn’t want their female dwarf (or dwarf in general) to grow a beard they can just shave it off. Beards are pretty cool and there are many options on how to braid and customize a character. It could add some uniqueness to the race as opposed to the appearance that female dwarves are just stouter and “less-pretty” Ailor. Adds the potential of playing into homeland and backstory based on the accessories and style of the beard. (I think it would be awesome. Totally valid reason.) Cons: Female dwarves having beards has been introduced before in Lord of the Rings. However, taken from this quote after putting ‘Lord of the Rings dwarves’ into google: “Gimli: It's true you don't see many Dwarf women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for Dwarf men. ... The Return of the King, 360 (App A)] Since beards were part of the appearance, not the garb, of dwarf-men, we must conclude that dwarf-women did in fact have beards.” It can be concluded that female dwarves in Lord of the Rings cannot be distinguished from males. This means that there is an opportunity here to make them distinguishable. Which I will touch upon after adding the cons list. The argument that female dwarves having beards is “silly.” How to fix the “Lord of the Rings Crisis” so that female dwarves are not like the dwarves in LOTR? Female dwarves can have an entirely different type of traditional clothing and beard styles than men. Female dwarves can retain a more feminine (but still gruff) voice than males. Female dwarves can have a higher probability to inherit lighter hair colors such as light ginger, ginger, light brown, auburn, brunette, chestnut brown, etc. as opposed to darker colors. Female dwarves would not often be mistaken for men due to their differences in figure, beard styling and clothing. Dwarven Culture: As a whole, I am aware that dwarves are not a highly played race. In fact, I’m aware that mostly, people don’t want to play dwarves. But I believe that dwarves deserve some love too. Most people are inclined to play tall characters. However, dwarves are strong and really interesting in their own right. I was thrilled when the Humorrin and Aldor sub-races came out. However, I think that some sort of culture or at least something that touches upon dwarves in Regalia might be interesting! Because if all the dwarves are cooped up strictly in the holds, how would they be played? Perhaps there could be a more social group or little gathering of dwarves? Though really this is just a side note to female dwarves having beards. In truth, my entire reasoning for wanting female dwarves to have beards is to help spark more interest into female dwarves and dwarves in general being played. I personally would love for my female dwarf to have a beard because I think it’d be fun! Any suggestions for cons to female beards, thoughts in general, or shout-outs that you have an actively played dwarf would be appreciated! I’d love to meet and roleplay with you all! Thanks so much!
You already know my opinion on this~ Plus, Adalsteinn needs to find a wife with a beard as awesome as his! :D
Im just remembering the line from the Dungeons and Dragons movie "you need to find you a lassy with good dwarven beard, so you can pull on it eh?" then he did pully motions while air humping. Either way im in favor, sounds funny and its a little overdone but like, why not so is the concept of dwarves and elves and rocs etc anyway so like yolo
While this is a very cute idea, I don't think this will get more people to play the race. The issues lie in what they compete against: A race of snakes that can shapeshift. A race of lizards that can have feathers and bright colors. Elves that can semi shape-shift. Elves that can sing and shape wood + their foreign appearance. Elves semi-immune to magic. A really strong minotaur race. Really strong green people. Cat people. Cat people lite (tm) Ailor which can literally do anything at this point. Oh and plant people, who can do. Plant things. I think the problem with Dwarves is that they're just. Plain? And if someone wants to play a plain combative or magic character, I believe they're more likely to choose Ailor to be a full size individual. Dwarves suffer from all the races sparkling, and while itself is well written, it's just bland compared to the rest. just my thoughts though.
Wait a sec...... THERE ISA D&D MOVIE?! HOW COME I HAVE NOT HEARD OF THIS?! ~~~~( )~~~~ Aaand on a more related note, I love the idea! It certainly does make female dwarves more interesting. I actually may consider playing a dwarf a bit if this comes out. It could be fun :D
True, true... But can any of their women grow beards? Hm? HMMM? xD In all seriousness though I really like this idea @Miss_Confined . Sure it might not change much or get many people to play dwarves, but.. women with beards xD . It's just a small quirky idea that could add to roleplay in a way that, sure, might not be significant, but is just fun and could add some interesting stuff to dwarven culture. Really all I can ask myself about this idea is: Why not?
But if Dwarven woman had beards, they would be immune to the patriarchy, and isn't that the most powerful immunity of them all?
Our best bet to differentiate Dwarves is to break them off into something more unique entirely. Beards on women will not make anyone want to role play as a Dwarf. Not really. Not for more than a joke character, anyway. Dwarves as a concept are repeated over and over in all sorts of media because of how hard it is to make them unique. First off, this is something I've always thought was needed, we need to scrap Tolkein terms. Dwarves and Elves etc etc can all be replaced. We've all but phased out Elf in favor for Nelfin, and all but phased out Man in favor of Ailor or Humanum. Dwarves, on the other hand, remain Dwarves. So, we phase out the term Dwarf. That's good. It removes preconceptions and opens things up to interpretation and creativity. We can still keep the foundation of the race, even with a name change. Short, stout race Broad features Plentiful hair Live primarily under ground and in large keeps We can use a little bit of science to figure out the best direction for the concept. If we're being reasonable, we have a couple choices for the path for Dwarves. They live underground, in a cold environment. Perhaps the proto-Dwarves were more reptilian than mammalian, or more insectoid than mammalian. That would make sense given the environment, but neither of those things keep with some of our major features. Insects almost always have thin limbs and body parts, which doesn't lend itself towards broad features or stoutness. It's fair to take insectoid proto-Dwarves off the table. Similar with reptilian. Ellador is cold, which doesn't lend itself to reptiles. This means that our best bet is going to be rodent-like proto-Dwarves. Knowing that Dwarves live underground, we can determine several things. Like with many other sub-surface mammals (Moles are a particularly good example, given what we want Dwarves to be) we could give Dwarves the following. Large, flat, paddle-like hands with thick, long nails for pushing away dirt and debris. Long, straight, stiff body hair that act as extremely effective sensory organs. Mostly grown on the face and head. Like whiskers on a cat or dog, but longer and much much much more plentiful. Weak eyesight, but a unique eyesight that makes all raw precious metals glisten slightly. This creates an effective culture built around mining and raw metals. This gives them further reason to remain the underground species. Makes them invaluable for mining teams and operations. Powerful olfactory sense, which allows for detection of dangerous gasses or chemicals. Stomach that compresses materials down and then excretes them as an extremely combustable, "Chip," that burns well when lit on fire, and ignites spontaneously when met with a sudden impact. A unique racial ability that could add on to several different parts of the lore. These, "Dwarf Chips," would perhaps lose effectiveness after about twenty-four hours, but would burn hotter and harder than coal or other flammable materials. Would create an entire economy around fattening Dwarves up until they create the highest quality Dwarf Chips. Perhaps their body also filters out poison and compresses it into these Dwarf Chips. Could allow you to turn conventionally liquid poisons into a significantly less effective gas poison. Would add a cool crime aspect to Dwarves that sell their body and let people feed them poisons. Penchant for smith work and technology. Short, stout, broad bodies aren't great for combat, and aren't particularly good for much else. A reliance on technology and using their environment around them (precious metals, Dwarf Chips, etc) would give them a motivation to focus on technological advance and improving their weapons. Cultural or religious tendency to value grandeur and size. This would encourage large, beautiful, architecturally unique homes and fortresses and keeps. It would also encourage Dwarves to be subservient to the Regalian Empire, which is a very large and successful empire. This is an interesting idea, in my head. It essentially means that Dwarven empires and groups would snowball. If a group gets off the ground and gets good size, more Dwarves will want to join and be subservient to that group. This increases the likelihood of a largely Unionist population, which would further connect them to the Regalian Empire. Dwarves are in a bad spot right now. Beards on female Dwarves won't help much if that's the only change.
I 100% agree! I just feel the beard thing could be interesting to add! I don't see why it isn't allowed currently! Though there definitely needs to be something to make dwarves stand out! I'm not any sort of staff and frankly I don't quite know how to change anything else than offering suggestions but maybe some more cultural richness like dances etc. might help? Again, I love dwarves and everything they stand for, truly, I honestly would just be thrilled to be able to have a bearded dwarf lady too. I understand that everyone seems to think it's a joke, however I'm entirely serious. It's a design choice I'd like to make with my character and have it offered to other characters which is why I'm suggesting it. I'm a very literal person so perhaps that's why I'm not necessarily seeing the joke aspect other than recognizing others could see it as silly. --- @Aeruscator I will address my concerns with what you just described in a little bit. But thank you for your contributions!
I'm surprised the gas immunity, resistance, and the accelerated healing haven't been factored in. Sounds like the ideal crime race that can gas an entire room and do their dirty work and then get out. And if they get a bit scratched up in the process, wait a few days vs a week. Maybe give them a "knack" that allows them to learn some skill faster than others, such as a forging school. Just spitballing here.
A race is played because it fills a niche. Dwarfs don't. Massive has a rich lore with races that fill different niches, dwarfs are just not interesting and should be removed. They could be changed but most niches are already occupied and if changes are large it makes little sense to still call that a dwarf. I'll back my argument with data: This year, there have only been 6 new dwarf characters. That puts the race as less popular than the Circci (7 new characters) and just above the recently removed Ur and Dakkar (5 new characters each). Along with the dwarfs the Rashaq and Wulong should go (4 and 2 new characters respectively).
Similar to @Aeruscator 's suggestion on mole dwarves, while these arguments are both interesting, I personally feel it doesn't address anything I mentioned. I am not fond of the idea of making dwarves into an animalistic race. I think it would make me lose my appeal entirely for the race. (If I'm being honest. But it's very creative.) I also very much love dwarves. I think it would be a shame to get rid of the stout folk. There's tons of really tall characters on the server. Some short and stout ones should be allowed here. Perhaps there could be something implemented on a larger scale in the future, though it's just my hopes here. You're of course allowed to state your opinion on the matter and I appreciate your thoughts, but I think it's a bit derailing. There's other dwarves around. I'm already getting a few more handfuls of players to consider dwarves. If you'd like to make a thread on removing of races go on ahead, but I'd like to keep this thread about how to improve upon dwarves and some of the suggestions I made above.
I do want to clarify, as my goal was to add on to the OP. If you would rather add on to your original post in a direct way, I'd say the following: Even if you culturally individualize female Dwarves, give them a higher genetic likelihood for lighter hair colors, and allow them to remain feminine, it will not draw new players. It's unlikely, anyway. They still won't fill a niche. They change from, "Short species where the males are bearded, that lives underground and mines and tinkers," to, "Short species where both genders/sexes are bearded, that lives underground and mines and tinkers and has subtle cultural differences between the genders/sexes." That isn't necessarily a change at all. It just gives you more creative options, which doesn't make them fill a new niche and doesn't make them very unique. I would argue, based on that, that nothing will change with Dwarves. They don't become different, and don't fill a niche. They instead become, "Slightly more bearded short species that lives underground and mine and tinker." It isn't like Slizzar, which are, "Shape shifting snakes with mind control powers." There is nothing interesting about being short and having a beard. It doesn't draw players, and therefore needs to be revised. It doesn't fill a niche, and therefore needs to be revised. Perhaps prove me wrong. Change the poll at the top of the thread to read: "If female Dwarves got beards would it make you interested enough to invest the time into creating one and getting it approved?" Yes No ---------------- I wrote the above section last, and the one below this first Like is said, Dwarves don't fill a niche. My goal in listing off those ideas was just to provide some ideas that would make them fit their proposed niche better than they currently do. I was taking inspiration from moles and ground-rodents more than anything. I don't want them to be animalistic, I want them to make sense for their environment. From the standpoint of biology, being short and having body hair does not make you fit for living underground. It makes you fit for foraging for food in moderate or cold environments. Being good at digging, having a good sense of touch, having a good sense of smell, and being more broad and dense are all good things for living underground as a mammal. Taking inspiration from moles keeps them grounded in reality, but also allows them to be fantasy-based and have some cool abilities, like the Dwarf-Chip concept. And, if the beards were more of a sensory organ (a bunch of whiskers) than they are for keeping warm or just a left over trait from ancestors, then they could be much longer and would/could be on both males and females. You're right. For sake of diversity in design, a short race like Dwarves needs to remain. However, they run into a lot of issues that aren't being addressed all that often from what I can gather. Those being the issue of originality in design and niche filling, which have been mentioned in this thread only, as far as I'm aware. ----------- Wrote the above section first, and the below second As for people thinking that female Dwarves with beards are a joke? That's because it kind of is. Even Tolkein wrote it in as a joke and an insult to the people groups that he thought were analogous to the Dwarves from the Lord Of The Rings and There And Back Again. People take it as a joke because that's what its origin is, so taking people seriously that are being literal about their want for it is difficult for some. I hope I didn't sound condescending at some point. If I did, I'm sorry.
I have no intention to derail the post. The point I make is that dwarfs have a problem that small changes will not solve. Large changes (e.g. making them mole people) could be interesting but then it makes no sense to name the resulting creature a dwarf. Your suggestions create minimal changes that don't solve the problem (lack of a niche).
I remember interacting with a group of 4 Dwarves this summer in the middle of the tavern while I was being a Dwarf myself. May I see where this data came from or how you came to these numbers? Not all characters are approved or even have an application, but the Dwarvish numbers are indeed thin. The issue that might arise from wanting to remove them is how often the lore actually mentions them (Dragons, Isldar, Vasara, et cetera), not to mention that overall lore was already overhauled through magic, the removal of Dakkar, and the introduction / removal of multiple racial changes that aren't yet done being modified or updated (Slizzar, Yanar, Wolathar, Dakkar, at cetera). The push to be a Dwarf simply doesn't seem to be too heavy since events tying them in as much as the Elves and Songaskia are few and far between, aside from random mentions of their progress due to global events (such as the bone horrors and reclaiming their bases from the Isldar). I've even heard a couple people that wished they could play female Dwarves with beards every once in a while. However... I unfortunately agree with this. While a beard might be a funny addition, I don't see how it could affect their population significantly. In my opinion, a lot of races appeal to people due to their physical appearance and physical prowess. Ever since Slizzar could become generally attractive humans with seductive power, I've noticed their population spike to numbers I haven't seen in a while. The same thing applies to the introduction of different Elves. Ailor have the most rights in the city, followed by that they are the easiest to mold into any niche people want since opportunities are greater. Allar, even with their changes that make them a wonderful race (regeneration, extreme intellect, flappy personality), simply aren't popular because they aren't extremely attractive. Orcs and Maiar are popular because they can be played as sharks or strongmen of their field. Dwarves, however, are only above average in strength and below average in 'beauty' (despite having regeneration, stronger lungs, and greater strength). Adding a beard might actually hurt the population because people would become a Dwarf for a day for the giggles, but then go right back to their usual Elves and Ailor. To my perspective, perhaps the inclusion of Dwarves into progressions that actually affect Regalia or bring them closer to the Regalian populace might be the best choice for a race that can't change much more than it has. Each time there was a progression mentioning a sudden influx of different racial immigrants fleeing conflict or trying to stir trouble, a large list of characters popped up and stuck around for at least a month or so. Any rebuttals or additions, @Miss_Confined? Sorry for this wall of text!
People are saying that the addition won't make them more popular, but I don't think every feature of a race has to be something that can be used as an advertisement against the "competition" for something totally cool and flashy you can get if you give in and play one. Sometimes it's nice to just have little features to give people another thing to work with for their character development.
Going to do a long post and put it in a spoiler. Spoiler: Response I have by no means said that female dwarves having beards will be the sole savior that provides more dwarves to be played. It's NOT. This is the first suggestion I've made, so please pardon my timid responses or slight defensiveness but I was only doing this as a QUIRK for the appearances of dwarves. Yes, I did imply that it might cause people to play dwarves. Maybe. But I didn't imply that it would be the reason for other players to jump over all the other races to play a dwarf. Some facial hair won't fix that. Pauleen / Hiu put it in the best words possible: Its a QUIRK. It's something I thought was fun. I don't read Lord of the Rings, I don't know Tolkien, all I know is that it's been suggested to me and supported a few times that I mentioned: "Hey that'd be fun." I am by no means trying to cause an argument. I'm by no means trying to say that a few beards are going to save the day. All I really wanted was another choice for players to make in their character's design. That's all. Heck. I just really love playing Wyn. I really love roleplaying with @HandsomeJack 's dwarf. I'm really excited that I can help a few players make dwarves. It's just something I really enjoy. I know nothing of player counts. Nothing of how to get a ton of dwarves into progressions. By all means, if you have a better suggestion, go for it! This was solely meant for the aesthetics and character designs of dwarves. Just a little bit of fun. Sure, I'd love to have something like what @FireFan96 said implemented: I think it's a fantastic idea and would help get more dwarves in the slums and would make a lot of sense. I'd love to see this happen. (Which isn't to say other ideas suck, because) this was just simpler and easier to understand words to some of the concepts @Aeruscator had. In all, this is just me trying to get more character design options. I'm not truly ready to tackle the whole "problem" of people not playing a race. I just thought that maybe it'd be a nice suggestion to help inspire others to maybe play the race, but not the sole, only savior. It's going to take a lot more than beards. @Magivore @Aeruscator @Proudbucket Spoiler: Female Beard Concepts I will admit, these are kind of hilarious, but I did the first prototypes because I wanted some fun. These are PROTOTYPES AND ARE VERY FAR FROM THE FINAL VERSIONS OF IDEAS. Spoiler: Dwarf Ugliness And finally on @Magivore 's topic of ugliness. Not everything can be beautiful. I personally find dwarves adorable and my character is the literal definition of hideous. Other players/characters are attracted to my character because of her personality and how I portray her. Even in her ugliness, she has determination and grit, and dreams and aspirations. Her ugliness makes her more human. Now! That being said, "prettiness" and how a character looks is often a very important selling point. But I personally believe that beauty shouldn't be the sole deciding factor. In truth, perhaps if some sort of ability comes out for dwarves maybe more people will play them regardless of the apparent "ugliness". Thank you so much!
Just because it "won't solve everything" doesn't mean it wouldn't be cool to have. It's an extra bit of fun, the bigger picture doesn't have to be part of it until the bigger picture is being directly addressed. We don't need Dwarves to be an oversaturated race with shapeshifting powers or half the people on the server playing them. Hell, having their presence be / remain a rarity not only makes them cooler in my opinion, but it also fits with the lore. I continue to like the idea.
Data comes from ~800 character sheets that were posted this year. I wrote a script to download them, used different regex to get species data and format it into a cvs that I analyzed with R. If you know how to handle csv and you are interested in the data I can share it with you. EDIT: you know what, I'm going to paste it here. You can probably check it by hand or with excel. Notice that the data was extracted around 1 month ago so it won't include url characters. In the dataset you can also find data on culture because it often goes with race. DATA HERE
Nah, that's alright! There was only a concern that those numbers were randomly given, such as that 95% of statistics are often made-up on the spot, whereas the other 25% of statistics are false. Thank you for the effort of finding that data, though! Citations and data are fantastic to have on hand. While very true, many people also hold this same opinion without really living up to it. Seeing as a beard really won't decide the fate of the Dwarves, I personally am fine with the addition or lack of addition of a beard.
id absolutely love to play a bearded dwarf lady, personally. i see no reason for that not to be an added quirk. you don't even have to have a beard. i would hate for dwarves to be removed. people aren't playing them not because they're ugly, but because they're so generic- no offense to the lore writers who tried to revamp them. they just need some flair that isnt generic dwarf- something that isn't all about living underground or steampunk technology or whatever. beauty isn't necessarily a selling point, at least not for me- it's unique and interesting lore. and for massivecraft, lore similar to the dnd concept of dwarves won't cut it- it needs some more that people will find good for roleplay. here are some of my vague ideas on them, sorry if it's just repeats of what's said before PLEASE diversify dwarves more- dwarves are all too often solely represented as pale, mountain-dwelling buff men with axes. give dwarves a range in skin tone and color. let people leave their own unique mark on their dwarf character. i understand the aldor can have darker skin, but that's only due to interbreeding with ailor give dwarves a more interesting conflict than them fighting with a race we can't even play as. give dwarves more innate challenges other than stuff that comes as a result of their bodies. give dwarves a unique religion, or push the old gods religion- not too many ailor worship the old gods. why? because dwarves need to be more than short humans who are grumpy smiths. dwarves should have unique abilities or traits, like how the shendar and wulong have their own racial abilities- maybe not something as magical, but something. Give them something they can do that ailor can't- the dwarf race doesn't offer enough to convince me to play them instead of ailor. currently, nothing really stands out to me about dwarves. nothing grabs me or pulls me in to make me play this race. I want to play dwarves- in fact, I'll make a dwarf character, but they need some serious spicing up. dwarves aren't a bad race to have. our lore is just unoriginal. i want communist dwarves OKAY BUT I LOVE THE MOLE PEOPLE PROMPT. I don't see why massivecraft can't have their own totally unique take on dwarves and not call them dwarves tho? please don't take away the wulong i love their lore so much whaaat!! people just don't want to play ugly monkeys that's thE ONLY PROBLEM i love my monkey boy. they may be rarely used races, but character apps don't mean that people aren't playing them. it just means that the lore doesn't give them a reason to make a character app. when would anyone want a wulong for a group? why make a character app that'll never be used for anything?
The drought of bearded women in Aloria has done irreparable harm to the circus side-show business. The sooner this can be remedied, the better!
Perhaps, and here is a bit more of a progression-based idea, you could: Bring the Holds back into power, perhaps even make them the center of a few progessions Introduce more races of dwarves, (eg. Glacier dwarves, Deep-dwelling dwarves) Perhaps even introduce another racial ability, something like a resistance to fire, to fill the Dakkar's niche BRING THE HOLDS BACK INTO POWER Make it possible for dwarves to be nobility? (Kinda biased there, but -_0_-) Give them a bit of a more technology based aspect, perhaps include all those old Technology posts after some reworking, lets make the dwarves a possible contender to the Regalian Empire! Now, I might be a bit biased with these, (As I play 2 dwarven characters) but its a way to increase intrigue without having to fully rework the race.
Some kind of gear/steampunk/augment-class available only to dwarves sounds like something people might latch onto. I, for one, would love to see a Dwarf with spring legs!
I agree in every way, not to push them fully steampunk, just edging in that direction, empathize their ingenuity
In the lore, Dwarves are said to stay hidden in their mountain holds and rarely travel. Therefore, it would make sense that one would not see many Dwarves in regalia, or anywhere other than their dwarf holds. And as many Dwarves roleplay factions located underground, and in the sides of large mountains it would also make sense that they are rarely encountered in while wondering faction worlds.
Aye, but to counter that, many races that shouldn't be near Regalia at all (Silvathar, Dakkar) have been moderately to widely played
