Tears of Mirrormere Discussion Thread

[piosenniel]

Just an FYI (for future reference), though I know it’s been agreed that the woman Dwarves in this RPG are without beards:

The Lord of the Rings, A Reader’s Companion by W. Hammond and C. Scull; pages 710 – 711 (About “Appendix A” of LotR) – Under the entry: ...there are few dwarf-women . . . other peoples cannot tell them apart:

By Hammond/Scull

In The Peoples of Middle-earth Christopher Tolkien comments that what is said about dwarf-women in his father’s ‘Notes on Chronology of Durin’s Line’ is similar to that published in Appendix A ‘except for the statements that they are never forced to wed against their will (which “would of course be impossible”), and that they have beards’ (p. 285). Tolkien expanded on the importance of beards to dwarves in a revision to the Quenta Silmarillion in 1951:

The Naugrim [Dwarves] were ever, as they still remain, short and squat in stature; they were deep-breasted, strong in the arm, and stout in the leg, and their beards were long. Indeed this strangeness they have that no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf – unless he were shaven in mockery, and then be more like to die of shame than of many other hurts that to us would be more deadly. For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature, or in gait or in voice, nor in anywise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at the direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls. [The War of the Jewels, p. 205]

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(Bolding in the above quote by me....)

So, it looks as if Dwarves are born bearded, both male and female.....

~*~ Pio