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Java Fiend

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    Dwarven Women

    in General Fantasy

    Posted

    This comes up regularly on the Tolkien discussion groups.

     

    Did Dwarf women have beards?

     

    [This updates question V.D.1 of the Tolkien FAQ.]

     

    Yes. The most canonical evidence for this comes in Appendix A, where it is said of Dwarf women that

     

        They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart.

     

    It seems that (male) Dwarves in Middle-earth all have beards: among other evidence, as Bilbo sets out on his adventure in The Hobbit, we read that "His only comfort was that he couldn't be mistaken for a dwarf, as he had no beard." Given that, the quote above must imply that Dwarf women were bearded as well.

     

    However, we do not need to rely on such implications: Tolkien answered this question explicitly in other texts. In The War of the Jewels ("The Later Quenta Silmarillion: Of the Naugrim and the Edain", written ~1951), Tolkien wrote that

     

        no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf - unless he were shaven in mockery, and would then be more like to die of shame... For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike...

     

    In The Peoples of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien says that a similar statement was present in an earlier draft of Appendix A as well. As these statements are entirely in agreement with the canonical evidence cited above, the conclusion that Dwarf women had beards seems inescapable.

     

    (Steuard Jensen's Tolkien FAQ)

    I just killed Shelob!

    in Off-Topic Rampancy

    Posted

    A friend of mine has a son in the US Army who's stationed in Iraq, and he sent her some photos of a really big and nasty looking bug that he found in his tent. It was sort of a cross between a spider and a scorpion, and it was as big as your hand. He spent quite some time ranting about Evil Bugs. I thought it was a bit much for a bug, but I guess if you're writing home to Mom you can't very well rant about the really gruesome wartime stuff. :blink:

    Multi Piece Miniature

    in Reaper General & Faq's

    Posted

    Speaking as a clerk in a game store, I have to agree with the concerns some others have raised. We carry several lines of minis, and most of our mini sales are from the Dark Heaven line. Most of those seem to be sold for gaming purposes. That can vary from the gamer picking up one or two minis to represent his characters, to those who GM or paint for the group and pick up a wider selection. A lot of those people are turned off by multi-part minis (as in, they will put one back if they notice it is multi-part or if I point that out to them.) As far as I can tell, the RPers hardly ever even look at the Warlord minis, although I will often point them out, particularly if I'm helping people look for a specific character type and there's a Warlord that fits it. I'm not sure if the RPers are ignoring Warlord because they tend to be a little more expensive, or if it's because they are perceived as more complex or painter's minis or what. I think even the fact of the base being separate might be turning some of them off.

    I'm one of those old school AD&D gamers who will not buy a Warlord figure -- or Warhammer, or Confrontation, or Rackham, or Freebooter -- because it's got multiple parts. I happen to like one-piece miniatures. As a result, my miniatures consist mainly of Reaper DHL, Ral Partha, Grenadier, Rafm, and reaching farther back, preslotta Citadel, and Superior. I even happen to like broccoli bases. So there. ::P:

     

    Given the breadth of Reaper's lines, however, I think it would be reasonable to do a few multi-piece packs as described. I will admit that one thing I envy GW users for is the way they can build up such cool bitz boxes.

    And isn't that what the Warlord line is for? Keep DHL one-pieced as much as possible, and integral-based too, thank you very much.

    Camera Search

    in Shutterbug

    Posted

    Speaking as a camera novice, I'd like to underscore one of Aryanun's implicit suggestions. Aryanun mentioned making sure the camera has a tripod mount. Get a tripod, and use it. It really, really helps with the stability of your miniatures photos. It seems obvious but it wasn't to me, not for the first six months. ::P:

    Minis You Would Like To See Part II

    in Reaper General & Faq's

    Posted

    More angels.  I went through the catalog marking mini's for potential use in Heaven vs. Hell type thing and there's a marked disparity between the number of angels and demons.

    I can understand why angels, and other good-aligned creatures, are underrepresented by miniatures companies. After all, mostly you use miniatures when you need to run a combat, and mostly your PCs are going to be good-aligned, so you probably will have them fighting evil-aligned opponents. That's where the demand is for miniatures.

     

    Having said that, it would be nice to have not only more angels, but more celestial figs of various sorts. For example, it would be cool to have those guys with human heads and winged lion bodies, from Hebrew and Babylonian myth -- what are they called?

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