TheBrasse.com wishes to apologize to anyone who suffered permanent retinal damage after viewing today's comic. Have your lawyers contact our legal department, where Brakk will be happy to roast and eat them.

First, a history of my beard.
My first online dwarf, Bhinder, was a male. I started with the launch of EQ in 1999, and tried, twice, to make a female character. Each time, within ten minutes, the number of lewd and crude comments thrown my way by the 98% male playerbase (which was also 50% out of control and just plain asinine), convinced me to make my main a male.

Typical interchange, witnessed by Alluvian in EQ:
passing male enchanter: wow, nice rack.
me as female elf: ...
PME: no really, I mean it!

Now, back in the day, the EQ models were very chunky polygonals. That this guy felt obliged to comment on my rack... says something very bad, on so many different levels that 8 years later, I am still trying to figure it out.

In any case, my main character, Bhinder the Dwarven Cleric, was very male.

It was my son, Gordon, that provided the inspiration for the character that later became Brasse, when he created a female Dwarven Paladin named Eesti. She was blonde, and bearded. He had a whole side hobby of finding ways to respond to the incredibly insightful and thoughtful comments and reactions other EQ players had to the character.

Comments were typically along the lines of "UR UGLY!" and "get a shave" and "christ, that is the ugliest thing I've ever seen." He loved to play off these people and leave them in the dust with his witty repartee. Gordon had a deep pride in the appearance of his avatar, and the lore of Dwarves in general.

When I joined the EQ guide program a year later, that is the form I took. The blond, bearded, female Dwarf... Brasse. Since that time, her hair color has changed to match mine, red (not an option in old EQ). Other than that, she is much the same as ever.

I admit that before I decide on my avatar for the game, I check to see what the facial hair options are for female Dwarves. More and more often, I find there simply aren't any. In an attempt to make them more "palatable" to the public, they have bare chins. I mean really - if someone wants a sexy femme fatale look, they are not going to go with Dwarf anyway, are they? We're a bit on the hefty, hulking side. Well, except for the ludicrous female Dwarves in Lineage, but I digress....

I offer huge kudos to EQ and EQII for allowing females to have beards in what I consider the traditional fashion. Tradition in my case stemming from the first literature to really catch my interest some 30+ years ago, the works of Tolkien.

The Naugrim 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 would then be more like to die of shame than of many other hurts that to us would seem 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 any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls. It is said, also, that their womenkind are few, and that save their kings and chieftains few Dwarves ever wed; wherefore their race multiplied slowly, and now is dwindling.
[“The History of Middle-Earth“; volume 11: “The War of the Jewels“; part II: “The Later Quenta Silmarillion”; chapter 13: “Concerning the Dwarves”]

Well, of course people rarely see females - they can't freaking tell what we look like, can they? Easy to work around this lore.

So let me get my scorecard out for games that have Dwarves:

Warhammer Online: no beards, in accordance with their own lore going back 25 years. Clearly they didn't read Tolkien.
WoW: no beards. Probably because they lifted Dwarf lore from Warhammer, like many other things. My main is a Gnome, therefore.
Lineage II: not only are there no beards for females, but the females look like an entirely different species from males, being saccharine-cutesy anime dolls. The males actually look like Dwarves. May I say... WTF?
DAOC: no beards, which is why my main ended up being a troll.
LOTRO: no gender selection at character creation - an excellent compromise, and playing to the inability of outsiders to tell the difference. Brasse in Middle Earth is a very handsome and powerfully built lass indeed. A Dwarf's Dwarf!
EQ: two beard options, and very sensible body style.
EQII: three beard options, none of them great, but no freaking mustache!! In the SOGA models, there is no beard in sight. Surely they could have included an OPTION. The physique is on the flimsy side for a Dwarf in both cases.
Vanguard: No beards in the short time I played the game, although the beard selector was THERE on the character creation screen. Anyone able to confirm this?

I know full well that the upcoming Conan title doesn't have Dwarves, but it does have an M rating, so I am betting that the chainmail bikini is going to make a comeback. I remember some early screens of EQII where they had a female "paladin" dressed in little more than what Brasse has in in the comic. The male EQII paladin was of course fully encased in armor. I am glad that idiotic dichotomy did not make it to launch.

I cannot think of a more ludicrous armor choice than the chainmail bikini, really. Maybe kleenex. No self-respecting Dwarf would ever dress like that. We know what armor is supposed to do; unlike other races, we never leave our boobs, midriff and thighs hanging out in battle.

Get a grip, you floozies. The Orcs do not want to invite you out on a date, they want to sever an artery and take your phat lootz. Maybe roast you afterwards with some tex-mex grillin' sauce.

I eagerly await the next title that will make me proud to be a Dwarf again - meanwhile, Brasse is living it up in LOTRO, and eagerly awaiting EQII's Rise of Kunark expansion!

Go ahead and tell me to be more open-minded in this thread, where I will ignore you. I'll give up on my beard as soon as really tall Hobbits, pointy eared humans and morbidly obese Elves start populating games.

;-)#
Brasse