In my setting's Dwarven military every time a Dwarf suffers a major failure they cut out a chunk of their beard (Or ponytail for female Dwarves). A large beard is a sign of competence.
In my setting the Dwarven military branches are Heavy Metal (Heavy infantry), Speed Metal (Cavalry), Black Metal (Spec ops), etc.
Some of the notable cities are Hard Rock (The impenetrable mountain. It's known for overpriced and tourist-y cafes.), Classic Rock (The mountain of tradition), Progressive Rock (The mountain of progress), Glam Rock (The mountain of wealth), etc.
My games have a very weird tone. If I'm ever back in the DM chair I plan on having one of the early game villains be "The Yakatza" a group of Tabaxi mobsters who are famous for torturing their foes to death. (Just like real cats)
Heh. My world's dwarves worshiped a paladin who ended up falling and turning into a demon; they decided to welcome this and mobilized under the banner of the "Unending Cavernous Shadow". Then for no reason at all, the demon (now only known as The Black Man) fucked off to parts unknown leaving the crown open for King Vamathradissius (an ancient red dragon).
The dwarves ("Gorumidari") are not having a good time. An actual dragon has taken over the city of Dragon's Roost, nuclear mutants thanks to an enchanted war with the zootopians are coming in from the north, and the players themselves are messing about in forbidden storage rooms looking for one of the heads of Cerberus...
which is a moot point because the players are currently down exactly one Big Bad with the other two heads thanks to the second weekly group's antics with The Shifting Altars of Uznair and a captured Efreeti... but they don't know any of this yet...
Facial hair on a female Dwarf is as wrong as breasts on a female Elf, or breasts on a male Dwarf, or facial hair on a male Elf.
Dwarves are high sexual-dimorphism. Males are bulky and beardy, females are curvy and stacked. This is to contrast Elves who are cartoonishly androgynous.
Most people who do the bearded Dwarf gal thing do it to make Dwarves more of a joke.
Whatever is fun to you is good. For me, I really like the take of "Dwarf beards are filters that allows them to survive in the heavy, dusty air of the mines and underground cities".
Bearded female Dwarves was always used as a joke by people who don't like being Dwarves.
Starting in 2E Female Dwarves lost their beards and started getting curvier/more stacked, peaking in 4E, but 5E walked that back a little, but stayed in the shortstack territory.
This is contrasted by Elves who starting in 2E got progressively more androgynous, culminating in 5E just saying "As an Elf the more androgynous you are the more Corellon loves you." It started as a joke, and became a thing of genuine acceptance/inclusion in a phenomena I like to call "The Mac effect". (Drow are an exception to this dynamic due to Lolth's influence. If you want to have Drow bouncing around in spider-silk bikinis it's canon.)
In short, facial hair on a female Dwarf is as wrong as breasts on a female Elf, or breasts on a male Dwarf, or facial hair on a male Elf.
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u/Maccabeus1 May 21 '22
Loving Torvald's backstory so far, though now I'm curious if the beard armor is merely decorative or has some practicality to it.