Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Bearded females

Interesting option given by Larian, in the appereance tab you can choose "facial hair" for females too :O :O :O

I'm all for more options. If I can make a green tiefling I don't see why ladies can't have beards.

I actually really like how they handled it so far. It initially gives you the "lore friendly" hair, skin, and eye options. But you can expand it and choose something unnatural if you want to be silly or to facilitate a more unique aspect of your character. Like if I wanted to make a GOOlock with a greenish pallid, unhealthy skin tone and black, evil eyes because his benefactor is slowly transforming his body into an incubator to birth some great tentacled monstrosity into the world. I could totally do that with the current set up!

Fully agreed. There's no harm letting players create silly characters.

Now, I hope Larian goes more consistent on that freedom, and unlocks hair styles that are unavailable to certain races.

(They should then change a bit the UI, because cycling through a list of 30+ options isn't the greatest way to do it, but that's another point.)

Women have beards. pretending they don't is pretty much a western beauty trends thing.

I wish the hair options were available for all characters though it's weird they're locked behind gender when they're all haircuts that IRL everyone has and would just look great on my character.

Lets make a little biology off topic [allert: I will talk from a biological point of view that is anatomy and genetics, I won't consider the concept of gender identity, that is a psicologycal topic]

Women don't have beards.

It's biology not western whatever (furthermore I can not remember Japanese or Chinese or Indian, or Arabic, or African, or Aborigen, or pre Colombian, forms of art, historic documents, that show bearded women, or that describe woman facial hair as an estethic attirbute related to their culture).

Different hair patterns is a secondary sexual trait, like the different tone of voices, the fact that males have more muscular mass, anatomic attributes that are strictly tied to the different distribution of hormones and to the different pair of sexual genes (in females is XX in males is XY).

Beard defines a particular and gender specifci facial hair, in women there is indeed facial hair but not like that in men. Even when in the biological variability of phisical traits a man has scarce facial hair the amount is however more that tha facial hair present in some women.

Indeed when a person transition and start hormonal treatments to align their body with their gender identity in male to female transition the presence of facial hair start to decrease, and same happens to body hair in areas like the chest or abbdomeen (but in some cases still remains so diffuse that shaving is needed) while in female to male transition there is an increase of facial hair and body hair in the already said areas, to a level that it became proper beards even if maybe not as thick as in the average cis-male.

[Also I don't see any Asian, African, Native american, both north, center, and south America, art representation of bearded women, nor the antique artistic reperts, or the historical ones, show a culture where bearded women are described, depicted].

Beard vs not beard, those are social trends and are tightly tied to each culture and society.

[On a side and personal note: I'm Italian, my origins are Colombian, that is I know two different cultures Italian and Spanish derived one. When I read "western" I sneer because indeed there are similarities between Spanish and Italian culture, but they are very different, even in this times of world spread homologation, they have their own individuality, just like all the cultures that people like to unified under the "western" tag have their own peculiarities and indvidualities. To unified very different cultures on a single label is, ironically, very "western" style, and wrong just like is wrong to talk about Asian without caring about the fact that China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philipines and so on are different nation with different backgrounds, to talk about Native American ignoring the fact that the autoctone populations have their own uniqueness, to talk about Africa like it is uniform, to talk about Islam and Arabics again flying over the vast variety of individual cultures and nationalities.

Specially when it comes to use a label to show a prejudice, like the fact that "pretending they don't is a western beauty trend"]

When we take on account the psychological side and gender identity we can have bearded women (like we can have men that have menstruation) like Conchita Wurst (but again from a biological point of view and from a genetic point of view the beard is related to the XY pair of genes and the menstruation to the XX pair of genes).

Chaucer wrote something about this in The Miller's Tale:

"Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd,
And seyde, "Fy! allas! what have I do?"

Females can certainly have facial hair, though many would prefer not, but I have yet to see any display the "mutton chops" of a proper gentleman.

hypertrichosis. Certainly rare but does occur.

Sometimes even on axes.

And you are incorrect. Older women start growing beards, though few are as full as that. I have seen many, many cis women who don't bother grooming themselves in that way and have full mustaches or wispy beards.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion...men-have-it-why-are-we-so-deeply-ashamed

1 in 14 end up growing excessive hair and more beyond that grow sparse facial hair. Biology is sloppy.

As a trans woman, I would never want to play as a bearded lady - but I'm sure there are people who would want to. It's optional so just let it be.

Peach fuzz is not the same as a beard. The wispy hair growing on your chin caused by hormonal changes due to age or otherwise is not a beard. Let's not get confused. Biological females can have facial or body hair but unless they have a rare disorder that makes them grow a literal carpet on their chests etc what they have is just normal light hair growth which can't be compared to the thick hair biological men grow.

Recombination of genes can lead to anything right? So maybe women can grow beards but yes, thats the exception rather than the rule. Not sure what the object of this thread is...

It is an old topic with which people have fun dinner conversations. See Dragon Magazine #038, June 1980.

ttps://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg038.pdf

At least dwarfen woman must have beards!

It's a cosmetic option, including hurts literally no one, if its only for the PC doubly so. Removing arbitrary gender limitations of cosmetics aspects like hair and beards just opens more customisations for PC and has no effect on players who don't want to use them.
Even if you wouldn't use it yourself, does it matter if other people would enough you need to argue against it?

And really, even if the appeals to science, were scientific, this is game where player characters can be magic elves or egg laying gith. Claiming your views as science, doesn't make them any more relevant as even if that were true, the player character could be an egg laying alien gith not a mammal anyway, let alone a human.

I will second the point that it is extremely bizarre that females can have beards and yet hairstyles are gender locked.

Science is pretty irrelevant when we're dealing with a setting in which literally every facet a being's nature, from their sex, species, and even more metaphysical qualities like their moral alignment, can be manipulated or wholly changed with magic.

Lady beards are far from being the most outlandish thing in Forgotten Realms.

They really need some wispier lip and chin hair options for the ladies. Little groomed pencil mustache instead of a great big gunslinger mustache would feel more appropriate.

- This is a fantasy game. Even if human woman could not have beards in the real world, in a fantasy game with all kinds of races and all kinds of magic anything can happen.
- BG had a belt that changes your gender.
- Look at the sorcerer bloodlines. There can be anything among your ancestors. There are so many half something people in this world. Even pure genetic humans may be rare.
- In the Discworld universe is written that female dwarfs have beards too and they also use to wear armors. Dwarfs have to carefully check the gender of their potential partner to make sure to date the right person (not DnD, but funny)
-Do you remember the stoning in Life of Brian?
- I like mustache girl in "A hat in time".

I see no harm in allowing players to have their char look like however they want. More options do not stop you from choosing a normal look.

I don’t care if players can place beards on any of their characters. But I’d rather not see them on female NPCs. Can I make sure NPCs can look a certain way? More options are good right?

i don't think my wife can grow my magnificent moustache