Yeah I'm on board for Yeslick, just old as dirt but still swinging. A Dwarf Paladin word work, just make sure its a proper Dwarven type diety and I'm there. Skald might also be cool, especially singing warsongs and such. If practically nothing else, the Hobbit film did manage to nail how Dwarves should sing. There's plenty to back it up, even like Snow White and the Huntsman leaned into that. So sure, Skald or Paladin would work for me. Just make sure they can take a hit. Nobody want's a Dwarf that can't tank around or carry a tower shield tall enough to turtle up proper.
@veronica for trans, I think the way into it for high fantasy is to build on some of the more ancient myths. I actually think they should steer clear of trying to make it feel too modern, but instead show that as you pointed out this is a phenomenon that goes back to prehistory. They should look to myths and legends like those Tiresias. Dyalos and Adgistis or the like. Or take some of the ideas from like the pools of Salmacis, and start weaving that into the realms, to give such stories an expression in Faerun. There should be background story elements to support the concepts within the worldbuilding more broadly, so its not treated as bizarre or a novelty but just part of the natural order. Not suggesting that PCs need to necessarily be able to roleplay an actual transition, or become an Erotes like Hermaphroditus or Phanes. But something in the overall architecture of the lore that's a little more compelling than say, a belt of gender swapping. I fully agree. In addition to ancient western sources, there are also a number of world mythologies and esp indigenous myths and legends that could be drawn from, because again (unsurprisingly) this has been a fact of human life for a long time and basically everywhere. Its timely, especially at this moment, but they should approach it as in FR terms as something with some antiquity to it, in-world, so when they do decide to take that trip eventually, it actually reads as something with proper D&D heroics, or as part of the longer lineage, if that makes sense. In other words, they should leave the shapeshifting anachronism to the legends and lore, and so the companion can just be presented as is, without needing to make a bunch of extraneous commentary about it. But of course the territory is fraught, as Beamdog learned when they tried it in a slapdash fashion, Larian should do it with more tact and deliberation to ensure they don't fall down the same old pits. That's more for a companion type character, for the PC the player should be able to roll as whatever they want or can imagine. That's the whole promise of the game from its inception.
