A dwarf's beard is very much akin to the chinese's hair braid in the 19th century. Having it removed, or removing it isa show of a loss of face (no pun intended) and loss of honor. The only times that a dwarf will shave his beard himself is if he has brought serious dishonor upon himself or clan and there is no way to repair it. Usually cowardice is a good one. If a dwarf's beard is removed, it is usually from a judgement made by those in some position of athority and is because he has no honor. Humans might treat with a beardless dwarf, but other dwarves will know that something bad has happened and will, usually, not deal with him at all.<br/><br/>I have always been of two minds on female dwarves and facial hair. Some good sources about female dwarves show them without beards, others suggest that they have less full ones. Others suggest that female dwarves are clean faced so that you can tell them apart. lol<br/><br/>And, anything relating to the game, characters or ideas should be sent to both Mr.Muse and me. I'm dealing with the story itself, Muse is mainly doing the mechanics and we're working together on filling it out.<br/><br/>What you'll quickly learn and can deduce, is that the job being undertaken is to:<br/><br/>1. Find the location of the mountain entrance to the city<br/>2. Enter and confirm that it IS, in fact Stonegard Keep... Lost Dwarven kingdoms are a dime a dozen almost... or at leat rumors are. ;)<br/>3. learn what happened to stonegard<br/>4. Have fun! That's the purpose of the game, afterall.<br/><br/>There will very likely be minor sub-plots and side stores/journeies that'll take you outside of the underground, At the moment, we have 2 of these planned so far and we're working on others.<br/><br/>Finally, most Dwarven communities, because of their regimented societies, really don't have a ghetto or slums part of the city. However, there are always places where less honest dealings take place, places that have to deal with things that find their ways up from the deeper parts of the city (Most dwarven cities are at least 50% underground and more often closer to 80%). So, a rogue could do a fair business in crafting traps for anything from hunting traps to alarms for busnesses and merchant caravans to building a better rat trap. There's also alchemical and poisons that could be a craft... leather working (I'll allow a Craft; Leatherworking to be able to craft any leather armors or weapons... and there is the time honored Locksmithing. All dwarves are always looking for the better "thief proof" lock. ;) Just a few ideas and there are probably more.<br/><br/>Again, if you're discussing game concepts or ideas with Muse, please include me so that he doesn't have to write to me and talk about it with me after talking about it with you. lol