Elves with beards. Yay or nay?

Buttercheese

Despite wether or not it's "true in canon" (whichever canon that may be), how do you feel about bearded elves?

Some examples of bearded elves:

King Balor (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army)


Círdan (Lord of the Rings; Artwork by Moumou38)


Bearclaw and Treestump (ElfQuest)


(There is also apparently a female bearded elf in Witcher 3, but I haven't play that one yet.)

DaggerXIV

I can see elves with beards.
Like The Elder Scrolls Mer, especially the dwemers.

Moradin

I feel like beards would look good only on very old elves, a rare feature that would represent the passage from "elder" to "venerable" in elven society. After all, the D&D depiction of elves as well as dwarves (and halflings) borrows heavily from JRRT's work and to my knowledge, Cirdan is the exception rather than the rule. Even extremely old elves (Celeborn, Elrond, Glorfindel), old for their people's standards and wise beyond measure, did not have beards. If beards have to be, make them more than rare, make them unique traits.

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Vitor

In D&D and Lord of the Rings, I don't think it fit well... But in other works it could fit.

Buttercheese

@Vitor As stated above, LotR actually has a canonical bearded elf.
And then there is also Elrond's depiction in the 1977s animated Hobbit movie:

Troodon80

For Elder Scrolls, there has never been a rule against it.

On the matter of D&D, from Ed Greenwood via The Hooded One:

Now, as for the rather delicate matter of elven body hair, kuje, you KNOW Ed isn’t the guy to go to for WotC rules battles. The PHBs rule, of course, with one note Ed added (as we laughed together on the phone, remembering the “Do dwarven females have beards?” furor that arose at least thrice, down the years), to whit:

If you always treat the comments in rulebooks as “racial norms” rather than absolutes, and as DM encourage your campaign to be roleplaying-heavy and rules-light (so that book-quoting rules-lawyers can be calmly replied with, “Oh? Really? That’s odd, because standing right in front of you is an individual you can clearly see to be the elf lord you were just introduced to, and yes, he has a pencil-thin moustache and razor-edged, line-of-chin beard. Are you going to tell him to drop the silly magical disguise, or ask him why he’s a freak, or just trust your eyes and accept that he has the hair and go on with life?”), you can ‘explain away’ variants from the ever-changing game rules as “individuals who are different, that’s all.”

As it happens, all of the Knights can attest that Merith Strongbow has both (scant, but dark in hue and definitely present) facial and body hair (though unlike human males, he doesn’t get facial stubble if he doesn’t shave every morning, and in fact never needs to shave) and Torm of the Knights can tell you that certain elf ladies of his acquaintance definitely have genital hair abundant enough to be trimmed into shapes. A subject I’d probably better say nothing more about. :}

On the topic of Lord of the Rings / Middle Earth:

Elves had no beards, at least until their "third cycle of life", like Círdan. Mahtan was an exception, and had a beard in his early "second cycle". The Elvish beardlessness could also be observed in Mannish lines with an Elvish strain (as in the princely house of Dol Amroth), which lacked beards.

So as a general rule, I'd say 'maybe.' Depends on the franchise. 'Yes' in some cases, 'probably not' in others. On the topic of "yes or no regardless of whether it's canon," I see no reason why not.

Kamigoroshi

Ay!
Yagrum Bagarn approves of beards on elves!

BelgarathMTH

As others have said, I think it depends on the setting. It doesn't seem to fit in with traditional D&D and Tolkein lore, but in other settings it's fine. It's just a matter of how the author wants to define his or her fantasy races in his or her own created world.

I'm surprised you didn't mention Terry Brooks' "Shannara" setting as a prime example of bearded elves in a setting. I'm told he does mention the beards on some of them in his in-book descriptions, and of course now, there's the casting for the TV adaptation.

I find these elves to be *extremely* attractive, but then, I like bears, otters, and wolves in real life, too, so there's that.

Lord_Tansheron

Why not. I mean, it's all fictional so you can write it any which way, but a nice beard is a cool feature. I always like me a beard on my men, if it's well groomed.

JumboWheat01

As long as they don't encroach on the domain of the beard masters (dwarves & gnomes,) I wouldn't be against it. Maybe like a well groomed and trimmed goatee, nothing too long at all. Nothing too wild. Maintains the ruggedness of humans and their full lower-jaw covering, the badassery of dwarves with their epic beards, and the quirkiness of gnomes with their... creations, while giving the elves something more... sophisticated.

And elves need to be sophisticated, gods blast it.

deltago

Nay!

Unless the stubble knife ear wants to be the but end of dwarven jokes everywhere.

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shawne

*shrug* Worked just fine in Neverwinter Nights...

brus

Elves want to show off in front of the dwarves.
They also tend to have pointy beard as are their ears.

Btw, that's not me.

booinyoureyes

shawne said:

*shrug* Worked just fine in Neverwinter Nights...

Looks like the lead singer of Evergrey

PK2748

In Dragonlance at least the answer was a definitive"no"

Vallmyr

I can't find the source for it but I remember reading somewhere that Drow do have facial hair unlike their Elven brethren.

May have been Golarion (Pathfinder's setting). Unsure.

GenderNihilismGirdle

I'd love to see a comic of an elf who started growing a beard in their 70s-90s (the elf teen years), and it was super thin and wispy but they kept at it and even at 150 it's still thin and wispy but they've just got that Elven patience so even though everyone makes fun of them for it they're just like, "One day it will be a full beard!" and then at like 700 they're like "#^(* THIS!!" and shave it off when they see a 120 year old elf with a thick, lustrous, full beard that's making the dwarves jealous and theirs is even wispier than when it started.

GenderNihilismGirdle

Kamigoroshi said:

Ay!

Yagrum Bagarn approves of beards on elves!

This is the one thing I'm most looking forward to the Skywind total conversion Skyrim mod finally implementing in their beta.

Foggy

Them silly elves trying to look as good as the dwarfs! They can't even hold their drinks.
Even their females started growing beards like the beautiful dwarven ladies!

(Ilona, from Witcher 2)

Preposterous! What next? Human skalds grooming red beards and drinking ale? Bah!

Buttercheese

Foggy said:

Preposterous! What next? Human skalds grooming red beards and drinking ale? Bah!

Immagine if they'd also have German accents ... the horror! THE HORROR!

ReadingRambo

Big Elfquest fan, I own most of the books! Beards are fine on elves imo.

Southpaw

...how about elves with face tentacles?

JumboWheat01

Southpaw said:

...how about elves with face tentacles?

You mean something like this?

Jarrakul

I say nay! An elf with a beard is like a dwarf without one: just kind of weird.

Lord_Tansheron

"To shave a dwarf" - Elven expression meaning: 'to grow a beard'

JumboWheat01

Lord_Tansheron said:

"To shave a dwarf" - Elven expression meaning: 'to grow a beard'

So it's not that elves are stealing dwarven thunder by growing beards, but by actually STEALING the epic beards previously grown by a dwarf! The thieves!

znancekivell

Yay! And I also approve of dwarves without beards. Stereotypes can be lazy and boring.

lunar

To me elves main characteristics is androgyny, they look graceful and beautiful-feminine and masculine at the same time without effort. Plus, beard is half-elves schtick to make them apart from elves, even to disguise their elven parentage, couple it with long hair to hide the tip of their ears and they can pass as comely humans. Elves to me are too alien looking to pass as humans. Slender and long face, almond shaped and colorful eyes, clearest, palest perfect skin, lush, flowing colorful hair, long, tipped ears, and no-beard androgynous look to complete the whole elven package. Actually, half-elves are more attractive to humans, because they are more like humans but a lot more beautiful/handsome rather than the fey and distant-otherwordly looking elves.

That's my interpretation anyway.

GenderNihilismGirdle

Technically androgyny just means a mix of androus and gynous elements of appearance, and there are many ways to be androgynous aside from the way you lay out here @lunar including feminine looks with beards. Harnaam Kaur is a good example of someone who rocks stunningly beautiful feminine looks with a beard which gives some pointers to different directions than the unidirectional way people seem to think of androgyny (this is a cute but silly take on the concept).

Which is all to say: if elves are androgynous rather than simply feminine, maybe those femme looks would be better served with beards on 'em!