A Sorceress portrait dilemma :)

Fellow Enrothians, I have come up with a funny dilemma concerning one of the Sorceress characters. DrSlash recently created an additional portrait for us, but later on he came up with a prank over the Eurovision with a bearded variant of it. The most interesting part of it that the "bearded" variant looks really better and H2-ish, and will be easier to adjust to fit the style. Moreover, this character could be posed as the a Dwarven woman with the "Dwarves and Battle Dwarves" specialty. Note that both versions are far from final.

I would like to know what would you feel if this character had a beard, but still had fancy designs and had 100% clear femininity. Heroes 2 lineup for Sorceresses had humans and elves (Vatawna), but never had any clue about the other races.

The decision on the portrait will concern v0.8 beta release of the project. If the bearded variant (which I, suprisingly, sympathize more) wins over, we will add it to the game and check people's feedback to be acknowledged for the further development (v0.9, v1.0 and all the next milestones).

The 2ish style from bearded one doesn't come from the beard, but it comes from the points on the face + yellowish stuff on clothes and on face-front.
If you put that + earring on the "young girl" portrait, it will be also very h2ish.
See how many pikapika (brilliant) stuff does others portraits have! it's the sorceress way.

But so, if I must choose between them, I will take the unbearbed one.

There is a newer version of the non-bearded one, btw.



As to your question, I prefer the bearded one for the sake of variety. Also, I find the portrait to be overall more interesting that way.


MOD EDIT: THANKS, FIXED

Dr Slash wrote:

There is a newer version of the non-bearded one, btw.



As to your question, I prefer the bearded one for the sake of variety. Also, I find the portrait to be overall more interesting that way.


MOD EDIT: THANKS, FIXED

Yay! I vote for this one!!

For variety... more than putting a girlish boy, it's better to put directly an elf or an unicorn!
nahh joking for the unicorn... but may... a sprite would be quite good for portrait... But then, not really RP-matching the shape of the heroes on their horses.. ^^

It's not a girlish boy, it's a girlish girl with a beard

As a tolkienist, I must support dwarf beards (HoME-XII).
As a normal human - not, fucking not.

Sorry, Professor.

I honestly like the new one. The beard, just... sorry, I can't get behind it.

Jesus Christ, the vote pole is actually on a draw.

Why do you guys even bother trying to release the new version with a Conchita impostor hero?

Why would it be a thing?

How about a mutton chop or other beard style, which covers lesser part of face? I do like bearded female dwarves, although as far as i remember, in contrary to Tolkien, they are unbearded in Might and Magic.

Pitsu wrote:

How about a mutton chop or other beard style, which covers lesser part of face? I do like bearded female dwarves, although as far as i remember, in contrary to Tolkien, they are unbearded in Might and Magic.

How can you even like bearded female dwarves? In most films and fantasies, no kind of female dwarf has any kind of facial hair. It's abnormal and wrong a female having a beard or a moustache in common. The bearded version of this heroine portrait completely reminds me Conchita and I feel sick about it.

I mean just come on guys! Vote the non-bearded portrait already.

I got an idea in dreams.
This character (I will call her Sophia) will be part of the H3SW new campaign! Young, Sophia was cute, and a Dark Sorceress was so jealous that the Prince would marry Sophia instead of her, that she used her magic to make her become a boy. Because of the Love from the Blessed Royal Family, the spell somehow didn't reach its goal, but still Sophia got some boyish appearance.
You will play Sophia in this campaign, and try to find a way to get the Prince.


Hehehehe
First map, 3 different castle that we can take ;

if Player take the Necromant castle, then Player will unlock the "Sophia will use dark magic" storyline. (fighting the Dark Sorceress? Making everybody more boyish than her? )

if Player take the Sorceress castle, then Player will unlock the "Sophia will use natural/white magic to heal herself and protect her from further hexes."

if Player take the Warlock castle, then Player will unlock the "I will marry another Family"

I'm not expert in making long stories, but in this way, we can have use of both images, and a good way to make a campaign reminding a little the original H2 one, but since here it's H3 SW, instead of 2 ways of playing the story, having 3 ways would be interesting.

GodRage wrote:

I got an idea in dreams.
This character (I will call her Sophia) will be part of the H3SW new campaign! Young, Sophia was cute, and a Dark Sorceress was so jealous that the Prince would marry Sophia instead of her, that she used her magic to make her become a boy. Because of the Love from the Blessed Royal Family, the spell somehow didn't reach its goal, but still Sophia got some boyish appearance.
You will play Sophia in this campaign, and try to find a way to get the Prince.


Hehehehe
First map, 3 different castle that we can take ;

if Player take the Necromant castle, then Player will unlock the "Sophia will use dark magic" storyline. (fighting the Dark Sorceress? Making everybody more boyish than her? )

if Player take the Sorceress castle, then Player will unlock the "Sophia will use natural/white magic to heal herself and protect her from further hexes."

if Player take the Warlock castle, then Player will unlock the "I will marry another Family"

I'm not expert in making long stories, but in this way, we can have use of both images, and a good way to make a campaign reminding a  little the original H2 one, but since here it's H3 SW, instead of 2 ways of playing the story, having 3 ways would be interesting.

When you thought that the gender bending animes cannot do even more terrible things.

Sorry about the sarcasm, but basically this is what I can think about your idea right now.

I must admit that watching Eurovision was a terrible experience, made me lost faith in humanity. But fantastic worlds are completely different story and different biology, so I can imagine, that dwarven females look similarly to men. Tolkien in "The War of Jewels" wrote:

"no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf - unless he were
shaven in mockery, and would then be more like to die of shame...
For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male
and female alike..."

So after all it's completely indifferent for me. I expected that some people might feel uncomfortable, that's why I think that adding shaved version is the best option. Bearded portrait could be available only in editor for a custom maps.

Let's just go all the way with the bearded ladies, à la RuPaul's Drag Race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e5qo-sdHuk

I vote for the bearded lady, but she needs more make-up to create contrast. It ain't a proper gender fuck if she looks just "cute", like a dwarf male with sparkly eyes

AkuAkuIslands wrote:

Let's just go all the way with the bearded ladies, à la RuPaul's Drag Race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e5qo-sdHuk

I vote for the bearded lady, but she needs more make-up to create contrast. It ain't a proper gender fuck if she looks just "cute", like a dwarf male with sparkly eyes

I can't take you even seriously at all.

Tibor0803 wrote:

How can you even like bearded female dwarves? In most films and fantasies, no kind of female dwarf has any kind of facial hair. It's abnormal and wrong a female having a beard or a moustache in common.

Please do your research. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlsWithMoustaches is a good start. As others said, Tolkien pulled this off, Dungeons & Dragons also feature bearded female dwarves and there are also a good amount of other examples on that page. In fact, I can only name Warcraft on the no-beards front alone.

Graion Dilach wrote:

Please do your research. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlsWithMoustaches is a good start. As others said, Tolkien pulled this off, Dungeons & Dragons also feature bearded female dwarves and there are also a good amount of other examples on that page. In fact, I can only name Warcraft on the no-beards front alone.

The media and most of the gaming companies tries to make you believe bearded females are cool. The plot twist is that it's abnormal. At the beginning of 90's when I first saw bearded female dwarves, it was okay because I never thought about it as a threat. It became one at the exact point when it turned out to be as an accaptable human female fashion. At this point should I blame the companies or just the weak human beings who accepted that it's normal. It should have never been considered a thing. There are actual countries where any of such content is banned and denied. I guess it was not accidentally forbidden in certain areas of the world.

What you guys did great about Dungeons & Dragons is to use it's Owlbear as a Sorceress creature in the early beta related to January of 2013. However you made up your mind and said you shouldn't copy content from an existing game, actually it was fun playing Sorceress with another defensive creature who can take care about the shooters in that faction. The Satyr was a good change. Orzie's team explained me and proven that how that's legit. I admit it entirely cause of the mytological past about such creatures and it never been a thing what others tried to follow as a dirty sexual tendency. Formerly, even bearded female dwarves was accepted for my sake cause of the early research. It was just a creature in a specific town, but then it became a tradition and even this show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e5qo-sdHuk which changed my mind about any female beings having either moustache or beard or both, ignoring the fact that they are dwarves cause shameless human beings decided like "hmm why don't we try to make this as global style trend and type of sexual orientation?"....and so LGBT was born.

You know, I can never accept transvestites as mytological creatures. I hope you don't as well.

Okay, I agree with the first sentence. But you look at dwarven females from the point of human society. Of course, it's not acceptable in public. It won't become acceptable for some time as well. But fantasy has very different approach to your issue.
It's not supposed to force you to accept it, it's not supposed to show how intolerant you are etc etc.
It's just there to show how different other races could be.

Although I don't like that idea for H2 game (because it's supposed to be very easy to understand/kid-friendly), I can understand how well it can fit other games/books/movies.
Beards aren't evil. Media are.

Tibor0803 wrote:

I can't take you even seriously at all.

No worries mister considering the fact that you seem to be going on this crusade against ONE possible hero portrait (that might not even be used outside custom campaigns) in a game that's known for it's candy colors and campy approach to fantasy, I have a hard time taking you seriously either. Chill out dude?

And I might be reading a bit too much into this (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I'm getting a lot of "abnormal", "shameless" and "dirty sexual tendencies" from you when you're talking about LGBT related issues. I would personally appreciate it if you would dial it down a bit with the judgement. I mean it's the year 2017 and that just sounds a bit distasteful.

I found the bearded dwarf lady more of an inside joke which would infuse some personality to this fan project. Some of the HOMM2 ladies look pretty wacky anyway, so I don't think she would even stick out that much.

Come on, don't start a war.

Aku, sarcasm isn't helping anyone now. Being mean especially.
Tibor has his point of view which isn't hurting anyone, so that's fine for me. I've written about my feelings about the issue and about his point of view and managed to do it without offending anyone.

True. No point in arguing about this. And I wasn't being nice. Sorry guys, I'll keep my viper tongue in check.

Quote :

I don't like that idea for H2 game (because it's supposed to be very easy to understand/kid-friendly)

Yes, in the long run it becomes obvious that beards are a too controversial issue, especially for the certain game. We simply cannot allow an asset which is pretty much loved by one half of the auditory and gruesomely loathed by another half (yes I remember about the Toad, but at least it was classical). Things must be more side-specific.

But I thank all the participants for their input, it was a very interesting read indeed.

Ragoon wrote:

Come on, don't start a war.

Aku, sarcasm isn't helping anyone now. Being mean especially.
Tibor has his point of view which isn't hurting anyone, so that's fine for me. I've written about my feelings about the issue and about his point of view and managed to do it without offending anyone.

I like the way how you see it Ragoon. My appreciation. Also thanks to Aku for his apologize, I shouldn't deny ideas what H3SW team comes up with. The memories of mine about females with beards were just that bad but I shouldn't complain about it a forum like this. Pardon me for anything what I said earlier.