So, here I am, preparing for my latest and greatest Shadowrun campaign, writing a program to kit out some NPCs and making others from scratch by hand, flipping through the source material for inspiration, when I notice something.

Orcs, humans, and elves of both genders are featured heavily in art. Less so Orc females.

For dwarves and trolls, however, whenever they show up, they tend to be male.

I was curious, and not doing much, so I actively went hunting through my source books. In my old SRComp ( I know, I know, SR3 ) there was a dwarf sub-type that was portrayed as female.

Nothing else, though. Not a -thing-. Now, this was something of a quick scan after the first few books because my curiosity was waning and my desire to finish my NPCs was growing, but I didn't find any female troll or dwarf pictures.

Which begs the question. What -does- a female troll or dwarf look like? I know the Shadowrun art is just that - art - and I'm free to let my mind make up whatever pictures it wants to, same as my players, but I do wonder. Is there any 'official' art whatosever in this vein?

Also, if anyone has some that's uploadable or easy to access via the internets, that'd be great. I have no art skill of my own whatsoever, and I find having a picture to go along with my NPCs to be very helpful.

....here some pics done by Fuchs in Daz3d that are pretty good.

Female Races Lineup

SR Females in various runner gear

Female runner group in town

Different perspective

one of the SR3 archtypes, the raven shaman, is a female dwarf. i think there are a few illustrations of the female troll from the opening story in SR4.

...On the Run also has a pic of a couple of female dwarves in a bar.

The Rat shaman in SR4 is a female troll. And yeah, the Face and the Eco-Shaman are both female dwarves, and in SR3, the Tribal Shaman again was a female dwarf. The dwarves have a wide range of looks; the Face isn't a typical looking dwarf at all. The female trolls in examples, to me, don't really look too female in the face. The dwarves are pretty obvious. If you look at the full-body trolls you can tell; but the facial details they gave could have been better, IMO.

Then there was the never seen but mentioned ''Miz Manners'', the troll Ettiquette teacher and social extrordinare, whom i can't get out of my head as looking like my old music teacher.

There was a female dwarf in I think Fields of Fire, as the full-page pic on one of the opening chapters; pretty hot, too.

I think if you go through the books and count the number of ugly dudes to ugly chicks, you'll see a similar disparity. That sort of cheesecake sexism is common in rpgs as well as, well... everywhere else. I imagine the fewer numbers of troll, dwarf and ork women is related to the artists drawing fewer hot trolls, dwarves and orks, and the designers reluctance to include pictures of women who aren't supermodels.

Personally, I think trolls, dwarves and orks can be hot (Fuch's 3d models are good examples of that) and at the same time, not every pic of a female has to be cheesecake. SR has a pretty good track record in that regard, at least compared to some other gaming books I've seen.

...here's a couple Squinky did that are pretty good:

Martha (Troll)

Markova (Dwarf) (OK since this one is one of my characters... #70)

Is it wrong that I think the dwarf in Fuchs animations is the hottest by just a huge margin? I don't know why, but it must be like average charisma across the board except she has Genetic Optimization and or Exceptional Attribute and maybe some crazy computer pheremones.

Chris

i wonder, can anyone that cracked open vr2.0 ever forget the female troll girl in the school uniform and carrying physics books?

And suddenly I'm interested. Any pictures?

I don't know just about every female ork or troll I see is just a larger model of a human woman w/ tusks and (for trolls) horns. Yet male orks and trolls are very commonly portrayed as being monstrous and downright unatractive in not grotesque by human standards.

Really the only exception to this I can find right now is the female ork in the metarace section of the SR4 book and even she coul still pass for human if she filed down the teeth. Also, I just saw the street shamn in the main book and realized that it's a she also.

So now I've got one good example for each.

Check out page 5 of the SR4 book, picture of a female troll in that, though you can only really see her face.

I would like to thank everyone who replied here. While I don't have some of those books ( Target: Matrix in particular ), many of the others I do. This helps quite a bit, and now, well, I have good examples of both genders for every species.

The artist in my roleplaying group might also appreciate this; I'll ask her later.

And yes, I did notice that many orc females look very human. So do some orc males, but of course the guys also have plenty of 'ugly' examples. Shadowrun's far better about the sex-and-fantasy angle than many other roleplaying games out there.

Either way, now I've got a better cross section of pictures. Which is never a bad thing.

i don't really like most of the ork/troll art. they all look the same--like fantasy thugs who should be dieing in droves as they charge some guy in shiny armor wielding a big sword. some of the best ork/troll art, i think, is a black-and-white page of faces, in the SR2 Companion (might be in the SR3 Comp as well). the orks and trolls (and dwarves and elves) there look like people, not like fantasy archtypes.

There is are 2 female trolls a picture in the nano-fab section of Augmentation I remember. Also while not quit SR, Earth Dawn has a wealth of art that is fairly relevant. "Denizens of Barsaive vol. 2" Is the source book covering Dwarfs, Orks, Trolls, and the less relevant Obsidiman. It has many pictures of females in daily life, not just adventurers.

The ork female drinking coffee in the SSG was great: ork-looking and neither ugly or too sexy. Just a regular ork girl.

only question i have:was it jazzia or esri dex? O.o

There is a picture somewhere of an ork buying a BTL fantasy with scantily clad fantasy ork girls in his 'thought bubble'. Reasonably recent too (SR3 maybe?)...

and i guess the female ork/male elf would be so much better? O.o
that'd REALLY rise the question as to who wears the pants in THAT relationship *g*

*snickers* poor japs *g*
ah well, i'd be mistaken for an ork before an elf, so i guess my opinion on that matter does not really apply *g*

...there is also a a living room scene with an Orc couple in Augmented

And how often do you see a female dressed for combat? That gunslinger adept doesn't even have mystic armor.

...ahh, artistic license, the leading cause of death among female shadowrunners (I'm just as guilty too).

I know, she must have locked her Lined Coat (with the keys in the pocket) in the car and just learned out that her UCAAA membership had expired.

This is a long-standing tradition in comic books and similar fiction. Like Red Sonja. She wears "armor" that doesn't come anywhere near her vital organs.

Meh. In my game, I think I (and my players) have done a better job in our portrayals of women. (My female NPCs are often inspired by women I know, who tend to be strong-willed and tough.) Not every SR woman should be the butch marine-type in full-body armor, but neither should every SR woman be overtly sexual and sexy. Probably my favorite PC that's been in the game I run was so very unsexual, it became a bit of a joke that no one know's if she's gay or straight. Or neither.

That said, when I draw a woman (I am a bit of an illustrator; maybe one day I'll get paid for it), I struggle not to make her sexy in some way. Men I draw, on the other hand, range from the very ugly to the very handsome. I'm sure this is not unique to me. It is often more interesting to an artist to be drawing beautiful people.

...if anything, I tend to have the opposite issue in that most of the women I draw are not as"healthy" as the mainstream "standard" in game and comic book illustration. I will also admit, I am not the best at armour styles (particularly medieval/fantasy). SR is a little easier because the armoured coats and jackets can still be styled to look pretty much like regular clothing albeit a bit bulkier.

I searched, and I couldn't find the swimsuit thread. Perhaps my search-fu has become weak. But here was my submission, as it's relevant to the current topic.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a115/Red.../scaryscary.jpg

I don't know if it’s been mentioned, but having a 9' tall woman would really facilitate those people that want to be infantilized. I'm just saying that there is another version of Bubba the Love Troll, maybe Marguiette the Stern Nanny.

I was gonna post the URL for that because I put a submission on that thread, but even I can't find it. Someone with a higher perception needs to see through it's stealthing! Bah!

Ask, and you shall receive. I give you ... Shadowrun: The Swimsuit Edition.

Damn, way back in September? I didn't realize it'd been that long. No wonder I hadn't found it yet. I bow to your Dumpshock-fu

EDIT: The last post was on Sept 5th, so it may be considered bad netiquette to necro the thread and post on it.
Too bad too, I'd been hoping to see more artwork posted there.

I always assume that's better to necro a thread if it is on topic than to post a new thread that duplicates it.