Unit genders

[zookeeper]

I'd start with a female variation of the elvish fighter

Five unit types, three portraits... unadvisable, I'd say.

The Thug line would be is a good choice, I'd imagine. Still needs portraits, but at least the female Bandit could potentially double as the female Bandit/Highwayman portrait for starters. Ruffian can't have female variations until the Thug line has them, because Ruffians can advance to Thugs.

[ekeron]

Would the female outlaw sprites from Descent into Darkness and Rise of Wesnoth be useful for the thug lines? There's also the female village elder sprite from Liberty. I imagine their portraits can't be used since they are for unique characters, though.

[revansurik]

What, if any, is the reason that the vast majority of units are only available in one gender? I mean, it's 2018. Why don't we have female sergeants and male fairies? I personally think it'd be really cool to add more diversity to the game, one step at a time.

Male elf shamans, shydes and sylphs - now that would be really interesting
About the lack of female soldiers in the human army: I must say I kind of like that there's a lack of diversity in the human army - not as a glorification of gender inequality, mind you, but precisely because it makes Wesnoth as a kingdom a flawed place (flawed for our standards anyway). Especially when you take into consideration that female fighters can be just as dangerous as any steel-clad soldier (Great Mage, Outlaw and Assassin lines for example), it only highlights how backwards WEsnothians are. And personally, I don't like the idea of every society being a utopia.

That said, I'd like to see female sergeants and thugs BTW, why hasn't anyone mentioned the absence of female orcs, drakes, saurians and trolls?

[Whiskeyjack]

Personally, I'd be more interested to get some diversity for the all-male fantasy races (I don't think there's a single female orc for example).

[Caladbolg]

BTW, why hasn't anyone mentioned the absence of female orcs, drakes, saurians and trolls?

Aside from orcs, I'm not sure whether the genders of the other mentioned units can be inferred from their artwork, especially for the reptilian drakes and saurians. And as far as I know, their gender isn't mentioned anywhere in their descriptions. With there being very few campaigns featuring drakes, and I seem to recall that one depicted female drakes as a part of armies and occasionally leaders, I don't think it can be said that they are being depicted as all-male. I also recall that there were talks about saurian warriors being all female and saurian augurs being all male and that's stuck as semi-canon in my head

[Eagle_11]

'Bad Moon Rising' campaign had an female orc if im not mistaken, there is also female goblin Jinx in one of the campaigns, think it was 'Swamplings'. You can look at those for reference as how an female orc goblin would look like if needed.

freelander-rifleman.png (2.79 KiB) Viewed 7241 times

freelander-rifleman+female.png (3.22 KiB) Viewed 7241 times

As seen, there is still some room for visually signifying gender even in armored figures.

I cant quite remember if we ever decided on if dwarf females are bearded or not in Wesnoth-verse.

[revansurik]

Personally, I'd be more interested to get some diversity for the all-male fantasy races (I don't think there's a single female orc for example).

Oh sorry, I didn't see that

With there being very few campaigns featuring drakes, and I seem to recall that one depicted female drakes as a part of armies and occasionally leaders, I don't think it can be said that they are being depicted as all-male.

Probably it was one of the drake campaigns in the add-on server - but my campaign Aria of the Dragon-Slayer has a female Armageddon Drake as an allied leader

[octalot]

freelander-rifleman.png
freelander-rifleman+female.png

The female one is the top one, correct? With armour coming to a point in the center of her chest, so that enemy swords and pikes are deflected to one side or the other?

What's the bottom one, with the armour that would catch pikes and deflect them into the defender's chest?

[Xobra]

Female Dwarves. Should they have beards too? In some fantasy worlds they do. I believe they do in Tolkien Fantasy.

[doofus-01]

'Bad Moon Rising' campaign had an female orc if im not mistaken [...]

It does, as one of the hero units, but in that particular non-canon branch of the Wesnoth world, orcs are a warrior culture in a harsh frozen land. The males die in battle, the females die in childbirth. The smart individuals of either gender find a better way to live, as shamans or something like that. There wouldn't be female grunts, but there could be female leaders. In the BMR sub-universe at least.

[nemaara]

A little late to the party. It's true that in mainline, males seem to greatly outnumber females in both the campaigns and in unit lines. However, I'll just point out that you'll find that there are plenty of UMCs which have heavy focus on female characters and units - Era of Myths has Windsong (all female human faction, featured in the Dragon Trilogy), and IftU, AtS, and Genesis all have female protagonists and units featured prominently. So, if you're looking for something like that, add-ons are your friends.

[Vyncyn]

Female Dwarves. Should they have beards too? In some fantasy worlds they do. I believe they do in Tolkien Fantasy.

In Tolkien they are not only beared but almost indistinguishable from male dwarves, which is why other races often asume there are no female dwaves at all.
If we asume the same for wesnoth it would instantly solve the artwork problem, but I would prefer not to rely to much on LOTR.

[fluxbird]

I made two variations of the base sprite for a female thug, not sure which one to go with though. For the first one I just reshaped the chest area, removed the beard (hardly noticeable anyway), changed the hairline a bit, and changed the shape of the lower end of the tunic slightly. Second one, I also made the hair a bit longer. I'll include the male sprite for reference,

Male

Female var. 1

Female var. 2


I'm not sure which one is better.

[fluxbird]

I also made this potential male shaman but I'm not too happy with him so I might redo that.

[Xobra]

In "Die Zwerge" by Markus Heitz (trans: "The Dwarves"), female Dwarves have just little beards, not longer than maybe 2-3 cm. Moreover there exists an shortlived race of Dwarves where the females don't have beards at all. Can't remember if the Dwarves in "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini had beards (I think not). But I believe most described female Dwarves with "very round cheeks".