Body hair

[Larrath]

Alright, I have recently noticed something...and I admit that I am also at fault in this.  Is it just me, though, or...

[Again, this refers to body hair].
1) Practically all nobles/templars (other than one or two NPCs) are hairless?

2) Low-class people have a tendency to be hairy?

3) Northerners are big wusses?

How would Zalanthans view hairy people?  Shouldn't hairlessness be viewed as a bad thing, since it reminds people of dwarves who are not overly sexy?

What would a naturally hairy person do to give himself a respectable or distinguished opinion?  (Other than letting it grow wildly and be in-your-face).

How would this differ between men and women, and between Allanak and Tuluk?  I imagine Allanakis are naturally hairier than Tulukis.

[Cuusardo]

I thought that people in warmer climates tended to have less body hair than those in cooler climates as an adaptation to the environment.

Or do I have that backwards?

[Xerokine]

Your correct Cuusardo.

[Agent_137]

Your correct Cuusardo.

You're not.


This post brought to you by the committee for spell checking and basic English :mrgreen:

[Angela Christine]

People in warm humid climates (humid climates are always warm) have less body hair.  However, people in warm arid climates have a variety of hair types.  Hair doesn't just keep you warm, it also  protects you from flying dust, sand, and helps you retain moisture.  

Hair, and clothing, retains an air bubble around your body.  When the environment is colder than your body temperature then that air bubble helps keep you warm.  When the environment is hotter than body temperature the air bubble keeps you cool.  It is acts as insulation to protect you from the environment -- at least in a dry climate, humid climates have some other factors at work.


However, the known world has recently (within the last few thousand years) suffered an ecological catastrophy.  We don't know what the climate used to be like, but some room descriptions will say things like, "legend says this area used to support abundant flora and fauna, but now it sucks" ok, that was paraphrased, but you get the idea.    My point?  Since the known world is a climate in flux, I'd say almost any amount of hairyness, skin pigmentation, eye color, and so on, is plausible.  So be as hairy as you want to be.


AC

[WhiteRanger (Logged out)]

Here is a quote from my college bio book I have sitting infront of me "As of now science has found no real reason for human body hair. It is so fine and usually in such short length, that it can retain no heat. It dose not even serve as a sensory organ to human beings as it does with most mammals. Adaptation would be an assumption but as of yet no trend do to climate has been discovered. One theory suggests that perhaps human body hair is simply a link missed along the chain of evolution"

It would appear that body hair serves no purpose. Cold climates, hot climates, dosent matter. Its just sort of random if you are hairy or not. *Shrugs* Who am I to argue with science.

(As a note I didnt just go look this up, I remembered reading it and was like....HEY I FINALLY KNOW SOMETHING ON THIS BOARD!)

[Larrath]

Yes, I know I can be as hairy as I want to be, I was more interested in what would be considered beautiful for other humans and elves; hairy or not hairy.  Or how hairy people could wear their hair in a fashionable/flashy manner, if there was one.

I do see, though, that Tulukis and Allankis would have the same ratio of hairiness, so that's some progress.

I'd still like to know why there are so few hairy people of high class, though...or rather, see more hairy VIPs.

[Lazloth]

It would appear that body hair serves no purpose.

Prevailing theory has body hair existing to capture pheromones and not to provide insulation.

[Sintti]

I sort of figured that unless it is mentioned the bodyhair is 'normal' or unremarkable.  So those that mention being hairy are unusually hirsute.

[Angela Christine]

Here is a quote from my college bio book I have sitting infront of me "As of now science has found no real reason for human body hair. It is so fine and usually in such short length, that it can retain no heat. It dose not even serve as a sensory organ to human beings as it does with most mammals. Adaptation would be an assumption but as of yet no trend do to climate has been discovered. One theory suggests that perhaps human body hair is simply a link missed along the chain of evolution"

It would appear that body hair serves no purpose. Cold climates, hot climates, dosent matter. Its just sort of random if you are hairy or not. *Shrugs* Who am I to argue with science.

Science, bah.  It does act as a sensory organ, haven't you ever noticed a bug crawling on you because of the hair tickle?  Long leg hair picks up subtle breezes that might otherwise go un-noticed.  And if it has no insulating properties, why does it fluff up when you are cold?  Bah.


AC

[Mordere]

Long leg hair picks up subtle breezes that might otherwise go un-noticed.

Scary.

[Dresan]

Here is a quote from my college bio book I have sitting infront of me "As of now science has found no real reason for human body hair. It is so fine and usually in such short length, that it can retain no heat. It dose not even serve as a sensory organ to human beings as it does with most mammals. Adaptation would be an assumption but as of yet no trend do to climate has been discovered. One theory suggests that perhaps human body hair is simply a link missed along the chain of evolution"

It would appear that body hair serves no purpose. Cold climates, hot climates, dosent matter. Its just sort of random if you are hairy or not. *Shrugs* Who am I to argue with science.

Having recently been forced by my school to take a gen.ed that covered this i would say your book is outdated or written by an idiot (which happens alot more frequently than some care to admit  :evil: ).  To answer why it's there and why we still have some just look to our close cousins the apes. Hair serves alot of purposes ranging from protection to making fasion statement.   Having said that it seems like as time passes we will have less and less of it.  Don't worry about you great great grand-children being bald though since in theory we humans now control our own evolution.


                   

Science, bah. It does act as a sensory organ, haven't you ever noticed a bug crawling on you because of the hair tickle?

                It's isn't really your hair as much as the skin it's attached to, that is what is sensing things.  The breeze moves your hair which in turn tickles your skin.  Depending on how sensitive your skin is and how coarse your hair is, one might find that their hair is actually preventing them from sensing the breeze.  Oh and no science would mean no Arm and then no more reading those long posts of yours  

[Larrath]

*repeatedly slams his head into the wall*

You can derail my thread after someone posts a good enough answer and/or promises to make their noble a hairy one.


Here are the remaining questions again, to make it clearer...
[I only included the ones who were not obvious to me anymore.  Shrug.]

1) How would having a lot of body-hair be seen fashionably?  Would it be considered more attractive than a hairless body, since hairlessness is related to dwarves?

2) How would this vary between Humans and Elves?

3) Allanakis and Tulukis?  I realize that there are about as many hairy Allanakis as there are Tulukis, but do they view this differently?

4) Women and men?

[Delirium]

I always assumed this was one of those things that was up to the individual character.

[Bardex]

Maybe northerner chicks don't shave their pits and southerner chicks do. Maybe neither has hairy pits? Maybe male humans all over Zalanthas have hairy kneecaps. Except for mutants. Theirs is on their elbows. Yeah. I like that.

[creeper386]

Zalanthas is full of mutations. No hair period is said to be not too uncommon for races other then dwarves. So I'd say it's not really specifically completely and utterly connected with dwarves. Unless your a big, short bald dude, then you might be associated with dwarves.

Lack of body hair ... Well, I'm pretty sure Eqytians kept very little/no body hair for hygienic purposes. Maybe it's just cleaner? So nobles like breeding the lack of, or very little body hair genes!

Longer hair tends to be harder to keep looking fashionable and such, it also gets dirtier alot easier. So, unless a noble had lots of free time with nothing else better to do, they'd probably go with less hair so as not to be all dirty like commoners

Hmm ... Don't have a point to the post, so I'll quit now.


Creeper

[Angela Christine]

It dose not even serve as a sensory organ to human beings as it does with most mammals.  

Science, bah. It does act as a sensory organ, haven't you ever noticed a bug crawling on you because of the hair tickle?

                It's isn't really your hair as much as the skin it's attached to, that is what is sensing things.  The breeze moves your hair which in turn tickles your skin.  

That is true, but it is also true for "most mammals".  I assumed that is what the quotation meant, not that most mammals have nerves in their hairs.

1) How would having a lot of body-hair be seen fashionably?  Would it be considered more attractive than a hairless body, since hairlessness is related to dwarves?

2) How would this vary between Humans and Elves?

3) Allanakis and Tulukis?  I realize that there are about as many hairy Allanakis as there are Tulukis, but do they view this differently?

4) Women and men?

Dude, don't bang your head against the wall, you could get a concussion.  

1)  What, you're saying dwarves aren't sexy beasts?  

2)  Clasically elves have less body hair than humans, but who knows about Zalanthan elves?  You'd have to ask the staff, I guess.

3)  Dunno.

4) I'd think women would be naturally less hairy than men, but I could be mistaken.  Since women are as tall as men and as strong as men they may be as hairy as men too.  :shock:


As for fashion . . . fashions change.  

There is a practical consideration.  Hair more than a few inches long will provide shelter for fleas, ticks, nits, cooties and other unpleasant parasites, so there some advantage to shorn hair.  On the other hand, shaving may be difficult.  Not impossible, but difficult.  Obsidian razors would be easy enough to get and even sharper than metal razors, but water and shaving cream would be costly.  So you might end up with the very poor being hairy, because they can't afford to shave.  The "middle" classes of people with good jobs shaving daily or weekly to show that they have money to spend on a luxery (and get rid of those lice).  The very rich might shave, or they might decline to shave because they don't _need_ to, they can keep themselves nit-free by means more refined than merely removing hair.  Besides, without hair you can't have elaborate hairstyles.

AC

[Delirium]

Longer hair tends to be harder to keep looking fashionable and such, it also gets dirtier alot easier. So, unless a noble had lots of free time with nothing else better to do, they'd probably go with less hair so as not to be all dirty like commoners.

I would have come to the exact opposite conclusion.

A commoner would be most likely to keep short hair so as to take care of it easier. Jerk a comb through it every week or so, trim it with a knife when it starts getting long. Or else some sort of easy to forget about hairstyle, like braids, dreadlocks, a ponytail, etc.

A noble, with all their luxuries, could afford to grow their hair as long or short as they like and take good care of it no matter what.

[Miee]

I guess the general question here is what the cultural standards for attractiveness are on Zalanthas.  I have some thoughts on that that don't involve body hair so I'm just going to start a new thread.

[Pantoufle]

Arabs are some of the hairiest people around and that's because of their origins with the desert.  Hair helps filter out all the abrasive sand.  Hot weather doesn't always promote hairlessness.

Having said that, Zalanthas wasn't always a wasted desert world and it's certainly possible not enough time has passed for the human(oid) species to evolve accordingly.  Did you know it takes approximately 10,000 years for a human to evolve from African negroid black to Skandinavian white?  Now that's one end of the spectrum to the other but you can see how long it takes to adapt to the climate.  What with all the red, sun-burnt, and so on NPC sdescs out there, I'm inclined to believe the general "ethnicity" or "race" is something closer to caucasian.  Though what does it really matter, it's just a fantasy game!

...and besides if you're talking humans, they're a relatively mutated race to begin with.

[WhiteRanger (logged out)]

Oops...didnt realise I was trying to talk to a bunch of people who are far more intelligent than the leading minds of the scientific world...I will try not to use actual facts on the board anymore...sorry again.

[Pantoufle]

Oops...didnt realise I was trying to talk to a bunch of people who are far more intelligent than the leading minds of the scientific world...I will try not to use actual facts on the board anymore...sorry again.

Dude, you know how many "scientific facts" are contradicted by other alleged experts in the field?  I could find umpteen quotes from other "manuals" out there that contradict that little snippet from your bio book.

Here's an example:

Red dye number 5 (found in M&M's candy) causes cancer.
Aluminum chloride (found in anti-perspirant) causes cancer.

Red dye number 5 (found in M&M's candy) does not cause cancer.
Aluminum chloride (found in anti-perspirant) does not cause cancer.

Uhm, okay.  So which is it?  Well, it depends on which "expert" you ask.