Sweating?

[driver_1740]

Just had a quick question maybe someone can answer.

I typically gravitate to playing human characters because it should be more straight forward. But recently I've been throwing in a few elves and tried out a halfling that I'm happy about as well.

The question is do these other races sweat?

I was walking Cauan (an elf) who was wearing his cloak, it had recently stopped raining and I imagined due to the physical activity and the change in weather he would have broken a sweat causing him to want to remove his cloak. But I hesitated thinking if elves are creatures of magic, would they sweat and breathe the same way as a human would. Thought I'd ask about the other races as well (gnome, halfling, dwarf and half-orc) if anybody had any thoughts on this.

I know its a trivial detail, but one of those that got under my skin.

Thanks for your responses in advance.

driver1749

[sarah petite]

Hehe, a very good question

As always my reply is purely personal interpretation of stuff, so might not be of any use.

In my view elfs stand furthest away from humans as a race and their metabolism also. Elfs seem not as much bothered by any weathercondition, so heat, cold, snow, rain...to them it's pretty much Nature doing her thing and they live in close contact with Nature. Somehow I can imagine that elfs might sweat, but not under normal circumstances (e.g. an elven-smith labouring hard for days and days over a furnace).
Dwarfs seem to me somewhat the same, although based on a whole different background. Hardiness under all conditions. Dwarfs always seemed to me best suited to climb the highest mountains, well above the snow-line, but also to endure the heat undergound. So normal climate changes would probably annoy them (then again, what wouldn't annoy a dwarf?) but do little to their physique.
Halflings would seem most like humans, I'd say, although perhaps slightly more resilient when it comes to such things as climate. As a race the Hin are outstanding in adapting to circumstances in every aspect.

Of gnomes and half-orcs I know/understand quite little so not even going to try.

Just a half(ling) cent.

SP

[Hungry Crow]

To paraphrase Tony Randall Orcs sweat, Humans perspire and Elves feel the heat.

[Algernon's Ghost]

I couldn't find any official information on this.

Making some assumptions:

Sweating is a way for the body to regulate its temperature and to secrete toxins, so I'd think most humanoid species would sweat.

Knowing that elves have keen senses (including smell), and that they are often offended by strong odors - regularly using the stench of orcs and half-orcs in insults against those races - it would be my logical guess that elves must either not perspire heavily, or produce little to no odor when they do (possibly a combination of both).

Where halflings are concerned, I haven't read anything relating to their sense of smell or the offense they take with unpleasant odors.

[driver_1740]

Thanks for the replies.

I think that clarifies things quite a bit for me.

Just an odd couple of observations:

If Orc sweat emits an offensive odor, perhaps elf sweat has actually a pleasant odor, maybe not so much for the elf.

Anyway, I was thinking of playing PnP back in the day (one of the few times I was allowed into the DnD group) and it seems that something like this really didn't come up, so I imagine there isn't much literature about it. I think I have enough of an idea to be "realistic" about this in the FR world though.

Hope to see you all in game soon.

driver1740