What I Like About Orc Babies

This is a touchy subject, and I'll try my best to discuss it with care, but I want to talk about children in D&D - human children, halfling children, orc children, giant children, beaver children, and everything in between. This has been kicking around in my mind since reading Lonely Star's post on the absence of pregnant women in TTRPGs, which sparked a related conversation about children in TTRPGs. This of course brought to mind the AD&D Monster Manual and its very thorough inclusion of children of all kinds. The implications are grim, and this is infamously brought to the forefront in Gygax's own Dungeon Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands and its use of "monstrous" humanoid children.I will also be talking about noncombatant adults (in the AD&D Monster Manual these are referred to universally as "females", but I will be using my preferred nomenclature because I believe that anyone can fight or not fight regardless of their gender). These adults go hand in hand with children, as…