Need help with new idea for D20 Modern campaign

[Tristissima]

I've just recently begun developing an idea for a D20 Modern game that is D&D in the modern world seen through a horror lens.

I started by developing the origins/raisons d'etre of the 5 D&D non-human races. Elves are the result of the infusion of a dying fey's essence into a human (willingly or not), orcs are the result of that infusion gone wrong, gnomes are the terrible secrets of the Earth herself made manifest, and dwarves are somehow formed from the maggots eating away at the corpse of the world (which was spirit-killed sometime during the Enlightenment).

My problem is that I have no idea how halflings could possibly have originated. I need a horrific or horror-style origin for these lovable little adventurous homebodies and I am finding myself at a loss. Any help?

Any other ideas ya'll could throw out to help me develop this idea would be nice too.

 

[mkarol]

My problem is that I have no idea how halflings could possibly have originated. I need a horrific or horror-style origin for these lovable little adventurous homebodies and I am finding myself at a loss. Any help?

Cloning gone wrong... Think Dolly... Bahhh Bahh...

 

[Kugar]

Feral ancient pigmy tribes whose dark master has scattered across the world to sew chaos and collect strange relics from other early hunter/gatherer peoples? The 'good' ones finally finding freedom outside their native homes, yet at what cost?

People whose growth was stopped at the age of 12 for some nefarious reason.

Carnies

Kugar

 

[LightPhoenix]

I vote for a midget conspiracy. In the dark ages, midgets were mocked and shunned, and many withdrew to secret towns only they knew about to live in peace. As time passed, evolution made them less disproportional than midgets born today, and they've recently decided to come out of hiding, for whatever reasons.

 

[nameless]

For science purists, there is a problem with midget communities. Dwarfism is a codominant trait, somewhat like sickle-cell anemia. If you have no dwarf allele, you're normal. If you have one dwarf allele and one normal allele, you're a dwarf. If you have two dwarf alleles, you're dead (i.e. spontaneous abortion/miscarriage).

This would mean that a population of normal people would pretty quickly develop, and the midgets would slowly be bred out. On the other hand, that could set up for a cool society where halfling royalty (who are rare) rule over the lower-caste humans.

 

[Tristissima]

While these are all good ideas, none really give me the sort of cosmic, fantasy feel I'm going for. They all seem to belong more to a genre of horror that is more closely tied to science fiction than to fantasy. Can anyone help?

Again, any other ideas on this setting would be appreciated as well.

 

[s/LaSH]

What are halflings good at?

They sneak pretty well. They enjoy going places. And they're rather small.

This all says to me, 'pygmy hunters'. To put a cosmic fantasy horror spin on it... they're hunger personified. Halflings are those who were neglected children, and at a really early age were given the 'gift' of being good hunters (by whom? I cannot say... and was it a willing acceptance?). Of course, it stunted their growth and gives great opportunities for angst, much like the other races if looked at in the right light.

Or something, I dunno.

 

[Tristissima]

LalalalalaBUMPla la, la la. LalalalaBUMPla la, la la.

P.S. s/LaSH, I just read through all of Dungeon Damage in, oh, I'd say, about 2,2.5 weeks. Good stuff. Might steal a few ideas, horribly twist them and put them in this campaign (like the chimp-trogs and the Moslem gnolls)

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Why include them at all? Does someone in your group have a halfling fetish or something? If it doesn't fit, don't include it. No point in wasting effort slamming a square peg into a round hole.

Pick another race that wouldn't normally be an option (like Gnolls) and let that be your subsitute.

 

[Tristissima]

Well, I kinda do have a halflifetish. turns me on more than the thought of Lidda in her leather armor, but I will stop there for the sake of Erics' grandma.

Actually, I mostly want to include them because the whole point is kind of to make D&D in al its sacred cows present in the modern-day, but also all of them, even the cute things to have a sort of horror to them. I think that that is the most horrific thing about, say, the use of children in Stephen King (take the twins from The Shining for instance). That they are usually cute and in fact still are just makes the horror more horrific, I think.

Now, halflings don't HAVE to be cute and I believe I've seen some pretty decent non-cute halflings (I've never actually read Dark Sub, but I've read short descriptions of the halflings there and that seems to fit nicely). However, the lingering taste of hobbits and kender results in their baseline being cute and/or humorous. This is probably why it is proving difficult for me to come up with a good concept for them, unlike the other races. I, like the players I wish to horrify, seem to still be tasting hobbits and kender, but I think that, with the right concept behind them, that lingering taste will intensify the horror and just make it that much worse, uh, I mean better, yeah.