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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8349555" data-attributes="member: 7023887">I really liked the idea that someone else in the other thread had for having a group/culture/subrace of halflings that were Beekeepers and would ride Giant Bees in combat and use magical honey as healing potions (and I gave the idea of the magical honey curing diseases, as honey is a good antibacterial substance in real life). I would also make these Apiarist-Halflings sell the biggest and most beautiful flowers (possibly giving them small magical auras for people that can smell the flowers), because bees are known for being excellent pollinators. I'm also warming up to the proposed idea of Halflings being to agriculture and cooking as Dwarves are to mining and smithing, being very specifically made for that purpose; both in design and by their gods (in the worlds that has gods that created halflings, that is).If you took this idea and expanded it to the different types of Agriculture, you could have Coastal/Lake-Dwelling Halflings that are expert fishers (possibly also growing seaweed), Village/Rural Halflings that grow all sorts of plants (I quite like Pumpkin and Potato-growing halflings, as well as Corn, Cabbages, Cotton, Sugarcane, Sunflowers, Beans, and Beets) and care for specially bred livestock (Cows with the best milk, Goats for the best cheese, Giant Oxen (Auroch stats, probably) for the manual labor, Giant Chickens for the best and biggest eggs, etc) that can double as battle-mounts, Orchard-Halflings that grow the best apples, cherries, pears, and nuts, as well as tending to vineyards to grow grapes, with gardens for kiwi, melons, cranberries, and tomatoes.Taking these ideas, I would break down halflings into 3 main subraces in a future PHB:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Lightfoot Halflings for Apiarists and Florists with magical honey, bee-mounts, and giant, magical flowers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Stout Halflings for the Rural Farmers with special/magical versions of typical crops and livestock.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Lotusden Halflings for Orchard Halflings with the best wines, fruits, and nuts (magical pie, anyone?).</li> </ol>Then, add some lore about most folk/fairy-tales coming from Halflings. Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk is a Halfling, as is Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, and Hansel and Gretel. Cinderella is a Lightfoot Halfling whose father got married to a human stepmother, and the reason that the glass slipper wouldn't fit anyone else's foot in the whole kingdom is because it's halfling-sized. They could even add in a "Danny and the Goliath" story, where a young Stout Halfling commoner killed a Goliath warlord that was attacking Danny's homeland with a sling. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes did something similar, but not to the extent and in the manner that I would like.If "Halflings are intended for the 'Zero-to-Hero characters' in epic stories", add some lore and fluff text into the game that supports that. Make halfling culture in the base game discuss how halflings love tales of adventure and exploration, even though they love their homes. Give recommendations to halfling characters about how their character may be conflicted between wanting to journey through the wider world versus staying at the comforts and safety of home, and give examples of how a halfling can take a bit of home with them when they adventure (through sayings and stories, souvenirs and heirlooms, letters and a promise to return to the loved-ones back at home).Then, if Halflings embody these "country-farmer" tropes, give advice to DMs and Players on how to invert/subvert them. Give an example of a Halfling Villain that wanted to protect their lifestyle so much that they became xenophobic, a halfling-culture-supremacist, and founded a kingdom/faction of halflings that have strict rules that visitors have to follow while in their towns (possibly a "<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HappinessIsMandatory" target="_blank">happiness is mandatory</a>" rule, or a "you must enjoy our meals, even if you're allergic, or else!" rule), that is tolerated by other kingdoms/nations because the halfling-nation's/faction's products are a regular and reliable source of food that the nations are dependent on. We don't need "Evil, Underdark Halflings" like we have Evil Underdark Elves, Evil Underdark Dwarves, and Slightly-Less-Happy Underdark Gnomes, but IMO we need the culture of halflings to be coherent enough that it can be spun in a way that gives obvious and compelling options for making Halflings villains/rivals, just like you can spin a Dwarf's extreme love for tradition as villainous and bigoted or an Elf's love of endless beauty as discriminatory of younger, less beautiful races.Imagine starting a campaign with this story hook, "The people of the Sword Coast are in trouble. A new disease has begun to sweep the land; being known as 'Black Death', and it has killed thousands. Temples are overrun with the sick and dying, so many people have gotten sick that the Clergy and Templars of the temples are incapable of keeping up with the spread of the wretched disease. Cities stink of death and excrement; rats, insects, and other pests crowd the streets. And the only common and dependable remedy for this horrid malady has become more and more rare and more and more expensive as the United Halflings of [insertname] recently ceased to export the so-called, 'Golden Nectar', a rare type of magical honey that is exclusively sold by settlements of beekeeping Halflings, until Laeral Silverhand swears to recognize the validity of the new federation founded and run by Halflings."Now that is a great halfling-based story hook, if you'll ask me.</blockquote>

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