Help me make halflings cool!

[jdrakeh]

I'm writing up some cultural stuff for halflings in my Borderlands setting (see links in .sig), but am having a dang hard time making halflings sound awesome. The Holmes manual gives them some pretty neat abilities (innate skill with ranged weapons, the ability to easily hide in the wilderness, and a resistance to magic), but other than that, they're just. . . hobbits (in fact, there's still an erroneous reference to hobbits in my BD&D rule book).

So. . . uh. . . just fire off a bunch of ideas that would make halflings cool to you, please. I just need some help brainstorming ideas and any are welcome, as my own imagination has kind of dried up when in comes to the topic of halflings. I mean, I guess I could just snatch some OGC description of halflings, but I want to reinvent them in a new and different way (while still sticking to what is presented as basic fact in the Holmes blue book).

Any help you can offer is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Rechan]

Halflings are wilderness ninja.

Seriously, given their racials, they are guerrilla fighters and ghosts.

Being easily dominated by bigger, nastier races has made them secretive, paranoid, and like the other small races believe in strength in numbers. So seeing one halfling means that there are probably a half dozen others hiding within the range of their ranged weapons. If you really offend them, they'll poison your water, sabotage your equipment, and otherwise do mean things.

To appease halflings, those who live near by will leave butter or bread outside their doorstep at night. In return, it prevents halfling trickery or child theft (known as Changelings) and ensures a bit of protection in the nearby wood; halflings will take down bigger threats to the human communities that lurk in the forest, as well as leave extra killed game at the edge of the communities.

Once you satisfy them, they're all smiles and joviality. It really is in the best interest of everyone to not tick off the halflings; despite their nastiness, it's a purely defensive tactic. They don't, as a race, go on the offense until the threat has been made.

 

[fba827]

(I was going to say "pirate like" but the hide in wilderness thing throws that off).

I'd go with primitive warriors. (Tribal, perhaps some tribes are savage?, hunter-gatherer semi-nomadic soceity)

 

[Herobizkit]

Make them magical. Maybe even make them alchemists who fling bombs at people.

Bombs that do disturbing things.

 

[Mark Chance]

Halflings are wilderness ninja.

Agreed. While it's still a few months away, my next campaign will feature halflings as Native Americans in a fantasy 17th or 18th century North America.

 

[billd91]

Frankly, I always found Hobbits pretty cool, myself. They're hospitable, house-proud, simple folk who like comfort and have a hedonistic relationship with food and drink. The chapter about Bilbo's party in The Fellowship of the Ring makes them seem pretty interesting to me. It's a pretty evocative snapshot of Hobbit society and that's always brought more awesome than special abilities. If you can write a vivid depiction of them, however you conceive them, I think you'll find player interest.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Dark Sun did a wonderful job of making them interesting.

Halflings are the direct descendants of the original creator race of all life. Thus, while today's halflings are savage barbarians, everyone else are beneath them and potential (and likely) food. No one knows when your neighborhood halfling will decide you're the next entrée that evening. Everyone is terrified of DS halflings.

 

[deadsmurf]

easy: dinosaur riding barbarians.
Done.

 

[Pbartender]

Ewoks without fur.



And that includes the whole slightly xenophobic "let's cook and eat the strangers, so we can gain their magical powers" bit.

 

[Gilladian]

IMC I combined the best of hobbits and gnomes.

Hobytlan are home-bodies who love the natural world, live close to nature and are at ease within it. They love their creature comforts, but are also able to talk to animals, and understand them. They can do some limited nature magic (cantrips) and hide in natural surroundings. They're also good at boating and swimming, as part of their nature skills.

I think hobbit-type creatures having anything to do with technology is just totally alien, so I don't go with the tinker aspect, nor would I think the alchemist role fits them well.