Halflings are nothing like gnomes, they are completely distinct and have a unique feel and culture. You can't just call them gnomes. Beardless Gnomes or maybe Chubby Gnomes, sure. But just gnomes? Please.
D&D 5E If you were to rename the Halflings for a neutral setting, what would you name them? (thread 2/3)
- Thread starter Slit518
- Start date
Halflings are nothing like gnomes, they are completely distinct and have a unique feel and culture. You can't just call them gnomes. Beardless Gnomes or maybe Chubby Gnomes, sure. But just gnomes? Please.
CubicsRube
Hero
Minimen
TiwazTyrsfist
Adventurer
/agree with everyone saying "Halfling is the generic term"
LORE: In their native tongue, these small people call themselves "Hha Flingsu" which literally translates as "The People". Halfling is a corruption into the common tongue and has nothing to do with their relative size compared to other races.
LORE: In their native tongue, these small people call themselves "Hha Flingsu" which literally translates as "The People". Halfling is a corruption into the common tongue and has nothing to do with their relative size compared to other races.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Agreed. I think "Hin" was in use in the Forgotten Realms, so I don't know if it's a "neutral" term.
Back in 3.5 I played a hin sorceress who would get into bar fights whenever she heard someone refer to her as halfling. She'd lose every time - she's was small, STR 8 sorceress - but she'd still do it for pride. (Yes, she could toast everyone inside the bar with her magic. That's not what she saw barfights as about.)
Actually, she ended up impressing some local dwarves for her willingness to drink hard liquor and wade in with her (diminutive) fists.
Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
"Hin" is from Mystara, actually, but the fact that few people know that makes it work just as well in my opinion.
iamntbatman
First Post
Meh, that sounds really contrived to me. I mean, what are the odds? I can think of examples of real world derogatory terms for peoples that resulted from corruptions of words from their languages that other groups heard, but not in a way that results in words that could describe some defining physical characteristic of the people. The real word has racist terms, so I'm okay with having them in my fantasy setting, too.
My hin bard would never get in a bar fight like that over being called a nasty name. He's just not the physical sort. Early in his career, he'd have just tried to laugh it off and deflect with self-deprecating humor, but more recently as his magical abilities have grown in power, well...let's just say that some knucklehead calling him a halfling in a pub would probably a good catalyst for violence.
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
Ha!
In an old campaign I ran, my goblins had the physical appearance and the unsavory reputation/behavior of goblins BUT they had the cunning and magical capacities of gnomes.
Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ (He/Him)
It's from both Forgotten Realms & Mystara. Considering that Ed Greenwood (aka Mr. Forgotten Realms, himself) wrote The Five Shires gazetteer for Mystara, it should be of little surprise that he used the term in both his works.
Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
That only makes it work better then; it's already a multi-setting name. Use it in a few more and we can legitimately call it "generic."
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