I don't think they need politics or a formal role in the broader society or a creation story. (But I do count their "discovery" by Yondalla as a kind of a creation story. The story is that their creation is a mystery even to the Gods.) In other words, they don't have to be an entire race of diplomats or merchants or house sprites or whatever (though I don't necessarily have an argument with anyone else wanting their halflings to be those things). BUT That is not to say that individual halflings can't do those things. I think it's charming and interesting that like I said in another post, "they are just part of the scenery." No one much thinks about where they came from or what they're doing there, they just are and seem like they always have been.
In the game I'm playing in now, my halfling character does have a background of being from a merchant family. He is from a village in Amn (Amn is an area of Faerun with a large halfling population and has a reputation as kind of the bread basket of the world). His father is a successful barley farmer and brewer, not because he had any ambition to be a business man, but because he just happened to be really good at it and he found a small plot of land in a fertile river valley that happened to have a really great terroir for barley. (He got lucky! And probably Sheela was smiling down on him as well.) He produces as much as he can because he knows people appreciate his product, but it's still just a small family operation. The family's brand of strong ale has become a highly sought-after luxury across Amn.
So... not political, not ruled by ambition, he just carved out a nook for himself and is enjoying his life. He has the support of the country where he resides because they know that without him they'd lose a valuable, regional resource.
Could this role be filled by a human farmer? Sure, but I don't think it would have the same feel. And this is just dealing with my character's family's background. It doesn't really get into his motivation for adventuring and his story moving forward, which I won't get into here, but I think that that part of his story is also well-suited to an unassuming, underdog, indefatigable, brave, but reluctant hero.
Hell yeah. Not only this, but imagine for a moment a similar, but different character.
Instead of Amn, let’s say she’s from a small island nation with very good soil for barley, and really good honeybees, and some other resources like that, and her father made this special ale that has elements of a cider, mead, and underlying notes of that bready warmth you get with stouts and such, which comes together into a sort of “apple pie” flavor and feel, that’s relatively light, crisp, but with that undertone that makes you feel warm and satisfied. It’s a famous brew, and one of the very few claims to fame of the island.
And then the island was invaded, and the invaders took heavy casualties, including the invading king’s favorite son, and so the king curse the land so that it’s name was forgotten, and only those born there could remember it, and he burned the fields and cut down the ancient trees, except for a few places, which he destroyed in a more spiritual way. Grandma Gold’s Apple Ale has been replaced with Ialandel’s Golden Tears, named for the king’s slain son, and our PCs brother is made to brew his family’s brew under this false name.
Now our PC, she travels the region, and has traveled more broadly than that, as a musician and playwright, sometimes as a poet, sometimes as a mercenary, gathering allies, finding her folk in their despairing diaspora and giving them hope, because she has a plan. She has a plan to draw the king out into battle with the rival empire that has taken much of the archipelago, battle for the last free island, a great trade port coveted by both invaders, and she will cut the heads off both snakes as they grapple with eachother.
This could also be a human, but again it feels very different for being a halfling who grew up in a halfling home. It feels different that she isn’t a princess but rather simply the daughter of an a island without princes, whose family is respected because of what they make and how they have always treated others. It feels different that she is small and easily overlooked and not taken seriously by the big folk, that she has to work a little harder to prove herself to them because she doesn’t have some regal princely bearing.
That’s why it is valuable that Halflings are just folks. That they have no kings, no empires, no big impact on history, they are just folks.
