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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irlo" data-source="post: 8704491" data-attributes="member: 7028372">Integrating Halflings into the Game WorldMany halfings have established communitites many predominently human, dwarven, and elven citites and towns all across the realms. Additionally, several nomadic communities make long circuits of major regions, stopping at each permanent halfling settlement along the way. Often, as many as 10-20% of the wanderers chose to sojourn in those settlements, while a like number of settled halflings join the travellers. In this way, family ties are maintained and expanded, halflings young and old can see the world, and new discoveries are shared -- delicious foods, jaunty fashions, excellent stories. Occassionally, non-halfling join the caravans for short or long periods. It's slow travelling, but as halfings carry their homey comforts on the road, it's a pleasant road indeed.Because of the good relations halflings maintain with the dominant peoples in their communities, the nomadic communities are free to cross borders even between nations with strained or hostile relations. Some might try to take advantage of that, but the halfings steadfastly decline to engage in espionage and smuggling which would undermine trust and potentially cut of their contacts with their kin in other lands.Halflings in History and on the World StageHalfling are notably absent from the written histories of the realms. One might think for that reason that their contributions have been insignificant. In fact, one prominent historian has speculated that the entire Halflling race could be erased from the world with no discernable repurcussions.A single example among many:The histories tell of the strained relations between Dwarf City and Human Nation and the eventual bridging of that schism to form a consequential alliance of Dwarf and Human to fend off a coordinated hobgoblin and dark elf incursion -- a major event in world history. It was a longstanding feud, centuries old, caused by a broken treaty during a time of political turmoil in Human Nation B and maintained by the long memory of Dwarves and their lack of understanding of political turmoil that could disrupt good-faith agreements among nations, but the alliance that followed was even longer lasting.The histories say that when the Human lands were pressed hard by initial waves of hobgoblin mauraders, their Dwarven neighbors overcame their grudge to send to a force against the invaders, briefly turning the tide and giving a populous Human town time to evacuate, saving many Human lives at the expense of Dwarven ones. What the histories don't say is that the Dwarves weren't there to defend the Humans at all but rather to defend the Halfling community that was nestled among them, at the behest of the Halfllings dwelling in Dwarf City. Nevertheless, the Humans returned the favor in a later skirmish, and the seeds of the alliance were formed.For those who deem the entire Halfling race inconsequential on the world stage, I can only point to a famous bardic production, performed seasonally across the realms, about the disappearance of one inconsequential man and the ripple effect of that disappearance on family, friends, and community. Imagine now the removal from history of the entire Halfling people. The world that remained, if there was one, would be unrecognizable.</blockquote>

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