Tell me about halflings in your world.

[alsih2o]

If you play in my game and have a soul you will not read this-

Spoiler

In my campaign the halflings were amazing wodworker s with an affinity for magic. The lived in broad based towers, stacked one house on the other very high. By intensive raised bed farming around an on the tower they are able to leave a very small footprint (no play on words intended ) on the surrounding area.

They were threatened by a powerful wizard and rounded up by a hero who wished ot save their race. The evil wizard eventually cursed a huge area of the hill lands with a sleep-like spell. This spell has held the halflings inside the zone in a kind of suspended animation for almost 200 years. A few halflings were not with the main refugees and escaped this fate, but they have been eliminated since (see the story hour in my sig, the story of the last free halfling is coming).

Inside this area of suspended animation is also a powerful dragon who was an ally of the hero, if he is awakened much in the campaign could change...

 

[Aristotle]

First off I just want to say that I love Chroma's halfling culture. There are lots of original and interesting ideas floating around this thread (makes me kinda want to see threads on what you all did with the other races), but that one is great. If I didn't have a pipe dream of publishing my homebrew someday I would definately be yoinking that idea and adapting it to my own setting.

I'm undecided as to what I'll be doing with the little folk in my own setting. I've always loved the idea of a 'halfling town' district in a human city where most of the non commercial buildings (and a bunch of those too) are built smaller; specifically for the halflings.

 

[Samothdm]

Samothdm - your game is polar opposite from mine, because I went a step further - I completely removed goblins and orcs from my world. Too cliche'.

Interesting. I doubt you'd find my goblins and orcs too cliché, though. The goblins in my world are "the wise ones", the descendants of the ancient scribes of a master race. They have all the knowledge - but they don't know it, and neither does anyone else (yet). They live in cities, integrate with the other races, and have a "special insight" into the way the world really works.

The orcs are nomads from the plains and low-hills areas. They've divided into two main groups: "civilized" orcs who integrate with the other modern races, and "traditional" orcs who fight to maintain their lands and way of life in the face of encroaching human civilization. The two different types don't get along very well.

A few people mentioned that either their halflings or their gnomes live in "ghettoes". That role is filled by the dwarves in my world (not all dwarves, just some). Other dwaves live in the desert in three large tribes, competing for food and water but sometimes working together to fight off larger threats. All dwarves believe that they are the descendants of a slave-labor race who were persecuted by some powerful "first race" in millennia past. They are continually searching for the descendants of the "first race" in order to take their revenge on behalf of their ancestors.

Then there are the elves... well, that's a whole other story.

 

[trowizilla]

In my world, each race is the result of efforts by the over-gods, who are split into different aspects to form the gods most people worship. Some over-gods created races to embody certain qualities, while others made races as a "lets see what happens" thing. For example, elves, humans, and orcs were all created by an over-god who wanted to explore the civilization/barbarism scale of things (which, by the way, is why they can all interbreed: they're actually just different sub-races, although they'd all be shocked to find this out).
Anyway, halflings were created by an over-god who valued freedom. Therefore, although there's as many kinds of halfing civilizations as there are human, they all tend to be nomadic or semi-nomadic, and to place a high value on personal freedom. The main group my players have come in contact with are a herding people who live in a plains area. They keep flocks of tsula (a sort of sheep-goat hybrid that gives milk and grows wool) and ride tall, shaggy dogs, herding them between winter and summer pastures. Each multi-generational family generally lives in sod houses, and often refuses to allow taller races inside because they'll knock off the roof. Otherwise, they're extremely hospitable to visitors, often greeting them with a feast and games. Halflings with wanderlust are encouraged to strike out on their own, given the traditional parting gift of a young riding dog and assured of their welcome if they ever wish to return.
Halflings often have a casual attitude toward property rights, especially in regards to unused items. Although the typical halfling will not steal used items, like a farmer's plough, he sees hoarded wealth as useless and will seldom refuse and opportunity to "liberate" it. After all, it's not doing anyone any good in that vault, is it? They tend to be impulsive and generous, often to a fault, and radically oppose compulsion. Halfling wizards tend to avoid using compulsive spells like "charm person", although they appreciate tricks and illusions. Very, very few halfling societies ever use imprisonment as a punishment, and clerics of the various coercive gods are spurned.

 

[Black Omega]

I took a slightly different route. I'm running a Rokugan game, so there was no chance of agrarian hobbits. There were links to the underdark though. So, bring in pale skinned hobbits with big, cute eyes who are very content to be over looked, all the while, when asked, admitting they represent the peaceful Empire of Underbough, a great kingdom far beneath the earth.

The truth of the matter being that thousands of years ago then He Who Is Not Named fell to earth, the Underdark for hundreds of miles was devestated, as were most surface kingdoms. The Haflings of the time had been semi-feral cannibals constantly surrounded by bigger, stronger enemies. their tiny size and cunning survival skills came in handy now and they survived the catastrophy quite well, taking over areas previously held by larger races, creating an empire of slaves and stolen magic.

By the time of the game, the power of their Empire has faded again and they are surrounded by enemies. But have old artifacts, lost secrets of magic, and the type of siege mentality that would make Israel proud. All of which is background material in my game, but I might find other ways to use it later.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Mwahhahah

The halflings in my world are the abused underclass. Wars with humanoids droven them away from a wandering gypsy like lifestyle and into the ghettos of the human cities.
They live in squalid homes and are looked at suspciously by most humans.
Their culture is semi-matirachal with the women providing stablity and what rules they have. The men are wayward and tend to run in packs, rarely forming stable households.
The halfling race is more innately psionic, with the women tending towards seers, and the men towards nomads, with telepaths split equally.
(I haven't fully revised this to account for the blast mage style of 3.5 XPH)
The halflings have had a prophcey about a chosen one coming to lead them out of poverty. Last year a troubled youth who never fully admitted to his role was killed, but he succeded on starting a city run by a mixed council of elves halflings and humans. He also bargined for exclusive trading rights to an elven kingdom. (this agreement is not enforced) Halflings flock to this city as the promised land and the shrines set up by his devoted follower. New roads have been built and what was once a hamelt is swelling into a city,

 

[der_kluge]

Lots of good stuff here. I actually really like Trowzilla's cultural explanations to explain their fondness for gems and loot. Very nice. I shall have to swipe that one for myself.

In my (rudimentary) history, I have an orc/goblin war occurring 500 years in the past, with the humans and elves siding together to eventually declare a victory in this battle with the defeat of the orc king and his army, thus eradicating them from the land. During this war, or the events leading up the war, the orcs wiped out a large halfling city in the fringe lands, and the surviving halflings evacuated into human lands, where many of them enlisted their services into the war. After the war, the king granted a large plot of land for halfling use, and so many halflings ventured into these lands to rebuild. A lot of halflings remained in the human areas, and work side by side with humans in a peaceful existance. Over the last couple of hundred years, some halflings have built communes within the human lands, where they work the land, and practice their trades in wood and leather goods.

 

[Ed Cha]

Well, now I'm torn between the concept of a nomadic race, and a peaceful agrarian race. Maybe I'll introduce both.

I always thought halflings were agrarian. They seem to be nomadic not by choice, but being forced out by other races, monsters, etc. Isn't that why the halflings in Tolkien's world moved to the Shire? It's because they're small and relatively weak, so easily chased away by more powerful things. I've always been disturbed by this idea that halflings, by nature, are wanderers.

 

[James Heard]

In my world halflings are called the fins and almost exclusively live in very deep forests and live by banditry. Fin trails are almost impossible for anyone else to navigate by, they've got a +4 Racial Bonus to Survival in Forests and are variously regarded as nuisances and unholy terrors. They scalp their enemies and leave the reminders nailed to trees, and have cookbooks with Orc and Goblin recipes in them.

Their own oral histories say that they are the descendants of the god of war when he raped the goddess of mirrors, that god that came to be stole one of his mother's eyes and hid it in the sky to become the moon. It is said that on dark days you can hear him play the fiddle to mock his father, and that is why the fiddle is a fearful noise in the forest - it signals that Fins are close, and they're hunting.

 

[snarfoogle]

Most of the book is set in the time just after the Hobbits have been given The Shire by the King of Athedain (is it King Argeleb?). It presents the Hobbits as rather rugged frontier folk who have to deal with resentful humans along with the more usual elements of a fantasy frontier (orcs, spirits, etc).

Argeleb II, if I'm not mistaken.

Egads! Remind me to never play in your game. Is that set on the world of Kermit*?


*really obscure reference to _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ about a world with no night sky. At least, I think that's the name of the planet. Someone here will correct me if I'm wrong.

That's Kricket you're thinking of.