Halflings

The halfling race was created by a god that they call Tzerini during the Second Creating, when minor or recently emerged gods sought to fill empty niches in creation with their own mortal lineages. As halflings retained little written record before the Fall of Eurosia, and made deliberately little effort to codify ther god's nature thereafter, it is not clear if that god was 'lesser' or 'new'. What written records there are call the god Tzerini, the Brief Candle, and refer to her as a god of fate (typically a domain held by powerful gods.) A handful of older songs use the name Scherizan, and epithets including the Bright Song and Fortune's Dance.
Tzerini created the halflings to occupy a territory in Moraea known as Caragal, meaning the Grey Crags. The halflings were, their lore relates, made small so that they could live on that which would not sustain one of the larger mortals. A modern reputation for excess is seemingly rooted in the confluence of halfling metabolism and human portion sizes. Despite the rugged and unwelcoming geology of Caragal, the halflings created a flourishing nation, but the fall of Eurosia changed everything. Around a thousand years ago, the cloud city of Eurosia crashed out of the sky into the ocean on the eastern edge of the world. The resulting wave struck Caragal less than two hours later with enough force to shatter stone. Only the direct intervention of Tzerini prevented the complete annihilation of halfling culture. It is estimated that fewer than a hundred halflings would have been abroad at the time, so it might potentially have wiped out the entire lineage.
To save her creation cost Tzerini everything. The entire population of Caragal found themselves on the hills above the western borders, watching as their land was scoured clean and turned into a salt marsh, surrounded by fragments of their homes and stores. When their clerics offered thanks to Tyrone for this miraculous salvation, there was no response, just a palpable sense of absence. No prayer to Tzerini has been answered since.
After a period of mourning and panic, the halfling took stock. With limited supplies and flood waters spoiling the land for miles around, they eventually chose to take what they had left and convert their homes into the first wains. Loading all that remained - goods and kin alike - into the wains, the halflings began to travel.
Many outsiders consider halflings to be lucky, but the traditional halfling attitude is that any good fortune they enjoy is a small, karmic recompense for all they have lost. Their original homeland was utterly destroyed, and Tzerini's power and existence were expended to preserve the lineage, leaving them with no god and no home, only one another.. Since then, the halflings, as a traditional culture, have refused to have any other gods, although personal piety is not proscribed.

Wagons and Wains

Traditional halfling society is a travelling culture. From Moraea they have spread out across the dome, with some bands even crossing the oceans to Caino and Suto, although the majority remain in Moraea and Talahaea. Being small, they find foraging relatively easy, and find what others might consider cramped quarters to be spacious. The culture prizes communal living and community spirit.
Halflings travel in extended family groups called bands. A full band is somewhere between fifty and a hundred strong, but they will often split up into smaller groups so as not to wear out their welcome. The core of the band are the wains, specialised carriages which carry communal assets and serve communal roles. These roles include, but are not limited to, the mootwain - home of the band's elders and seat of governance - the stockwain - a sort of general store and common storehouse - the waterwains - a broad category of wains housing baths, shared kitchens, and the band's infirmary and pharmacy - and firewains - the workshops for specialised crafts.
The wains are always accompanied by the band’s honour guard, a cadre of fighters made up of second sons and daughters, who protect the band, in particular the elders and the heirlooms kept in the wains. The rest of the band is made up of family wagons, which combine sleeping quarters with simpler utilities than the wains, for a single family of five to ten halflings. The wagons and wains are drawn by strong draft ponies, and the band will keep a stable of faster ponies or saddle hounds for riding. A band trade their skills – crafting, cooking, performance, or very occasionally fighting services – for coin and supplies, as well as keeping some meat animals and growing some food in garden plots on top of the wagons and wains.
Since the formation of the Sacred Republic, Talahaea has become less welcoming of travelers of all kinds. Increasing enclosure has eroded the common land where the bands and other travelers traditionally camped, local artisans often resent the intrusion of travelling tradesfolk, and settled communities often look at travellers with unearned suspicion. As a result, some of the bands have begun to settle, although they typically retain artefacts of their itinerant past, especially in regards to family, inheritance and the socialisation of property. They will usually choose to settle in an area with a substantial Gnome populations, as gnomish communities tend to occupy districts where the architecture suits a halfling's stature. Once established, a halfling community - commonly known as a fellowship - will do all they can to consolidate their property and form a 'halftown' within their host settlement. Communal buildings in these halftowns are usually known as wainhouses.

Halflings and Other Travellers

Halfling travelling bands share the roads both with individual travellers and other nomadic cultures. On a cultural level, they hew to a strong code of hospitality and behaviour which prioritises avoiding conflict with other road users and the settled communities they interact with, while stressing a ruthless protocol of retribution when wronged. The central philosophy of this code - know variously as the Way of the Road, the Travellers' Code and Wain law - is summarised as: 'Offer no offense; suffer the same.'
Halfling bands typically get on well with travelling scutori holts, sharing a live and let love philosophy and cultural love of the roads. They rarely travel together, since the massive holts represent an active if unintended risk to the smaller halfling wagons.
Goliaths are rarely as free-ranging as halflings, but while passing through their ranges, a band will often travel with the local Goliath sodality, exchanging news and goods for passage.
Halflings do not get along with travelling Gnoll packs. While the Children of the Weeping Mother have no animus against them, those gnolls who follow the Demon Jackal prey in the small, and that history has tainted the halflings' attitude to all gnolls, fairly or unfairly.
Travelling bands share camps when they meet, and expect much the same hospitality of their settled kin. Some settled fellowships find this an imposition, and some bands do earn that resentment.
The halflings rarely take to the waves. Those who do, usually do so aboard Sea Elf vessels. The two cultures share many things, in particular their love of travel and tales.
The halflings also have an unusual knowledge of more exotic travellers. Mist Walkers like the Vistani are a rarity on Aiaos, but some Aiaosian halflings join their companies. No known spell jammers have ever departed from the dome of Aiaos, but the halflings have tales of those who have found their way across the Void to reach it in the years since the Colossus War broke its isolation.

Halflings and Identity

Halflings are somewhat conservative in matters of gender, mostly hewing to biological determinism, not least because of the relevance of dynastic pairings and progenitorial inheritance in their legal system. Bonds between families are secured by marriage - dynastic lines are everything to halflings, for they determine an individual's community responsibilities, as well as their access to common stores and amenities.
In this, they are similar to Giants, although the traditional gender roles of their society are both less strictly observed and somewhat reversed from those of the post-Titanic giants. Halfling women are deemed inherently more decisive and authoritative than the men, whose purview is common sense and consideration. Men are also said to be far more at home with emotions, both their own and others.
Settled halflings, especially young members of the community, very often adopt more flexible attitudes to gender. This attitude is in part due to the influence of their gnomish neighbours.
While conservative in terminology, however, halfling society is non-prescriptive, and they are almost infamously open-minded when it comes to sexuality. While a dynastic pairing is expected to breed, common marriages can be between any pairing, or indeed involve more than two people.

Luck Children

The halflings, as a society, have no god. While individual halflings are free to worship as they choose, it is held that to adopt another 'god of the halflings' would be disrespectful of Tzerini's sacrifice. There are halfling clerics and paladins, but no halfling church, no halfling culture gods or halfling cults.
The sole remaining cultural religious manifestation is the recognition of luck children. Luck children are seen as the incarnation of the last fragments of Tzerini's power and are identified both by personal good fortune and as a good luck charm for their communities. Once recognised, a luck child enjoys an elevated status, but they are neither accorded special treatment, nor blamed when their luck does not hold. Their advice is typically heeded, and so a luck child will always receive the best education and mentoring their band can provide.
There is an old halfling saying: Luck helps when you help luck. No halfling is ever content to just trust to luck, and likewise a community will always strive to make the most of their luck child. Halflings are also careful not to cling to luck - those seen as hoard­ing good fortune are viewed with some suspicion, just as those who hoard wealth instead of returning it to the community. Similarly, luck children are encouraged to stay with the community through status and support, but permitted to come and go as they please. Recognised luck children are gifted a poor of ornately decorated, bronze arm rings which guarantee a welcome in any halfling community. Any halfling presenting falsely as a luck child will draw the collective ire the lineage. The only thing guaranteed to anger a halfling as much is to try to sell a luck child's bands.