Halflings

No one really knows how halflings appeared on Exandria, nor is it known how they first arrived in Tal’Dorei. Some halfling scholars are eager to trace the origin of their people, but many of those who live out in the countryside are more keen on inventing increasingly tall tales regarding the roots of their ancestry. One popular creation myth is that when the All-Hammer made the dwarves, a little bit of leftover clay slipped from his hands and landed on the rolling fields beyond the dwarves’ mountains, where it became the first halflings. Though most people dismiss this story as nothing more than folklore, a sense of the halflings having humble beginnings fits with the place they’ve found for themselves in Tal’Dorei.
The historical records of the Cobalt Soul assert that halflings journeyed across the Ozmit Sea from Issylra with Tal’Dorei’s first humans, with both peoples coexisting in peaceful harmony in this realm’s earliest cities and idyllic agrarian towns. Humans and halflings likewise fought together—and against each other—when the Iron Rule of Drassig swept across the land.
The Scattered War divided halflings across the continent in two ways. Thousands of humans and halflings were impressed by Drassig’s strength and joined his armies, even as many of those who refused to join turned away from their old allegiances. One group of halflings decided that humans had betrayed them and that Warren Drassig was emblematic of all humanity’s evils, and formed the Stoutheart Clan in response. They stockpiled weapons and began a campaign of guerilla warfare against Drassig’s armies—even battalions that held former friends and family among their ranks.
Another clan, the Lightfoots, asserted that all humans couldn’t be condemned for the evil actions of one king, and pointed to the thousands of halflings and other non-humans who had allied themselves with Drassig’s evil regime as proof. The Lightfoots advocated protecting as many people as possible while waiting the war out. In the end, it became clear to both halfling clans that in a conflict against a tyrant such as Drassig, neutrality was not an option. They banded together behind Zan Tal’Dorei’s banner of rebellion.
These two clans dissolved after the Scattered War, but many contemporary halfling families can trace their genealogies back to one or the other, and proudly proclaim that their great-grandparents were there when history was being made. Most halflings treat this sense of history only as idle fun, though, and few feel any real animosity over old ills and grudges.

Lightfoot Clan

The Lightfoot Clan dissolved into its many component families after the war, but the spirit that created the clan still survives. Those halflings who strongly identify with their Lightfoot identity look out for number one first, and are more likely to try to evade conflict than to meet an oncoming storm head-on. Yet a contradiction lingers within the Lightfoot spirit, for despite all their love of the comforts of home, many Lightfoot halflings feel a certain unquenchable hunger to explore. Many adventuring halflings are Lightfoots who have given in to this compulsion.

Stoutheart Clan

The Stoutheart Clan also dissolved in the wake of the Scattered War, but its ideals and identity still endure. Brashness and courage even in the face of absurd odds embodies the Stoutheart spirit. Recalling the guerilla army that stood against the legions of Drassig, any halfling with the fortitude to stand up to a warrior three times their size has more than earned the honor of calling themself a Stoutheart— even if their family tree doesn’t have true roots in that historic clan.
Stouthearts often surprise other people who know of halflings only from experiences with more laidback Lightfoot folk—and many use this surprise to their advantage to become truly cunning diplomats. The proud Stoutheart named Assum Emring, a former member of the Tal'Dorei Council, once boisterously claimed that he was so rude, so brash and so defiant in his first meeting with the late Sovereign Uriel Tal'Dorei II, that he was very nearly arrested— before being offered a position on the sovereign's staff the very next day!