Halfling
Halfling is a species of short, hardy mortals native to Holos. Though often forgotten, they are one of the four true mortal ancestries along with dwarves, elves, and humans. A remarkably diverse and adaptable species, with unique cultures and societies settled across nearly every continent. Among other mortal races they are known for small size, bravery, rustic values, and apparent luck. They are one of the younger mortal races but their origins are debated by scholars, with many halfling cultures having vastly different mythologies.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Apart from their size, halfling anatomy and morphology is strikingly similar to human anatomy. They have two grasping limbs and two locomotive limbs, each ending with five fingers and five toes respectively. Their hair grows thick on their head and their feet and thin over the rest of their body. Halfling hair is typically soft and prone to curling. It ranges in coloration from pale gold to chestnut brown to deep black. This can also be said of their skin, which varies to a similar degree as that of the other mortal species. Their eye color also mirrors that of most humans, with browns, hazels, greens, and blues most common.
Halflings are often confused with gnomes, as both are grow to a similar height and often overlap in territory and lifestyle. However, gnomes are distinctly of Fey origin and have a number of visible and invisible magical adaptations that halflings do not. A joke amongst artists and painters is that gnomes are more saturated while halflings appear almost naturalistic by comparison, but these descriptions are a comedic exaggeration.
Unlike gnomes, halfling body hair grows over the majority of their body, much in the same pattern as on humans. Gnomes are known to have more exaggerated features, like larger eyes, longer noses and fingers, and their hair is more often wavy or straight compared to a halfling's curls. Gnomes also have the tapered ears common among the descendents of feyfolk as well as striking eye colors of amber, emerald, and violet.
Halflings have much larger and more diffused populations across Holos, while gnomes are found almost exclusively in Auloa.
A few halfling populations have variations in their morphology with some being more lithe while others are more robust. These are commonly known as the lightfoot and stout halflings. Lightfoot halflings are known for their uncanny ability to take advantage of other mortals' obliviousness and blend into their environment. Stout halfling blood is known to be better at stopping poisons from damaging vital heart and brain functions. Socially, lightfoot halflings appear more often to live in nomadic and semi-nomadic groups while stout halflings tend to form sedentary agricultural communities.
Genetics and Reproduction
Halfling fertility rates are higher than those of other mortals though still far lower than that of humans. Female halflings remain fertile for much of the year, but are most fertile around the harvest. which allow them to breed regardless of season.
Growth Rate & Stages
Halflings grow to an average of about 3 feet tall and weigh an average of 40 pounds. They age slightly slower than humans, reaching adolescence around age six, sexual maturity around age sixteen, and their brains fully develop around age thirty. Halflings live to around a hundred years though legends claim they have lived to over one hundred and thirty.
Ecology and Habitats
Halflings are highly adaptable but largely live in arable regions with that can support a large biotic load. As a result, halflings are most often found in fertile grasslands and steppe regions, and often along river valleys with a regular sources of water. Some live in arborial areas including dense jungles or rainforests, and in these places they tend to subsist as hunter-gatherers.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Like all mortals, halflings are omnivorous, with most populations subsisting mostly on plant, vegetable, or fungal matter. Nearly all halfling populations are able to digest lactose and consume milk from a variety of domesticated animal sources.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Many outsiders believe that all halflings dislike wearing shoes or that there is some trait inherent in halfling feet that prevents them from wearing shoes. This is actually a misconception, but halfling feet are both more durable and more attuned to the surface they are on than those of other mortals. Particularly skilled halflings are able to "listen" to the earth as they walk upon it, allowing them to deduce the soil's composition and detect the presence of nearby cavities, buried objects, and tremors. However, such abilities take many years to hone and many halflings shirk developing these senses in favor of the practical benefits of footwear.
Civilization and Culture
Common Myths and Legends
Unlike the other four mortal ancestries, halfling cultures do not have a universally shared genesis myth. Nearly all scholars agree that they must have appeared some time near the end of the Dawn Era. Many also believe they are somehow related to humans given their similarities in anatomy and morphology, but how is uncertain. Beyond this, three major theories have been set forth regarding their origin.
Acien Tali
Acien Tali, the goddess of nature, appears in some form in nearly every culture in Holos. In some faiths, she is a passive presence while in others she takes an active role guiding her followers and overseeing her domain. This includes many halfling societies, including those native to Auloa. According to Palladian records from their conquest of Férulad, nearly all the halfling communities they encountered worshipped the land itself and Acien Tali as their goddess. These were druidic societies, and many of the halflings' greatest leaders and warriors were skinchangers, beastmasters, and green priests. Though many of these cultures were wiped out during the process of colonization, a few fled deep into the Basceron and southern Férulad. Many of these refugee communities have survived to the Sundered Era and retain much of their animistic or Acienist beliefs. In this telling, Acien Tali created the halflings out of soil caught in the roots of a mulberry bush. She created them specifically to tend to the rest of her creation and ensure a balance between mortals, monsters, and all of life. Halflings were not the first mortals created by Acien Tali, though in this account they are believed to be the ones intentionally created to maintain her tenets and domain. Acien Tali appears as nature's divine manifestation in Auloa, but in other parts of Holos, the goddess has other names and halflings are sometimes created in other ways. In Hakoa, there are even multiple variations of this same myth, each held by a different halfling ethnic groups. In some, Acien Tali is older than the world itself and made halflings before the world, molding them from of primordial muck. In others, Acien Tali did not create them directly; instead the first halfling was an ape who stole a Fruit of Knowledge from the sacred garden of the gods. She gained sentience and scrapped the hair from her body and when she returned to her troupe, her lover was enamored. Through their lovemaking, he was also transformed into a halfling. When the other apes did not accept them and attacked them, the goddess protected them and showed them the secrets of agriculture. The variety of myths regarding Acien Tali's involvement makes verifying any of these accounts nearly impossible and is sometimes explained by detractors as a natural consequence of Acien Tali's ubiquity across cultures, not her actual involvement in the origin of the halfling species. Additionally, unlike centaur, who seem to have an innate adverstion towards agriculture and sedintary societies, many halflings shun the wilderness. Other mortals often think of halflings as rustic and provencial but these rural communities still modify and exploit natural resources in order to create their expansive farmland and pastures. Indeed, some have developed true urban settlements and many more have integrated into the cities of other peoples with little difficulty. To some, this stands in contrast to how a lineage born from the goddess of the green would be expected to behave.Qingu
According to the followers of the Heavenly Council, the first halflings were created by the youngest of the Twelve Celestials: Qingu, Fortune's Dispatch. Very little in the Heavenly Codex pertains to halflings, with only a few passages referring to Qingu creating a mischevious race of mortals modeled after the dwarves, whom his father, Zwakhasis, had created as a gift for the Chancekeeper. The Codex claims Qingu made them "near cleverer than the gods," "as quick of foot as was their wit," "quieter than stone" when they wished but "loud of laugh," and with "more luck than any creature in the realms." Though all of these traits are often applied to halflings, the lack of any given name for the creature remains puzzling. It is unclear if the original High Celestial even had a word for halfling; the later Classical Celestial's didn't appear until after the Mithril Era and there is no evidence of halflings in Nioa until the Second Intermediate Period. In fact, for most of the Palladian Era, the prevailing theory was that the passage referred to monkeys—one of Qingu's two animal harbingers—and not halflings. Theologically, Qingu appears to have embraced halfling followers. Halfling cultures are often transitory or nomadic, and they frequently build and maintain roadside shrines to the Chancekeeper to win his favor. Many stories appear in Qingu's folklore canon of halfling towns and villages miraculously escaping armies and monsters through nothing but their foes' foolishness and their own fortune. Halfling clergy are endowed with seemingly greater luck than the average halfling and though many halfling are superstituous, their superstition is often rewarded with tangible gains. The contemporary interpretation began to develop as halfling groups came to interact more with the Palladian Empire outside of a military context. Halflings within the Empire slowly gained more rights and many converted to the Faith of the Council and questioned their cosmological status. Some historians claim the revision of the Codex was actually a deliberate attempt by Reformist members of the Imperial Court to win over younger generations of provincial halflings in the Férulad provinces. This woudl have helped create a bulwark against rebellion given the colonies' history of repression and resistence. Additionally, most halfling communities have converted to the Chancekeeper's faith as opposed to developing it independently. While this doesn't rule out Qingu's involvement in their creation, critics claim that it does suggest that it runs contrary to the way most of the godly patrons of other mortal lineages have acted across history. Moreover, proportionally far fewer halflings worldwide worship Qingu than those that do not as Qingu's presence throughout Holos is much more varied and patchwork than it is specifically in Nioa and Auloa.The Emerald Trinity
In Érulad, many native halflings adhere to a unique traditional theology known as the Trinity of Érûn. Often referred to as Emerald Trinitarianism, Clover Trinitarianism or the Church of the Clover, much of this faith's gods and teachings are little known outside of the Emerald Straits. According to Cloverian tradition, halflings were created by the god Ognu, the Progenitor, after a great war between the giants and Fey left the world barren and desolate. Cloverian accounts give little detail regarding this conflict, and most followers of the religion view it as more metaphorical than reality. In fact, most Cloverian mythology takes place during the Mithril Era and draws in gods from other pantheons such as the Heavenly Council, Fey Animisim, and even the Ordning. However, the halflings of Érulad are resolute in their belief that the first halflings were created by Ognu and that they are his children. As the Emerald Trinity is scarcely practiced outside of Érulad, its teachings regarding halfling origins are not widely accepted by most scholars. However, Érulad's history of halfling habitation is the most well-documented of any place in the known world, dating back to the earliest centuries of the Mithril Era. Many scholars have suggested that the Emerald Trinity is in fact partially a syncretic religion, that draws on multiple now extinct belief systems. In this context, it is possible that a kernel of truth may be found in the Cloverian myth and it has been warped over the centuries.
A pair of halfling ruffians
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