Halfling

Halflings (also known as the Hin) are short, pleasant folk who seek comfort above all things. Many halflings live in remote agricultural communities throughout the countryside of Aegall, but they are found thorughout Itherün in small communities, nomadic tribes, and tree dwelling communities.
Their culture is one of community, home, and, most importantly, food.

Civilization and Culture

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Hestia's Dinner Guests

The Halflings worship a pantheon of gods who speak to their traditions and values. Their origin is told through the story of a dinner party where Hestia’s Dinner Guests taught the first halfling, Erbin Summerpot, the values for a good halfling life

Hearth, Home, and Happiness

Halflings appreciate warmth and comfort ahove all things. Even halfling travellers try to make a little bit of home wherever they go. They detest uncomfotable campsites, drafty inns, and bad food. They will always try to find a comfortable place by the fire with a nice flagon of ale and a multi-course meal (see food bleow)

Community before Kings

While halflings exist within nations and are often technically subject to its rulers and laws, they often have an uncanny way sustaining themselves and avoiding being beholden to too much oversight. When bailifs do come to collect tax, they often find themselves stumbling out of a halfling cottage, 8 hours later, after many varied and delicious courses, more than a few bottles of alcohol, and no collected taxes (despite what their report will say when they do their book keeping).

Food

Halflings are small and down to earth creatures, and so is their food, consisting of modest portions of delicious, unpretentious fare. But don't be fooled by the small plates, for halflings make up for it in quantity and variety of dishes. It is common for an ordinary halfling meal to consist of several courses, while a lavish feast may contain dozens of plates of fresh, simple foods bursting with earthy garden colors. However, halflings always favor taste and practicality over pomp and presentation.

When their lives are not in danger, halflings do nothing quickly; nothing except eat that is. While their meals can stretch for hours, often with one meal running right into another, their rate of consumption is something to behold, often outpacing their usually larger non-halfling companions more than two to one. Remarkably, they are not messy eaters, rather they use their extraordinary agility to eat stealthily, quickly, and cleanly, for they hate to see a crumb of anything go to waste. Need that lock picked now? Tell your halfling companions that a buffet waits immediately beyond and you'll marvel at the speed and precision at which they can work.

Guests Come First

The concept of sharing is deeply rooted in halfling culture, whether it be imparting (sometimes hard-to-believe) stories of adventure or doling out that pot of stew they put on the stove. While they are largely unconcerned with formality and dining etiquette, they do strictly adhere to certain unwritten rules of hosting. The most notable of these is that, in a halfling dwelling, guests come first. This means the first serving of cheese, the first cut of meat, and seemingly unlimited portions of coffee, tea, biscuits, cake, and jams are made available to their guests, on demand. Unfortunately, this strong sense of hospitality sometimes goes unappreciated and unrewarded when boorish guests come by and deplete the larders of an overly polite halfling before the host can even sit or sample the meal for themselves.

History

The history of halflings is a muddied and confused one. There is no written record halflings from before the Lost Years, but they are mentioned in texts from in that period (limited as they are) often, with little explanation as to thier arrival and insinutating they've been around as long as any other species.
There has been a recent fashion in halfling communities of recording a family's geneology which has resulted in a much better record of halfling history over the last few centuries. This history is often kept in local libraries or in personal libraries and is told through personal tales with little regard for the stories of the wider world. Many halfling families own seperate parts of a larger family tree showing the family lineages going back generations. It is not uncommon for halflings to bring their family trees to the homes of other people to connect them and search for connections to fill in any blanks.

Lifespan

135-150 years

Average Height

2’9” - 3’3”

Average Weight

2 st 9 lbs (17 kg) - 3 st 1 lbs (19.5 kg)