Halflings

The Dust Age

In the dark days, after Aino smote the world with his hammer, the dwarves began to experience mutations in their offspring. Some of their children would be born stunted and beardless. These infants caused a great disturbance between the dwarves, as the growth and maintenance of facial hair was a very important part of their religion, and still is to those who practice the Montra Dwaro. While shunning family members due to an inability to grow whiskers seems outlandishly cruel to us, these dwarves of the Dust Age feared that their children would curse their entire people to an afterlife of punishment. The Montra Dwaro dictates that we are constantly in a cycle of death and rebirth from one world to the next. For these children to be born beardless meant that they had to have been evil in their last life. So these people were called No'am, which means misshapen in the old dwarven tongue. Over time this name has been lost, and they are called by many others: Gnome, Halfling, Cragger, Stuntling, and so on.
These halflings wandered the dusty soil of Doranon, and few were able to find the shelter the needed. Their firmer, dwarven ancestors struggled under the scorching sun and cruelty of the wild world in those days. The stunted cast offs faired so much worse. Helpless to defend themselves, they were hunted by birds, beast, and orc. Fleeing farther west, they developed a herd mentality, and a cold philosophy of acceptable losses. Survival of the group generally came with the sacrifice of one or more of their kin, and the halflings grew to accept death as an inevitably common part of their lives.
Their time in the Natuthian Badlands nearly lead to the extinction of the halflings in their entirety. However, they found sanctuary in the Resimico, the Grand Crag. This natural wonder is a canyon that runs miles in length, from the Mountains of Telemnar to the Dry Sea of the Alanites. At its shallows, where the canyon walls give way to the Dry Sea, the walls still stand 1200 feet high. In the north, the Grand Crag of Resimico closes off in a seemingly bottomless box canyon. The Halflings have come to call this pit the Trumble, and it has become the vastly populated city in Halfling history.
These people, who some now call Craggers, have made their homes in the pocked faces of the Crag's canyon walls. The Grand Crag is the source of many caves and small natural water fountains which hide beneath its rocky skin. The city of Trumble was the most wondrous of all the Craggers' engineering. Spiraling the walls of Trumble's great void, the halflings build ramps, rope bridges, and catwalks to connect this vertically aligned domicile. Due to how much their lives revolved around scaling the sides of the canyon, Craggers generally neglect to wear shoes. There are few who climb nearly as well as a halfling from the Trumble

Shemat

While the Trumble appears to sink endlessly into the abyss, the halflings did eventually find the bottom. After generations of building down into the canyon, adventurous climbers scaled their way into the blackness. At its base these Cragger folk found a slumbering horror. The largest female Scrag in the history of the world had made the base of the canyon her slumbering chamber. Over countless ages, she has slept and grown larger, and so this slumbering giantess was named Shemat.
Halflings are very familiar with what happens when a Scrag awakes from its slumber. The ancient Hen-o'dem is consumed by ravenous hunger, satiable only by gorging itself on the flesh of men and beast. Noone knows how much a scrag of Shemat's size can eat, but it is almost certain that she would easily devour all who live in the Trumble.
Shemat has since been worshiped as the goddess of death in the Halfling religion. The Craggers even tell a story of how the world will end when she wakes from her sleep. Shemat will rise from the Trumble and consume all who live in the world before returning to her sleep. In order to keep her from waking, sacrifices are offered to this slovenly goddess. Halflings from all across the Grand Crag will send livestock and food to be thrown into Shemat's pit. Criminals sentenced to die are shipped into the Trumble just to feed the sleeping horror.

Revenge Against the Forefathers

While the elves may have never populated the Grand Crag, their settlements still affected Cragger history. In Telemnar the elven population caused a great divide amongst the dwarves that lived there. Some served the elves, as they claimed to be offspring of their god Ambal. Others had grown used to ruling themselves, and felt these elves were unworthy tricksters. After many debates turned to fury driven slaughter, the dwarves who refused to worship the elves left the valley of Telemnar and headed west. It was not long before they found themselves sandwiched between the halflings they had scorned, and the home they had lost.
The Craggers remembered what their dwarven ancestors had done to them, and the generations of death it caused. When the throngs of dwarven refugees begged to cross the lands around the Trumble, the halflings refused. They were insulted by the very presence of the dwarves, and they took down the simple bridges they had made to cross.
The dwarven refugees attempted many times to sneak spies through the Grand Crag, but the halflings were an astute people. Wherever the dwarves went, the Craggers would follow. Those who tried to find safe passage across the canyon were captured and thrown to Shemat. What the halflings lacked in strength, they made up for with crafty traps and their climbing abilities. The dwarves would find themselves on catwalks designed to break, or swarmed from head to toe with stuntling climbers.
Eventually the dwarves decided to brave the Dry Sea to the south, and left the lands of the halflings forever.

The Ghoulish Diaspora

The Norien Empire never conquered west enough to reach the Grand Crag. Halfling culture was almost completely untouched by elven influence, which most of the Children and Lesser races would consider a blessing. However the end of the Great Ghoul War saw the entire face of Urdun change. The ghouls were vast in number, and with their leader Sarko'Anar slain they began to wander Urdun's soil. These crude and evil beasts, which were once considered people, roamed across all corners of the world. Many followed the human refugees who fled west, feasting on the dead and capturing others to convert them into ghouls themselves.
In those days, the hills north of the Grand Crag were populated with Skjards, Dwarves, and the Chu. These people lived in scattered villages and often squabbled over who had rights to what patch of land. However the Ghouls saw an end to the argument, as the territory and all who lived in it were fodder for their hordes. Few escaped in those dark days, and the ghouls numbers swelled greatly.
While the hills around the canyon were consumed, none could touch the Trumble. The halflings took down their bridges so that all who attempted to take their canyon would go to feed Shemat. Eventually, just as the dwarves did, the ghouls left the Grand Crag to its own devices, and wandered the outer world in search of new peoples to consume.

The Orange Road

The halflings were no friends to the Alanites of the Dry Sea. They had tried and failed many times before to enter the Grand Crag, only to find themselves pelted from all sides by Halfling defenders. Many generations of stopping intruders in their tracks lead to the Craggers adopting an isolationist policy. This all changed with the Orleonian endeavor to open a trade route to the North East, which they called the Orange Road.
The Oldaire merchant family came from Orleon to build a road that would reach all the way to Telemnar. They hoped to do business with the dwarves there and hopefully bring back some of the vast wealth of silver that the bearded folk possessed. The plains and badlands around the canyon were filled with all sorts of barbarians, ghouls, and other dangers. The halfling's canyon was different. They possessed a quite strategic position, and the Oldaires promised to share some of their wealth with the Craggers if they allowed passage. The halflings were not excited about this arrangement, and forced a very hard bargain. The Orleonian merchants would do business with the dwarves on behalf of the Grand Crag, bring a larger share, and improve the quality of life.
Over time the dwarves were permitted to come into the Crag to trade with the Oldaire family. Telemnar Dwarf diplomats were much more appeasing than those of the refugees before. The Trumble went from being a bottomless pit with scattered homes, to having many districts that surrounded its rim, where the larger folk would conduct business. The Oldaires even constructed a large fortification at the southern mouth of the canyon to keep unwanted peoples out of the canyon base. This new friendship with Orleon and Telemnar vastly improved the lives of the halflings, and their numbers grew even greater.

Empire of the Crag

The Craggers were very fond of their allies in Orleon, and attempted to copy their success. The Trumble became capital of their new empire, as they began to populate the hills left destitute by the Ghoulish Diaspora. Craggers generally don't feel very comfortable without strong walls, and will choose to burrow their homes deep into hills and valleys. These people colonized the foothills south of Telemnar all the way to the Stoney Glenn.
They crowned an emperor of their own in the Trumble, and hoped to compete with their neighbors to become a strong force like those of the outside world. They needed to learn from the outside world what it means to be strong, and so they traveled with the Oldaire merchants into all corners of the world. The halfling empire would use these tradesmen as spies and would have them document ever aspect of the way the big folk conduct themselves. Any strength they could find would be brought back and taught to the rest of the Empire.
It is funny to call the Empire of the Crag an empire at all. It is one of the smallest nations that colors Urdun's soil, and they certainly do not possess the strength to conquer other nations. The ally they possess in the Emperor of Orleon considers it an insult for the halflings to fabricate a title of equal status to his own. Though he does not attempt to do anything about it. They are an important friend to have, and offer a way to encircle to Queenlands if necessary.
The halflings have never fought a war outside of the Crag, and noone is quite sure how well they would fair in open conflict. They possess a great number of Halflings, but their small stature looks comical when clad in armor, rather than the intimidating presence they hope to achieve. They also possess no cavalry, and few have attempted to fix this issue. Regardless, the hills are becoming over populated with latter generations of Craggers, it will not be too long before they start to test themselves against their neighbors.