Halflings

Halflings are clever, capable opportunists. Halfling individuals and clans find room for themselves wherever they can. Often they are strangers and wanderers, and others react to them with suspicion or curiosity. Depending on the clan, halflings might be reliable, half-working citizens, or they might be thieves just waiting for the opportunity to make a big score. Regardless, they're cunning, resourceful survivors.

Halflings prefer trouble to boredom, and they are notoriously curious. Relying on their ability to survive or escape danger, they demonstrat a daring that many larger people can't match. Halfling clans are nomadic, wandering wherever circumstance and curiosity tae them.

Halflings tend to be neutral. While they are comfortable with change, they also tend to rely on intangible constants, such as clan ties and personal honor. Halflings often set out on their own ta make their way in the world. For a halfling, adventuring is less of a career than an opportunity. The distinction between a halfling adventurer and a halfling on her own looking for "a big score" can sometimes get blurry, and while halfling opportunism can sometimes look like larceny or fraud to others, a halfling adventurer who learns to trust her fellows is worthy of trust in return.

Hairfeet Halflings, Oerth

The hairfeet halflings are the most numerous type of halflings on Oerth, and many of them live among humans. Halflings are quiet, retiring, and do not seek attention. They are farm holk, pastoral people who don't get excited about much. Basically good-natured, they have adapted many creature comforts used by humans, and like safe comfortable lives. Most halflings build shallow burrow homes or cottages in grassland, forests or hills.

Light hair covers most of their bodies, especially the backs of their hands and the tops of their feet. Halflings usually travel barefoot, their thick-soled feet protecting them from the pain others would feel stepping on briars and sharp stones.

Lightfoot Halflings, Faerun

The most common type of halflings seen in the world, the lightfoots are the most likely to give in to their desire to wander. They are at home living side by side with folk of many different races and cultures. It's impossible to describe the "typical" lightfoot halfling because, much like humans, the race embodies individuals that are the absolute antithesis of one another. Their society is hard to qualtify, because lightfoots can be divided into three groups: thoes who live among humans, those who live among other lightfoots, and those who wander from place to place.

A typical lightfoot halfling stands around 3'6" tall and weighs around 30 to 70lbs. Their skin colors range from light pink to slightly reddish or bronze, and their hair is typically auburn, brown or black. Facial hair among males is rare, except for extremely old halflings, and females rarely allow their hair to grow beyond the shoulder. When not adventuring or entertaining others, halflings prefer attractive, well-made garments that are comfortable to wear.

Kender, Krynn

Kender of all ages share a childlike nature: curious, fearless, irrepressible, independent, lazy, taunting, and irresponsible with others' possessions. They are natural explorers, curious about everything, and they rifle through the contents of locked cupboards just to see what could be inside. They are oblivious to matters of ownership. If a kender needs something htat another person is not using, they will innoccently borrow the item to put it to use. They believe in the rights and the freedoms of the individual, and their nations have no real rules because they prefer the anarchy of freedom. Their fearlessness, combined with their sense of wonder, often washes away any dread they may feel.

Adult kender resemble young teenage humans: aside from their pointed ears, they could pass as human youths. Despitetheir attenuate limbs, kender are well muscled. Most stand between 3'6" and 3'9" tall, although some reach 4'6". Mature kender weigh between 85 and 105 lbs. Their hair ranges from sandy blonde to dark brown, with some coppery red or red-orange hues. Short-cropped shag cuts are popular, but some kender prefer braids, ponytails and knots. Kender cannot gro beards or mustaches. Although they are fair skinned, they tan quickly, and their skin becomes nut-brown y midsummer. Their eye color varies: pale blue, sea green, olive, light brown and hazel.

Hin, Mystara

The Hin, often called Halflings by other races, are a small folk who enjoy a good life. Hin have no knowledge of their creation or arrival, although historians trace them back to the original elven homeland, leading them to speculate they "appeared" with the elves. Hin tend to blend in with the surrounding communities rather than create their own. Most Hin are therefore found in human nations. The Five Shires of the Old World and the city-state of Leeha in Norwold are the only known true Hin communities. On the Savage Coast, they have been completely absorbed into the local nations.

Mystaran halflings have pointy ears and furry feet, but are not especially plump or child-like in appearance. Older halflings sometimes sport full beards.

Halflings, Cerilia

Living among their larger neighbors, halflings don't see the sense in a government larger than a small village or extended family, and are happy to count themselves as citizens of whatever land surrounds them. It's not unusual to find a handful of halfling farmers near a human village, or a neighborhood of halfling craftsmen in a larger town. Halflings usually adopt the language, culture, and customs of the Big Folk around them while keeping a few aspects of their own culture. They feel free to use weapons in defense of their homes or families, but will never take up arms against each other. Halflings consider fisticuffs the only acceptable form of violence against other halflings.

Cerilian halflings stand about 3 1/2 feet tall and resemble small humans, though they tend toward a stocky appearance. Light hair covers most of their bodies, especially the backs of their hands and the tops of their feet.

Racial Traits

• +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength
• Small Size: +1 size modifier to attack rolls and AC, +4 size bonus to hide and move silently skills.
• Skill Affinity: A lightfoot halfling receives a +2 racial bonus to the Listen and Move Silently skills
• Lucky: +1 luck bonus to all saving throws
• Fearless: +2 morale bonus to saving throws against spells and effects of the fear subtype
• Good aim: +1 racial bonus to attack rolls made with throwing weapons