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Author Topic: Different Interpretations of Halflings!  (Read 2216 times)

Kuroth

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #15 on: May 20, 2020, 07:52:53 PM »
Lejendary Adventure renames halflings to kobolds, giving them a more fey-like appearance, discarding the Hansel & Gretel caricature. They are greenish in complexion. They are given the invisibility ability, like fey or you know who. One in four have an additional special ability of the enchantment of psychic sort.   They are fairly devious in their sense of humor, with sort of an arrogant general attitude that can be gregarious in the right environment. They live in hidden communities.
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Kuroth

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #16 on: May 20, 2020, 08:02:19 PM »
Quote from: Pat;1130743
I've treated halflings as a commensualistic species that live among giants. Imagine the steading of the hill giant chief, except the scurrying you hear in the walls and the eyes peeping down at you from the rafters aren't rat and bats, they're halflings. They're shy and skittish, and keep out of the light. When things are quiet, they crawl out to take away remnants of food and other useful bits.
I kind of like this idea.  Perhaps set them as a form of familiar too.
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SHARK

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #17 on: May 20, 2020, 08:08:10 PM »
Quote from: Kuroth;1130650
Kender!!

It is an odd result of everyone trying not to make hobbits that Middle-earth games have unique halflings.


Greetings!

Yeah, *Kender*.:D I think making a good effort to create different cultural and ethnic groups for Halflings--or whatever race--is a good and worthwhile endeavor.

Making a race like the Kender is just pathetic and annoying, you know? I had a hate for the Kender from the beginning! *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
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Kuroth

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #18 on: May 20, 2020, 08:15:19 PM »
Eh I mention kender because I know some have a reaction, but there is a lot of dumb stuff kicking around D&D over time. Dwarven women have beards, modrons etc...
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SHARK

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #19 on: May 20, 2020, 08:22:29 PM »
Quote from: VisionStorm;1130670
^Beat me to it! :p

I haven't really done anything with halflings (other than portray them as cannibals in Dark Sun), but there's some interesting stuff in the OP, and I have considered Pigmies as well, and wondered how I might incorporate something like them into my worlds, but never got around it. Halflings have always been low priority for me, since most people go for elves or dwarves, and I always saw them as a Tolkien creation--except for the existence of Pigmies, which sometimes got me wondering.


Greetings!

Hey VisionStorm! Thank you! I'm glad you are intrigued. The nice thing about developing several different Halfling cultures is that--like myself in my World of Thandor--I do have a Halfling culture that is more or less like the Tolkien model, though I also have several other cultural and ethnic variations. This kind of variety provides more options and choices not just for your Player Characters, but also for your NPC's, which can be very cool. I have found having such different Halfling cultures in some weird way, creates a different kind of dramatic and *social* "space" for the Halflings. That basis then spreads out into the milieu, causing the players to react and think differently, but also other aspects and cultures within the campaign, if that makes any sense. I have found such different Halflings to be fun, and breaking out of the heavier stereotype--but in an intriguing way.:D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
"It is the Marine Corps that will strip away the façade so easily confused with self. It is the Corps that will offer the pain needed to buy the truth. And at last, each will own the privilege of looking inside himself  to discover what truly resides there. Comfort is an illusion. A false security b

Spinachcat

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #20 on: May 20, 2020, 08:28:05 PM »
I'm much more okay with Not-Hobbits in Warhammer Fantasy than in D&D. I don't know why exactly.

Decades ago, I made Halflings into Wolflings, basically tiny wolfmen. They lived in warrens, like the Shire, but instead of agrarians, they were mostly hunters. The Wolflings who joined Adventuring Parties were often outcasts from the village pack and the PCs became their new pack. Their language was howls and barks. I had a player who changed them to Foxlings which I used for that campaign. Unlike the more primal wolflings, Foxlings wore fine clothes, were cultured and lived among Humans primarily providing culture and finery to merchants and nobles.

My OD&D game is almost entirely humanocentric and there are no halflings. I replaced them with Gnomes, reclusive beings with mystical ties to elements. They are held in high regard by Elves and Dwarves who seek them out for wisdom and defend their hidden villages. However, the gnomes remain strictly neutral from the affairs of other races, and any favor provided to them is repaid in gold.

Shasarak

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #21 on: May 20, 2020, 11:30:35 PM »
There was an interesting variation of Halflings that pretended to be Dwarves (by wearing fake beards) and Gnomes (by wearing fake noses)
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Kuroth

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #22 on: May 21, 2020, 01:14:43 AM »
Then there is Harpo chasing elven maidens...EEK!
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Ghostmaker

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #23 on: May 21, 2020, 08:29:49 AM »
Quote from: SHARK;1130761
Greetings!

Yeah, *Kender*.:D I think making a good effort to create different cultural and ethnic groups for Halflings--or whatever race--is a good and worthwhile endeavor.

Making a race like the Kender is just pathetic and annoying, you know? I had a hate for the Kender from the beginning! *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


Kender might have worked if they'd played down the 'complete lack of fear and common sense' aspect. Any species that lacks self-preservation awareness isn't going to last long, no matter how many gods or writers like you.

I'd have also rewritten the kleptomania traits so that kender were more prone to picking up things absent mindedly, rather than reflexively pickpocketing anyone within a five foot radius. That was just silly.

VisionStorm

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #24 on: May 21, 2020, 07:50:15 PM »
Thinking about the recent Halfling and Reptilian culture threads I had some ideas mashing the two together, and mixing them with some setting ideas I hadn't had time to use before.
 
The World
It's set on a low magic primeval world at the start of civilization, where only a few fledgling kingdoms exist, but most of the world is still a savage untamed land, where people must constantly fend against wild beasts and the elements. Technology exists, but it's still at its early stages, consisting largely of copper tools and crude engineering, with stone tools still used in many places. Bronze may have been discovered in some of the more advanced kingdoms but it's still not widely used.

Humans are not the only advanced species, but the races of the world are not magical creatures, like in traditional fantasy settings, but rather natural creatures that evolved to adapt to this particular world's circumstances. The "monsters" that characters face consist largely of the megafauna that permeates the world (including extinct creatures, like sabertooth and mammoths, as well as other creatures unique to this world), and the occasional magical creature that slips through the cracks from another reality. Mutated creatures might also be possibility, perhaps as the result eldritch energies or corrupting substances leftover from a prior era of a long forgotten past where magic may have been more powerful and prevalent, but ended in a major cataclysm that hurtled the world back into a primeval state.

The Jagged Cliffs
One of the regions of this world sports a large valley of jagged cliffs extending for hundreds of miles. The cliffs are large stoney protrusions extending across a vast expanse, like chunks of land rising hundreds of feet into the air then expanding away from each other leaving short stretches of land in between. Around some of these gaps of land hundreds of streams run through, some larger than others, sometimes merging into one another other, forming puddles and lakes stretching out onto the open regions beyond the cliffs, where the streams form into marshlands around the more fertile ground, growing deep green vegetation in contrast to the more arid soil of the stoney cliffs.

Races of the Jagged Cliff Region
Two races dominate this region: a race of large reptilian humanoids descended from lizards similar to crocodiles (Lizardmen), and diminutive mammalian humanoids closely related to humans (equivalent to Halflings).

The Halflings were the first race to settle this valley, almost a thousand years ago after they were driven out from a nearby region to the north by aggressive Beastmen that now dominate that region and frequently raid hapless travelers and human settlements. So the Halflings fled southeast till they found this valley and settled there, living in the trees around the marshlands and carving a simple primitive life, eating fish from the lakes and marshes, occasionally banding in large numbers to hunt large game, but largely unperturbed by the outside world.

But a group of Lizardmen migrated into the region several centuries ago, when a tribe from  the coastal regions split off after a massive storm that scattered their numbers and left them wondering aimlessly until they found water rich land adequate to fit their needs. The carnivorous Lizardmen quickly settled the marshlands--neatly adapted to dominate the watery terrain--and the numerous Halflings became a staple diet for them, which the larger and physically powerful Lizardmen would hunt with frequency, making the marshlands uninhabitable for the little folk.

The Cliffhanger Villages
So the Halflings fled onto the jagged cliffs of the valley, climbing high--away from the reach of the predatory lizard folk, yet still reliant on the waters coursing below for sustenance. They became expert climbers, adept in rope use and cliffside construction, and settled the stoney cliffs, building Cliffhanger Villages that hung around the cliff's edge, ever watchful for lizard-sign below. Crude pulleys are used to lift food, water and materials to the sky-high homes, and this same system can be used to pull ground bound Halflings in the case of attack.

The Halflings also mastered the use of slings, javelins and darts, and the construction of crude traps, which they would use against the hordes of Lizardmem when the culling came, keeping the hungry lizards away from their lofty homes. They are ever watchful of trespassers into their land--ever wary of attack, given their bloodthirsty neighbors. Horns will sound the alarm if any approach, and the small nimble folk will rush through a network of hanging bridges and ropes that interconnect the villages from one cliff to another.

Slipshot762

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #25 on: May 25, 2020, 10:08:20 PM »
I've always disliked haflings and prefered to not use them. Not a fan of gnomes either but at least gnomes struck me as mystical and fey enough to warrant existing as their own race. I had at one time tinkered with the idea of gnomes being elves aflicted with dwarfism. Generally, nowadays, I prefer human-centric approach, with non-humans of all kinds being either from a different dimension like the old fairy tales or the result of diabolic corruption, ie orcs not being a race that gives birth but rather once-humans corrupted by a boar-headed demon calling itself orcus.

Vile Traveller

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #26 on: May 25, 2020, 11:08:14 PM »
I didn't like hobbits in Tolkien (no more than I liked ewoks in Star Wars), and I have no need for halflings or gnomes in my games. Well, I do have one game world with halflings, but they are nasty half-animal humanoid hybrids. I have never played with a demographic that likes cute, and if I did I'd probably go more Miyazaki than Tolkien.

These days I generally don't have non-human player characters in my games, either, because nobody really plays them well unless they are pastiches. Having alien species in the party also removes some of their mystique and thus makes the fantasy less fantastic, IMO.

VisionStorm

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #27 on: May 25, 2020, 11:17:36 PM »
Quote from: Slipshot762;1131256
Generally, nowadays, I prefer human-centric approach, with non-humans of all kinds being either from a different dimension like the old fairy tales or the result of diabolic corruption, ie orcs not being a race that gives birth but rather once-humans corrupted by a boar-headed demon calling itself orcus.


I usually just portray orcs as a savage race of aggressive humanoids, but this presents interesting possibilities as well. Being an orc could be more like a sickness or a curse. A plague that spreads across the land and transforms men into monsters created for conflict.

It also raises some nteresting questions. Could those transformed be saved, or are they doomed to live and die as orcs? Is the process voluntary or against their will? And how does one fight this demon from another world?

I have also been thinking a lot of treating all magical creatures, including races like elves and gnomes, as beings from another world, and having humans and perhaps other natural species (if they exist) as the only races native to the natural world. All other races would be Otherworldly races and belong to the world beyond, and only a limited number of PCs may be members of these races--all other PCs must be human.

I would even like to treat dwarves more like Nordic dwarves and have them be a magical race with the ability to craft items of power, like the weapons of the gods themselves.

Cave Bear

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #28 on: May 26, 2020, 12:08:06 AM »
I want a campaign where halflings are anti-kender. They stay well away from other people and their belongings. They have a religious fear of doors. A race defined by extreme aversion.

Slipshot762

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Different Interpretations of Halflings!
« Reply #29 on: May 26, 2020, 08:22:14 AM »
Quote from: VisionStorm;1131263
I would even like to treat dwarves more like Nordic dwarves and have them be a magical race with the ability to craft items of power, like the weapons of the gods themselves.

Dwarves not having any females but rather reproducing via special sarcophogi that must be filled with gems and precious metals to forge a new dwarf explains the trope of dwarven avarice quite nicely I think.