Halfling

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General Appearance

Wanderers, carefree and lovers of a good meal, the short, slim built Halflings. Halflings’ skin ranges from tan to pale with a ruddy cast, and their hair is usually brown or sandy brown and wavy. They have brown or hazel eyes. Halfling men often sport long sideburns, but beards are rare among them and moustaches even more so. They like to wear simple, comfortable, and practical clothes, favouring bright colours.

Racial Attributes

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age. A halfling reaches adulthood at the age of 20 and generally lives into the middle of his or her second century.

Size. Halflings average about 3 feet tall and weigh about 40 pounds. Your size is Small.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet.

Lucky. When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die. You must use the new result, even if it is a 1.

Brave. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Nimble. You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Trade Basic, Dwarvish and Halfling. Dwarvish is full of hard consonants and guttural sounds, and those characteristics spill over into whatever other language a dwarf might speak. Halfling is a sing-song language where words flow freely from one to the other, lacking hard sounds and often sounding like one long word when heard by those unversed in the language.

Halfling Ethnic Groups

Lightfoot

As a lightfoot halfling, you can easily hide from notice, even using other people as cover. You're inclined to be affable and get along well with others. Lightfoots are more prone to wanderlust than other halflings, and often dwell alongside other races or take up a nomadic life.

• Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.

• Naturally Stealthy. You can attempt to hide even when you are only obscured by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.

Stout

As a stout halfling, you're hardier than average and have some resistance to poison. Some say that stouts have dwarven blood. Stouts are often the builders and carpenters of the Halfling world, their resilience coming in handy when building out structures in hazardous conditions, nobody said building a house on a hill was easy!

• Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.

• Stout Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance to poison damage.

Halfling Society

Broad Overview

Where Dwarves have cornered the market on being hard working farmers, tilling the lands and pulling a wealth of food from the soil, Halflings have managed to position themselves as the homemakers and carpenters who generally get to take life easy. The vast majority of Dwarvenkind live in hillside buildings and tunnel structures, though Gnomes do live in the mountains and there are a few aboveground cities around.

Taking It Easy

Halflings believe that life should be taken somewhat easily, especially given that they are shorter lived than their Dwarven compatriots and don't want to feel the stress of being rushed in life. As rushed as you could be living to around 200 years old. Halflings put a great deal of emphasis on ensuring that while work is done and done well, you should take the time to enjoy what life has given you and as such it is hardly uncommon to come across an entire field or hillside of Halflings lounging the afternoon sun with some packed lunch, a pipe and maybe a bottle of ale or two.

The Responsibilities of Hearth and Home

If there is something that all Halflings can be relied on to take seriously, it is the home. There is a long tradition of cooking up the most elaborate and fantastic feasts in Halfling homes, and they are always glad to share this bounty with their friends and allies. While the races do tend to live independently from each other, it is also not uncommon for a halfling family to live with a dwarven family so that the dwarves can provide the produce and halflings provide the cooked food.

The Effects of The Return

The Return deeply affected the Halflings, the resulting famine and the reality that a lot of their carefully crafted wooden structures had rotted away stole some measure of joy from them. The seasons that followed where they had begun the rebuilding process was a hard time for the Halflings, usually fond of taking their time with something.

This has led to the deep rooted and oft repressed wanderlust of the Halflings coming to the forefront and being unable to deal with all the issues at home, some Halflings have left Khalan for the wider world.

Of all the races now able to travel in the wider world, you will see none more regularly than Halflings who are keen to explore every nook and cranny of a wider world. Some are simply seeking adventure and fun, others are hunting down seeds, trees and materials to send back home and hopefully bring some measure of leisure to those back home.