Halflings
Halflings, or simply 'flings are generally small, well-spirited people; that's how they've been portrayed in almost every single setting ever, and it'll probably stay that way. Still, when they're portrayed differently they tend to be rather . . . quirky. For instance, Dark Sun's halflings are all cannibals, while Eberron's are nomads that ride around on dinosaurs. Go figure.
Small, dodgy(stunty and right stuff), they generally favour rogue classes, though halfling paladins of Arvoreen are not to be underestimated! Halflings typically love food, beer and sex, the hedonistic little bastards. They are also kleptomaniacs and will steal anything you have while you aren't looking, don't bother bolting it down; they'll just take the nails too.
Adult female halflings are also known as legal lolis. (Lolis cease to be Loli when they become legal. You fail.)
Halflings are really a shameless ripoff of Tolkien's Hobbits, who are also referred to as 'halflings' by humans. Artists can't seem to decide whether halflings are chubby and fat, look just like normal humans but half as tall, or look like children who get stuck at age 10 for all eternity and thus permanently remain lolis/shotas. We at /tg/ prefer the last option.
Halfling Physiology
Halflings consist of two main organs, the stomach and the fingers. The fingers serve to bring food to the stomach, and the stomach exists to fuel the fingers, ad infinitum. It is believed by top scientists that the length of halfling lifespan is due to the fact that they are perpetual motion machines, powered by an endless cycle of food snagging, digestion, and finger-fueling. That halflings are mortal at all is mainly thought to be a consequence of their recruitment by adventuring parties, who break the chain by forcing the halfling to use its fingers for lockpicking.
Halfling Mating Practices
Seriously? First dwarves, now halflings. What is wrong you people? This is a family website, motherfuckers! Next section please.
Halfling Society
What else is there to say? We covered the food, the sex, the epic loli-dom. Oh, halflings love giving gifts. If you've read the first chapter of Lord of the Rings, you should know this. If you haven't, what are you even doing on a website built by tabletop geeks?
Anyway, this compulsive gift-giving is primarily the source of their acute kleptomania. Without making up the deficit somehow, the average halfling would run out of gifts to give in approximately an hour and twelve minutes. Most hobbit hole kitchens are adorned with a wood burning reading "steal from the tall, give to the short." Where these wood burnings come from is a mystery, since halflings never write anything and nobody's invented the soldering iron yet. It is assumed that they stole these too, but from whom exactly is a mystery beyond our current ability to discern.
Notable Halflings
- Bilbo Baggins, of Tolkien's Middle Earth. The one that started it all.
- Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's cousin and adopted heir. Did some big thing involving jewelry (this was before those "Cash for Gold" places cropped up everywhere) and now everyone seems to love him.
- Belkar Bitterleaf, from Rich Burlew's Order of the Stick. Arguable, as Belkar is so fucking, eye-bleedingly awesome that he may, in fact, be a dorf.
- That's more or less it. I mean, they're hardly the go-getters of heroic fantasy.
Gallery
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4e halflings and their notable lack of hairy feet.
