Halfling

## Overview

Halflings are a small and merry folk who enjoy the scent of freshly-harvested fields, newly-baked bread, and the froth of a beer poured by a friend more than anything else in life. Lovers of peace and both hospitality offered and accepted, halflings are quite content to grow old in the town they were born in, enriching its land and culture with their hard work, optimistic spirit, and exquisitely-crafted fables. This isn't to say that halflings are completely averse to adventure - they understand that villages need protection and money must come from somewhere - but they don't seek it out for its own sake or even for the rewards it could bring. Every halfling on the road dreams of returning to the comforts of hearth and home and using their hard-earned wisdom and hopefully plentiful funds in order to make it as welcoming and cozy as can be. However, when adventure comes to the threshold of a halfling's life and threatens their beloved comforts, they quickly become some of the most brave and clever folk that can possibly be found.

## Mechanics

* **Ability Score Modifiers**: Halflings are nimble and strong-willed, but their small stature makes them weaker than other races. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, and –2 Strength.
* **Size**: Halflings are Small creatures and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a –1 penalty to their CMB and CMD, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.
* **Type**: Halflings are humanoids with the Halfling subtype.
* **Base Speed (Slow Speed**): Halflings have a base speed of 20 feet.
* **Languages**: Halflings begin play speaking Common and Halfling. Halflings with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, and Goblin.

### Defense Racial Traits

* **Fearless**: Halflings receive a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against fear. This bonus stacks with the bonus granted by halfling luck.
* **Halfling Luck**: Halflings receive a +1 racial bonus on all saving throws.

### Skill and Feat Traits

* **Sure-Footed**: Halflings receive a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Climb checks.
* **Weapon Familiarity**: Halflings are proficient with slings and treat any weapon with the word “halfling” in its name as a martial weapon.
* **Keen Senses**: Halflings receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.

## Society

Halflings are respectful of their neighbors and terminally easygoing to the point where any problems that arise between them are quickly solved, then the solution is celebrated with a round for all at the local tavern. Greed and envy are practically nonexistent, as any member of the community succeeding means good tidings for every member of the community, especially if an upcoming festival will soon allow that success to be parlayed into great spectacles or hospitality. This peaceable nature doesn't necessarily make halflings entirely honest, but this is more due to the fact that halflings have a strange relationship with the idea of truth itself. Nothing is thought of embellishing a story or completely making up a fable, as long as the emotional impact or accepted moral of the story matches what the speaker desires. In fact, halflings often outright reject or romanticize truths that would be demoralizing or disheartening, as long as there's no real practical consequences that would result from doing so. This layer of dissociation between the average halfling and tragedy means that they're more well-equipped than most to deal with the harshness of the world while still retaining their optimism and joy. Among other races, this can come off as lies, trickery, or the idea that halflings live in a dream world, but it's usually accepted that such things are the price to pay for living alongside folk who so rarely produce problems of their own.

## Religion

Halflings revere gods that exemplify the stable, pleasant homes and lives that they strive for. Ketar Mozog, Agathon, and Vicenta Salcedo are featured often in halfling worship, as are the Apparitions of Basang Ba, Alessandra Juntoso, Pahala Kadam, Petya Naumov, and Zhihao Jin. Halflings rarely worship Masik, finding the idea of mortality too chilling to regularly consider, and disregard Dowager Empress Kyouko and Nothing Left of Quibatus entirely due to their rigid, hierarchical views of how society should act. Those halflings who become scholars find that Jolein Composed of Desire disagrees quite harshly with the halfling idea of truth, and will occasionally deny them spells or prayers if their work becomes more focused on the fanciful rather than the verifiable.

## Relations

Halflings have few true enemies among other races, although they are often looked down upon or underestimated due to the sedentary lifestyle that they idealize. Aasimar and tieflings find the halfling lack of moral conviction to be strange and troubling, while aphorites, gnomes, and sylphs are so often misled by halfling fables taken as truth that they consider the whole race to be comprised of liars or liar-enablers.

Changelings, dhampirs, and skinwalkers are considered too dangerous to last long around halflings, while hobgoblins, orcs, and drelmans consider halflings not dangerous enough to be worth spending time with.

Drow and ganzi consider halflings to be great conversational and traveling partners, as the smaller folk are as easygoing as the drow are tempermental and ganzi are wild, gaining a sort of equilibrium.

Duergar respect halflings' devotion to their home but halflings are easily made uncomfortable by the duergar's lack of evident emotion.

Dwarves and halflings get along famously as long as both have a mug of beer and hock of meat in hand, but a dwarf seeing a halfling work has an inescapable urge to offer tips and points and suggestions that quickly wear out their welcome.

Elves sneer at the halfling lifestyle which focuses on consumption and comfort over sustainability, but those aspects are just what the fetchlings enjoy after a long, hard journey on foot.

Ghorans and grippli both love halflings, as they easily accept the plantfolk into their easygoing lives while sharing many comforts and luxuries with the often-bereft grippli.

Oreads, nagaji, parmans, lizardfolk, and vanara perfectly relate to the halfling desire for a secure, comfortable life, and are among the most steadfast and understanding allies that a halfling can have.

Ifrits and tengu find halfling festivities and fables to be wonderfully lively, and kitsune often sneak their way into both halfling gatherings and tales to the amusement of both groups.

Halflings' lack of understanding of an undine's stoic exterior and a suli's noble bearing leads to annoyingly overapologetic halflings in the former case, and overoffended suli in the latter.

Ratfolk and halflings share the same devotion to their community, but ratfolk envy the fact that halflings don't need to work tirelessly in defense of their villages or for their own economic survival.

Vishkanya actively and personally dislike halflings due to how difficult it is to manipulate or insult them, taking away much of their fun.

Goblins, loving food, fire, and song, are basically the same as halflings to the point where many goblins take up halfling names, live in halfling settlements, and spend their lives as louder, greener versions of them.

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