Halflings

The Halflings are a and short-lived race of short, intelligent humanoids who were created by the Great Fae out of the dreams of pastoral humanity. In their ancient history, the halflings were once a pastoralist culture similar in lifestyle and migration to the Orcs of the Lordless Lands, though they were endemic to the much different Hearthlands. While this nomadic lifestyle has fallen out of their culture, they nonetheless remain physically suited to adventure, being sturdily-built for their size and possessing both talents and physical features that are useful for the adventurer. To human eyes they often appear small or childlike, but Halflings are just as mature as any other race by their adulthood.

Origin

Halflings came into being early in Ahren's History, sometime during the Age of Bitter Darkness. The Great Fae, in their capriciousness, created the Halflings out of the dreams of then-enslaved humans. In this way, Halflings are themselves essentially "of" peace and prosperity in the same way that humans are essentially of rebelliousness and adaptability. These early tribes of Halflings were nomads, moving with their whims and the seasons through the Southern Province and Hearthlands, usually as a result of the depredations of monsters or unliberated humanity in the region now known as the Shimmering Shore.

Culture

Halflings make up the larger portion of the peoples living in the Hearthlands, and so the culture of the Hearthlands is largely reflective of Halfling culture. That being said, a great many halflings are born directly in the culture of the Atarlie Empire or adopt it in their careers and "naturalize" to the elvish ways, at least to the extent that they are able to adopt to the ways of functional immortals while remaining mortal themselves.

Halfling culture went through a change within about three generations from nomadic to rural-sedentary lifestyles beginning in 128 Age of Elvish Springtime, when their leaders signed the Treaty of Hall Hill, formalizing the existence of the Hearthlands as a protectorate of the Atarlie Empire. The treaty had the consequence of reducing the Halflings' range, which lead to the adoption of more sedentary and beureaucratic living conditions. Some element of the Halfling propensity for the road has survived on in the Civil Service, especially the Bounder Service.

Physical Attributes

Lifespan

Halflings have a nine month gestation and achieve physical maturity around the age of 18, with mental maturity around the age of 30. They tend to live noticably longer than humans, being considered merely middle-aged at 60, senatorial at 80, and frequently living into their early 100s. While some Halflings attribute this long life to their relatively easy style of living, a number of halflings living abroad come to similar outcomes. A subculture of Bastonian halflings is noted chiefly for these long lives and so are prized as clerks, able to preserve institutional memory better than their human counterparts.

Physicality

Halflings are re-dreamed humans and thus exhibit a similar body plan and general phenotype to humans, which is most easily distinguished by the difference. On average, halflings are far smaller, rarely exceeding 120cm in height. Their skin and hair tones run the full gamut of human tones, and eye colours the same range as well as occasionally including purples and much darker greens than humans can normally expect to achieve. Halflings retain body fat very easily, and compared to humans tend more toward limbic hirsuitism, with more pronounced body hair on their forearms, lower legs, and the tops of their feet.

Halfling feet in particular form thick and tough tissues on the soles. Many halflings go without footware in their day to day lives. Halflings who do adopt footware because their high mobility or hazardous working conditions require it tend to require some extra care in the tending of their feet to keep this skin healthy.

Spiritual and Mental Attributes

Dreams of the Earth

Halflings are fully mortal creatures, despite their Fae origins, in part because they were based particularly of the dreams of Humans, who are a fundamentally Ahrenic race. Halflings have remarkable mental stability. Despite their gentle (and often genteel) lives, Halflings are hard to permanently "flap". A good meal and a period of rest is usually enough to have them bounce back from traumas that would permanently change man or orc - at least in terms of their mentality.

Though rarely expressed in their culture, Halflings have an affinity for natural magic. This affinity is not remarkable for halflings that become students of Ars Magica, but occasionally a halfling becomes aware of the Secrets of Nature or similar schools of magic and finds they have a gift for the ability.

Halflings closeness to the earth and their surroundings gives them a fundamental sense of the best ways to defend themselves in that terrain by becoming hidden.

Fae Moods

Periodically, sometimes once in a lifetime and even occasionally skipping generations within a family, halflings are gripped by a Fae Mood. Such a halfling becomes restless and dreams constantly of adventure. Most of the time, this is excised by a stint in one of the more mobile branches of Hearthland life, like merchantilism, the Civil Service, or the Bounder Service. Many halflings simply vent the frustration on art. Occasionally though, this force becomes so strong that a Fae Mood compels the halfling to become a true adventurer, usually chasing clues and missions revealed to them in their dreams.