Halfling

REGIS THE HALFLING, THE ONLY ONE OF HIS KIND
for hundreds of miles in any direction, locked his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the mossy blanket of the tree trunk. Regis was short, even by the standards of his diminutive race, with the fluff of his curly brown locks barely cresting the three-foot mark, but his belly was amply thickened by his love of a good meal, or several, as the opportunities presented themselves. The crooked stick that served as his fishing pole rose up above him, clenched between two of his toes, and hung out over the quiet lake, mirrored perfectly in the glassy surface of Maer Dualdon.

      – R.A. Salvatore, The Crystal Shard

The comforts of home are the goals of most halflings’ lives: a place to settle in peace and quiet, far from marauding monsters and clashing armies; a blazing fire and a generous meal; fine drink and fine conversation. Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples. But even these wanderers love peace, food, hearth, and home, though home might be a wagon jostling along an dirt road or a raft floating downriver.

Small and Practical

Halflings, also known as Hin amongst themselves or the "good folk" amongst other races, are humanoid creatures similar in shape to humans, who halflings called the "Big Folk". The diminutive halflings survive in a world full of larger creatures by avoiding notice or, barring that, avoiding offense. Standing about 3 feet tall, they appear relatively harmless and so have managed to survive for centuries in the shadow of empires and on the edges of wars and political strife. They are inclined to be stout, weighing between 40 and 45 pounds.

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 mustaches even more so. They like to wear simple, comfortable, and practical clothes, favoring bright colors.

Halfling practicality extends beyond their clothing. They’re concerned with basic needs and simple pleasures and have little use for ostentation. Even the wealthiest of halflings keep their treasures locked in a cellar rather than on display for all to see. They have a knack for finding the most straightforward solution to a problem, and have little patience for dithering.

Kind and Curious

Halflings are an affable and cheerful people. They cherish the bonds of family and friendship as well as the comforts of hearth and home, harboring few dreams of gold or glory. Even adventurers among them usually venture into the world for reasons of community, friendship, wanderlust, or curiosity. They love discovering new things, even simple things, such as an exotic food or an unfamiliar style of clothing.

Halflings are easily moved to pity and hate to see any living thing suffer. They are generous, happily sharing what they have even in lean times.

Blend into the Crowd

Halflings are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, or elves, making themselves valuable and welcome. The combination of their inherent stealth and their unassuming nature helps halflings to avoid unwanted attention.

Halflings work readily with others, and they are loyal to their friends, whether halfling or otherwise. They can display remarkable ferocity when their friends, families, or communities are threatened.

Pastoral Pleasantries

Most halflings live in small, peaceful communities with large farms and well-kept groves. They rarely build kingdoms of their own or even hold much land beyond their quiet shires. They typically don’t recognize any sort of halfling nobility or royalty, instead looking to family elders to guide them. Families preserve their traditional ways despite the rise and fall of empires.

Many halflings live among other races, where the halflings’ hard work and loyal outlook offer them abundant rewards and creature comforts. Some halfling communities travel as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.

Exploring Opportunities

Halflings usually set out on the adventurer’s path to defend their communities, support their friends, or explore a wide and wonder-filled world. For them, adventuring is less a career than an opportunity or sometimes a necessity.

Affale and Positive

Halflings try to get along with everyone else and are loath to make sweeping generalizations—especially negative ones.

Dwarves. “Dwarves make loyal friends, and you can count on them to keep their word. But would it hurt them to smile once in a while?”

Elves. “They’re so beautiful! Their faces, their music, their grace and all. It’s like they stepped out of a wonderful dream. But there’s no telling what’s going on behind their smiling faces — surely more than they ever let on.”

Humans. “Humans are a lot like us, really. At least some of them are. Step out of the castles and keeps, go talk to the farmers and herders and you’ll find good, solid folk. Not that there’s anything wrong with the barons and soldiers — you have to admire their conviction. And by protecting their own lands, they protect us as well.”

Halfling Names

A halfling has a given name, a family name, and possibly a nickname. Family names are often nicknames that stuck so tenaciously they have been passed down through the generations.

Masculine Names: Alton, Ander, Cade, Corrin, Eldon, Errich, Finnan, Garret, Lindal, Lyle, Merric, Milo, Osborn, Perrin, Reed, Roscoe, Wellby

Feminine Names: Andry, Bree, Callie, Cora, Euphemia, Jillian, Kithri, Lavinia, Lidda, Merla, Nedda, Paela, Portia, Seraphina, Shaena, Trym, Vani, Verna

Family Names: Brushgather, Goodbarrel, Greenbottle, High-hill, Hilltopple, Leagallow, Tealeaf, Thorngage, Tosscobble, Underbough

Halfling Traits

Your halfling character has a number of traits in common with all other halflings.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity 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.

Alignment. Most halflings are lawful good. As a rule, they are good-hearted and kind, hate to see others in pain, and have no tolerance for oppression. They are also very orderly and traditional, leaning heavily on the support of their community and the comfort of their old ways.

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 the d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.

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

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

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Halfling. The Halfling language isn’t secret, but halflings are loath to share it with others. They write very little, so they don’t have a rich body of literature. Their oral tradition, however, is very strong. Almost all halflings speak Common to converse with the people in whose lands they dwell or through which they are traveling.

Subrace. There are three kinds of halflings in the world: lightfoot, stout, and ghostwise. Choose one of these subraces.

Lightfoot Halfling

For lightfoot halflings, neither the journey nor the destination matters more; the important thing is to keep moving. The life of a lightfoot is one long exploration with each new horizon, new town, or new face a chance to find something delightful.

Lightfoot halflings typically travel in small bands, using whatever conveyance is convenient but just as easily striking out on foot. Bands consist of loosely related individuals, and when bands meet, membership frequently shifts. Lightfoot halflings typically excel at tasks related to travel—be it navigation, handling pack animals, foraging, sailing, and cartwright work—having tried their hand at all such things before or learned from other lightfoots met during their journeys.

They are a highly social bunch, often as curious about other people as they are about what might lie around the next bend. They characteristically possess an easygoing and open attitude, curious about others and willing to share of themselves, which enables them to make friends easily. Their facile friendships and ease with partings can make lightfoot halflings seem disingenuous to others. Lightfoot halflings get stereotyped as flighty, easily distracted, fickle, and unreliable.

Affable Adventurers

But their friendships and courtships, if brief, tend to be genuine. The staid and stable life that most other people desire just isn't part of their character. Lightfoots are more prone to wanderlust than other halflings, and often dwell alongside other races or take up a nomadic life. In the world of Greyhawk, these halflings are called hairfeet or tallfellows.

Lightfoot Halfling Appearance

They share the skin, hair, and eye tones of humans, but most lightfoot halflings have hazel or brown eyes and brown hair. Lightfoot halflings don't grow facial hair except that males and females typically grow short sideburns.

Lightfoot Halfling Traits

Rock gnomes have the following traits in common, in addition to the traits they share with other gnomes.

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma increases by 1.

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

Stout Halfling

Creatures of the earth who love a warm hearth and pleasant company, stout halflings are folks of few enemies and many friends. Stronghearts are sometimes referred to fondly by members of other races as "the good folk," for little upsets a stout halfling or corrupts their spirit. To many of them, the greatest fear is to live in a world of poor company and mean intent, where one lacks freedom and the comfort of fri endship.

As a stout halfling, you’re hardier than average and have some resistance to poison. Some say that stronghearts have dwarven blood. In the Forgotten Realms, these halflings are called stronghearts, and they’re most common in the south.

Friendly Homebodies

When stout halflings settle into a place, they intend to stay. It's not unusual for a dynasty of stronghearts to live in the same place for a few centuries.

Stout halflings don't develop these homes in seclusion. On the contrary, they do their best to fit into the local community and become an essential part of it. Their viewpoint stresses cooperation above all other traits, and the ability to work well with others is the most valued behavior in their lands.

Happy at Home

Pushed from their nests, stout haflings typically try to have as many comforts of home with them as possible. Other races with a more practical bent can find stout travel habits maddening, while their lightfoot cousins typically enjoy the novelty of it—so long as the lightfoots don't have to carry any of the baggage.

While often stereotyped as fat and lazy due to their homebound mindset and obsession with fine food, stout halfings are typically quite industrious. Nimble hands, their patient mindset, and their emphasis on quality makes them excellent weavers, potters, wood carvers, basket makers, painters, and farmers.

Stout Halfling Appearance

Stout halflings are shorter on average than their lightfoot kin, and tend to have rounder faces. They have the skin tones and hair colors of humans, with most having brown hair. Unlike their lightfoot cousins, stout ha lflings often have blond or black hair and blue or green eyes. Males don't grow beards
or mustaches, but both males and females can grow sideburns down to mid-cheek, and both genders plait
them into long braids.

Stout Halfling Traits

Stout halflings have the following traits in common, in addition to the traits they share with other halflings.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score
increases by 1.

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

Ghostwise Halfling

Ghostwise halflings trace their ancestry back to a war among halfling tribes that sent their ancestors into flight from Luiren. Ghostwise are the rarest of the halflings, found only in the Chondalwood and a few other isolated forests, clustered in tight-knit clans.

Family is Everything

Ghostwise halflings are generally very concerned (some might say obsessed) with family and clan. They're very elusive and generally isolate themselves from the outside world. They often live nomadic lives in clans. Many ghostwise clans select a natural landmark as the center of their territory, and members carry a piece of that landmark with them at all times.

Those who leave the clan often carried a token of some important natural feature in their clan's territory, such as a stone or a vial of water from a stream. Losing one's token was considered a sin and required an act of atonement assigned by the clan leader.

Hin Ghostwars

Like the other halfling subraces (lightfoot and strongheart), ghostwise halflings were one of the original tribes of the Lluirwood in Luiren. Around -100 DR, a ghostwise halfling cleric named Desva began leading the ghostwise in the worship of Malar and violence, performing savage acts on the creatures and other halflings of the forest.

In -68 DR, the stronghearts and lightfoots allied against the ghostwise and battle continued for years until Chand of the stronghearts slew Desva in -65 DR. Most of the surviving ghostwise left Luiren for the Chondalwood, making an oath that they wouldn't speak until they had atoned for their savagery.

Furious Warriors

Many ghostwise halflings are barbarians, preferring to overcome opponents head on. In the Chondalwood, some ghostwise halfling warriors become nightgliders—warriors who bond with and ride giant owls as mounts.

Ghostwise Halfling Traits

Because these folk are clannish and mistrustful of outsiders, ghostwise halfling adventurers are rare. Ask your DM if you can play a member of this subrace, which has the halfling traits in the Player's Handbook, plus the subrace traits below.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom increases by 1.

Silent Speech. You can speak telepathically to any creature within 30 feet of you. The creature understands you only if the two of you share a language. You can speak telepathically in this way to one creature at a time.

Lotusden Halfling

Few Xhorhasians have ever seen a halfling except for the occasional halfling soldier in Dwendalian armor. Because of this, most Kryn citizens view halflings as icons of the empire and are quick to distrust them. Only the Lotusden halflings, a reclusive and insular clan native to the Lotusden Greenwood, call Xhorhas home.

Halflings of the Lotusden use their wisdom to become in tune with nature, letting them easily pass through the underbrush of their home while leaving very little to trace. They also have a talent for druidic magics, able to do such small things as predict the weather or cause plants to bloom. More powerful Lotusdens can conjure plants from the ground to restrain their foes, and can magically cover the ground in razor-sharp thorns.

Long tied to the natural heart of the Lotusden Greenwood, these halflings have adapted to live synergistically with the chaotic laws of the wilds.

Lotusden Halfling Traits

Lotusden halflings have the following traits in common, in addition to the traits they share with other halflings.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom increases by 1.

Timberwalk. Ability checks made to track you have disadvantage, and you can move across difficult terrain made of nonmagical plants and undergrowth without expending extra movement.

Child of the Wood. You know the druidcraft cantrip.

When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the entangle spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

When you reach 5th level, you can cast the spike growth spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

Casting these spells with this trait doesn't require material components. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Halfling Lineage

The description of this race might suggest various things about the behavior and personality of that people's archetypal adventurers. You break the mould, however. You may ignore those suggestions, whether they're about alignment, moods, or interests. Your character's personality and behavior are entirely yours to determine.

Instead of choosing the previous traits of a stereotypical halfling, you can use the following traits to represent your character's lineage.

Ability Score Increase. One ability score of your choice increases by 2.

Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You resemble a halfling.

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

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Feat. You gain one feat of your choice for which you qualify.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Halfling.

Variable Trait. You gain one of the following options of your choice:

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

• Skilled. You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.

Halfling Sourcebooks

This version of the halfling race is official D&D material. The subraces were sourced from multiple places; the following is a list of where each one came from.

The Halfling Lineage has had some choices made for you to better reflect an actual halfling. Instead of choosing Small or Medium, you are Small. Instead of choosing 25 or 30 feet speed, your speed is 30 feet. Instead of choosing a second language of your choice, you know the language of your kin.

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