Halflings are clever, capable opportunists. Halfling individuals and clans find room for themselves wherever they can. Often they are strangers and wanderers, and others react to them with suspicion or curiosity. Depending on the clan, halflings might be reliable, hard-working (if clannish) citizens, or they might be thieves just waiting for the opportunity to make a big score and disappear in the dead of night. Regardless, halflings are cunning, resourceful survivors.
Personality: Halflings prefer trouble to boredom. They are notoriously curious. Relying on their ability to survive or escape danger, they demonstrate a daring that many larger people can’t match.
Halfling clans are nomadic, wandering wherever circumstance and curiosity take them. Halflings enjoy wealth and the pleasures it can bring, and they tend to spend gold as quickly as they acquire it.
Halflings are also famous collectors. While more orthodox halflings may collect weapons, books or jewellery, some collect such objects as the hides of wild beasts — or even the beasts themselves. Wealthy halflings sometimes commission adventurers to retrieve exotic items to complete their collections.
Physical Description: Halflings stand about 3 feet tall and usually weigh between 30 and 35 pounds. Their skin is ruddy, and their hair is black and straight. They have brown or black eyes. Halfling men often have long sideburns, but beards are rare among them and mustaches are almost unseen. They like to wear simple, comfortable and practical clothes. A halfling reaches adulthood at the age of 20 and generally lives into the middle of her second century.
Relations: Halflings try to get along with everyone else. They are adept at fitting into a community of humans, dwarves, elves or gnomes and making themselves valuable and welcome. Since human society changes faster than the societies of the longer-lived races, it is human society that most frequently offers halflings opportunities to exploit, so halflings are most often found in or around human lands.
Alignment: Halflings tend to be neutral. While they are comfortable with change (a chaotic trait), they also tend to rely on intangible constants, such as clan ties and personal honour (a lawful trait).
Halfling Lands: Halflings have no lands of their own. Instead, they live in the lands of other races, where they can benefit from whatever resources those areas have to offer. Halflings often form tight-knit communities in human or dwarven cities. While they work readily with others, they often make friends only among their own kind. Halflings also settle into secluded places where they set up self-reliant villages. Halfling communities, however, are known for picking up and moving en-masse to some place that offers a new opportunity, such as a new mine that has just opened, or to a land where a devastating war has made skilled workers hard to find. If these opportunities are temporary, the community may pick up and move again once the opportunity is gone, or once a better one presents itself. Some halfling communities, on the other hand, take to travelling as a way of life, driving wagons or guiding boats from place to place and maintaining no permanent home.
Religion: The chief halfling deity is Yondalla, the Blessed One, protector of the halflings. Yondalla promises blessings and protection to those who heed her guidance, defend their clans, and cherish their families. Halflings also recognize countless lesser gods, who rule over individual villages, forests, rivers, lakes and so on. The halflings pay homage to these deities to ensure safe journeys as they travel from place to place.
Language: Halflings speak their own language, which uses the Common script. They write very little in their own language, so, unlike dwarves, elves and gnomes, they don’t have a rich body of written work. The halfling oral tradition, however, is very strong. While the Halfling language isn’t secret, halflings are loath to share it with others. Almost all halflings speak Common, since they use it to deal with the people in whose lands they are living or through which they are travelling.
Names: halfling has a given name, a family name, and possibly a nickname. It would seem that family names are nothing more than nicknames that stuck so well they have been passed down through the generations.
Male Names: Alton, Beau, Cade, Eldon, Garret, Lyle, Milo, Osborn, Roscoe, Wellby.
Female Names: Amaryllis, Charmaine, Cora, Euphemia, Jillian, Lavinia, Lidda, Merla, Portia, Seraphina, Verna.
Family Names: Brushgather, Goodbarrel, Greenbottle, Highhill, Hilltopple, Leagallow, Tealeaf, Thorngage, Tosscobble, Underbough.
Adventurers: Halflings often set out on their own to make their way in the world. Halfling adventurers are typically looking for a way to use their skills to gain wealth or status. The distinction between a halfling adventurer and a halfling out on her own looking for “a big score” can get blurry. For a halfling, adventuring is less of a career than an opportunity. While halfling opportunism can sometimes look like larceny or fraud to others, a halfling adventurer who learns to trust her fellows is worthy of trust in return.
Source: Player’s Handbook (Page 19)
Your character can be either male or female.
Every player character starts as an adult. You can choose or randomly generate your character’s age. If you choose it, it must be at least the minimum age for the character’s race and class (see Table: Starting Ages). Your character’s minimum starting age is the adulthood age of his or her race plus the number of dice indicated in the entry corresponding to the character’s race and class on Table: Starting Ages.
Alternatively, refer to Table: Starting Ages and roll dice to determine how old your character is.
| Adulthood | Intuitive1 | Self-Taught2 | Trained3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 years | +2d4 (22—28) years | +3d6 (23—38) years | +4d6 (24—44) years |
1 This category includes barbarians, rogues and sorcerers.
2 This category includes bards, fighters, paladins and rangers.
3 This category includes clerics, druids, monks and wizards.
With age, a character’s physical ability scores decrease and his or her mental ability scores increase (see Table: Aging Effects). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character’s ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.
| Middle Age1 | Old Age2 | Venerable3 | Maximum Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 years | 75 years | 100 years | +5d20 years |
1 -1 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution; +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
2 -2 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution; +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
3 -3 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution; +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
When a character reaches venerable age, the DM secretly rolls his or her maximum age, which is the number from the Venerable column on Table: Aging Effects plus the result of the dice roll indicated on the Maximum Age column on that table, and records the result, which the player does not know. A character who reaches his or her maximum age dies of old age at some time during the following year, as determined by the DM.
The maximum ages are for player characters. Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections or violence before getting to venerable age.
Choose your character’s height and weight from the ranges mentioned in the appropriate race description or from the ranges found on Table: Height and Weight. Think about what your character’s abilities might say about his or her height and weight. A weak but agile character may be thin. A strong and tough character may be tall or just heavy.
Alternatively, roll randomly for your character’s height and weight on Table: Height and Weight. The dice roll given in the Height Modifier column determines the character’s extra height beyond the base height. That same number multiplied by the dice roll or quantity given in the Weight Modifier column determines the character’s extra weight beyond the base weight.
| Gender | Base Height | Height Modifier | Base Weight | Weight Modifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 2’ 8" | +2d4 (2’ 10"—3’ 4") | 30 lbs. | ×1 (32—38 lbs.) |
| Female | 2’ 6" | +2d4 (2’ 8"—3’ 2") | 25 lbs. | ×1 (27—33 lbs.) |
Source: Player’s Handbook (Page 109)