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Halfling

"Yes, we look like small humans. We are not small humans. We came from somewhere else. Ask politely and I will tell you."
— Mosie Tarrowfoot, baker of Heaven Heights

The small folk of Cadwallon — humanoid, roughly human-shaped, half human height, distinct from goblins by build and bearing, distinct from human dwarves by temperament. The Halflings are the deepest-rooted human-adjacent lineage on Aarklash — direct descendants of populations that fled the lost continent of [[Kel]] alongside the proto-humans, but who arrived in Cadwallon's region centuries before the founding and kept their separate identity.

What They Are

  • Small folk — adult height 0.9-1.1m; sturdier than goblins, finer-featured than dwarves, broadly human in proportion
  • Kel-blooded — they share an ancient origin with humans, but their lineage took a different path from Kel and they remember it as their own
  • Agricultural and mercantile by tradition — farmers, bakers, brewers, tinkers, scribes, accountants; the mid-tier merchant class of much of the lower city
  • Long lifespan — 90-120 years, comparable to dwarves; their elders carry oral memory that goes back to before the Cynwäll city
  • No Alliance allegiance — they pre-date the Three Alliances and have never picked one. Halflings are definitionally neutral.

Where They Live

  • The Fields (Trophy) — the largest Halfling community in the city, ~6,000 individuals; mostly small-holder farmers, brewers, and Standing-wind tenants alongside the Fauns
  • Heaven Heights (Soma) — Halfling bakeries, cafés, and bookshops; the bohemian quarter's caterers and one of the [[Last Dance|Last Dance's]] best suppliers
  • Little Klûne (Trophy) — surprisingly small Halfling presence (the goblin district is not Halfling territory; the two peoples coexist but do not blend)
  • Parchedale (Ghieronburg) — the gossip-rich Great Wash House is mostly Halfling-run; the wash-house knows everything

In Cadwallon

  • The Kel question — Halfling elders preserve fragmented oral histories of [[Kel]] that no human source can match. The Akkylannian embassy has been quietly buying Halfling family histories for two generations. The Halflings know what they are doing.
  • Guild ties — strong representation in the Guild of Tailors, Guild of Scribes, and the trades-and-bakers councils; almost no Halflings in the Guild of Blades or the Free Leagues by tradition (the Halflings consider warfare a Cadwë mistake)
  • The Bards of Destiny are half Halfling — Argos Brisandre's collaborator Podgy is a Halfling who runs the Fields cooperative; the Bards' information networks run on Halfling kitchen-table relationships
  • No homeland to return to — Kel is gone; the Halflings have nowhere else. Cadwallon's neutrality is, for them, the entire deal.

Relations

  • Humans — distant kin; relationship is polite and slightly distant ("they took a different road than us, and a worse one")
  • Goblins — coexistent but separate; the Halflings find the goblin embrace of guile exhausting
  • Fauns — partners in the Fields; arrangements between the two peoples are smoother than between either and the human Standing-wind aristocracy
  • Akkylannie — quiet, ongoing tension over the buying-up of Kel histories
  • Bards of Destiny / [[Podgy]] — institutional collaboration

The Akkylannian envoy

A senior Akkylannian embassy official has made an unusual offer to Mosie Tarrowfoot (a Heaven Heights baker who happens to be a senior Halfling family elder): a generous "research grant" for a complete oral history of the Tarrowfoot line. Mosie has refused twice. The third request came with an implicit threat. Mosie is now looking for a free league to either return the message firmly or help her relocate her family to the Fields under Vanho's protection. Mosie knows what's in the family history. It includes the name of the place in Kel where the proto-humans turned away from their kin — a name that, if it became known in Aarklash, would reshape Akkylannie's foundational mythology.

The wash-house archive

The Halfling-run Great Wash House in Parchedale has been collecting overheard conversations for thirty years and writing them in a cipher. The archive is in a locked room above the wash-house. The Halflings consider it shared property — anyone of standing can request information from it. Bernadil Ghiéron has used this resource personally. A free league that does the wash-house a favor can pull from the archive afterward.

See Also