Halfling parents

Legault · Post by **Legault** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:04 am

If a half-elf is, obviously, A human/elf, but what would a halfling be?

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:28 am

Halflings are a unique race not of human or elf stock I believe. In the sense of Lotr the evolution of humans. But in other fantasy worlds halflings are seperate races. I believe they are a unique race though, I could be wrong.

Solaghar · Post by **Solaghar** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:58 am

In the Lord of the Rings universe where Halflings originally came from they were technically a subset of humans in that they shared the same ultimate destiny and mortality of humans. When they were transferred to the D&D world they became their own race, though they have gone through a lot of different incarnations. They used to focus on halflings being much more like in LOTR, pudgy, cautious farmers who were generally good at heart. Now they have tried to draw away from that aspect of the halflings to emphasize their uniqueness as a race, whereas before they were just nice but provincial humans who liked to eat a lot. I think they've lost a little in this in terms of atmosphere, but that's my opinion, and I appreciate they're trying to be a bit more original in any case than to just steal the template from LOTR without ever paying any royalties or anything else. But they're not really half of anything in terms of genetics, they were just half the size of a person, hence halfling.

Sean · Post by **Sean** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:18 pm

Legault wrote:If a half-elf is, obviously, A human/elf, but what would a halfling be?

I belive the problem you're having is a misunderstanding. Half-Elf is, yes, half human, half elf. However, the name Halfling does not mean they are half one species, half another. They're, as was mentioned, a seperate race in Fearun and DnD in general. I belive the name comes from the fact that, on average, they're half the height of the 'normal' sized races (Whatever 'normal' in DnD is

). When I get home, I'll be happy to dig up some quotes from my DnD books to better explain them to you, but for now... I've got work to do. *sigh*...

I wonder if anyone actually WORKS at work... *looks around*

~Sean Vallar, Faithful Follower and Swordsman of Justice

Elwin · Post by **Elwin** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:57 pm

From my understanding, the name halfling came from the fact that they looked almost identical to humans, but were on average half the size of humans. So, you get halfling *nod self*