Since I made one for dwarves last week, I figured why not try one for all the demihuman races.

I have to admit, halflings are my least favorite type of character to play. Actually, that’s a bit of a fib, because I can’t seem to remember ever rolling one up before. The closest I’ve ever come to actually playing a halfling was my third backup character for Jim Raggi’s recent Skype game, and that character never even saw a minute of playing time. I’m not sure why I created one, other than the ability scores were pretty ambivalent, so I just went with the wee man for the hell of it.

I was going to rant on about why I dislike them so much, but the rant became so long that it would have detracted from the table, so I think I’ll just save it for another post sometime in the near future. Here then is a table of traits or background hooks to take your new halfling character away from the stereotypical. Roll a d20 or choose from the following…

Disclaimer: The following table applies mostly to halflings in ‘classic’ fantasy games. As I understand it, the race has undergone some major changes in recent editions of D&D (3rd and 4th), so that they are no longer the fat, fur-footed, curly-haired, lazy Tolkien rip-offs of old. The table also has little use (probably) for Dark Sun halflings or Kender.

1 – A wandering monk from the east befriended your halfling at a young age and taught him/her the art of jujitsu. Gain a weaponless fighting proficiency.
2 – You are an outcast from your shire because of a love affair you had with a gnome. You bear a grudge against most of your kind now, believing them to be heartless xenophobes.
3 – Your halfling leaves his/her shire at a young age and heads to the big city in order to become a chariot racer.
4 – Your halfling always wears a cap, gloves, long sleeves and boots to conceal the fact that he/she was born without any hair on their body whatsoever, something considered a terrible embarrassment among the wee people.
5 – Researching your family tree, you discover that you have human relatives… and one of them is the lord of a distant land! You set out immediately to uncover the mystery.
6 – Your halfling’s favorite leisure activity: spelunking. Although you’ve never been able to convince any other halflings to go with you…
7 – Kobolds lay waste to your home village with you and a few others captured and taken as slaves. You escape after many years of brutal captivity, although you have been denied the typical comforts and pleasures of shire life. Your hardened personality rubs any other halflings you meet on your future travels the wrong way. Gain a permanent +1 to all attack rolls on kobolds or urds.
8 – While your mother was ill, you tended the family bakery. Unfortunately, your skill as a baker is nonexistent, and half the shire suffered from some type of food poisoning afterwards, including the mayor. You now walk slightly hunchbacked and bear permanent scars from all the lashes you received as a result of this disaster.
9 – Your halfling suffers from cibophobia, and thus cannot partake in the six meal a day feasts the halflings usually consume. In fact, it’s difficult for you to eat, period, thus you are almost sickly thin. Subtract 1 from your constitution score, but add 1 to either dexterity or wisdom.
10 – Your family has always had an abnormal hatred of elvenkind after your great-great grandfather was allegedly wronged by one on his travels, although no one actually remembers how the story is supposed to go anymore. -5 to all reaction rolls when you encounter an elf.
11 – You are a rare warmongering hobbit, and have made several desperate pleas to the mayor and village council to invade the goblin clans living below the neighboring hills, despite the fact that these goblins do not appear to be bothering anyone.
12 – Your halfling has spent the better part of the past fifteen years attempting to grow a massive dwarven-looking beard. Re-roll if you are female.
13 – Your halfling is wanted by the sheriff of your shire for embezzlement and fraud. You schemed the local farmers out of almost a year’s worth of wages with a scam and fled the area. Unfortunately, you blew all the coin soon after in a brothel on expensive wine and half-orc prostitutes.
14 – Your halfling is an insufferable bore, and was shunned from many social events and gatherings as he/she was growing up.
15 – Unlike most halflings, you are not jovial or happy-go-lucky, but rather moody and melancholy. You adventure in order to finance the purchase of a lonely manor house overlooking a rainy mire so that you may pen dark mystery novels in peace.
16 – Although you like your food, your halfling is an extremely fussy eater, refusing to eat anything but the most exotic of dishes.
17 – Your halfling speaks in a disconcertingly low baritone, ala Christopher Lee. This is doubly scary if your character is female.
18 – You are utterly convinced that you were a giant in a previous life, brought back as a halfling thanks to a wizard’s wand of reincarnation. Needless to say, this has caused some problems with the other halflings back home, so you left to seek out your alleged giant-kin.
19 – Your halfling leaves the shire at a young age in order to audition for the open position of royal court jester for the human king. You fail the audition, yet you refuse to change out of your jester’s garb, hoping to prove the court officials wrong someday.
20 – Your halfling is a terrible sex addict, which has caused some very serious problems back in your fairly conservative shire. You grow angry and/or depressed if you go too long without ‘fulfilling your needs’.