Halfling Lore


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

Envoy's Alliance

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

My understanding is that there is no history of when or how the halflings first appeared on Golarion. What about them? do they have any lore about their early days?

I am (For my own amusement) writing a story. and I have an old Halfling telling stories passed down about the Halflings meeting other major ancestries for the first time, they taught the humans to farm. They gave food and crops to the orcs who had ventured to them scouting for food, they taught elves to Make wine (which they won't argue the Elves have done very well, even arguably better) the taught the Dwarves to enjoy the soft (causing the dwarven word for a bed with a mattress to this day to be derived from the dwarven word for halfling), and with the Goblins they found unity in their loose concept of ownership and property (everything is for the community). They pride themselves in that they survive, by trusting in their neighbors. It does not always work (this Halfling was smuggled out of Cheliax by the Bellflower Network), but they will never let the world take that from them.


There is definitely history about halflings and it is usually specific to the location, so origin stories will also probably vary by region. This is a starting point and you can look into any of the many sources that were cited.

Dark Archive

Myths that I have halflings (some perhaps as pranks?) espouse are;

Halflings are not native to Golarion. They came from Desna's realm of Cynosure, and have integrated as best they can, but remember that they are but living lightly upon this world, which is not their own. (Usually said to tweak the noses of elves or gnomes, going on about their magical home worlds or dimensions or whatever.)

Halflings are the descendants of foolish Chelish diabolists who, ages past, sought to gain 'the devil's own luck' but unwisely promising 'half of their people' to Asmodeus (intending that he take unwanted souls they were sacrificing for this deal). He took literally half of *their bodies* in payment, instead of all of the intended sacrifices, but, yes, did in fact make them luckier. Chelaxians hate halflings because they are reminders of the foolishness of making deals with Hell.

Halflings are the original Varisians, who open-heartedly allowed desperate or outcast or rootless humans to join their caravans, until, many centuries later, most 'Varisian' caravans don't even have any halfling members, and most people have no idea that the original human 'Varisians' were in fact adopted into the Varisian halfling culture!

There is a hidden halfling enclave, somewhere. Perhaps even an entire nation, tucked away in some extradimensional space, or on some terribly conveniently hard-to-verify location (my girlfriend lives in Canada, really!), like in Arcadia or Sarusan or Casmaron. In some versions of the tale, this land is lost, and the halflings of Golarion can no longer find their way there.

Various historical or mythically potent or significant figures were really halflings. Nex. Old Mage Jatembe. Norgorber...

Various *current* rulers of distant (and thus, unverifiable) lands are halflings, and halflings are dominant there. Vudra sometimes gets this legend, but it is most often Kelesh, oddly, with the 'high sultan/a' said to be a halfling, attended by an entire court of halflings in a low-ceilinged palace where the taller races have to crawl to seek an audience!

Other leaders or rulers or prominent figures, closer to home, rumored to secretly be halflings. The Pactmasters of Katapesh. Artokus Kirran of Thuvia. Razmir. High Prophet Kelldor.

Norgorber is the only example of an adventuring party passing the Test of the Starstone. The Reaper of Reputation was a halfling Bard. Grayfingers a halfling Alchemist. The Grey Master, a halfling Rogue. The Skinsaw Man, a halfling Barbarian. Upon completing their grand heist, they found that they could not actually *steal* the Starstone, and that they could not become four new gods, but instead had to *share* godhood, as Norgorber, the four-faced and faceless god of secrets.

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