Halflings of Sundara: Making Hobbits That I Actually Want To Play

Long-time readers have probably seen me mention a time or two that I didn't grow up with Tolkien's body of work the way a lot of RPG players and fantasy fans did. I was more of a pulp fiction kid, with Burroughs, Lovecraft, Howard, and others forming the body of what influenced me when it came to fantasy. I saw the animated Hobbit when I was little, sure, but it just sort of slid right off my brain. It wasn't until I was in high school and the Lord of The Rings films started dropping that I really came back into contact with the father of high fantasy.

And I remember, as the films went on, why it was I hadn't identified with them much when I was younger. Because while there's a badass ranger who's the long-lost heir of a great kingdom, a dwarven prince constantly trying to prove his worth, and an elven renegade with an unerring eye, the story absolutely insists that we follow around these three-and-a-half-foot-tall farm kids who are in over their heads and utterly unqualified for the task they've volunteered for.

You make some poor decisions when you smoke too much Longbottom leaf...

Now, as someone who understands literary analysis and who knows Tolkien's history during global conflicts, I understand the overarching message of the story. I get how the hobbits were meant to be the everyman characters, out-of-their-depth in something far larger than they were. However, while we had to change the name to halflings when we put them in our RPGs due to copyright reasons, there's still a lot of the same DNA passed down by Bilbo and Frodo in these characters. And while halflings have changed over the years and editions, they represented a particular challenge for me. So my goal was to create a version of these creatures that I actually liked, and which appealed to me as a player.

And that was not a small thing, pun very much intended.

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Reimagining Community and Creativity

At their core, halflings have remained a species that's most often about curiosity, heart, and community. There have been variations or extreme takes (I'm looking at you, Kender), but that's generally been the through line of most of what I've seen done with this species. So when I sat down to work on them for Sundara I asked how I could keep that core of what they've been (and what inspired them in the first place), while still making them an organic part of this setting overall?

For those who've gotten their copies of Species of Sundara: Halflings (available for Pathfinder as well as for Dungeons and Dragons 5E) I like to think I managed pretty well.

And if you don't have a copy yet, go get one!

The first thing I did was to reimagine the origin story of this species. While there's no true authority in Sundara saying explicitly where any particular species did or didn't come from, the most common myths told about halflings is they were created during the sculpting of the dwarves. The ancient giants were so focused on the dwarves that they didn't noticed the chips and pebbles that had come off during their carving... and those small chips were what became halflings.

However much truth their is to this tale, dwarves have historically treated halflings more like distant cousins than they have as mere neighbors. This has meant their communities often live and work side by side, and that halflings (as a whole) are often well-versed in many of the same techniques and skills of their dwarven neighbors.

This gave halflings an origin story and a broad history (though there's still some debate as to just how factual it might be). From there I moved out into different cultures and communities, attempting to add some variety to these creatures. From the Vale who lived among the hills shepherding huge herds of sheep and riding their shaggy gray hounds, to the Suff Folk with their green skin living in secret burrows in the deep forests, to Barreners in their ruined cities, Skycatchers atop their lonely mountains, or Tidelings who spend the majority (if not the whole) of their lives upon the sea, there's a wide variety of ways these clever creatures have changed and adapted to fit environments across Sundara.

In the end, I think that this book definitely achieved what I set out to achieve. It gave halflings an organic place in the setting, and it spiraled out showing how they've taken on new and different forms across the world as they made homes and interacted with other species, cultures, etc. And, in the end, made halflings that felt more varied and less stereotypical than what we tend to see in other settings where Tolkien's name might have been filed off but we can still see the impression it left behind.

Remember To Check Out The Other Species of Sundara!

If you enjoy my take on halflings, and you want to see what other changes I've made to the core species we're all so used to, make sure you take a moment to check out the rest of the Species of Sundara series that's been coming out the past few months! And if you like them, don't forget to check out the rest of my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting as well!

- Elves of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Elves are one of the most quintessential fantasy creatures... but if you want to see more than just high elves, wood elves, and elves of the sun and moon, then this supplement has you covered!

- Dwarves of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): The children of the primordial giants who were meant to fill in the details of the world they'd made (or so the myths say) there are as many kinds of dwarves as their are kinds of giants... and possibly more, depending on who is keeping count.

- Orcs of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Supposedly a creation of the elves, none can say for certain exactly how or why orcs have been made. What most agree on is that these creatures are far more than most may think at first glance.

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