Halflings. Love/Hate?

[Séadna]

Generally, we don't know but Alfar and Dvergar seem to mean different things a lot of the time. But they're referring to mythical entities, so there's nothing concrete there so to speak. The words may have meant different things to different people at different times. Most of what we know about Norse mythology comes from works published after it was already dead as a religion

This sort of stuff is based mainly on the Poetic Edda where Elf only really occurs to alliterate, mainly with Aesir. When Snorri Sturleson uses the term in the Prose Edda it seems to just be another word for dwarf.

Hmm, considering we still have Alf as a name in Swedish but nothing like Dvärg as a name (other than a term for little people) I'm not sure about that

Why does that make it less likely? It's a common enough feature in languages for alternate words for the same thing to die off at different rates, or is this something specific to North Germanic languages I'm not aware of?

 

[Fenris-77]

Carnies, small hands, smell like cabbage...

 

[Jamfke]

They make great barbarians in D&D 5th edition. Dexterity AND Constitution add to Armor Class!

If you've read any of my attempts at a fantasy game you know that I lump Halflings, Gnomes, Pixies, Leprechauns, and Bogeys as cultural groups under the racial group of "Wee Folk."

I hadn't considered leprechauns...that would be a fun PC race. I would normally only consider them NPCs.

 

[raniE]

This sort of stuff is based mainly on the Poetic Edda where Elf only really occurs to alliterate, mainly with Aesir. When Snorri Sturleson uses the term in the Prose Edda it seems to just be another word for dwarf.

Not entirely accurate when it comes to the poetic Edda. Gandalf appears in a list of dwarves (the one that contains Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Thrain, Thorin and Dwalin as well. So there an "alfr" appears as a dwarf.

The following is from Grímnismál

4.
Land er heilagt,
er ek liggja sé
ásum ok alfum nær;
en í Þrúðheimi
skal Þórr vera
unz of rjúfask regin.

5.
Ýdalir heita,
þar er Ullr hefir
sér of görva sali;
Alfheim Frey
gáfu í árdaga
tívar at tannféi.

Translated to English
4. The land is holy | that lies hard by
The gods and the elves together;
And Thor shall ever | in Thruthheim dwell,
Till the gods to destruction go.

5. Ydalir call they | the place where Ull
A hall for himself hath set;
And Alfheim the gods | to Freyr once gave
As a tooth-gift in ancient times.

Now the first of these is perhaps just intended as alliteration, but since Frey then receives Alfheim, it seems rather to make Alfr the equivalent of Vanir, the gods that weren't Aesir, and not dwarves.

It shows up elsewhere as a compound word too, Alfhild as a wife of king Hjorvarth. So as we can see names with Alfr in them were already established when they were written, and applicable to humans.

Why does that make it less likely? It's a common enough feature in languages for alternate words for the same thing to die off at different rates, or is this something specific to North Germanic languages I'm not aware of?

Well we know names with Alf in them existed already at the time was what I meant (unlike names with Dvargr in them, which don't really exist and haven't as far as I know), which makes it unlikely the term was just invented for alliteration.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I am 100% fine with 'hobbits' in the right setting, I like Hobbits, and Hobbits is what I'm looking for out of Halflings.

I'm pretty much the opposite of you on this! I'm not that interested in hobbits. I do like them when they're a bit different.

I like the sinister undertones you get with halflings in WFRP; stuff like the "tall person tax" and the Halfling Criminal Organisations.

 

[Trippy]

It suspends my disbelief when Halflings (or Gnomes) have high Strength ratings in D&D. My Halfling characters never have Strength ratings higher than 10 and is generally the dump stat for the lowest dice roll, as a personal rule. Some people about that being restrictive, but my view is if you want a character with high Strength, why pick a Halfling?

Anyway, Ducks are better.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Anyway, Ducks are better.

You said "better" but I think you meant to say "off the scale awesome and I'll fight anyone who claims otherwise".

 

[Séadna]

Well we know names with Alf in them existed already at the time was what I meant (unlike names with Dvargr in them, which don't really exist and haven't as far as I know), which makes it unlikely the term was just invented for alliteration.

The claim isn't that it was made up for alliteration, but that whenever it shows up it tends to either be an alternate word for Dwarf, is a Dwarf's name like Gandalf (Wand Elf or Wolf Elf) or occurs to alliterate with Aesir or similar words and so that there is no real evidence from primary sources that it was a separate type of being to a Dwarf and in fact the evidence points more to it just being another word for Dwarf.

 

[raniE]

The claim isn't that it was made up for alliteration, but that whenever it shows up it tends to either be an alternate word for Dwarf, is a Dwarf's name like Gandalf (Wand Elf or Wolf Elf) or occurs to alliterate with Aesir or similar words and that there is no real evidence from primary sources that it was a separate type of being to a Dwarf, in fact the evidence points more to it just being another word for Dwarf.

I just posted all the times it shows up in the poetic Edda (that I have found, but I'm fairly sure I got them all). Once it appears to be another name for the Vanir, once it's part of the name of Frey's home (Frey being a Vanir) and twice it's part of a given name for a person (one of which is a dwarf, one of which is a human). There's really no trends, there's only one alliteration there, and in the very next verse it is used non-alliteratively. It only shows up as an independent word (alfum) once. Deciding that it is just another word for dwarf based on that is ... not really supported I'd say.

 

[Brock Savage]

I prefer D&D settings that have little to no Tolkienisms. That said, if halflings did exist alongside humans in a low-tech fantasy setting I imagine they would probably be slaves or bottom-caste laborers.

 

[Fenris-77]

Or circus folk.

 

[raniE]

I prefer D&D settings that have little to no Tolkienisms. That said, if halflings did exist alongside humans in a low-tech fantasy setting I imagine they would probably be slaves or bottom-caste laborers.

Or an entirely different society. It would depend on how that situation happened. I like the explanation for having a bunch of different intelligent humanoids living together that is used in TFT's Cidri. It's a created world, and all these different species and races are from alternate realities. So the halflings come from a world where Homo floresiensis or a similar species of human became dominant (maybe some disaster wiped out the homo sapiens) and then some of them were brought over by the creators of Cidri. Otherwise, you'd probably get what happened in the real world when Homo sapiens met the Neanderthals and the Flores man, that is the latter dissapeared and the sapens genepool changed a bit.

 

[Séadna]

I just posted all the times it shows up in the poetic Edda

Isn't it also in For Skirnis, Voluspa and Thrymskvitha? We can continue this in PM if you wish.

 

[ffilz]

I'm find with halflings, I don't need them. If I'm playing anything bog standard D&D they are present. I'm starting to write them up for my RuneQuest Thieves Guild since they are part of the Haven/Thieves Guild setting. They aren't present in Glorantha (or Traveller :-) ) or Nippon (Bushido).

I'm actually more offended by elves that are written up in a way that makes them super characters. At least the Burning Wheel developer admits that elves are "cheaty"... Gloranthan elves are rather over the top. My RQTG elves are toned down quite a bit from bog standard RQ... D&D elves sort of have this problem... Which BTW made me very open to Talislanta's "No Elves!" selling point (too bad in my opinion Talislanta does have elves, they are just disguised and not called as such... but then it doesn't have humans either...).

I'm not sure about gnomes, but don't feel a need to address them until I decide to give AD&D another spin. OD&D doesn't have PC gnomes by default and any OSR game that I might pick up that incorporates gnomes probably has more thought to their inclusion that "just because AD&D has them...."

 

[raniE]

Isn't it also in For Skirnis, Voluspa and Thrymskvitha? We can continue this in PM if you wish.

Continued in PM.

 

[AsenRG]

I think people have too light hearted view of elves. You should read Tolkien's 4th Age stuff where Elrond returns and goes off the rails.

View attachment 30987

I've read Silmarilion, and which is known among fans as "A Story Of When Some Elves Went Off The Rails" for a reason.

 

[Fenris-77]

Continued in PM.

Spoilsports. Some of us might actually want to read that exchange.

 

[raniE]

I mean, I can post it here too if you want. I missed another time it shows up in Skírnismál because I'm mainly going by the Swedish versions (I don't actually understand old Norse, I can interpret some of it, but I really need the translation at hand) where the word isn't even translated to alv. The original is

"Hví um segjak þér,
seggr inn ungi,
mikinn móðtrega?
Því at álfröðull
lýsir um alla daga
ok þeygi at mínum munum."

which in one English translation is

"How shall I tell thee, | thou hero young,
Of all my grief so great?
Though every day | the elfbeam dawns,
It lights my longing never."​

In the Swedish version álfröðull is just translated to "skimrande sol", which is "gleaming sun".

The other times it shows up are first in Voluspa, where you get a long list of names of dwarfs including
Gandalfr, Vindalfr and later Alfr (which is a fairly common name still in Scandinavian countries and probably Iceland too, although the modern form is Alf usually).

Then it shows up in Grímnismál

Translated to English

4. The land is holy | that lies hard by
The gods and the elves together;
And Thor shall ever | in Thruthheim dwell,
Till the gods to destruction go.

5. Ydalir call they | the place where Ull
A hall for himself hath set;
And Alfheim the gods | to Freyr once gave
As a tooth-gift in ancient times.​

Then it shows up in Helgaviða Hjörvarðssonar in the name of Alfhild.

In the prose edda the first time it shows up is in Gylfaginning and there a clear line of demarcation is drawn between elves and dwarfs

"There are also other norns who visit everyone when they are born to shape their lives, and these are of divine origin, though others are of the race of elves, and a third group are of the race of dwarfs, as it says here:

Of very diverse parentage I think the norns are, they do not
have a common ancestry. Some are descended from AEsir,
some are descended from elves, some are daughters of
Dvalin."​

So, not really much to suggest they're the same thing as dwarves, some evidence that they're the same thing as vanir (Frey and some of the other gods).

 

[Séadna]

Spoilsports. Some of us might actually want to read that exchange.

I thought it would bore others. I've sent an email to an expert in Norse myth about it, so I'll await their response and post it here. It might be based on deeper stuff in Proto-Germanic. That'll obviously be Viking age oriented, raniE is a native speaker of a modern Norse language and so could tie in more modern stuff which will be interesting.

 

[raniE]

I'm not a scholar of this stuff, but we read the prose edda, or parts of it at least, in school as a kid. Even though it wasn't religiously significant (we still had a state church until I was 14) it was very much seen as part of our cultural heritage. I also read Lord of the Rings, and other than maybe noticing some of the names (not sure, the long lists of names are boring in any mythology and usually skipped by kids) me and my friends didn't really draw any connections between the elves and dwarfs in Nordic mythology and the elves and dwarves of Tolkien. Not that there are too many references at all to elves or dwarves, most of the focus is on the gods and giants.

 

[Toadmaster]

I'm fine with halflings in a LotR or classic D&D setting. I rarely made a halfling character, but have nothing against them. I like the D&D gnome / dwarf split and the smaller (5 foot) elves too. It gives a little bit of a melding between LotR and European myth rather than pure LotR ripoff.

I like human centric games with a S&S bent (Conan etc), actual LotR , and numbers filed off quasi LotR settings like Greyhawk or even Glorantha which is more LotR thrown into a big melting pot with other stuff.

I am not inherently against totally not LotR inspired games with demi-humans, but will admit I'm not generally a fan unless they pull from myth. Not so much because I have to have LotR in my fantasy, but simply because many I've encountered simply were not that good. It is fine to avoid any LotR-isms, but to do it well requires a fair bit of good background writing. Also not a fan of many of the later D&D settings or the goofier races that were added.

 

[Séadna]

my friends didn't really draw any connections between the elves and dwarfs in Nordic mythology and the elves and dwarves of Tolkien

That makes sense to me. I think although Tolkien uses the word Elf, they're really humans with a different theological nature and more tied into Christianity, something he mentions a few times in letters and expanded material.

We had it on the pub a few times:

The existence of Elves: that is of a race of beings closely akin to Men, so closely indeed that they must be regarded as physically (or biologically) simply branches of the same race....But by nature the fëar of Men were in much less strong control of their hröar than was the case with the Elves

the high king of the Valar, Manwë, describes the “prime nature” of the Elves as a harmonious integration of body and soul

The coherence of body and soul experienced by Elves, for example, gives them great control over their bodies, enabling health, strength, and immortality, a control which Men do not have

the fëar of Men, though close akin indeed to the fëar of the Quendi, are yet not the same. For strange as we deem it, we see clearly that the fëar of Men are not, as are ours, confined to Arda, nor is Arda their home

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I've read Silmarilion, and which is known among fans as "A Story Of When Some Elves Went Off The Rails" for a reason.

WHEN ELVES GO WILD

 

[Fenris-77]

Im so far from expert its not funny. I speak a little Norwegian and I have some uni level Anglo Saxon.

 

[Silverlion]

I've played a few, and enjoy them from time to time. Though I think that gnomes/halflings need to be significantly different from one another to give them both space in a setting. (Admittedly one was in 2E, and broke the max strength roll because the GM was amused by the concept, a halfling pugilist.)

In my "D&D" world, that I used for 5E until the recent long campaign the notable difference I made them was "slightly" more bestial-anime "animal-folk" they had the ears, tails, feet, and hands at least that marked them as different. Note: They were descended from the ancient sorcerer-kings /familiars/ magically uplifted by the rampant random magic unleashed by the end of those former rulers when their greatest weapons turned upon them. The human sorcerers created dragons to rule over their neighbors but the dragons as super-smart weapons were TOO intelligent and ended humanity's rule (and have been watching since. So no one tampers the way they did again.)

But I dropped gnomes entirely. What I'm working on now, I've not found a place for them as of yet, unless they're the default industrial race instead of humans. (The Gnome in my new project are mushroom folk, smaller, live in the wilderness, and are very shy for the most part.)

They could easily be replaced by proper Kobolds (from myth), or Faeries of the winged sort, or whatever with no bother to me, so long as they aren't Kender as most people played then that I have witnessed.

 

[E-Rocker]

Short jokes aside, I'm indifferent to halflings. Have them, don't have them, I don't really care. I don't have strong feelings about any fantasy races, for that matter.

 

[Simlasa]

I liked them in Dark Sun... feral cannibals.

Otherwise I prefer just having humans of smaller stature... as a 'race' or just a group who share genetic anomalies... or something completely different, but still small and quirky... goblins or whatever.

 

[VisionStorm]

I liked them in Dark Sun... feral cannibals.

Otherwise I prefer just having humans of smaller stature... as a 'race' or just a group who share genetic anomalies... or something completely different, but still small and quirky... goblins or whatever.

Dark Sun halflings are my favorite halflings. They make sense in the context of a brutal desolate land with limited food where everything's out to get you, specially if you're small. In that context it makes sense that the smallest race would just retreat into the last remaining forests--out of reach from larger races--and then become savages hunting in pack tactics, falling onto unsuspecting travelers from above, and resort to cannibalism for sustenance.

I wish halflings (or other races for that matter) where that integrated into a setting if they're going to include them.

 

[Ladybird]

They make great barbarians in D&D 5th edition. Dexterity AND Constitution add to Armor Class!

Dex Barbarian is a silly build, but it works so well it's a ton of fun to play. Grab a rapier and a buckler, go Path of the Ancestral Guardian, and you become ridiculously sticky with great AC, HP, Initiative, Dex saves, and the important resistances for melee. You're slightly down on damage compared to a Str build, but you make up for it by being near-unkillable and taking heat off others; your main job is to get up in the face of the nastiest enemy in the room and lock them down, but you're also good at going for squishy targets like mages or healers if you can get something that lets you get around front lines (Actually, like being a Halfling).

 

[David Johansen]

Dark Sun halflings are my favorite halflings. They make sense in the context of a brutal desolate land with limited food where everything's out to get you, specially if you're small. In that context it makes sense that the smallest race would just retreat into the last remaining forests--out of reach from larger races--and then become savages hunting in pack tactics, falling onto unsuspecting travelers from above, and resort to cannibalism for sustenance.

That's basically what I mean when I say "Bogeys."

 

[TJS]

I think they're good with a spicy Sichuan sauce.

More seriously, I think they're just Meh. They're little humans basically. If I'm running D&D I usually have a place for them somewhere because they're easy to fit in. Rural people who live in small communities are generally no trouble.

I wouldn't use them outside of D&D but that's true of demi-humans generally.

 

[TristramEvans]

I mean, if a Halfling is just a little person, theres really no point to them being treated a a seperate race (actually sounds kinda insulting TBH), demographics can simply be covered by height and weight charts.

Tolkien's Hobbits were clearly used both as a metaphor for the rural folk of the English Countryside where he grew up (that he saw being phased out by industrialization, but also cleverly used as PoV characters in a world seeped in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic mythology), but more importantly also as representatives of the house fairy traditions of those same people - the brownies, hobberdy dicks, hobs, boggans, etc. They may not have powers/abilities unique to them (besides the ambiguous philisophical higher reistance to "corruption") but they have a very distinct cultural identity separating them from the other races in that world.

I think the reason they tend to "fade into the background" in D&D is that they are given no distinct culture or cultural traits. I played with a fantasy RPG once where instead of stats, each race/creature was defined by three adjectives (two nominally positive, one nominally negative), which served as both identifiers and special abilities. It was easy to do this with stereotypes of most D&D-esque fantasy races: Dwarves were "Short, Stubborn, and Crafty", Elves were "Slender, Flighty, and Uncanny", Orcs were "Brutal, Tough, and Dim-witted", Goblins were "Short, Mischevious, and Craven", etc. But it was challenging to come up with three archetypal adjectives todescribe Halflings. Besides "short", what stereotypes does the post-D&D fantasy halfling have?

And that's the issue: they have no archetypal unique identity in D&Desque fantasy, cultural or otherwise. You're either playing a pastiche of Tolkien's Hobbits, or just a short person.

I think if a fantasy game is going to use Halflings, that's the first hurdle to overcome, and the key to justifying their existence: give them a new identity.

 

[raniE]

I mean, if a Halfling is just a little person, theres really no point to them being treated a a seperate race (actually sounds kinda insulting TBH), demographics can simply be covered by height and weight charts.

Tolkien's Hobbits were clearly used both as a metaphor for the rural folk of the English Countryside where he grew up (that he saw being phased out by industrialization, but also cleverly used as PoV characters in a world seeped in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic mythology), but more importantly also as representatives of the house fairy traditions of those same people - the brownies, hobberdy dicks, hobs, boggans, etc. They may not have powers/abilities unique to them (besides the ambiguous philisophical higher reistance to "corruption") but they have a very distinct cultural identity separating them from the other races in that world.

I think the reason they tend to "fade into the background" in D&D is that they are given no distinct culture or cultural traits. I played with a fantasy RPG once where instead of stats, each race/creature was defined by three adjectives (two nominally positive, one nominally negative), which served as both identifiers and special abilities. It was easy to do this with stereotypes of most D&D-esque fantasy races: Dwarves were "Short, Stubborn, and Crafty", Elves were "Slender, Flighty, and Uncanny", Orcs were "Brutal, Tough, and Dim-witted", Goblins were "Short, Mischevious, and Craven", etc. But it was challenging to come up with three archetypal adjectives todescribe Halflings. Besides "short", what stereotypes does the post-D&D fantasy halfling have?

“Stupid, fat, Hobbit!”

 

[PolarBlues]

Anyway, Ducks are better.

You are skating on really thin ice here. You do realise ducks are basically slightly smaller geese?

 

[AsenRG]

I mean, if a Halfling is just a little person, theres really no point to them being treated a a seperate race (actually sounds kinda insulting TBH), demographics can simply be covered by height and weight charts.

Tolkien's Hobbits were clearly used both as a metaphor for the rural folk of the English Countryside where he grew up (that he saw being phased out by industrialization, but also cleverly used as PoV characters in a world seeped in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic mythology), but more importantly also as representatives of the house fairy traditions of those same people - the brownies, hobberdy dicks, hobs, boggans, etc. They may not have powers/abilities unique to them (besides the ambiguous philisophical higher reistance to "corruption") but they have a very distinct cultural identity separating them from the other races in that world.

I think the reason they tend to "fade into the background" in D&D is that they are given no distinct culture or cultural traits. I played with a fantasy RPG once where instead of stats, each race/creature was defined by three adjectives (two nominally positive, one nominally negative), which served as both identifiers and special abilities. It was easy to do this with stereotypes of most D&D-esque fantasy races: Dwarves were "Short, Stubborn, and Crafty", Elves were "Slender, Flighty, and Uncanny", Orcs were "Brutal, Tough, and Dim-witted", Goblins were "Short, Mischevious, and Craven", etc. But it was challenging to come up with three archetypal adjectives todescribe Halflings. Besides "short", what stereotypes does the post-D&D fantasy halfling have?

And that's the issue: they have no archetypal unique identity in D&Desque fantasy, cultural or otherwise. You're either playing a pastiche of Tolkien's Hobbits, or just a short person.

I think if a fantasy game is going to use Halflings, that's the first hurdle to overcome, and the key to justifying their existence: give them a new identity.

"Sneaky, Dexterous, Gluttonous, Down-to-Earth*, Resistant, Persistent". Yes, you just got a double package in one short container!
It's not hard to come up with a racial identity for halflings. The challenge is to do them well.

*In all senses!

 

[TJS]

I mean, I can post it here too if you want. I missed another time it shows up in Skírnismál because I'm mainly going by the Swedish versions (I don't actually understand old Norse, I can interpret some of it, but I really need the translation at hand) where the word isn't even translated to alv. The original is

"Hví um segjak þér,
seggr inn ungi,
mikinn móðtrega?
Því at álfröðull
lýsir um alla daga
ok þeygi at mínum munum."

which in one English translation is

"How shall I tell thee, | thou hero young,
Of all my grief so great?
Though every day | the elfbeam dawns,
It lights my longing never."​

In the Swedish version álfröðull is just translated to "skimrande sol", which is "gleaming sun".

The other times it shows up are first in Voluspa, where you get a long list of names of dwarfs including
Gandalfr, Vindalfr and later Alfr (which is a fairly common name still in Scandinavian countries and probably Iceland too, although the modern form is Alf usually).

Then it shows up in Grímnismál

Translated to English

4. The land is holy | that lies hard by
The gods and the elves together;
And Thor shall ever | in Thruthheim dwell,
Till the gods to destruction go.

5. Ydalir call they | the place where Ull
A hall for himself hath set;
And Alfheim the gods | to Freyr once gave
As a tooth-gift in ancient times.​

Then it shows up in Helgaviða Hjörvarðssonar in the name of Alfhild.

In the prose edda the first time it shows up is in Gylfaginning and there a clear line of demarcation is drawn between elves and dwarfs

"There are also other norns who visit everyone when they are born to shape their lives, and these are of divine origin, though others are of the race of elves, and a third group are of the race of dwarfs, as it says here:

Of very diverse parentage I think the norns are, they do not
have a common ancestry. Some are descended from AEsir,
some are descended from elves, some are daughters of
Dvalin."​

So, not really much to suggest they're the same thing as dwarves, some evidence that they're the same thing as vanir (Frey and some of the other gods).

What I've usually seen suggested is the Svart Alfar, or Dokk Alfar (rather than elves as a whole) are likely (but not certainly) synonymous with Dwarf. Does that sound right?

Although I noticed with Symbaroum, that goblins are basically Svartalfar in the originally Swedish version of the game.

 

[TristramEvans]

It's not hard to come up with a racial identity for halflings.

Oh, I'm not saying it's hard, I'm saying D&D simply hasn't done it.

 

[TJS]

In quite a few more modern settings Goblins basically steal the Halfling's niche. (Symbaroum, Iron Kingdoms - maybe Pathfinder?).

Which isn't surprising as they're much more distinctive. (Although some of the most annoying characters I've seen in games have been Goblins).

 

[raniE]

What I've usually seen suggested is the Svart Alfar, or Dokk Alfar (rather than elves as a whole) are likely (but not certainly) synonymous with Dwarf. Does that sound right?

Although I noticed with Symbaroum, that goblins are basically Svartalfar in the originally Swedish version of the game.

Svartalver have existed in Swedish rpgs since the first edition of Drakar och Demoner (which is basically what Symbaroum and Svärdets Sång are both referencing), and they can be analogized to goblins most of the time, yeah.

The distinction between light elves and dark elves doesn't show up everywhere in the prose Edda, I'm not sure even Snorre knew exactly what they were when he was putting it together. Maybe light elves are Vanir and dark elves are dwarfs. Maybe they're similar to those two groups but separate. It's unclear in general.

 

[AsenRG]

Oh, I'm not saying it's hard, I'm saying D&D simply hasn't done it.

Ahem, man, those were the things I think of when I think "halflings". Might be influenced by Warhammer, indeed, but most of them are straight from the Hobbit/LotR!