Lightfoot Halfling

For lightfoot halflings, neither the journey nor the destination matters more; the important thing is to keep moving. The life of a lightfoot is one long exploration with each new horizon, new town, or new face a chance to find something delightful.
Lightfoot halflings typically travel in small bands, using whatever conveyance is convenient but just as easily striking out on foot. Bands consist of loosely related individuals, and when bands meet, membership frequently shifts. Lightfoot halflings typically excel at tasks related to travel—be it navigation, handling pack animals, foraging, sailing, and cartwright work—having tried their hand at all such things before or learned from other lightfoots met during their journeys.
Lightfoot halflings are highly social, often as curious about other people as they are about what might lie around the next bend. They characteristically possess an easygoing and open attitude, curious about others and willing to share of themselves, which enables them to make friends easily. Their facile friendships and ease with partings can make lightfoot halflings seem disingenuous to others. Lightfoot halflings get stereotyped as flighty, easily distracted, fickle, and unreliable. But their friendships and courtships, if brief, tend to be genuine. The staid and stable life that most other people desire just isn't part of their character.
Lightfoot halflings have all the racial traits of lightfoot halflings in the Player's Handbook. They share the skin, hair, and eye tones of humans, but most lightfoot halflings have hazel or brown eyes and brown hair. Lightfoot halflings don't grow facial hair except that males and females typically grow short sideburns.

Culture

Shared customary codes and values

History

Most lightfoot halflings trace their family ancestry back to the days when a great tribe of their subrace populated the territory known today as Luiren. Following the events of the Hin Ghostwars, the majority of the lightfoot halflings departed their homeland and spread out across northern Faerûn in a great diaspora. Though some lightfoot halflings remained in Luiren, the subrace has become ubiquitous throughout the settled lands of Faerûn.

Outlook

Lightfoot halflings may be the most common of all the subraces, but their behavior is also the most varied. It’s impossible to describe the “typical” lightfoot halfling because, much like humans, the race embodies individuals that are the absolute antithesis of one another. This diversity of behavior is mirrored in a diversity of outlooks: Some halflings adopt views and beliefs about the world that are very close or even identical to whatever human community they happen to dwell in, while others retain distinctive points of view that separate them from other races and groups (including other halflings). It’s not uncommon to meet halflings who, because they spend the greater part of their lives roaming from place to place, have outlooks that are amalgams of those from multiple cultures and environments.
The aspect of the lightfoot outlook that most non-halflings notice, however, is that they are the hin subrace that is most likely to wander out of an innate desire. It is not unknown for individual lightfoot halflings or even entire families to decide that, after living in the same place for decades, they want to move on to someplace else. Some learned folk speculate that the lightfoot hin experience a habitual need to see many different places and enjoy a variety of experiences. Other sages and loremasters wonder if the lightfoot penchant for the semi-nomadic lifestyle is socialized behavior, learned from centuries of practice. These scholars theorize that the lightfoot hin who left Luiren because of the Ghostwar massacres were unable to find a new homeland that suited them as well, so they wandered. After so many hundreds of years of wanderings, the behavior is now natural to the lightfoot hin, or so this school of thought holds. Whatever the case, there’s no denying that many lightfoot halflings seem determined to see a great deal of Faerûn and have many interesting experiences during their lifetimes.

LIGHTFOOT HALFLING CHARACTERS

As befits their name, lightfoot halflings often take classes that work well for wanderers, such as rogue and bard.
Favored Class: Rogue. Lightfoot halflings often pick up an impressive array of skills during their travels, and with their small size and low strength, they need the advantages of stealth and cleverness.

Lightfoot Halfling Society

Lightfoot halfling society is hard to quantify, because lightfoots can be divided into three groups: those who live among humans, those who live among other lightfoots, and those who wander from place to place. Some lightfoot halfling families live their entire lives in one place, sometimes as part of a human community, and sometimes in a settlement populated almost entirely by halflings. Others live their entire lives on the roads and byways of Faerûn, never remaining in one place very long.

Language and Literacy

Lightfoots speak Halfling, Common, and the language of their home region—which, given lightfoot wanderlust, could be almost anywhere. Wandering lightfoot halflings pick up the languages of the places they live, and often learn other widely spread tongues.

Lightfoot Halfling Magic and Lore

Lightfoot halflings tend to be generalists when it comes to magic, using a broad array of spells and magic items to make their travels—or their hearths—more pleasant. They are skillful clerics and sorcerers, but sometimes lack the discipline to become accomplished as wizards.

SPELLS AND SPELLCASTING

Because they’re almost always fighting foes who are larger than they are, lightfoot halflings favor spells that help them move around the battlefield and negate the physical strength of their foes. Expeditious retreat, fly, haste, various polymorph spells, and especially Evard’s black tentacles are common spells in a halfling spellcaster’s arsenal.

LIGHTFOOT HALFLING MAGIC ITEMS

Lightfoot halflings are fascinated with magic that makes travel easier in some way. It’s useful to travel faster, of course, but speed isn’t always a priority to a lightfoot who’s wandering anyway. Items that make travel more comfortable or safer are especially cherished.
Common Items: Bags of holding, Heward’s handy haversack, carpets of flying, and any magic boots can be purchased in lightfoot halfling communities for 10% less than the normal cost. Iconic Item: One of the most consistent disadvantages halflings face is that their size makes it difficult for them to make use of certain types of weapons. In response to this difficulty, a halfling wizard created the first hornblades—deceptive magic weapons that inflict more damage than their size would suggest (see the appendix). These weapons seem to be in the possession of lightfoot hin more frequently than the ghostwise or strongheart, giving rise to speculation that perhaps the original hornblade inventor was of the lightfoot subrace.

Lightfoot Halfling Deities

The diversity evident in the lightfoot halflings’ outlook and society is also reflected in their religious beliefs. Of all the hin subraces, the lightfoot are the most likely to worship deities other than those belonging to Yondalla’s Children. In addition to the deity they most favor, many lightfoot households—particularly those that prefer life on the road to a more settled existence— often venerate a household patron, often inspired by some matriarch or patriarch in the family’s history.
Brandobaris, the Master of Stealth, is much beloved by the lightfoot hin for his realistic and good-humored view of life. Brandobaris is a common patron deity of those halflings who trust to their luck to see them through as they wander from place to place.
The worship of Cyrrollalee, the Hearthkeeper, is wildly popular among lightfoot halflings born within the last two generations. Her message of the ascendance of the halfling race to a station of respect and power in Faerûn has fallen on receptive ears. The ranks of her clergy have swelled with the number of lightfoot hin seeking to spread her message and contribute to the search for a new lightfoot homeland.
Yondalla’s faith is popular with the lightfoot halflings, both those who wander and those who prefer to settle in more permanent communities. Recently there has been some tension between her clergy and those serving Cyrrollalee: Yondalla is not at all certain that this younger deity’s call for a halfling homeland is wise.

Lightfoot Halfling Equipment

These halflings favor the lightfoot warsling, a deadly and powerful version of the common sling (see the appendix). The warsling fires skiprocks, which halflings delight in throwing with great accuracy as well.

LIGHTFOOT ANIMALS AN1D PETS

Lightfoot halflings make up for their small stature by domesticating some of the largest and most powerful hounds in Faerûn. A towering human brigand has a hard time pushing around a halfling traveler with a pair of loyal hounds at his side.

Encompassed species

• Halfling