Halflings
People - mostly the judgmental sort, better off ignored - like to look down on folks like us. Call us 'improper' or 'incomplete'. Acting like two halves don't make a whole, which is silly enough on its face. What they don't seem to understand is that we aren't diluting one side or the other. Nothing's getting thinned out or weakened. We aren't just a mixture of something good and something lesser. We're an alloy. Two wondrous elements that, when combined, have the potential to become something truly amazing in our own right.
Many of the sapient species in the world are either closely-related lineages to begin with, or their genetics simply don't mix. The trinary of 'plain' humanoids, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Humans, stand out as a striking exception to this rule. Though created wholly separate from one another, the three are biologically compatible, able to bear viable offspring who blend the features of their mixed parentage. Individuals born to these unions are known collectively as 'Halflings', regardless of the precise mix.
At one time - and still, among certain circles - this term was considered derogatory. Over time, however, most of those it applies to have reclaimed the term as a badge of honor, building themselves up as being more than the some of their ancestral parts. And especially as the Halflings themselves continue to have children and further blend their mixtures together into smaller and smaller percentages, the name has largely lost all sense of literal accuracy to become little more than a convenient label through popular use, rather than a properly factual definition.
Halfling Variants
Though most Halflings are generally treated the same - in both the general and derogatory senses - there still exist unique terms and basic assumptions about the specific 'blend' an individual is born into. More often than not, the terms derived for them are purely informational, intended to quickly explain their genetic makeup to medical professionals and the chronically nosy. They tend to only be used in casual conversation when the stereotypes formed around them are brought into play.
Dwarf + Gnome = Measc
The earliest known Halflings for fairly mundane reasons - humans wouldn't discover Mordrekain for centuries after the Dwarves and Gnomes had already lived together and then drifted apart - they also came to be only a brief time before the differences between their parent cultures led to periods of great strife between the two species, leading to many of the more negative outlooks on Halflings even in the modern day. The term for them literally translates to 'Mix' in the old Dwarven tongue, and that's more or less how they appear. Their exact features run the gamut from burly Gnomes with robust facial hair to slight Dwarves with sharp teeth. The vast majority land somewhere in the middle, smoothing out each of their parent's unique features into a mild average.
Human + Dwarf = Dwan/Dwemen
The tallest and most robust of Halflings, the Dwan - or Dwemen; a consensus on the name still hasn't officially been reached - most often take primarily after their human parents, but with highly prominent Dwarven traits in terms of hair texture and growth rate, bone density, and dental structure. They, and their siblings in humanity the Gnemen, receive perhaps the harshest blowback from their mixed parentage from traditionalists and other bigots. The animosities between Dwarves and Gnomes from their ancient wars are all but forgotten in the modern age, but the wounds from the Human Invasion are significantly fresher, and ill will remains in a number of pockets throughout Moredrekain.
Human + Gnome = Gnemen
Gnemen often bemoan a feeling of being trapped in Mordrekain. Where Measc can pass as slightly abnormal members of either of their parent species, and Dwan generally appear to be rather short, stocky, hairy humans at a casual glance, Gnemen have a much harder time blending in among the predominantly-human nations of the northern hemisphere. Though they also tend towards the taller half of their ancestry, Gnomish facial features have proven to be a dominant genetic trait for them, leaving them uncannily 'monstrous' in the eyes of most humans. This doesn't necessarily translate to persecution or mistreatment - particularly in Duwallen, where the prevalence of arcane mutations has made the general populace a bit more accepting of individuals with unusual appearances - but it does put a significant hamper on their day-to-day social lives.
"Thirdlings"
When a Halfling has ancestry among all three species, regardless of the specific percentages involved in their family tree, their appearances become harder to easily categorize. Most often jokingly referred to as 'Thirdlings', they have a wide variety of epithets. From the good-natured and generally harmless - Stewpots, Third Cousins - to the more mean-spirited - Dregs, Outbreds - they tend to gravitate to simply being included with the rest of their Halfling kin. To the vast majority of them, the exact ingredients of their particular 'mix' matters about as much as the fact that they're mixed in the first place. They're Mordrekainenites, just like everyone else.
Beyond the Hominids
Although the three human-esque species from the northern hemisphere are the only ones confirmed to be capable of creating genetically viable offspring across strict species lines, that doesn't mean they're the only examples of culturally-acknowledged 'crossbreeding' in the world. While few to none of them embrace the label, if they're even aware of it, they fall within a similar-enough purview that modern scientists and genealogists in the know have begun to include them in their research.
Arren Blends
Once a singular species simply known as the Arren, the lizardfolk of Sur'Dhanza put some significant distance between one another once they scattered in the wake of their original civilization's collapse. Though their spread in later years has brought their borders together once again, the time apart - and more than a little divine meddling meant to 'help them adjust' - has left them as three very distinct sub-species; The Mekalarren, the Mimarren, and the Kiarren.
Their shared origins mean that they're still quite capable of having children across species lines, but their extreme cultural differences make it exceedingly rare. The vast majority of cross-arren children can be found among the Mimarren or in the numerous Jambazi outposts throughout the desert sands, where their parents would not be subject to the judgmental eyes of Vossos and his zealots.
The vast majority of Arren cross-species children are born between Kiarren and Mimarren, as not only are they the most closely-related of the three, but the Mekalarren tend to be far too isolated and xenophobic to meet with their erstwhile cousins in the first place. These children, as with most Halflings, end up roughly halfway between their two parents in appearance. In this case, that will generally mean slightly stockier, slicker-scaled Kiarren or Mimarren with more prominent, sharper horns and a more stately physique. In those few cases where Mekalarren are involved, their Halflings tend to take the existing template of the other parent's half and adds a bit of bulk to them, exaggerating their more prominent bestial features, from horns to claws to fangs.
Imps
Both Demons and Faeries reproduce in ways most of the world considers strange and unnatural. Rather than birth children in the usual way, they form their offspring from raw materials drawn from the world itself, and then focus small portions of their very souls into their children-to-be, bringing them to life through arcane means rather than biological ones. Under normal circumstances, non-Demon and -Faerie individuals can get involved in these processes, donating a portion of their own soul to the resulting child, but this will always result in a pure Demon or Faerie. Some individuals will still refer to their souls as being half-whatever their alternate parents might have been, but biologically, there is no mixing to speak of.
When Demons and Faeries attempt this process with each other, however, things work a bit differently. The soul is torn between two divergent but similar directions, between the wild variety of potential forms available to the two species, as well as their extremely divergent sizes. In the end, what is born is known as an Imp; a small being, midway between the forms their parents desired for them. Their forms are generally odd - almost humorously so to some folks - being something like a small, winged, 'simplified' form of the Demon species they were meant to become, with animal, arboreal, or inorganic traits inherited from their Faerie parent.
Direct interactions between Faerie royalty and other sapients are moderately rare, which makes meetings between them and Demons all the rarer. As a result, very few Imps have been born over the centuries, but those few who exist have proven to be quite tenacious.
Lifespan
Average of Parent Species
Average Height
Near Mother's
Related Ethnicities
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