Lightfoot
This Halfling ethnicity is well known for their adventurous and fearless personalities. Far more free-spirited than their Stout counterparts, more settled societies treat them as wandering thieves and peddlers. The Lightfoot see themselves as the falling maple seeds; floating by wherever the winds may blow.
Naming Traditions
Family names
Lightfoots treat their familly names with surprising seriousness. Due to their wandering and mingling nature, families will join and depart wandering caravans regularly. So in order to retain genetic diversity, they often develop long family names easily identifiied with crests or symbols. Most family names or crests are passed down matrilineally.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
The Travelers predominately speak the Common language and not much else. Some families and caravans prefer particular regions or nations to travel within and such will learn the local language to ease trade and relations. Their dialect however is fairly distinct, peppered with unique slang, loan words, or phrases that are unfamiliar to even other locals.
Culture and cultural heritage
The Lightfoots have a distinct culture despite some sublimation into other settled cultures. These halflings use crests to identify families and will carry seals with these crests for similar purpose to signet rings. Few of the travelers would ever willingly part with a crest seal and will go to great lengths to prevent unwanted hands near it.
Thanks to their small size, many animals which would normally not be considered mounts by the tall folk, are used by the Lightfoots. Specially bred riding mastiffs, boars, and ponies are often used both mounts and beasts of burden.
Shared customary codes and values
Lightfoots believe in law of the road. The law is a loose creed that guides the Lightfoots on their journeys. While every family has minor variations to the law it can be roughly summarized as such;
- The road is never-ending. Everyone's journey is their own.
- Home is among the family. Never betray home.
- Fear not the tall. For the small can cast great shadows.
Common Dress code
A common misconception about Halflings overall is their disdain for footwear. Only the Stout halflings typically forego shoes since their feet have developed thick fur and iron strong padding. The Lightfoots do have some of there traits but they are not nearly as pronounced and thus find walking barefoot to be just as uncomfortable as the other sapient races, if only slightly. This misconception is common thanks to the Stout halflings more settled nature and thus are more common in settled societies.
Common Taboos
While the Lightfoots and Stouts would never attack each other, there is a distance between the two. Lightfoots see their cousins as those who have lost their way on the Law of the Road. While the Stouts view the travelers as wandering vagabonds who besmirch their own people by way of trickery or foolish romantic ideal. It is notable that cities with higher populations of Stouts are not visited as frequently as other cities and when they are hostility to the Lightfoots is more pronounced.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Lightfoots respect and admire well made clothing as status symbols. A well dressed Lightfoot means that their family is successful, wealthy, and well connected. Fine materials like silk, velvet, and furs are highly praised.
Physically, lightfoots do not place much value in bathing and grooming. They understand that baths and personal grooming is a luxury that few among their people have access to. A well bathed and dressed Lightfoot often signifies that an important meeting is about to occur.
Gender Ideals
Lightfoots are fairly egalitarian and do not place much value in gender norms. There is little stigma in males dressing in feminine clothing or vice-versa. That said, it is typically men who perform business deals or manage crafting while women more typically raise children and handle genealogical records.
Courtship Ideals
While romance is not an alien concept to the Lightfoots, it is not an ideal that is strived for. Lightfoots families understand that the time they have with others of their kind is fleeting and work quickly to pair off potential matches for coupling. Gifts, dowries, and tribute are regular parts of breeding negotiations, with little say by the subject of the deal.
Relationship Ideals
Family is everything to the Lightfoots but not as the settled societies understand family. Family is the caravan that you travel with, not your biological parentage. Few Lightfoots know both of their parents, usually raised by communally by the caravan. That said, if romantic love does blossom among a coupling, one partner may choose to join their partners family but neither they nor their children may associate to the old family for three generations.
Related Locations
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments