Sugar Bloat

Fruit juice drips down the fingers of a Halfling caught in a stupor as he takes another bite, savoring the sweet burst of flavor as it touches his tongue. This is his third, maybe fourth, meal of the day, all ended with the tasty bite of fruit from the trees just outside his window. Another bite of the sweetness has his eyelids drooping, his breathing slowing as he sways and eventually topples over asleep on the floor. In a few hours, he will awake, the stickiness of the fruit dried down his arm, his face worn with the grain of the floor. For this Halfling, this is just another afternoon, a daily occurrence as he gorges himself on the fruit of the Little Greenwood.   The warm embrace of sleep caused by overconsumption of the sweet fruit of the Little Greenwood is something that afflicts more than Halflings. All can be caught in the condition known as Sugar Bloat, the sweet sleep that comes after overindulgence, not only in fruit but in most of the rich foods that flow from the people of the Little Greenwood. Any of the small folk are susceptible, Halflings the most, but even the Mauskin have been caught asleep in a flower, Greenwood Honey dripping from their whiskers after an afternoon snack.   Sugar Bloat is far from terminal or detrimental in any way. In fact, some search out the blissful sleep that the sugar brings them, the warmth a belly full of fruit gives. Others from outside the Little Greenwood joke that the Halflings are lazy, that this is just an excuse for a daily, uninterrupted nap in the middle of what most consider the workday. Those affected by Sugar Bloat wake up well-rested, and often with a craving for another piece of fruit.