Human Halfling

Halflings are the result of two different species with high 'soul' substance, or a signature in Chaos, procreating and producing an offspring. This mostly occurs between humanoid entities, and can't work with more feral life like between a deer and a giraffe, due to a difference in soul measurements that don't cross. Likewise some entities of supernatural origin work differently, like certain demons, golems, or the Ank'shii. However this can still occur between the less humanoid beings of dragons, gryphons, and merfolk.   Humans specifically are proven to be susceptible to the potential of halflings, between inconsistent culture standards, widespread geography, and their association with more prolific halfling-able species such as mermaids, and sfixians. It is even ingrained differently into cultures from K'mosia, and Basillua, where the latter has racial discrimination and different expectations, stereotypes, and tales of the effects. In fact, some regions even classify mixed ethnic groups such as Akrinian + Orc humans to be a form of halfling. (This article will not accept that as valid halfling criteria)   Often human halflings struggle between society, but also figuring out what their other half may mean for them. Sometimes impulses and instinct may carry over, and other times it might be confusing if they were even naturally born, or they were created or remolded by a curse. Yet there is sometimes a place for them, or people or settlements, or niche tasks that assign them well, or even places where its directly more welcomed. In much of the early days of K'mosia, haflings of Sfixian-humans were virtually an odd type of normal. In other cases like demigods, there was a decent chance the human didn't need approval and could forge much of their own fate and reputation. The following article will list prominent or reoccuring types of human halflings:   Half-Gods (Demigods):   It is often spoken that the reason haflings can even happen to begin with, is for Gods to use breeding as a bartering tool up to their own level, or power, giving mortals mighty children, or for their own fits of lustful desire. Its not too sure if this is true, as perhaps it would appear most gods came after potent worship of life that already existed with its rules, but demigod humans tend to most often resemble an ordinary human with only key exceptions, or smaller marks otherwise. Typically, the god in this moment was a form of energy that could transplant its image as it pleased, or not, and will typically leave the offspring looking relatively tame (though this could also differ in exceptions, or some occasional accidents). Yet the abilities, instinct, and actual potential of the life is unpredictable, unstable, and often full of some granted magic sensitivity, or ability. Often super strength, and perception is involved, never the less magical casting enhancements, but sometimes the ability is far more niche, such as just warping metal with their mind, or boiling water with a pinkie finger. Needless to say, its not unheard of that some powerful man just shows up and gets a cult following and becomes a small leader due to some divine heritage.   Vampires & Gouls:   Demonic entities, tricksters, or creatures of chaotic entrance could occasionally match soul level enough to procreate with a human entity, usually not so by willingness or without a disguise. Two common forms of this happening appear as entities classified as Vampires, and Gouls. Vampires are more common, as creatures mostly resembling humans, who have literal white skin and bleak eyes, and sharp fangs. Gouls often look more like a gnarled human, or goblin-like entity. Both have a craving of blood, but with different senses, powers, and intellect, often favoring the vampire's survivability, while the goul is more often just created out of the need for something that will cause beastial havoc. Vampires can sometimes thrive in disguises, and form small settlements and cults, often trying to foster back some worship to their darker parent, making for a grave threat to society, and some prejudice superstitions that trickle onto the reputation of other halflings.   Half-Sfixian:   Sometimes crudely called cat-men, or Sfixmen, these people are usually running the human side from K'mosian ethnic origins, but not necessarily always. They typically appear tan of skin, with gold or brown lion-like fur making it through in patches or parts. They almost always develop a Sfixian's ears, eyes, sometimes a tufted tail, and at least one additional set of incisors or canine teeth more than ordinary humans, but the catty side can be as extreme as completely furred skin, crooked or extended jaw, paw appendages, etc. They socially fit in okay, though have privileges between that of serfs and nobles, making them an awkward middle-ground that often lives a comfortable but unproductive life. They mostly operate like a human in thought, but do tend to have sensitive impulses around the smell of meat, sometimes light, or drives to just sleep more casually in the day. It is thought many of these came to be between the early co-existence of the races, but also because of how promiscuous and polygamous the ruling Sfixians culture was. There is also a theory that Sfixians are long-form evolved halflings to begin with, mixed between primal humans and a form of ancient ekethians. Naturally there was a declining period in halflings when K'mosian settlements destabilized from political and trade turmoil, and a rift grew between most species interactions.   Half-mer/syrun:   Those born of mermaids are often half-orphans, or even fled their living mother parent. Often a half-mer came from a male human, and a female syrun, where the mother drowned and raped the father, sometimes out of genuine lust, but sometimes to just get a child that could better withstand the land and be raised to steal for them. As a result, some actually are genuine good thieves, but other times they're terrified of their own creation and parent, and struggle more than most to fit in with features that can sometimes make both land and sea quite difficult. Physical appearances often have them appear as scaled fish-like humans, with fin appendages, partial gills, and sometimes porous parts of the scales that are sensitive to air molecules and can sometimes lead to an early death or easy poisoning. They'll often have webbed appendages, and in 'botched' attempts at a land-dweller, they may even be born with no legs and a fishtail akin to their more creature-like parent.   Half-Taur ("Fauns"):   To be entirely blunt, Taur halflings were incredibly uncommon in early days, because at the face of it... the Taur are dim witted cow-people. They tended to get even 'uglier' with time by conventional standards, as trade turned many into fat livestock. People didn't exactly want to play with their food. Yet when the species faced a steep decline in population, Goddess Sytiha made it happen by enchanting much of her fleeing race with a spell of lust, and it happened to bring the attention of human traders that suddenly wanted to help their migration out. Yet this also partially backfired, because the race being thinly populated, still hunted, and now busy with human mates, then bred less with their own kind. A halfling breed known as fauns practically replaced most of them, and would go on to be more of a human ethnic group of its own niche. Fauns became a big enough deal to get their own classification by the early second scholar millennia. Any earlier such examples before the spell were either done by odd exceptions, or the faun was unnaturally made by a curse, with the very origin of the term Minotaur likely coming from a cursed man made to look like a taurian bull.   Fauns typically embody human halves, with small facial features of their parent, often with horns, and pointed ears, and only in rare instances a facial dis-figuration or furred body. Their taur-half mostly always goes through on the lower half, with furred legs, and two-toed hooves. Yet the bloodline often stayed strong enough, or the offspring close enough, that they continued on in generational lines as fauns, and were casually accepted into most human settlements with only mild difficulty.   Half-Dragons:   Half-dragons exist in odd pockets, neither really being common, or incredibly rare. Sometimes its hard to tell where one comes into place, with some differing levels of symptoms and traits, and the fact some dragons allegedly procreate completely under disguise of shapeshifting. There even stands tales of warning with dragon slayers going into a cave, being tricked by illusion, and then killed once their guard is down. Then again, polymorphism is blamed for many cases that may not always be true, considering how odd the reputation of a human might become when their tale is told. It is for this reason alone most hafling dragons aren't accepted, without a parental figure that wants to claim them on the human side, and a dragon that is often too nihilistic to raise a child they don't have any reason to be attached to. Often due to mating methods, dragons tend to push even their own pure children out quickly, as females taking up large roosting nests they keep and grow hoards on, while males typically stay more nomadic and get rejected from claiming their own territories around mates but offer to procreate on visits if their are no young around. So this often leaves a human-dragon the product of a guilty or even dead parent of humanity, and a dragon parent that desires no attachment or might even lose their home to another if they get beaten out in a territorial dispute.   Half-human/dragons tend to most often resemble more of their human parent with many draconic features attached along their appendages. Claws, tails, wings, horns or pointed ears, reptilian eyes, and patches of scales, all very common, but the framework often small and bipedal like a human. There are exceptions that must walk on all fours, or seem more draconic outside of a strangely shaped head or weaker muscle, or even have ways of fully transforming to one by a point of age, but these are rarities among the halflings. Often given the draconic crystal heart element of a dragon's biology, some of this carries over into a halfling, and they're gifted with an aura of unyeildly elemental force, magic, or some instinctive impulse or sensitivity. This can range from merely having a strange passing heat-exchange around others, and oddly sensory dreams, to some rare radical examples where they might turn something frosty to the touch, or accumulate small clouds in areas they stay.   Abominations:   Abominations is the loose category for a multitude of very rare, and ugly forms of halflings that were less likely prominent, and more the thing of legends and rural folklore of warning. Still, there were cases of creatures that resembled something between man and troll, odd looking gryphonoid people that get confused with tales of surviving Ekethians, or potential tales of real goblin-humans before goblins went extinct in regions like Basillua. Still, these creatures are largely treated as simply abominations, and beings that likely don't bare the intellect to function in society. Naturally, nobody wants to ponder how the parents came together either.