toodeep wrote:
...I've often thought that there should be a reintroduction of them to the campaign, or some halfling-human crossbreed. It would be a nice way to break the Val stranglehold on psionics. ...snip...
Once upon a time you could break the val stranglehold on psionics if you are willing to let the unseen masters of the Mourners in Silence pull your puppet strings. Perhaps that will come again. Though probably fewer people interested in playing Mourners this time round.
On History of the campaign & "Halflings": The Sansho were clearly the Arcanis version of Halflings and they were wiped out by the Ssethrics and the Elorri in antiquity. The Sansho were described as having a relatively decentralized and unorganized society and their response to the war machine (highly organized) that rolled over them was grossly inadequate. There was also a brief foray to Nyambe where the PCs potentially met Nyambe flavored burrowing halflings. A separate race with extremely tenuous ties to the Known World. To my knowledge the PCs never went to the "Eastern Continent."
On the wider issue: Should there be some variation of Halflings in Arcanis?
Halflings in RPGs are obviously derived from Hobbits. Tolkien wrote at a time when Edwardian England was fading in power internationally and the idyllic lifestyle he (Tolkien) loved was continuing to be eroded by a faster "urban paced" life. His Hobbits were created to be metaphors of those themes in addition to being essentially humble, hardworking & decent protagonists who persevere and triumph over powers vastly greater than themselves.
I love Tolkien and like Halflings...but the tropes in Arcanis (IMO the struggles and costs to preserve civilization(s) from internal and external threats), are not the tropes that Tolkien explored. While an "Arcanisified" Hobbit of some stripe might find a place somewhere...its my personal opinion that the standard issue Hobbit/Halfling really would have no place in the world. What we would find would be as different for Arcanis as the Kender of Krynn or the Jungle Cannibals of Dark Sun.