House Rules and Habits- Huldus and Halflings

As is inevitable with any series about house rules, we move on to discuss something that isn’t necessarily wrong. I just don’t like it. The corebook of Victoriana 3^rd edition avoids reinventing the classic fantasy races in favor of letting it’s unique mid-1800s setting bring out interesting juxtapositions and niches. Adventuring in the class-based society of London pulls these fantasy tropes into new places without requiring any additional reinvigoration. The familiar faces of the fantastic help pull players into the rich world of Victorian England.

So why change their names? Dwarves remain dwarves, gnomes remain gnomes, but calling “Halflings” and “Elves” “Huldus” and “Eldren” annoys me a bit. With the “Eldren” it’s not so bad. That name has been around since 2nd Edition and it perfectly evokes the subspecies place in Victorian society. On the other hand, “Huldu” derives from “Huldufolk”, creatures from Icelandic mythology roughly analogous to fairies. They live in specific stones set aside for their homes, and young Icelandic children are taught to never throw rocks for fear of hitting the hidden people. While there are some interesting connections between Huldufolk and Halflings, Halflings are already a fantasy trope so calling them Huldu just takes actual Huldu out of the game, and makes the Victoriana subspecies less accessible to new players. The name “Halfling” captures exactly what these creatures are, defines how they fit in society, and leaves the world wide open for stone-dwelling Icelandic elves.

I know this is nitpicking, but I do think it’s a good example of a problem with adapting real-world folklore for role-playing games. If you’re going to take folklore concept A and put it into your role-playing game as fantasy trope B, I think A should be as close to B as possible or B has to be made at least as interesting as A. I see this happen a lot. If werewolves are the result one curse and they live in one single forest, that’s very lame to me. Using these legends should make your world bigger, not smaller. In Victoriana’s case, it’s not so egregious, but I’m still calling them Halflings.

In case this rant left a bad taste in your mouth, I leave you with a few adventure ideas about Huldus and Halflings as your reward for reading this far.

Adventure Ideas:
A halfling master perfumer uses his naturally gifted nose to create the finest odors this side of the English channel. He detects certain charnel undertones in his competitor’s latest scent and notices those wearing the scent have a knack for bending others to their will.

Halflings' high fertility makes for large families. The miserly uncle of a halfling family died recently leaving his comfortable fortune to his nieces and nephews, or rather to the last surviving niece or nephew. Twelve of the inheritors mysteriously died. Is an heir killing off their competition to live as much their naturally short life span in luxury as they can? Or is the inheritance cursed from beyond the grave?

In the center of the tightly packed slums of London, an ancient stone sits surrounded by dilapidated houses. No windows look out over the stone, and no one ever takes the shortcut through the small courtyard. Locals know to leave the stone alone, but as the city grows and old houses crumble, progress demands the stone’s removal.