Halflings are named for sizes and appearances befitting hauflin youths. They range from sub-dwarvish to short-human in size and many other characteristics. Various colorations of skin, hair, eyes, and so on normally fall within the passably-human range. In the past few generations, part-orcs and teufel have expanded that palette. More aggressively magical halflings may be exceptional, growing brightly saturated or elemental. Most adult halflings resemble rustic human teenagers with a bit more body hair, or human elders that had never been particularly big but aged somewhat gracefully. Others have a stronger dwarven heritage, often summarized as stout or shortstacks if they build up fat or muscle. Heritage from orcs or demons usually sizes them up quite remarkably, though growth tends to pick up in teenagerhood and steady out as slightly ganglier than the other side. The gnomish side of dwarves that halflings typically descend from has a strong fairy streak. Thus, many halflings have slightly pointed ears, nontrivial magical talent, and other fey tendencies. This has a stronger tenor of industry and debauchery than most elf-related, and is more gluttonous than greedy, topical obsessions rather than singular foci. Slightly leathery tough extremities with notable upper foot hair are near-universal, so halfling shoes and gloves are often meant to match dedicated protective gear. But like many things, appearances are deceiving.
The dominant halfling culture of Wall Red is a shady set of places, named for the historic defenses of most major settlements and paths. Seated to the overall northeast in the human kingdoms' known world, the bulk of it lives in provincial foothills between the dwarf-kingdoms of the Northern Devil Mountains and in the craggy but farmable river-valleys out to the eastern shore where the orcish khanates and shogunates sometimes cross the great channels. The halfling-holds of Wall Red are built on a reputation of simple surface farmland and burrow-houses. This conceals bunkers the match of many dwarf-holds and dark sorcerous cavern-biomes the match of many orc den-temples. They are an upcoming power in the world, having secretly used their heritage arts to deflect the northern warrior-tempters and appear inconvenient to raiders. Others grow exhausted or war-torn, and yet the halflings accrue on. Many small workshops and group farms decorate the surface, yet hold subsurface convocations the match of much larger towns. Various clans, secret organizations, and organized-crime types have a lot of pull.
Wall Red is governed loosely. Escalated city mayorships take up most executive work, with formal councils mostly-elected for lawmaking and topic-specific headings. The respected, well-educated, and/or wealthy-enough-to-keep-showing-up-for-meetings serve as an informal suggestions-gallery, somewhere between lobbyists and powers-behind-the-throne depending on their affiliation with secret organizations. Appointed or open-hiring positions for qualified personnel fill out most of the governing and work in various departments. Appointees and elected are periodically re-assessed, with force-recalls available at complaints of criminality, negligence, or significant public offense. Panels of jurists are assembled as group-judges and lawyers when laws get convoluted, edge-case, or as a criminal trial for something not unambiguous. Military and policing unify as a singular emergency-services gendarmerie, with the Jurist Department as oversight and criminality-judgment. The Mayoral Board, composed of city mayors and primary commanders of the Gendarmerie, periodically picks an official from among their number to 'run the government' as executive. This is typically whichever city mayor is in best national esteem in peacetime and a strategy-overview general in wartime (or if most mayors dislike each other, or are being recalled).
The predominant magic of halfling society is that of fairies overlaid with devils shored up with alchemy both internal and external, semi-formally the Marchen. The typical Marchen arts were learned from demons and purer-fairies by cast-out dwarven experimenters, then shuffled through raw power from fae whimsy and earthly crafts. Roles, symbolism, and lies-made-true are of great importance, tapping into grammarie moreso than glamour to make such appearances actualities and refine things into fitting their imposed place. Willpower and detailed storytelling beget magical energy generation, producing energy over time the caster can access and channel for given purposes. Magical energy is then frameworked into the conceptual effects and magnitudes of enforcement, or the story bound up in something to continuously express a spell. Marchen is an extremely multipurpose art, but requires significant creative labor and has hard-to-understand energy efficiency logic. Its transformations and creations often seek to reify and align. It is a much easier use of Marchen to make someone into something that aligns with who they are, are environmentally and collectively assigned, or wish to be than something out-of-the-blue unrelated. Things are easier to turn into similar things or 'should-bes' with Marchen, based on force of expectation and attempt to emulate. Greatness amplifies in moments of greatness and celebration, weakness amplifies in moments of weakness and shame.
Marchen is widespread in its homeland. It has a niche among other nations' magical institutions for enchantment generalists, bards, and artifact-makers, but is often too mind-bending for those with specialized talents to grant their vague wishes. Most adult halflings might understand gripping and redefining a social construct or what an appellation abstracts, with their main constraints being time, effort, and opposition. This is to the extent that they rarely bother to do anything with it more than strong local expectations reflected on surrounding reality, job skills, parlor tricks, and providing festivities the force of assurance. Thieves, guards, and intermittent dilettante arrangers might know how to simply tell things to happen with the right kind of force and thoroughness, and it'll happen, coupled with countermeasures to each other's works. The difference between 'wizard' and 'job requires lots of thinking' is minimal in halfling society except by imported cultural association. Poets, doctors, craftsmen, engineers, judges, and artists might be able to match assorted types of human wizards in varying conditions, though the wizard might have the advantage in prepared blasting or specialty and the halfling in their field.
Immediate or near-immediate effects of Marchen are often verbalized, penned down, or martially evoked. Cheating, results that do something more or less than expected, and either stealing or making as the mood strikes are typical brute-force implementing descriptions. Manifesting sacred flames of not-necessarily-fire elements that produce from naught or refine toward goals are a common theme when making. The details of immediacy vary wildly depending on what exactly the caster is trying to accomplish, and the amount of energy they can put into it.
Theft by Marchen consists of grabbing stuff a halfling's physical body should not realistically be able to take that way from the nearby space, or abstract ideas and their constituent implementation. Given that halflings are simply not that physically imposing, their esoteric force is usually far more threatening than their physical force. They may require force-amplifying motions or leverage merely to match human counterparts. Trickery and controlling what people think is about to happen is a key point of Marchen fighting styles. Sapping foes' strength or amplifying one's own through trick-shots and deflection are common themes.
Abstract qualities can be grabbed and interfered with by force of symbol and motion if desired. Conceptually imposed materials may form to hold abstract ideas or overly complex physical qualities. Sadness into a blue ball, thoughts into a cloud-like cushion, size into a liquid, so on. Reagents are sometimes expended hastily to get a quick battery of symbolic associations, hold concepts accessibly, or be meted out ritualistically as an anchor point. Conversely to the imposition of concepts as materials, materials may be converted to concepts. Poured water might become enchanted potions, a painted depiction could fall off the page as a real object, and writing down what one wants to happen is a brute-force alternative to spell circles if one has the energy to carry it out in excess of relevant defenses. A halfling pantomiming is usually about to do something intense. Things may get chaotic if they are interrupted or mooted without counter.
Whispered poetry and a symbolic-turned-literal grabbing is common for thieves, while bards enrapture attention and those listening find something has come to pass while wills are subordinated. Still, being vague means room for interpretation: simply declaring something generic and shoveling energy into it will likely only do so much. This is a problem if the Marchen caster is opposed or doesn't thoroughly imagine how to manage most consequential results. Holding certain rules in abeyance means that what exactly the magic does isn't always well-defined, so the world fills in with whatever seems roughly appropriate and whatever ideas were around at the time. Sympathy may leave things connected, contagion may restore or reconstitute relations, concepts generally enact what it takes to follow them up without being destroyed. Magic that does a thing and lets go is easier than magic which keeps enforcing its effect. However, some things end up being 'keep it this way until cancelled' because the result being left that way isn't externally sustainable without magic handwaving away all the rules.
This is not always expedient, or perhaps a hassle to announce with specificity. Tools and self-modifications handle things inconvenient for the caster to repeatedly attend to, provide base matters to amplify, or are more technical outcome-management than moment-to-moment rolling with the general idea. Marchen craftsmen typically carve into, write on, embed, or inlay the bindings on affected objects that enact specific descriptions or further something more generic. Using a crafted magic item to demarcate a specific role or a literal contract to demand specific, repeatable transformations are both typical choices. Practiced magicians who intend to improve their personal ability forge various aspects of identity and practice into their being, delegating specific expressions of will as having given results. Greatening that library and its magnitudes over time, effort, and words invested separates archmages who can mutate with a word and thief lords stealing whole treasuries from parlor tricks of telling locks to unlock. Formally taught spells tend to be mixes of stories to tell and specific definitions to manage. Symbolic languages to chain together the category of an effect are also utilized, with the caster's force of meaning creating the very arcana if it would not otherwise work. Great halfling liars often embed within their bodies and souls whole novels of magical details, spelling out their abilities spell by spell and diagram by diagram of tales grown in the telling.
And the halflings have built a number of those archmagi, patiently waiting for the world being ready for them to strike. Caravans pass through Wall Red easily, seeing only the surface world ports or mislead into thinking one group's private lodges and burrows are specially deep. Easy opportunities for emigrating, smuggling, and experts disguised as young adults.
Some factions are seeking to take over the neighbors, while others are merely settling down roots. Some associations plan to go loud as soon as they arrive, while others will go for skullduggery and temptation as long as they can. Others wish to transform the world and those who inhabit it. A few are even just selling off magic items and seeing what happens.