The Thornfoot Tribe
“Never mistake small for harmless.” — Grayhaven frontier saying
Description
The Thornfoot Tribe is a violent, fiercely territorial people of halflings who inhabit the deep wilderness beyond Grayhaven. Where most halflings are stereotyped as farmers, merchants, cooks, and comfortable village folk, the Thornfeet are the reason experienced travelers know better than to trust stereotypes.
They are hunters, raiders, beast-tamers, and ambush fighters who have adapted themselves almost completely to life in the wild.
A typical Thornfoot warrior wears cured hides, scavenged mail, bone ornaments, feathers, teeth, and strips of brightly dyed cloth taken from defeated enemies. Many shave portions of their heads while allowing the remaining hair to grow into braids decorated with beads or animal bones. Warriors commonly paint their faces and bodies with charcoal, ochre, blood-red clay, and white ash.
Their weapons are practical rather than elegant: short spears, hand axes, heavy knives, slings, shortbows, hooked blades, and weighted hunting nets. Anything taken from outsiders is readily incorporated into their arsenal.
What makes them particularly dangerous is their understanding of the wilderness. Thornfoot warriors rarely fight fair because they consider the very concept foolish. They use concealed pits, snares, poisoned thorns, deadfalls, false trails, night attacks, hornet nests, fire, and trained animals.
A dozen Thornfeet who know the ground can make a forest road considerably more dangerous than fifty conventional soldiers.
Their favored saying roughly translates as:
“The forest does not fight fairly. Neither do we.”
History
The Thornfeet claim they were once part of a much larger halfling people who inhabited the region centuries before Grayhaven existed.
According to their oral histories, their ancestors lived in scattered settlements throughout the forests and river valleys. When human settlers, miners, soldiers, and merchants began moving into the region, conflicts over hunting grounds and territory gradually became open warfare.
The event that transformed them occurred approximately three centuries ago.
Thornfoot stories call it The Burning of Greenhome.
Their largest settlement was destroyed during a military campaign after its inhabitants were accused of sheltering bandits who had attacked travelers and supply caravans. Whether the accusation was true has been lost to history.
The surviving halflings fled deep into the wilderness.
Instead of rebuilding villages, they changed their entire way of life.
They abandoned permanent settlements, divided themselves into roaming clans, and swore that they would never again build something an enemy could easily burn.
Generations of isolation hardened that philosophy.
Farming became hunting.
Villages became hidden camps.
Militias became warbands.
Trade became raiding.
Eventually, even the original reasons for their hatred became secondary. Survival, strength, vengeance, and tribal loyalty became virtues in themselves.
Today, the Thornfeet do not consider themselves fallen or corrupted halflings.
Quite the opposite.
They believe civilized halflings have become weak.
To a Thornfoot, a halfling sitting comfortably beside a fireplace while humans and dwarves decide who owns the surrounding land is almost contemptible.
