Why are halflings mutation resistant? Is there something in their blood?

Are the lizard-races resistant as well (as they were the elder races that taught manipulation of raw chaos (magic) to the elv3s)?

..and still going: elves should be less "crazy", dwarfs shouldn't be resistant to disease/poison (because their environment doesn't have those kinds of things in relation to what humans, for example, have to live in), and what's the point of halflings being resistant to anything?

What in these creatures' physiology makes it so?

This all just feels a little too "D&D" where it's based on their statistics, but not in relation to how these creatures would have evolved and adapted over the past 6000 years.

jh

i don't know for halflings, since i don't have my copy of hero's call yet, but for elves and dwarfs it was stated:

they are resistant to chaos and mutation since they were created by the old ones way before chaos slipped into the old world, humans were a very young race and still too weak to deal with what the power of chaos could do to them....

maybe halflings are also a very old species and that's why....

and if you don't like that rule, just change it, that's what we do in those cases!

I view it as the elf and dwarf races being more "finished" and humans "less finished". I don't have Hero's Call yet either so not sure about halflings, perhaps it's a sign they too were "intended". Elves were made more resistant to mutation because they were to handle winds more and thus risk mutation. Alas, "close the door, it comes in the window", in practice that just means more madness.

I think a bit the same as Valvorik. Elves and Dwarfs are the elder races, they are just better, or more perfect than humans. They also live longer, indeed elves live much longer and they don't age, for which there is no biological /evolutionist explanation.

As for Halflings...I have no explanation, but I would say that all these rules for Elves, Dwarfs, Hlaflings an so on, appearing in all fantasy roleplay games are inspired in the Lord of The Rings. There Halflings are resistant to the corruption of the one ring, translated to WFRPG 3rd ed, Halflings are resistant to corruption and therefore to mutation.

I only know that since 1st ed. halflings have been highly resistant to mutations. So much so that halfling blood is frequently used to bind deamons in chaotic rituals.

Halflings, and Ogres for that matter, are more resistant to mutation because they were created specifically to be more resistant against Chaos by the Old Ones. They are, however, even more "unfinished" than humans because they were created around the time Chaos entered the world, which left the otherwise patient Old Ones with precious little time to create them.

Although, this is only true if you accept the explanation in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook. As with many things in Warhammer, things may not be written with 100% certainty.

Likely closely linked to the Slann/Old ones.

But for me, the reason for Dwarves/Elves to be resistant, is both part of their strength and weakness. They are both a static race, both unable to adapt to major changes, but at the same time these changes are unable to affect them.

Humans are blessed and cursed with the ability to constantly adapt, but this comes with the cost of being easy to affect with mutations and such.

Haflings are a mix of honouring Tolkien, but also that the Old Ones made them last, and in some eyes to perfection (when it comes to resisting chaos).

I add my own view, in that haflings are a race un-touched by "Evil" emotions, they are happy, kind etc... like permanently innocent children. And finally the chaotic powers see no reason to try'n corrupt such an insignificant race, as they'd be useless in their constant battle against each other.

If I remember right, the 1st Edition of WFRP had some information on this:

At the time that Olds Ones interdimensional gateways collapsed, and chaos flooded into the world, the Elves and Dwarves were already mature races and remained largely untouched, sheltered on their lands of Ulthuan or deep in their underground cities. Humans however were still a primitive race and were forever tainted by the touch of Chaos.

It is for this reason that humans lust for power conquest and riches, and are succeptable to the influence of Chaos. But it is also this reason why Humans are such a dynamic race - One of the great contradictions of the Warhammer world is that Chaos is mankinds greatest threat, and yet it also gifted them with its greatest strengths.

The halflings are believed to be an incomplete experiment by the Old Ones. Created to be resistant to Chaos, they remained 'unfinished' when the Old Ones abandoned the world.

neilgfoster said:

Who are you calling unfinished?? Only because they are 3 foot high, this not give you the right to call them unfinished...

I like that, really halflings are just an designer's scale model of what would have been a full-size unit had it gone into real production.

valvorik said:

hehe, "No no, this is just a scale model, when we start production they'll be 30 feet tall, and able to tear up a Greater Demon in a single stroke, only thing missing is divert their lust for cooking into lust for killing".

Maybe halflings have high resistance because well, you know, they'll eat pretty much anything.

I think that's ogres and your GM. Halflings will eat anythign that can be put into a pie

jh

Halflings are resistant to mutation and chaos because they are chaos mutants obviously! Stunted stature, insatiable lust for pie, fur covered feet?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...these are unclean things that should be purged from Sigmar's realm!

Frankly I'm just a little tired of the universal and general fantasy setting cliché in which humans are the lowest-common-denominator: thay are just about always the weakest and least talented of all races and yet they are somehow usually more "flexible" in their choice of career. As if that is supposed to be a trade-off for a lack of night vision and other nifty powers.

Blech. Also: elves and dwarves being somehow naturally gifted with certain weapons. What is THAT about?

Well, the dwarves' and elves' inflexibility does impede them on more than a personal level. Their cultures and technologies advance at a snails pace, while the Empire continues to innovate and adapt to the changing environment at an alarming rate.
I wouldn't call humans the least talented race. In fact, i'd say the opposite, as humans don't have millenia of cultural, arcane and military traditions backing them up. The Empire gets a quick tutorial on gunpowder from the dwarves, and they're good to go.
Hell, depending on if you define them as "human", the warriors of chaos are some of the fiercest and strongest soldiers in the Old World and beyond, climbing ranks through sheer willpower and determination.
Besides, at least we're better than skavenslaves!

Necrozius said:

It probably has something to do with the fact that the original creators of Warhammer began its life by ripping off other sources left, right, and centre, including the usual Tolkien depictions which have begun cliches that many fantasy games have ripped off.

And there are obvious cultural and environmental reasons leading to specialisation - bows make better hunting tools in tangled forests and miners are more likely to have hammers to hand than swords.

Cheers

Sparrow