Kender are type of fictional character and a fantasy race first developed for the Dragonlance campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game published by TSR Inc. in 1984. The first Kender character was created by Harold Johnson as a playable character in a series of role-playing adventures which included Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, whose Dragonlance shared world novels did much to popularize the Kender among readers and players alike, largely through the character Tasslehoff Burrfoot, who became one of main protagonists in the novel series.
Tasselhoff first appeared, in the Dragonlance adventure module DL1: Dragons of Despair, published in March 1984, in which Kender are described in a review of the module as "wizened 14-year-olds and, unlike halflings, they wear shoes."[1] The first novel publication featuring Kender was in the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight, published in November 1984.