Kender (Dragonlance)

Kender
The kender Tasslehoff Burrfoot, on the right. Image created by Larry Elmore, for the cover "The War of the Lance"
First appearance	"A Stone's Throw Away" by Roger E. Moore, Dragon magazine #85 (May 1984)
Based on	Halfling
In-universe information
Type	Humanoid

Kender are a type of fantasy race first developed for the Dragonlance campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role playing game published by TSR, Inc. in 1984. The first kender character was created by Harold Johnson as a player character in a series of role-playing adventures co-authored by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance shared world novels introduced the kender to readers and players alike, largely through the character Tasslehoff Burrfoot, who became one of the main protagonists in the series.

Tasslehoff first appeared in the Dragonlance adventure module DL1 Dragons of Despair, published in March 1984; later that year, the kender's first literary appearance was in the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight, published in November 1984. The kender are often compared to notable diminutive humanoid peoples in other fantasy fiction, such as the hobbits of Middle-earth or halflings featured in Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings.