Do you think they'd take him serious?

I'm thinking about having my party face a Gnome Necromancer, but I have a funny feeling they won't take him all that seriously... I mean, imagine...

You walk into a dank, dark room, bigger than any other you've seen so far. It's mostly bare, except for a stone table in the middle with a few dead animal remains... Out from the shadows, steps the creature you've been fearing since you've entered his domain.
He is approximately three and a half feet tall, with rosy cheeks and a sick smile on his face. He dresses in gray robes adorned with black skulls, and he has several charms and relics hanging from his neck.
"Hello adventurers." He says in a small, squeaky voice. He jumps onto the table, his baby-blue eyes flashing with hatred. "welcome, to your doom!!!"

Somehow, I think they'd find this humorous...

I think any race can be portrayed frighteningly.

Case in point, I just got through reading Paul Kidd's DESCENT INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE EARTH, and there's an intimidating scene with... fairies. Just fairies... but fairies you do not want to mess with at all.


Gnomes can very easily be made into sinister, despicable beings.

I think with someone who does not otherwise look visually intimidating, they can be intimidated by the experience of what happened the last time they faced him.

As was written about many moons ago, in one particular campaign, high level characters were shaking in their gauntlets at the sight of kobolds...

I thinkl they would find it humours, but that's then when you start having him play with thier minds. Even if it is just all a ploy, ahve him seem more powerful than he is. Use that fact and run with it.

Gnomes can be scary. My party learnt to fear gnomes after they payed too much attention to some mechanical gnomish devices. *Evil DM snigger*

Anyway say something like this:

Standing on the table is a three foot high gnome, or at least you think its a gnome, the pale face contrasts with his dark garments, almost the same colour as the rat scull hanging around a chain on his neck. His thin frame rattles as his raspy voice echos around the chamber. "It is time to meet your doom..." Laughing manicly he begins to cast a spell, his eyes glowing a ghastly blue, his voice un-naturally deep, the temperature of the room drops as two corpses lying either side of the table suddenly spring into life. "Thats right my darlings" He rasps, "Its time to bring the dark lord his sacrifice.... Muwhahahaaahahahaa!!!!" The undead montrosities stumble towards you, there half decaying bodies ozing with maggots, there eyes lifeless and dead...

exactly!!

Make the adventures loathe his guy from the beginning. have townfolk say it was a creature who murdered people. It was 7 feet tall with two heads.

Make all these ridiculous stories up (b/c gnomes are awesome illusionists) and they will hate this guy and be surprised when they find out his TRUE nature

Now see, me, I'd be extra scared if that gnome were under the effects of a spider climb and an expeditious retreat when I first encountered him. If he's scuttling all over the walls, raising dead, throwing up clouds of darkness, summoning undead animals, and so forth, he'll be a freaky little guy.

In fact, if you haven't already done so, consider giving him a single level of sorcerer. It'll mesh nicely with the high charisma he'll need in order to control lots of undead.

Emphasize in your description how sick he looks: grey skin, sunken cheeks, eyes black as night. This isn't how gnomes usually look, and the contrast might be a little creepy.

Ultimately, however, if you haven't established gnomes as a credible race in your game, then they'll be funny no matter what. You may want to have the PCs meet some non-goofy gnomes before this encounter. Nemmerle's Out of the Frying Pan story hour contains some compelling gnomes; IMC, I describe gnomes like Greek slaves, quiet and servile around humans but extremely observant and kinda crafty; I've also seen them well-depicted as Gypsylike nomads.

Daniel

Sure they can be scary...

Especially if they have an undead-like pallar and/or if your party sees him/her torturing a helpless woman, by slowing turning her into an undead. Probably by grafting stuff on to here. Pretty gruesome if you ask me.

Go for some eerie gross outs with the setting. Context can go miles in making an innocent or funny villain suddenly deadly frightening.

The room is 40-50' high with many chains with hooks on them dangling from the ceiling. Pieces of animals and people dangle from some of the hooks. The Gnome himself is hanging and swinging off the ground by 2 or 3 chains with the hooks piercing his skin. (If he needs to escape he can climb up the chains or tear the hooks out, etc.)

Bleeding and laughing/screaming/crying he swings around the room (maybe with the aid of a Fly spell-but not necessary) sending all the other chains with hooks whipping around the room.

There is a random chance of hitting the PCs with the hooked chains, causing damage and maybe even hoisting them helplessly into the air.

I think any race, given adequate description or development, can be truly frightening.

Did I mention that two of my players would rather take on an orcish horde than 20 kobolds?