Gnomes in a different light
In my world, the gnomes were once the most powerful magic users on the planet. They had even surpassed the elves at one point. The best and brightest amongst them went on to create spaceships, artifacts, and even created the Plane of Shadow by creating permanent vortices to the Positive and Negative plane on a demiplane on the Ethereal. The "Sigil" of my world is actually in the very center of that plane. Its called Shadow'sebb.
IMC gnomes get +2 Int, -2 Str. I changed their culture just because i didn't feel that they gave much to the story.
The gnomes (like the elves) grew ambitious, and even though the old races are practically extinct, the remnant of the gnomes are still very powerful. Most are N, CN, NE, or CE. They are schemers and often plot against each other.
For awhile I disallowed gnomes as a player character race, because a player in my campaign played his CN gnome so deviously, ambitiously, and so close to my vision of gnomes that the other players were overshadowed.
In my previous campaign, the party learned to fear everything about gnomes, and they would sooner run than face down one of my gnomes.
Here's the entry for gnomes from my Races file.
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Gnomes: These little demihumans are feared by humans and dwarves alike for their devious and crafty minds and often sarcastic sense of humor. Greed is a virtue among gnomes, and their larcenous reputation is quite apt. Gnomes are also feared for their skills with illusionary magic, something few human wizards have any skill in.
Unlike their appearance presented in the Player's Handbook, the gnomes of Tsai-Nau (a mysterious wilderness known to have a loose border with the Shadow Plane) have wiry, gnarled physiques. Their skin is usually heavily tanned, their eyes are blue, lavendar, or green, and most gnomish males are bald. Females and those gnomish men who actually grow hair have either black or silvery-gray hair. The men usually shave off their hair if they grow any. It's a mystery if the gnomes are just reclusive hermits studying mad ancient tomes, or if they have dark cities somewhere on the frontier. Many historians believe that the "nameless horrors" that drove the Mytherians (humans) out of the Tsai-Nau so long ago were either conjured or somehow controlled by the gnomes. Some gnomes live amongst their old enemies engaged in various crafts, but most gnomes make an effort to keep to themselves.
C.I.D.