Mahiro Satsu
First Post
Try to tell a Strongheart Halfling that halflings dont make good arriors and you're lible to end up dead.
Gnomes and Halflings
- Thread starter DrSkull
- Start date
Atticus_of_Amber
Explorer
Gnomes as female dwarves
A few years ago I had a quirky campaign idea.
There's this ongioing problem with the idea of female dwarves. Are they bearded and look like male dwarves to non-dwarves? Are the recognisably female but for cultural reasons they are kept sequestered at home?
Then we have gnomes. These creatures that seem to be a cross between dwarves and elves - burrowing creatures who nevertheless move nature. And often gnomish settlements are found near (within a days march or so of) dwarven fortresses. And teh two races, while separate, seem to get along VERY well.
Here's my crazy idea: Gnomes are female Dwarves!
In this campaign, both gnomes and dwarves would seem to be all male. There would be lots of stories about bearded female dwarves and gnomes being born out of the earth. The truth would only be known by a few. Then dwarven-gnome race has a sexually segregated culture. Dwarves visit gnomish settlements and vice versa to mate as part of religious secret festivals. The gnomes then bring up the female children themselves and send the males (after weening) to the nearby dwsrven settlements...
A few years ago I had a quirky campaign idea.
There's this ongioing problem with the idea of female dwarves. Are they bearded and look like male dwarves to non-dwarves? Are the recognisably female but for cultural reasons they are kept sequestered at home?
Then we have gnomes. These creatures that seem to be a cross between dwarves and elves - burrowing creatures who nevertheless move nature. And often gnomish settlements are found near (within a days march or so of) dwarven fortresses. And teh two races, while separate, seem to get along VERY well.
Here's my crazy idea: Gnomes are female Dwarves!
In this campaign, both gnomes and dwarves would seem to be all male. There would be lots of stories about bearded female dwarves and gnomes being born out of the earth. The truth would only be known by a few. Then dwarven-gnome race has a sexually segregated culture. Dwarves visit gnomish settlements and vice versa to mate as part of religious secret festivals. The gnomes then bring up the female children themselves and send the males (after weening) to the nearby dwsrven settlements...
tsadkiel
Legend
I'm in the fifth camp, I guess. I really like both gnomes and halflings, but I think there's really only a need for one or the other - they both fill the same niche. In the campagn in my head (it's no where close to being a homebrew yet, but ideas are crystalizing) I'm dropping halflings, since the halfling thing has been pretty much done at this point. (I'm dropping orcs and clerics, too, but that's hardly on topic, now, is it?)
Ok I will come out and say it
I play Halflings 99.8% of the time....Why? you ask. Because, well..ummm my personality is the same as most Halflings out to enjoy life at its fullest sort of thing...Though I do not think they are always happy, or even sometimes happy. In my Homebrew world they are the second most populous race ( in varrying subraces & cultures) the Dwarves being the most populous race, but devided ( which Gnomes are included under actually as a subrace of Dwarves)
Don't know to much about gnomes or why anyone would use them let alone like them. They Just seem to cliche Loki-ish pranksters, and Illusion casters. They are a little over powered for there size Being magical creatures as they are, and they just dont rub my campaing the right way.
I do not like them Sam I am I do not like them with conical hats, do not like them with hand buzzing gags I don't like them non at all, So I will leave them be, and for the strange people who like them. After all one mans Gnome is another mans garden statuete.
I play Halflings 99.8% of the time....Why? you ask. Because, well..ummm my personality is the same as most Halflings out to enjoy life at its fullest sort of thing...Though I do not think they are always happy, or even sometimes happy. In my Homebrew world they are the second most populous race ( in varrying subraces & cultures) the Dwarves being the most populous race, but devided ( which Gnomes are included under actually as a subrace of Dwarves)
Don't know to much about gnomes or why anyone would use them let alone like them. They Just seem to cliche Loki-ish pranksters, and Illusion casters. They are a little over powered for there size Being magical creatures as they are, and they just dont rub my campaing the right way.
I do not like them Sam I am I do not like them with conical hats, do not like them with hand buzzing gags I don't like them non at all, So I will leave them be, and for the strange people who like them. After all one mans Gnome is another mans garden statuete.
Last edited:
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
In my campaign, a science fiction / fantasy mix (based on dragonstar), halflins and gnomes are both races that fare well in space.
While gnomes are the ones who repair and work at the machines, contruct great space stations and invent new starship, the halfling work as pilots or computer hackers.
Gnome builded some of the most famous space station (Verdana Station, the starting point for most adventures in the campaign), and enjoy living in the world of tech - since most of them helped build it up.
Halfling computer "sciencetist" (probably, most of them were hackers working for themselve, before the war began) were able to end the great War against the Artifical Intelligences, and halflings are trusted or feared (depending on wether they fly a freighter or a starfighter) pilots.
Both races share their love for a good meal, and fare quite well.
Both allow the "bigger one" to live on their station or profit from their skill, but they feel superior in these thing. (Though every gnome will respect a Dwarven Mining Expert)
Anyway, none of them does have their own "Empire", because that is nothing that interests them, and only the greater ones seem to really need the concepts of hierarchy and bureacracy..
Mustrum Ridcully
While gnomes are the ones who repair and work at the machines, contruct great space stations and invent new starship, the halfling work as pilots or computer hackers.
Gnome builded some of the most famous space station (Verdana Station, the starting point for most adventures in the campaign), and enjoy living in the world of tech - since most of them helped build it up.
Halfling computer "sciencetist" (probably, most of them were hackers working for themselve, before the war began) were able to end the great War against the Artifical Intelligences, and halflings are trusted or feared (depending on wether they fly a freighter or a starfighter) pilots.
Both races share their love for a good meal, and fare quite well.
Both allow the "bigger one" to live on their station or profit from their skill, but they feel superior in these thing. (Though every gnome will respect a Dwarven Mining Expert)
Anyway, none of them does have their own "Empire", because that is nothing that interests them, and only the greater ones seem to really need the concepts of hierarchy and bureacracy..
Mustrum Ridcully
Bran Blackbyrd
Explorer
I hated pre-3E halflings. They were fat, red faced hobbits and I absolutely could not stand them. With 3E I think they lost a lot of their Tolkein association and the baggage D&D halflings have been forced to carry around.
I love the 3E halfling, they aren't bloated little toads anymore, but perfectly scaled humanoids. They don't live in holes in the ground either, none of that garbage.
I don't care much for the argument that D&D was a complete LoTR ripoff, but I do think that players and even publishers can fall into the trap of becoming locked into a way of thinking.
The reason a lot of people pick a race is based on a stereotype, after all, that's what a race is basically, but sometimes the stereotype gets out of hand. A character in a book calls Bilbo a thief, and suddenly all D&D halflings are thieves, Strider wields a torch in one hand and a weapon in the other, and suddenly all D&D rangers must fight with two weapons. Whatever...
Gnomes... I never liked the illusion using trickster reputation they had. Who needs it? They were also always portrayed in illustrations as old wrinkly men with big ears and bigger noses. I just didn't see where that would appeal to anyone. Once again 3E saved them from some of that. As it stands though, I just can't figure out what to do with them in my campaign.
Ultimately I think there won't be any gnomes on the main continent, they will live on islands south of where the main campaign takes place. Tropical regions. They'll be mostly brown and bronze skinned, and favor fast, sailing vessels with convoluted designs, to the large ships that the rest of the world has created.
Halflings exist on the main continent, but they, like the other demihumans there, live in hiding. The halflings used to be like horse nomads (they didn't ride horses though, of course) With a few settled groups. Now they have been broken into small tribal groups, hiding wherever they can.
One particular group dwells in dense forest and are quite aggressive towards outsiders. The warriors wear masks over their faces, wear short stilts, and have poles coming up off their back with another mask sitting a foot or so above their heads. The effect this gives when they poke out of the brush with the blank eyes of the masks staring is quite intimidating.
One of the villains in my campaign is a halfling necromancer.
In a world where the Great Purge saw both magic users and demihumans slaughtered en masse, she is both. She hates humans for the part they played in the almost total annihilation of her race, even though the majority of humanity took no part in the purge, and doesn't know it even happened. She is now a necromancer bent on the destruction of any human that crosses her path, with the help of her family, who she has brought back as undead. She isn't evil, or at least she didn't start out that way, which makes her a bit of a sympathetic villain. She isn't old enough to have experienced the purge first hand, but she's lived her whole life in hiding, listening to the stories of how so many of her family members were killed. Her parents were then killed by some human scouts. She's nearly mad and desperately wishes she had had the kill to raise her family as intelligent undead... She carries on conversations with them anyway.
I like mixing up the races too. IMC the drow are good, and the orcs are too. But enough of my rambling.
I love the 3E halfling, they aren't bloated little toads anymore, but perfectly scaled humanoids. They don't live in holes in the ground either, none of that garbage.
I don't care much for the argument that D&D was a complete LoTR ripoff, but I do think that players and even publishers can fall into the trap of becoming locked into a way of thinking.
The reason a lot of people pick a race is based on a stereotype, after all, that's what a race is basically, but sometimes the stereotype gets out of hand. A character in a book calls Bilbo a thief, and suddenly all D&D halflings are thieves, Strider wields a torch in one hand and a weapon in the other, and suddenly all D&D rangers must fight with two weapons. Whatever...
Gnomes... I never liked the illusion using trickster reputation they had. Who needs it? They were also always portrayed in illustrations as old wrinkly men with big ears and bigger noses. I just didn't see where that would appeal to anyone. Once again 3E saved them from some of that. As it stands though, I just can't figure out what to do with them in my campaign.
Ultimately I think there won't be any gnomes on the main continent, they will live on islands south of where the main campaign takes place. Tropical regions. They'll be mostly brown and bronze skinned, and favor fast, sailing vessels with convoluted designs, to the large ships that the rest of the world has created.
Halflings exist on the main continent, but they, like the other demihumans there, live in hiding. The halflings used to be like horse nomads (they didn't ride horses though, of course) With a few settled groups. Now they have been broken into small tribal groups, hiding wherever they can.
One particular group dwells in dense forest and are quite aggressive towards outsiders. The warriors wear masks over their faces, wear short stilts, and have poles coming up off their back with another mask sitting a foot or so above their heads. The effect this gives when they poke out of the brush with the blank eyes of the masks staring is quite intimidating.
One of the villains in my campaign is a halfling necromancer.
In a world where the Great Purge saw both magic users and demihumans slaughtered en masse, she is both. She hates humans for the part they played in the almost total annihilation of her race, even though the majority of humanity took no part in the purge, and doesn't know it even happened. She is now a necromancer bent on the destruction of any human that crosses her path, with the help of her family, who she has brought back as undead. She isn't evil, or at least she didn't start out that way, which makes her a bit of a sympathetic villain. She isn't old enough to have experienced the purge first hand, but she's lived her whole life in hiding, listening to the stories of how so many of her family members were killed. Her parents were then killed by some human scouts. She's nearly mad and desperately wishes she had had the kill to raise her family as intelligent undead... She carries on conversations with them anyway.
I like mixing up the races too. IMC the drow are good, and the orcs are too. But enough of my rambling.
Mahiro Satsu
First Post
Re: Gnomes as female dwarves
I like... may i use it in the future?
Atticus_of_Amber said:
I like... may i use it in the future?
Vocenoctum
First Post
Re: Gnomes as female dwarves
The problem there is that gnomes (aside from Svirfneblin that were all male early on) are usually protrayed with both sexes.
In D&D, elves are the feminine, graceful race. Dwarves are the masculine, gruff race.
Therefor, if anything, Elves are female dwarves
Atticus_of_Amber said:
The problem there is that gnomes (aside from Svirfneblin that were all male early on) are usually protrayed with both sexes.
In D&D, elves are the feminine, graceful race. Dwarves are the masculine, gruff race.
Therefor, if anything, Elves are female dwarves
Vocenoctum
First Post
tsadkiel said:
The thing is, they don't really fill the same niche, they're just lumped togethor for being small. It's like saying you don't need to have halflings, because Kobolds are in the world already.
Elves and Humans are more alike than gnomes and halflings. Gnomes live in harmony with nature, are highly magical creatures. Halflings live among the other races, care more for their comfort than the impact on the environment and are more pragmatic.
Gnomes also have more of an artistic/ artisan culture, not as metalworking as dwarves, but more intricate in their endeavors.
tsadkiel
Legend
Vocenoctum said:
Well, now that you mention it, kobolds are on the cut list as well . . .
I don't deny that they're different (I did say starting off that I really like both races) but as pc's, I do think they fill the same niche, and yes, to a large degree it's because they're both small. Gnomes and halflings (IMHO) both serve as the unexpected hero, who's easy to overlook and sometimes hard to take seriously, but who contributes to the group in ways that the larger races can't.
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