Are ALL gnomes trickster bards and mad scientists?
Nope! But not all dwarves are axe-wielding warriors. There's just enough of them to give some sort of definition.!
I feel like I could envision what a dwarven town or a halfling village would look like. But a group of gnomes living together? No idea. I have no sense of them as a society.
When I pick up a setting book and turn to the short sidebar on gnomes, I never see anything about their everyday lives or their history. Do gnomes revere an ancient hero gnome? Did the gnome army march out to join the great war? How many lands does the gnomish emperor rule?
When was the last time a party stumbled upon an ancient ruin only to discover it must have been constructed by gnomes? I'll bet it doesn't happen often!
Gnomes live in shallow burrow communities under hills in isolated woodland or forested areas. They tend to have a racial genius for mineralogy (particularly precious gemstones), and mining, and so this industry is often central to their economy, which also frequently bring them into conflict with kobolds. This ages long conflict has bred an animosity rarely directed toward any other living creature. Their talents for mining and acquisition of precious stones could conceivably ground them in the outside world as part of sought-after trade agreements, but it is also likely that the shy race keeps their secret techniques and wealth hidden from the greed and ambitions of the outside world.
They rarely maintain any sort of military, though rangers and scouts are looked towards for matters of defence, mustering and leading skirmish bands against their enemies. These units are adaptable for woodland skirmish or tunnel strikes and are arguably the best of the common races at melting back away into their terrain after a strike. Where elves show their ruthlessness when dealing with enemies, gnomes almost always opt to steer their enemies away.
Leadership is frequently by council of elders or by some revered and ancient wiseman/woman. Druids often take these roles, which works for them because gnomes don't need iron-fisted dictation but prefer to have their community matters guided by deep wisdom. Other druids of the community fulfil the spiritual needs of the communities, often maintaining sacred green glades in the woods nearby, or holy grottoes adorned with mineral rich pools and strange crystal structures or half-formed gemstone obelisks carved with mystic runes below gnome burrow villages.
Illusion is as much a part of gnome life as enchantment is for elves. Many gnomes have a deep fascination with illusion magic, and often further, with the profound contemplation of deception in general. Perhaps this has given them their fey character, or perhaps their fey character has informed the interest in deception. Who knows?
As for dungeon culture I've actually done this before, and it was the most fun dungeon I've ever myself crafted; Although no one remembers the old gnome name for my ruins, those who mention it these days refer to it as Grendelmyr. Once set by an idyllic floodplain wood, it has since become a ruin rotting away in a fetid marsh. The rooms of my dungeon were circular, and I ignored the concept that a gnome would only ever build a cramped environment. Above the hill sat the remains of a mummified treant haunted by will-o-wisps, once revered by the gnome residents now some blighted weed whose roots penetrated throughout the dungeon, grasping and ripping at any it could reach. Some doors were completely blocked off by root masses which had to be fought through for access.
Nothing says gnome like illusion, and it wasn't a stretch to realise for flavour and grounding, my dungeon would need to be defined, to some degree, by this magic. Still active effects lingered, some having been corrupted over time in unpredictable ways. The new denizens even learned to work with some of them, producing dangerous encounters. Further, I had it that the tragic end to the gnome's occupancy and the weakening of the walls of reality by so much illusion produced spontaneously-appearing portals to the plane of shadow, so the dungeon became a shifting and unpredictable thing. I don't know, but if this wasn't stamped with gnome-niche all over, then you must be right...
The gnomes don't need to be large and terrible movers and shaker to have a "thing"; in fact their niche is characterized significantly by their racial humbleness and role as the forgotten folk.
