Gnomes' niche in the D&D world

[Mytholder]

I like that idea. It's elegant.

So, I'm curious - what are halflings? Are there any other interesting histories you created for other normal / not so normal races?

Halflings are halflings. I just like the little buggers.

As for other monsters and races...I haven't done much work. Most of the effort has gone into theology and politics. I'm currently adapting Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, so I'm going to have to come up with origins for a lot of beasties pretty sharpish.

Edit: Campaign log here, if anyone's bored.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Don't buy into the who Gnome thing. They are as fake as the Dwarves.

http://www.gamespy.com/comics/nodwick/gamespyarchive/gspynod057.html

 

[River]

Gnome's Niche?

I find they often make a good substitute when the recipie calls for chicken.....

 

[Gnome Berzerker]

Bah, we make our own way!

 

[cildarith]

You could make them a cursed and degenerate race of dwarves ala the noegyth nibin of JRR Tolkien's Silmarillion.

 

[Altalazar]

The last time I played as a player, it was simple.

Gnomes ruled the world. Just ask Riley, my character. It is only a coincidence that he happened to be a gnome. (A fortunate one, of course, but that is to be expected - gnomes always find fortune).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Gnomes only miss out on a place when DM's are just like..."Uhm.....halfling-tinkers!"

I've used them as druidical spirits of the wood (while elves tend to arcane magic, gnomes tend to the forest), keepers of the world's secrets (tinkering with long-lost technology), insatiable pranksters (in a rebellion against some elves), courtly teachers (running the worldwide school system), and miraculous inventors (airships, electricity, the wheel, fire...).

And they can be all those within one world, too.

 

[Krieg]

In my campaign world Gnomes face an existence not unlike European Jews during the middle ages.

They are a race without a homeland and face a ghettoized existence in the cities of man. Nearly every city has a gnomish section. Those looking to borrow money or deal in gemstones & jewelry invariably head to "gnometown" to do business with the gnomish moneylenders or gemcutters (who are without equal).

Almost all Gnomes dream of finding their lost homeland whose location, tragically, has been lost to memory. Recently however, there have been growing murmers that perhaps their lost home (or at least a new beginning) is to be found in the unexplored lands across the sea...


(Now ask me about my Hillbilly Halflings...I dare ya...)

 

[MarauderX]

I also vote to dump them. I did in my homebrew and am glad.

 

[Reprisal]

Secular Gnomes

As they're presented in the PHB, the gnomes seem to be a good intermediary race between elves and dwarves -- perhaps it was the momentary preoccupation of the gnomes that the archetypal elf-dwarf grudge got its start. Gnomes seem to be easier to fit into a campaign world than halfings, and as a result, it's often halflings that find themselves without a raison d'etre as far as world creation goes...

In some previous musings of mine, I ended up having the gnomes take up the agricultural side of the three good races that predated humanity. Dwarves, elves and gnomes all had a clear part to play in their struggle with their evil contemporaries: orcs, goblinoids, and ogres. The dwarves served as the manufacturing and mineral supply side of the Triad, the elves provided magical and sustainable forest product support, and gnomes tended to agricultural and most of the secular intellectual development.

It ended up fitting quite nicely, since dwarves were LG, elves were CG, and gnomes, being NG, served as a good mediating force between the two martial forces.

Then, we throw humans into the mix and things get all messed up...

Anyway, the gnomes in this world would have a connection to nature, but at the same time would take a decidedly agnostic view on the matters metaphysical. I tend to think of them as an idealized version of some New Green Revolution that may or may not happen in our own universe -- as some odd mixture of secular science and natural spiritualism. As a result, it's the gnomes who developed a sense of democratic political sensibilities... (The elves being mostly individualistic, to the point of atomistic, and the dwarves espousing authoritarian virtues like something akin to Confucianism.)

*shrug*

Didn't say it was a particularly fantastic idea,

- Rep.