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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashy" data-source="post: 1611907" data-attributes="member: 312">Here's another one that is in process (I work on several different things at once, as you can tell) - I am not finished with this, but would still like some initial feedback...Gnome, GearInventors and theorists extraordinaire, gear gnomes are thought of both as pests and pariahs.  While they can be irritating to the point of near insanity to be around, if it were not for this bright, inquisitive and inventive race, much of the knowledge and many of the luxuries enjoyed by all in the current age would be non-existent.Personality: Gear gnomes are a dichotomy of personality traits: when they are consumed with a project in work they are often quiet and even introspective – pacing about muttering to themselves and fiddling with all sorts of unidentifiable gadgets and contraptions; when they are consumed by the creative process of coming up with a new idea they are insanely active: talking non-stop (often at incomprehensible speeds), giggling manically and pilfering things that would seem to “fit perfectly” in their next invention.  When they are at neither end of this strange pendulum of emotion, they are lovable, if not a tad bit annoying. Physical Description:  Pending...    Relations: Gear gnomes tend to get along well with most any creature; most any creature that can bear to have them around for more than a few moments, that is.  In fact, it is often the gear gnomes who are subject to a tremendous amount of animosity and frustration while the gear gnomes themselves seem for the most part, ignorant of these negative outbursts.  Gear gnomes seem perfectly content to while the day away, regardless of the company, tinkering on their latest invention or pondering their next creation.Alignment: Gear gnomes are a strange juxtaposition when it comes to their minds and the way they view the world.  On one hand, their approach to their inventions is structured and formal, following a certain process; but on the other, each gear gnome follows their own, self-created formula.  As such, they appear quite chaotic as a race.  Chaos, usually in the forms of their unpredictable experiments and inventions, seems to follow gear gnomes wherever they go, but for the most part, gear gnomes are good natured and mean no ill at the core of their tinkering hearts.Lands: Wanderers at heart, gear gnomes usually reserve settling down for their twilight years, at which point they have often acquired enough wealth and prestige as a result of their travels and exploits to afford a well stocked and custom-designed laboratory.  These laboratories are often placed in odd locations, such as remote mountain tops, secluded groves, or in dead-end ravines, where the gear gnome can tinker the day away in relative peace and seclusion.  However, a few of these laboratories, spurred by the reputation of the gnome inhabiting it, have grown into full-fledged towns but this is by all means an exception rather than the rule.Religion: Gear gnomes have no racially worshipped deities, but those that do often serve a god that espouses invention, engineering, forward thought, tinkering, or similar themes.    Language: It is said (often jokingly) that gear gnomes have never taken the time from their creations to craft a language all their own.  While this may or may not be true, it certainly seems to be the case as gear gnomes (who are a frighteningly literate race) often make use of several different languages within the confines of a single sentence!  Gear gnomes select the best words (regardless of the language) for the purposes of the sentence and use those words, somehow managing to cross the barriers of grammar and sentence structure without issue.  Amazingly, gear gnomes very rarely confuse one another, although they tend to confuse other races continually!  When speaking with non-gear gnomes, these diminutive inventors try to pick a single language and stick to it, but their natural inclination is to slip into their “native cobbled tongue”, so from time to time, words from other languages creep in and spawn tiny whirlwinds of grammatical confusion.    Names: Gear gnomes delight in naming their children with names that sound like, but are spelled differently from, other words – and they do this in every language they can speak.  As such, in a single family of gear gnomes, one might find a boy with a dwarven name that is a play on the dwarven word for “anvil” and a girl whose name sounds like the elven word for “clockwork” but has an entirely different spelling.  As such, gear gnome names often bring a smile to the faces of folk of many different races.  Also, gear gnome names tend to reflect a disposition towards tinkering and invention, but names relating to more ephemeral concepts are just as common.  Surnames (clan names) among the gear gnomes are more often that not nothing more than humorous follow-ups to their first names, so they bear little meaning in regards to familial groups within the races as a whole.Male Names: Anvoz (Dwarven: “anvil”), Tizriz (Gnome: “gear”), L’dratyyl (Elven: “machine”), Whrylygyg (Human: “whirligig”), Sm’rt (Goblin: “brilliant”).Female Names: Kar’a’ma (Dwarven: “cog-mother”), El-a-dou’a’lala Dastrialfya (Elven: “she-who-runs-with-the-wind-in-her-hair-and-the-sun-on-her-face”), Lvlly (Human: “lovely”), Unk-Stuk “Goblin: “pointy sticks and rock”). Clan Names: Knoughtmee, Dinnaseeit, Dinnadooit, and Jus’josin.Adventurers: Gear gnomes are the penultimate journeymen; they travel from town to town, from place to place, seeking new thoughts, new thrills, new toys, and most of all, new investors.  Their insatiable desire to create new devices, both mundane and magical, quickly becomes expensive (though often times the expense is a direct result of having to clean up after their inventions rather than merely creating them) and as such, they soon must find those with ample coin to fund their mind’s work.  Often, these investors take the form of nobility, wealthy merchants, powerful adventurers, entrenched wizards, or even large organizations (such as thieves’ guilds or trading unions) who then direct the gnomes’ creative energies in more profitable directions.Racial Traits• +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength, -2 Wisdom: Gear gnomes are a supremely intelligent tinkering race who are ever formulating new ideas and concepts; sadly it is the execution of these thoughts which is often severely lacking.  Further, while gear gnomes are not physically powerful they do possess an innate knack for the roguish arts; their deft hands and minds working in concert to achieve brilliant ends• Small Humanoid; as such Gear gnomes gain a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on all attack rolls, and a +4 racial bonus on hide checks.• Gear gnomes possess a base speed of 20 feet.• Gear gnomes possess Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.• Gear gnomes benefit from a +1 racial bonus to all Intelligence and Dexterity based skill checks.• Gear gnomes receive a +2 racial bonus to one craft skill per level of the player’s choice.  Gear gnomes are naturally crafty and spend all of their waking hours tinkering away endlessly.• Automatic Languages: Gnome, Dwarven, Elven and Common. Bonus languages: select from Draconic, Auran, Terran, Aquan, or Ignan or any allowed by the GM.• Favored class: Rogue.  A multiclassed Gear gnome’s Rogue class does not count when determining whether or not they suffer an XP penalty for multiclassing.  Gear gnomes have an irrepressible habit of “unintentionally acquiring” items from anyone or anything within their immediate vicinity.  In truth, they simply see things from the perspective of the common good, as they almost always incorporate their “findings” into a device which (at least in their minds) can be used and enjoyed by all.</blockquote>

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