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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2959202" data-attributes="member: 13966">Different authors have just put gnomes into different niches, because they were always sort of a fifth wheel.  Halflings/hobbits were the short and nimble thieves, dwarves were the short and tough magic-opposed warriors, elves were the nimble magician-fencers, humans were the inbetweeners, and, well, gnomes had to have some kind of niche.  Though based on some of the same mythological sources as dwarves, they were focused on different aspects.Some authors of D&D made gnomes into magic-resistant pranksters and illusionists, fitting somewhere between dwarves, halflings, and elves in their role.  These were the gnomes of Oerth and Abeir-Toril, for instance.  Other authors decided to make gnomes different in their own way, making the tinker gnomes of Krynn, eccentric inventors.  Toril's gnomes also got some of this influence from the authors with the gnomes' faith in Gond, so they became artificers similar to the tinker gnomes of Krynn but utilizing magic and divine inspiration for their inventions moreso than just mechanical know-how.  Both kinds of gnome were smart but unwise, clever but overly curious, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.  Forest gnomes were also made part of D&D, being similar to the prankster-illusionist ones but with a druidic/rangery bent rather than an illusionist bent.3rd Edition kind of messed with the gnome concept further, making them out to be tough but neither particularly smart nor particularly foolish, then going on to make them bards in 3.5.  It's not entirely inappropriate, certainly, but it's still a definite deviation from 'true' D&D gnomes.  True D&D gnomes would be a mixed population of scholars and pranksters (plus a few guardians and tradesfolk, of course), somewhere between being urbanized folk and being rural, fey-related folk.  They'd most often be rogues, illusionists, or both, and would probably be more likely to be druids or generalist wizards rather than bards.In my homebrew campaigns, gnomes fill different niches depending on the setting's material, but are pretty close to the traditional D&D gnomes.....  Rhunarian gnomes are the eminant sages and philosophers of their world, detached from such lowly concerns as politics and religion.  Their few divine spellcasters get their power merely from steadfast belief in a philosophy, and more often than not they're just arcane spellcasters instead.  They live in small towns and small cities, inventing new things and philosophizing, trading the occasional products of their labor to other races for any raw materials not normally found in gnomish lands.  They're not quite advanced enough for any life-changing mechanical inventions, but they've begun producing flintlock firearms shortly after dwarvenkind invented them first (the dwarves are far less magically-inclined and more technologically-inclined); gnomish engineering is just a bit behind dwarven engineering, and only when it comes to combat inventions.  Aurelian gnomes are less mechanically inclined and a bit closer to nature, though still further from it than elvenkind; Aurelian gnomes are arcane and druidic scholars, with a bit of focus on alchemy, but they're also reasonably skilled and staunch opponents of giants, kobolds, goblins and orcs.</blockquote>

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