Tell me about gnomes in your world.

[DMH]

In my OB/IK crossover gnomes are at war with gobbers in the marketplace. Both are inventors and bodgers of steamgear and both have racial guilds that attempt to grab market share from the other. They do not hate each other, but there are few kind words between them publicly (a lot of respect and some anger behind the scenes). Outside the cities there are mixed communities where they specialize (I gave gobbers the bonus to alchemy and gnomes got a bonus to crafting steamtech) as their only raw materials are junkyards. The only people these gnomes hate are minoi (sp? tinker gnomes) who they kill on sight- they do not need crappy inventions being added to the market and confusing humans who can't tell one gnome from another.

In a very short lived underdark campaign, gnomes lived in the stalagtites and ceiling. They were tiny people whose gem work was considered the best. Duergar treated them fairly (to get the gems) and the drow attempted to erradicate them. Oh and they were elementals- tiny stone people.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

IMC, gnomes spontaneously combust with a voluminous scream of AIEEEEE! As you can imagine, this prohibits them from having much of a culture or influence on the world.

 

[shilsen]

Somebody needs to do a campaign with gnomes the way they are in Terry Pratchett, namely tiny creatures with a human-sized mass of violence compressed into that miniscule form.

Or just use the Nac Mac Feegle. Crivens, ye big heap o' jobbies!

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I'm playing in Eberron (gnomes are knowledge-seekers with an extensive spy network) and IK (Gno Gnomes). In my homebrew that I play every once in a while with my friends, gnomes are still Small but have +4 Str, live underground, and forge the best weapons and armor available. They keep tiny embassy/stores in most large trade cities, but no one knows more than rumors of them except for the Alabasts, mostly evil elf-like creatures that live in the shattered lands at the center of the plane, and need the Gnomes' metals to produce their steamtech. And they're evil. Mostly.

 

[ForceUser]

Keith Baker digs my gnomes.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=102058

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I love Laundreu's idea of gnomes as the female counterparts of all-male dwarves. Pronounced sexual dimorphism in fantasy races is always cool.

IMC...

Well...

In my Kingdom of Ivalice campaign, gnomes don't exist. Neither do any of the standard D&D races other than humans. Right now, only numerous regional subraces of humans are available, but in the Technocracy of Romanda, experiments on hybrids and cogs from OGL Steampunk are underway, some of whom could concievably become PCs.

But in the dwarven industrial empire world that I've yet to actually get started, gnomes are an offshoot of the dwarven race, a disrespected underclass along with the OA dwarves (Korokoboru?). Although intelligent and capable, gnomes are looked down upon for their physical frailty. They work in 'technical' jobs - as mechanics, tinkers and lab assistants - but aren't allowed citizenship. When a gnome invents something, he usually has to turn it over to his dwarven engineer master, who claims credit. Of course, being smarter than the other 'low dwarves,' many gnomes dream of overthrowing the current order and supplanting their larger kin as the world's dominant race.

 

[ecliptic]

My gnomes are 1 foot tall, but fast with 30 ft. base speed. They wear colorful pointy hats. They gain a +6 bonus to Sleight of Hand when trying to steal underpants which they regularly steal and horde.

 

[frankthedm]

Removed from my game-

Dwarves are the mad inventors of the campaign.

Elves get the innate cantrips in exchange for that annoying secret door B.S.

if a player really wants to play something gnome-ish i'll shrink an elf for them.

 

[ivocaliban]

I'll never understand the hate for the little people, but I'll not get into that argument again. Gnomes, in my game, are modeled quite closely after a number of literary characters ranging from Shakespeare's Puck (Robin Goodfellow) to Tolkien's Tom Bombadil. To me, they also embody elements of the trickster gods of various religions (Coyote, Raven, Ananse, Sun Wukong, Prometheus, etc.) and in this they have a certain wisdom that other races, even the long-lived elves, have somehow let slip through their fingers. Tricksters are often there for a purpose, usually to teach a lesson, but many subjected to their tricks are often too ignorant to appreciate the intrusion. Sometimes the lesson is merely not to take matters too seriously and to retain a sense of humour in the even the worst of circumstances.

The recent release of Races of Stone helped me to solidify what I find so interesting and wonderful about gnomes. The duality of spirit, being torn between the reality and illusion, makes the gnomes' philosophical outlook more Eastern than Western. They seem far more like Taoists or Buddhists in their belief system and because of this seem to have a certain mysterious depth that other cultures often lack.

In many ways, I think gnomes are the most mature and healthy-minded of the core D&D races. They, like the bards they now favour, are tasters of life who rarely tie themselves down to one thing, but search for truth through art in all its incarnations. It's fairly likely that no gnome will ever find this truth, but it is a noble search, just like the quest for the philosopher's stone through alchemy. In this search the gnomes become Rennasiance men/women of the highest calibur. They are artists, tricksters, tinkers, seekers, philosphers, and inventors.

Gnomes happily accept themselves as they are and yet always strive to make improvements in themselves. In a sense, the culture of gnomes is an ideal human culture. One that both praises and practices introspection, innovation, humour, and magnanimity on the whole and sees no point in wanton destruction, war, and strife. Certainly they are idealized and less than real, but no less so than dwarves or elves...and no less interesting, either. In fact, I'd say that, culturally speaking, they're far better off than most.

 

[Carpe DM]

In my world, the theme is this: Gnomes have two sides, industrial and pastoral; technological and magical. I turned these into different groups.

Arva, my gameworld, was built on a concept of multiple fully developed worlds. Eshla is what would be in a regular system the elemental plane of air.

In our system, however, Eshla is a fully developed biopolitical world in its own right. The relevant conflict is Law vs. Chaos.

The steamtech Empire of Nold rules the airlanes with massive, ponderous Dreadnaughts and the fast brass-and-iron dragon-shapped fighters called Drakkar.

Their enemy is the breakaway Republic of Indra. Scions of story, song, and dream magic, the Dreamweavers of Ind have a reputation as beautiful soulstealers. Dreamstuff of Ind is a potent hallucinogen, sold throughout the Five Worlds.

Now, the realm of Eshla is increasingly torn by civil war, with the sinister and wild magic of Dreamweavers and Stormsingers of the Republic of Indra pitted against the iron and brass of Noldish Dreadnaughts, Drakkari, and the Imperial Legions.

best,

Carpe