The Unified Theory of Gnomes

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Reposting myself from October. People periodically link to the post in an old thread I made, with my explanation that, IMO and IMC, I don't see gnomes has having too many disparate focuses; they have one focus that's never been properly identified as such:

Gnomes are the equivalent of magical rabbits. They are smaller and weaker than almost everyone else (except for kobolds, whom they compete for living space with -- no one ever remembers that kobolds also live in dark forests per the RAW). EVERYONE can wipe them out if they want to, so gnomes, like rabbits, have learned to hide.

They're not illusionists because they're into Zen Buddhism, as Races of Stone tried to explain. They're illusionists because, if they're not, the local orc tribe will dig them all up and eat them during the next lunar eclipse.

And they're not illusionists in the cold, dry way that D&D magic is often portrayed. It permeates every aspect of their society. They learn tricks to hide their settlements, with secret doors and traps all over the place (albeit less cruel than the ones the kobolds use). They tell tall tales about the size of their settlements and nations, concealing the fact that the local king of the gnomes rules over four families living beneath a single meadow. They use false names and disguises when dealing with outsiders, to effectively increase their numbers. They lie and trick everyone they meet to see how easy they are to fool -- because they have to fool them to survive. Garl Glittergold isn't some Harlequin-style fool, he's El-ahrairah, the rabbit trickster hero from Watership Down. Some of them might even tell the world they're halflings because, you know, they're short and smart-alec and who really checks what race the short guy is?

They speak with animals because even the elves don't worry if a ground squirrel is watching them move through the forest, little realizing that the ground squirrel will pop into a gnome burrow for a treat later on, and tell the gnomes all about the band of elves marching single file through the woods.

They play with clockworks to bolster their numbers and master technology as an outgrowth in their trap-making expertise.

They trade in precious gems to buy the things they need to survive, and they call themselves "forest gnomes" who know nothing about mines and such when they're talking to races that figure a gnome burrow full of gems will be easy to rob.

There's one race of gnomes. They're just not foolish enough to show a single face to the world.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Self-QFT!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And, for the record, all of this is how gnomes are played by me and IMC in practice:

One of the two gnomes IMC (Ebuferpaly Potentloins, gnome rogue/cleric of Garl Glittergold) is currently investigating an attempted murder in the gnomish enclave of Wit's End, a combination between a faerie mound, a gnomish commune and an old text adventure-style puzzle dungeon. Illusions abound and go even deeper than that, as very little is as it seems in Wit's End.

In the game I play in, my gnome illusionist/bard/gnome paragon (after this adventure, when I get my next level), Baeril Underhill, is a consulting detective in Ptolus -- basically an excuse for him to badger people to tears with endless questions -- investigating the apparent threat of a gnome illusionist intent on disrupting the wedding between two noble families. Here, it's pretty clear, that even less is as it seems than in Wit's End.

For Baeril, life is all about having layer upon layer of illusions piled upon him. He dresses like a crazed Swiss mountaineer and yodels and claims to come from a gnomish nation no one's ever seen. When he succeeded on his saving throw in a zone of truth, he pretended otherwise and proceeded to annoy the crap out of everyone by quizzing them about their personal secrets and announcing opinions that made him look foolish, so he could then start saying some inaccurate things because everyone now "knows" he's forced to tell the truth.

In late 2008, when the rumored arcane magic book comes out with the core illusionist class that WotC has mentioned, I'll use the retraining rules to turn Baeril from a gnome wizard to a gnome illusionist, as his "archetypal gnome" thing is really me playing with 3E mechanics currently. He'll still yodel and still wear lederhosen, though.

 

[KingCrab]

I support your theory and promise never to throw fruit at my gnomish neighbors.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, and even Zogonia subscribes to my Unified Theory!

ANYONE could be a gnome!

 

[Jinete]

I really liked your Gnome flavor, but I don't think it fits my vision of what a 4e PC is going to be.

From the mechanics and flavor previews, I see 4e characters as "Going Around Kicking The Crap Out Of Evil With Our Cool And Balanced Powers" not "Going Around Outsmarting People Because We Are In Fact Weak"

I'm not saying you couldn't fit a Gnome as you imagine him in your 4e campaign, I just think that he would be the outsider. Well, maybe not in *your* campaign he wouldn't, but in campaigns that will go with the imaging and flavor that the WotC give us.

I hope I'm wrong though.

 

[withak]

That description is full of win. I will be using gnomes just like this IMC.

That said, I agree with Jinete. This sort of flavor doesn't seem to mesh well with what 4e wants out of its PCs. This sort of gnome isn't "heroic" enough, at least not in the ass-kicking sense. That said, there is no way I would discourage a player from creating a gnome of exactly this sort to use as a PC. It'd be way too much fun.

It will be interesting to see what kind of flavor gnomes get in the 4e MM.

 

[Wepwawet]

From the mechanics and flavor previews, I see 4e characters as "Going Around Kicking The Crap Out Of Evil With Our Cool And Balanced Powers" not "Going Around Outsmarting People Because We Are In Fact Weak"

"Going Around Outsmarting People Because We Are In Fact Weak" is just a smart way that weaker guys use for "Going Around Kicking The Crap Out Of Evil With Our Cool And Balanced Powers" efficiently.

And there are many ways to be heroic. You don't need to literally kick some butts to be a hero.
Probably this idea is just a consequence of the game favoring combat while leaving role-playing behind.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I really liked your Gnome flavor, but I don't think it fits my vision of what a 4e PC is going to be.

From the mechanics and flavor previews, I see 4e characters as "Going Around Kicking The Crap Out Of Evil With Our Cool And Balanced Powers" not "Going Around Outsmarting People Because We Are In Fact Weak"

I'm not saying you couldn't fit a Gnome as you imagine him in your 4e campaign, I just think that he would be the outsider. Well, maybe not in *your* campaign he wouldn't, but in campaigns that will go with the imaging and flavor that the WotC give us.

I agree with the above (including the "I like your style" part). D&D 4E is catering to the "butt-kicking" style of game. Roleplayers will be just fine because there's no rules that can stop you from roleplaying; but ever race has to "kick ass" in combat its own way. Gnomes (as you present them) are all avoid avoiding combat.

You know what the second-most-famous[1] saying is among the Gnomes? "Never get in a fist fight with tall folk when death is on the line."

I'm glad you wrote the above now. I still think Gnomes will remain an NPC race IMC, but now I have some really good ideas how to play them. I hope the 4E MM does a good job of presenting some similarly unified, coherent and playable picture of them.


[1] The most-famous is of course "Never get in a land war in Asia."

 

[Clavis]

Excellent work, Whizbang! I love your take on Gnomes.

Gnome love is good love!

 

[Irda Ranger]

And there are many ways to be heroic. You don't need to literally kick some butts to be a hero.

Yes, but it is a design goal of the 4E designers that PC's do not have to "take turns" having fun. Everyone should be relevant to all encounters.

Whereas, if the Gnome is in the middle of out-smarting a tribe of orcs, the other classes will have little to do. Similarly in a heavy melee the Gnome would be left out.

Probably this idea is just a consequence of the game favoring combat while leaving role-playing behind.

Dead wrong. The game is NOT leaving role-playing behind. We absolutely know that they are providing "social encounter" rules and "extended Diplo" rules. Further (and this goes for ALL editions of D&D, and other games as well), if there isn't enough roleplaying at the table to suit you, that's your and your DM's fault; not the game's. There's no rule in the book that says (or could be enforced) "Don't even try convincing the Baron to lend the party horses; it's against the rules."

Combat and other "objective outcome" events are the game engine's responsibility. Roleplaying is the character/player's responsibility.

 

[BASHMAN]

When gnomes come out for 4E they will have rainbow mohawks, stingers instead of full beards, and ride around on dinosaurs in the feywild.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

And I thought the gnome history was the same as the Halflings and Dwarves.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

From another thread, a post that nicely encapsulates the idea:

I get the impression that if UT-Gnomes ever had a full blown nation, most people wouldn't even know it was there; of if they suspected, all the details would be wrong.

I can just picture now an adventurer wandering through some woodland and suddenly a Gnome appears: "Ok, look here pal." says the Gnome "We've tried to do this the easy way by presenting you with easier paths to walk down, but you keep picking the hard ones. You've deliberately avoided every inviting elven camp we led you to. You've ignored and dragon spoor dropping we left lying on this road, and even avoided that one orc encampment when we thought reverse-psychology would get us somewhere. I don't know how or why you're doing it, or if you are deliberately seeking the Gnomish settlements, but it's gotta stop. Go back."

"But I am seeking King Peldypants of Frugalforn. I believe I have been in the Kingdown of Frugalforn's lands for the last two days. Yes?" replied the Man.

"No such king, no such country. We just told that Sage a tall tale to make him happy and go away. The fact is, there's no kingdom at all here. You're just too close to a small gnomish village, and we don't like it."

(Several more minutes of arguing ensues. Eventually the Man leaves, frustrated.)

After silence has fallen on the glade for several minutes, another Gnome sticks his head out of a bush. "Did the Man leave?"

"I think so. Go tell King Kuldorkins the same. He'll want to know."

"Good. I didn't like how he was standing right in the middle of town like that. That was too close."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I play in Ptolus, where gnomes and halflings are explicitly two branches of the same race (and both are technically a type of elf). Baeril forever goes around asking if people have read his favorite book, Letters to the Quickling, which, he explains is a book in halfling (called "quickling faen" in Ptolus) from the creator god of the gnomes, attempting to bring them back into the light, dogmatically speaking.

Of course, it's a little more complicated than that, and Baeril is actually testing everyone he meets:

A series of letters from the priesthood of Garl Glittergold written in Halfling to a nomadic band of quickling faen in Rhoth. The letters are written as though Garl himself were the author, and the book is sometimes called Garl's Letters to the Quickling.

The book spells out a philosophy for gnomish life, where illusion is woven into the fabric of every day life. Early on in the Letters, "Garl" describes gnomes and halflings as rabbits, living in a hillside surrounded by bears, wolves, giant snakes and other predators. The halfling hares attempt to escape the bigger and more dangerous races around them by outrunning them. In the end, though, the halflings are cornered or simply run to ground and consumed. In contrast, the gnome rabbits dig hole after hole in the hill, riddling it with countless numbers of false dens, confusing the predators, who search endlessly for the true gnomish lairs. In the interim, the gnome rabbits move into a hollow tree overlooking the hill, where none of their predators think to look for them at all.

To "Garl," illusions are a way to protect gnomes from their numerous enemies, but illusions should not be limited to hiding their homes and communities. Instead, he argues, gnomes should develop entirely false communities, identities and personalities. The unknown authors suggest that gnomes are much more numerous than they are commonly believed to be, but many of them either live in communities entirely hidden from the outside world or appear to be members of other races, such as halflings, dwarves, kobolds or goblins.

The book is seen as representing a fairly extreme viewpoint by many worshippers of Garl Glittergold, but some argue that it's much more influential within the gnomish (and perhaps halfling) communities than outsiders will ever know.

The moment Baeril finds someone who's read the book and understands that it's actually a guide for life, and not a political satire or a book of children's stories, he knows that he's foudn someone he's going to have to watch very closely. For the most part, though, no one bothers with the book or, if they do, they misunderstand it pretty severely, which is all to the good.

 

[Badkarmaboy]

That description is full of win. I will be using gnomes just like this IMC.

That said, I agree with Jinete. This sort of flavor doesn't seem to mesh well with what 4e wants out of its PCs. This sort of gnome isn't "heroic" enough, at least not in the ass-kicking sense. That said, there is no way I would discourage a player from creating a gnome of exactly this sort to use as a PC. It'd be way too much fun.

It will be interesting to see what kind of flavor gnomes get in the 4e MM.

That was a splendid description, I loved it.

No matter what 4e "wants" out of my PC...I reckon I'll just make what I want and go with it from there.

There is no reason that this type of flavor could not be part of 4e. There will always be room for RP and cool backstory.

 

[Driddle]

When gnomes come out for 4E they will have rainbow mohawks, stingers instead of full beards, and ride around on dinosaurs in the feywild.

That would so totally RAWK!!!

... And yet, I'm still not sensing a unified racial "focus" thingy that so many people have been whining about lately. Sure, they've got the rainbow mohawk-feywild dinosaur synergy going on, but after that they would seem to lose cohesion. I mean, like, are your envisioned 4th edition gnomes designed to be battlefield-manipulating ranger types or striker spellswords or ego-flatulating janitors or what?

I'm hoping that by v5.5, someone will have developed an easy-to-remember, three-word stereotype description that will give gnomes a home again in the PHB.

 

[The Little Raven]

When gnomes come out for 4E they will have rainbow mohawks, stingers instead of full beards, and ride around on dinosaurs in the feywild.

And even that is a marked improvement over their previous portrayal, which was "too elvish to be a dwarf, and to dwarvish to be an elf and too short to be anything else."

 

[Mercule]

Hmm.... Now I have a good reason to keep gnomes IMC.

Heck, it gives me a good reason to add halflings back in: they exist only as cover for gnomes. The only reason halflings still exist as a race is because the gnomes have marginally protected them as part of the smokescreen.

I'm not a big fan of either smaller race, but I am absolutely astounded that WotC would keep halflings over gnomes. When I matured enough as a GM to realize I didn't have to keep everything in the PHB, halflings were the first thing to go.

Edit: I don't hate halflings or anything. They aren't interesting enough to hate. Now, kender: those I hate. Tinker gnomes, too. Dragonlance is a shining example of how some campaigns have some cool ideas for within that framework, but the ideas really don't port well. Then again, ticker gnomes were lame, even in Dragonlance.

 

[The Little Raven]

I'm not a big fan of either smaller race, but I am absolutely astounded that WotC would keep halflings over gnomes.

You're surprised that Wizards would keep an icon of modern fantasy (halflings) over a race that has inconsistent portrayals depending on the source?