D&D General what is the unifying theme of gnomes?

[LordEntrails]

Gnomes have no unifying theme.

Does any of the 'classic;' races have a unifying theme?

@Snarf Zagyg has already shown us that elves don't.
Humans... maybe their only theme is they are middle f the road, can do everything but are not otherwise special? i.e. they are the known baseline.
Dwarfs? Eh, some of them live underground and some don't. Mostly they are miners and 'salt of the earth' folk, but is that a unifying theme?
Halflings? Just half humans right? Its in there name.

A lot of the 'newer' ones that have not been envisioned a million different ways do.
Genesai are elementals, so yea, they do
Aarakocra are flyers, so yea, they do.
Shifters do, they are shifters.
What about firbogs? I don't think so, at least nothing that has made an impression on me.

Orcs used to. But of course we are no longer supposed to stereotype by race because of the real-world associations. So can we really have any unifying themes to a race anymore?

 

[Cadence]

Does any of the 'classic;' races have a unifying theme?

Are Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, and Humans all pretty unified by "lets get really close to Tolkien, but not admit how incredibly much better the Elves are supposed to be because we want the game to be balanced and humanocentric".

 

[Steampunkette]

Does any of the 'classic;' races have a unifying theme?

Elf: Forest Dwelling Archers with magical talent.
Dwarf: Underground Armored Smith-Warriors.
Halfling: Bilbo Baggins

That's it. That's the classic race unifying themes right there. LATER they got some variety with the Tallfellow halflings and 2 dozen different elf sub-races.

But gnome was always just "Halfling 2: Electric Boogaloo".

It's why they're sometimes humanoids, sometimes fey, and sometimes tinkers. Since they have no central identity, new ones get slapped onto them.

 

[Dioltach]

fascination with mushrooms, herbs and roots

Now I want to play a Hemulen.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Their creator, Theophrastus "Paracelsus" von Hohenheim, designated them as beings of elemental earth.

Within D&D they've settled into the space of folkloric little people / mythic trickster that Elves and Dwarves can't occupy, because they glom too closely to Tolkienesque tropes.

 

[Charlaquin]

Gnomes are just non-Tolkien elves.

 

[Charlaquin]

Goblins and kolbolds are at the forefront of de-monster-ification of monstrous races - they're cute now.

Goblins I’ll give you, but Tucker’s not withstanding, were kobolds ever not cute?

 

[Cadence]

A dive through the history of gnomes, with a Gygax quote and other things.

On Tieflings and Gnomes

In which I talk about dissociative design of races. And how to not design a gnome.

dungeonantology.com

 

[Dioltach]

Now I want to play a Hemulen.

And while we're at it, I want to play an elf as a Marsh-wiggle.

 

[Undrave]

It's a fungal growth.

Symbiotic fungal growth!

it is more you think they would have some core ideas for them as they seem to be made up of left overs of the other classic demihumans?

you are mistaken the dwarves are the other short race who are supposed to be associated with something really big.

Dwarf are small Goliath?