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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4375047" data-attributes="member: 2067">Clear-cut? Heck no. Nothing is, and that's doubly so with regards to the mythos/legend stuff. Sure, I agree. I don't think I ever tried to argue that these words somehow were inherently diverse? In fact, I point out that the "gnome" and the "dwarf" are basically mythologically the same thing, but that D&D dwarves went in a particular direction and D&D gnomes went in a different direction.Sure.I disagree. Or at least, my experience is vastly different. Maybe its because I played up the differences more than others, maybe I'm just some sort of horrible aberrant, but the gnomes were always able to be very distinct from halflings, from gnomes, and from elves, carving out their own archetypal niche as primordial faery trickster earth-spirits.The only reason I brought up JRR was because that was obviously the inspiration for the D&D halfling, originally. They've come a long way since then, mostly at the expense of the gnomes, and they're still kind of a mish-mash of tropes (though they didn't have to be).The trickster archetype comes from folklore. The gnomes were the best fit for this archetype in D&D -- better than the halflings. Halflings have become better at it as they have lost their Tolkein trappings, thus stealing the gnomes' shtick. Sorry if you misinterpreted my meaning.</blockquote>