When did gnomes fall from grace?

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

I dunno, my fiancee played her gnomish wizard in a David the Gnome style, even bringing the books to the table to show how she pictured her character. Maybe the mechanics didn't support it in the best possible fashion, but she seemed happy with it. I guess it helps sometimes to not know the stereotypes

NCSUCodeMonkey

 

[LordMelquiades]

(That's right, dire hedgehog, look out!)

No match for my Eberronian Horrid Sea Cucumber! While he attacks your 'hog I shall bind an elemental into my spy-cloak and make pretty lights appear in the sky.

 

[Fieari]

I have fond memories of "David the Gnome" on TV when I was growing up. And really, that sort of shapes how I feel gnomes should be. Tiny, fey, secretive mysterious creatures... druids even. Yes, a bit of illusionist would work well too. Small isn't small enough.

Not that this lends gnomes a speck of credibility, but one work of fantasy that seems to include a gnome similar to what we see in D&D would be Peirs Anthony's Xanth novels. "The Good Magician" is pretty much a gnome, as far as I can tell.

 

[Gez]

Gnomes suffer greatly from the lack of an easily identifiable mainstream fantasy archetype.

Not in my eyes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No match for my Eberronian Horrid Sea Cucumber!

You know, the local alchemist has creams that can clear that right up.

 

[LordMelquiades]

Ha! Touche. Or, indeed, a good scrubbing by a dire hedgehog.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

When did gnomes become uncool?

They didn't have a bad rap in AD&D1. I don't remember them being hated in early Greyhawk. I remember lots of hate towards the DragonLance gnomes, but they were a different race, truly, anyway.

Quasqueton

Ummm, I hated them from their first appearance in Dragon magazine... My players weren't exactly thrilled with them either. Until Dragonlance I don't think that I ever had a single player who wanted to play a gnome. (I still think that the DL gnome was an improvement over the standard...)

The Auld Grump

 

[Ace]

Excluding David the gnome -- the only Gnome I know in fiction is Hugi from Poul Andersons Three Hearts and Three Lions -- thats the book that has one of the major D&D Paladin archetypes (Holger Carlson) and the D&D troll -- Big Green Regenerating Warts and all

The problem of course is Hugi could be a woodsy Dwarf -- there is nothing especially Gnomish other than his sense of smell

My personal fix for the Gnome is to make them Tiny Fae -- and give them the Burrow Speak as an at will ability -- make prefered class Druid or some woodsy varient

You can rip the rest off from the Gnomes book --

The only bad thing is that they really don't fit in many D&D worlds that well -- they don't mix with Tolkien, Conan, Lieber, Howard, Lovecraft or any of the other staples all that well .

 

[Jupp]

When I saw this thread my first thought was that it's because so many people have decided to play them as annoying little time-wasters.

But actually I think Mouseferatu has hit the nail on the head. When have you ever seen a non-D&D-specific piece of literature featuring gnomes?

Actually around here gnomes are much more prominent in fairytales, mythology and stories. Halflings do not even exist here as a myth character, at least not in the local tales.

So to me this whole thread should be "When did halflings fall from grace?" I do not recall a mythological tale about halflings at the moment but several with gnomes

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Actually around here gnomes are much more prominent in fairytales, mythology and stories. Halflings do not even exist here as a myth character, at least not in the local tales.

So to me this whole thread should be "When did halflings fall from grace?" I do not recall a mythological tale about halflings at the moment but several with gnomes

Any available in English? I'd love to read some Swiss fairytales/myths/legends.