Gnomes

He's a monster, rawr.

Gnomes are vicious ornery little fuckers who appear to live in the forests of modern Earth, possibly even America. They are divided into clans named after their location such as the Stump clan or the Under the Hill clan, who have nothing but hatred for one another.

In 4th Edition of D&D, they're a monster (rawr) who turn invisible damn near every round.

Appearance

Most stand at a height of 4 inches and have squat heavy bodies with short, heavy limbs and filthy matted beards, completely unlike any other fantasy species. The Gnomes seem to have an extremely primitive level of technology, using knives made of flint or the teeth of larger predators as weapons and wearing clothing of leaves and rodent hides. Despite the differences between the various clans the use of the pointed hat is nonetheless universal among them.

Anything you might of heard about them living in the Swiss Alps of Zurich hording wealth, or having an obsessive/compulsive relationship with machinery, or being taller than 12 inches even with their hat, is completely baseless and false. For the height thing, just look in your neighbor's garden. Those gnomes are life-size, dude.

Female Gnomes are frequently depicted as Loli in the hopes of tricking a drawfag into making a USB cable.

Religion & Festivals

Due to the small size of Gnomes relative to their environment and the various predators that love the taste of gnomeflesh, the Gnomes religion does not revolve so much around worshipping the gods as blaming them. The chief priest of the tribe leads his fellows in cursing the various gods during religious ceremonies for the gnomes' lot in life.

Notable deities in the Gnome pantheon include Vund, God of Making Animals Too Fucking Big; Niralla, that Bitch Who Makes it Cold Every Goddamn Year; and Hronthar, That Asshole Who Makes Poison Mushrooms Grow. Two relatively recent gods to appear in Gnome society are Garack, God of The Fucking Hot Thing in The Fucking Sky; and Magher, The Fucker Who Made Us Fucking Tiny.

Several mentions have been made of gnome festivals, but the only ones named thus far have been the Thank Fuck Winter's Over festival,The Fucking Bears Are Awake Again spring festival and the Where the Fuck is the Water summer celebration.

Famous Gnomes

• Dimkin of the Stump

The only Gnome who has left a written record of his travels is Dimkin of the Stump, whose journal makes reference to a mysterious land with a vast plain of turnips and enormous landmarks that seem almost like constructions.

• High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque

Informally known as King of the Gnomes (in exile), he is actually an elected leader, holding the position for an indefinite term. He and a substantial fraction of the total gnome population fled from their homes in Gnomeregan after an environm*BLAM* World of Warcraft shit is HERESY!

• Underpants Gnomes

... those little shits stole my boxers.

• David the Gnome

He will slap your shit.

• Jan Jansen

Tinker, tailor, wizard, turnip. He seems stupid, until his army of knife-wielding gibbon commandos invades your house, saves his childhood sweetheart, and assassinates you. Anything is possible with that many heavily-armed apes.

Gnomish Mating Prac--

Get the fuck out of my office.

External links

• gnomeparty.swf

Alright, seriously, what the fuck are they?

Still here? You're a persistent bastard. Alright, the simple truth of it is that gnomes have long been the embarrassing bastard stepchildren of the D&D races.

See, in addition to the Tolkein ripping-off that early D&D did, they also decided to look into mythology for ideas. The gnome is basically a compilation of ideas filched from the various magical "small folk" of real-world mythology; the more mystic skills of dwarfs, household elfs, etc. Of course, when distilled together, the result was... less than impressive. In essence, your D&D gnome tends to come off as a sort of halfbreed of dwarf and elf (not literally -- although there's probably a /d/m out there who's done it that way). Small, dwarf-like humanoids with a big affinity for magic and trickery.

This lackluster place in the game resulted in their tending to be ignored or shunned (even in AD&D, they had to share their racial splatbook with the halflings when elves and dwarfs both got two books to themselves, on for general use and one for the Forgotten Realms), or relegated to the "comedic relief" role.

In fact, gnomes are generally so forgettable that 4th Edition figured nobody would complain about the loss of gnomes in exchange for getting dragonborn and tieflings as new core races. And, to be fair, they were mostly right; more bitching was raised over the loss of the half-orc than over the gnome.

That said, when 4e brought them out, it actually did make them a little interesting, by giving them a default origin as a race of faerie slaves and resistance fighters against the oppression of malevolent giants in the Feywild.

Interestingly, the Pathfinder identity for gnomes is that they are fae beings who need to seek constant stimulation lest they fade away into nothing.

The Tinker Gnome phenomena

As part of the general and ongoing attempt to make gnomes interesting, many settings have tried the path of making them tinkers. The general logic is that they have a vaguely-dwarfish industriousness and affinity for the sciences, but a distinctly undwarfy knack for magic, inventiveness, and prizing the new over the tried, true and traditional. So, they are a logical fit for a race that tries to create new inventions and things. In settings featuring them, dwarves may be better at rune-crafting or forging masterwork gear, but gnomes will be the ones who create steampunk and guns.

The very first example of this was in Mystara, where the gnomish civilization is a flying city-state, defended by manned machine-gun turrets and fully-functional biplanes. Sadly, like most Mystaran stuff, it is generally unknown except to a few ancient neckbeards.

The most famous example, sadly, are the Tinker Gnomes of Dragonlance. Unfortunately, as with the Gully Dwarves and the notorious Kender, Tinker Gnomes were intended to be a Comic Relief race. So, once again, the authors failed to realise that A: traits that make one character amusing often become boring/embarrassing/ridiculous when applied to a whole race, and B: a race that is intended to be playable shouldn't come with traits that seem tailor-made for a character to be used as an excuse to piss off the rest of the party. The end result is that Krynnish Tinker Gnomes are a race of bungling idiots who deliberately overcomplicate their machinery because they find the extremes of Rube Goldberg design to be more aesthetically pleasing and "scientific", and even most gnome-fans hate them. Even in The Complete Book of Gnomes & Halflings, there's quotes from "real" gnomes denying that Tinker Gnomes are any relation to them.

Perhaps fortunately, the tinker gnome phenomena has mostly become associated in the modern era with the gnomes of Warcraft, who are kooky and like to try the outrageous, but also prize functionality and safety (in contrast to goblins, who are happy to risk being blown to bits if it means they get it working faster).