Exactly. I don't understand the gnome hate. They're cool, underground tinkers with magical fey qualities. Much more interesting than dwarves, much better than halflings. Up there with elves as one of my two favourite non-human player races.
Stumbled upon what has become my favourite way to see Gnomes when someone once made a "all the best stuff comes from Gnomeland" joke. If you look at them like people have looked at the Japanese, suddenly they become a lot more interesting. The outside world views them as either wild inventors at the forefront of technology (your Rock Gnome artificers) or staunch spiritual traditionalists (your Forest Gnome wizards and druids) - reality is, while those two "groups" have strong places in the culture, it's hugely more diverse than that and many Gnomes can get quite exasperated when people keep assuming they fit in one group or the other ("Hey, Gnome warrior buddy, be a sport and calm this bear down will ya? You're one of those types, right?"). Transplant over ideas of erasure (everyone always steals ideas from Japanese/Gnommish culture while forgetting they exist) and you've got a fairly easy template for how they fit into the world.
This is a bit like how I use them in a homebrew I'm working on. They occupy a large island nation between the main continent and the rest of the world and control most sea trade. Mine are also a bit Ottoman in that sense, but I also really emphasize the Few connection.
Guys there’s this weird audio glitch in the video where it sounds like you’re saying all these negative things about Gnomes while praising Halflings, when clearly you mean to praise Gnomes and say negative things about Halflings.
Yeah.... I got the same exact feeling. Halflings are way overrated.... just because their Hollywood kin, the Hobbits, did one or two things... I mean seriously!
Gnomes have been around since the 16th century, halflings are latecomers turning up in 1937, so let's be honest, halflings are just gnomes that can't grow a decent beard!
Were they live now, they didnt until a retcon put gnomes in the forgotten realms and they realized it was a perfect spot to throw a bunch of gnomes. they used to live in tethy i think is the name before it went all murder all gnomes and they had an underground railroad to escape. since it was retconned that gnomes were there it made sense that a bunch of gnomes migrated to Lantan since it was so close and culturally ideal.
YES! I played a human who was orphaned in Lantan and raised by gnome chimney sweeps and eventually became an airship captain. He was my first ever character.
Watching this 3 years after it's published, and immediately scoffing at the Gnome minimization and conflating them with Halflings. The Gnome erasure will not stand!
I definitely see gnomes thriving in harsh environments. They only need a fraction of a food a hob- er- I mean, _halfling_ would need, so I could see Gnome communities popping up in arctic or arid lands -- coming and going with the seasons and wild game. Desert Gnomads, if you will.
One thing to keep in mind though is that Gnomes would also freeze more easily due to their smaller size and greater surface area relative to their internal mass, so the arctic regions might be difficult for them :P Although the desert regions could still work!
I think the difference in treatment between gnomes and halflings really boils down to the effect of Lord of the Rings. When you say halfling, people think Frodo and Sam trudging through Mordor, being all emo about their burden. When people hear gnome, they think weirdos that make shoes for stressed out shoemakers. Halflings have the luxury of being associated immediately with a serious fantasy story like the Lord of the Rings while gnomes are just those porcelain statues old people put in their gardens. That or gnomes in stories. Like Rumplestiltskin. Was he a gnome? Sure has a name of one. That sort of image is one that I like. Gnomes being these fey creatures that can be both helpful and malicious. It's that fairytale flair that I love. Never know what to expect from a gnome.
When I hear halfling I do think hobbits but not Frodo and Sam first, I think hobbiton. I think of the chapter Concerning Hobbits that starts LoTR. I guess I'm predisposed to think of Frodo and even Bilbo as aberrations of their races rather then the norm. A hobbit would happily live it's entire life never leaving the shire, might never personally know someone who isn't a hobbit.
In earlier drafts, Tolkien referred to the Noldor as gnomes, as they were the greatest of the elves in crafting and invention. I think I'd prefer that timeline.
The Gnomes in my homebrew world are obsessed with perfect shapes. They carved down their mountain to the 'perfect shape' as viewed by their leader. Unfortunately this often means they have to build new homes when a new leader comes into power. The leader who thought spheres were perfect didn't last very long. He was crushed by the mountainous sphere at the opening ceremony when a really strong gust of wind came through. (And yes, they're tinker gnomes)
I had a 2'4" Forest Gnome spell casting bandit that used a 6' tall +1 trident that allows him to breathe underwater. He is one of my favorite characters in 35 years of gaming! I played many gnomes(most illusionists) in 2E!
Jake 3rd edition originally had Gnomes favoured class be, specifically, the Illusionist specialist of Wizard. In the 3.5e revision they changed Gnomes favoured class to Bard.
I know that a lot of people see gnomes as a joke... So I made a custom setting in which there is an empire or rock gnomes that employs steam punk technology and black gunpowder guns to conquer other kingdoms...
My fiercest character was a mad gnome sorcerer barbarian living on my DMs frozen moon of a setting. Talifergen Screamingwhisper aka Tali would axe murder you if you couldn't convince him you weren't a goblin spy... Gnomes were split into village and barbarian gnomes in his world thanks to my character concept, it was super fun and he went from 1st to 18th level before getting imprisoned in a cursed coin at the end of our campaign.
In my world Gnomes are explorers and researchers, that run the Research Commission from this huge modernized (up to current tech levels in my world) city, that lies at the bottom of a giant green valley. They often send researchers and ambassadors to other lands for political and exploratory purposes.
Frodo is to Halflings, as leprechauns are Gnomes. As a Brit, I think of Gnomes as Irish, Halflings as Welsh, Dwarves as Scotish, and Elves as from the Isles (Jersey, Man, Wight, etc).
Going to have to disagree rally self, the minion system was awesome and just a formalization of how i was already running hordes of enemies 4th edition i also find easiest to run tactical online games. Dragonborn really get their inspiration from Draconians from dragonlance anyway. it was 4th edition that gave them boobs which are now gone.
I kid, I never even played forth but also never been one for the animal races. Glad you enjoy them, DnD has something for everybody. AJ Pickett does a lot great videos on dnd lore and has one on dragon born. ua-cam.com/video/naLOOpyaKYM/v-deo.html
I had to modify them for my setting, y dragons are hermaphrodidic and make clones of themselves like ssome lizard species. The giants and dragons cursed each other in a final battle and that is what caused 9/10 dragon eggs to hatch as dragonborn. I like having a few animal people races but if you have more then a handful then their is no point to lycanthropes. i love A.J pickett, he has awesome lore. i agree DnD has something for each player. i like a more theatric game thats why i prefer 5th edition yet if im in a more tactical group ill play 4th online or 3.5 in person.
I always like to home brew lore and the world when I run a game but just wasn't playing when 4e came out. I did find a game of 5e just a few months ago. It's mostly a dungeon crawl but we spend a lot of time role playing or really making dick and fart jokes in funny voices.
Gnomes from the Dragonlance/Warcraft standpoint always end up in my campaigns. It’s always fun describing a gnome hut/settlement and seeing my players faces range from “Interesting!” to “Is this safe?”
I really like eberron Gnomes. they’re assassins creed 2 davincis. italian inventors with venice as their capital, but are unsuspectfully stabby and have their secrecy
I built a unique place into my world for the gnomes. Namely, when the ancient times of my world violently ended, their finest mages locked their people into a deep slumber and shunted their magical, wondrous city into a demiplane until things stabilized. The unintended side-effect was that the gnomes awoke in modern times with serious amnesia, and have been rediscovering themselves ever since. The forest gnomes, essentially bred to be gardeners and farmers for the massive cities of the ancient past, went out into the world to cultivate and nurture, while the rock gnomes took their analytical, computational, and inventive skills and made a sophisticated society that fulfills most of the world's mathematical and scientific pursuits.
I loved my gnome gunslinger... Rock gnome, Artisan, Artificer gunslinger... I handled picking locks, finding traps, identifying magic items, appraising loot, and smithing
Scanlan Shorthalt from Critical Role definitely confirms what Jim said early on that they just feel like another halfling. Scanlan is gnome only in name, but typical halfling bard through and through!
Gnome bards have always been a thing for me dating at least back to 3.5. There is one campaign I remember playing in about a decade ago where we went "Hey, new guy, why don't you play this gnome bard and you can be awesome support every round of combat?"
My first character was a gnome, which I ran from 1st to 11th level in 2nd Edition AD&D. Our DM had made us roll for race. Ugh. In AD&D being a certain race meant you were restricted to certain classes, so in addition to being a crappy gnome, I had to be an Illusionist instead of (what I perceived to be) a more powerful Evoker. There was nothing I could do but play what i was given, so I grudgingly got into playing my "weak" illusion spells with my dumb gnome and quickly found that I was the most powerful character in the party. Minor illusions allowed us to avoid combat, use traps against enemies, sow dissension and generally wreak havoc. I started to really get into roleplaying the mischevious nature of the Gnomish and devising ever more creative ways of using my illusions and consequently had the most fun i have ever had playing DnD with that character. He is still my favourite charcter i have ever played. Don't knock a gnome til you've tried one.
I think you need to look at gnomes as a halfling elf. You wouldn't say, that elfs are a part of humans. I would see them as a small feyish creater just like a elf.
I used to have a setting where the gnomes were like Aztec pagans that practiced a blend of science and magic. Just throwing the idea out there, for anyone's inspiration.
Gnomes are great and Halflings suck, Thats what you guys ment right. I've played a Gnome wizard/bard who used illusions to tell his stories. Next I've got a Forest Gnome Arcane Archer to play, can't wait.
I'm new to dnd so I read through everything I could find and just really loved forest gnomes and druids. I planned on being a hippy type of gnome who was peaceful and one with nature. But then on her first outing, a rude NPC pissed her off and my hippy gnome druid started a bar fight. Later she shapeshifted into a roach to case a bank for a robbery. She also brews weak health potions for our entire group. I play her very seriously and I think my group has found her very useful ... aside from that first bar fight 😁
Gnomes in my setting are shadowfell beings created by a race of technologically advanced inter-cosmic nomads to be assistants and servants. They were simply left around after that race harvested what they needed from the prime material. That race was basically a master race of Halflings from a universe where halflings conquered every known race on each plane. Dwarf tech is based on Gnome tech.
I kind of see gnomes as the condensed version of larger races. Like race concentrate. All the foresty magic of the elves is boiled down into a forest gnome. All the craftiness of the dwarf is distilled down into a rock gnome. Which is what you would expect from a Fey race... one aspect of a thing, taken to almost absurd levels.
In my world I've gone with gnomes as a race of engineers as a sort of extension on the tinkering trope. They are relatively reclusive, and both exist as a later of mystery to the world and as a tool to handwave away why certain things like airships and trains exist.
really? I akin them to Elves and Goblins far more than halflings, outside size. fey connection, often trapped on the material plane for 1000's of years. mine are typically all magical crazy tinkers, a step closer to the wild and erratic Fey side. a sort of 'elves adapted themselves to thier new world, gnomes try to adapt the new world to the whimsy of the fey.' without going to the full wild extent of satyrs and pixies and such.
In my homebrew campaign, Gnomes have one of the largest empires in the world. Despite them taking the smallest continent as their own, they technically have the largest due to how far the dig into it. Forst gnomes come from the surface forests, rock gnomes from the cities to the coast and deep gnomes from deeper down. My players have majoritivly only been playing in this continent, which means that theyre all about 2ft taller than all the other humanoids around them. Also, their origin is that they were created by the first fey lords who colognised the material plane as servants. The forest gnomes were those who remained slaves the longest, and the other two escaped deep into the ground to escape their servitude.
Guys! What’s up here? Jim Davis, you have been my favorite talking head in the D&D realm because you have always been able to discuss a subject pretty even-handedly. This video came off as a super negative discussion around the topic of gnomes. My feeling is that if you don’t have a strong notion of what to do with the race from a story perspective then you should allow the player to bear the burden of bringing that story and flavor to the table. I love the gnome as a PC race (obviously), and I have seen several great gnome characters come to the table. The “pretend it’s a halfling” advice is seriously disappointing. Anyway, otherwise, I liked the commentary and plan to continue watching the most engaging D&D vlog on the UA-cams in the future.
Jeff Vaden because gnomes are shit. Period lol, im surprised people like thrm at all. In all my years of playing the only people who played gnomes are powergamers. And even then they dont actually LIKE being a gnome.
In my campaign world (that currently is only in my head) Rock gnomes (or crag gnomes) are the creators of the warforged and have a clockpunk aesthetic instead of the steampunk dwarfs. They were an island nation and had a civil war that ended with effectively a magical nuke going off shattering the island.
in my homebrew world, I made gnomes exiles from the feywilds - now they are basically the Gypsies. they travel in little vardo house trailers pulled by peacocks the size of ostriches (called a gypsy bird) - and they are like a carnival coming to town.
I made an NPC for my home game. Living in the elven wood as the court arcanist for the wood elf archdruid. I just used the Transmuter NPC, but made her a little forest gnome with pink hair. Had her animate objects for an archery contest and basically MC the games for a spring festival.
engywook and urgl from the neverending story are to me the best example of ingenious, clever and utterly crazy gnomes. With this in mind, I can define quite clearly the distinction between them and the halflings. They are 2 distinct sub species from a common fey ancestor.
A Forrest Gnome Paladin is, actually, really solid. Due to Gnome Cunning giving you Advantage on the 3 mental stats against spells, if you go for a Dexadin, you're granted good DEX saving throws, which all only get better once your aura kicks off. You practically have the Diamond Soul ability in regards to the saving throws that will come up in a game (and way before the monk gets anything similar).
Future editions of the game need to drop Halflings and replace them with Gnomes. Forest Gnomes are natural illusionists and Rock Gnomes are tinkerers. Halflings were only originally included in D&D because of the Tolkien influence, they lack character and because they love the comforts of home they have no need to adventure. It would be a bold move but makes sense as Gnomes have much more character than Halflings. (Also the artwork for Halflings in 5e is so much worse than in 3.0!) Further Forest and Rock Gnomes are different from each other but there is little to distinguish a Lightfoot from a Stout Halfling. To accommodate for the loss of Halflings move Aasimar to the Players Handbook (it makes zero sense to include Tieflings but not Aasimar as a race in the PHB)
I like the race videos you guys are throwing down. They provide some interesting perspectives and inspiration. In my setting Gnomes actually play a pretty critical role (no pun intended). They are the magic savants, not the elves. In order to stop the advance of the Dwarven Hordes (mentioned in the Dwarf video comment) they set off a "Atomic Bomb". Essentially the Mana Bomb from WoW but much like in our own WWII, they weren't entirely aware of the scope of its effect and it has created a world wide instability in the flows of magic, creating pockets/bubbles where magic doesn't act reliably, opening portals to different planes, etc.
Forest Gnomes are great Land Druids. They aren't interested in giant wildshapes, just hanging with their little friends. And they are wonderful sages, full of knowledge of the small parts of nature. Illusions do show up in their spell list, eventually, and having a druid as part of their community would be huge for defense and warding off trouble.
The gnome actually might be my favorite of the races because of that, as you say, fey-type association. As for the idea of a gnome bard archetype, the 3e PHB has bard as the gnome's favored class (back when that was a thing). I'm actually playing a gnome bard right now, and it's given me a fantastic role playing opportunity. In my homebrew campaign setting, gnomes are Irish-inspired, so I tied that in with the gnome's inventive and tinker-ish nature in such a way that he "invented" what in the real world are Uilleann pipes. Can't wait to see your video on dragonborn. You guys are awesome.
For me a fun bit of flavor in my home settings is that gnomes are immune to any type of non-magical weather/exposure exhaustion. My gnomes are very connected to nature whether it be the forest, mountains, or caves, I would always assume a gnome can manage to hunker down into a little nest or nook and be safe. They dig their own burrow, or maybe borrow shelter from a ground mammal or tree they told a funny joke to, they are feylike and mysterious but in a wholesome way. It's not some mechanically dominating change but I think it helps point my players in the right direction for the gnomes in my universe.
For me, halflings were created to serve and humble the pride of the dragonborn, keeping them in line from becoming too proud and pompous and reminding them of the simple pleasures in life. Halfling Draconic sorcerers are common as a result. As for gnomes, I lean into the fey aspects: forest gnomes coexist with wood elves, like your description of them watching over the small critters of the land; rock gnomes coexist with high elves, developing the technological side of the high magic elves practice. Also, gnomes and goblins all came from the same common ancestor in my world, so there's that too.
I play a 200 year old gnome wizard named Grizwold Grizbang who has a folk hero background but no bard so he performs ballads about himself- truly the most fun character I’ve ever played
Awesome... now yall got me watching David the gnome. An hour ago I had no idea this show existed. Now I'm watching a 6 inch, 300g gnome perform eye surgery on a badger for, all the sake of friendship.
I love running for my gnomes. They both play up the troublemaker role and, while at times their size makes them the butt of some jokes, they definitely shine through as some of the most epic and bdh heroes I have. I endearingly call them my murder gnomes. I have a halfling that I run for as well, and the baked-in attitude is totally different: more caring, less magical; more of a struggle with more evident fear of danger. That’s all how they play the characters, but each race offers different character opportunities that the other couldn’t easily deliver.
With the critical role example the reason he is a gnome bard is because gnomes in Pathfinder (which is what their group started with) get a +2 to charisma and Constitution with a penalty to strength. Perfect for a bard. Not to mention the bonuses on illusion magic
I made gnomes in my world isolationists, who have advanced technology and a distrust for many of the other races because of past wars. They possess heavily fortified cities patrolled by mechanical constructs and the perimeters of their lands and cities are seeded with clever trips. The forest gnomes serve as the keepers of knowledge, druids/clerics, advisers to the ruler, and providers of food. The rock gnomes serve as the soldiers, scientists and artisans of the nation. They rule the land through a council of forest and rock gnomes who choose the king every thousand years.
David the Gnome! I loved that show man, it was so cool and so weird. To me Rock Gnomes are culturally related to Dwarves but distinct from them. They live in the same communities as dwarves and are generally the artisans at the end of the mining, processing cycle. No one makes a better blade than a gnome, or jewelry that can kill you, or an automated forge so the dwarves can produce all those epic axes. In general Gnomes have no homeland of their own and are an entire race of refugees. This is because their hubris was nearly the entire world's undoing. Once they had the most marvelous city. It was a techno-magical marvel and they were the centre of knowledge while humans were still scraping two rocks together and trying to make fire. The city of golden spheres floated in the caldera of an active volcano and harnessed its energy to power their magical experiments. At the end these involved long distance transportation through the voids between worlds without crossing space. Long story short things went very, very wrong. The city collapsed sinking into the earth and disappearing into the underdark , all of their knowledge was lost and they put the world in great peril. Because of this some decided to reject their technological ways and return to the old ways of caring for nature and being one with the land. Others craved a return to their glory and pursue that ancient knowledge one invention at a time. The deep gnomes, those who sank with the lost city, were enslaved by the denizens of the underdark and became a grim folk who think only of survival and do not dream of the workings of the universe. Except for the deep gnomes it is custom for few gnomes to congregate in large numbers for fear their natures will spur on an explosion of creative drive and they will rocket towards calamity again. Some still dream of finding the lost city, its gleaming orbs containing the lost knowledge of the gnomes. Others think it is better it stays lost if it ever existed at all.
Hello from a year and a half into your future! I know I'm late to the party, but since Gnomes are my favourite D&D race I feel the need to come to their defense: I think it's fairly easy to define Gnomes from Halflings by two distinct traits... Firstly they're far more industrious. Forest Gnomes, from the tradition of the Kabouter/Klabauter, might be fey-like guardians of nature but they'd still make regular use of non-destructive technologies like watermills and windmills. They need that infrastructure because to my mind they're not simply acting on a whim, pulling the occasional thorn from an infrequent rabbit's foot; instead they're running clinics to treat and heal *all* the small creatures of the forest; they're organising working-bees to help *all* the squirrels store enough acorns for a long winter; they're farming giant mushroom-houses in situ, growing whole villages in new forest copses; etc. Similarly the Rock Gnomes aren't carving out enormous caverns like the Dwarves do; they're not building Moria. They mine carefully and purposefully, in pursuit of rare elements. They don't treat the pickaxe as some kind of noble artifact, and mining for them is just a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Hell, it's a job for drilling automatons wherever possible... The ends are all those fantastical things which Gnomes can create from the rare minerals and gems they recover from the earth. The second trait, which Jim seems to have hit on, is that Gnomes always struck me as natural riders. They're more like Rohirrim or Dothraki at 1/4 scale than they are Halflings or Dwarves... Again, in my mind and in my homebrew this is because they always feel compelled to compensate for their small stature when dealing with the larger races. They're just as intelligent, just as capable, and yet I always imagine how hard it must be to feel like someone is taking you seriously when you only come up to their knees. So Forest Gnomes ride forest creatures: Wolves, Deer, Eagles, Goats, etc. Their children grow up riding foxes and squirrels, and it's all done in a reciprocal pact with those creatures, not through domestication or subjugation. Rock Gnomes might ride in automatons, warforged, auto-mobile carts or clockwork spiders, etc. But in both cases, whenever they're in a position to deal with the larger races I imagine they'd favour any conveyance which puts them at or near an eye-level between 4ft-5ft. [EDIT] In my homebrew setting it's the Rock Gnomes that invent blackpowder. It's still their exclusive technology, and it gives them a class of ranged weaponry equivalent to heavy crossbows and longbows. This has granted them a kind of independent military parity which they'd previously lacked... But it's their effort to share this technology with their Forest brethren which is creating a schism with the other fey races. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, is the further idea that the Forest Gnomes unknowingly hold the key to the future development of nitrocellulose smokeless powder. :)
I now want to create a rock gnome artificer/necromancer. He gives slaughtered animals a chance for vengeance by constructing sturdier bodies and then animates them.
In my games Gnomes are really good with money. And there is a gnome in every bag of holding or portable hole and keep track of everything and is the thing that hands the players what they need when the reach in.
I love gnomes! Played a forest gnome rogue/cleric, thief and trickery. This is suicide mechanically, but she was tons of fun to roleplay. A charlatan, con artist, burglar who happens to actually be a priest.
I personally like having my gnomes be similar to El Dorado or Wakanda in the fact that they keep to themselves, so they're very rare, but since they tinker, they have huge technological capabilities that surpass the other races. The rock gnomes are the inventors, and the forest gnomes are more magically inclined and are the magical guardians of the gnomish secrets.
I played a gnome and loved her. Rin was 2 levels of druid and the rest was wolf totem barbarian (we played up to level 6). You mentioned "feral gnome" and that was entirely my premise. Forest gnome that turns dire wolf and kills (but never hurts the little critters)! She was fun. I loved playing the disparity between "I'm going to coo at your pet" to "I'm going to rip your head off with my teeth." She may have been a little insane. :)
I am playing a rock gnome archer (fighter) and one mechanical issue is that they can't use longbows or heavy crossbows easily because both have the "heavy" property. So there is a damage hit (or an accuracy hit if you use the weapons anyway). It is just 1 point of damage per shot on average to scale down to the non-heavy versions of those weapons. I think the reason they have less of a place is historical. In AD&D they were described as smaller "cousins" of dwarves...with not much more flavor than that, but they came across as light-hearted and good-natured as compared to the grim and dour dwarves. Theor "illusionist" specialty lent itself to their being pranksters (although there may have been some other source of that trait). Then came Dragonlance...and suddenly the formerly hobbit-like, homebody, adventure-hating halflings became kender who came off as light-hearted and good-natured pranksters (although it seemed like they had only one prank, stealing your crap, but I guess they would also make spooky noises with their hoopak). The gnome's place in the game, personality-wise was "borrowed" by the kender, I guess you could say. That version of the kender, or at least the light-hearted and good-natured parts then became normal for halflings, leaving gnomes increasingly indistinct. So, how have they survived? I suspect they exist in 5e because when they were relegated to the Monster Manual in 4e, players who were fans of gnomes used it as even more evidence that 4e was going to suck and the developers were destroying our childhoods and secretly hate D&D (or something like that). WOTC even made a very charming video to address the fans: ua-cam.com/video/4UqFPujRZWo/v-deo.html I suspect for 5e they didn't want to return (or remind anyone of) to the issue...as remember the success of 5e was far from guaranteed. It could have fractured the fan base further without growing it, especially as 4e was not all that old. I am surprised that there was no reference to the two gnomes in Critical Role's "season 1". I have never has a party with two PC gnomes ever, so that was a notable oddity to me. Finally, gnomes make decent Eldritch Knights, which didn't get mentioned. The intelligence bonus helps their spells and either a Dex bump or a Constitution bump is useful in the class. My current gnome character is an Arcane Archer, and the Int bump helps him there too.
You could have gnomes be the Tom Bombadil's of the D&D world - kind of along the lines with that you've described. Making them more fey related or "touched." Or alternatively maybe you could explain gnomes' lack of homeland by suggesting they once came from some specific place, but that they were all driven from their ancestral home by a dragon invasion - or if their ancestral lands were underground then maybe they were run out by the creation or expansion of the Drow into their subterranean homeland. For this reason all gnomes could have some cultural traits that come from having been expelled from their sacred lands - burning desires by all gnomes to one day re-take their homelands - or they could be listless/rootless wanderers or long-lived peripatetic sages that may join adventuring parties to expand their horizons or understanding of the wider world. Perhaps they are even bizarrely claustrophobic now b/c they have psychologically accepted no longer living underground or feel the underground world (and by association cramped or dark places) are places of mortal danger and terror.
My homebrew solution is to make Gnomes half-elf/half-dwarves and depending on the more dominant genetics or which parent/culture they spend most of their time with is whether they're rock or forest. Also halflings are half dwarf/humans. It solves some logic holes in the setting and saves a bunch of time on lore.
We WILL still be doing dragonborn, people! Thank you for watching! Need more Web DM in your life? Check out our podcast here: Patreon.com/webdm
Web DM I was about to say what about dragon born
You say you’re going to do Dragonborn, but what about Dragon-Blooded? You’ve got the core right behind Pruitt.
Also have to do tabaxi
Half elves?
Web DM
But what of the half elves?
Why don't gnomes have homelands?
They're gnomadic
Wah waaah
Immortalduck891 groan......
Leave
Wonderful
You just won youtube.
Are you kidding me?
Gnomes rule! They have all the coolest features of halflings, elves, and dwarves...
Besides, halflings don't exist.
Exactly. I don't understand the gnome hate. They're cool, underground tinkers with magical fey qualities. Much more interesting than dwarves, much better than halflings. Up there with elves as one of my two favourite non-human player races.
Setting Idea: Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings are all descendants of the Gnomes who are seen as the mythic precursors.
Stumbled upon what has become my favourite way to see Gnomes when someone once made a "all the best stuff comes from Gnomeland" joke. If you look at them like people have looked at the Japanese, suddenly they become a lot more interesting. The outside world views them as either wild inventors at the forefront of technology (your Rock Gnome artificers) or staunch spiritual traditionalists (your Forest Gnome wizards and druids) - reality is, while those two "groups" have strong places in the culture, it's hugely more diverse than that and many Gnomes can get quite exasperated when people keep assuming they fit in one group or the other ("Hey, Gnome warrior buddy, be a sport and calm this bear down will ya? You're one of those types, right?"). Transplant over ideas of erasure (everyone always steals ideas from Japanese/Gnommish culture while forgetting they exist) and you've got a fairly easy template for how they fit into the world.
pieoverlord Very interesting. I like it
This is a bit like how I use them in a homebrew I'm working on. They occupy a large island nation between the main continent and the rest of the world and control most sea trade. Mine are also a bit Ottoman in that sense, but I also really emphasize the Few connection.
Guys there’s this weird audio glitch in the video where it sounds like you’re saying all these negative things about Gnomes while praising Halflings, when clearly you mean to praise Gnomes and say negative things about Halflings.
Inquisitor Thomas weird for me actually the glitch makes it sound like they bash Kobolds at one point, but that can't be right...
Anyone who bashes a kobold is left in KFC, where they learn the first rule of KFC quick.
Yup yip
Yeah.... I got the same exact feeling. Halflings are way overrated.... just because their Hollywood kin, the Hobbits, did one or two things... I mean seriously!
Gnomes have been around since the 16th century, halflings are latecomers turning up in 1937, so let's be honest, halflings are just gnomes that can't grow a decent beard!
we should stand together against the big folk, not do their work and fight each other! damn whoever god created those races so unreasonably tall
Lantan is the name of the place where forgotten realms gnomes live. They protect their high tech from outsiders. The island is near chult.
Leonardo Matias +
Needs moar likes. And a pin.
Were they live now, they didnt until a retcon put gnomes in the forgotten realms and they realized it was a perfect spot to throw a bunch of gnomes. they used to live in tethy i think is the name before it went all murder all gnomes and they had an underground railroad to escape. since it was retconned that gnomes were there it made sense that a bunch of gnomes migrated to Lantan since it was so close and culturally ideal.
Watch out for those gnomes. They pack heat.
Nothing like a geeky-looking shorty with a gat.
YES! I played a human who was orphaned in Lantan and raised by gnome chimney sweeps and eventually became an airship captain. He was my first ever character.
There's no race like gnome
I think you meant "There's GNOME race like gnomes"
The wholesome love of Gnomes ive been reading in the comment section makes me happy.
Excellent gnomenclature, gnomesayin'.
Watching this 3 years after it's published, and immediately scoffing at the Gnome minimization and conflating them with Halflings. The Gnome erasure will not stand!
You're saying they're from... Gnome Man's Land?
I definitely see gnomes thriving in harsh environments. They only need a fraction of a food a hob- er- I mean, _halfling_ would need, so I could see Gnome communities popping up in arctic or arid lands -- coming and going with the seasons and wild game.
Desert Gnomads, if you will.
One thing to keep in mind though is that Gnomes would also freeze more easily due to their smaller size and greater surface area relative to their internal mass, so the arctic regions might be difficult for them :P
Although the desert regions could still work!
I've had desert gnomads in my campaign world for years.
I think the difference in treatment between gnomes and halflings really boils down to the effect of Lord of the Rings. When you say halfling, people think Frodo and Sam trudging through Mordor, being all emo about their burden. When people hear gnome, they think weirdos that make shoes for stressed out shoemakers. Halflings have the luxury of being associated immediately with a serious fantasy story like the Lord of the Rings while gnomes are just those porcelain statues old people put in their gardens.
That or gnomes in stories. Like Rumplestiltskin. Was he a gnome? Sure has a name of one. That sort of image is one that I like. Gnomes being these fey creatures that can be both helpful and malicious. It's that fairytale flair that I love. Never know what to expect from a gnome.
Totally Agree, which is why I draw my gnomish influence from Gravity Falls ;)
When I hear halfling I do think hobbits but not Frodo and Sam first, I think hobbiton. I think of the chapter Concerning Hobbits that starts LoTR. I guess I'm predisposed to think of Frodo and even Bilbo as aberrations of their races rather then the norm. A hobbit would happily live it's entire life never leaving the shire, might never personally know someone who isn't a hobbit.
In earlier drafts, Tolkien referred to the Noldor as gnomes, as they were the greatest of the elves in crafting and invention. I think I'd prefer that timeline.
I like my gnomes to be laid back.
The Gnomes in my homebrew world are obsessed with perfect shapes. They carved down their mountain to the 'perfect shape' as viewed by their leader. Unfortunately this often means they have to build new homes when a new leader comes into power. The leader who thought spheres were perfect didn't last very long. He was crushed by the mountainous sphere at the opening ceremony when a really strong gust of wind came through. (And yes, they're tinker gnomes)
Also, this has caused a large chunk of the mountain range around them to be completely flat.
Sounds like Doozers. Nice
No mention of Gar Glittergold :(
I had a 2'4" Forest Gnome spell casting bandit that used a 6' tall +1 trident that allows him to breathe underwater. He is one of my favorite characters in 35 years of gaming! I played many gnomes(most illusionists) in 2E!
Pretty sure the Gnome bard thing started in 3rd Edition, with favored classes and everything.
Jake 3rd edition originally had Gnomes favoured class be, specifically, the Illusionist specialist of Wizard. In the 3.5e revision they changed Gnomes favoured class to Bard.
Ah, never played 3.0. I assumed it was the same because that seems like a dumb thing to change.
2nd edition had illusionist-thief as the favored (multi)class for gnomes.
I don't think it has to do with flavored classes but rather with the gnome being the only race with a Cha bonus in the phb
Alex Bermann incorrect, gnomes don't have a cha bonus. int and con/dex.
It's older than Critical Role. One of the 3.5 iconics was a gnome bard.
Yeah, Gimble, who always struck me as one of the cooler looking characters in the art.
Gimble the Bard was a pimp.
I am playing a gnome playful trickster rouge with entertainer background. I had to resist the urge to name him Gimble the Nimble.
That thumbnail is amazing
Weird, it seems like you somehow think that gnomes and halflings are basically the same thing, but that can't be right. Right?
(way late to this party but...) it seems to be like the think gnomes are Diet Halfling.
This is great inspiration for my wizard tinker gnome, Cleophrastus Bombastus!
Someday, I shall play a gnome barbarian named Tottleby Tempertoss. I wish for him to be thrown at his enemies.
Fastball special
I know that a lot of people see gnomes as a joke... So I made a custom setting in which there is an empire or rock gnomes that employs steam punk technology and black gunpowder guns to conquer other kingdoms...
Jan Rudzki i did the very same, except they have a hidden megacity sculpted on the side of a cliff
"Nome. Alaska". Took me a moment, but I gnome a good pun when I hear one.
My fiercest character was a mad gnome sorcerer barbarian living on my DMs frozen moon of a setting. Talifergen Screamingwhisper aka Tali would axe murder you if you couldn't convince him you weren't a goblin spy...
Gnomes were split into village and barbarian gnomes in his world thanks to my character concept, it was super fun and he went from 1st to 18th level before getting imprisoned in a cursed coin at the end of our campaign.
@Jake Sangria roll for it.
@Jake Sangria i was actually playing MUD/MUSH rps around then, Dark Metal was my favorite, but they had similar dice rolling commands for that
In my world Gnomes are explorers and researchers, that run the Research Commission from this huge modernized (up to current tech levels in my world) city, that lies at the bottom of a giant green valley. They often send researchers and ambassadors to other lands for political and exploratory purposes.
Frodo is to Halflings, as leprechauns are Gnomes. As a Brit, I think of Gnomes as Irish, Halflings as Welsh, Dwarves as Scotish, and Elves as from the Isles (Jersey, Man, Wight, etc).
Burly D ha!
That's great and all...
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But what about the dragonborn?
Anything that's a carry over from forth edition should be burned with fire. Sadly that doesn't work on dragonborn.
Going to have to disagree rally self, the minion system was awesome and just a formalization of how i was already running hordes of enemies 4th edition i also find easiest to run tactical online games. Dragonborn really get their inspiration from Draconians from dragonlance anyway. it was 4th edition that gave them boobs which are now gone.
I kid, I never even played forth but also never been one for the animal races. Glad you enjoy them, DnD has something for everybody. AJ Pickett does a lot great videos on dnd lore and has one on dragon born.
ua-cam.com/video/naLOOpyaKYM/v-deo.html
I had to modify them for my setting, y dragons are hermaphrodidic and make clones of themselves like ssome lizard species. The giants and dragons cursed each other in a final battle and that is what caused 9/10 dragon eggs to hatch as dragonborn. I like having a few animal people races but if you have more then a handful then their is no point to lycanthropes. i love A.J pickett, he has awesome lore. i agree DnD has something for each player. i like a more theatric game thats why i prefer 5th edition yet if im in a more tactical group ill play 4th online or 3.5 in person.
I always like to home brew lore and the world when I run a game but just wasn't playing when 4e came out. I did find a game of 5e just a few months ago. It's mostly a dungeon crawl but we spend a lot of time role playing or really making dick and fart jokes in funny voices.
I don't like halflings, but Gnomes are the best.
Gnomes from the Dragonlance/Warcraft standpoint always end up in my campaigns. It’s always fun describing a gnome hut/settlement and seeing my players faces range from “Interesting!” to “Is this safe?”
Gnomes fit in as a technologically advanced race
I really like eberron Gnomes. they’re assassins creed 2 davincis. italian inventors with venice as their capital, but are unsuspectfully stabby and have their secrecy
In the Forgotten Realms, Gnomes come from the island of Lantan.
Haflings smoke weed, gnomes build robots
Gnomes in forgotten realms are from island of Lantan, and they were the quintessential steampunk gnomes, long before WOW popularized it.
I built a unique place into my world for the gnomes. Namely, when the ancient times of my world violently ended, their finest mages locked their people into a deep slumber and shunted their magical, wondrous city into a demiplane until things stabilized. The unintended side-effect was that the gnomes awoke in modern times with serious amnesia, and have been rediscovering themselves ever since. The forest gnomes, essentially bred to be gardeners and farmers for the massive cities of the ancient past, went out into the world to cultivate and nurture, while the rock gnomes took their analytical, computational, and inventive skills and made a sophisticated society that fulfills most of the world's mathematical and scientific pursuits.
I loved my gnome gunslinger... Rock gnome, Artisan, Artificer gunslinger... I handled picking locks, finding traps, identifying magic items, appraising loot, and smithing
Scanlan Shorthalt from Critical Role definitely confirms what Jim said early on that they just feel like another halfling. Scanlan is gnome only in name, but typical halfling bard through and through!
To much Gnome racisms going on. GNOMERCY!!!!!
I just joined my first party and semi-randomly picked the forest gnome. This conversation was really thought provoking. Thanks!
Gnome bards have always been a thing for me dating at least back to 3.5. There is one campaign I remember playing in about a decade ago where we went "Hey, new guy, why don't you play this gnome bard and you can be awesome support every round of combat?"
Gnomes are my favorite. They are funny, fun, happy, good hearted, curious, intelligent, magical and just awesome.
My first character was a gnome, which I ran from 1st to 11th level in 2nd Edition AD&D. Our DM had made us roll for race. Ugh. In AD&D being a certain race meant you were restricted to certain classes, so in addition to being a crappy gnome, I had to be an Illusionist instead of (what I perceived to be) a more powerful Evoker. There was nothing I could do but play what i was given, so I grudgingly got into playing my "weak" illusion spells with my dumb gnome and quickly found that I was the most powerful character in the party. Minor illusions allowed us to avoid combat, use traps against enemies, sow dissension and generally wreak havoc. I started to really get into roleplaying the mischevious nature of the Gnomish and devising ever more creative ways of using my illusions and consequently had the most fun i have ever had playing DnD with that character. He is still my favourite charcter i have ever played. Don't knock a gnome til you've tried one.
I think you need to look at gnomes as a halfling elf. You wouldn't say, that elfs are a part of humans. I would see them as a small feyish creater just like a elf.
Gnomes advantage on half of all magical saving throws is pretty dang nuts. They are cool
I used to have a setting where the gnomes were like Aztec pagans that practiced a blend of science and magic. Just throwing the idea out there, for anyone's inspiration.
Gnomes are great and Halflings suck, Thats what you guys ment right. I've played a Gnome wizard/bard who used illusions to tell his stories. Next I've got a Forest Gnome Arcane Archer to play, can't wait.
Chaotic Monk you have it backsards sir. Gnomes could be erased from the game and nothing would change and nobody would notice or care
The island of Lantan was a society of gnomes
I'm new to dnd so I read through everything I could find and just really loved forest gnomes and druids. I planned on being a hippy type of gnome who was peaceful and one with nature. But then on her first outing, a rude NPC pissed her off and my hippy gnome druid started a bar fight. Later she shapeshifted into a roach to case a bank for a robbery. She also brews weak health potions for our entire group. I play her very seriously and I think my group has found her very useful ... aside from that first bar fight 😁
Gnomes are from Hardbuckler! Just east of the Trielta Hills!
Gnomes in my setting are shadowfell beings created by a race of technologically advanced inter-cosmic nomads to be assistants and servants. They were simply left around after that race harvested what they needed from the prime material. That race was basically a master race of Halflings from a universe where halflings conquered every known race on each plane. Dwarf tech is based on Gnome tech.
I kind of see gnomes as the condensed version of larger races. Like race concentrate. All the foresty magic of the elves is boiled down into a forest gnome. All the craftiness of the dwarf is distilled down into a rock gnome. Which is what you would expect from a Fey race... one aspect of a thing, taken to almost absurd levels.
I think this is the first time I noticed the Crown Royal dice bag, classic!
In my world I've gone with gnomes as a race of engineers as a sort of extension on the tinkering trope. They are relatively reclusive, and both exist as a later of mystery to the world and as a tool to handwave away why certain things like airships and trains exist.
really? I akin them to Elves and Goblins far more than halflings, outside size. fey connection, often trapped on the material plane for 1000's of years. mine are typically all magical crazy tinkers, a step closer to the wild and erratic Fey side. a sort of 'elves adapted themselves to thier new world, gnomes try to adapt the new world to the whimsy of the fey.' without going to the full wild extent of satyrs and pixies and such.
In my homebrew campaign, Gnomes have one of the largest empires in the world. Despite them taking the smallest continent as their own, they technically have the largest due to how far the dig into it. Forst gnomes come from the surface forests, rock gnomes from the cities to the coast and deep gnomes from deeper down. My players have majoritivly only been playing in this continent, which means that theyre all about 2ft taller than all the other humanoids around them.
Also, their origin is that they were created by the first fey lords who colognised the material plane as servants. The forest gnomes were those who remained slaves the longest, and the other two escaped deep into the ground to escape their servitude.
The way Gnomes are depicted in path finder are great.
Guys! What’s up here? Jim Davis, you have been my favorite talking head in the D&D realm because you have always been able to discuss a subject pretty even-handedly. This video came off as a super negative discussion around the topic of gnomes. My feeling is that if you don’t have a strong notion of what to do with the race from a story perspective then you should allow the player to bear the burden of bringing that story and flavor to the table. I love the gnome as a PC race (obviously), and I have seen several great gnome characters come to the table. The “pretend it’s a halfling” advice is seriously disappointing. Anyway, otherwise, I liked the commentary and plan to continue watching the most engaging D&D vlog on the UA-cams in the future.
Jeff Vaden because gnomes are shit. Period lol, im surprised people like thrm at all. In all my years of playing the only people who played gnomes are powergamers. And even then they dont actually LIKE being a gnome.
Johnathan Era well your opinion is hardly objective then.
In my campaign world (that currently is only in my head) Rock gnomes (or crag gnomes) are the creators of the warforged and have a clockpunk aesthetic instead of the steampunk dwarfs. They were an island nation and had a civil war that ended with effectively a magical nuke going off shattering the island.
in my homebrew world, I made gnomes exiles from the feywilds - now they are basically the Gypsies. they travel in little vardo house trailers pulled by peacocks the size of ostriches (called a gypsy bird) - and they are like a carnival coming to town.
I made an NPC for my home game. Living in the elven wood as the court arcanist for the wood elf archdruid. I just used the Transmuter NPC, but made her a little forest gnome with pink hair. Had her animate objects for an archery contest and basically MC the games for a spring festival.
engywook and urgl from the neverending story are to me the best example of ingenious, clever and utterly crazy gnomes. With this in mind, I can define quite clearly the distinction between them and the halflings. They are 2 distinct sub species from a common fey ancestor.
A Forrest Gnome Paladin is, actually, really solid. Due to Gnome Cunning giving you Advantage on the 3 mental stats against spells, if you go for a Dexadin, you're granted good DEX saving throws, which all only get better once your aura kicks off. You practically have the Diamond Soul ability in regards to the saving throws that will come up in a game (and way before the monk gets anything similar).
Future editions of the game need to drop Halflings and replace them with Gnomes. Forest Gnomes are natural illusionists and Rock Gnomes are tinkerers. Halflings were only originally included in D&D because of the Tolkien influence, they lack character and because they love the comforts of home they have no need to adventure.
It would be a bold move but makes sense as Gnomes have much more character than Halflings. (Also the artwork for Halflings in 5e is so much worse than in 3.0!)
Further Forest and Rock Gnomes are different from each other but there is little to distinguish a Lightfoot from a Stout Halfling. To accommodate for the loss of Halflings move Aasimar to the Players Handbook (it makes zero sense to include Tieflings but not Aasimar as a race in the PHB)
Everything said here about Halflings is wrong and you should feel bad.
Lantan, I believe, is the homeland of the gnomes in Forgotten Realms, right?
I like the race videos you guys are throwing down. They provide some interesting perspectives and inspiration.
In my setting Gnomes actually play a pretty critical role (no pun intended). They are the magic savants, not the elves. In order to stop the advance of the Dwarven Hordes (mentioned in the Dwarf video comment) they set off a "Atomic Bomb". Essentially the Mana Bomb from WoW but much like in our own WWII, they weren't entirely aware of the scope of its effect and it has created a world wide instability in the flows of magic, creating pockets/bubbles where magic doesn't act reliably, opening portals to different planes, etc.
I came up with a forest gnome nature cleric and I love him.
Forest Gnomes are great Land Druids. They aren't interested in giant wildshapes, just hanging with their little friends. And they are wonderful sages, full of knowledge of the small parts of nature. Illusions do show up in their spell list, eventually, and having a druid as part of their community would be huge for defense and warding off trouble.
The gnome actually might be my favorite of the races because of that, as you say, fey-type association. As for the idea of a gnome bard archetype, the 3e PHB has bard as the gnome's favored class (back when that was a thing). I'm actually playing a gnome bard right now, and it's given me a fantastic role playing opportunity. In my homebrew campaign setting, gnomes are Irish-inspired, so I tied that in with the gnome's inventive and tinker-ish nature in such a way that he "invented" what in the real world are Uilleann pipes. Can't wait to see your video on dragonborn. You guys are awesome.
How about a gnome barbarian who's flung onto the party's enemies to murder them?
For me a fun bit of flavor in my home settings is that gnomes are immune to any type of non-magical weather/exposure exhaustion. My gnomes are very connected to nature whether it be the forest, mountains, or caves, I would always assume a gnome can manage to hunker down into a little nest or nook and be safe. They dig their own burrow, or maybe borrow shelter from a ground mammal or tree they told a funny joke to, they are feylike and mysterious but in a wholesome way.
It's not some mechanically dominating change but I think it helps point my players in the right direction for the gnomes in my universe.
For me, halflings were created to serve and humble the pride of the dragonborn, keeping them in line from becoming too proud and pompous and reminding them of the simple pleasures in life. Halfling Draconic sorcerers are common as a result. As for gnomes, I lean into the fey aspects: forest gnomes coexist with wood elves, like your description of them watching over the small critters of the land; rock gnomes coexist with high elves, developing the technological side of the high magic elves practice. Also, gnomes and goblins all came from the same common ancestor in my world, so there's that too.
I play a 200 year old gnome wizard named Grizwold Grizbang who has a folk hero background but no bard so he performs ballads about himself- truly the most fun character I’ve ever played
Gnomes are what you get when a dwarf gets frisky with a halfling.
Gnomes are great in Pathfinder since they're centered around firearm creation and industrial age technology.
In our setting, Rock Gnomes were the ones responsible for the creation of the Warforged
Awesome... now yall got me watching David the gnome. An hour ago I had no idea this show existed. Now I'm watching a 6 inch, 300g gnome perform eye surgery on a badger for, all the sake of friendship.
I love running for my gnomes. They both play up the troublemaker role and, while at times their size makes them the butt of some jokes, they definitely shine through as some of the most epic and bdh heroes I have. I endearingly call them my murder gnomes.
I have a halfling that I run for as well, and the baked-in attitude is totally different: more caring, less magical; more of a struggle with more evident fear of danger. That’s all how they play the characters, but each race offers different character opportunities that the other couldn’t easily deliver.
...Time Bandits...
With the critical role example the reason he is a gnome bard is because gnomes in Pathfinder (which is what their group started with) get a +2 to charisma and Constitution with a penalty to strength. Perfect for a bard. Not to mention the bonuses on illusion magic
I made gnomes in my world isolationists, who have advanced technology and a distrust for many of the other races because of past wars. They possess heavily fortified cities patrolled by mechanical constructs and the perimeters of their lands and cities are seeded with clever trips. The forest gnomes serve as the keepers of knowledge, druids/clerics, advisers to the ruler, and providers of food. The rock gnomes serve as the soldiers, scientists and artisans of the nation. They rule the land through a council of forest and rock gnomes who choose the king every thousand years.
If you have a halfling or gnome in the party EVERY ENEMY NEEDS A CUP AND LEG ARMOR
David the Gnome! I loved that show man, it was so cool and so weird. To me Rock Gnomes are culturally related to Dwarves but distinct from them. They live in the same communities as dwarves and are generally the artisans at the end of the mining, processing cycle. No one makes a better blade than a gnome, or jewelry that can kill you, or an automated forge so the dwarves can produce all those epic axes. In general Gnomes have no homeland of their own and are an entire race of refugees. This is because their hubris was nearly the entire world's undoing.
Once they had the most marvelous city. It was a techno-magical marvel and they were the centre of knowledge while humans were still scraping two rocks together and trying to make fire. The city of golden spheres floated in the caldera of an active volcano and harnessed its energy to power their magical experiments. At the end these involved long distance transportation through the voids between worlds without crossing space. Long story short things went very, very wrong. The city collapsed sinking into the earth and disappearing into the underdark , all of their knowledge was lost and they put the world in great peril. Because of this some decided to reject their technological ways and return to the old ways of caring for nature and being one with the land. Others craved a return to their glory and pursue that ancient knowledge one invention at a time. The deep gnomes, those who sank with the lost city, were enslaved by the denizens of the underdark and became a grim folk who think only of survival and do not dream of the workings of the universe.
Except for the deep gnomes it is custom for few gnomes to congregate in large numbers for fear their natures will spur on an explosion of creative drive and they will rocket towards calamity again. Some still dream of finding the lost city, its gleaming orbs containing the lost knowledge of the gnomes. Others think it is better it stays lost if it ever existed at all.
I now want to play a gnome-matic gnome-mismatist, who’s actually just gnome-less, and un-gnome-ingly steals from a powerful person.
Oh my god! I forgot Scanlan was a Gnome! I had it in my mind that he was a halfling. HA
Hello from a year and a half into your future!
I know I'm late to the party, but since Gnomes are my favourite D&D race I feel the need to come to their defense:
I think it's fairly easy to define Gnomes from Halflings by two distinct traits... Firstly they're far more industrious. Forest Gnomes, from the tradition of the Kabouter/Klabauter, might be fey-like guardians of nature but they'd still make regular use of non-destructive technologies like watermills and windmills. They need that infrastructure because to my mind they're not simply acting on a whim, pulling the occasional thorn from an infrequent rabbit's foot; instead they're running clinics to treat and heal *all* the small creatures of the forest; they're organising working-bees to help *all* the squirrels store enough acorns for a long winter; they're farming giant mushroom-houses in situ, growing whole villages in new forest copses; etc.
Similarly the Rock Gnomes aren't carving out enormous caverns like the Dwarves do; they're not building Moria. They mine carefully and purposefully, in pursuit of rare elements. They don't treat the pickaxe as some kind of noble artifact, and mining for them is just a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Hell, it's a job for drilling automatons wherever possible... The ends are all those fantastical things which Gnomes can create from the rare minerals and gems they recover from the earth.
The second trait, which Jim seems to have hit on, is that Gnomes always struck me as natural riders. They're more like Rohirrim or Dothraki at 1/4 scale than they are Halflings or Dwarves... Again, in my mind and in my homebrew this is because they always feel compelled to compensate for their small stature when dealing with the larger races. They're just as intelligent, just as capable, and yet I always imagine how hard it must be to feel like someone is taking you seriously when you only come up to their knees.
So Forest Gnomes ride forest creatures: Wolves, Deer, Eagles, Goats, etc. Their children grow up riding foxes and squirrels, and it's all done in a reciprocal pact with those creatures, not through domestication or subjugation.
Rock Gnomes might ride in automatons, warforged, auto-mobile carts or clockwork spiders, etc. But in both cases, whenever they're in a position to deal with the larger races I imagine they'd favour any conveyance which puts them at or near an eye-level between 4ft-5ft.
[EDIT]
In my homebrew setting it's the Rock Gnomes that invent blackpowder. It's still their exclusive technology, and it gives them a class of ranged weaponry equivalent to heavy crossbows and longbows. This has granted them a kind of independent military parity which they'd previously lacked... But it's their effort to share this technology with their Forest brethren which is creating a schism with the other fey races. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, is the further idea that the Forest Gnomes unknowingly hold the key to the future development of nitrocellulose smokeless powder. :)
I now want to create a rock gnome artificer/necromancer. He gives slaughtered animals a chance for vengeance by constructing sturdier bodies and then animates them.
In my games Gnomes are really good with money. And there is a gnome in every bag of holding or portable hole and keep track of everything and is the thing that hands the players what they need when the reach in.
I love Gnomes. Comedic badass sounds like the perfect description of every hero id love to play. Glad you guys gave em a fair shake!
I love gnomes! Played a forest gnome rogue/cleric, thief and trickery. This is suicide mechanically, but she was tons of fun to roleplay. A charlatan, con artist, burglar who happens to actually be a priest.
As a first time player setting up my first character I'm super glad the gnomes were in the book I borrowed. I enjoy their characteristics and subraces
I personally like having my gnomes be similar to El Dorado or Wakanda in the fact that they keep to themselves, so they're very rare, but since they tinker, they have huge technological capabilities that surpass the other races. The rock gnomes are the inventors, and the forest gnomes are more magically inclined and are the magical guardians of the gnomish secrets.
I played a gnome and loved her. Rin was 2 levels of druid and the rest was wolf totem barbarian (we played up to level 6). You mentioned "feral gnome" and that was entirely my premise. Forest gnome that turns dire wolf and kills (but never hurts the little critters)! She was fun. I loved playing the disparity between "I'm going to coo at your pet" to "I'm going to rip your head off with my teeth." She may have been a little insane. :)
I am playing a rock gnome archer (fighter) and one mechanical issue is that they can't use longbows or heavy crossbows easily because both have the "heavy" property. So there is a damage hit (or an accuracy hit if you use the weapons anyway). It is just 1 point of damage per shot on average to scale down to the non-heavy versions of those weapons.
I think the reason they have less of a place is historical. In AD&D they were described as smaller "cousins" of dwarves...with not much more flavor than that, but they came across as light-hearted and good-natured as compared to the grim and dour dwarves. Theor "illusionist" specialty lent itself to their being pranksters (although there may have been some other source of that trait).
Then came Dragonlance...and suddenly the formerly hobbit-like, homebody, adventure-hating halflings became kender who came off as light-hearted and good-natured pranksters (although it seemed like they had only one prank, stealing your crap, but I guess they would also make spooky noises with their hoopak). The gnome's place in the game, personality-wise was "borrowed" by the kender, I guess you could say.
That version of the kender, or at least the light-hearted and good-natured parts then became normal for halflings, leaving gnomes increasingly indistinct.
So, how have they survived? I suspect they exist in 5e because when they were relegated to the Monster Manual in 4e, players who were fans of gnomes used it as even more evidence that 4e was going to suck and the developers were destroying our childhoods and secretly hate D&D (or something like that). WOTC even made a very charming video to address the fans:
ua-cam.com/video/4UqFPujRZWo/v-deo.html
I suspect for 5e they didn't want to return (or remind anyone of) to the issue...as remember the success of 5e was far from guaranteed. It could have fractured the fan base further without growing it, especially as 4e was not all that old.
I am surprised that there was no reference to the two gnomes in Critical Role's "season 1". I have never has a party with two PC gnomes ever, so that was a notable oddity to me.
Finally, gnomes make decent Eldritch Knights, which didn't get mentioned. The intelligence bonus helps their spells and either a Dex bump or a Constitution bump is useful in the class. My current gnome character is an Arcane Archer, and the Int bump helps him there too.
You could have gnomes be the Tom Bombadil's of the D&D world - kind of along the lines with that you've described. Making them more fey related or "touched."
Or alternatively maybe you could explain gnomes' lack of homeland by suggesting they once came from some specific place, but that they were all driven from their ancestral home by a dragon invasion - or if their ancestral lands were underground then maybe they were run out by the creation or expansion of the Drow into their subterranean homeland. For this reason all gnomes could have some cultural traits that come from having been expelled from their sacred lands - burning desires by all gnomes to one day re-take their homelands - or they could be listless/rootless wanderers or long-lived peripatetic sages that may join adventuring parties to expand their horizons or understanding of the wider world. Perhaps they are even bizarrely claustrophobic now b/c they have psychologically accepted no longer living underground or feel the underground world (and by association cramped or dark places) are places of mortal danger and terror.
I played a Gnome knightly guy lately. My character description was just "Like Reinhardt but really short".
"Yeaaaaah! My name's Terry! I'm a fuckin' Siberian gnome! Gimme a beer so I can DROWN IN IT"
We just needed a video for all the gnomenclature.
Finally! I’ve been checking all day! Love you guys!
My homebrew solution is to make Gnomes half-elf/half-dwarves and depending on the more dominant genetics or which parent/culture they spend most of their time with is whether they're rock or forest. Also halflings are half dwarf/humans. It solves some logic holes in the setting and saves a bunch of time on lore.