Am I the only one who feels like gnomes aren't really flavorfully distinct enough from dwarves to be considered a separate species?
>>45805505
No
Yes
Fuck you
Yes.
>>45805522
>>45805525
Alright then. What makes them so different from dwarves? The fact that they can be skinny and don't have to have beards?
A dwarf is like a person scaled down on the Z axis.
A gnome is like a person scaled down on all axes.
>>45805794
A halfling is a person scaled down on all axes except feet.
>>45805684
Dwarves can be sane but can't live above ground without being stupid.
>>45805794
Also Y axis is the vertical one, Z is depth.
>>45805684
Their entire persona, culture, and niches, for one.
Literally everything about size and the fact that sometimes gnomes live underground.
>>45805505
I've always considered them closer to a variant halfling culture, but yeah, they really don't deserve to be their own race.
>>45805922
Midget Halflings/Dwarves
I've always disliked gnomes. Perhaps you all played WoW? Pretty hideous race desu, just like dwarfs but 'quirky'.
>>45805505
>gnomes aren't really flavorfully distinct enough from dwarves
Sounds like you're just too creatively bankrupt to make them different.
Consider the following dominant traits. Split them into two or more pools. Assign one pool to each race. Wow there you go.
Obsessed with gadgets
Many members focused on mining rock/metal
Many members focused on smiting
Society is warlike
The race is seen as drunkards
The race is seen as tricksters
The race is traditionalist
The race lives underground
Most members are xenophobes
The society is deeply devoted to magical pursuits
The society is deeply devoted to religious pursuits
The society is known for its decorative craftsmen
The society is known for its functional craftsmen
The society is known for its delicate crafts
Most members are obsessed with fire
>>45806245
See, I see all of those as potentially applicable to Dwarves.
>>45806429
Just split them into two piles, fampai
>>45805684
Gnomes come from the Fey.
While Dwarves aren't.
>>45805505
I feel they're not different enough from Halflings
>>45806454
different anon, but when the two groups have such a degree of overlap that you need to remove characteristics of one to give to the other, I would say that one should change.
I don't think gnomes should be removed, because more options in an RPG is better than fewer.
Maybe we should work instead to make new lore for gnomes?
>>45805505
They're basically human goblins
>>45806718
Or are goblins basically human gnomes?
It kinda depends on what you do when you construct a gnome.
Some ways have very little to do with dwarves at all.
>>45805505
In my campaign, the main Gnome variant is actually the Deep Gnome. Also Deep Gnomes all talk and act like they're from the hood. It started as an immature joke that went way too far.
>>45805505
Yes. Take for instance Paizo's Gnomes, where your picture comes from. They are a race of fey outcasts that must continually find new experiences or go through a process called Bleaching, a form of gnome depression and insanity that literally saps the color from their bodies and minds until they die. Physiologically, they are fey and this produces some interesting effects. Their skin, hair, and eyes runs the entire gamut of the rainbow and changes with the experiences they have in life. Their bodies are tougher than they appear, having stronger but lighter bones than humans do.
Most gnomes have numerous intimate relations during their lives, and long-term monogamy is exceedingly rare. Most gnome families are loosely associated, with gnome children being raised as much by the larger community as by their birth parents. Due to their need to fend of the Bleaching, most gnomes favor unusual hobbies and professions, and become attached to objects that "anchor" them to Golarion. These can take the form of friendships, stories, exotic outfits or perfumes, gadgets, or riddles.
All of the above makes them out to be tricksters, tinkers, and sensation seekers. This contrasts with Paizo's Dwarves, pic related, who are highly traditional warriors and craftsmen, and whose bodies are thick and strong, with an origin based deep in the earth instead of from the fey realms.
Paizo's gnomes actually fit well with the mythological origin of gnomes being a surface earth race of fey tricksters. The brownie or domovoi, the shoemakers,lawn gnomesand other such fey.
Whereas dwarves are much more like jewish viking neanderthals.
>>45806245
>hat races
Disgusting
>>45805505
Most of us don't taste people to determine species. How many dwarf and gnome dicks have you sucked OP?
>>45806995
>hat races
...Damn my random brain. Now I want to make a race of symbiotic headgear.
Or maybe parasitic, controlling their hosts via direct brainjacking. Granted, I'm positive it's been done before, but damn if I don't want to try all the same.
I like the idea of a race that thrives in the nooks and crannies of the world - whether its a little string of burrows in a windswept heath, a quaint little home amidst the roots of an old oak, or even a little hamlet in a backalley of some human metropol.
I also like the idea of a race that applies its efforts not to veneration of themselves, like the dwarves and their mountain halls, or some more escoteric ideal, like elves and the wild places, but to making life more comfortable for themselves and one another through unpretentious magic, crafts, and natural arts like cultivation and husbandry.
>>45805505
Dwarves are usually portrayed as beings from the Earth. Gnomes are usually portrayed as beings of Fey.
>>45805505
house rule
Gnomes are tiny size PC race.
tada, search your heart, you know it fits
howaboutislapyourshit.jpeg
>>45806517
I feel halflings aren't different enough from short humans.
>>45805505
The way I see it, gnomes are what most people think when they hear elf.
You know, Keebler, toy maker, shoe cobblers, and little magical people in the woods full of whimsy.
>>45805684
Elves are to dwarves as gnomes are to halflings.
>>45805684
Dwarves are Scottish Jews. Gnomes are Jews with engineering degrees.
>>45806795
No.
Goblins are orc gnomes.
>>45810584
Yep.
Wouldn't fuck a halfling but a gnome on the other hand.
>>45805863
Axis are defined however you want them anon, thats why they are useful.
>>45806969
Huh, that pretty much fixes all my gripes with gnomes.
>>45807387
Isn't that halflings though?
>>45811675
I would think so, but I guess he might be drawing more from David the Gnome
>>45811198
But then what would the Elf equivalent to an Orc would be?
I liked the take on gnomes from Warhammer Fantasy Battles, 3rd Ed.
A type of proto-dwarves created by the Old Ones who were dying out slowly and by now eked out a morose existence in dwarf holds, awaiting the inevitable demise of their race and culture.
>>45811752
Elves are to Orcs as Gnomes are to Kobolds and Dwarves are to Giants or Goblins
>>45811752
Orcs are not of the goblinoid species seeing how they can reproduce half orcs with Humans and other humanoid races
Goblins-halflings
Hobgoblins-humans
Bugbears-orcs
Goblindogs-elves
Now you know
>>45811992
What? This makes no sense
Elves are to orcs as gnomes are to kobolds
Lets start here
Lithe long lived magic people to brutish war loving hoard people. Okay solid set up. But compared to fey midgets to lizardfolk midgets, im at a loss. Then you introduce hairy midget to giants. Was this about size? Obviously not seeimg how the previous races were relative to one another height wise.
Are you sane?
I've actually being playing around with the idea that Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings are 3 castes of a single race.
Dwarves are the "Warrior" caste which focus on the Rites of Battle. Mining, Logging, Blacksmithing and other traditional dwarf crafts are included in these Rites because the culture would see them as forms of battle. Mining is battling the mountains, logging is battling trees, blacksmithing is battling metal.
Gnomes are the knowledge seeking Scholar caste. Learning, inventing, alchemy, magic, etc.
Halflings are the "hospitality" caste, responsible for food, clothing, trading and other comforts.
>>45805505
i fucking hate gnomes!!!!
>>45806224woW made me hate gnomes more, the voices were far too annoying to ever not hate
Read Eberron and understand just how fucking hilarious a society ruled by gnomes can be.
The only reason you think Gnomes are boring is cause creatively bankrupt people only ever use them for le wacky sideshow comic relief. You've probably never even tried to imagine what a gnome-dominated society would be like, cause it would be VERY different from the traditionalist conservative mountain-holds of the dwarves
>>45812046
They're racial enemies.
But in response to your examples, Gnomes are to Goblins what Elves are to Orcs.
>>45812165
Dwarves and Orcs are more enemies then elves and Orcs
Gnomes are the Dutch to the Dwarves' German.
I just received a book yesterday on scandinavian "nisser" (gnomes) that I was gonna read in preparation from running a gnome game.
>>45805505
I mean, maybe, but gnomes aren't really what comes to mind when I think of unnecessary sub-races within the fantasy genre.
>>45805505
Not really. There's nothing I could do with gnomes that I couldn't do with some reflavoring of Dwarves or Hobbits.
Although my DM used to take gnomes and make them patently insane down to the last man. They were extremely lolrandom and just as prone to bite your face and attack you as to walk down the street. It was an amazing day if you met one who could speak a coherent sentence. They tended towards the extremes of mad science and usage of small animals for things that small animals should not be used for.
Absolutely everyone in the setting hated them. Kings, peasants, everyone, and they were spoken of in the same tone as cockroaches.
They were the most interesting interpretation of gnomes I've seen.
>>45812945
As a Scandinavian, I'm taking something of an offence to them being called gnomes.
>>45813065
Why?
>>45813057
I agree with your DM. Everyone should hate gnomes, especially standard fantasy gnomes. It sounds like he gave a common goblin mannerisms to gnomes.
>>45813057
so basically he replaced gnomes with kender. What a creative genius
Next game I run, the gnomes will be tiny, insane, bearded, red hatted, giant mouthed, forest dwelling kidnappers of children and young women, who sacrifice their captives as queens to ancient entities and use the remains to craft more of their kind.
>>45813232
So, tiny, zealous, rapist bastards then? Sounds just about right.
On an individual basis gnomes are way different, it's on the larger scale they fail.
Dwarven culture is something everyonr can talk about, gnomish culture draws a blank.
>>45815243
that's got nothing to do with the inherent traits and qualities of gnomes, but rather the fact that dwarves have been highly detailed in every single fantasy setting, and always granted their own kingdoms and lands, while gnomes are almost never applied like that, due to the creative bankruptcy of everyone trying to make their gnome Jan Janssen.
>>45805505
Depends on the setting.
>>45805505
I've always felt gnomes in most settings feel somewhat...Extraneous. If you already have dwarves and halflings, both of which are well established based on clear and well-known archetypes (hobbits for halflings and every single dwarf in fantasy literature for dwarves), do you really need a third "little people" race and if so, what role do they fill? Typically they seem to fall under one three categories:
>Dwarves but shorter and with better tech: somewhat redundant since dwarves usually already have pretty advanced craftmanship and metallurgy, plus often feel kind of out of place (see Warcraft gnomes who have lasers, teleporters and robots when rest of the world is mostly a standard pseudo-medieval fantasy setting)
>Elfs but shorter: good with magic, possibly also close to nature. Really, they're pretty much the same tropes elves fill, expect short and bearded
>Lolrandumb: usually combined with one of the above. Either a race of magical tricksters or mad scientists. Tends to be pretty annoying in the long run since their main character trait is being wacky comic relief
>>45815550
The middle one basically is elves before they became tall.
And it gets even more crowded if elves are closer to their fey origins.
>>45813229
at least he had them rightfully hated in universe instead of pretending a right minded person would look on a perpetually thieving, lying race as childlike and endearing.
>>45816464
I heard someone say that the books that used Kender in their stories actually depicted them very well, unlike that description. Any idea if that's true?
