On Gnomes
While it’s far to early to make any specific announcements, I’d like one of the first settings released for Imagination’s Toybox to be a gnome-centric fantasy world. I’ve been playing gnomes for over 30 years, and both I and my characters have been bullied, teased, ridiculed, and disrespected. Gnomes are short like dwarves, but dwarves are tough and have reputations as badasses. Halflings are “cute”, like human children, and get blockbuster movie trilogies made about them. The world’s largest roleplaying game company shoves gnomes in the background in their latest edition, because they simply couldn’t figure out how to make them interesting or unique.
Here’s my take on gnomes, having been inside the heads of several of them and working out how they think based on how they’re treated. There has to be enough culture here to power a setting.
Gnomes go out of their way to be cheerful. They don’t want to be kicked in the teeth. They’re small, they don’t fight well, and they can’t just “cute” their way out of things like halflings. So they’re nice. They’re polite. They don’t want trouble. Does this mean they’re submissive and subservient? Far from it. Gnomes are vengeful. While you’re being patronizing, throwing you weight and height around, they’re looking you up and down and figuring out 87 different ways to mess you up. They’re not strong, but they work on being fast. Hit you three times before you can hit them once. Know where to hit you to make it count the most.
Gnomes are also vengeful. Okay nice human, you win, I’m not going to fight you. Not now. When you least expect it, I’m going to burn down your house, frame you for murder, and sleep with your wife. I will find ways to hurt you that don’t involve getting into a fight. And I’ll keep it to myself; most times, you won’t know that you’ve offended a gnome until all hell breaks loose. If you know that you’ve upset a gnome, you should be afraid; gnome revenge is legendary, because the depth of their wrath, cunning, and devious payback schemes is also their best defense. It’s the butterfly effect. Why did those orcs just burn down that village? Because 200 years ago, the mayor’s great-grandfather slighted some gnome’s great-grandfather, and no one’s ever apologized for it.
The small-and-weak thing is also why gnomes are thieves and tinkerers. Wait until your back is turned, and they’ll stab you in the kidneys. Most poisons? Invented by gnomes. Gunpowder? The great equalizer. A gnome will snipe you from 300 yards away and dynamite your keep.
Are gnomes evil? No. But being “small” and not taken seriously, they have to defend themselves in some way, and that means wits and reputation. You think that gnomes keeping badgers as pets, and using them as symbols and flags and heraldry, is a joke? Have you ever seen a cornered badger fight? They don’t want to fight. But if they have to, it will be brutal, because they want it over as quickly as possible.
Let’s not forget money. We have to explore the classic “gnomes of Zurich” cliche. Again, it’s a non-violent control thing. You want a gnome handling your books. You don’t want a gnome auditing your books. Or following your money. They’ll hire mercenaries to fight for them. They’ll hire your mercenaries away from you, for more money. It’s the golden rule: the one with the gold makes the rules.
Some examples of characters who should be gnomes: Benjamin Linus, on Lost. Littlefinger, in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. Scotty on Star Trek.
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