Gnomes provide an interesting challenge to the xenosociologist. Largely solitary and uncommunicative beings, rare and often overlooked, it can be hard to find a great deal of 'sweeping generalizations' about the race from which to build a case for a 'racial culture'. Nonetheless, gentle reader, we find a case for a monograph on the species compelling.  Having spent the last year engaged in extensive research, I feel it is time to present the case for these gentle souls.

And as always we will begin with our common assumptions.

Assumption One: Gnomes are a small race, smaller even than Dwarves, though they are often mistaken for them.  There is some debate about how small Gnomes truely are, if they are larger than halflings and Kobolds, or smaller.  This debate is not helped by the general tendancy of Gnomes towards bad posture and cramped abodes.  It is the opinion of this researcher that Gnomes are similar to Goblins, in that they can occupy a wide range of sizes within the species, only remaining in the smaller end of the spectrum.  While I was unable to prove this with direct examples, exhaustive studies of source documents show many reports of gnomes being scarely a hand or two tall on up to looking dwarves in the eye.

Assumption Two: Gnomes are recognizable, even more universally than Dwarves, by a physical appearance; one that transcends mere size. Beards are common, as are large, even exaggerated facial features.  Despite this they are often overlooked or even forgotten by others.  This suggests that the morphology of the Gnomish species expresses itself in size rather than other characteristics.

Assumption Three: Gnomes do not tend to congregate, as other species do, in racial enclaves. Gnomes are often found alone, or in very small groups of like minded fellows or family groups.  This keeps the population very low, but they never seem to be threatened with extinction.  Gnomes do seem to form long lasting relationships, mating for life, living in generational households, and one never speaks of a gnomish 'ex-friend'.  Of course, they don't seem to form new relationships very easily either, tending to be viewed by others as 'remote' or 'distant'.

Assumption Four: Source documents and personal expirence show that Gnomes are often experts in a given field of endeavor. Many are scholars or masters of obscure lore. Even the humblest of professional craftsmen will know exhaustively the lore surrounding his chosen craft. A cobbler will know the entire history of shoes, be able to identify leathers by sight, taste or touch, possibly down to the gender of the animal that it came from. A gnome who views a forest as their 'domain' will no ever root and branch of every tree, will be able to tell you the breeding population of the local barn swallows and how many robin's will lay eggs that season.   One anecdote passed to me was that a Gnome never forgets, they only learn so much that remembering it all becomes difficult.

Assumption Five: Gnomes are infallingly polite to almost anyone, as a species they seem almost pathologically opposed to direct violence.  They are, however, often reported to be tricksters and cunning pranksters.  Source documents of 'gnomish forest protectors' show them defeating much larger and more dangerous menaces by such means almost exclusively.  I believe the racial politeness and the trickster behavior are linked closely. Among themselves they rarely engage in pranking behavior outside of childhood, leading me to believe it is purely a subsumed violent impulse. That is to say that the average gnome finds violent, agressive behavior almost impossible, but trickery and the like acceptable alternatives.  Thus they are not inclined to trick a family member or freind any more than a human, for example, would be inclined to beat one about the head and neck.


It is the belief of this researcher that Gnomes are, like many of the Elder Species, possibly the carefully bred servants of some long lost greater power, be it the much Supposed Dragon Kings, the Gods when they walked the land, or the mythical Titans.  Their purpose seems obvious, that they were archivists, librarians and clerks. We can suppose that they were also used as skilled craftsmen, as they do tend towards industriousness as a species.  Since the theorized masters would not have wanted to actually deal with their servants much, they were bred to be forgettable and easily overlooked, though the power of such magics to pull that off seem even more terrible than the act of shaping whole species to fit needs.  In the diaspora, the gnomes were trapped by their bred characteristics more than other races, and have often sought shelter among the other species as much as possible.

Gnomish beards are a feature worth discussion. Earlier it was suggested that dwarven beards are a cultural artifact due to scarcity of resources, beard hair being cultivated for weaving. Gnomes, prizing accumulated knowledge as they do, cultivate their beards to prove their age and wisdom, a badge of their accumulated knowlege.  It is noteworthy that every source document on Gnomes shows that their beards are very neatly groomed, however, which fits with the urbane and cultured behavior that we can only surmise must have been bred into them by their mythic Masters.  

Every facet seems to support this conjecture, from their highly variable size to their racial disdain for violence to their obsessive need to know everything about... something. Even the Gnomish diet is notable, Gnomes are reknowned as skinflints when it comes to eating, content with a single bowl of porridge for an entire day's labor in many cases. Often the Gnome will not even finish a full bowl.

Very nice

Nice work.  I'm tremendously fond of gnomes in my RPGs, and I think you brought up a nice presentation of the same.

The gnomes in my worlds have always been wildly curious--likely, with humanity, the most curious of all the races, and a race of inventors, to whom the final product working is less important than trying to make it work.  They also enjoy the lives of scholars, scientists, alchemists, and engineers.

Nicely done. I've been thinking it might be interesting to consider all these human like races might stem from a common core (just as all the goblinoid races stem from a similar but distinct common core.)


You know how in myths new gods displace the old and new tribes invade, intermingle and thus bring their gods into and absorb others cultures in part as they assimilate the conquered peoples?

It might be interesting to consider a greater elder race--neither human, nor elven, nor dragon--but humanlike, powerful, many of the legends of its members are known as the current gods. Powerful anthropomorphic beings. Perhaps The Elder race were gods, perhaps not--instead an ancient, near immortal species who looked human.  Their caste driven culture, and centuries of inbreeding and little influx of new blood outcast, created more and more varied morphologies among their castes.

Each caste, became one of the near human and human descendants.

It wasn't magic (planned) that did it exactly--but more a cultural plan, that combines with exposure to various magics, long term caste structure, shaped the beings that would become the "gods" of specific races--that is their ancestors of the Elder race. At some point a great Sundering took place splitting each caste off. Either do to war (not necessarily caste vs caste though)

For example, I can see a very interesting analog to the Civil War. Imagine if Two Nation-States of Elders existed these nations had developed due to environment, distance, and economical need into slightly different cultures. One existed in the industrial (or magical equivalent) regions--where industry flourished. The other was primarily agricultural, utilizing a slave-race (the goblin progenitor species, intentionally bred for specific purposes)

The conflict arose between their differing needs as nations in near proximity for each other--one needed the others goods and abilities, but in time felt a loss of sovereignty and rejected the control that gave the other nation-state, this quickly moved up to full scale war between "Brothers" (which allows you to have a split amongst the gods.)

Due to the influence of culture and a need to give them a common enemy that was evil, the more industry driven (And less slave owning) state used the idea that the other side utilizing slaves was more morally bankrupt (despite having a number themselves) thus labeling one nation state "evil" the other "good" (The winner being the non-slave state due to its control of transportation, and greater trade for many centuries)


So the brothers (one good, one evil) nation states become gods in the myths--this split shows in that one nation state became the forces of light, the other the forces of darkness with its hideous slave-servitor shock troops.



Anyway, I'm going on and on--but that might be an interesting analog to explore in the development of your races/cultures and societies.

It would explain the various sub-races that can interbreed (Elves and Humans begetting half elves, orcs and humans begetting half orcs) but the somewhat sterility of some subraces (too much long term changes)

For example Orcs could have been a sorcerous blending of man and goblinoid in the past--an intentional and morally bankrupt attempt to create stronger slaves with more intellect than the basic goblin progenitor. This is why they can interbreed as they're more human than goblin, and elves and humans were either same caste at one point or near caste (perhaps their sundering goes back to the war--Elves being one side, probably the users of the slave races, which might explain their lack of personal agricultural heights today--that was always a "slave" thing, and they were forced to primativism for survival after the loss of their sovereignty (in fact fighting a guerrilla war long after the other state had one)

One of the reasons even the longest lived species doesn't talk about this is it WAS so many eons ago (hundreds of thousands of years) that pure accident, battle, and time has destroyed every last member of the generations that would remember it. Warping the history into legend, legend into myth and story.


This might also explain gnomes curious size and culture of memory. Each caste had a purpose, the gnomes ancestral caste being record keepers, loremasters, and in general living records of important things themselves.  Since they were a commonly used caste (each side of the war, and every household/governments) used them, they tended to be spread amongst all groups pretty reasonably--hence their comfort with other races, and often own-race insularity. They didn't often group themselves with each other except in family groups.

Spike, this is really good! Thanks man!

Silverlion:

I can see I have more necromancy to perform!  One of the James's has a collected document file of most of the stuff I did on this here that I normally refer to. I don't want to 'spoil' these threads, exactly, but what the hey!


The world I spun off of these threads is very  old, created by the First Gods out of formless Chaos as a place of sanctuary and stability. Later invaders from the Chaos which surrounds the world are essentially Gods as well, but as they had no part in the creation of the world they are Demons, invaders who destabilize creation.  To repair the breech in 'Reality' one of the First Gods, known to Man as 'The Smith' created the Great Engine to continually reinforce Reality from the corrosive effect of Chaos.  Every being, sentient or not, is a part of the Great Engine.  Of the first mortals various individuals were chosen and raised up as exemplars of aspects of reality to become caretakers of the Great Engine, the Gods of the World. Demons were given a 'world' of their own on the 'other side' of Reality as a peace gesture of sorts, and to keep them busy maintaining their own world.

Cue millenia later a mighty race, mentioned hereabouts as the Titans, rose up in a massive empire fueled by unimaginable magics. They enslaved many of the other races they encountered and destroyed others. Their slaves they shaped to become the races we know today as their servants. Dwarves were laborers and farmers, working the fields, Elves were concubines and pleasure slaves, Orcs were soldiers and police. The Mighty Dragons were created and living weapons of war.

The Elves rebelled, stealing the secrets of magic from the Titans and in a great working undid the ability of the Titans to do magic. This was possible because the Gods realized that the Titans were destroying the Great Engine with their rapiciousness.

Kobolds were never shaped, which is one reason they are so alien, halflings were ignored, and Goblins, living deep underground in a mighty kingdom of their own, were unknown.

The Titans? They took shelter with their loyal Orcish guards and eventually interbred with them, becoming lost to history.

Humans? Orc/Elf hybrids that came about in the wake of the first Goblin War. the Few elves that know this are horribly ashamed and the Orcs that knew died of old age millenia ago.  Dwarves were driven underground by the Elves, who were jealous of the Dwarves ability to build houses and cultivate farms... comfortable lives in the loss of Empire comparatively. The Elves started by stealing from teh Dwarves, and the dwarves fought back, and it was our 'evil' Elves that attempted to recreate the spell that destroyed the titans (this time without approval of the the Gods), and cursed the Dwarven women with infertility, and their children with horrific plagues... the Dwarves hid until they had forgotten why they hid, escaping genocide and the 'First Tribe' of Elves split over this act....


Thats how I did it, anyway...