Gnomes - in BR?

[Naughtical]

I know that officially there are no gnomes in the birthright setting. But if you were going to add them in the same vein as the elves and dwarves of BR (i.e. more from myth than Tolkien), how would you do it? Both background-wise and mechanic-wise. One thing I've always disliked about d&d gnomes is the trickster/joker theme, and the silly techy theme.

[Sorontar]

My party encountered them deep underground in Cerilia. Their community was one of myth, so their prehistory remained as a big unknown. We performed a task for them, then left. I can't remember what we got in return.

If I was DMing it myself, I suspect that the Shadow World would make their presence as individuals or a community easier to explain. They could also be treated as a genetic offshoot of the dwarves, may created by one of the Lost. They need not be mechanically minded, but I like the idea that they are great craftsmen. Maybe they could sort of be based on the doozers on Fraggle Rock - not much said, but lots understood between them. Perhaps they add order to the Shadow World through their skills.

Sorontar

[Arentak]

The world is large, with many continents and islands, and untold civilizations underground or underwater. I see no problems with adding gnomes wherever you think it might fit. Since there were presumably no gnomes at Deismarr, I'd assume their blooded scions are very few and far between.

Technology can be ignored, damn Dragonlance for associating gnomes with tech forever. Read the first drizzt book. There's a small section on Svirfneblin culture and stuff in there. Maybe the Orogs have been kept in check by gnomes as much as dwarves, but the gnomes are very very deep, and the dwarves don't even know about them. You could introduce them to the campaign as Orog prisoners rescued by Dwarves.

Maybe gnomes have a strong civilization and completely control a continent, but they are afraid of water, and so dont know much about the outside world, perhaps its out of trade range and so little contact has been made, if any. Or maybe they are great seafarers, and their fine vessels have finally landed in Cerilia, offloading all sorts of goods to trade.

Option 1 are dour, grim, and very dwarf-like, option 2 are a little more happy go lucky(think halfling) type, or alternately, treat them as Star Trek Ferengi...ripping people off and leaving a trail of upset buyers in their wake...

[arpig2]

I think Arentak's option #2 is about the only worthwhile use for gnomes I have ever heard of.

[vota dc]

You could use the original D&D kobold concept for them. Now kobold are distant relatives of dragons, but they were just small beings with dog faces. Except dog faces, gnomes could be quite similar to kobolds, maybe less evil but even more deceptive. After all one definition of kobold is german gnome that lives in a mine.

[Swashbuckler]

If I had to add gnomes to the Birthright realm:

- a smallish clan (only around 200 total or so)
- conquered and subjugated long ago
- now serve as the Gorgon's personal stock for meals (in short, they are bred to be 'et' (southern US slang for the past-tense of 'eat'.))

I know this doesn't help, but it's my only take on gnomes in the setting. :-D

[Jaleela]

They are not listed as an “official” race for players to use, however, they are listed in the 2e AD&D creature list in the original rule book. I think they are mentioned in “King of the Giantdowns”, again, not as an official player race.

Possibilities:

Dwarven sub-species in the Northern hemisphere. Smaller than average to survive on meager food stuffs.
Fey origin
An experiment by one of the Lost or another Awnsheglian.
Undiscovered race: maybe they’re an ancient race that lives on an island, which would explain their small numbers or the fact they are “undiscovered”.


If you don’t want them Technologically oriented, then you don’t have to have them that way. Look to folklore.

Gnomes, or similar creatures, are the keepers of knowledge in regard to the earth. They are “earth-dwellers”. They use tricks, such as magic to remain hidden from the world of men and elves. I view them as being more elemental in their magic, being able to tease valuables out of the earth in ways that would make the dwarves jealous. They can be beneficent or malicious depending on their mood or something that has offended them. I would look more to Scandinavian folklore than Tolkien. Like a Tomte or Nisse (or even a combination).


Shapeshifting ability into that of a normal sized human or elf (which may explain why no one knows about them)
Skilled at Illusion
Can make themselves invisible
Tempermental/easily offended which could lead to the escalation of pranks to outright evil tendencies. Though I think D&D Gnomes are typically listed as “good” of some variety.


I would place them in the wilds of the Rjurik Highlands. This would also explain why they may or may not have been discovered.

[Birthright-L]

If someone REALLY wanted to put gnomes in their BR campaign, I`d
suggest these possible methods:

1. The offspring of a awn-/ersheghlien. There are several races
(sahuagin with the Kraken, lizard folk with the Hydra) who appear
more or less only as progeny of that particular iconic creature. One
could incorporate gnomes as the children of an ershegh, especially a
halfling or a dwarf.

2. Extra-planar transplants. Entire provinces of Cerilia were
transported into the Ravenloft setting in a kind of campaign
crossover, so you could theoretically bring them in from Greyhawk.

3. Travellers from a far off continent on Aebrynis. People have
written up animal races and Oriental adventures kinds of things for
BR, so gnomes aren`t that far afield given that the possibilities are
more or less neverending....

4. There is a "lost province" that was never named on the map for
Cerilia. It`s actually called "Lost Realm" in the BR computer game
and "Skywode" in the BR netbook. I kind of like the idea that it is
both.... It is unexplained as far as source materials go, meaning
you could do whatever you want with it. I could imagine gnomes
existing in some sort of weird transition between worlds in that
province. A province where the bizarre crossover between worlds
means technology operates there that would not exist anywhere else in
the setting. Or, maybe, there`s just a gate to Mechanus or something
like that. Gnomes existing in such a place might be doable,
especially if you give it a kind of BR feel. They aren`t gnomes in
the sense that they exist in other campaign worlds, but BR gnomes
that differ from the norm in the same way that BR halflings differ
from standard ones.

5. A unique creature. The existence of a single character is
possible. There is, for example, the occasional drow for some reason
in BR. There are members of The Lost who appear are incredibly
ancient and could degenerate/evolve into just about anything. A
single character can appear in BR due to some planar shift/accident.

Gary

[Naughtical]

I think my request has been largely misunderstood. I was not looking for a way to shoehorn them into BR with minimal changes, but adding them to the background wholesale. I.e. like dwarves and elves, they've always been there (and have always been known by humans). Probably even pre-human, at least in Cerilia.

I realize that gnomes did not exist in Scandinavian myth. But if you were going to give them a similar treatment (as was done with the elves and dwarves of BR), what would you do with them? What is their culture like? What was their involvement in the the wars between the gods? What are they like now? What is their opinion of humans? How do they fit into the political world of BR?

I've got a few ideas floating around in my head, but I was hoping to get some thoughts on the subject before I infected you all with my notions.

[arpig2]

In that case I have one word for you: Thaele

[Fizz]

I can recall something from Rich Baker that talks about gnomes in Birthright. I can't recall the exact source, possibly from an old email thread, i can look it up later. He envisioned gnomes as being very nature oriented, basically another type of fey.

I'll see if i can find that source later...


-Fizz

[Fizz]

I'll see if i can find that source later...

Ah, here it is... the source is from Mark Aurel. In prepping for the BRCS, Mark went through every item in the Birthright mailing list from Rich Baker. In this listserv note about potential player races, Mark explained what he learned from Rich's notes.

Sorry if that's a bit convoluted... anywho...

The crux is that Rich envisioned a very different niche for gnomes- that they are very much like "nature-spirits", with forest gnomes, mountain gnomes, meadow gnomes, etc., and that they should be very rare, and not a PC race.

I like the potential take on that. Too bad nothing official ever came of it.


-Fizz

[otomodave]

I think my request has been largely misunderstood. I was not looking for a way to shoehorn them into BR with minimal changes, but adding them to the background wholesale.

I am running my game using Pathfinder, and wanted to use the races from that game. Therefore, I took all of the background halflings, and applied it to gnomes instead In my setting, gnomes are accepted by elves (often) and so form their own communities in elven lands. The more mechanically inclined amongst them live among the humans.
Halflings are just halflings.

[Outlaw Pope]

Casts Animate Army to raise a legion of dead gnomes.

Baker's ideas about gnomes were something in line of my own headspace for them.

I cannot recall its exact name right now but the in game source I saw referencing gnomes living in one of the dwarven realms which normally in old DnD terms was the tradition rock or svirfneblin.

How do you guys handle your gnomes?

I am considering treating them at core as "Forest Gnomes" in vein of the Finnish haltija/tonttu - happy little red hats.

I do have a few ponders on them however in their flavor

Religion. What would they believe in - do you think they are more core gnomes and might venerate some of those powers? Perhaps they are more shadow-realm in origin and fall toward a fey origin with the Seelie or Unseelie giving a sort of gnome/spriggan/redcap dichotomy with a reverance?

Do they have their own language?

[cursed] Perhaps they are true-breeding child race of elves and dwarves?

[Malphas]

I cannot recall its exact name right now but the in game source I saw referencing gnomes living in one of the dwarven realms which normally in old DnD terms was the tradition rock or svirfneblin.

a lot of sourcebooks of this dnd era are seemingly written in part by writers with only passing familiarity of the setting. I've seen several statblocks of spellcasting darksun bards and rangers with plant spells memorized (neither should be in the setting).
in birthright i've seen enough of random psionics (hydra springs to mind) that i'm legitimately thinking if writing them properly in might be easier than writing them out.
so i wouldn't focus too much on a single source.


How do you guys handle your gnomes?

in short i don't, but i've seen somewhere on the net gnomes used as a more magical halfling. in that fanlore they were halflings who escaped shadow into elven lands rather than human lands and thus kept more shadowmagic and developed it a bit more.
so if gnomes i would probably start in that direction (kind of works the tiny illusionists)


I do have a few ponders on them however in their flavor

Religion. What would they believe in - do you think they are more core gnomes and might venerate some of those powers? Perhaps they are more shadow-realm in origin and fall toward a fey origin with the Seelie or Unseelie giving a sort of gnome/spriggan/redcap dichotomy with a reverance?

Do they have their own language?


well this strongly depends on where they came from.
in my example they would likely just like halflings have lost their original language but instead of a human one adopted Sidhelien. they probably be agnostic atheists
if you go by the dwarven cousins option they would likely either speak Karamhul (or something similar) and have dwarven religion.
if you chose to place them in the world alone they would have their own language. religion becomes complicated in that scenario (a good reason not to do it IMO). Azrai is a prime candidate, but an interesting twist would be to make their religion basically empty. basically priests have no powers because the god ain't real.
you could also place them in shadow world with new implications. language might be anything from a dialect of sie, to a derivative of lost halfling, to something unique. religion would again likely be nonexistent although it might be interesting for them to revere lost sie...

side-note: whats the forum stance on thread necromancy? couldn't find anything in rules but i might've missed something



[cursed] Perhaps they are true-breeding child race of elves and dwarves?

not touching this

[Sorontar]

side-note: whats the forum stance on thread necromancy? couldn't find anything in rules but i might've missed something


Personally, I don't mind it. Why start a new thread if you can find one where people have already been discussing the same topic.

Sorontar

[Fizz]

Baker's ideas about gnomes were something in line of my own headspace for them.

I cannot recall its exact name right now but the in game source I saw referencing gnomes living in one of the dwarven realms which normally in old DnD terms was the tradition rock or svirfneblin.

How do you guys handle your gnomes?

Personally, i don't use them. However, i did have a player with a gnome character in another setting, and he wanted to convert the character over. This was only shortly after Birthright was released. I allowed it because he was such a good and fun character. (He was converted from a standard 2nd ed illusionist/thief to a magician/thief.)

-Fizz

[Fizz]

a lot of sourcebooks of this dnd era are seemingly written in part by writers with only passing familiarity of the setting.

True, though in this case the Core Rulebook does list gnomes as potential monsters. So gnomes do exist on Cerilia, they're just not defined as a playable race. So if a Birthright sourcebook / adventure refers to gnomes, it's not necessarily inconsistent.

-Fizz

[Doyle]

While noting that Gnomes were mentioned in the core book and even had a warcard allocated (might have been a fan based creation), I tended to ignore them in my games as they tended to be more irritation than effective.

Now running a 5th edition game where Gnomes and many other races have been dragged back out of the monster manual and made playable, I needed a species backstory. I could have gone the Fey / Shadow world path but that was the bucket I was using for anything too fantastical for traditional fantasy.

Considering the stereotype of the scrawny tinker and the Tengu of Japanese mythology, I could see Dwarf, but only as an outcast. Not having the muscle or constitution for working in the mines, with an agility and cleverness that might be viewed as a thief stereotype to a Dwarf, and that is just not tolerated in the mines. These marginalised and shunned Dwarves escape to the surface and form their own clan, keeping away from other humanoids. With a small gene pool and centuries of isolation, the traits that made the individuals 'different' became standard over the generations. As the progenitors of the clan passed, so too did the true origin of the Dwarven sub-race, now a unique people known as Gnomes.

[Malphas]

True, though in this case the Core Rulebook does list gnomes as potential monsters. So gnomes do exist on Cerilia, they're just not defined as a playable race. So if a Birthright sourcebook / adventure refers to gnomes, it's not necessarily inconsistent.

-Fizz

damn must've missed it. but that same list has bugbears (and goblins, but no hobgoblins) a species that together with hobgoblins was rolled into goblins 2 pages prior. so that's fun.

[Magnus Argent]

I think my request has been largely misunderstood. I was not looking for a way to shoehorn them into BR with minimal changes, but adding them to the background wholesale. I.e. like dwarves and elves, they've always been there (and have always been known by humans). Probably even pre-human, at least in Cerilia.

I realize that gnomes did not exist in Scandinavian myth. But if you were going to give them a similar treatment (as was done with the elves and dwarves of BR), what would you do with them? What is their culture like? What was their involvement in the the wars between the gods? What are they like now? What is their opinion of humans? How do they fit into the political world of BR?

I've got a few ideas floating around in my head, but I was hoping to get some thoughts on the subject before I infected you all with my notions.

I agree that the flighty tech inventor stereotype that first appeared in Krynn did no favors to gnomes outside of the Dragonlance universe. I do have to admit that I like the way Eberron portrays the race, though. In Eberron, gnomes are obsessed with knowledge. Gnomes believe that every scrap of knowledge is or will one day become important. Of coure, their favorite use for said knowledge is as blackmail against their political rivals but that's more of a national passtime rather than outright maliciousness.

In Eberron, gnomes are cunning and wily. An invading kingdom wants to conquer our lil nation? "Ok, we surrender!" Then they sign a treaty that says in big letters "You da king!" with fine print that makes the gnome territory a quasi-independent, self-governing entity who the king is obligated to protect should it ever be threatened. Thanks, your majesty!

People are aware of the gnomes' general thirst for knowledge. Their nation has the largest library on the continent and the Korranberg Chronicle, weekly broadsheets (newspapers) is the most trusted news source with distribution in each of Khorvaire's 12 nations. They are not a nation of tinkerers and inventors but they are widely respected as ship builders.

Clearly you'd have to rework them to fit into your version of Cerilia but if you want to lean into these qualities, it gives you a starting point to begin finding ways to integrate them seamlessly into Birthright. But if you lean into those traits, they it makes sense that gnomes were native to Djapar and immigrated to Cerilia along with the Basarji. In fact, they likely also worshiped Basaia since knowledge was part of her portfolio.

If you want to give them their own realm like a gnome version of The Burrows, you could easily replace the Maze of Malavar with a gnome nation. These gnomes would technically be Rock Gnomes but perhaps with a different name. Say, Sun Gnomes.

In contrast, you could make a 2nd gnome realm that leans into the Forest Gnome subrace. Perhaps call them Moon Gnomes. Moon Gnomes could be natives of Cerilia who have always been there. They could be a minority population in most human cultures, similar to halflings. As for their homeland, perhaps Moon Gnomes use their natural affinity for illusion to hide their realm from Cerilia in order to protect it. If that were the case, the logical place for their hidden nation would be in the Vosgaard region known as the Mistmoor.

You could also create a Shadow Gnome subrace that live underground somewhere.

There are just some of the ways you could include gnomes into your version of Birthright. Even if you don't like my suggestions, I would say your best bet for seamless integration is to figure out a way that compliments the source material in some fashion. That's why I tied knowledge-hungry gnomes to the Basarji/Basaia and tied gnomes who have a natural aptitude for illusion to a mysterious place rumored to be haunted.

Hope that helps!