I love gnomes, but I do feel like the concept is a bit muddled. I'm not a fan of the tinkerer archetype that the Rock Gnome pushes, and its tendency to go more steampunk than magical. I like their curiosity, verging on obsessive need for learning and discovery. I don't particularly think it needs an explanation, any more than the pointed ears of elves do. There are neurotypes within humans that resemble the characterization of gnomes, and having it simply be their baseline is enough for me; it is the thing which should justify other aspects about them, rather than the other way around. I do like to combine their inevitable association with crafting unusual items and their marked mentality by borrowing Dwarf Fortress' concept of Strange Moods, where an affected individual will be gripped by an intense fixation (typically, to create something, often unreproducible) which if unfulfilled, leads to lasting psychological harm.
I think the different subraces embody the different traits of gnomes. The rock gnomes are the industrious and curious ones, while deep gnomes are more reclusive, and the forest gnomes are less extreme in either trait, but have a bit of each. Forest gnomes live quiet lives in their forests watching the world change around them without acting too directly on it.
I tend to view what is presented as the different species' innate characteristics more as stereotypes. When applied to a certain individual some of those will probably be true while others are not. Every once in a while you'd find someone to whom all those stereotypes apply, but for each of those people there will be someone else who differs from all or at least most stereotypes. Your point of gnomes sharing characteristics with Tolkien's hobbits is something that had occured to me, too. Most of them tend to stay at home and don't care much about the outside world, but are increadibly curious about their local gossip. The way I look at it, your typical rock gnome will be very interested in their neighbors latest invention and your typical forest gnome will listen closely to whatever it is the local rabbits chat about. Most of them would care about who made out with whom during the last celebration or what meals and beveraged were served, while they have little to no interest in the other peoples affairs. Like with Tolkien's hobbits gnome adventurers are outliers. Those who "go in search of the Ladies" (I do love that both as a religious concept and as an idiom to describe adventuring) just have a less limited/focussed curiosity. Faerûn lore doesn't offer as much about gnomes as about most of the other playable species in the PHB, but this in itself might hint at certain things. Gnome are rare in the Forgotten Realms, they don't form large empires and contribute little to world shaking events. I think they are as reclusive because of bad experiences the've had as a people, most important and best known of which certainly is their history of slavery, but I assume they've had to regularly endure hard times when powerful empires waged war, conquered each other and did all those things detailed in the Realm's history books. History usually is written by victors and by not telling us much at all about the gnomes, history tells us they never had the upper hand in any such endeavors, hence their small numbers and hidden villages. They also were rarely or never the primary targets of warfare, as the loosers of war tend to be mentioned by the winners. I think they were mostly crushed in between opposing forces as collateral damage with neither side caring all that much about them. At least that's my take on the gnome lore we did get and the one we don't. Also I do like gnomes existing as they do in D&D. Every new player will immediatly have an idea on how to portrait dwarves and elves, but most other non-human species are kinda hard to figure out. When I introduced my forest gnome bard player to D&D I basically just told her that gnomes are all about the zest for life, and she got it. (Of course I then went on and wrote her a 60+ page booklet about gnomes, the gnomish pantheon, bards, her family and their history, some other NPCs she met, her life expierience and some elements related to the campaigns plot as they are portrayed in her people's folklore, but that's just my style of DMing, not a necessity. It's my way to cope with the concept of premade characters.) If you want to focus on the PHB races I'd be very interested in your take on dragonborn and tieflings, but I'd be even more interested in how you handle species with only little lore (even compared to gnomes), like tortle, harengorn etc., and your take on traditionally evil species like orks, goblins or drow.
I have a video on tieflings already, you can find it in the D&D tutorial playlist, I think :) On the rest of your comment: interesting takes on what the lack of gnomish history tells us of their role in the past. To assume the fact they are never mentioned means they never had the upper hand seems the obvious conclusion. However, I leave you this food for thought: why isn't the world dominated by gnomes? We know it isn't dominated by elves, because even though they are so long-lived, they are somewhat reluctant to have kids. We know it isn't dominated by dwarves because even though they are kinda almost as long-lived as elves, they have a history of wars and high casualties, and there may be fertility issues going on as well. But what of gnomes? If they multiply like hobbits and can live about 500 years, the world should be filled with them, and yet it isn't. Why? No right answer for this, of course, other than "because the designers didn't think of this implication", but it does make you think
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD I think the relative small number of gnomes comes down to my first and maybe some other assumptions: 1. Throughout history they've been killed quite regularly, mostly in conflicts between other species without being mentiond in the tomes of Candlekeep's history section, which could especially be true for those gnomes who dwell in other species' towns. 2. They may not be as fertile and multiply less then many other species, which might even be the only reason if taken to the extreme. Established gnome settlements tend to be very small, Gnomengarde for example is described in Dragon of Icespire Peak as having 20 inhabitants (unrelated, but funny: 2 of those 20 are kings, so 10% of their population!). If they would multiply rapidly, this number seems to low. 3. The real number of such reclusive illusionists may very well exceed Volo's (and anybody else's) highest estimates. Maybe they are not as rare as they are widely believed to be. Their capabilities as illusionists and as spellcasters in general might help them to be intentionally overlooked in every day life and both censuses and historical documents alike. I didn't ever think of this before, but I might establish conspiracy theories about the whole of Faerûn being secretly controlled by hordes of gnomes noone knows about. With 1 in 10 being a king they must rule quite alot. This seems like the exact thing some would believe about a people of rare reclusive illusionists who may even have found a way to avoid being mentioned in the history books.
In my homebrew lore Gnomes are grown like root vegetables or mushroom. When one dies 2 or 3 may grow in its place. This seperates gnomes from halflings in quite a few ways. The main way being gnomes have small roots or mycelium coming from their feet or hands. Because of this they can be harder to knockdown and it's easier for them to climb. They can communicate with plants easier and can fight starvation by burying themselves in fertile soil. Their culture involves adoption, farming and fishing. Many gnomes only leave their village if they feel one of theirs has died and theres young to be harvested and replanted closer by. Sometimes they may pay others if they feel the trip would be too dangerous
That's an amazing concept. I think I might actually prefer it to the official D&D lore. Is it always 2-3 being born where one dies, or it depends on the circumstances of death? Does that lead to population booms, where the number of gnomes in the world rises exponentially?
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD Can be more can be less. The number of gnomes wont rise faster than any other race who breeds traditionally. Potentially far slower due to a long life span. The gnomes need to be matured or their deaths will result in no saplings and animals can sometimes eat gnome saplings if unguarded. Throw gnomes into a war in an open field then yeah you might get a huge boom, but if no one is there to protect/raise the saplings or young that particular generation might not live long enough to mature.
Currently playing a Necromancer Deep Gnome, good lore video thnx 👍 still working on personality, trying to tow the line between totally unhinged hermit and beguiling wizard
I think Pathfinder explained gnomes' curiosity really well with the bleaching. Gnomes are originally from the feywilds and have brightly coloured hair, but when they get stuck in a rut and stop exploring and adventuring, they slowly lose their colour and then die. So the inquisitive nature is born out of desperation in a sense.
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD Yeah, someone at Pathfinder must have been asking themselves the same question you did: why are gnomes so inquisitive? The answer they came up with is poetic and a bit tragic. Some gnomes start cooking up trouble and basically becoming chaotic evil just to keep the thrill in their lives and stop them from bleaching.
@@Vuizendrecht the best concepts are always those which are complex and ambivalent. The hero with a dark secret, the villain with a sad and tragic past, the miracle that comes at a big cost, the great power with an even greater responsability
Rock Gnomes seem like natural allies of dwarfs, after all, dwarfs stick to home, the gnomes can go trade, not to mention, work as gemcutters? And they don't even overlap in terms of living area, they're really just neighboring communities.
I love gnomes, but I do feel like the concept is a bit muddled. I'm not a fan of the tinkerer archetype that the Rock Gnome pushes, and its tendency to go more steampunk than magical.
I like their curiosity, verging on obsessive need for learning and discovery. I don't particularly think it needs an explanation, any more than the pointed ears of elves do. There are neurotypes within humans that resemble the characterization of gnomes, and having it simply be their baseline is enough for me; it is the thing which should justify other aspects about them, rather than the other way around.
I do like to combine their inevitable association with crafting unusual items and their marked mentality by borrowing Dwarf Fortress' concept of Strange Moods, where an affected individual will be gripped by an intense fixation (typically, to create something, often unreproducible) which if unfulfilled, leads to lasting psychological harm.
I think the different subraces embody the different traits of gnomes. The rock gnomes are the industrious and curious ones, while deep gnomes are more reclusive, and the forest gnomes are less extreme in either trait, but have a bit of each. Forest gnomes live quiet lives in their forests watching the world change around them without acting too directly on it.
Actually, I've always envisioned forest gnomes as way more reclusive than deep gnomes, and I'm not even sure why
I tend to view what is presented as the different species' innate characteristics more as stereotypes. When applied to a certain individual some of those will probably be true while others are not. Every once in a while you'd find someone to whom all those stereotypes apply, but for each of those people there will be someone else who differs from all or at least most stereotypes.
Your point of gnomes sharing characteristics with Tolkien's hobbits is something that had occured to me, too. Most of them tend to stay at home and don't care much about the outside world, but are increadibly curious about their local gossip. The way I look at it, your typical rock gnome will be very interested in their neighbors latest invention and your typical forest gnome will listen closely to whatever it is the local rabbits chat about. Most of them would care about who made out with whom during the last celebration or what meals and beveraged were served, while they have little to no interest in the other peoples affairs. Like with Tolkien's hobbits gnome adventurers are outliers. Those who "go in search of the Ladies" (I do love that both as a religious concept and as an idiom to describe adventuring) just have a less limited/focussed curiosity.
Faerûn lore doesn't offer as much about gnomes as about most of the other playable species in the PHB, but this in itself might hint at certain things. Gnome are rare in the Forgotten Realms, they don't form large empires and contribute little to world shaking events. I think they are as reclusive because of bad experiences the've had as a people, most important and best known of which certainly is their history of slavery, but I assume they've had to regularly endure hard times when powerful empires waged war, conquered each other and did all those things detailed in the Realm's history books. History usually is written by victors and by not telling us much at all about the gnomes, history tells us they never had the upper hand in any such endeavors, hence their small numbers and hidden villages. They also were rarely or never the primary targets of warfare, as the loosers of war tend to be mentioned by the winners. I think they were mostly crushed in between opposing forces as collateral damage with neither side caring all that much about them.
At least that's my take on the gnome lore we did get and the one we don't.
Also I do like gnomes existing as they do in D&D. Every new player will immediatly have an idea on how to portrait dwarves and elves, but most other non-human species are kinda hard to figure out. When I introduced my forest gnome bard player to D&D I basically just told her that gnomes are all about the zest for life, and she got it. (Of course I then went on and wrote her a 60+ page booklet about gnomes, the gnomish pantheon, bards, her family and their history, some other NPCs she met, her life expierience and some elements related to the campaigns plot as they are portrayed in her people's folklore, but that's just my style of DMing, not a necessity. It's my way to cope with the concept of premade characters.)
If you want to focus on the PHB races I'd be very interested in your take on dragonborn and tieflings, but I'd be even more interested in how you handle species with only little lore (even compared to gnomes), like tortle, harengorn etc., and your take on traditionally evil species like orks, goblins or drow.
I have a video on tieflings already, you can find it in the D&D tutorial playlist, I think :)
On the rest of your comment: interesting takes on what the lack of gnomish history tells us of their role in the past. To assume the fact they are never mentioned means they never had the upper hand seems the obvious conclusion. However, I leave you this food for thought: why isn't the world dominated by gnomes? We know it isn't dominated by elves, because even though they are so long-lived, they are somewhat reluctant to have kids. We know it isn't dominated by dwarves because even though they are kinda almost as long-lived as elves, they have a history of wars and high casualties, and there may be fertility issues going on as well. But what of gnomes? If they multiply like hobbits and can live about 500 years, the world should be filled with them, and yet it isn't. Why?
No right answer for this, of course, other than "because the designers didn't think of this implication", but it does make you think
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD maybe it is, but gosh darn, nobody noticed them
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD I think the relative small number of gnomes comes down to my first and maybe some other assumptions:
1. Throughout history they've been killed quite regularly, mostly in conflicts between other species without being mentiond in the tomes of Candlekeep's history section, which could especially be true for those gnomes who dwell in other species' towns.
2. They may not be as fertile and multiply less then many other species, which might even be the only reason if taken to the extreme. Established gnome settlements tend to be very small, Gnomengarde for example is described in Dragon of Icespire Peak as having 20 inhabitants (unrelated, but funny: 2 of those 20 are kings, so 10% of their population!). If they would multiply rapidly, this number seems to low.
3. The real number of such reclusive illusionists may very well exceed Volo's (and anybody else's) highest estimates. Maybe they are not as rare as they are widely believed to be. Their capabilities as illusionists and as spellcasters in general might help them to be intentionally overlooked in every day life and both censuses and historical documents alike.
I didn't ever think of this before, but I might establish conspiracy theories about the whole of Faerûn being secretly controlled by hordes of gnomes noone knows about. With 1 in 10 being a king they must rule quite alot. This seems like the exact thing some would believe about a people of rare reclusive illusionists who may even have found a way to avoid being mentioned in the history books.
@@collin4555 omg yes, that is so perfect. Just imagine what if...
In my homebrew lore Gnomes are grown like root vegetables or mushroom. When one dies 2 or 3 may grow in its place. This seperates gnomes from halflings in quite a few ways. The main way being gnomes have small roots or mycelium coming from their feet or hands. Because of this they can be harder to knockdown and it's easier for them to climb. They can communicate with plants easier and can fight starvation by burying themselves in fertile soil.
Their culture involves adoption, farming and fishing. Many gnomes only leave their village if they feel one of theirs has died and theres young to be harvested and replanted closer by. Sometimes they may pay others if they feel the trip would be too dangerous
That's an amazing concept. I think I might actually prefer it to the official D&D lore. Is it always 2-3 being born where one dies, or it depends on the circumstances of death? Does that lead to population booms, where the number of gnomes in the world rises exponentially?
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD Can be more can be less. The number of gnomes wont rise faster than any other race who breeds traditionally. Potentially far slower due to a long life span. The gnomes need to be matured or their deaths will result in no saplings and animals can sometimes eat gnome saplings if unguarded.
Throw gnomes into a war in an open field then yeah you might get a huge boom, but if no one is there to protect/raise the saplings or young that particular generation might not live long enough to mature.
@@OMGSAMCOPSEY again, amazing concept. The more I think about it, the deeper it gets...
Currently playing a Necromancer Deep Gnome, good lore video thnx 👍 still working on personality, trying to tow the line between totally unhinged hermit and beguiling wizard
I think Pathfinder explained gnomes' curiosity really well with the bleaching. Gnomes are originally from the feywilds and have brightly coloured hair, but when they get stuck in a rut and stop exploring and adventuring, they slowly lose their colour and then die. So the inquisitive nature is born out of desperation in a sense.
I wasn't aware of that Pathfinder lore, but that's a pretty cool concept!
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD Yeah, someone at Pathfinder must have been asking themselves the same question you did: why are gnomes so inquisitive? The answer they came up with is poetic and a bit tragic. Some gnomes start cooking up trouble and basically becoming chaotic evil just to keep the thrill in their lives and stop them from bleaching.
@@Vuizendrecht the best concepts are always those which are complex and ambivalent. The hero with a dark secret, the villain with a sad and tragic past, the miracle that comes at a big cost, the great power with an even greater responsability
Rock Gnomes seem like natural allies of dwarfs, after all, dwarfs stick to home, the gnomes can go trade, not to mention, work as gemcutters? And they don't even overlap in terms of living area, they're really just neighboring communities.