( a k a T i n k e r s , N o c k e r s , K a b o u t e r s... )
APPEARANCE
Traditionally, all Gnomes wear distinct pointed caps in an assortment of colours, and shoes with upturned, pointy toes. Their mode of attire is often slightly flamboyant, even festive. A Gnome would would not limit itself to plain, practical articles of clothing when they could instead be embroidered, dyed, and beset with ribbons, dags, or bells.
GNOMISH SPEED
This extends to their personal manner as well; although good-natured and non-confrontational, Gnomes may also seem impatient, twitchy, and distracted. The reason for this is usually because they are thinking about several ideas at once, which also leads them to be prone to babbling incessantly - often to themselves. A Gnome's stream-of-consciousness is usually intelligible only to other Gnomes.
Gnomish senses are extremely acute. They are highly attentive to movement or changes in their immediate surroundings - the path of an insect through the air, faint reverberations in the ground under their feet, changes in humidity. They can hear ranges beyond human hearing, and can see in near-darkness.
They are also very detail-oriented, and tend to observe and mentally catalogue small visual elements, sounds, or smells with a high degree of accuracy. Their eidetic memory is unusually persistent, allowing them to memorize long texts at a glance or make abstract calculations almost instantly. This also allows them to keep track of their various complex projects; a Gnome rarely needs a diagram... unless the creation of the diagram itself becomes a work of art in its own right.
Gnomes live their lives in bursts. Even their sleep patterns are compartmentalized into brief power naps spread over the day and night. Gnomes do not live as long as Elves or Dwarves, but their lifespan still reaches several hundred years.
CULTURE
Gnomes are at home underground, and are accomplished miners. They greatly value gold and gemstones as Dwarves do, but are motivated more by curiosity and use-value than greed. They are especially fascinated by finely-crafted tools, exquisitely-cut jewels, or intricate devices. They are renowned craftsmen, particularly as workers of metals. A Gnome is a consummate builder, and possesses an intuitive aptitude for engineering, problem-solving, and perceiving how things work.
Gnomish culture places a quasi-religious emphasis on the notion of productive labour, often for its own sake. They live to be busy, always suspended between conceiving, preparing, or maintaining various projects. The act of creation is a form of spiritual fulfillment for them, while idleness is a kind of iniquity. The notion of destruction or waste is abstract to Gnomes... even immoral.
Gnomes are not prone to violence, and have no culture of aggression or warfare. Among all their storied crafts and inventions, weapons are conspicuously under-represented. For Gnomes, a tool or device created for the purpose of destroying or harming others is a perversion of the creative spirit that guides them.
For this reason, Gnomes are generally furtive creatures. They are secretive about their homes, as the isolation of their communities is a facet of their survival. When forced to deal with outsiders, they will usually negotiate, placate, or mislead, though they tend to avoid outright lying, as Gnomes abhor untruth on principle.
The Seelie Court operates on obscure laws with ingrained transactional principles enmeshed with obligation and personal honour. While some Fae manipulate such rules to suit their whims, Gnomes are honest and hardworking, with a strong sense of fair play. Their underlying benevolence and practicality means they rarely take undue advantage of such situations. Similarly, they rarely resort to thieving or trickery, even though their abilities would make such things easy for them.
Instead, Gnomes prefer to trade their crafts or services for those goods they cannot produce for themselves. Out in the human world, these transactions are often covert; sundry items may disappear overnight, with a handmade object left in their stead, or household chores may be performed in return for shelter and a warm hearth, even if the host remains unaware that they have a tenant.
Gnomes are well-disposed toward people they observe to be virtuous or well-intentioned, and in those cases, they may be inclined to do them favours or leave them gifts. Nonetheless, Gnomes take great pride in their handiwork, and can become huffy or persnickety if they feel their work has been slighted. Like all Fae, their single-minded nature sometimes can make them detached, capricious, or extreme in their ways of thinking.
COMMUNITIES
Despite their subterranean origins, Gnomes hold no disdain for the sun, and are comfortable living above ground, favouring secluded woodlands or mountains. Due to their preternatural dexterity, Gnomish living areas are typically built in a precarious fashion, and are difficult to access for non-Gnomes.
Their communities are often organized around a central industry or task, such as mining, smithing, woodworking, or even something that otherwise seems purposeless, like maintaining elaborate gardens or carving a cavern full of tiny statues. The activities themselves are the important thing. Gnomes bring a degree of panache to everything they do, and are always eager to share and observe each other's work.
Gnomes do not engage in large-scale farming, but often keep small vegetable gardens, which they supplement with wild fruit, poultry, and various insects (which they are fast enough to catch easily). They are also very fond of sweets. Gnomish dishes will often include specially prepared insects, often in a candied form.
GNOMES IN THE WORLD
Gnomes are one of the Fae types that may be found all over Duatha, although they are rarely seen, and disappear quickly if spotted, thanks to their startling speed. Gnome-kind are frequently called by different names based on their regional particularities and outlook.
Deep-delving Gnomes living in subterranean communities based around mining are known as Nockers. Those who live in proximity to rural communities may be called Kabouters or Domovoi, and are usually treated as guardian spirits of the nearby farms. Woodland Gnomes are sometimes known as Brownies or Nissen, and are considered good luck by locals. Despite differences in lifestyle and culture, all varieties tend to be kind-spirited and industrious.
Goblins and Trolls are the two great enemies of the Gnomes. Goblins see Gnomes as easy marks - they are nimble and cunning enough to capture Gnomes and to ferret out their communes, which are ripe for plunder and rarely prepared to fight back. In regions where Gnome territories overlap with Trolls, the versatility, sharp senses, and all-consuming destructive hunger of Trolls makes them utterly implacable foes.
Gnomes tend to speak many languages, including a peculiar dialect of Dwarven-Chthonic which is so rapid and unrelenting that even Dwarves have a difficult time understanding them. Additionally, they speak the Faerie Common patois, and will usually know the dominant human language of the region, such as Ymiri, Brin, Kaelish, or even old Imperial.
Gnomes live their lives in bursts. Even their sleep patterns are compartmentalized into brief power naps spread over the day and night. Gnomes do not live as long as Elves or Dwarves, but their lifespan still reaches several hundred years.
CULTURE
Gnomish culture places a quasi-religious emphasis on the notion of productive labour, often for its own sake. They live to be busy, always suspended between conceiving, preparing, or maintaining various projects. The act of creation is a form of spiritual fulfillment for them, while idleness is a kind of iniquity. The notion of destruction or waste is abstract to Gnomes... even immoral.
Gnomes are not prone to violence, and have no culture of aggression or warfare. Among all their storied crafts and inventions, weapons are conspicuously under-represented. For Gnomes, a tool or device created for the purpose of destroying or harming others is a perversion of the creative spirit that guides them.
For this reason, Gnomes are generally furtive creatures. They are secretive about their homes, as the isolation of their communities is a facet of their survival. When forced to deal with outsiders, they will usually negotiate, placate, or mislead, though they tend to avoid outright lying, as Gnomes abhor untruth on principle.
The Seelie Court operates on obscure laws with ingrained transactional principles enmeshed with obligation and personal honour. While some Fae manipulate such rules to suit their whims, Gnomes are honest and hardworking, with a strong sense of fair play. Their underlying benevolence and practicality means they rarely take undue advantage of such situations. Similarly, they rarely resort to thieving or trickery, even though their abilities would make such things easy for them.
Instead, Gnomes prefer to trade their crafts or services for those goods they cannot produce for themselves. Out in the human world, these transactions are often covert; sundry items may disappear overnight, with a handmade object left in their stead, or household chores may be performed in return for shelter and a warm hearth, even if the host remains unaware that they have a tenant.
Gnomes are well-disposed toward people they observe to be virtuous or well-intentioned, and in those cases, they may be inclined to do them favours or leave them gifts. Nonetheless, Gnomes take great pride in their handiwork, and can become huffy or persnickety if they feel their work has been slighted. Like all Fae, their single-minded nature sometimes can make them detached, capricious, or extreme in their ways of thinking.
COMMUNITIES
Their communities are often organized around a central industry or task, such as mining, smithing, woodworking, or even something that otherwise seems purposeless, like maintaining elaborate gardens or carving a cavern full of tiny statues. The activities themselves are the important thing. Gnomes bring a degree of panache to everything they do, and are always eager to share and observe each other's work.
Gnomes do not engage in large-scale farming, but often keep small vegetable gardens, which they supplement with wild fruit, poultry, and various insects (which they are fast enough to catch easily). They are also very fond of sweets. Gnomish dishes will often include specially prepared insects, often in a candied form.
GNOMES IN THE WORLD
Deep-delving Gnomes living in subterranean communities based around mining are known as Nockers. Those who live in proximity to rural communities may be called Kabouters or Domovoi, and are usually treated as guardian spirits of the nearby farms. Woodland Gnomes are sometimes known as Brownies or Nissen, and are considered good luck by locals. Despite differences in lifestyle and culture, all varieties tend to be kind-spirited and industrious.
Goblins and Trolls are the two great enemies of the Gnomes. Goblins see Gnomes as easy marks - they are nimble and cunning enough to capture Gnomes and to ferret out their communes, which are ripe for plunder and rarely prepared to fight back. In regions where Gnome territories overlap with Trolls, the versatility, sharp senses, and all-consuming destructive hunger of Trolls makes them utterly implacable foes.
Gnomes tend to speak many languages, including a peculiar dialect of Dwarven-Chthonic which is so rapid and unrelenting that even Dwarves have a difficult time understanding them. Additionally, they speak the Faerie Common patois, and will usually know the dominant human language of the region, such as Ymiri, Brin, Kaelish, or even old Imperial.
OTHER TYPES OF GNOMES
While the tendencies of Gnomes tend to be largely similar, there are different offshoot creeds of Gnomes who are culturally different from the Tinker Gnomes described above.
NOCKERS
These Gnomes normally spend most of their lives underground, and live in small clan groups. Although they possess the usual gnomish ingenuity, they channel their efforts mainly into the activities of mining for precious stones and metals, which can the be turned into various hand-crafted objects. A clan of Nockers will often be closely associated with a community of surface-dwelling Tinker Gnomes whom they trade with.
While they share their underground domain with Dwarves and Goblins, Nockers are by far the more discreet creatures. Nockers lack the Dwarven avarice and flair for the monumental. Their mines are small and unobtrusive, and once they have extracted what they seek from a given area, they have been known to meticulously fill in and close off their shafts.
Nockers are so named for the nocking sounds they use to communicate underground. This technique is actually meant to be heard, and is often used to send messages to other creatures (including human miners) to warn them of impending cave-ins or other hazards.... though Nockers are shy enough that their human neighbours will likely never lay eyes on them.
Nockers are so named for the nocking sounds they use to communicate underground. This technique is actually meant to be heard, and is often used to send messages to other creatures (including human miners) to warn them of impending cave-ins or other hazards.... though Nockers are shy enough that their human neighbours will likely never lay eyes on them.
LEPRECHAUNS
In the south of Kaelthea, in the rolling hills of Findal, there live an old creed of Gnomes quite different from others. While most of their kind is cheerful and industrious, the Leprechauns are known to be shiftless and greedy. They work as little as possible, and instead prefer to covet wealth than to do anything with it. They are known to be boisterous revelers when they are drunk on their Faerie brews, but paranoid, surly, and vindictive when sober. They are in fact not good neighbours.
NISSEN
Gnomes that live wholly in wooded areas are usually called Nissen. They tend live as solitary creatures or in small family groups, and usually make their homes in large trees (or among their roots). Nissen are among the most relaxed of Gnomes, preferring to busy themselves not by making things, but by gardening and acting as custodians of their forests. Like all Gnomes, they are shy and rarely seen, but a wood with Nissen always seems like a tidier, more orderly affair than one without. The surest way to lure one out of hiding is to drop litter about, or leave a firepit smoldering -- though this will likely win you a dirty look before the Nissen disappears again.
KABOUTERS
Some might call these Gnomes semi-domesticated. The term Kabouter usually refers to solitary Gnomes (or small groups) who live in close proximity to humans, usually near farms and homesteads. As usual, a Kabouter's presence is almost never seen, but is nonetheless welcome, because they often like to perform household tasks, care for animals, or mend clothing when nobody is watching. Kabouters may also engage in some mild pilfering, but will always pay for what they take in helpful labour.
Even so, most Kabouters are misfits of a sort -- antisocial Gnomes who prefer to live as hermits to their own kind. Gnomes are normally so community-minded that those who choose the path of the Kabouter are often too temperamental to live in a buzzing colony with other Gnomes. For this reason, it is always good to be respectful to household Kabouters... to slight them or push them too far may infect them with a spark of malice and set them on a dangerous path...
GREMLINS
While most Gnomes subscribe to the virtue of productive labour, the Gremlin is a disaffected, anarchic individual whose restless devotion to activity is corrupted by a mischievous streak of nihilistic curiosity. It is believed that the Gremlin's relationship to the Faerie wild magics within them is too strong, or has become imbalanced and volatile. Gremlins cannot sit still because they are consumed by destructive impulses and a morbid fascination with watching things - particularly constructed or crafted things - come apart, often in the most spectacular ways. This erratic obsession may not be born out of any true malice... the Gremlin is simply built different.
Most Gremlins are former Tinker Gnomes, making them particularly hazardous to have in the community. The practice of “Gremelschaft" is among the most serious and heretical crimes a Gnome can commit, and Gremlins are usually exiled or imprisoned immediately.
Once the wild magic in a Gremlin is unleashed, the creature will often show physiological changes brought on by their change in philosophy. Their features will become sharper and more angular, and their hair begins to stand on end, giving them a "spikey" appearance. It has also been observed that Gremlins actually become even faster than their Gnomish brethren, which makes catching them difficult to impossible.
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