Gnomes are welcome everywhere as technicians, alchemists, and inventors. Despite the demand for their skills, many gnomes chose to live among their own kind, living in cluttered, tottering huts and towers. The gnomes are the most industrious and curious of the various races. They are both inquisitive and analytical to extreme degrees. These two traits have driven the gnomes to create some of the most astounding devices Migdalia has ever seen; even their failures are often awe-inspiring.Personality: Gnomes tend to be rather eccentric, and their analytical nature tends to make them analyze situations to absurd ends. They can often be seen muttering to themselves as they work out a multitude of scenarios in their heads. Often bored with simple conversation, gnomes rarely are so rude as to ignore the speaker, instead allowing their minds to wander, analyzing something behind the speaker, or the speaker’s appearance, or how many sips it would take a nearby dwarf to finish his ale. Gnomes are seldom arrogant, even though many secretly believe themselves superior to Migdalia’s other races.
Physical Description: Gnomes stand about 3 to 3 ½ feet tall and weight 40 to 45 pounds. Their skin ranges from pale to a light tan, their hair is fair, and their eyes can be any shade of blue. Gnome males prefer short, carefully trimmed beards and goatees. Gnomes generally wear either flowing clothes and robes decorated with intricate stitching, or tight, form-fitting, functional leather clothing. Gnomes reach adulthood about age 30, and they typically live about 150 years, though some can live almost 200 years.
Relations: Gnomes tend to be very sociable, adapting well to nearly any other race. Many develop close ties with halflings and dwarves, though they tend to view the former as somewhat lazy and the latter as far too serious and set in their ways. Gnomes are often perplexed by humans, who can at one moment behave with startling clarity and intelligence, and at the next with unthinking brutality and ignorance. Gnomes tend to find elves fascinating, often deluging them with questions about elven rituals, politics, and mating rituals. Elves, on the other hand, tend to believe gnomes to be far too curious for their own good. Gnomes rarely get along well with orcs and half-orcs.
During the Clockwork Wars, a group of gnomes known as the Clockwork Consortium attempted to forcibly seize control of Migdalia. Though they were eventually repelled by the combined might of Lanaren, Nareskadel, and Druskeden, many dwarves and elves have yet to forgive the gnomes for their arrogance. Following the war, the three nations set aside an area of land for the gnomes, dubbed “Hoggleberry” for no good reason at all, forbidding them to leave the boundaries of their new “country”. However, each nation soon grew too involved in its own affairs, and soon gnomes once again traveled across Migdalia. Despite this, Hoggleberry has remained the largest concentration of gnomes in Migdalia since the Sixth Age.
Alignment: Gnomes are most often good. Those who tend toward law are typically sages, researchers, scholars, investigators, or consultants. Those who tend towards chaos are often tricksters, wanderers, fanciful jewelers, or idealistic archeologists. Gnomes are good-hearted, and even the tricksters among them are more playful than vicious. Evil gnomes are as rare as they are frightening.
Religion: Most gnomes pay homage to both Lunskor and Hedvara, treating both more as friendly neighbors than divine beings. Most gnomes eventually grow to favor one of these two gods, choosing that particular deity as their patron. Rumors are also told of exiled or disgraced gnomes that have taken up the worship of Kalosh, spreading his doctrine of disease and pain to their fellow gnomes with particular glee.
Language: The Gnome language, which borrows heavily from the Dwarven script, is renowned for its technical treatises and its very precise definitions. It is said that the Gnomish language contains over four dozen different words for “torque”. Human and dwarven engineers, inventors, and craftsman commonly learn Gnomish in order to read books on their topics of study.
Names: Gnome surnames are often a compound word that forms a whimsical sound. Sometimes reference to an item can be found within this name, but the entire word does not appear very often. A portion of the actual word may be all that is present, and it is often modified to give it a pleasant sound. A gnome family famous for painting portraits might decide that “Brushwuttle” is a good name. “Brush” refers to a painter’s brush, and “wuttle” is complete nonsense that adds to the whimsical nature of the name. Many gnomish names refer to their prowess with mechanical creations, such as Wobblecog, Gearsnoogle, and Findlebolt.
Gnomish forenames are short and usually no longer than a couple syllables. These names are created and are bound to no real rhyme or reason. Common gnome names are Ebner and Tobin.
Adventures: Gnomes thirst for knowledge. In fact, it may be more accurate to say they lust for knowledge. Many take up adventuring to answer their own questions or prove their many theories about the world, or to disprove those of their rivals. Still other gnomes dream of reviving the ancient technology of the Clockwork Consortium, and travel across the world chasing ancient tales in search of buried artifice.
Gnome(Migdalia) Racial Traits
* -2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom. Gnomes are incredibly brilliant, with powerful analytical minds, but they suffer from small, weaker bodies and a severe lack of common sense.* Small size. As a Small creature, a gnome gains a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but he uses smaller weapons that humans use, and his lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters those of a Medium creature.
* Gnome base land speed is 20 feet.
* Low-Light Vision: A gnome can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. He retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
* Weapon Familiarity: Gnomes may treat gnome hooked hammers as martial weapons rather than exotic weapons.
* +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against constructs. Gnomes constantly battle malfunctioning inventions and berserk golems, and have learned special techniques for fighting them.
* +2 racial bonus on Listen checks. Gnomes have keen ears.
* +2 racial bonus on Disable Device checks. A gnome’s analytical brain is quite adept at determining how best to dismantle machinery or complicated devices.
* Automatic Languages: Gnomish.
* Bonus Languages: Alran, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Impara, Lanarn, Mohdrin, Talinvur, Travek.
* Favored Class: Wizard.
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