Greetings!

I confess, I have never really liked Gnomes. Gnomes were somewhat tolerable in AD&D--but the Gnomes continuously went downhill from even that position of mediocrity. The whole "Happy, techno-gizmo masters PLUS magical powers and uber cuteness!" motif just made me hate Gnomes as presented in D&D, pretty much continuously, though especially from 3E and onwards, to the present era of 5E. Truth be told, I think I can recall such a motif for Gnomes being embraced even in 2E. Nonetheless, I have always found D&D Gnomes to be often more or less silly, kitchen-sink empowered, and still somehow being only vaguely distinguishable thematic wise from superior Dwarves, while the Halflings had the "Small and Cute" thing down well enough. In a world that features Dwarves and Halflings--Gnomes seemed to me to be redundant, irrelevant, and a race looking for a purpose and direction. They seemed like cute, techno-powered and Renaissance-flavoured faierie-wannabe's shoved into a medieval-esque fantasy world and never seemed to fit in very well for me.

Then, I became acquainted with the traditions of Forest and Mountain Gnomes found in ancient Baltic and Finnish mythology. Perhaps it was the artwork--definitely was inspiring and intriguing--but the presentation of the myths and lore on several kinds of mystical Gnomes, living in the forests or within mountain halls, fighting against evil, monstrous humanoids, evil faeries or demons, besides dealing with humans--felt very interesting and inspiring to me, for some strange reason. Despite my decades of derision for Gnomes, I now found that I liked them. I was swept up in their struggles, their relationships with human communities, animals, the spirit world, the different gods and goddesses. They now seemed quite distinct from Dwarves or Halflings--even though I realize there are cultural transitions between them and such figures throughout European cultures--within the game context, Gnomes became distinctive, intriguing, and interesting to me. I could now see a place for them in my campaign world, alongside Dwarves and Halflings, for example, without driving me crazy in annoyance or rationale.

Am I making any sense with my reactions to D&D Gnomes? Have you felt anything similar? Why do Gnomes in mythology become much more interesting and inspiring than the Gnomes presented in the Player's Handbook?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I never really liked the attempts to add a "techo-" side to gnomes, and I think they lost a bit of differentiation from dwarves and halflings when 3e allowed both dwarves and halflings to practice arcane magic without restriction. I think any attempt to really differentiate the three depends on making more significant breaks between them. Compared to D&D, WFRP 4e actually does a fair job at this, as gnomes play at shadow magic while both dwarves and halflings are highly resistant to (most) magic and can only work a few racial-specific paths.

My favorite gnomes are the ones from the Huygen book.  Unfortunately they're too small to work as PCs for a standard D&D game.

Shark,
I have, as of late, been trying to find folklore sources for the D&D Monsters (which includes gnomes). Do you (or anyone else here) know of any good resources online or any good comprehensive books? I'd love to get some reading in during this Halloween lockdown.

I'd also be very interested in good sources for gnomes in mythology.

I ended up making gnomes in my setting the embodied dreams of children (The Fey Realm is the spiritual realm of dreams where every dream is embodied). They're basically like the Lost Boys from Peter Pan.

They have no understanding or fear of death because dying just causes them to be reborn (without memories) in the Fey Realm (this removes them as a PC; "resurrection" requires finding them and casting a restoration spell to restore their lost memories).

They have no concept of sex because they're literally born from dreams by stepping out of the mists in the Fey Realm. They honestly finding kissing a little gross.

Their magic falls into the typical abilities of children in dreams; the ability to wield items disproportionate to their size, innate skill in some area children really aren't capable of, finding whatever they need (within reason) in their pockets and slipping away/narrowly escaping from danger.

By contrast, to set my dwarves apart from the "all our dwarves are the same" trope I decided that due to how they came to be, different parts of their bodies age at different rates and begin to fail in their early twenties. To deal with this they replace the failing limbs and organs with arcane/steampunk prostheses that actually improve on what was lost.

That D&D dwarven resistance to toxins? Some have literal cast-iron stomachs. Incredible strength for their size? Their frame has been reinforced. Darkvision? That one has a polished crystal eye. Brass-plated arms with hands that can transform into common tools, iron lungs, retractable cleats for climbing and resisting forced movement and others are options that dwarves may start with and can pick up more as they age.

Their elders are basically "full conversion" arcane cyborgs far more artifice than flesh-and-blood with all the experience of a lifetime in a still powerful body; making them fearsome warriors.

I don't include halflings at all because I'm not interested in a Tolkien rip-off setting. If you wanted to play a halfling in my world I'd say to roll up a human and say they come from an ethnic group that is much shorter than average like the Pygmies in the real world. 4'6" to 4'11" with human proportions is PLENTY short without being ridiculous (3e halflings were basically the size of toddlers) and still falls into "medium-sized" in the WotC-era D&D systems. "Halfling" would just be a term akin to Pygmy for describing a particularly short human ethnic group.

But that's how I make my gnomes and dwarves (and halflings I guess) distinct from each other in the setting; Lost Boys, Steampunk Cyborgs and short humans.