Gnomes

The final post about my three non-human races. Well, except the ancient wizards, but they're an entirely separate kettle of fish. Other entirely separate kettles of fish include the creatures of the dark world and the aumani. You know what, just forget I even mentioned it.

Gnomes and dwarves have often been considered to be cousins, especially in D&D mythology. I'm not exactly changing this, but it is going in an entirely different direction than it did before. Gnomes were once very close to the dwarves, living in the hills near the mountains where most dwarves live. The ancient wizards changed them, though.

Not physically. That would be really rather boring, I think. The ancient wizards changed their culture. Gnomes were, for a time, the ultimate fanboys and fangirls of the ancient wizards. They were utterly fascinated by the mastery over magic that the wizards had, and they strove to imitate them.

Unfortunately, the gnomes were not as adept at wielding the mystical forces as the ancient wizards. They were, in a sense, all science and no art. They could imitate the methods of the ancient wizards, but they got much lesser results. They needed something they could control completely, rather than nudge in the direction they wanted.

What they really needed was a focus. This brings me to a D&D trope that I really, really like: gnomes as inventors. The fusing of magic and metal allowed the gnomes to control the magic better, but they would never be without their devices. When the great war struck, the gnomes did not fight on the front line, with the dwarves and the elves, but rather they created great war machines. In addition to their machines, the gnomes kept copious records.

When the war was ended, the gnomes directed their attentions to keeping the knowledge safe in the absence of their heroes, the ancient wizards. They built great cities, entirely out of metal, and then they placed them beneath the sea. A century after the great war, the gnomes retreated from the surface world, and disappeared.

Well, not entirely. The gnomes are still down there, awaiting the return of the ancient wizards. In the meantime, they are protecting the knowledge they have, and they are protecting the great city of the ancients, as well as a couple other significant ancient sites. In a campaign dedicated to investigating the ancient wizards, gnomes will make interesting antagonists, as they are responsible for sinking ships that come within a certain distance of such sights. Tales of these sinkings might kick off a campaign, or a story arc.

All of my races, including this one, are going to be re-visited as I go along, but that's certainly a good start, I think. Next time, we'll get right into human lands and politics, as they will be the default PC race for most campaigns.

Elves

Alright, this is another race post. Today, I'm going to be discussing elves, and putting forward my own take on the race. The reason my dwarves changed was, to be honest, because I wanted to turn both elves and dwarves on their heads.

My elves are styled after what I felt was the stereotypical dwarf (not physically, don't worry Legolas lovers, elves are still skinny and pointy-eared). So what was the typical dwarf? A little gruff, isolationist, and basically alcoholic.

Gruff doesn't really sound like the style of the elves, so we'll change that word to "curt". Polite, but to the point. Isolationist, I'm all over that one. Alcoholic? Well, change the beer to mead, and I'm all for it.

Still doesn't give me too much, though, so lets look at a quick D&D (and Tolkien...ian) interpretation of elves, and compare it to some other depictions, and see what we can glean from that.

The D&D and Tolkien elves are long-lived, mystical, serious, and deeper than a 10,000 foot well. The wikipedia article on the subject of Tolkien's elves actually compares them to humans who had not fallen from Eden. That's a tall order, and doesn't really fit our curt, isolationist alcoholics.

Norse mythology paints elves as being relatively similar to humans as well, and is equally glowing in its praise. Elves are semi-divine creatures, with great magical abilities. I don't have a problem with elves being somewhat magical, but I kind of want to leave the deep lore to the gnomes myself, so I'm going to have to look for another angle. (I'm not really doing the norse mythology justice, but this is a gaming blog, so I'm sort of skimming and skipping here)

English elves, on the other hand, resemble much more the nymphs of Greek mythology, sneaky little tricksters who might meddle in the affairs of humans. (well, mine won't meddle in the affairs of humans, being isolationist, but we'll figure something out) They're also shown to be related to fey, which is the aspect I sort of want to base this on.

So, I have the curt, isolationist alcoholics, and I have fey/nature influence, and I have sneaky little tricksters. The first bit will be, well, slightly overhyped. Elves are curt: to outsiders. When they're on their own, they love to party! They are, more often than not, relatively good-natured, as I alluded to in the earlier post about magic. They'll help you out, without telling you, and then help themselves to your booze, and have a party in the woods to celebrate their good deed.

While they are relatively good-natured, they are also very shrewd, and it is extremely difficult to put one over on an elf. The parties are also somewhat of a facade, it must be admitted. They really honestly do enjoy themselves, but there is a deep political game going on in elvish communities. It very rarely comes to battle, but every action is calculated and carefully accounted for.

I'm going to do a little more stealing, this time from C.J. Cherryh's series Foreigner. I am quite fascinated with her first alien species, the atevi, and their system of associations and alliances. I also like their fierce numerology (which is also possibly part of norse mythology, going back to my "making the elves like dwarves" effort), so I'm going to nick both.

You don't ever deal with a single elf. All elves are associated with each other in various, complicated ways, almost all of which have nothing to do with geography (which would confuse humans to no end). Furthermore, numbers are treated very seriously by elves, bad numbers (most evens, like 6 and 10) are avoided and good numbers (odds, especially 3 and 9) are sought.

I think there's something to be done with these political machinations, possibly an entire campaign here, so I'll get on writing up some specifics...later. I'll also do another Fantasy Race Portfolio when I get around to it (possibly tomorrow), and come back and treat elvish religion.

Note: I wrote this early in the morning, so if I have used the word "Elven", I intend it to be "elvish". I'll have to proof this later.

Dwarves

I am dedicating this post to talking about that dour and serious fantasy species.

What makes a dwarf? My examination of this question largely stemmed from this thread over on the Campaign Builders' Guild. D&D likes to make them gruff, short and stocky, isolationist, and many people seem to decide this means Scottish.

Yeah, I don't understand it either. Maybe it's the need for an easy-to-imitate accent.

Dwarves (or dwarfs) in early Norse Mythology weren't even portrayed as being short. Rather they looked human, except for their connection to the stone (For the record, I'm getting all of this from Wikipedia). They had pale skin and dark hair.

Okay, well, I can work with that. Ever since reading the post mentioned above, I've wanted to return dwarves to the stone, and make that the focus of their fluff, rather than being short and bearded.

First off, I'm going to shamelessly steal (well, he did give me permission, I'm 'psychoticbarber' on the forums) the idea that dwarves are cut from the stone, and that life is breathed into them by priests. As mentioned in the thread, this will make dwarven society into a powerful theocracy, as religious leaders literally have the power to stop the dwarves from creating children. Furthermore, dwarves are sexless, and likely the smallest grouping would be not the family but the clan.

Here's my Fantasy Race Portfolio