The Ephemeral Cloak

The origins of the Gnomes are mroe mysterious even than the rise of the Dwarven people. Most Gnomes believe they were  dreamed into existence by the Ancients themselves. Some believe they are the Ancients' creations, or the remnants of some slave race created by them. 
No matter what an individual gnome believes, their minds are inextricably linked to both the dreaming and waking worlds, and to a gnome the difference between one and the other is matter of physical and spiritual transition. The divide between the waking and sleeping world is a false one, and it is simply a matter of perception, an inability to easily see from one ot the other, that prevents one them from crossing into one another.
While to most people this seems odd, for a gnome it is easier to understand, since they seem to bear the ability to pierce this veil of perception to gain insight or even power over the waking world. Gnomes can pull objects from their dreams. Depending on the nature and mind of the gnome, these objects can be wonderous and whimsical, or the things of nightmares and madness.
Unlike dwarves, gnomes have never dedicated much time to documenting themselves or their histories. If reality is as mutable as a dream, what use is trying to pin down reality with ink or chisel? The past and the recording of it are as malleable as anything else in existence. It is perhaps because of this that, of the races on Aramanth, gnomes are the least understood, and most information on their comings and goings in the past are relegated to their existence in the annals of other nations (mostly dwarves). 
Just as ancient Dwarven fables are filled with cautionary tales involving the ephemerial gnomes finding mischief and misfortune over their lack of structure, failure at cation, and just general lack of focus, gnome villages and tribes are rife with songs, jokes, and stories of stuffy dwarves wasting years of their lives over words chipped into rocks by dwarves long dead. 
To a gnome, the events of history are less real than the experience of their moment-by-moment reality. What does it matter what happened last week, or five years ago, or a thousand? After all, depending on the shifting nature of the waking dream, what happened last week may be different tomorrow. 
This does not mean that gnomes are incapable of forming bonds or operating in society--but ability of one to do so depends largely on a gnomes personal feelings on the subject, feelings that are more able to change with shifting events than perhaps other, more grounded creatures.
Due to all this, the faiths of individual gnomes and specific communities can vary even between gnomes. There are a few constnts, however.

Tenets of Faith

• Reality is subjective. The line between waking and dreams is a thin cloak of existence that can be pierced with enough thought and effort.
• Dogmatism and rigidity invite disaster. To be unwilling to change oneself is to risk reality leaving one behind.
• Curiosity is the highest virtue. To discover something new, especially if it's in something already old, is one of life's greatest joys.
• Existence is Transient, Ideas are Forever. To become overly attached to a place or a thing is to invite loss when reality inevitably moves on, causing the thing to die, dissolve, or shift to something else beneath the feat of those who love them. Ideas remain, however, as long as the mind wishes to hold them.

Type

Religious, Other