Gnome
Basic Information
Biological Traits
Gnomes are very small compared to most other races and, tend to be smaller than halflings. While halflings are commonly said to resemble short humans, gnomes are more comparable with elves, with whom they share pointed ears and high cheekbones, or even dwarves, due to their tendency to grow beards and live underground. Many gnomes have a more feral appearance than either, however, with hair that often sprouted from their heads in odd directions. The skin of gnomes runs in hue from reddish tans to earthy browns or even shades of gray, with the exact hue somewhat dependent upon the ethnic origin of a gnome. Similarly, gnomish hair varies wildly in color from blond and brown to more exotic colors like white, orange, or even green. Gnomish eyes are often—particularly in individuals who are native to the Feywild—glittering black or blue, although more natural eye colors were also known to the race.
Basic Traits
Ability Score Increase: Intelligence score increases by 2.Speed: Base walking speed is 25 feet.
Darkvision: See in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light.
Gnome Cunning: Advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic.
Language: Speak, read, and write Common and Gnomish.
Subrace Traits
Forest Gnome
Forest gnomes are among the least commonly seen gnomes on Toril, far shier than even their deep gnome cousins. Small and reclusive, forest gnomes are so unknown to most non-gnomes that they have repeatedly been "discovered" by wandering outsiders who happen into their villages. Timid to an extreme, forest gnomes almost never leave their hidden homes.
Forest gnomes generally grow their hair long and free, feeling neither the need nor desire to shave or trim their hair substantially, though males often do take careful care of their beards, trimming them to a fine point or curling them into hornlike spikes. Forest gnome skin is an earthy color and looks, in many ways, like wood, although it is not particularly tough. Forest gnome hair is brown or black, though it grays with age, sometimes to a pure white.
Ability Score Increase:Dexterity score increases by 1.Natural Illusionist: Learn the minor illusion cantrip. Intelligence is the spellcasting ability for it.
Speak with Small Beasts: Can communicate simple ideas with Small or smaller beasts with sounds and gestures. Forest gnomes love animals and often keep squirrels, badgers, rabbits, moles, woodpeckers, and other creatures as beloved pets.
Source:Player's Handbook
Rock Gnome
When most people talk of gnomes, they mean rock gnomes. Rock gnomes embody the characteristics of their creator and patron deity, Garl Glittergold, choosing to spend their long lives by filling each day with as much fun and enjoyment as possible. Young rock gnomes possess any of a large number of hair colors that faded to gray or white upon reaching adulthood. Male gnomes typically keep beards groomed in a neat manner.
Rock gnomes possess many of the traits of other races, particularly humans, attributed to children. Most rock gnomes enjoy life to their very fullest; asking questions endlessly, playing pranks on friends and strangers, and finding new and interesting hobbies are just a few of the countless chores that rock gnomes burden each day with. Much like a child, a rock gnome has very little tolerance for long-term mental focus unless the task at hand is of notable interest.
Ability Score Increase: Constitution score increases by 1.
Artificer’s Lore: Whenever making an Intelligence (History) check related to magic items, alchemical objects, or technological devices, one can add twice the proficiency bonus, instead of any proficiency bonus normally apply.
Tinker: Gain proficiency with artisan’s tools (tinker’s tools). Using those tools, one can spend 1 hour and 10 gp worth of materials to construct a Tiny clockwork device (AC 5, 1 hp). The device ceases to function after 24 hours (unless you spend 1 hour repairing it to keep the device functioning), or when one uses an action to dismantle it; at that time, one can reclaim the materials used to create it. One can have up to three such devices active at a time. When a device is created, choose one of the following options:
- Clockwork Toy. This toy is a clockwork animal, monster, or person, such as a frog, mouse, bird, dragon, or soldier. When placed on the ground, the toy moves 5 feet across the ground on each of your turns in a random direction. It makes noises as appropriate to the creature it represents.
- Fire Starter. The device produces a miniature flame, which you can use to light a candle, torch, or campfire. Using the device requires your action.
- Music Box. When opened, this music box plays a single song at a moderate volume. The box stops playing when it reaches the song’s end or when it is closed.
Deep Gnome
Deep gnomes, called svirfneblin in their own language, are a gnome subrace that lived in the Underdark. While their surface cousins are known for their boundless optimism and cheerful mischief, the svirfneblin is a serious and suspicious creature. Deep gnomes are wiry and lean with a body as hard as a slab of rock. Males are completely bald and beardless, while females sport hair. Their complexions are commonly dark in hue, with most deep gnomes demonstrating brown or gray skin with dark gray eyes. Females typically had gray hair.Ability Score Increase: Dexterity score increases by 1.
Gift of the Svirfneblin: Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the disguise self spell with this trait. Starting at 5th level, you can also cast the nondetection spell with it, without requiring a material component. Once you cast either of these spells with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using spell slots you have of the appropriate level.
Superior Darkvision: Darkvision has a radius of 120 feet.
Svirfneblin Camouflage: When making a Dexterity (Stealth) check, you can make the check with advantage. This trait can be used a number of times equal to proficiency bonus, and all expended uses are regained after finishing a long rest.
Language: Speak, read, and write Common, Gnomish, and Undercommon.
Source: Element Evil Player's Companion with adjusted updates from Mordenkainen Present: Monsters of the Multiverse
Additional Information
Social Structure
Gnomes have an intricate society based on their love of all kinds of arts, pranks, and their long lives. Gnomes love indulgence, and they make most celebrations on a grand scale. Gnome weddings last for a week, even though gnomes do not view love the same way humans do. If the relationship begins to go wrong between a couple they might break up, believing it is a prank by Garl Glittergold. Their society is based on art; all gnomes have to take up some form of art, whether music, painting, cooking, building, or any other form that is considered creative by the time they come of age.
Adventuring is not necessarily a welcomed lifestyle among gnomes, despite the curiosity that fills the whole race, and sometimes it is, in fact, seen as a betrayal of sorts to a gnome's clan.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Gnomes primarily live in wooded, hilly landscapes, most often underground. They typically build earthen homes with cellars and escape tunnels. Above-ground structures are often round and made of stone and thatch. Generally speaking, though, gnomes enjoy the fresh air a good deal more than other subterranean races such as dwarves or drow and rarely burrowed very deep, spending a great deal of time on the surface. Gnomish homes or communities are generally well-hidden, making it difficult for unwelcome visitors to find them. Within, gnomish houses are warm and comfortable, akin to the burrows of small mammals.
Gnomes are found widely throughout the world, though rarely in large numbers. Small communities are most commonly found in the Western Heartlands, Elturgard, and along the coastline of the Shining Sea. Other gnomes, notably the svirfneblin or deep gnomes, are found in the Underdark and are even more secretive than other gnomes, maintaining their distance from other races except for dwarves, with whom they are careful to maintain polite relationships for the purpose of protection.
Prior to the Spellplague, many gnomes were also found in Lantan, the only land dominated by gnomes engineers. However, during the chaos of the disaster, the gnomish land was lost.
Famous Gnomish Settlements
- Elturgard (Rock Gnomes mostly)
- Western Heartlands (Rock Gnomes mostly)
- Along the Coast of the Shining Sea (Rock Gnomes mostly)
- Feywild (Forest Gnomes mostly)
- Aglarond (Forest Gnomes mostly)
- Blingdenstone (Deep Gnomes only)
- The Great Rift (Deep Gnomes only
- Isle of Lantan
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Gnomes love names, and most have half a dozen or so. A gnome’s mother, father, clan elder, aunts, and uncles each give the gnome a name, and various nicknames from just about everyone else might or might not stick over time. Gnome names are typically variants of the names of ancestors or distant relatives, though some are purely new inventions. When dealing with humans and others who are “stuffy” about names, a gnome learns to use no more than three names: a personal name, a clan name, and a nickname choosing the one in each category that’s the most fun to say.
Male Names: Alston, Alvyn, Boddynock, Brocc, Burgell, Dimble, Eldon, Erky, Fonkin, Frug, Gerbo, Gimble, Glim, Jebeddo, Kellen, Namfoodle, Orryn, Roondar, Seebo, Sindri, Warryn, Wrenn, Zook
Female Names: Bimpnottin, Breena, Caramip, Carlin, Donella, Duvamil, Ella, Ellyjobell, Ellywick, Lilli, Loopmottin, Lorilla, Mardnab, Nissa, Nyx, Oda, Orla, Roywyn, Shamil, Tana, Waywocket, Zanna
Clan Names: Beren, Daergel, Folkor, Garrick, Nackle, Murnig, Ningel, Raulnor, Scheppen, Timbers, Turen
Nicknames: Aleslosh, Ashhearth, Badger, Cloak, Doublelock, Filchbatter, Fnipper, Ku, Nim, Oneshoe, Pock, Sparklegem, Stumbleduck
Major Language Groups and Dialects
The Gnomish language, which uses the Dwarvish script, is renowned for its technical treatises and its catalogs of knowledge about the natural world. The svirfneblin dialect is more guttural than surface Gnomish.
Common Dress Code
Gnomes often prefer clothing with earthen tones or made of leather, elaborately decorated with embroidery, embossing, or gleaming jewels. Similarly, they prefer jewelry with earthen tones.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Like other races, gnomish culture varies based on region and ethnicity, but a few characteristics are common to most gnomes. Among virtually all gnomes, great value is placed on one's ability to avoid trouble and stay out of the way of others. Children's games that involve elements of stealth and, among adults, drawing attention to one's self are considered a breach of etiquette. Gnomes rarely intentionally invoked ire in any group, but at times circumstances made conflict with other races unavoidable.
When living among other races, particularly humans, in an urban environment, gnomes are often shopkeepers or worked as everyday blacksmiths (leaving the fancy armor and weaponsmithing to the dwarves). They also work with brass, bronze, tin, and pewter, casting and etching practical household items. Other occupations include gemcutters, mechanics, sages, or teachers, the last in particular being a highly valued profession by human employers, who know that a single gnome could tutor multiple generations.
Gnomes gladly socialize and work with humans, elves, and dwarves, but they always keep in mind that, as a small and relatively insignificant race, their interests can become secondary even among their allies. Indeed, members of other races sometimes thoughtlessly treat gnomes
Gnomes produce distinctly-colored glass items. The gnome glass is green like impure jade and translucent. This hue is a result of the gnome crafters melting and reshaping glass. Gnomish green glass cups are a commodity found throughout the Realms.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
The Lords of the Golden Hills is the collective name given to the gnome pantheon. Different branches of gnomes have different attitudes and rites towards the deities.
Rock gnomes typically possess a nonchalant reverence of their chosen deity, bringing up the name of their god in any form of conversation as if they were referring to a friend. Rock gnomes rarely go to church and have no particularly great amount of zeal towards the worship of their pantheon of gods. In a typical gnomish manner, the gnomish gods require no particularly impressive display of faith, being more interested in following their own admittedly mundane agendas.
Forest gnomes have a stronger sense of faith than their brothers. They have a strong tradition of divine and primal magic and incorporate them into their animistic traditions and a reverence for the natural world. Priests are often communal leaders, who help to keep distant villages in touch. As a way of showing their veneration for the gods, the few forest gnome warriors often wear grass and roots as part of their armor.
Deep gnomes are not particularly devout, clerics and other religious figures serve an important role in svirfneblin society as guardians of the public morale, keeping spirits up in spite of hardships. Of all the Lords of the Golden Hills, deep gnomes feel the strongest ties to Callarduran Smoothhands, the Master of Stone, who they generally see as their protector and divine benefactor. According to svirfneblin myths, it was Callarduran who taught the deep gnomes to summon and befriend earth elementals, and the deep gnomes honored him by using the six-pointed star from his holy symbol in their art. Only two holidays are commonly celebrated among the deep gnomes. The Festival of the Ruby celebrates the legendary time when Callarduran hid the rubies and other gems of the world in the earth for the deep gnomes to find. It is considered a day where searches are likely to be fruitful. The Festival of the Star honors the Master of Stone as an unwavering protector of the deep gnomes. As part of the festival rites, deep gnomes gather along the shores of subterranean lakes or pools to watch small, phosphorescent fungi (that they specially breed for this purpose) light up across the cavern ceilings in a panorama similar to that of a night sky reflecting in the water. As much as this is in honor of Callarduran. it is also a reminder of their origins on the surface world and that they are not alone in the dark.
Gnome funeral rites often employ cremation. It destroys the body to prevent desecration and releases the spirit to find its own way. Cremation is also not land-intensive, and they are fairly quick to pull off if wood is abundant. Personal objects are also burned to send into the afterlife with the deceased. Different gnome deities have conflicting rules for burials, such as Baervan Wildwanderer and Urdlen.
History
Early in their history, many gnomes were held captive by the nations of Netheril and Calimshan as slaves, though most escaped this cruel fate. Other than these early tales, little is known about the formative history of the gnomes. While humans, dwarves, eladrin, and elves all forged empires and waged terrible wars that devastated the land, the gnomes did nothing of the sort. Nor did gnomes have a known, original homeland like the halflings. Throughout history, they were known as a scattered race of hidden villages, clans, and holds, rarely caught up in grand events. The gnomes were sometimes referred to as the Forgotten Folk and this title is perhaps apt, and few of their race ever graced or troubled the mighty, instead of remaining characters who faded, for the most part, into the background while others went on to forge mighty legends.
Common Myths and Legends
According to legend, the first gnomes in Faerûn sprang from mystic gems buried deep in the earth — an event that accounts for both the gnomes’ love of gems and the cozy embrace of their underground warrens. It is said that mystic diamonds became the rock gnomes, emeralds birthed the forest gnomes, and rubies turned into the deep gnomes. It is believed that kobolds enslaved the first gnomes and stole the gems that contained yet-unborn gnomish souls. This prompted the patron of deity, Garl Glittergold, to collapse the mountain, killing most of the kobolds (including their leader Kurtulmak) and creating the depression known as the Hidden Lake, later as the Shoal of Thirst. Since the time of their creation, gnomes have settled in hidden places away from other races, concerned that their way of life couldn’t survive wider exposure.
The few legends of gnomish heroes are not of powerful warriors but of subtle tricksters, who sneaked past or tricked their opponents rather than vanquishing them in combat.
There are tales of a gnome kingdom named Aselkor somewhere under the Endless Ice Sea above the Spine of the World. Speculated to be under the southern edge of the glacier, it is said to be warmed by geothermal energy that allows the gnomes to create forests of fungi that they turn into furniture as well as food and drink. Rich ruby deposits are said to produce good quality stones, some as big as a fist or larger.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Why go on an adventure?
- Is it a sudden impulse of wanting to see the world?
- Maybe it is the love of gems and precious items that drives you to seek wealth?
- How about seeking new inspiration for inventions?
- Or do you leave your reclusive hovel just to defend your home from particular threat?
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