A Gnome for Christmas

 A Northern Hemisphere winter is the popular version in fantasy RPGs and the 'traditional' setting for Christmas. It is a time of snow, darkness and shelter for remote human populations against the figurative and literal wolves of the leanest season. The harvest may be in, and an opportunity for feasting available to mark midwinter's passing, but in all it is a harsh season, and an isolated homestead might appreciate help - any help, from friendly beings.

In Scandinavian folklore this is the Nisse or Tomte, a small humanoid creature who lives alongside countryfolk, helping (usually) invisibly as a quiet labourer, mender, and guardian of the homestead. They are, in that regard, akin to Brownies or Leprechauns, or perhaps the fairy tale elves from The Elves and the Cobbler; to be respected and occasionally appeased (but not flattered) lest that helping hand turn into a harmful one. 

The equation is obviously closer to those aforementioned domestic helpers, but interestingly, by description the Tomte is very close to the Gnome: tall, pointed hat, long beard, very small, and seemingly able to either disappear or blend into the background at will. A useful natural talent to have - perhaps mechanically close to a Thief's Hide in Shadows skill. Might be useful to appropriate . The Tomte also gives the Gnome that essential niche of straddling the worlds of nature and civilisation: domestic without being domesticated, civilised without being a part of human civilisation. 

In the Christmas lore of Scandinavia, the Tomte has been enhanced as a representative of midwinter or, in particular, Christmas. In its male appearance (and they are very usually male) it resembles Santa Claus, and is credited with gift giving, charity and the goodwill of strangers for the harshest season. As capricious as the Tomte or Nisse may be, this can embody much of the civil nature of the Gnome, giving the Gnome an additional 'hook' in his RPG identity - and a sense of time and location in a fantasy human world.  

Generation X(mas)

 There's been a bit of an Idol Renaissance in the Simian household this year, spurred on by a little nostalgia. Jet Jr is about to start high school next year, bringing out all my feels as well as the music I was listening to at the time. That's for another post, but the works of the man born William Broad, plus his lead gunslinger Steve Stevens is on pretty high rotate. That's helped also by a pretty decent return to form this year with some studio TV appearances to boost sales of his new Roadside EP, the first single of which, 'Bitter Taste' I liked a lot.

Old (Rebel) Yeller Billy Idol has aged well, his voice acquiring a Johnny-Cash-like rumble, and he was always a lover of the classics of rock and roll, so it should be no surprise that he had a Christmas song in him. In fact, he's had several through the years, including the bittersweet family memoir 'Yelling at the Christmas Tree' from 2005 album Devil's Playground - but that has to have been beaten this year with an entire album, ladies and gentlemen, of Christmas standards. Read that list and weep, because the man is committed to the form, and he doesn't disappoint. 

But it's not all covers. This is his (presumably original) 'On Christmas Day', an epic, sweeping statement of redemption and amends, of a family reunited on a specific day dedicated so often to the concept of family. Here's Billy Idol, family man On Christmas Day, born to run wildly back to his 'child' (interpretations open, which is clever) And it's another cracker!

We can forgive Mr Broad for missing the obvious 'Dancing With My Elf' this time, but he's on notice.

Merry Christmas, one and all, and rock on! Have a safe and happy family holiday, whatever and wherever your family may be.

Gnome Detention

 Gentle reader, I have a rather full dance card for the next week with Real Life(tm) and Other Projects(r) hanging around, so there may be Gnomes posted with not many comments accompanying. Oh, there's plenty more to write, but not the time to put it onscreen just yet. bear with, and I'll be back in a bit with more Gnowledge 

Gnome from a distant land

The Troublesome Gnome

Dungeons and Dragons changed their Gnome several times over until we got the version we have today, leagues from where the creature began, as Paracelsus' embodiment of the element of  Earth.  It's notable that it wasn't just the adventure profession that changed or 'evolved' over its history - they also changed appearance and motivation.

"Gnomes are excellent metalsmiths and miners. They love gold and gems and have been known to make bad decisions just to obtain them [...] Gnomes like most dwarves, but war with goblins and kobolds who steal their precious gold." Dungeons & Dragons Mentzer edition, Dungeon Master's Guide.

The traditional Gnome has stuck to the same template for over a hundred years. Everyone can describe a Gnome, probably without too much effort: short, hat, beard, nose, maybe a belly, maybe stone, maybe the woods, maybe the mines. The Dwarf association in Gnomes is strong and must be acknowledged, because their evolutions are shared. The rare appearance of the Gnome in its own right takes some time to assert the figure beyond a blending of the stock little person type (Paracelsus borrows from the 'pygmies' of the Iliad, which is transferred into English literature through Pope's The Rape of the Lock, which sets them up in a war with the more elfin Sylphs.) Thus Gnomes become earth-tied through the alchemical version by Paracelsus, then become embittered in Pope's parody. 

Gnomes appear as a treasure hoarder and equally capricious in the collected tales of the Brothers Grimm (The Gnome) by which time their function as an antagonist is wrapped up with the equally greedy and subterranean Dwarf and Goblin. The Grimms of course also collected Snow White, whose absorption into popular culture through Disney and later (but unconnectedly) Tolkien not only redeemed the Dwarf, but made them accessible as humourous and sympathetic characters. The Gnome of course found some salvation as a garden totem - and perhaps it's the link with the green, growing world of nature which preserved the Gnome for more recent writers.

Further reading:

Folklore Thursday: 'On Gnomes: From Alchemical Theory to a Fairy Tale Staple [https://folklorethursday.com/folktales/on-gnomes-from-alchemical-theory-to-a-fairy-tale-staple/] 

THE SEMIOSPHERES OF PREJUDICE IN THE FANTASTIC ARTS THE INHERITED RACISM OF IRREALIA AND THEIR TRANSLATION MIKA LOPONEN (2019, University of Helsinki. Dissertation, Department of Modern languages [https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/ws/portalfiles/portal/124871175/PhD_Dissertation_Mika_Loponen_e_text_version_1.65.pdf]

Gnomes, Dwarfs and Dwarves

 I find myself returning to the books of B.B and Wil Huygen for my Gnome treatises because they (largely) agree with each other, and both stick to a pretty reliable and recognisable depiction of the overland version - the one I prefer.

D&D of course had a booted foot in both camps, where early Gnomes could be the 'woodland' variety (see above) or a subterranean version, at the time hewing less to the very deep underground Svirfneblin (which translates to 'svirf' (unknown?) and 'neblin', connected etymologically to the Old Norse 'nifl', meaning mist or fog. No gnomes is Norse mythology - just elves, trolls and dwarfs). The subterranean Gnomes were miners, ever seeking precious gemstones and valuable metals. B.B's Forest of Boland gnomes are also miners - but for practical metals, using them for constructions like their railroad. The Gygaxian Gnome on the other hand is mostly a creature of the underground, seeking treasures and trophies of their craft. In a way, this makes them more natural dungeon crawlers than a protector of the woodland, and the 80s introduction  (by Gygax again) of the Deep Gnome simply drives them further underground - to the extent where Wizards of the Coast recently addressed what they perceived to be negative racial stereotypes tied to the dark-skinned Underdark peoples including the Drow, the Svirfneblin, and the more common Orc, among others.

There's no obvious evidence that the Gnome changed over thirty years beyond the early style because of a perceived racial association, but the aforementioned 'look' of the Gnome and the linking with underground treasures is where the D&D Gnome begins, and both definitively disappear in favour of the version you can see today. Could there be a connection?

Hats, Noses, Beards and the Gnome Caricature

 The early D&D Gnome stuck doggedly to form, thanks in part to the roster of artists who drew them, and in part with the insistence of of the then contemporary 'look' of the Gnome, most frequently seen in the Huygen books. That said, Huygen's book doesn't really go to town with big noses, and certainly not with LONG noses. Their ears are human-like and round, not pointed. Their beards are full and their hats are large, pointed and usually red - just like a garden gnome statute, of course. 

The garden gnome has no less a complicated history, going back at least as far as Anatolia (now modern Turkey) and travelling through Europe to Germany and of course the United Kingdom by the Nineteenth Century. The cap is Phrygian in shape and likely origin, the beard perhaps as old. The nose and ears? A rounded button and large Enid-Blytonesque ears with no points. Curious.  

Fairy creatures have long been drawn or portrayed with exaggerated features, and Gnomes and Dwarfs haven't been immune. Pixie or Elfin ears are usually pointed, Dwarfs often have large noses - but not necessarily long ones, or hooked ones. Only when we look past the Disney 'Snow White' Dwarfs with their friendly bulbous hooters does the profile change. 

So where did Gygax, Sutherland and others get their Gnome characteristics - pointedly the pointed ones, from?

A Brief History of the D&D Gnome

  If I had trouble establishing for myself the 'perfect' Gnome, then at least it was my own battle and it only lasted around fifteen years. TSR (and I suppose Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro after them) took something closer to a generation. In fairness, it wasn't a well-defined race to begin with, and it wasn't a playable race until AD&D; a lot of things were in play, and in the ensuing years and later editions of the game a good many things would be revised. The Gnome would be one of them. 

It seems likely that Gary Gygax's original model for the fighter Gnome of D&D/AD&D is Hugi the Gnome in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Hugi is woods-homed, a doughty fighter and something of a braggart, but otherwise not much different from a fantasy Dwarf. In AD&D some magic is added in the form of Illusionist spells, and this class preference persists in succeeding editions, past the introduction of the 'Deep Gnome' or Svirfneblin in the 1e Unearthed Arcana and its assumption as a playable class for 2e. The Dragonlance novels and AD&D setting then incorporated that world's Tinker Gnome as a character type, and subsequent editions married the fey magic element with an artificer's skill (though often with hazardous results). Meanwhile, in Basic D&D Gnomes have burst with reinvention as an NPC race in exclamation-mark-bearing madcap flying city adventure supplements (Top Ballista!) and mecha modules (Earthshaker!). The woodland Gnome of old has by now disappeared, as has its appearance, replaced in the wider game by a slimmer, more fey figure with wild hair, less facial hair and elfin eyes. It's a divisive reinvention, to say the least, but the whimsical Steampunk Gnome type endures in World of Warcraft. By D&D's 5e the favoured class of the Gnome has become Bard.  

So much for the in-game Gnome, in the history of the Gnome in popular culture, the character has also undergone an evolution...

Making Room for the Gnome

 Believe it or do not, but the road to the Redcastle Gnome took a great many twists and turns before I found the ingredient I was looking for in the books of B.B.

I honestly don't even remember first setting out on it - though it would have been at least fifteen years ago. I rolled a Gnome character (Wrangfauld Orpin, a Thief/Illusionist, if memory serves) who never got used in my heady AD&D days, and even started on a large-scale adventure storyline that would eventually be resurrected around 2005 to become the Dwarven minecrawl Barbigazl.

The Gnomes that featured in Barbigazl were where I thought I would take the class if a regular gaming group had spun off: a largely subterranean culture with woodland roots who were devoted to exploration. Their paragons were the Delvers, who dared to go farther and deeper than those before them in search of the secrets of the earth. They would be spellcasters, after a fashion, with their requisite staff/rod analogue being a highly practical and desirable crozier or 'crook'. I allowed them options for invention and professions as 'tinkerers', themselves drawn to creating the most miraculous and fanciful of machines to serve Gnomekind. They would trade with Dwarves, war with kobolds, and build great and unfathomable subterranean cities incorporating fungi, giant arthropods and diminutive architecture.

It doesn't look too bad on paper, but it was probably too complicated, relied on too much buy-in to meet the rather necessary worldbuilding... and unless there were whole campaigns built around this sort of thing, who could be bothered? So it was abandoned.

Nearly ten years later I read the little grey men books, and my mind was re-sparked, and everything seemed to fall into place - a new race-as-class option for Basic D&D games (the Gnome as Druid) emerged, and there was enough cultural integrity to ensure that this player character option was recognisable, believable, and relatable. And if in the Barbigazl days I was at risk of reinventing the Deep Gnome or Tinker Gnome, I was later at risk of just reinventing the Forest Gnome, then whatever. The Druid spells papered over the gaps the ratification exposed.

Could I have made a similar problem for the Gnome in declaring them a woodland creature as the original game had in having them encroach across the Dwarf template? Maybe. But in my Redcastle world, that's a largely empty ecological niche, Elves being more widespread than just the green bits on the map, and most definitely not flower-wearing earth warriors. Instead, I move the Elves out of the forest; up mountains, in elaborately-excavated hill fortresses and under the sea. The woods no longer ring with their noble song, and have become more wild, dangerous and full of ancient mystery. 

And there, in the tangled roots and fallen trunks of ancient trees, under the bends of whispering brooks and between to fissures of weathered cliffs, the Gnomes live, and watch the outside world. 

 

The Spiritual Gnome

 It may seem counterintuitive to think of a Gnome worshipping a deity - at least as much as those other early demi-humans. Back in D&D's early days it was assumed clerics - that practical way to restore hit points and get rid of undead, were particular to all races, but only the human (or half-orc in AD&D) peoples would allow their clergy to also kit up and go a-dungeon-crawling.

In the case of Gnomes in early D&D the lines were drawn even thicker. Gnomes, it could be inferred, were not spiritual, they were magical; creatures adept in illusion and sleight of hand, it jibed with the theory, aligning with other diminutive tricksters of the fairy world. Who cares if the ability to cast great illusions seemed strange in a dark old mine? Their sworn enemies, the kobolds, were also underground dwellers and tricksy. Otherwise, it went some way to justifying the Illusionist class spell list if it could be used in more than one player character type. Woodland Gnomes weren't much different, and unless you are prepared to go back to the Brothers Grimm (it's complicated) , they're not especially magical.

Unless...

Unless the woodland Gnome were taken to specialise in woodland magic, and employ natural components in their spells, supplicating to gods personifying wild nature. This is what B.B offers in The Little Grey Men, with the older Dodder praying and ultimately summoning Pan, whose presence is felt throughout the rest of their story. I like the aspect of Pan: in line with the gods, actually a god, but not entirely godly, being very earthly, somewhat feral and (maybe) a bit horny as well. Of the Roman gods he's the most animalistic, and that works, too. I'm not saying Gnomes should worship Pan, but other gods are available: Silvanus, Gaia, Abnoba, Cernunnos, Phaunus, Leshy - and so on. 

Woodland magic, the worship of nature deities satisfies the Druid role in AD&D, and so my ideal race-as-class Gnome PC is just that: a Druid.

Gnomes and Beasts

 Having covered Gnomes from a floral aspect for a couple of episodes now, it's time to turn to fauna - the beasts of the Gnomes' world.

I'm going to assume an archetypal D&D fantasy woodland and its animals - that is to say, Northern Hemisphere, European, and temperate, with defined seasons. The variety of animals (excluding invertebrates) run the range of fish, reptiles and amphibians, birds (waterfowl, passerine and non-passerine, raptors) and mammals. In the works of B.B and Wil Huygen the largest animals are generally badgers, foxes, domesticated dogs and polecats, but a fantasy woodland might also incorporate bears, boars, wildcats and wolves. Below that size are the other common woodland creatures: otters, squirrels, moles, bats, mice, rats, voles, rabbits, hedgehogs, weasels and stoats. The Cook Expert D&D Set of course includes giant ferrets as guard animals for a sample Gnome lair - but the aforementioned works, strictly sticking to their favoured Gnome dimensions (roughly a handspan), has no need of them. 

Size notwithstanding, it's the relationship which counts. Gnomes are the guardians of the woodland, friend to most animals, and sometimes fellow residents (B.B's little grey men share a tree with a couple of owls, Hugyen's foster infant mammals). Reptiles are at best tolerated - in Down the Bright Stream an adder is as capricious and sinister as the serpent of Eden, and fish are equally food and predator, depending on their size (minnow and a pike, respectively.) The underlying philosophy is that the Gnomes share their woodland home with animals. They rarely eat flesh, save for fish (it's okay, they don't have any feelings), and steal bird eggs, but don't seem to hunt fowl or rabbits. This extends to their craft - of which more in another post.

Above: Gnome with Squirrel, after B.B

Gnomes share a language with the animals, being able to converse with (seemingly) all mammals, most birds, and the aforementioned adder, and they rely on the strength, skills (burrowing by moles, hunting by otters, flight by the owls) and knowledge of these creatures. In exchange they ply their crafts, invention and dexterity to help their animal friends. In short, Gnomes are a woodland creature among others - notably in the Tales from the Wood RPG inspired by Watership Down and the books of BB, Gnomes are simply another player type alongside the rabbits, badgers, squirrels and other creatures.

To the adventuring Gnome such relationships and skills are significant. The ability to naturally Speak With Animals (certain kinds) and rely on them for intelligence and local lore could be very handy. the ability to summon those creatures at a time of peril could be a life saver.

Best left there for now. Suffice it to say the animal/Gnome relationship is essential to the character class and not to be sniffed at. There's more to add, but there we drift into the mystical. And that's best for another post... 

Names and Gnomenclature.

 There is a lot of codification in the names of fantasy characters. George  Martin employed consonant shifts and an almost phonetic approach in adapting common names for his characters in his Song of Ice and Fire novels ('Eddard', 'Podrick', 'Sersei'). Tolkien took hi from Old Norse and Anglo Saxon histories, depending on the culture of his people - and when it came to Hobbits, he mixed the old with the contemporary, adding evocative descriptors and alliteration to give them their own distinctive sounds: Bilbo, Frodo, Samwise, Odo, Bungo, Meriadoc, Gerontius, Belladonna.

The last name - that of Bilbo's ill-fated mother, is of course a botanical name, and it's the names of wild flowers that B.B. uses for his little grey men: Dodder is a vine-like weed, Baldmoney an aromatic mountain plant, Cloudberry a raspberry-like fruit, and Sneezewort a hardy wildflower. Some of these are edible, some have medicinal properties, others known for their toughness or resilience, and yet others for their beauty.

I like the convention of botanical names for Gnomes. They divorce themselves from the human and cleave instead to the natural world. There are dozens of names for some plants, and hundreds of varieties; some names are almost lost , or so regional as to be obscure, and if Gnomes are not numerous, in a fantasy setting they needn't have linear surnames to distinguish themselves - in fact, I'd recommend against the convention. But to make it slightly codified, I've taken to using tree or weed names for males, and floral or herbal names for females. It'll do for now.

Above: Houndstongue and Primula.  

Recommended sourcebook: Culpeper's Complete Herbal (1653), via Project Gutenberg
 

The Adventuring Gnome

 “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” - Bilbo Baggins

So far I've described a Gnome at home in the woods; tied to nature, attuned to the rhythm of the living world, breathing to the wind in the treetops. A Gnome in his or her element is exactly where they should be - but it's no epic story in the making. If a Gnome is so ideally posited as a loner, or part of a small community of fosters, what on earth would inspire one to go adventuring?

Fortunately we have a literary precedent, in the form of Cloudberry, a Gnome at the heart of B.B's The Little Grey Men. Unlike his brothers Dodder, Sneezewort and Baldmoney, Cloudberry is, as his name suggests, something of a spiritual wanderer and is gripped with wanderlust. Of his own volition, and against the counsel of his brothers, he leaves Folly Brook and goes off 'up river', adventuring with a flock of high flying geese ('heaven Hounds') to distant lands. Like Bilbo and Frodo in the quote above, he returns to his brothers, never the same again.

Despite this cautionary example (Cloudberry is at the last a dangerous dreamer, and at worst... much worse), we can at least say we have one - and it's useful in noting the 'change' that occurs in Cloudberry afterwards. he is ever restless, unable to think or talk of anything else but his travels, and schemes to find a way to rejoin them. A player character Gnome needn't be so pathologically obsessed, but the curiosity is a handy hook. Everything else is detail, although my preference, if it hasn't been obvious already, is to start out keeping things simple. A beginner Gnome adventurer ought to have their own hand-crafted tools and weapons, and little armour, perhaps collecting the more usual trappings along the way. The life of a wandering Gnome among fellow drifters of other races need have little more, but change is inevitable. If you seek to play a Gnome adventurer, expect change.

Arms and the Gnome

 Last post left off on a question: are Gnomes warriors? I think yes, and no. 

No, in that they don't - or hardly ever go to war. They are not a martial people, and we could turn to  J.R.R.Tolkien's Hobbits as a comparison; also peaceful peoples, albeit with a ready to assemble militia and sheriff as needed (and even during the events of the destruction of the Ring this is rarely employed - and even then by third parties)

So perhaps yes in the sense that they will fight if they have something to defend. The D&D Gnome in the wild has a lair, and the various Monster Manuals give them colonies of many individuals, defences and guardian animals. The Monster manuals also express a preference for crossbows (since Greyhawk, as far as I can see), which lends more towards the mechanical side of Gnomes - or perhaps is a 'different flavour' necessary to distinguish them from their cousins.

Myself, I would strip this back. 

If pragmatism is a characteristic of the woodland Gnome, then it makes sense that he or she would be prepared to defend their home, their friends, or their livelihood with whatever may be at hand. I would surmise then that like peasant warriors they would adapt their common tools into ready arms - or be skillful enough to wield them so. For a woodland Gnome this could be a staff, a hatchet-style axe, a sturdy knife, or a club (frankly, a much overlooked weapon). A ranged weapon might be more along the lines of hunting equipment: shortbow, sling or blowdart. Spears? Maybe. Swords, pole arms, maces - and yes, crossbows - are out.Shields and armour? None to speak of.

Metals being rare in woodlands, and war even rarer, such resources would be reserved for more practical things. Take a Gnome out of the woods, however, and the story may well change...

The Warrior Gnome

 The default 'Monster' setting for any character race in D&D is the Fighter. It's reductionist, and we know that there's so much more to many of these peoples, but there it is. Look in the Monster Manual, or the Monsters pages of the Basic set (Moldvay or Mentzer) and they're there among the similarly fighter-ised Halflings and Elves (who do at least get a spell in). In part this is simple game mechanics - a template to base your encounter off. But unlike the pop culture histories of Dwarves and Elves, Halflings and Gnomes don't carry the same martial weight.

And so, setting Halflings aside, we must ask: what is a Gnome Fighter? Are Gnomes warriors - i.e., do they go to war?

Gnomes and Nature

The woods are big, but there are also beaches, hills, moors, lakes and rivers, meadows and fells.

Wil Huygen and B.B. had Gnomes be the soul of the forest - companion to the animals there and guardians of the intelligent life there, but I think the more compelling aspect of this is just how close to nature the Gnomes of their books are. Like their Dwarfen counterparts, in the mixed folklore of Gnomes, they are tied to the earth, and representative of it, but the folklore doesn't give them much more than that. Like their mining cousin, the 'traditional' gnome is a little person with magical aspects, and maybe some wisdom to share or protect (or which more on another day, readers.) By contrast, B.B's/Huygen's Gnomes reside and represent the natural world. They place them specifically in an environment where they are collectors and scavengers, and use tools made from the world around them. They hunt (carefully), craft, burrow and build. Certainly, in B.B's later gnome stories there's machinery and more of the fairy town storytelling of Enid Blyton than in the more mystical early stories, but those first two books really set the model. The natural world immediately forms the identity of the Gnome PC.

In the RPG world this presents something of a challenge, but it also presents opportunities. The degree to which Gnomes are in tune with the environment in which they live sets their abilities and world view, which is as useful as whether any other PC is from an urban, rural, common or regal class. It's instantly character-building and relatable, and equips the Gnome character with a lot of potential. 

Take the Gnome out of that world and you present a challenge. re they as familiar with the wider world? Once underground in a dungeon does the lack of wind in the trees, the language of the brook weaken them? Maybe. It's up to the player. But what a start!

Gnome Magic

 Given that they don't have a true fairytale background, Gnomes were something of a blank slate for a long time before they were incorporated into the RPG world. The Will Huygen/BB/David Gnomes are reasonably down to Earth, with little in the way of powerful magic to them - if anything, the tease of fairy dust was on them, as many diminutive characters had. 

In Dungeons and Dragons of course, their magical abilities come as PC Classes for AD&D, and in the form of Illusionists  a Magic User variant. It seems kind of fitting, doffing the pointed cap towards glamour-based fairy magic, but without the obvious heavy weaponry that Human or Elven PCs could muster. Gnome magic in D&D is subtle, tricksy, maybe even cerebral?

That's fine, but I could never really get with the idea that this was a distinctly Gnomish trait. It's maybe a fairy trait - but Gnomes aren't fairies. They're also not Dwarves, so anything they can have that distinguishes them from their more earthy 'cousins' is good. When I developed an idea of what I wanted Gnomes to be for my games, Illusions went, and the fairy aspect soon followed. In the end, the solution was in those old books after all. But that's a story for another day, folks... 

The Female Gnome

 The 'classic' Gnome is a model of sexual dimorphism. Males are bearded, weathered and portly, females are braided, voluptuous, and look like they've strayed from Oktoberfest, losing their steins somewhere along the way.

There's nothing wrong with this, but it does to my mind tend towards the same pigeonholing that the more recent insane Rube Goldberg Gnome did -it pushes a character, a stereotype into a demi-human character class. Each demi-human class has that issue in D&D and AD&D - heck, Gygax had cross-referenced tables to further establish their traits and preferences; but it does rub against the more open-ended aspects of the game. 

Anyway, this month is about Gnomes, not the Gygaxian world, so here's one of my female Gnomes:

My female Gnomes have more variety in body shape and attire. There's room for the 'hausfrau' model, but also for the wise-old-woman-of-the-woods, the ingenue, the virago, the 'gypsy' dancer, the defender of the hearth. Variety is good. Other than that, the standards still apply (no beards, though) - ears, nose, pointed hat. 

Why Gnomes? Why Anything?

So why have I been banging on about Gnomes for so long?

I had the mistaken belief that they were an untapped resource! I was wrong. If anything, Gnomes have been tapped out many times. They're been in the D&D system, sidelined, made central, excised, reinstated and reinvented, and now seemingly are a step down from the whimsy machines of previous recent editions... I dunno. I'm a purist. But I like the Gnomes in my head (a sentence I never thought I'd write, folks), and these are they: diminutive woodland humanoids, wary of the ways of the larger world, but fueled with invention and curiosity.

But I also need to acknowledge those who came before me in drawing the classic D&D Gnome, and for me that's David C Sutherland in the 1e AD&D Manuals. I assumed they were Gnomes, of course - they might well have been Dwarves. But they had big noses, which is an important signifier (even if it may have been one of the characteristics that got them canned in the later years) After your David the Gnomes, Sutherland's version of what I fancy may have been a grudging inclusion of the race in Gygax's blueprint, gives them armour, weaponry, and those very cool helmets with eyeholes and noseguards. Yeah, boy. They may have been as impractical for close-up fighting as any helmet with a grippable centrepiece, but they looked cool, they looked purpose-built, and therefore they looked Gnomish. 

Turns out the model was a Dwarf. Ah well. 

My concession above is without colour, so imagine wood tones, laminated panels and some salvaged polish. where it counts: the bridge of that big, beautiful hooter.

Tomorrow: another Gnome, with some different stuff to talk about!

Shadow of the Gnome

 Or more specifically, the silhouette of the Gnome. I set down very few rules, based on traditional depictions: beards for the gentlegnomes, pointed ears and long (not just large) noses to distinguish them from Dwarves, Dwarf-like proportions, and a conical hat (or variation thereof) 

Everything else is personal taste and differentiation. Beards make them look less Hobbit-like, short beards make them look less Dwarven. So far I seem to be applying a third guideline: face plus beard length equals hat height - but we'll see how this goes from here. I don't intend them to be all like these first two, for sure. 

Gnomevember Begins

Last month I eschewed Drokktober and went cold turkey on Judge Dredd stuff. Lotsa reasons, lotsa things to do instead.

Like... Gnomes! I've sat on these guys for too long, it's time to take action. Let Gnomevember commence!

Day one. This is a Gnome. Classic design, drawn quite some time ago and coloured in Photoshoppe (yes, that old). There'll be another tomorrow, and then the next day, and so forth, interspersed with Gnowledge and Gnomic utterances. It may last the entire month, it may not. let's ride this thing and see how far it goes.

Jack the Ladder and Friend

 It's Halloween again, but it feels different this time.

Once again, the spectre of Covid is at large in our country, and this time it seem the bugger is here to stay. While all of the Simian household are double-jabbed and our town is in the relatively-free Level 2, the trick-or-treaters of a couple of years back are still doggedly pursuing other suburbs in search of candied booty. We didn't even put the decorations up in the house this year, much to Jet Jr's disappointment. 

But we still did the pumpkins. 

And this year, as Junior has reached a significant age, he got the bigger fruit to work with. This is Spooky:

He did a great job, although the cutting was still left in my hands (all fingers still attached and accounted for), giving him the task of scooping the innards out. Junior wanted something not evil and more fun, and so Spooky is the result, whereas I had more nefarious intents and a more challenging canvas to work with. This is Kooky:

Kooky is a special boy, as he's the first fruit of 2020's pumpkin ladder, so was shop-bought as a seedling, but home raised. He's also the only survivor of the endeavour, and is a real scar-face. He's seen some things, man...

He does have a nice bottom, mind, but I couldn't find a way to incorporate the lovely patterns there. I could have made more of an effort given the rather Frankenstein-like scars on his 'face' (the main inspiration for the design), but after six months in the garage in all extremes, I fear Kooky will be the first to succumb after this transformation, so I played it safe. 

Junior and I will plant seeds ourselves this year, having selected a sunny spot and sourced material for a raised bed. They should be good to go either next February in time for a Southern Samhain, or, if they're late, some cooler storage. We wait and see...

Happy Halloween, readers!

Monkey Business

 I'm posting again, but unless my reader is following every post as they're put up, seeing the new content might be a bit weird and all over the place; so this page will be something of a growing index to the entries that aren't naturally positioned around this here one. It might also provide an insight into ten years of Simian mental meanderings...

Posts so far:

2/7/21 : New Plymouth (11 November 2015)  - a photo essay

3/7/21 : Giving a Hoot (11 March 2018) - heirloom and restoration microproject

4/7/21 : Justice Denied (3 December 2017) - a film review.

5/7/21 : To Enhance Your Land Raiding Needs (7 March 2016) - another Adventure 2000 Matchbox toy

6/7/21 : A Pallet Bench (5 October 2020) - scrap wood furniture

7/7/21 : Drokktober 2019 begins - Days 1 through 15 of a (nearly) daily Judge Dredd doodle.

8/7/21 : Daddy's Little Heartbreaker (6 November 2016) - I make an RPG game! Nearly. Frequently. 

9/7/21 : My Zombie Weekend (11 June 2016) - a cautionary tale of viewing movies cold.

10/7/21 : A Box of (Past) Delights (8 January 2018) - a model childhood.

11/7/21: Drokktober 2019 returns - with Days 16 through 21

12/7/21 : Palindrome! Drokktober Days 22 to 26

13/7/21 : Drokktober 2019 forever - Day 27 through to Halloween and the end!
               Bonus post: What is the Future of the Future? - Manic Street Preachers review.

14/7/21 : The Midlands Cuckoos (6 March 2019) - Moore and Parkhouse's The Bojeffries Saga

15/7/21 : License Expired, Go Offshore (30 June 2018) - Bootlego!

16/7/21 : The Mirky Dozen: Wild and Woody (10 July 2015) - The Return of the Hobbit's elves

17/7/21 : Wonderful (25 June 2017) I hated Wonder Woman! Phshaw -yeah, right!

Try July

 

Whoa-o here he comes...

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.

It's July, my birthmonth*, so I'm going to spend the next thirty-one days posting once a day on this blog and do some stuff. I have a few things planned this month: a birthday, and a D&D session on Zoom, so that'll fill a couple of days. Some home projects, too. School holidays need filling up, and some old entries the teeming masses have been left on tenterhooks about need to be addressed. Did I finish the J Grubb General Store model? What about the elves? Has my model painting improved at all? No. Are there more Dreddworld judges to mess up graphically Yes! Could I fit a gnome article in? Always. Did I see that Justice League movie? How dare you!

I will post past things, future things, backwards, forwards, sideways and out of sequence, as Jetsam has always been. Time is fluid, and I am, if nothing else on this blog, a big fibber.

Stick around, readers. This is either going to roar to a majestic conclusion or I'm gonna total this thing!

(*Today is also my mum's birthday. Happy birthday, Mum. I miss you)

We Never Leave a Man Behind!

 Good news in the Simian household with the arrival of a box of weird stuff from my teenage years!

This was quite the thing. Collected (I think) from various stages of a garage tidy-up by my Dad, it's presumably passed through two houses since some of it was first packed away - and it shows. Things have got dusty, some a bit worse for wear over time, and even the moths have had a go (eek)

But amongst the old scout badges (of more later), and early modelling gear (again, later), a prize. 

This dude:

Once again, this is a Grenadier model - one of a blister pack of four, including a fallen orc, goblin and thief/magic-user (I could never tell), which a scan of Miniatures Workshop tells me was Fantasy Lords release 110: 'Casualties'.  I think this was an early purchase - 1984 or 1985, as the spread of subjects was probably economically attractive, and I was very keen on dioramas and dungeon dressing back then. He's clearly had a few paintjobs. Well, judging by the way he's laid out he may have just had a few. Here he is after an initial bath and scrub in Simple Green:

Those are enamel paints, so the soak might need to be a bit longer. It's telling that some of the colours here were the mainstays of my 'Humbrol Years' of model painting: there's a burgundy, for example, which was one of the few paints I purchased which wasn't a hangover from earlier WW2 model painting (of which more, etc) Underneath that, of course, is the white undercoat. These days I use black and work up to light, but I think for a novice painter it was a blessing - as was the enamel I used. Both worked really well for washes, and the paint jobs held impressively after years of being knocked around - as the bath above shows. At least I only have one side to clean.

So now all of my old minis are present and accounted for. I'm pleased as punch. Time to get painting! 

Blasters to Laser, Mr Solo!

 It's the Fourth of May - Star Warps Day again!

Incredible to think that it was only fifty years ago today that I stood queued outside the Oamaru Majestic Theatre to see Star Warps the Movie(tm) and its EXPLOSIVE end:

Star Warps. It made me the man I am today.