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!