GNOME

Physical Qualities

Gnomes are smaller even than halflings, rarely exceeding 4 feet in height. Apart from their size, they resemble elves or eladrin, with pointed ears and chiseled facial features such as high cheekbones and sharp jaws. They have a more wild look than eladrin do, though, particularly in the hair that sprouts from their heads in random directions. Some male gnomes sprout tufts of hair from their chins, but they otherwise lack body hair.

Gnome skin tone ranges from a ruddy tan through woody brown to rocky gray. Their hair can be virtually any color, from stark white to blond and various shades of brown to autumnal orange or green. Their eyes are glittering black orbs.

Gnomes are as long-lived as eladrin, living over 300 years, but they show more of the effects of age. A gnome over the age of 100 has gray or white hair and skin that shows the wrinkled and weathered lines

of a century of laughter, but even the oldest gnome retains the strength and agility of youth.

Playing a Gnome

In quiet forests of the Feywild and remote woodlands in the world, gnomes live out of sight and mostly beneath the notice of larger races. Gnomes dwell in homes dug among the roots of trees, easily overlooked and cleverly concealed by camouflage and illusion. They are fond of the burrowing mammals that share their habitat, such as badgers, foxes, and rabbits, and have a sense of kinship with these small animals that share their forests.

Unobtrusiveness is a virtue among gnomes. They grow up on games of stealth and silence, in which the winner is the last to be discovered. An adult gnome who draws attention in a crowd is considered dangerously rude. Gnome folk heroes are not mighty warriors, but tricksters who slip out of captivity, play great pranks without being detected, or sneak past magical guardians. They deflect both aggression and attention with humor, and they guard their thoughts with friendly laughter.

Gnomes also value a quick mind and the ability to come up with a clever solution to any problem.

BEING SMALL

Small characters follow most of the same rules as Medium ones, with the following exceptions.

You can’t use two-handed weapons, such as greatswords and halberds.

When you use a versatile weapon, such as a longsword, you must use it two-handed, but you don’t deal additional damage for doing so.

Gnome Adventurers

Two sample gnome adventurers are described below. Kellen is a gnome bard with a grim sense of humor

and a ready blade. He was thrust unwillingly into an adventuring career when cyclopses raided his village and took him captive. He labored as a slave to a fomorian king for a decade before finally making his escape and fleeing the Feywild entirely. Though

he longs to return one day to free the members of his family he was forced to leave behind, fear of what awaits him in the Feywild keeps him in the world.

Orla has lived in the world her entire life. She was born in a forest among elves, but an encounter in the forest one evening changed her life. She found herself face to face with a fey spirit of such power that she was unable to move or speak and could only acquiesce to its unspoken demands. Her life belongs to that spirit now, she knows. She wields its power as a fey pact warlock, but she feels its desires and pursues its goals without fully understanding where they might lead her.

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