Gnomes: Tinfoil Hat Edition

Did you know gnolls were originally a mad wizard's combination of gnomes and trolls? I've never seen a gnome but a troll is a regenerating green giant and a gnoll is a brown hyena-person that heals normally, so obviously gnomes are tiny, bright red dogs with hemophilia.

Naw man gnomes are like rats man, big ole naked mole rats, they live underground cuz they're ashamed, they're like wererats but they never change, they got cursed by some fucking awful wererat god for i dunno man maybe not being so fucking awful? So now they're super ugly man like super fucking hideous and they can't ever change into people or rats and they live underground and in the sewers where even wererats don't go, and they eat trash all the time, and if anyone sees them they're all like dont look at me man noooo go away. Real sad story.

That is such bullshit. Gnomes are giant cockroaches everyone knows that. They used to be regular cockroaches, back when the empire was still around and had science and shit, but then these two warlord scientists got in a fight and blew up the whole world with their big science explosion magic, and only the roaches survived and the leftover magic made them big and smart. Those're the gnomes. That's why gnomes know about machines, cuz the science, like, got in their blood. Duh.

Guys! Guys listen. This is important. Have you heard of this world Azeroth? They keep having these big wars there, and in the second there were gnomes in flying machines, but in the third war the flying machines were flown by dwarves, and if you talked about gnomes everyone was like what the hell is a gnome? You said you'd seen a gnome flying around in the second war and people were like what the hell  have you been smoking it's dwarves in the flying machines and always has been. And then - and this is where it gets really crazy - they had another big war, a whole world of war, and suddenly gnomes were fucking everywhere! And everyone was like, hell yeah gnomes, gnomes have always been here don't you know that? It's like they've got some magic that lets them rewrite history or something, some magic codex with the history of the world and they just edited themselves out for a while then got wrote back in! Why the hell would they do that? What are they hiding?!

[Gnomes, it is known, are much like dwarves, only smaller. This is not coincidence. This is mimicry. Gnomes are larvae - as they grow they take on the appearance of dwarves, and live in their cities and learn their crafts, and when they grow too large to pass as dwarves they assume identities as Scotsmen. (This is why so many dwarves sound Scottish - these are cuckoos, changelings, and not to be trusted.) But when first born the larvae are too small to be any other race, so they invent the story of their own people, and study magic to prepare for their final transformation. Once mature the physical husk splits apart and a great astral horror, all mandibles and coils, slinks away into the Plane of Mind. There the predator feasts on memories, hunts curious sages by their dream-trails and devours their sanity, and regurgitates tales of gnomish culture into the collective unconscious. Thus is continued the great masquerade. Such is the life of gnomes.]

On Gnomes, and Player Expectations

Have you heard of Global Agenda? I know nothing about Global Agenda except apparently it doesn't have elves in it, and they would have you believe this is a big deal. Also, creepy eyes.

Looking through old campaign settings (remember when there were new ones every so often? I miss that), you'd think elves were sacred animals. Lots of settings add races (thri-kreen, giff, kalashtar, modrons) and tweak races (cannibal halflings, fascist biomancer elves, corporate conspiracy dwarves... the clueless?)... but usually make it a point of being as inclusive as possible for the person who just HAS TO play a half-orc or whatever.

Not hard to see the hand of commerce here - Elves sell. Eberron used "everything in D&D is in Eberron" as the first bullet point in its pitch, and 4th Ed kept up the trend in everything. A warforged/drow/half-orc/dragonborn party on Athas, a world without metal, an underdark, or orcs, and only one dragon? Sure why not. Writers, find us a way.

Homebrew campaigns and small press settings are generally much more open to weird experimental builds with no clerics or dwarves or whathaveyou. Look at Carcosa (or better yet, Carcosa). And the sheer volume of available monsters means when you're making a world for yourself you pretty much have to be selective about what gets thrown in. (Or you can fiddle with the fiddly bits. That's wholeheartedly encouraged.)

But for the core races especially, players have expectations. D&D is as much about elves and dwarves as it is about actual dungeons and dragons - arguably more, since the "dragon" is more often a lich or mind flayer or one of ten thousand other big bads. When you're getting together a group of friends not so sure about this whole "role-playing" thing, or if playing a game with friends is worth giving up a Friday night and learning all these stupid rules, it helps if the DM can say "choose someone from Lord of the Rings, you're basically like that" instead of "You're an elf, but 'elves' in my world are dream-eating reptiles from another dimension who live in crystal cities in the hyperborean north." There's a place for that too, but it's nice having a default to fall back on.

Which brings me to the more crunchy, less rambly question of: what the hell is up with gnomes?

Humans are obvious. Elves, dwarves, and orcs you may get questions of "Tolkien or Warcraft?" or "So I've got a Scottish accent?" but at least everyone has an image to start with. Halflings are a little sketchier because the D&D race has migrated a fair bit from its hobbity roots, but still... brave little murderkids. You can play up the peasant hero angle or the backstabbing klepto angle or the Dickensian youth angle and it's all still recognizably Halfling. But gnomes? As in, David, the? As in Garden?

Some options. In d6 random table format, in case you need a random gnome. (God help you.) Admittedly these are not the most original, nor the most compelling archetypes in the fantasy ouvre, but they're at least images from the pop culture zeitgeist that aren't part of a Travelocity commercial.

1. Gnomes of Zurich. You know the goblin banker guys in Harry Potter? You're kind of like that. Scheming, shark-toothed, impeccably dressed. Merchant princes, profit over all, commerce as a weapon - somewhere between the Illuminati and the Dutch East India company. Probably get a chance to notice hidden treasure just being nearby, the way elves can with secret doors. As with halflings you're going to look kind of ridiculous if you're a fighter in full plate, but gentlemen boxers or duelists with cane swords could be a thing.
2. Professors of Magic. You know the Fraternity of Order from Planescape, or the Asura from Guild Wars (2)? You're kind of like that. Backstabbing ivory tower blowhards with a bit of 17th century natural philosopher thrown in the mix.Out to prove your latest hypothesis, gather rare ingredients or specimens, catalog new species, and map the unexplored. Lots of incredibly petty rivalries based on competing theories or research grants. Schisms within subfields based on disagreements on fine points of minutia. Arcane knowledge in both senses of the word. Your intern is trying to poison you and your nemesis in Applied Phrenology just stole your collection of basilisk skulls, but you're not worried about that you're off in the Weeping Steppes digging up dragon bones and wow the markings on those spider wasps...
3. Against the Dying of the Light. Sigh. Going to have to deal with this eventually. Okay so you know the gnomes of Warcraft, or Spelljammer, or Dragonlance I suppose except eww? You're... no, you're not like that at all. I've no  problem with the anachronism or the silliness per se but when the entire race is a joke the joke isn't funny. Take fun seriously. An alternative: instead of being all insufferably twee and whimsical all the time inventing the wizz-bang future from nothing, you're trying to keep your civilization alive when everything else is giant and trying to kill you. Maybe you're marooned in the barbaric middle age after a time travel accident or maybe your race got conquered/cursed/blown up, and now every year more machines fail, and the blueprints are lost, and ogres eat the young ones.
4. People of the Earth. You know the four classical elements? And how Paracelsus wrote about an embodiment of elemental Earth two hand-spans tall and able to swim through stone like a fish? And how these got conflated with all sorts of other folk tales of little magical craftsmen beneath the ground? Okay maybe not. But anyway... you're kind of like that. Tiny and hunched with big black eyes and claws like a mole, speaking with stones and herding the mountains like ents do trees. Big overt magic like this works better for monsters than playable races but dwarves and elves had similar powers in the old stories - maybe just the elders are mountain-movers. Pretty much everything subterranean in D&D is evil, so maybe you help other not-quite-as-homicidal travelers who delve in deep places. Or maybe you were forced out by some cataclysm.
5. Laughing Monstrosities. You know all the stories about Coyote, or Anansi, or Sun Wukong, or Bugs Bunny, where the hero a nice guy but also an incredibly infuriating dick? You're kind of like that. You can disguise self or mimic voices or pick pockets at range or turn into four different forest animals - some little glamour with no combat utility but lots of ways to confound and annoy. If you're going to be an obnoxious little twit you might as well be the sort people like to have around.
6. The Men In The Walls. You know in Hansel and Gretel, when the witch has the kids in a cage fattening them up to be eaten? You're like that, if Hansel and Gretel were a whole race and the witch was a faerie prince who liked to drink tears. The usual gnome suite of prestidigitation magics are tricks stolen/copied from their fair folk jailers, and they speak with rats (not burrowing animals, rats) because there's rats everywhere, fighting for the food, and in fairy tales the rats can talk. Worked half your life sewing dresses out of roses and gossamer, got sold to the drow to be tortured, but you learned to hide and you learned to kill and now you're free and so very, very mad.

What We're Talking About When We Talk About Lycanthropy

One of Telcanter's recently-linked articles about rampaging werewolves inspired me. Being able to roll one die and get an instant, interesting result is great, but there's also drama in seeing all the details of an awful night's carnage unfold one result at a time. So this has details you can't get in a d30 roll like different locations and personages for urban vs wilderness encounters... I figure if a player is a werewolf that's something they'll be dealing with rather a lot, so less chance of repetition is a good thing. (Okay sure in some editions curing lycanthropy is just a remove curse/cure disease spell away, but then you lose the mythic quest to hunt down the original werewolf and the whole wolvesbane-and-silver-cage ritual, which I mean come on that's like half the fun.)

Tracking involuntary transformations is easiest if you assume a lunar month is 30 days long, and full moons last three days. When a player gets infected if you weren't already keeping track of the phases roll a d30 (or a d3 and a d10) and subtract 3... that's how many nights until they're howling. Results of zero or less mean look the fuck out. You can roll a d30 again any night players 'forget' to note how long they have left, cuz I guess they lost track of time?

Full moon nights not spent locked in a cage mean you roll ALL THE DICE (except a d20 and d%) and FEED ON THE DREAD.

d12: Who was the victim? (Urban / Wilderness)

1. Special (1d4: 1 local ruler, 2 powerful wizard, 3 PC’s family, 4 hireling or other PC)
2. Noble / Traveling Dignitary
3. Priest / Druid
4. Town guard / Border Patrol
5. Beggar / Bandit
6. Smith, Craftsman, or Tinkerer
7. Shopkeeper / Farmer
8. Merchant / Trader
9. Sailor / Hunter or Trapper
10. Bartender or Innkeeper
11. Orphan / Lost Child
12. Prostitute / Lumberjack

d10: Where did it happen? (Urban / Wilderness)

1. Special (1d4: 1 castle / watch post, 2 dungeon / crumbling ruin, 3 brothel / monastery, 4 bell tower / craggy precipice in the middle of a thunderstorm)
2. Sewers / Swamp
3. Dark Alley / Cave
4. Town Square / Open Field
5. Store / Pasture
6. Home / Barn or Farmhouse
7. Street / Trail
8. Inn / Hunting Lodge
9. Docks or Town Gate / Bridge or Riverbed
10. Temple / Shrine or Druid Circle

d8: Did anyone see you?

1. Nope! You’re one stealthy-ass slavering monster.
2. No witnesses, but you left signs… pawprints, or clumps of fur.
3. A few people saw a strange beast lurking in the shadows, but nothing conclusive.
4. Lone witness – fortunately, not someone people take seriously.
5. Lone witness – someone respectable, influential, and competent. Uh oh.
6. They didn’t see where you went, but yep, people definitely saw a werewolf.
7. Someone saw you, and worse, you left a trail. They’re following you even now.
8. Everyone saw you, and you left a swath of destruction impossible to miss. You see torchlight, and hear the mob crying out for your blood.

d6: Good heavens, what did you do?!

1. Attacked the victim.
2. Attacked the victim’s friends or family.
3. Attacked the victim’s pets or farm animals.
4. Destroyed the victim’s house.
5. Destroyed or stole the victim’s property.
6. Defiled a holy site or dug up graves.

d4: How bad is the damage?

1. Some scratching and biting, nothing too serious… except for the possible infection, of course.
2. Severe mauling, leaving permanent injury. Buildings ransacked. A lone animal butchered.
3. Killed, or completely destroyed. Buildings burned. Many animals slaughtered.
4. Wow you don’t mess around. Multiple deaths – the victim and anyone who got in your way. The fire spread to the rest of the block or village. The whole farm got eaten.

Introductions, and also a Monkey

So I decided to get in on the whole OSR/DIY D&D blogging thing.

I've been gaming almost 20 years now. Some formative experiences: I started with the Red Box. I think a friend's dad was a geek of the true old school, and he got us hooked. Next came AD&D 2nd Edition and the awesome diTerlizzi-illustrated Monstrous Manual. Growing up in a small town I didn't have a friendly neighborhood game shop, but a hobby shop had the core books, and a toy store had box sets of Planescape and Spelljammer and Ravenloft for some reason, so that's what I played. Well, I say 'played', but really it was more like 'read'. Not many other gamers in rural New Hampshire.

When 3rd Edition came out, theoretical D&D turned into all-consuming two-giant-games-a-week obsessive D&D. Sunwell Citadel with one group, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with the other. Two-page character sheets full of itty bitty type, custom prestige classes, that damn Recommended PC Wealth By Level chart... and so many splatbooks. Senior year of high school I took a pilgrimage to GenCon to run D&D and d20Modern games for Wizards of the Coast (after taking an online test to show my knowledge of the rules-as-written). I was a Company Man, full stop.

But 3.5 caused a lot of bad will. Suddenly my huge stockpile of books was worthless, and changing the rules to require miniatures right as Wizards started selling random assortments of miniatures (complete with Magic-style rarities)... it felt unseemly. And then college introduced me to Exalted and Shadowrun and Unknown Armies, and D&D lost a lot of its appeal. I still kept up with the supplements, but more for inspiration than direct use.

After college... well, there's a lot to be said for brand recognition, right? In college if you wanted to try a crazy one-shot of BESM Six-String Samurai you walked down to the common room and harangued the regulars, but that shit won't fly in real life. D&D works because if you say you want to play some Dungeons and fucking Dragons, even if someone's not interested, they'll at least know what you're talking about.

So I play D&D. And I've been lucky enough to find a group of friends and coworkers able to get together once a week and indulge in this incredibly geeky pastime.

Thing is though, they're not all diehard been-gaming-forever RPG nerds. Not everyone wants a game with endless character customization and countless books of feats and classes and powers... hell, when we started most people didn't even have dice. And if the hobby's going to expand an increasingly fractured and insular group of neckbeards - if I want to game with the friends I have, instead of hoping to make friends with people who game - D&D can't be all about rules arcana and the microtype character sheet. Playing Pathfinder I've heard players groan at having to level up - the reward had become a punishment.

Nuts to that. Roll stats, pick a class, get in the dungeon and kill some goblins.

That's what this blog is for - system-neutral, rules-light content with an emphasis on random tables and cool ideas. To that end... I've rambled enough already, right? Time to pay the Joesky Tax. Let's talk monkeys.

A character in my current campaign got a monkey in a Morocco-style marketplace. Fez, vest, the whole bit. She wanted to know what happened when she sent it off to steal things (as monkeys do). I could just make something up, but where's the fun in that? This way she can see the table she's rolling on, and everyone, myself included, gets surprised when the monkey comes back wearing magical underwear. Like so:

What's That Monkey Up To This Time?

Roll a d20 twice, once for the object and once for its quality. Note that item quality also indicates the sort of person the object is stolen from; only worthless objects are ownerless (the “No Found Cake” rule). Expensive items are likely to have wealthy or powerful owners who want them back, and the rarest (magic) items can be dangerous all on their own – a monkey with a wand of fireballs is no one’s friend.

Item Quality (1d20):

1-8: Worthless or broken, or the monkey didn’t find anything. No owner.

9-13: Very common or low quality item. Likely owned by a peasant, laborer, or beggar.

14-17: Pretty decent item. Likely owned by a merchant, soldier, or other professional.

18-19: Costly, high quality item. Likely owned by a noble or member of the clergy.

20: Magic or fantastically rare item. Likely owned by a wizard or other adventurer.

Item Type (1d20):

1. Coin pouch, with 2d10 coins of varying quality.
2. Shiny! Maybe a gem, maybe just a rock.
3. Ring or earring.
4. Brooch or necklace.
5. Holy symbol or figurine.
6. Apple, date, or other fruit or vegetable.
7. Loaf of bread or other processed food.
8. Meat, or maybe just a dead animal.
9. Live animal, like a snake or worm or something.
10. Bottle, drinking horn, wineskin, or jug.
11. Bowl, plate, cup, or chalice.
12. Fork, spoon, or other utensil.
13. Knife, dagger, or other small weapon.
14. Paper or parchment. Might have a note or map on it.
15. Dirty handkerchief or undergarment.
16. Shoe, boot, or glove. But just one. Two would be silly.
17. Hat, mask, bandana, circlet, or crown.
18. Ball, top, tin soldier, or other children’s toy.
19. Stick of some sort, like a staff, rod, cane, switch, or wand.
20. If you also rolled a 20 on item quality, roll a d6:

1. Jeweled clockwork assassin bug.
2. Deed to a fabulous mansion which is probably haunted.
3. Tiny woman in a golden cage.
4. Ornate brass puzzle box with a whole other dimension folded up inside.
5. Oh my god the monkey has a gun.
6. Sarcastic talking skull.

      If you rolled a 1-19 on item quality you’ve instead found a severed hand.