Gnomes in D&D.

I don’t understand why they exist.

It feels like we’ve spent 30+ years trying to figure out a way to make them meaningfully different from dwarves and pretty much failing except insofar as they are now sometimes halflings with pointy years.

(If you’re first thought was, “Dwarves have beards and gnomes don’t! They’re totally different!” you may want to bail out now. This is probably not the post for you.)

The best gambit was probably Dragonlance’s tinker gnomes, a memetic line of thought which culminates most distinctly with World of Warcraft. But it’s still lacking. Being technologically inclined isn’t exactly outside of the dwarven wheelhouse. Plus: A whole race that tinkers? Like, there are no gnome farmers? Or tax collectors? Or seamstresses?

So, without further ado, here’s a bevy of ideas for making gnomes unique enough to justify their existence.

MAKE THEM TINY. Like 1 to 1.5 feet tall. The size of a garden gnome. Playing them is now a unique experience compared to any other common PC race.

GNOMES DON’T ACTUALLY EXIST. They’re just dwarves who live outside instead of under the mountain. Your choice whether “gnome” is actually a racial slur or a self-embraced cultural identity. Or both.

HALF-SPECIES. The result of dwarves and halflings interbreeding. They really ARE just dwarves without beards and/or halflings with pointy ears.

(“3rd Edition halflings already have pointed ears!” That’s probably where the gnomes get it from, then.)

HALF-SIZED SPECIES. What if halflings are half-sized humans and gnomes are half-sized elves?

This raises questions. Is there an entire echelon of half-sized races? Like, sure, goblins are obviously the half-sized orcs. But where are the half-sized dwarves? Or are the dwarves actually the half-sized ones?

DWARVEN SUB-CULTURE. Sort of the equivalent of emo/goth teens. Gnomes are a youth cultural movement that shave their beards and get obsessed with gadgetry. Older dwarves try not to let their eyes roll out of their heads when talking about them.

GODDESS SHARDS

Long ago the Gods of Magic slew the Goddess of Science & Technology (which is why D&D-land no longer advances technologically and is suck in a perpetual Renaissance). The shattered shards of the Goddess fell to the earth and manifested as the manic, technology-obsessed gnomes.

Gnome farmers? They exist. But none of them just farm the earth in an orderly fashion. Every one of them has a unique scheme — elaborate hydroponic projects, subterranean growing caverns, legions of mechanical scurriers who harvest the fields like plague locusts.

Gnome tax collectors? The creepiest is probably the one who created a panopticon of clockwork tax-spiders who watch every transaction and exact their coin on the spot. What makes it worse is that the government they once served fell a generation ago and no one is entirely sure what the tax-spiders are doing with the taxes they collect any more.

Every gnome has a sliver of a dead goddess manifested in their brain. Every gnome constantly lives with the gibbering madness of her shattered, god-like consciousness whispering like a livewire as a commentary to their inner monologue.

Furthermore, inspired by Wing Kan’s art over there, I’ll also push the idea that gnomes are neon-hued in skin and hair. (Usually matching, but sometimes not for reasons gnomes struggle to explain.)

Not to be confused with hexcrawling, hex-clearing is the process by which monsters and other hostile forces were cleared out of a hex in preparation for a stronghold to be constructed. Clearing a hex was the first step towards bringing civilization to an uncivilized portion of the world. It was also the transitional point between the low-level activities of monster slaying and the high-level activities of realms management. It is one of the oldest game structures in D&D, yet I feel comfortable saying that probably 99% of all current D&D players have never done it.

In pursuit of a tangentially-related project, I decided to do a brief survey of the extant hex-clearing procedures in old school D&D. I offer them here in the thought that they might be of use to a wider audience.

OD&D HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 5 miles

1. Referee rolls a die to determine if there is a monster encountered.
2. If encountered monster is defeated or if no monster is encountered, the hex is cleared.
3. Territory up to 20 miles distant from an inhabited stronghold may be kept clear of monsters once cleared.

AD&D HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 1 mile / 30 miles

CLEARING HEXES

1. Make wandering monster check.
2. If encountered monster is defeated or if no monster is encountered, the hex is cleared.

Once cleared, hexes will remain cleared, except:

1. Once per day, check to see if a monster has wandered into an uncleared border hex.
2. Once per week, check to see if one of these monsters has wandered into the cleared territory.

Patrols: If regular (1/week) patrols from a stronghold are made through a cleared territory, the check to see if a monster has wandered into a border hex is made only once per week.

CONSTRUCTING THE STRONGHOLD

1. Must map and clear the central hex (location of stronghold) and six surrounding hexes.
2. Unless 7 hexes are actively patrolled, there is a 1 in 20 chance per day that a monster will enter the area.

GYGAXIAN VAGUERY – PATROLS

Because Gygax was objectively terrible at writing rulebooks, the rules above are actually incomplete. They overlap with a different set of incomplete rules which directly contradict the first set of rules. If you use this second set of rules, a cleared hex that is being patrolled should be handled in this way:

1. Once per week, check on the Uinhabited/Wilderness encounter table to see if a monster enters the cleared territory.
2. Once per week, also check on the Inhabited table. Or, if there is a road, check three times on the Inhabited encounter table.

Zone of Civilization: If a territory is cleared to a 30 mile radius [should probably be 30 mile diameter, filling the large hex that the stronghold is at the center of], make ONLY the second type of checks, but ignore all unfavorable checks except once per month.

Reversion to Wilderness: If patrols are not kept up, the territory automatically reverts to wilderness status. “Unless the lands around it are all inhabited and patrolled” in which case “all of the unsavory monsters from the surrounding territory will come to make it a haven for themselves.” [So it won’t revert to wilderness, it will just really revert to wilderness.]

RULES CYCLOPEDIA – HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 8 miles / 24 miles

Clearing the Hex: You just… do it. “An area is considered clear when all significant monsters in the area have been killed, driven out, or persuaded (through bribery, threats, persuasion, or mutual-defense agreements) to leave the PC’s subjects alone.” There are no further guidelines.

Constructing the Stronghold: Clear the 8-mile hex in which the stronghold is being built.

Patrols: Cleared areas automatically remain free of monsters as long as they are patrolled.

• Patrols can range 24 miles from a stronghold in clear terrain.
• Jungles, swamps, and mountains require a garrison every 8 miles.

There are more detailed rules for dominion management, but they don’t really pertain to hex clearing.

EXPERT SET VARIATIONS

• Hex scale is not clearly defined. (Isle of Dread, the sample adventure included in the set, uses 24 mile and 6 mile hexes.)
• Patrol ranges are limited to 18 miles and 6 miles (instead of 24 miles and 8 miles).
• The 18 mile limit of patrols matches the 18 miles an encumbered character can travel on foot in a day. The Rules Cyclopedia oddly maintains the same rule for determining overland movement rates (divide by 5 to determine the number of miles a character can travel over clear terrain per day, and therefore 90’ divided by 5 = 18 miles per day), but the Traveling Rates By Terrain table doesn’t follow that rule and instead uses values calculated to divide evenly into hexes (so an encumbered character only travels 12 miles per day in clear terrain).

JUDGES GUILD – HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 5 miles

As I’ve mentioned in the past, Judges Guilds’ hexcrawl procedures and management had a major impact on the game. Virtually all of OD&D’s hexcrawling procedures, for example, were abandoned by AD&D in favor of systems clearly drawing from Judges Guild material. This was somewhat less true when it comes to hex-clearing, but I thought reviewing the material from the Ready Ref sheets might be useful. In this case, it largely was not:

Constructing the Stronghold: Clear 4 hexes radiating from the stronghold’s hex.

Patrols: Automatically keep hexes clear of monsters, except for mountains, swamps, and dense woods.

Back to Reactions to OD&D

SESSION 18C: THE SMOKE OF THE FOUNDRY

March 22nd, 2008
The 7th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

ON SHILUKAR’S TRAIL

They headed back to the alley. This time all of them headed down the alley. A few moments later, the mysterious informant had again slid his away into the alley. (Elestra leaned over to Ranthir, “That’s a neat trick. I wonder if I could learn it?”)

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again this soon,” he said. And then, catching sight of Tor: “And who is this?”

“Master Torland of Barund.”

“A pleasure to meet you. My name’s Shim. Now, what can I do for you all?”

“We need to find a thief named Shilukar.”

“And there’s a catch,” Tee said. “We need to find him by morning.”

Shim seemed to ponder it for a moment. “That’s a tall order. If it can be done, I’ll need a payment of 7,000 marks. And even if I fail, I’ll need 500 for my efforts.”

It was expensive, but they were out of options. They agreed and paid him the 500.

The carriage ride back to the Ghostly Minstrel – including a stop at the Hammersong Vaults to withdraw the cash they would need if Shim was successful – was subdued. They were excited by the prospect that they might soon have another opportunity to capture Shilukar and recover the idol from him, and they all took the time to congratulate Ranthir again on his quick-thinking, but they knew that they had a long wait ahead of them.

When they reached the Minstrel they quickly retired: Their long and busy day had exhausted them, and Ranthir in particular would need time to rest and prepare his arcane rites for the challenges of the day to come.

Unfortunately, they were not destined for a full night of rest and recuperation: Shortly after midnight, Elestra woke to find Shim sliding between the panes of her window.

“I don’t know what you’re doing in Agnarr’s room, but Shilukar is planning to attack the Foundry in the Guildsman’s District in less than 30 minutes. If you want him before dawn, this will be your only chance.”

Elestra quickly roused the rest of them. Tee saw to paying Shim and then they were off as quick as a carriage could carry them – their muscles still stiff and their bodies exhausted from their exertions. (more…)

Go to Part 1

NODE 2: MINNESOTA 13

INVESTIGATING BOOTLEGGING

Cop Talk – The O’Connor System:

• The former police chief of St. Paul, John O’Connor, established the O’Connor System, in which the police allow organized crime figures to “layover” in St. Paul as long as they don’t perform any criminal activities there in exchange for payoffs and kickbacks.
• The primary liaison is “Dapper” Dan Hogan, boss of St. Paul’s Irish Mob. But Kid Cann of Minneapolis has been benefiting from it, too, ever since the “handshake” deal which settled their mutual territories.
• Cann is the guy in charge of virtually all the bootlegging in the Twin Cities. If he’s not doing it himself, he knows who is. He can be found in the Cotton Club in Minneapolis most nights.

Library Use: As far as the mainstream papers are concerned — the Tribune, Daily Star, Pioneer, St. Paul Dispatch —  there is no organized crime in the Twin Cities. The only possible explanation is that pressure is being applied to keep it out of the papers.

• Library Use 1: Smaller, tabloid newspapers occasionally attempt to cover local political corruption and criminal activity, which is apparently rife. (See O’Connor System above.)

Streetwise:

• Moonshine generally isn’t made inside the city limits.
• Bootleggers run the liquor in from out-of-town distilleries and make the local sales.
• Kid Cann is the mob boss who runs most or all of the local bootleggers. Everybody knows that.
• Streetwise 1: There’s a network of supply – the guys in charge don’t just get booze to the bootleggers; they’re also in charge of the smuggling operations that get the distilleries their raw alcohol.

MINNESOTA 13 WHISKEY BOTTLES

The whiskey in the bottles recovered from the James J. Hill House has a slightly purplish color.

Craft/Chemistry: Can determine that these bottles are brand new; not from 1905.

Chemistry: Can detect the presence of the Tanit parasites. (See General Research: Lab Analysis – Tanit Parasites.)

Chemistry: The Whiskey has been flavored with Juicy Fruit gum.

• Chemistry 1: The Juicy Fruit may have been used to cover up the flavor of denatured alcohol.
• Library Use / Cop Talk: Using Juicy Fruit as a flavoring is a unique trait of Stearns County bootleggers, up near Holdingford (“moonshine capital of Minnesota”).

Leveraged Clue (Juicy Fruit Flavoring / Minnesota 13 Label)

• Oral History (Stearns County): Can find someone willing to identify Node 6: Davis Farm as the source of this whiskey.

PETE’S

A speakeasy on Hennepin Avenue, north of the Mississippi. Oleg Andersson can be found here.

OLEG ANDERSSON

APPEARANCE:

• Prop: Photo of Oleg Andersson

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

• Smirks.
• Fidgets with his tie.
• Fronts as tough, but quick to backpedal in face of real threat.
• Voice goes nasal when he gets nervous.

BACKGROUND

• Born 1898 in Norway. His parents came to America and settled in St. Cloud when he was two years old.
• Came down to Minneapolis in 1921 looking for day labor work. Got tangled up in a robbery gang instead; was out buying cigarettes when the rest of his crew got rolled up.
• He ran to his friend Dan to hide out until the heat died down. Dan was running booze and Andersson’s connections up in Stearns County made him useful. Dan was killed a couple years ago in a drive-by.

CLUES

• He gets the Minnesota 13 Whiskey from the Davis Farm. (Billie Davis is the only bootlegger in Stearns County with the expertise to fix the denatured ethanol Kid Cann hooked him up with.)
• He delivers denaturalized ethanol to the Davis’. He picks up the ethanol from a warehouse location. He doesn’t know who drops it off — Kid Cann hooked him up with the connection and it all stays anonymous.
• Following Oleg: Following Oleg will eventually lead to the Davis’ Farm, where he drops off barrels of chemicals from his truck and picks up crates filled with Minnesota 13.
• Oleg’s Address Book: Carried in his breast pocket. Contains addresses for his pick-ups with notations – Davis Farm is marked as a place that he makes a special drop-off; and checking the noted dates it’s clear Rachel’s whiskey came from the Davis Farm.

NOTES

• Drives a 1922 Ford Model TT truck

OLEG ANDERSON: Athletics 6, Driving 6, Firearms 3, Fleeing 4, Scuffling 4, Weapons 3, Health 8
Alertness Modifier: +1 (keeps an eye out)
Stealth Modifier: +1 (knows how to stay out of sight)
Weapons: sap (-1), .38 revolver (+0)

KID CANN

(ISADORE BLUMENFELD)

APPEARANCE

• Prop: Photo of Kid Cann

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

• Proud
• Prone to violence if threatened.
• Gestures with both hands

BACKGROUND

• A Jew born in 1900 in a Romanian shtetl, his parents emigrated to America in 1902.
• Left school as a kid to sell newspapers on Minneapolis’ “Newspaper Row”, where the best locations were held by gangs of kids.
• Began running errands for pimps and whores in the red light district.
• Prohibition let him and his brothers expand their operations. Forged connections with the Chicago Outfit (Al Capone) and New York’s Genovese crime family (Mafia).
• Oversees illegal distilleries in the forests near Fort Snelling, bootlegging operations, prostitution, and labor racketeering.
• Cann insists his nickname is derived from his boxing days, but it’s rumored that he earned it due to his tendency to hide in outhouses/bathrooms when shooting starts.

CLUES

• Hooked Oleg up with denatured alcohol from the Harris Chemical Plant. (He’s bribed people in charge over there to “leave it unattended”; then it gets picked up and taken to a warehouse. Oleg picks it up from there and takes it to his people in Stearns County. Cann doesn’t know who he takes it to.)
• He can identify that Minnesota 13 from the party as one sold by Oleg Andersson.

KID CANN: Athletics 6, Driving 5, Firearms 6, Fleeing 4, Scuffling 8, Weapons 4, Health 9

Alertness Modifier: +1 (wary)
Stealth Modifier: +2 (sneaky)
Weapons: Brass Knuckles (-1), .45 automatic (+1)

KID CANN BODYGUARDS: Athletics 6, Driving 4, Firearms 6, Scuffling 8, Weapons, Health 8
Alertness Modifier: +1 (watchful)
Stealth Modifier: 0 (unskilled)
Weapons: .38 revolver (0), Sawed-off pool cue (-1), switchblade (-1), Fists (-2)

Go to Node 3: Alicia Corey’s Boarding House