Gnome

## Gnomes

**Gnomes,** also known as **The Unseen**, are small humanoids known for their eccentric sense of humour, inquisitiveness, and engineering prowess. Having had few overt influences on Vari's history but many small and unseen ones, gnomes are often overlooked by the powers that be, despite their craftiness and affinity for illusion magic. Gnomes are present in nearly every part of society, but often go by unnoticed.

Gnomes are very small compared to most other races and, with an average height ranging between 3′0″‒4′0″ and a weight range of 40‒45 lb, gnomes are generally larger and heavier than halflings, though forest gnomes – ranging between 2′1″‒2′10″ in height and 21‒35 lb in weight – tend to be smaller than halflings, leading some scholars to erroneously classify all gnomish races as smaller than Halflings.

While halflings are commonly said to resemble short humans, gnomes are more comparable with elves, with whom they share pointed ears and high cheekbones, or even dwarves, due to their tendency to grow beards and live underground. Many gnomes have a more feral appearance than either, however, with hair that often sprouted from their heads in odd directions.

The skin of gnomes runs in hue from reddish tans to earthy browns or even shades of gray, with exact hue somewhat dependent upon the ethnic origin of a gnome. Some forest even have green or blue skin. Similarly, gnomish hair varies wildly in color from blond and brown to more exotic colors like white, orange, or even green. Gnomish eyes are often—particularly in individuals who have ancestry native to the Feywild—glittering black or blue, although more natural eye colors are also known to the race.

Gnomes are an intelligent and innately curious race. Gnomes might lack the drive and ambition of other races overall, but their creativity gives them a strong ability for ingenuity. Most gnomes are content to live simple lives, acquiring knowledge merely as a hobby but others explore lost ruins, delve deep into the heart of the world, and conduct dangerous research in their unquenchable thirst for knowledge, leading more than a few to an untimely demise.

Gnomes are also very long-lived, often living as long as some elves, which means living over three centuries is not uncommonly rare and five centuries is not unheard of. However, unlike elves, gnomes show a greater degree of aging as they grew older and once a gnome has passed his or her first century, their hair begins to gray, if it was not already white, and their skin begins to wrinkle as in humans or dwarves.

## Sub-Species

* **City Gnome:** The most adapted to life within cities, a city gnome primarily occupies small houses or burrows beneath the city streets, known as Gnome Mounds.
* **Forest Gnome:** Smaller than other gnomes, these gnomes were a shy, secretive folk, once used to living deep in wooded areas. Now, like many wilder races, these Gnomes are much fewer in number than their City kin, struggling to adapt to a life behind walls.
* **Deep Gnome:** The deep gnomes once dwelt in cities deep underground in the Underdark, like the Drow, they were forced to the surface after The Severance changed the world. They are far stealthier than surface-dwelling gnomes, who tend to have great respect, even reverence, for their Underdark native kin.