https://youtu.be/5mGfeVxe6zQ

There has been original creature design all throughout Dragonlance, but the Gnomes were redefined not just for the Dragonlance setting, but ultimately for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game system moving forward. Let’s take a closer look at the history and lifestyle of Tinker Gnomes.

Transcript

I will make sure I speak slowly enough for you to understand, otherwise, this would be a short, confusing episode.

Intro

Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about the fast talking, busy bodies tinker gnomes. I would like to take a moment and thank my collaborator patrons, the Heroes of the Lance, and invite you to consider becoming a patron or member of this channel by visiting the links in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. I am drawing information from the various Dragonlance sourcebooks, but I may miss something, so feel free to share your questions and comments below.

Discussion

Gnomes are an unassuming race. Short, delicate looking, but industrious as can be. Their traditionally nasal voices are belied by their seemingly never ending run on sentences. They have the uncanny ability to both comprehend and communicate simultaneously and only slow down when addressing other races or when in a moment of peril. Because of their passionate connection with technology and invention in a primarily magical world, they may seem out of place at first glance, but it is in part because of this truly original take on the race that Dragonlance stands out as a setting.

As is clarified in Dragons of Winter Night from The Annotated Chronicles, Jeff Grubb explains: “I'II take the blame for [Gnomes]. Gnomes, up to that point, were the poor-relation player-characters of AD&D. They were late arrivals. They were one more little-people race in the game, joining the doughty dwarves and happy halflings. They had one cool ability-they could become illusionists, which were already a DM's nightmare. And they could talk to burrowing animals. Yeah, there's a reason to play a gnome—I want to chat with a woodchuck. Gnomes were not the most desirable characters in the bag, but we had to take them into account in the game. So we were casting about for what role the gnomes would play (if any) in DRAGONLANCE, and I started on a riff about my previous occupation—engineering. Most of my brief engineering career had consisted of making repairs for things that other engineers had designed and later discovered were impossible toaccomplish. I pitched the idea of gnomes as the ultimate inventors, but that most of their inventions were made in order to fix their previous inventions. Tracy thought that was hilarious, and soon the gnome flingers and all the other devices of Mt. Nevermind appeared. The gnomes themselves took on a new lease on life and eventually escaped to space (and possibly to other people's campaigns). In AD&D campaigns, both DMs and players learned to fear when a fast talking, curious, helpful gnome appeared. And it's all because I made fun of engineers.”

Their in-world history is the most detailed of any race on Krynn. Every Gnome keeps a diary of their work and inventions. This forms a very detailed, tedious and inexplicably boring history that even the most intrepid scholars balk at. It is known that Reorx forged the Graystone and imbued

it with light and power. In about 3500 PC, he consigned the stone to the First King, gnomoi Aldinanachru. Aldinanachru placed it in the tower of Lunias atop Mount Garath on Taladas. Around 3100 PC,