>Dark elves exist to be evil elves>There's occasionally orcs that are noble savages rather than pillagers>Even dwarves have some evil equivalents like chaos dwarfs in warhammer and whatnotWhat would a "Dark" equivalent to gnomes be like? How do you corrupt a little jolly bearded man from the woods into something evil?
>>97353846kobolds have filled this role in dee and dee for a long time
>>97353846https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcap
>>97353858Nah, dark elves in D&D are D&D elves but evil. So dark gnomes in D&D will be D&D gnomes but evil. Saying kobolds are evil gnomes is like saying goblins/orcs are evil elves. inb4 Tolkien
>>97353846Dark Elves exist to be Dalit elvesGnomes are evil by nature
>>97353846Gnomes don't need an evil counterpart, since gnomes are all secretly evil and always have been.Seriously, look at some of the "pranks" that the "Neutral Good" god of the gnomes, Garl glittergold has done, and how they always seem to entail massive body counts.
>>97353874autism speaks
>>97353846You are trying to reinvent the wheel. Gnomes are the ORIGINAL dwarves. In the original elemental spirit tradition (particularly from Paracelsus in the 16th century), gnomes were earth elementals - mysterious, possibly mischievous beings of stone and soil, not jolly inventors.More alien and otherworldly, like other feyConnected to earth, stone, underground placesPotentially capricious or unsettling rather than cheerfulSkilled at earth magic, illusion, blending into their environmentLiving in hidden places - beneath hills, in ancient barrows, at the roots of old treesThere wasn't really a coherent "dwarf race" with a unified culture, religion, and society the way Tolkien created. That's almost entirely his synthesis, drawing from Norse mythology but building something new.Smaller faerie folk that actually existed in folklore:Brownies - household spirits, helpful but easily offended, human-ish but smallHobs/Hobgoblins (the helpful kind, not the D&D monster) - again, household helpersPucks or similar rural spiritsKobolds - Earth spirits, mine guardians, can help or fuck with miners by making them mine worthless cobalt. Various "little people" from Celtic and English folklore
>>97353846Goblins.
> A race of technologically inclined nomads who also focus into various dark magics> In varying sizes of population, they can be found throughout the lands of the world in their insular merchant caravans though none trust them enough to keep them settled for multiple winters.> The Dark Gnomes create products of greater or equal quality at lower cost than the Elves while often being more accessible due to their nomadic caravans.> Their speciality is in illicit & exotic goods
>>97353846gnomes are the evil counterpart to halflings
>>97353846Gnomes as tinkerers suck major balls. It's an extremely narrow and ill-defined niche. The only reason they did it is because in folklore a lot of gnomes lived underground (like dwarves). If anything, they should be more Fey-like.
>>97353926>you are trying to reinvent the wheel>here's how tolkien reinvented the wheel and made something fascinating and far more enduring than its inspiration ever wasWow, you're doing a really great job of dissuading the OP!
>>97353997The Hobbit was published in 1937. Gnomes are folklore inventions from centuries ago. I think gnomes have endured for far longer. Regardless, the point is that trying to use gnomes to make them fit into Tolkien-inspired races is getting them backwards. They should be the original ones, older and more magical, no the other way around.
>>97353858>>97353874Rather then evil Gnomes, what would 'Good' Kobolds look like?
pretty sure Deep Gnomes are a thing in a few settings, and generally they're schizophrenic and disturbed by things that lurk in the deepest parts
>>97353846Gnomes are evil gnomes
>>97354009The Gnomes was published in 1977Paracelsus's gnomes have as much to do with modern fantasy gnomes as the dwarfs of the sagas have to do with Tolkien's dwarves"Gnome" has just become the standard English translation for a dozen different little guys from different European folklore
>>97353846Skaven.
>>97353846Or just look at what some of the worse fey were historically portrayed like and apply to the modern gnome shape.
