Gnomes

No one is particularly sure how the Gnomes became what they are today, since most of their records from their exodus from Damasia during the Age of Shadow and their time across the sea were lost. There are records among the dwarves dating back to their empire that clearly show that their diminuitive kin were native to Damasia before their exodus, but even the dwarves thought of the gnomes of that time as mostly harmless pests with below average intelligence and ingenuity at worst. Between the time they left Damasia at the fall of the Dwarvish Empire and their return during the Liberation, something changed them. When the Gnomes returned to Damasia, they brought with them an army of clockwork soldiers and flying machines powered by magic and the raw power of the elements, and had gained a kind of mad ingenuity for machines and contraptions of all kinds. It is for this reason that the Dwarves began to refer to them as Tinker Gnomes.

Tinker Gnomes are industrious to the extreme, exhibiting an almost obsessive need to build and redesign devices to help with every facet of their lives. Though many of the secrets of the technology which helped them liberate Damasia from the Dark Elves has been lost, they still challenge the limits of the world's scientific and magical knowledge on a daily basis, ever seeking to reclaim and exceed the discoveries they have lost.

Play a Tinker Gnome if you want...
 * to be brilliant, clever, and just a little bit mad
 * to play a hero out to create and discover wonderous new things to further technological achievement.
 * to play a member of a race that favors the Artificer, Bard, Wizard, or Rogue class.

Physical Qualities
Tinker Gnomes are a diminuitive race of humanoids, averaging around 3 feet tall, and around 50 lbs in weight - varying in build from scrawny to slightly stout but still nimble. Their hair is fine and varies in color, sometimes even taking on very unusual hues - gnomes who work particularly closely with the arcane even find that their hair grows paler toward almost shock white or toward more and more unnatural colors as their exposure increases over time. Hair grooming can vary from obsessively neat to maddeningly unkempt, which also extends to facial hair on males, some choosing to keep very neatly trimmed and styled beards and mustaches, while others are a tangled mess. Tinker Gnomes' skin comes in varying shades of tan, and wrinkles develop at an early age, and their eye colors tend toward the color of gemstones, though just like hair color, the color and patterns in gnomish eyes can begin to change over time with prolonged exposure to arcane power.

Average Height: 2'8" - 3'3"

Average Weight: 44 - 55 lbs

Being creatures who dwell below the earth, Gnomes have better night vision than humans to see through dimly lit tunnels and burrow dwellings. Though they still require the same amount of sleep as a human, many Tinker Gnomes get less sleep than they should being kept busy by their nearly obsessive projects.

Gnomish Artifice
Skyships

Warforged

Lightning Trains

Statistics
See Dragon #422 pg 9-13