Gnomevember
Gnomes have never been a big part of the Warhammer mythos, but they were in WFRP 1st edition, and in the first couple of editions of Warhammer itself. To celebrate the month of Gnomevember, here is a roundup of their brief history in Warhammer and WFRP.
Images of early Citadel Gnomes are hard to come by. The Book of Battalions included some information on Gnomes.
Back in 1986, Citadel did have a few Gnome miniatures in its catalogue, so I included stats for them in the WFRP1 Bestiary. I’ve written before about how I tried to include stats for every miniature Citadel had ever made.
Gnomes weren’t included in the rulebook as a player race, even though they had been a PC race in D&D for some time. We were quite happy with Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling. Even Halflings didn’t convince everyone, but at the time we felt they needed to be in the book: somehow, in the 80s, you just couldn’t have a fantasy RPG without Halflings. Since then the Halflings, too, have vanished from both Warhammer and WFRP. But back to Gnomes.
“Out of the Garden” first appeared in WD86 and was reprinted (as “Gnome PCs”) in Apocrypha Now.
Phil Gallagher wrote “Out of the Garden” in White Dwarf 86 (reprinted in Hogshead’s Apocrypha Now), which gave Gnomes a culture and a place in the Warhammer world, as well as PC rules for WFRP, a patron deity, and a unique career of their own, the Gnome Jester.
The article also included a plethora of Gnome puns, possibly inspired by David Bowie’s novelty record The Laughing Gnome.
A gnome character starred in Carl Sargent’s Poirot-inspired adventure “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which was published in White Dwarf 105 and reprinted in the Warhammer Companion.
Alphonse Hercules de Gascoigne, the Gnome detective from “With a Little Help from My Friends.”
And that was it. Like Halflings, Gnomes just weren’t fearsome enough to make a good Warhammer force, and Citadel stopped making Gnome miniatures. Actually, I think they had already stopped by the time WFRP was published, but perhaps someone from the Oldhammer community can correct me if I’m wrong.
It didn’t help that these two articles were jokey even by WFRP1 standards: somehow we just couldn’t take Gnomes seriously enough to incorporate any grimdark horror along with the jokes. We probably thought it couldn’t be done, although some 20 years later my erstwhile colleague Keith Baker did a very good job with the Gnomes in his pulp-inspired Eberron setting for D&D.
Anyway, it was only a matter of time before Gnomes disappeared from WFRP as they had from Warhammer. By 2nd edition they were gone, and a Gnome thief in my adventure “A Rough Night at the Three Feathers” was changed to a Halfling for the 2nd edition reprint in Plundered Vaults.
But as with so many things, WFRP fans weren’t ready to let go of Gnomes. The Strike to Stun forums include various discussions of Gnomes, some with links to fan-created Gnome rules for WFRP2. And now, the final issue of the excellent Warpstone fanzine includes no less than three articles on Gnomes.
Gnomes return to WFRP in Warpstone #30.
And appropriately enough it appeared this month: Gnomevember!
It seems that Gnomes were in Warhammer Online as well, though they were very different: semi-civilized desert greenskins, of all things. http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Races
We trIed to incorporate Gnomes in DotF.
Rumours abound of a refugee tribe of gnomes who were given shelter in a remote corner of the Empire and lived happily alongside their human counterparts. Inevitably, this region came to be known as Gnome/Mans Land…
See what I mean? It’s still hard to suppress the pun reflex when dealing with Gnomes.
Re Halflings: One of my friends recently built a small WFB army using old Citadel Halflings and Ogres, with the Halflings using the Gnoblar rules. The Halflings and the Ogres (the old school ones, the kind you find working as doormen at exclusive Altdorf restaurants), were united by their love of food. It looked beautiful. And then he sold the army when, completely out of the blue, he suddenly became a proponent of ‘what Games Workshop do now is all that there is’.
As for Alphonse Hercules de Gascoigne (named after Marc?), I’ve been thinking about him lately as I consider converting (mechanics and tone) ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ into an AFF2e adventure set in Blacksand.
Waaaagh over at the Oldhammer Roleplay blog posted a copy of Phil’s article. It’s the version from Apocrypha Now rather than WD, but I’m pretty sure that only the title was changed. http://oldhammerroleplay.blogspot.com/2014/11/gnomes.html
*bump*
http://cubicle7.co.uk/so-you-think-you-gnow-me/
I have just realised that I missed one important Gnomish appearance: in the 2nd edition army book Ravening Hordes, in the Allies section. It seems they were fairly handy with crossbows.
I remember my younger brother once played a Gnome Jester. I remember that during Character generation he rolled a 20 on 2d10 & and his Gnome had 50 WS. In Polish translation was also misprint in Jester advance scheme (+2, not +20). My brother advanced his A to 3 which made him the best fighter in the whole party – for about one month until the errata came out. I can’t remember the name of his Character, not my brother, but I can remember that that Gnome was one of the best Characters in my WFRP games. 🙂 Thank you for the post!
I reminded the name now: his name was Rigal Erikson!
Maybe I post his Character Sheet if I find it.
I’d forget: thank you for bringing gnomes back to the WFRP world in “Rough Days & Hard Nights”. I haven’t seen it yet, but for me, it’s the main reason to buy it! Thanks, Graeme!
And now, Gnomes are back for WFRP 4th edition, with an appendix of rules and background in Rough Nights and Hard Days.
Who wrote it, you?
I just did the five adventures. The two appendices (Gnomes and pub games) were, I think, by Andy Law.
This helps a lot, thank you! Maybe he would share some insights about, for example, the new Gnome gods.