The Gnomish Crusade Continues! Options

[Jaramar]

How's the lore and work for the gnomes coming along? Has anyone claimed the dormant volcano yet for any kingdom or race? Just remembered I had al the work I'd done in the early summer still sitting here....

In the words of the Gnomes of Windok... Hack them off at the knees! Gno Mercy!

[Jaramar]

Well, jerky gave the go ahead for a bit of Gnomish non-sense up here so I thought I'd post a bit of what I thought up in Europe.

Gnomish Lands:

With the glaring exception of the Capital and some small villages on the mainland, the towns of the Gnomish land are in a constant struggle against bitter winters. There isn't much room to build on the outskirts of the island so more then one town has ended up taking rocks from the volcano's slopes and rolling them into the water to build little islands to create thier towns on. The buildings themselves are made almost without exception of the volcanic rock as well, though it may be cut and polished for a better look. Water is collected by catching snow runoff and storing it in large artificial ponds up on the slope above the city for use later. Every so often one of the ponds will fail and the water will drain down the volcano's side in a potentially deadly mudslide.

There are three small Gnomish towns on the mainland that are actually considered true Gnomish territory and they are found on and around the areas of the Black Sand Beach. The majority of the structures use local materials but important structures and the homes of wealthy individuals are typically made out of the dark volcanic rock from the home island. This rock is extremely heavy and hard to transport and therefore rare to see beyond thier islands.

You will find the occasional village on the mainland that consists mainly of Gnomes but they typically have little to no contact with thier homeland and are just as likely to be exiles as anything else. There are also at least a few members of the other races joining them in these small townships and they are a favorite for passing merchant caravans to stop at to meet with one another, see the latest in Gnomish technology, and of course sell the Gnomes the large amounts of raw materials they need in order to continue inventing.

The Gnomish Capital:

The Gnomish Capital is one of the natural and technological wonders of the known world. Even though the Gnomish Lands are located far to the north and most of thier lands are constantly on the verge of freezing; the Capital itself is protected from the harsh winters. Due to the heat and steam still generated by the dormant volcano in which it is situated the area has a unique ecosystem. At the center of the volcano is a warm lake surrounded by tropical vegitation in those areas that the Gnomes have not built over. From there the ecosystem works it's way in rings outwards... each ring containing a colder ecosystem until it reaches the point that it meets the icy weather of the rest of the Gnomish Lands. Occasionally major storm events do manage to get over the lip of the dormant volcano and portions of the town near the lake will suffer a flash flood. This typically only happens once or twice a year.

Along with the uniqueness of the ecosystem of the area, the town itself is a marvel. The city itself is made of mostly local materials... which means you have several types of wood as well as dark volcanic rock creating the majority of the buildings... the rock often being better cut and better polished then those seen in other Gnomish towns. Only the more important structures have windows and these have an extremely dark tint to them due to being made of thinly cut obsidian. A newer addition to the town are the steam pipes which are sunk through the surface. There have always been steam vents on the surface of the volcano's crater but these new pipes are used by the Gnomes to specifically gather steam to turn the wheels of thier new inventions. Everywhere you look in town pipes the size of the Gnomes themselves branch off from the various mainline pipes and enter thier various workshops and homes.

Gnomish Life:

Most of a Gnome's life revolves around hands on learning and expirimenting and they have since become the most skilled of any race at working with things mechanical and have, indeed, invented far more then thier share of today's technology. Most Gnomes are thoughtful about how they go about thier expiriments but there are always those few that are reckless; however they tend to eventually have some kind of accident that makes them very quickly go back to the more measured and thoughtful Gnome pace assuming it doesn't kill them.

Typically a Gnome will leave thier parents home as soon as they have created thier first successful invention and family and friends will help build a home for them. Even though they leave the family home at an early age Gnome families tend to stay very close knit and you will often find then visiting or helping with eachother's various projects.

Gnomes do not tend to be overly formal for most occasions and it is perfectly acceptable to have bits of your altest project laying around when a guest comes to visit. They have developed a love of beer from the humans and can go drink for drink even with a dwarf, themselves famed for thier strong drink.

Gnomish Technology:

Gnomes are perhaps the most technologically advanced race in the known world. This is often attributed to both the unique area that thier civilization developed as well as to thier religion which seems dedicated to making sure any given Gnome can pick up inventing right where the last great discovery left off.

Gnomish technology also tends to be a bit temprimental at times and you will often find teams of Gnomes gathered around a broken peice of machinery arguing about the best way to fix it... if they should simply fix the original broken bit and keep on using that or if it should be majorly re-designed and improved... taking months of work and effort.

As a final note Gnomes have invented the use of steam power after extensive study of the steam vents on the dormant volcano. Thier Capital city itself has traditionally been heated by these vents to be a tropical paradise in the center of a near constant winter. Of late the steam has been further harnessed to work machinery and there are even some small scale artificial steam engines that are now working machinery in other Gnomish towns on the island.

Gnomish Religion:

Gnome religion is the butt of many jokes to most of the races which have sophisticated pantheons of gods at thier disposal. To thier viewpoint the Gnomes essentially worship thier heroes... which is true and false all at once. While it is true that great statues of Gnomish inventors, thinkers, and heroes are all around and that a person can often see Gnomes praying to them for guidance; most fail to realize it is not the hero that the Gnome is praying to but rather the embodyment of certain ideals which each held. A Gnome praying to the statue of Fezzletip Wendlebent is typically hoping for divine inspiriation to aid him on a current project rather then for any other reason.

The jokes about Gnomish religion continue on about thier holy book as well; which is more of a notebook cobbled together between all of the great Gnomes of the past. When read you will find many great works tossed haphazardly in, scrawling in the margins, and great philosophical ideas right up next to plans on how to build various inventions that had been thought up hundred or thousands of years before. Within this book contains enough knowledge for any Gnome to begin building the basic machinery that is the trademark of his race.

Gnomish Earth Equivalent:

Gnomes have a rather traditional German touch to them in thier building style, clothing, and musical preference.

[Mole]

This is a good start, Jaramar. I am interested in seeing more of this idea.

Just to let everyone know, PW has not started on character race definitions yet. We have been concentrating on other tools first.

Thanks for sharing!

-Mole

[joshpurple]

Thanks Mole,

Does that mean we could introduce some Gnome Character Concept art?
(that I would first send to Jerky, -get it reviewed by the team, and then post in the Concept Art thread ? >gulp< hope I have that work flow right *tugs at collar* )

[Red]

umm just something ive noticed in most games and myths dwarves are more technologicaly advanced than gnomes so are there no dwarves in wish or are yall going in a differant direction than most

just wondering as i never played the beta of wish and know next to nothing

[Mole]

Does that mean we could introduce some Gnome Character Concept art?

I am ok with introducing concept art at any time. At present, I think we should concentrate our efforts on on initial city of Marr Vellis. Unfortunately, this means that our concept art will be of buildings, bridges, canals, and other MV "city things". Boring, I know, but necessary.

we found in the past that if we start going off on too many tangents and trying to do too many things at once, then we tend to lose sight of our initial goal. Right now PW just does not have the man power to spike in too many directions at the same time. Applying a narrow focus to our works yields greater results (look at DWARF!).

Before we start diving into gnome concept art, I would like to see Jaramar flesh out his gnome thread a little more. He started really good, but I notice there are still a lot of headings that he left blank.

so are there no dwarves in wish or are yall going in a differant direction than most

While it is true that Wish did not have dwarves, that does not mean that PW cannot have them. PW is not Wish, it is only being developed in the "spirit" of Wish. What does that mean? To me it means that we are taking some of the ideas of Wish and borrowing them while adding ideas of our own. Maybe I should start a thread on this topic to see what other people have to say...

-Mole

[joshpurple]

Cool, that sounds good to me Mole. Both focus on direction, and thoughts on PW vs. Wish. And, I like the way you put it for PW (how it's different than Wish).

[Mole]

So what do you say, Jaramar? Care to share more of your great gnome ideas with us?

[Jaramar]

So what do you say, Jaramar?  Care to share more of your great gnome ideas with us?

Yeah, sorry about that. I'll work on it tonight actually. College and work caught me by the neck for a while. I should be able to flesh this out as well as complete my skill posting soon though since thigns are winding down a bit.

P.S. - Wish did have Dwarves. We had one come live in Windok.
P.P.S. - Gnomish Lands and the Gnomish Capital are now done, leaving Gnomish Life to finish up the first set. It's been suggested I work on a rough draft map for the capital as well.

[Mole]

No problem with real life taking over for a while; it happens to all of us from time to time. I saw that you were online (in IRC) last night and were posting status messages of what you were working on. Great job!

I know I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the “Gnome Saga”.

-Mole

[Jaramar]

The main post has had Gnomish Life updated as well as Gnomish Earth Equivalent added to bring this post in line with the one on my new thread on races.

[Tegan]

GNOMMMMMEESSS!

Seriously. I won't play an MMO without Gnomes, ever again. See my race description for what I feel Gnomes should be portrayed as. No stupid pointy hats, no wrinkly skin...spry, cute, short humanoids full of intelligence and life!

[Jerky]

Sounds to me like you and Jaramar are a match made in heaven. Hehe. Look for him on IRC and you guys can go Gnome-Wild.