On Gnomes and Halflings

So, over at B/X Blackrazor, JB has an excellent post on Gnomes, doing an historical dive into the origins of the race in search of why they can be illusionists. I, ironically, I have been doing a very similar deep dive into rulesets about gnomes, but for a radically different reason. Whereas JB is working on revamping the Illusionist class using the various iterations from the pre-1ePHB era of the game, I was doing my deep dive because of a curious mention of halflings in Advanced Labyrinth Lord.

For a bit of background, as a joke, I challenged by eldest to run a game of D&D where all the PCs were gnomes. The joke became somewhat serious when she demanded that I provide her with an edition of the game to use to create the campaign. When she settled on Advance Labyrinth Lord, I was forced to read to those rules to create a character.

Therein, I found this quote:

Their habitations often overlap with halflings, and these two races are typically very friendly, if not familial, to each other.

I don’t ever remember that word “familial” being used to describe the relationship between halflings and gnomes, so I started digging.

Lately, I have been finding myself actually trying to play Holmes Basic D&D (putting into practice all of the stuff I wrote about Holmes over the years). I have to admit, having never actually played the game in my youth, I am finding it to be quite a pleasure to use as I get older. One of the conclusions I made about gnomes, given the way Holmes treats them, is that they are (as JB concludes) a variation (or twisting) of dwarves — specifically, a Chaotic Good version.

Given this Holmesian background where I conclude that the languages of Gnomes, Kobolds, and Goblins are all dialects of Dwarvish, I find it fascinating that Gnomes in the MM1 and Gnome PCs in the 1ePHB are able to speak the language of halflings. It should also be noted that in the Racial Preference Table from the 1ePHB Gnomes have goodwill toward Halflings. The only other race to get such treatment are dwarves.

Thus, while Advanced Labyrinth Lord’s use of the word “familial” is not found in the original material, it is, nonetheless, not unwarranted. It also has my brain going in (what I consider to be ) a really exciting direction.

I must note that despite my use of Bilbo Baggins as a literary inspiration for my understanding of Thieves, and my love for Jeff Dee’s cover of T1: The Village of Hommlet, I am not a fan of Tolkien, Hobbits, or halflings.

Conceptually (as a race inspired by Hobbits), halflings just don’t fit in D&D except as a curiosity or a group if interesting NPCs. However, this word “familial” has me re-thinking the halfling’s place among the PC races.

What if “familial” implied the “half” part of the name “halfling” didn’t refer to their size, but rather to their parentage? In a game world where half-elves and half-orcs make regular appearances, why are there no half-dwarves? Unless, of course, they have always been there in the form of the halfling (which sounds better than “half-dwarf” and is something the dwarf kin probably would use anyway).

If one begins with the assumptions that gnomes are smaller, skinnier dwarves and that gnomes live closer to humans and other races than regular dwarves do, and that halflings have similar saving throw bonuses to dwarves, it is not a huge leap to imagine that halflings are to result of some relationships between the odd gnome and human here and there.

Such an understanding of a halfling makes much more sense to me, and explains that cover of T1 a whole lot better than Tolkien ever did.

On Gnomes and Titans

Recently, an old high school buddy of mine got inspired to go back and re-read some of the older rulesets of D&D, in part because of my gushing review of the Swords & Wizardry Legion stuff I was able to get my grubby mitts on.

He and I have a weird appreciation for gnomes as a PC race. When 4th Edition came out, there was a Youtube video explaining why tieflings were now PCs instead of gnomes. Ironically, it just cemented everything we like about gnomes. We both are infected with the old-school mind-set that if you can survive a dungeon with a pathetic excuse for a PC it says a lot about your skill as a player. Therefore, we understood this video as a challenge:



So, my friend decides he is going to make a 1e AD&D gnome character and consequently forwards me this quote:

"When being attacked by gnolls, bugbears, ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants AND/OR TITANS (emphasis mine), gnome characters subtract 4 from their opponents' "to hit" dice rolls because of the gnomes' small size AND THEIR COMBAT SKILL AGAINST THESE MUCH BIGGER CREATURES (mine, again).

He also challenged me to figure out why a gnome would have combat skills against titans.

This rule is actually a remnant from Chainmail:

DWARVES (and Gnomes)…Although they are no threat to the larger creatures, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants find them hard to catch because of their small size, so count only one-half normal kills when Dwarves and Gnomes fight with them…

So, although gnomes are ineffectual at doing any damage to these types of creatures, from a tactical point of view, they do serve as a great way of slowing them down long enough to get stronger units in place to take the larger creatures out.

This rule is not found in OD&D, probably because it was assumed because the combat system used by OD&D was Chainmail. The d20 system everyone is familiar with today was the alternate combat system. As a consequence, this is not found in either Holmes or Moldvay but does find itself back in 1e AD&D with “Titan” added to the list of examples of creatures that have a hard time hitting dwarves and gnomes; however, 1e AD&D also adds that very curious phrase about combat skill…

If one takes a look at the Titan in the 1e AD&D Monster Manual, three intriguing aspects jump out:

1. Titans primarily live on other planes, but do occasionally visit the Prime Material Plane especially to mingle with Storm Giants.
2. Titans can use Invisibility at will and have access to a number of spells from both the magic-user and cleric spell lists.
3. Titans who use Protection from Evil get double the bonus against Lawful Evil creatures.

This paints a picture of a creature type that existed before there was a distinction between Arcane and Divine magic, who does not see other planes as their natural home, spent time specifically fighting Lawful Evil creatures but lost due to the fact the the Prime Material Plane is no longer their normal habitat.

There are two groups of creatures that immediately suggest themselves when one thinks of Lawful Evil: Humanoids and Devils. Only one of those groups lives on the Prime Material Plane.

I am now going to go down a path that necessitates an understanding of my reading of the relationship between various humanoids and Dwarves. You can find that post here.

The ancient being(s) that twisted elves and dwarves into various humanoids did so in an ongoing battle with Titans on the Prime Material Plane. In response, the Titans developed more powerful protection spells against the humanoids which made up the bulk of the armies they were fighting against. In response, the ancient(s) enslaved the dwarves to use as fodder against the titans and further twisted the dwarves into gnomes. Dwarves and gnomes are resistant to magic and gnomes are bread specifically to deal with illusionist magics (to fight invisible titans). Due to the fact that the protective magics of the titans were designed to fight Lawful Evil humanoids, when they came upon dwarves and gnomes, they were caught by surprise and underestimated the danger of their foes. As a consequence, the titans were driven off the prime material plane.

Thus, dwarves and gnomes have combat skills against titans because they were specifically bred to fight against them by the ancient(s) who twisted elves and dwarves in the first place.