Surface gnomes are the most common. Their skin is usually wood brown, sometimes ranging to gray brown. Hair ranges from medium brown to white, and eyes are always blue, from grayish to bright. They speak their alignment language, Gnomish, Kobold, Goblin, Hobbit, Dwarfish, Common, and the languages of burrowing mammals; they can learn up to two additional languages. They have 6" infravision. Fighter, Thief, Illusionist, and Assassin classes are available to them, and some combinations of two of these. They are resistant to magic as dwarfs, +1 per three and a half points of constitution (rounded down) against rods, staves, wands, and spells, but not poison. Also like dwarfs, they can detect certain aspects of construction underground. They have an 80% chance of detecting grades or slopes, 70% for unsafe walls, ceilings, or floors, 60% for depth underground, and 50% for direction underground. They are bonused +1 to hit goblins and kobolds, and confer a penalty of -4 to attacks on them from gnolls, bugbears, ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, and titans.
Svirfneblin, also known as deep gnomes, come from deep in the underdark. They can be any class or class combination that surface gnomes can be. They appear more muscular, and their eyes are gray. In addition to the normal abilities to detect things underground, they are also able to hide against underground stone, being 60% undetectable if motionless. No female svirfneblin have ever been encountered, so all player characters must be male. Although those in the deep have great magic resistance, player characters are separated from these secrets, limited to +2 against poison and +3 on all other saves, and immunity to illusions and phantasms. Players do not have improved natural armor class like their non-party counterparts. Deep gnomes speak their own tongue which is close enough to gnomish to be mutually understood, and no other. They may learn additional languages according to intelligence as humans. They do not speak to elementals, but may learn the language as any other. Svirfneblin may cast as innate illusionist spells blindness, blur, and change self. A player character deep gnome who is not an illusionist may summon an earth elemental once each day beginning at level six. All deep gnomes radiate a constant non-detection relative to themselves. They have 12" infravision and 3" ultravision. In bright light, all vision is reduced to 3", and all combat is at -1 to hit. They are surprised only once in twelve times, and surprise others nine times in ten if not in bulky armor. They have the ordinary chance of psionic abilities. They are +1 to hit against kuo-toa, but not goblins and kobolds; they have the same defensive bonuses against the same large humanoids as their surface cousins.
Tinker gnomes are a Dragonlance race and class; in Krynn, all gnomes are tinkers, and there are no tinkers who are not gnomes. They are technologists in a world of magic. The class has been discussed already. Each gnome has a lifequest, to perfectly understand one type of machine. They are three feet tall, forty-five to fifty pounds, rich brown skin, curly or straight white hair, china blue or violet eyes, and cavity-free teeth. Males have soft curly beards, and all have wrinkled faces after about fifty years of age. They can talk quickly and listen carefully at the same time. Their true names are extremely long tellings of their ancestry, but they use shorter versions in casual contact, half a minute long among other gnomes, and a mere few syllables with others. Every year, there is one chance in ten thousand that a gnome will go "mad", and lose his grip on technology.
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