Gnomic Religion
Gnomes believe in the Demiurge, a mysterious deity who created the oldest part of the world and created the Gnomish race.
But he vanished after other gods appeared. He grants no spells.
Gnomish art depicts the Demiurge as a large but gnomelike figure with Opal eyes, wrapped in a hooded cloak of shadows.
He is never shown smiling or laughing.
Gnome clerics and priests who actually have magical power get it from other gods. The Demiurge remains a common part of the religious background for Gnomish sects and schools of philosophy.
The Gnomic Sects
Lapidarian
Phantasians
Absurdists
I'm recycling two of my old Gnomish sects for this campaign.
http://ghoulsinthecellar.blogspot.com/2 ... chive.html
Absurdists believe the universe is an incredibly cryptic and complicated joke played by the Demiurge. If anybody ever really gets the joke and laughs, everything will end when the master joker joins in the laughter. In order to distract others from the cosmic jest, Absurdists crack jokes, litter their speech with puns, play pranks on foes, and otherwise spread both merriment and confusion.
They believe no merely mortal humor could come close to the subtlety and wit of the Demiurge.
A tiny breakaway sect, the Sons of Silence, believe that the main body of Absurdists have it wrong; their jokes tend to build toward a mortal figuring out The Joke. So they must be stopped. These grim gnomes mute themselves with potions, to prevent laughter. They murder jesters, burn theaters where comedies are performed, and pursue a clandestine campaign against other gnomes.
More to come...
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DM notes:
Gems, jokes, and illusions. Those are three salient features of Gnomish culture and personality as described in AD&D materials.
For this setting, I'm leaving out the tinker gnome stuff common to Dragonlance and Mystara, which also influenced a lot of homebrew and generic settings.
Because I have made superior talent in identifying potions a part of gnomishness, I will probably add a Mixer/Chymist sect, who believe the Demiurge used an elixir to create gnomes. If they could figure that out...
I might ditch the Lapidarian sect, and simply work the gems into other sects.
Chymists use dissolved or powdered gems and crystal decanters in their potion-mixing work.
Phantasians use prisms and lenses cut of translucent gemstones.
Absurdists defy Gnomish custom by wearing costume/paste jewelry? It's all a joke, anyway?
NEW
Elixirists:
Elixirists follow a tradition somewhat akin to the human science of alchemy, but these gnomes show little interest in transforming base metals into gold, and instead work to dissolve gemstones into liquid elixirs with magical properties. The Elixirists describe the Demiurge as the supreme potion-mixer, who created the gnomish race as laboratory assistants and ingredient gatherers.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)