OSE Encounter Activities - Gnome

It’s been quite a while since we’ve done a Demi-human. Here are d100 Encounter Activities for the Gnome.

I fondly recall repeatedly borrowing the Huygen/Poortvliet book from a local library as a lad (the stacks also had a similar one about Giants, and of course the Froud Faerie Book). I made sure to locate a copy once I was a little older, and it still sits on the shelf next to the other, similarly sized tomes of this nature.

So for me, Gnomes are somewhat inseparable from the conical capped, friendly folk of the woods portrayed so lovingly in that volume. They bridge the conceptual gap between our dour subterranean Dwarfs and those flighty sylvan Elfs. I’ve always absolutely adored their ability to speak with burrowing mammals (anything that puts Speech on the list of interactions with an otherwise predictable animal Encounter gets an A+ from me). I have a player in my recent games that decided to roll up a Gnome, so they’ve been showing up a bit more than usual lately. I’m still a bit undecided on their spell casting, but I’m sorely tempted to fold it into Magical Plants and Herbs wherever possible, illusions are just hallucinations after all... 😊

I know that later lore attempts to justify the Kobold/Gnome antagonism via prankster deities and such, but I’ve always boiled it down to competing for similar niches. “Normally Attack on sight” is typically only interesting the first few times, so I’d be more inclined to just heavily modify Reaction Rolls on the admittedly off-chance that some kind of uneasy-for-both-parties cooperation could be reached, but that’s probably just my inordinate fondness for classic Kobolds showing.