A small caravan of roughly constructed and crudely patched wagons winds its way across the plains, stopping often to set up camps or to simply explore the surrounding countryside. At night the firelight from the caravan keeps the darkness at bay. But so does the sounds of music and laughter that can be heard near and far.
Political Exile
Several centuries ago a large schism broke the ranks of the forest gnomes. Several families felt that their clans were too isolated from the rest of the world. They wanted to open their borders and their communities in order to have a larger part in the world. Political debate grew heated and eventually the Durnal clan patriarch was caught bringing outsiders into a hidden settlement without first receiving the okay from the other clans. He and his supporters were exiled from their community and word was spread that he was not to be accepted back in. His family and his supporters gathered what supplies they were able to carry and left their homelands. In the centuries since the scavenger gnome clans have swelled in number, becoming a host unto themselves.
Subdued Melancholy
Gnomish society is marked by vibrancy in everything – from color to expression to emotion. Gnomes love life and they live it to the fullest. This is also true of the scavenger gnomes, but it is touched with a sense of melancholy for the things that they have lost and what their ancestors cost them. They have their own culture and community, but they all know too well what they no longer have. This melancholy is felt with the same vibrancy as the rest of their emotions, making the otherwise happy-go-lucky gnomes morose and brooding from time to time. However, their natural curiosity and love for life always comes back around to pull them back out.
One Man’s Trash
The scavenger gnomes quickly learned to master the art of using anything and everything useful they could, finding use for things that others have long since discarded. They search battlefields and other areas for material they can repurpose or sell when they get to other communities. Where others see scrap metal, they see patches for their wagons. Where others see moth-eaten clothing, they see raw materials for new clothing. Where others see broken weapons, they see material that can be reshaped or repurposed. They have also learned to use their natural affinity for illusory magics to give their repurposed possessions shine and flair unique to them. They create useful tools and unique works of art with castoff material that they are then able to sell in the communities they pass through for the supplies they cannot forage for on their own.
Home on the Horizon
When Clan Durnal and their supporters were cast out of their settlement, they were too small to safely stake claim to any land as their own. They simply didn’t have the numbers to be able to form a new permanent settlement and protect it. But the also didn’t want to lose their identity by simply retreating to an established human settlement. And so they took their wagons and their carts and took to wandering the land, stopping briefly in other settlements to resupply and swell their numbers before striking off again. Maybe their original goal was to form a permanent settlement of their own, but over the years the nomadic lifestyle has come to define the scavenger gnomes. Caravans large and small move through the realms stopping in communities to trade for supplies. The members of these caravans would have it no other way.
Scavenger Gnome
As a scavenger gnome, you still have the abilities of the forest gnome clans in your blood which has helped you to survive in your many years of exile. Tightknit communities travel the world protecting each other scavenging what they can to buy food and supplies when their caravans reach other settlements. While they are oftentimes even more good-natured and friendly than their forest brethren, they are also touched with a melancholy for what their ancestors cost them and that does shine through their otherwise sunny dispositions more than they would like. Still, they try to make the best of their situation in life, traveling from place to place and experiencing the world in ways their kin could never dream of.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Natural Illusionist. You know the prestidigitation cantrip. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it.
Speak with Burrowing Creatures. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas with Small or smaller burrowing creatures. Scavenger gnomes often work in concert with badgers, rabbits, foxes, and chipmunks to dig up material from battlefields or other areas they scavenge.
Scavenge. You are adept at finding useful material where others only see junk. As an action you can make a DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check. If you are successful, you are able to find 1d4 gp worth of saleable material in an area. If you also use your move action on the check you can make the check with Advantage. The DM may decide if this action is usable or not in certain areas or situations.
This idea came to me very recently as an old gaming buddy and I were discussing something completely unrelated at work. But a business name or something similar turned our thinking towards scavenger races. After deciding that goblins were too obvious and kobolds to organized and proud to wear a pig iron helmet scavenged from a battlefield I started thinking about other races. And gnomes came to my mind immediately. The scavenger gnomes are essentially a blend of the forest and rock gnomes as presented in the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook. But I wanted them to feel like their own people mechanically. Constitution makes sense for a people that are constantly moving from place to place, oftentimes foraging for food. Constant travel breeds a hardy people. Prestidigitation also seems to fit their style better than minor illusion so that was an easy substitution. They are less about using their illusory powers to create something out of nothing than they are about shining up what is already there. Their ability to speak and work with burrowing creatures is such a minor change that it’s almost not worth noting, but it’s so incredibly flavorful that I needed to include it. Scavenge is potentially prone to mechanical abuse with the player simply making checks to provide his party with a constant stream of gold, but the payoff is so small that I don’t think it’s overly worrisome. If used properly by both player and DM, it really becomes a storytelling tool they can use to keep the PC and his party equipped and in good repair as he trades away the material he has collected and shaped into something useful for goods and supplies. Their nomadic lifestyle and cultural acceptance means they are easy to utilize in any campaign setting. Have fun with them.
Ben Erickson
