Gnome

• Speak brilliant insight and absurd inanity in the same breath.
• Accumulate an abundance of knowledge that is both stunningly broad and obsessively specific.
• Possess a constant desire for change or novelty.

• Assume you're good at magic, engineering, or both.
• Struggle to keep up with your complex thoughts and leaps of logic.
• Expect you to be light-hearted and jovial.

People sometimes mistake gnomes for human children because of their high energy, naive curiosity, and smaller size. They grow to be around 3 and a half feet tall and often bear large, pronounced features. Bleachling gnomes are starkly monochromatic, with gray, white, or sepia tones, while feychild gnomes exhibit a kaleidoscopic array of vibrant colors in virtually endless variations.

It's not uncommon for gnomes to undergo augmentation surgery just for the experience, and the wide variety of gnome interests means many gnomes appreciate having a broader range of options at their disposal than the other inhabitants of the galaxy. You're just as likely to meet a Brethedan gnome with tentacles and a tail as you are to meet a cybernetic Veskarium gnome or a magically augmented Castrovelian gnome.

Gnomes typically reach physical maturity by the age of 18, but are not considered adults by their peers until they're 40, ostensibly because a gnome at 40 is marginally less reckless and impulsive than as a teenager. Feychildren can theoretically live forever, but the vast majority succumb to the Bleaching by 400 years of age, a fate that is always fatal for them. Bleachlings typically die of natural causes around 500 years old.

Gnomes don't have a shared culture, instead individually adopting local customs and mores to fit their whims and desires. Most gnome families are temporary affairs for mutual benefit, prone to fluidity and communal arrangements that enable family members to pursue new interests as they wish. It's a common sight to see a gnome grow restless in their home culture and move frequently over the course of their lifetime, always living in new and wildly varied places. Gnomes sometimes congregate for a common cause that can be personally pursued, like deep-space construction projects or academic pursuits at Castrovel's storied institutions. Many gnomes live in the Drift and work in service to Brigh, one of Triune's aspects, at her dedicated clockwork museum and tavern in Alluvion. Curiously, gnomes are one of the very few peoples allowed to visit the guarded elven nation of Sovyrian, according to ancient and forgotten tradition.

Many ancestries find gnomes' bizarre senses of humor and eccentric thought processes difficult to follow, so gnomes usually don't bother explaining themselves, which has earned them a reputation for impatient brusqueness. This capacity for out-of-the-box conceptualization makes gnomes capable of a kind of hyper-focus that can often lead to deep understanding and surprising creativity, and gnomes tend to thrive at whatever they put at the forefront of their minds.

If there's one thing that unites gnomes, it's their individuality. As the saying goes, “When you've met a gnome, you've met one gnome.” A running joke making the rounds on the infosphere is that no matter how niche a subculture is, at least one gnome will be interested in it. Gnome fixations can be as mundane as button collecting or as world-changing as quantum entanglement, and the mercurial nature of a gnome's interests means that they might switch from pursuing art to surgical medicine as fast as a change of mind.

Many gnomes have a talent for magic and find the obscure symbolism of occult or religious rituals, the rhythm and balance of natural magics, and the theorems of technomancy equally fascinating. Gnome scholars at magic academies often strain tenure systems with their long lives and eccentric pursuits, courting scandalous subjects of study or simply abandoning their teaching responsibilities whenever a more interesting diversion arises.

Gnomes have a pragmatic relationship to names, frequently adopting new ones or adapting old ones in solidarity, practicality, or curiosity. This helps gnomes recall the times and places they met people based on the alias they used, though it can create confusion among gnomes' close contacts.

It's common for gnomes to become obsessed with specific pieces of religious literature and become disciples. Numerous faiths have gnomes among their followers. As the original bleachling gnome, Nivi Rhombodazzle holds a special place in the hearts of gnomes everywhere as a spiritual model for a life of chance and whimsy. Gnomes working mechanical trades and infosphere economy often revere different aspects of Triune, while those who feel the call of wanderlust that led the first gnomes to Golarion might revere gods of travel like Desna or Weydan. Other gnomes pursue multiple religions devoutly, following some vision of divinity broader than any one deity and treating gods like tools to be fitted to certain tasks.

Popular Edicts follow your hunches, pursue your endless interests, seek new curiosities
Popular Anathema show off your old work, stop experiencing new things

Ablenaffener, Brighi, Degleder, Gwict, Naiaj, Nivaz, Ripti, Vigg, Xouk, Zurladew

8

Small

Constitution, Charisma, Free

Strength

Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world).

You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.