Picked up Apocrypha Now and was surprised to find out that Gnomes were a race in the WH world...

Were they just a 1st edition thing, and have since been ret-conned into oblivion? If not, do they exist as described in AN, or have they changed?

And most importantly - does Karl Franz still keep a Gnomish jester?

Note that Apocrypha Now (as with everything else by Hogshead) is pretty late in the 1st edition lifecycle. It's sort of edition 1.5, I guess. Gnomes have never really been a big mainstream race in any edition of any Warhammer product (WFB included), but they definitely existed around the time of WFB 3 and WFRP 1. Apocrypha Now adds lots of optional rules, apparently including gnomes as a player race.

No idea what 2nd edition did with them. For 3rd edition, I want to see Halflings first. And then Sea Elves (but that will probably never happen, as they've definitely been retconned out of the WFB world that's now official for WFRP).

Gnomes can be found in the bestiary chapter of wfrp 1, together with other wonderfull creatures that where left out in 2nd edition (troglodyte, fimir, just to mentioned a few).

In 2nd edition, gnome was never mentioned at all. all traces of it been erased.

for 3rd edition, all I can say is: who knows what the future will bring.

good gaming

While we're at it, can we bring back Squats too?

...

Heh heh... Gnomes...

Necrozius said:

That's 40K. But yeah, Fimir and Zoats need to be in the game somehow. Fimir especially.

I briefly played WFRPv1 back in '88. I remember the Fimir in the main book, but we never encountered them. I constantly hear references to them made by version 1 players (especially around the time WFRPv2 came out). What made them so great and/or different??

So Sea Elves are no more? So are there elves in Marienburg? If so, are they just Ulthuan sailors? If not, how has Marienburg retained its independence?

Gnomes: Yep, Gnomes were in the WFRP1, but since that ignored - gone. Maybe they will one day come back, but I doubt that. Halflings are kept in the cannon (WFB, novels...etc.), but Gnomes are not mentioned ANYWHERE for ages. I had once idea they could be related to halflings, kind of a other Halfling tribe that left Mootland ages ago. And WFRP3 is missing Halflings and I think those need to come first...

Sea Elves: Marienburg has Elven population and basicly they are High Elves very much connected to the Ulthuan. Now, some of these Elves are still Marienburg/Wasteland born, so they are the actual SEA ELVES or GREY ELVES. Not that there is that much difference, but there is difference are you Ulthuan born or not...

Fimir: Firmir are probably one of the most interesting monsters in the Warhammer. Fimir were strongly presented in the time of WFRP1 and its sourcebooks/adventures. Also there was Fimir miniatures. But like Gnomes - they just disappeared. This created their fame/rebutation and they became really legendary creatures. I think they are even mentioned in the WFB Dark Shadows campaing in Albion description ("rumours about one eyed monsters...etc."). During the WFRP2 Wapstone published nice issue about them. Entire Warpstone was basicly about them and their society. Truth is that they are interesting creatures and should be part of WFRP. But there might be some issues with them, which is why they were - discarded. Especially how they breed or become what they are...

Speaking of Albion, does that still exist? Even in the time of WFRP1, the island didn't appear on every map, and really the only thing we knew about it is that Fimir lived there. I think Hogshead putting them in the Wasteland was already a diversion from the original canon on Fimir. I think that was the first official appearance of Fimir in any WFRP story. I don't think old versions of WFB mentioned them much either. Which is a shame, because they're cool.

An interesting anecdote on Fimir that I once heard: No idea if it's true, but apparently in the very early days of Warhammer, some people at GW wanted some creatures that were truly unique to Warhammer, instead of the same elves and dwarves that everybody used. One guy designed the Zoats. Another guy decided he could do better, and designed the Fimir. Needless to say, he won.

Fimir are also one of the few monsters that get an entire page in the WFRP1 bestiary chapter, if I'm not mistaken. Skaven are the other one, I think.

As for Sea Elves, I personally don't like the strong Ulthuan presence in the Old World. I like my High Elves aloof and distant and smugly superior, keeping to their own vastly more important business, instead of mingling with lesser races. In my Old World, Sea Elves are Ulthuan's only connection with the outside world. They're a curious and adventurous breed, looked down upon as coarse and uncivilised by "true" High Elves, but they have the right mindset to make good adventurers, and unlike true High Elves, they have reasons to get involved in ugly dirty low adventures deep in rotten Reikland towns. Sea Elves might in fact be the most human of all elves. I think they should have been a player race in WFRP1.

jackdays said:

What I find most interesting is that they were one of the few actual ORIGINAL creations by Games Workshop. Well, maybe Zoats too. Yet they were dropped.

...cmon: we all know that Slaanesh is Shiva, Khorne is Gene Simmons, Nurgle is Jabba the Hutt and Tzeentch is a Skeksi (from Dark Crystal).

EDIT: 40k and Fantasy happen at the same time, right? Hence: Squats could have been in WFRP.

Remember Chaos warriors with boltguns and plasma pistols? Yeah that's right.

Albion is exists. Giantslayer takes place in Albion, and it was also mentioned in several books.

As for the races, maybe it would have been better to use the Laurelorn wood elves and Marienburg sea elves as the core elf races. I think they fit better in an imperial adventuring party, than their Ulthuan/Athel Loren kin. Gnomes disappeared, retconned, they are no longer part of the WHF canon.

Zoats and Fimir: I heard somewhere, that their creators holds the rights to use them, who no longer works for Games Workshop.

Ravenheart87 said:

They should go to UbiSoft and work on the next installment of Heroes of Might and Magic. Or Blizzard. Heh heh heh.

I suppose you could house rule that it's possible (but very rare) for dwarves and halflings to interbreed. When they do, their offspring are essentially gnomes. It would certainly explain why gnomes don't seem to fit in anywhere.

I'm left with a vague memory of the term "gnome" becoming an insult for dwarfs - something akin to "hillbilly" or "degenerate". Whether or not I'm making something up or half-remembering a fan comment... that'll certainly be the case in my games!

Sea Elves, at this point, are really just elves from the Outer Kingdoms, particularly Eataine (or those settled in Marienburg). The description is almost the same; we just have more of a detailed description now.

Mal Reynolds said:

I agre, the bestiary in the 1st edition was big - really big and unique. In the 2ed many of very intersting creatures were missed - I don't know why.

About 3ed - just like You said who knows what the future will bring.

Ravenheart87 said:

I definitely agree. I almost get the impression from WFRP3 that Athel Loren is the only Wood Elf community in the Old World, but according to older canon, it's only the largest (and I think one of the most isolationist, but I could be wrong there). I think the Laurelorn elves are pretty well established (and it explains why there are so many prominent wood elves in Middenheim), but I think there are also many smaller communities deep in the various forests.

Officially gnomes have gone, it seems. Where previously they had been used in v1, v2 replaced them (see the two versions of Rough Night at the Three Feathers ).

Unofficially, there was some fan stuff and Rob Schwalb (who produced a lot of v2 supplements) also produced some rules - which you can find in notes for WFRP Freeport (under Grim and Perilous Freeport).

Hey everyone,

Originally, Gnomes were already a declining and reclusive civilisation in Warhammer Fantasy.

Then include the fact that they had nothing over their Dwarf cousins on the gaming table at the time, other than that they moved about a bit quicker.

Still, the odd Gnome character would've be good. Just to say they were still around.

As for Fimir. They suffered early on from having the wrong base size which didn't measure up to their stats.

But the biggest problem for them was because their fluff described that they reproduced by kidnapping women from other races and using them as breeding stock.

Obviously the realisation of this grim depiction became somewhat of an issue as Warhammer started attracting more youngsters. But why they didn't retcon their background I don't know.

I do like that because of their prolonged absence within the game they've now become somewhat of a mist-shrouded, monster legend in the Old World.

And it was good to see Forgeworld create a few figures for them not so long ago.

The Sea Elves seemed to get mixed into the High Elf Faction.

I think the reason why the Sea Elves disappeared was mainly because they were sea faring. As far as the tabletop was concerned, to see them in a land battle would seem very strange, even wrong. And I doubt many ever bothered to create ocean battles for them.

Plus I think Sea Elves were to become more and more difficult to define as a separate group from the High Elves, especially when their Dark Elf cousins were to become renowned for their sea faring exploits.

And finally, Zoats. I seem to remember reading that their look wasn't much liked within Games Workshop from the very start, and as time went by they moved further and further into obscurity.

But again, I like that they might be talked about as myths or legends by the people of the 40k universe.

I've never liked the fact they were once seen as a Tyranid slave species. But anything can be ignored with a bit of imagination.

Warhammer once upon a time had pretty much everything but the kitchen sink - Centaurs, Hobgoblins and Orc Half-castes included (which would raise a few questions now that Orc's are considered to reproduce via fungal spores).

I prefer to think that, just because a race, faction or place isn't written about or seen anymore doesn't necessarily mean they're extinct or gone in the game worlds they were once linked to.

If I want a Gnome Illusionist in my game then I reckon I can. But I'll draw the line at having hoards of them all over the place, cos they're meant to be rare.

As far as I'm concerned. They'll exist until nobody cares to remember them anymore.

I forgot to mention the Fimir were originally inspired from a picture by Alan Lee, which was an illustration of a Fomorian from Celtic Lore. I believe it was this one:

Old topic has come back.

There are great articles and WFRP2 rules, about Gnomes in the Warpstone Magazine Issue 30 .