Under some versions of D&D gnomes have the ability to communicate with "burrowing mammals". Do rats count? What about giant rats? Were-rats? Osquips? In a dungeon-centric campaign a gnomish adventurer with the ability to parlay with or interrogate giant rats could be about as useful as the elven ability to find secret doors. At least at low levels.
Now imagine an evil gnome living in your dungeon, constantly keeping the party under rodent surveillance.
A Return to the Stars
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After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got
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I think that idea is great, and pretty much makes certain that gnomes can indeed talk to rats! If it makes for something cool in-game, and there's definitely no real reason not to go for it... I think the question answers itself.
ReplyDeleteGoing by the first list I found by googling: aardvark, armadillo, badger, bilby, chipmunk, cony, coypu, fennec fox, ferret, fox, gerbil, groundhog, hamster, jerboa, kangaroo rat, meerkat, mole, mongoose, naked mole-rat, nutria, pika, prairie dog, rabbit, river otter, shrew, and woodchuck. But no rats. Rats gnaw holes through stuff, but apparently don't burrow.
ReplyDeleteThe solution, Jeff, is obvious: replace the rats, giant rats, and osquips in your dungeon with vicious prairie dogs, aardvarks and woodchucks.
ReplyDeleteArmadillo, you say? Obviously that means skorpadillos are burrowing mammals as well!
ReplyDeleteI expanded it to all mammals. Note that mutated and templated ones don't count (though I may allow it from time to time if only for comic relief).
ReplyDeletePika! Pika?
* Boom! *
burrow owls?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrowing_owl
yes or no?
Owls strike me as less mammalian than skorpadillos.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool idea, although, as already pointed out, rats don't burrow, so presumably neither do giant rats.
ReplyDeleteYou mean the evil gnome? He's obviously a twisted professor of mammalian linguistics who has finally cracked that river otterish/carnivorous apese/ratian Rosetta Stone he found all those years ago.
ReplyDelete"You mean the evil gnome? He's obviously a twisted professor of mammalian linguistics..."
ReplyDeleteGNOME CHOMSKY
Ahem...
ReplyDeleteTheir burrows honeycomb many graveyards, where they seek to cheat ghouls of their prizes by tunneling to newly interred corpses.
-AD&D Monster Manual, p.81
So perhaps ordinary rats do not burrow, but their giant Sumatran cousins do.
Plus, on a completely unrelated note, I love the Lovecraftian touch of ghouls and rats competing when tunneling into freshly-dug graves. Wait-- does that make ghouls burrowing creatures as well?
Rats will burrow if they have nowhere else to dwell. I've seen rat-burrows in hillsides before.
ReplyDeleteAs for other burrowing mammals, do dwarves count? :D
Regardless, it's FANTASY role playing. It's your Neighborhood of Make-believe. Imagine the hell out of it!
I think there might be more than one area of ground talking depending on the gnome. A deep forest gnome visiting the city (to by drugs? Get laid?) might not talk to rats - but that evil gnome that grew up in the city in the withered back garden of the old bordello might talk to all sorts of urban ground-crap. Rats, mice, ants, grubs...
ReplyDelete"Gnome Chomsky"
ReplyDeleteLOL! Funny stuff, Max! :)
As far as I'm concerned, Joseph's last post makes it official.
ReplyDeleteI've seen rat burrows in lawns, complete with young rats peeking out of one; I'd say they burrow just fine if given half the chance. And then of course there's the quote supplied by Joseph above.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, I'd always assumed it also applied to rats ...
As far as I'm concerned, Joseph's last post makes it official.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
Brain moles are described as "burrowing" into thoughts... can gnomes talk to them? How about Umber Hulks? (There's a couple of good pets for your evil gnome.)
ReplyDeletehmmm... does the terrasque burrow?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhoops. As I was saying...
ReplyDeleteI don't think the tarrasque is a mammal, particularly considering that there's only one of him. If it ever mattered, I would file the Big T under "trollkin" and "elder things".