This is a excellent similar to your question:
If you're a Gnome:
more sketches of gnomes
* You believe deep down that the world is full of patterns, and that if you look hard enough you can figure out how anything works, and that knowledge is more important than muscle.
* You aren't very religious. To you, understanding the world around you is a matter of discovering the natural laws and patterns, not the arbitrary whims of a god. You ask blessings and give thanks to the Iashan (Old Spirits) or the Trade Saints, but that's not religion, that's just common courtesy and good sense.
* You are familiar with the stories and minor rituals surrounding a number of the Iashan like Kârda, Ãnirn? the Gremlin, Ejol Stormcloud, and Kelasi the Sweet Breeze; and many of the Saints like Cevalin the Bargeman, Sadilîn, Rishel, and Old Nîcadimus. (Need help with pronunciations?)
* You don't play "sports". Organized physical exertion involves dancing, not playing. And you do dance, or at very least did as an adolescent.
* A serious game is played with the mind, not the body. So whenever your hands are free, you're probably playing a game: Whend?, Haralv, Jep. If you have one (and if you don't others in your company do), your tile set is one of your prize possessions. If you're really sharp you might even play a decent game of Jehasîn or Effian, in which case you definitely have your own set of tile, maybe two: a general set, plus one customized for a specific game.
* You are familiar with the top players of Jehasîn and Effian in your region. And of course you know the very best players: Luukês at Jehasîn, and Gânl and Tâsmar at Effian.
Tea and Honey, Life is Good.
* You work everyday, but some days the work may not be hard or much. You don't distinguish between your "job" and "housework", it's all part of supporting the company, though you do distinguish outside contracts. As a child or adolescent you also pitch in every day, except during the fairs when you're mostly free.
* Comforts require hard work, which everyone is expected to help with. For heat, you need to chop firewood, and you're dwelling is probably not very well insulated. Internal plumbing exists only in some public bath houses and the houses of the rich, you have haul water from a stream or well.
* Most of the company gathers to eat the two meals of the day, first thing in the morning and early evening. The bigger meal is in the morning. Through out the rest of the day you eat from your pouch: flat bread, nuts, dried meat, maybe some fruit.
* Some insects are food in pinch, and others are delicacies. If you're in the Iravn you get your honey from ants, which you eat ant and all. Wild dassies are good eating, but you wouldn't want to eat a city dassy. You don't consider monkeys, martens, or dogs food, the first are too gnome-looking, and the second two are pets. (Though dogs are mostly other peoples pets, they're a bit large and fierce for most gnomes to be totally comfortable with them.)
* Chances are you're not very fond of spicy food. Sweet, salty, or just bland are good by you. Especially sweet.
* Only infants drink milk, it makes an adult sick. Alot of dwarves drink Gadla milk, and some humans, too, but that's just weird. You drink tea though. Every day, if you can afford it. And honey, preferably from bees, though if you're in the Iravn bee-honey is pretty expensive, and you'll settle for honey ants.
* Bathing is nice, and you do it when you get a chance, either in a nearby stream or pool, or a public bath if you're in a city, but you're not as obsessive about it as most goblins or Heshan humans. Once or twice a week is a good goal to aim for.
* Travel is mostly by wagon, you wish pulled by a tsami, but most likely you make do with gadlêt (who are small), or perhaps bekênêt (who are vile-tempered). There is also a good deal of barge traffic up and down the major rivers.
* If you have to communicate with someone far away, you find someone going there and pay them to take a letter. If you're part of a traveling company, chances are that you're carrying a few letters most of the time. The gnome companies are probably the best way to get a letter somewhere at a reasonable cost.
* Power in gnomish society is based in economics and prestige, not appointed positions, as there are no governments as such. What in other places might be "public works" are privately maintained (or communally, though the two concepts blur around the gnomish company). For example the streets in a gnomish town are maintained by the companies who work in that area of town, particularly those operating shops or services, to make sure that they, and their customers, are unimpeded.
* Other species sometimes get pretty strange, but that's what the Trade Culture exist for, to give you some guidelines in dealing with each other.
* You think most problems could be solved if only people would put aside their prejudices and work together.
* You are not used to a court system. Internal matters are decided by a company's elders. Disputes between companies, if they can't be solved, are generally mediated by a neutral company. If a company makes trouble, or harbors individual troublemakers, they will lose the trust, and business, of other companies, a thing to be vehemently avoided.
* You speak Trade Tongue. You sort of respect the gnomes from the Iravn backcountry for still speaking a purely gnomish language, but they also seem backward and sort of silly. Most other people you want to deal with speak Trade too, so chances are you know little of any other languages. Of course, everybody else speaks Trade with a funny accent, 'cause most of them do speak another language (a rather provincial one, you feel).
* You think taxes are scandalous. You certainly don't expect to get everything for free: you may have to pay tariffs, or usage fees, or buy a business license in some cities, but you find the idea of income or property tax shocking. If you're in a (non-gnomish) city that expects to collect such taxes from you, you do your best to just move back on out before they get a chance.
* Practically everyone gets a a broad base of schooling from their company as they grow up: writing, arithmetic, geography, and also whatever trades and crafts the company practices.
* Scholars are well respected and can bring prestige to their companies. Gnomish scholars often walk a boundary between abstract theory and practicalities. The best known scholars are generally the ones very close to that boundary, such as Theâdn who devised the coordinate system now considered definitive for maps.
* There are two commonly used calendars, you probably prefer the Rennali calendar keeps closer to the seasonal year, but the Akalet keeps to the lunar month, and not far off the seasonal year. In most regions, some people use the Rennali and some use the Akalet, so you probably track both, so that you can talk to both kinds.
* Numbers are important. You can convert easily between decimal and duodecimal if the numbers don't have too many digits, but even if they do you can work with either without much difficulty. Ten (ishen) thousands (aleshku) are a myriad (kâlad), and a myriad myriads are at great myriad (sakâld). A dozen (lelen) gross (huatl) are an oriîn.
2006-06-18 14:20:49
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answer #3
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answered by canada2006 5
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