For gnomes, I like silly portmanteau-ish names, like Cobblepot or Fussbudget or Applebottom.
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I blame Cosmo that people are arguing over whether goblins or kobolds are more evil, when everybody should know that the true evil shawties are *gnomes.*
All gnomes are evil gnomes. Does any so-called 'evil' race have Hatred as a racial trait? Orcs? Gnolls? Bugbears? Aboleth? Starspawn of Cthulhu? No. But gnomes? Oh yes, gnomes train their little gnome spawn from birth to hate and kill members of races they despise. Hold up your hand if you have to go potty. Use the little fork for the salad. Hold your sister's hand and look both ways before crossing the street. Oh, and kill alla lizard-peeps! The only thing more evil than a gnome is a dwarf, who not only has Hatred as a racial trait, but also Greed. They wanted to have 'Voyeur' (+2 to stealth and perception checks) and 'Bully' (+1 to hit and damage anything smaller and weaker than yourself) as race traits, but Torag was already giving them the stink-eye...
[Gnometangent] I kind of like gnomes because they generally seem like more positive upbeat sorts of people. Elves can come off as snooty and superior and angsty. Dwarves can come off as curmudeonly and over-serious and grim. Half-orcs rarely have inspiring background stories to tell around the fire. Humans, well, I have to work with them every day. You know how *they* can get. :) Sometimes a light-hearted gnome character can be kind of a relief. He doesn't want to tell you how much superior he is to you. He doesn't want to complain about everything. He doesn't have an appalling story about being a halfbreed slave-child raised by abusive orcs, before being thrust into a world of humans who hate and fear him. Plus, as a gnome, everybody always has the most precious looks of surprise and alarm when you smile a beatific smile and reveal that you were the serial killer mastermind all along... [/Gnometangent]
But a gnome she remained, and this would never be enough for her wandering eye. She left his peeled and cooling body in the cellar he used as a ‘temple’ to the Razor Princess, stealing his self-crafted ‘Razor Gauntlet’ as a trophy of her time learning from the man she had come to see as stuck in a rut, always committing the same murder by the same methods, as if attempting to repeat himself unto perfection, instead of moving on to new and exciting challenges and experiences. It was in discovering the intricate, and magically-potent, tattoos of the Varisian wanderers, that she found the faith and practices of Andirifkhu to fail her. Now matter how elegantly she carved, the tattoos were ruined, and she felt that she had reached the limits of what the song of razor-through-flesh could teach her, and sought out instead lore that led her to the faith of Abraxas instead, finding the Lord of the Final Incantation more to her liking. She has devoted her life to now finding and abducting Varisians, to examine their tattoos for signs of power, and when she finds them, she slices them away in a bloody (and fatal) sacrificial rite to Abraxas that allows her to harness the power of these tattoos as if they had been placed upon her own flesh. She has, almost incidentally, learned that the Varisian wanderers sometimes carry small items that seem worthless, but contain spiritual connections that imbue them with a bit of sentience. She is now seeking a manner by which she can preserve these fragments, and commune with them, even after slaying their owners, but so far all have died within months of the death of their masters. Still, she retains these ‘tatcheys’ tied together on a long leather cord, and intends to find a way to rekindle and bind these spiritual fragments, so that they can never abandon her… When she isn’t running around murdering people, she works as a cook and butcher, of some skill and repute, always wandering, but sometimes pleased to find that her reputation has preceded her, and people are eager to sample her fine fare. Unknown to most, she ‘spices’ her most infamous meals with negligible amounts of alchemically crafted drugs and toxins that she has diluted until they are merely noticeable, but not debilitating or damaging (usually…). As a result, her meals are sometimes said to have an otherworldly effect, and she smiles a little smile when someone asks her about her so-called ‘First World Cooking,’ since she knows that the ‘secret ingredient’ is some combination of spider venom (for the pleasant tingling) and mushrooms (for the occasional visual side-effects). Boons Anyone who helps Ketli in her gruesome activities, to locate and skin tattooed Varisians (and random other people with interesting tattoos), or to figure out how to communicate with and / or preserve the tiny sentiences preserved within the wanderers elusive ‘tatcheys’ (essentially trapping tiny fragments of her victims souls to torment for all eternity), will earn great favor with the psychotic little freak. Sarenrae help them.
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