I have yet to play a Gnome PC, but I have made a few Gnome NPC's, and finding what makes them tick is incredibly tough. There seem to be no "Lists of Gnome Obsessions/Collections" around. In the past I have:
Made a Gnome town, every building was different and created and destroyed frequently, the shop might not be where you saw it yesterday, and sometimes it will be there, but a different Gnome will be the shopkeep, as a joke.
I have made a few prankster NPC's that mess with the party in small ways, changing hair colour, adding soap to the beer foam (to make it more bubbly), casting an illusion on the Druids animal companion to make it appear different.
Making them mute, because they want to explore not talking for a while.
I would love to see a list of peoples ideas on what makes their Gnome a Gnome though!
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The last gnome I played ditched out. The party somehow managed to combine ridiculous with tiresome. He could feel them draining away his colour
My gnome summoner kept away the Bleaching by going to new places as often as possible. Once he got access to plane shift and greater teleport he was never bored again.
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Rizzlefunk fights the Bleaching by living an interesting life. To live an interesting life, one must evolve constantly: seek new experiences, get out of the comfort zone, and meet new people and learn from them.
Rizzlefunk is 61 years old. Gnomes reach their adulthood around the age of 40, so he's been doing business for two decades. Rizzlefunk started out as a con man, and became an actor a couple years later. When his acting career didn't skyrocket as he wanted, he occasionally returned to pulling cons. As a hobby, Rizzlefunk studies languages (possibly so that he can con people from all around the world) and psychology. He's also an expert on wines and fashion.
Between the acting, conning, socializing, studying languages, and earning money, Rizzlefunk isn't going to bleach any time soon.
(At some point he learned to hypnotize and mesmerize people, and joined the Pathfinder Society. But that's a story for another time.)
My last gnome found keeping a paladin suitably mushroomed to be a job filled with new and exciting experiences.
What is The Bleaching? Death? Boredom?
Death by boredom
Why do Gnomes find Bleachlings monstrous?
Spoiled teenagers mostly feel that way about adults.
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Yedinci the Illusionist found her way to stave off the Bleaching was to dedicate her life to Sivanah, and take up the way of the Seven Veils.
As a Veiled Illusionist, she could trick anyone almost any time in any place by being someone one day and someone completely different the next.
It's easy to stave off The Bleaching when each day you are someone, and something, different.
I find bleaching to be a fun and realistic way to get a gnome adventurer to join a party.
"You HAVE to let me join you! I'll bleach if I stay here and do nothing!"
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I like gnomes. I do not like how many people play them as an excuse to be disruptive and generally a pain.
Gnomes are supposed to be spontaneous and quirky! You have to accept that with a gnome at the table, your probably not going to be getting much uninterrupted grim dark roleplay.
Now if they're just using the "I'm X race so I'm justified!" excuse for doing stuff that derails everything all the time, then... it probably the player honestly... Gnomes are just fun.
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Hey gang!
I've just made a new gnome barbarian (sh-shut up, it is too viable) and I'm raring to play her. So while I'm on this gnome kick, I wanna hear about your gnomes! Namely, how do they stave off the Bleaching? What wild hobbies or habits have they picked up over the years? Do they switch constantly, or have they always stuck to one?
I think I'll have my gnome collect something. Not sure what yet--cutlery, stuffed animals, bones, virginities? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, please tell me about your gnomes and how they keep busy!
My Gnome Balthazar decided to fight his way into the First World (because what could be more exciting than that place???) Met this giant floating orb who found his spunkiness to be amusing and said "You're just the kind of fellow I find amusing, is there anything you'd like?" Of course thinking himself clever told the big orb he wanted to be free of the Bleaching. The orb flashed and Balthazar woke up in a snow drift. Of course now he's horribly skinny with dark grey skin and orange eyes and anytime he tries to converse in his native Gnomish tongue no one seems to understand him and fellow Gnomes screech at him in gibberish, he's found it's almost effortless to blend into the shadows these days and anytime he's in any kind of church, temple or holy site he has an uncontrollable urge to hang some paper laterns... He hasn't had any problems with Bleaching though, so I guess there is that.
Adventuring. My Gnome PCs simply have to tag along with a group of Adventurers, and somehow, the effort to keep them alive and well never ends, never stops in variety, and oh boy is it fun to discover yet ANOTHER way to pull them out of the fire... some of which I may or may not have started, but that's besides the point. If you want it back by rules, have a craft, knowledge, or perform skill that you pursue that doesn't have to be related to your class. Handle Animal would be a thematic one for your character; I've always had an Obsession Log, and when the pages fill up, I just doodle over captured Spellbooks. A warning on that last one... do not use magical implements writing over what may be enchanted pages, unless someone else is carrying that book for you.
I've bleached in some campaigns. It wasn't tied to ennui, but trauma. A malaise so bad (TPK sole survivor, abandonment by party, yatta yatta) that I chose for it to have an effect in-game. Kind of a neat, but sad way to RP a campaign termination. Everyone dies, and here I am fading... yet I remained, diminished?
It's up to interpretation since there isn't a hard meter or point counter. If your Gnome is having the time of their lives, the Bleaching is probably not a worry. I don't like the flavor on constant new experiences. One would think enjoyment/motivation would be the key. At some point, that conscious drive to do something new OR ELSE would get old. I've ported over a Gnome from Sharn before just to avoid this fluff trash.
OP: Good luck with your Gnome Barbarian. The munchkin in me hopes you chose Titan Mauler as an archetype, but the Gnome side is rooting for you to represent us.
My gnome, Segwick Flickerflame, staves off Bleaching by obsessively diving deeper and deeper into his work and research into the Shadow Plane.
Like many gnomes, Segwick grew up with an affinity for illusion magic. Unlike most gnomes, however, the shadow subschool became an obsession that led him down darker paths of study. He's considered eccentric by many. Among his own kind, his research into dark, shadowy, and unsavory magics and places (including taking a goblin as an apprentice) makes him a bit of a social pariah. Among his peers - necromancers and denizens of the plane of Shadow and the Darklands - his upbeat personality and cheerful disposition are quite at odds with the "traditional" image of a dark wizard.
One particular area of side research for Segwick is the peculiar case of bleachlings. Rather than being disturbed them, he finds their condition fascinating, and - comfortable in the knowledge that he will inevitably bleach one day - he seeks to unlock the secret so that he himself can enter this "enlightened" state when the time comes.