Gnome

Gnomes are a small, clever race of inventors and the smallest of the Alliance's four races in Classic. They lost their own city, Gnomeregan, to a disaster of their own making shortly before the game, and live as refugees in Tinker Town inside Ironforge. Their racial traits reward intellect and engineering, and Escape Artist makes them slippery opponents in player-versus-player combat. Their small size also gives them a harder-to-click, harder-to-see body that players on both sides learned to love or hate.

History

Like the dwarves, gnomes trace their origin to the Titans, who made a race of mechanical servants, the mechagnomes, that later took on flesh. For centuries gnomes lived beside the dwarves in the mountains of Khaz Modan, and they built Gnomeregan, a gleaming technological city in the western part of Dun Morogh. Gnomish engineers and their machines fought for the Alliance in the Second War.

Not long before Classic, a race of troggs burst up from the earth and overran Gnomeregan. High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, on the advice of his adviser Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg, flooded the city with radiation to drive out the invaders. The plan killed many gnomes along with the troggs and left the city poisoned. The survivors fled to Ironforge, while Thermaplugg, revealed as a traitor, stayed behind to rule the ruins with irradiated "leper" gnomes and the troggs. Gnomeregan is now a dungeon for players around level 30, with Mekgineer Thermaplugg as its last boss.

Homeland and starting zone

Because their city fell, gnomes have no starting area of their own in Classic. They begin at Anvilmar in Coldridge Valley in Dun Morogh, beside the dwarves, and share the same early quests, starting with Sten Stoutarm and Dwarven Outfitters. The road then leads through the valley's tunnel to Kharanos and the rest of Dun Morogh, where the leper gnomes outside Gnomeregan's front gate are a reminder of what was lost.

From there gnomes follow the same path as dwarves: Loch Modan, then the Wetlands or the human lands of Westfall and Redridge Mountains.

Capital

The gnomes' home is Tinker Town, a district of Ironforge full of machines, steam and tinkerers. Their leader, High Tinker Mekkatorque, holds court there, along with the gnomish mage and warlock trainers, and the city's Engineering trainers are close by. Gnomes ride mechanostriders, two-legged mechanical birds bought from Milli Featherwhistle at Steelgrill's Depot in Dun Morogh, and they are the only race whose mounts are machines in Classic.

Racial traits

Escape Artist removes roots and snares: Frost Nova, Entangling Roots, Hamstring, Crippling Poison, Wing Clip and the like. Expansive Mind adds Intellect, and so mana and spell critical strike chance, which suits mages and warlocks. Engineering Specialization lets a gnome engineer use high-level devices fifteen points earlier, and is often joked about as the most "gnomish" racial in the game.

Classes

Gnomes can be warriors, rogues, mages and warlocks, the fewest classes of any Classic race. They are the Alliance's only race besides humans that can be a warlock.

How gnomes play

Gnome mages and warlocks are a staple of Alliance player-versus-player play. A mage who is rooted or slowed by a warrior's Hamstring or a hunter's Concussive Shot can use Escape Artist to break free, then use Blink and Frost Nova to put distance between them. Gnome rogues use it to stay on a running target. Against the Horde's many slows, from shaman Frost Shock to the warrior's Piercing Howl, Escape Artist is useful in nearly every fight.

The gnome's size is a trait of its own. A small model is harder to see in a crowd of players and harder to target with the mouse, and many players believed it made gnome rogues and mages harder to fight. Gnomes also lack a way to break stuns or fears, and their low base Strength and Stamina mean gnome warriors are rarer, though they can still tank and fight well.

In raids, Expansive Mind helps casters, and gnome engineers gain early access to devices and explosives that matter in both raids and battlegrounds.

Notable gnomes

High Tinker Mekkatorque, usually called Gelbin, is the High Tinker of the gnomes and a central figure in their story. His former adviser, Mekgineer Thermaplugg, is the traitor who rules Gnomeregan. Classic players also meet many gnome engineers and inventors, from the tinkers of Tinker Town to the gnomes of the Gnomeregan quest chains who ask players to recover their lost technology.

Later history

The gnomes retook part of Gnomeregan in Operation: Gnomeregan in Cataclysm, which also gave them their own starting zone, and later the mechagnomes became a playable allied race.

Sources

• Gnome on Warcraft Wiki
• Gnomeregan on Warcraft Wiki