Hands down, the best loot drop in Gnomengarde is the community spellbook titled “Magick of Gnomengarde.” Seven 1st level spells? Yes please! Better yet, characters don’t need to be dicks by stealing it from the rock gnome recluses, because a wizard can simply copy the spells from the spellbook into their own. Kings Korboz and Gnerkli might even offer access to the spellbook and cover the costs associated with making copies of each spell as part of the reward to the party for their help! Beats the hell out of a pole of collapsing (or any of the gnome-made magic items for that matter).

That being said, I can’t help but feel disappointed with the contents of “Magick of Gnomengarde.” Don’t get me wrong,  burning hands, detect magic, identify, mage armor, magic missile, shield, and sleep are all useful spells. Especially when there’s 20 2nd level rock gnome recluse wizards all preparing their spells from the same book. Imagine trying to invade Gnomengarde, only to find out there is potentially 120 magic missiles or 100-800 hit points worth of sleepy time with your name on it before the gnomes are down to unlimited uses of ray of frost. Not too shabby, but I digress.

But again, I find the contents of “Magick of Gnomengarde” underwhelming because the spell list is just so meat and potatoes for a race that, throughout several editions of Dungeons & Dragons, have been the game’s lovable little weirdos. The fifth edition of D&D states that gnomes delight in pranks. They’re tinkerers and Inventors. But not a single transmutation spell in their magical repository? What?

Here’s Gnomengarde, a Gnomish settlement in a wild magic zone where something wacky happens 70% of the time whenever a 1st level spells or higher is cast. These gnomes construct magic items that amount to roman candles and 10-foot poles imbued with magic, not because they’re useful, but because they’re fun, hilarious or both.

Since none of that spirit comes across in their magic, I’ve decided to address that in my game. I’ll spend the remainder of the week sharing homebrew spells (of my own creation and by others) listed on dndbeyond.com that have a Gnomish feel to them to add to “Magick of Gnomengarde.”

If you use dndbeyond.com to manage your campaign, you can access and save these spells if you like. Up first, one of my own: Grasping Garments. If you like the spell, please consider either leaving a comment or rating the spell on dndbeyond.com.

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If you’d like to support my work, please consider checking out my supplements for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak over on Dungeon Master’s Guild! All of my titles are Free/PWYW offerings.