I can’t find my keys.

Gnomes are the ghosts of lazy people who died with overwhelming guilt over mooching off someone for survival. They’re relatively harmless for revenants. For the most part, they just want to watch TV, eat junk food, and mess around on the internet. However, gnomes harbor a lingering guilt for not providing for themselves, and only take something if they think its owner offered it, wasted it, or never wanted it. Thus, gnomes spend most nights finding house whose resident left their television or computer on. They sneak in, see if their host left out some potato chips (or, hope of all hopes, weed) and settle down in front of the idiot box. Gnomes rarely clean up after themselves; they often leave footprints and crumbs on their hosts’ floors, and sometimes, distasteful substances on computer keyboards. Gnomes are shy creatures. They avoid human sight out of a hypocritical dread of being nuisances.

Most gnomes are nomadic. Since most people aren’t sloppy enough to sustain them, they wander to new houses every night. Many prey on party aftermaths. However, they always hunt for houses that can feed them long-term. When a gnome finds a sufficiently slovenly host, he spreads the news. Often, five or ten gnomes spend will gather at the same residence. Soon, gnomes take their asylums for granted. They feel entitled to their nightly bounties, seeing any deprivation as betrayal. If a formerly reliable host tidies up, her gnomes retaliate, usually by hiding things. The gnomes tuck glasses into drawers, put cell phones on the top shelves of closets, or deposit wallets in vegetable crispers. Most gnomes only break things as a final spite, just before giving up and heading for messier pastures.

On the other hand, some gnomes develop devotion for dependable providers. Such a generous host deserves at least a few honest chores. Grateful gnomes clean dishes, tidy living rooms, wash cars, and even fix breakfast (although they aren’t the best cooks). Gnomes are excellent pickpockets, and although they normally don’t have much use for money, some tuck stolen cash under their providers’ couch cushions. Hosts rarely suspect anything, until they discover twenties, credit cards, and whole wallets.

There are no known rituals to summon or bind gnomes, but attracting them is easy. Keep your TV on all night, leave out some open bags of chips and a liter of Mountain Dew, and they’ll wander in eventually. Keep them happy, and you’ll receive some extra income and housework. Some dukes convince them to run errands and spy on people, but deals like that don’t last long. Interacting with people embarrasses gnomes, and they don’t like work, especially if it forces them to leave the house. Thanking a gnome will mortify it, usually sending the bum packing immediately. If a gnome develops too much of a work ethic, it loses the guilt that prevents it from moving on to its final reward.

Description: When visible, gnomes appear as chubby humans between one and three feet tall. They usually wear some combination of bathrobes, underwear, t-shirts, and slippers. Gnomes never bathe, brush their hair, or shave; they look and smell accordingly.

Nothing within about three feet of a gnome makes a sound. No one hears a gnome’s footsteps or the pop of its Pringle tubes. No one hears dishes clinking or toilets flushing (if the gnomes bother to flush).

Gnomes are non-corporeal in sunlight. They are only visible in the light of a television or computer monitor; no other light reveals a gnome, although gnomes can touch and move things as long as there’s no sunlight. They can turn non-corporeal at will even in the dark, allowing easy entrance into folks’ houses.

Gnomes have the appetite of a human, only scaled down. They need the four food groups: grease, sugar, cheese, and alcohol. Healthy food won’t sustain them. Gnomes need to vegge in front of a TV or computer as much as humans need to sleep, and monitor deprivation effects them like sleep deprivation effects humans. It doesn’t matter what’s on; test patterns and desktops keep them healthy, they’re just boring. When a gnome dies, it dissolves into a pile of everything it’s eaten in the last twenty-four hours.

Stats:

Gnomes, the faerie slackers.

Obsession: Slack!
Rage Stimulus: Betrayal.
Fear Stimulus: Being a Bother (Self).
Noble Stimulus: Helping Out.

Wound Points: 25

Body: 25 (small and pudgy)
Athletics 15%
Struggle 10%

Speed: 50 (fast little fucker)
Scamper 30%
Pickpocket 20%

Mind: 35% (Where’s the food?)
TV and Internet Trivia 20%
Notice 15%

Soul: 15% (eww)
Okay Guy 10%
Self-Conscious Little Sycophant 5%