Love ’em or hate ’em, gnomes are a classic part of the D&D experience. Unless you go out of your way to exclude them, they’re in most campaign settings, even Midgard.

In modern RPGs, gnomes have taken on a more playful, some might say, wackier tone. you might be able to pop a human name off the top of your head, but a silly gnome name in the heat of the moment might be more challenging.

Fret not! Roll 4d20 and consult the Quick-Work Gnome table. You’ll make quick work of finding a name or two or three for your background gnome, their non-adventuring job, and some character hook that you can play up—all in the time it takes for your players to get nervous about why you’re rolling d20s behind the screen. You can also just pick something; no one’s watching. Just make it something you like.

Then you can get on to hamming it up playing the goofiest gnome of your GMing career.

Quick-Work Gnome