bruno
@bruno

If you're thinking of raising some gnomes of your own I'd say just don't? Yeah lots of people hear that they drink dew and they eat mostly strawberries that they cause to grow out of the ground with their gnome magic. And that's all true but it gives a really false impression of how difficult gnome husbandry actually is.

For one thing you need a lot of space. I have a wizard tower, it's bigger on the inside, so that solves it there; honestly if you don't have a similar setup I would not recommend it because they need a shocking amount of space for how small they are.

But the real difficulty is just maintaining enough ambient whimsy to sustain the colony. Gnomes that can't get enough whimsy will develop a whimsy deficiency and die really rather quickly. If you're not careful that kind of thing can and will take out a whole colony, because as you can imagine if a gnome is lying dead on the grass all the whimsy in the vicinity is pretty much kaput.

Listen, I have an illusionist coming in twice a week to do rainbows, I have a druid who's in here daily in bird form doing funny little songs, I have a supplier who brings in a cartload of dandelions every week. Don't even think about getting into gnomes if you don't have a dandelion guy. All this costs money; really the bulk of my gnome costs are coming from whimsy maintenance and it's not cheap.

If I'm being totally honest, I'm thinking of getting out of the gnome game. Yeah. In this economic environment it's just harder and harder to sell a pound of gnome steaks at a price that actually reflects the costs of keeping a gnome colony going. And it really doesn't help our cause that everyone seems to think any yahoo with a grassy meadow can get a breeding pair of gnomes and suddenly be in the money, you know?


zaratustra
@zaratustra

gnomes are hard to raise as a monoculture! That's because you're taking the principles from an industrial gnome farm that can afford to use large-scale whimsy generators like glitter sprinklers and song broadcast systems.

If you're doing a small operation, you want to double up on the land use. Rabbits share natural environments with gnomes in nature, and besides being adorable, provide a sense of scale. A gnome with nothing to make him seem small is just a dude with a weird hat.

If you have more space (and you certainly are humblebragging about your setup there), consider raising one clown or a mated pair. Clowns generate whimsy as a natural byproduct of their metabolism, and they're very tidy: a dead clown in a gnome colony is quickly reduced to shreds of cotton candy and unusually long strips of cloth.


drmelon
@drmelon

In a pinch, a Flötenkreis will provide enough whimsy for a small colony (less than 20, or up to 40 if you've placed them in a minigolf course with a windmill they can live in & establish a barony). Once they're used to its presence, you won't have to play it yourself for them - provided with twigs/matchsticks and twine, they'll construct ladders to use it.


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in reply to @bruno's post:

honestly, you might not even end up with gnomes. it's easier than you'd think to accidentally end up with dwarves, and while they seem like they're not as high-maintenance, the alcohol costs alone will put you out of a home

genuinely considering busting out my key lights and teleprompter to turn this into a YouTube advice essay with some key illustrative b-roll and a really taxing disposition to discourage all the gnometubers

"Now with todays sponsor out of the way, its time to talk about How Gnomes Really Work"